blame it on a simple twist of fate
House hunting on craigslist now that it's for certain we'll be moving back to town in the very near future.
I don't know what message the universe is sending me, but on the first page of craigslist postings, I clicked on one ad for a two bedroom house on the eastside and the page loaded photos, info, and the address of the house in East Nashville Jacob and I moved out of seventeen months ago, as we moved into this condo.
There was a tiny part of me that felt nostalgic and thought about sending an email to our old landlord- who loved us and repeatedly offered a glowing reference if we ever need one for another lease. Aww, wouldn't it be great to just go back to Sevier Court? Nostalgia set in briefly.
Yeah, those thoughts flew out of my head as quickly as they got there. It just wouldn't feel like moving forward, and as much as I really liked that house, and the things it meant to me at one time, it just wouldn't feel right. The last few months we lived there were terribly hard. I lost my job. I couldn't find work. I sunk into a terrible depression and so did Jacob, and then he had a meltdown and everything just got worse and scarier and the whole house just felt sad the last few months of our lease.
I have a very vivid memory of the day we finally finished getting everything out and got done cleaning, and taking one last walkthrough, surveying the place as it was the first time Jacob and I went to go see it. An empty, clean, white canvas of endless possibilities. All I felt was sadness. We had so much hope then, so much we were looking forward to- ideas about how we might decorate our first home together, thoughts about friendly parties and gatherings we might throw, images of spending cozy down-time together at home, the whole anticipation of a domestic fantasy and the great things it might bring. It sounds so cheesy or naive from the outside or in retrospect, but we were so excited that we couldn't help but let our minds get ahead of ourselves. And I can't say that some of those wonderful things didn't happen, we have plenty of good memories of our time there, but once things started to get bad all over, they really got bad all over.
I went from working a steady 40 hours at my huge leap up the job ladder to getting stuck at work for 50, then sometimes 60+ hours a week, usually without being paid or appreciated nearly as much as I was due. I grew to hate, and then altogether lose the first job I ever fell in love with. Jacob's hopeful momentum upward in a new career and in trade school became a slog of overtime and constant super late nights. We were both always exhausted. I finally stopped swearing to myself I would sort out and organize the boxes that sat in the spare room for months after we had moved in, after it became clear that there didn't seem to be any reason or energy in me to happily nest or spruce. We stopped spending much, if any, quality time together at all. We were over worked and under paid and tired and stress-riddled and we started to bicker more often than not. I lost my job and went on interview after unfruitful interview. The money from all that overtime ran out. The money from my short lived 401(k) cash out ran out. The insurance ran out. Everything ran out. Jacob never got the raise he was repeatedly promised for months, and blew up over it. He lost his job, I guess he was officially fired, but deliberately or not, he was fed up, and if he hadn't been told he was fired, he would have quit that night in frustration anyway. Then, unemployed and mostly unhinged, Jacob wrecked his truck, totaling it on the icy freeway.
All I could think about on that final walkthrough was how much we had both let ourselves down, and how we were now tucking our tails and slinking off to lick our wounds somewhere we hadn't carefully chosen out of hope for the things it might mean, but had been chosen for us by the mess of a circumstance we found ourselves in, and had helped to create. By the end of the lease, I had resolved to go to college, applied, and been accepted to school, which was a hopeful accomplishment, but with months to wait around and figure out what to do with myself until fall, the achievement seemed too far off on the horizon to appreciate, a speck-sized lighthouse in the distance dwarfed in proximity by all the trauma that had finally shipwrecked me, forcing me to abandon the life I knew, leaving me vulnerable and to blindly to swim toward something I knew nothing of. I could only, in my panicked state, gasp for air and dwell on the many hardships in my imagination that awaited me on the journey, waiting to seize me from just beneath the surface.
Super dramatic, I know, but I was sunken in all over with depression and self-loating and feeling like a total failure. In my head, I had failed at my job I was so devoted to, I had failed to find life after entry-level position #1, I had failed to protect Jacob from my exhaustion and sadness, and I had failed to muster up the strength and self-love to make a true home out of the place and opportunities we had been so giddy with excitement over the day that we signed the lease together.
Considering how tough the past few months and especially weeks have been, there have been a lot of parallels to the rut we're trying to claw out of now and the rut we found ourselves in then. I don't know if it's naturally cyclical, or if it's a self-destructive pattern we've yet to overcome, but as similar as the low spot is from now to then, I would be lying to myself and indulging in self-pity if I said they were identical. It's at least comforting to know that some of the hard stuff is easier to handle now than it was a year ago- as much as things have sucked lately, I haven't slid into the depths of depression I did then, despite flirting with the edge of it when things have been particularly difficult.
When I meltdown today, as upsetting as it can be, it has nothing on the breakdowns I had when my time in East Nashville was coming to an end. They were marathons that never really ended, but underwrote my every thought, every action, and every interaction with others. I just don't have that sort of stamina for depression anymore. I haven't gone off the rails to the emotional wasteland I couldn't imagine a way out of then, when I had no idea what to do with myself or what to look for or where. At least now I'm consistently broke because I'm in college, working toward something concrete, and not because my industry resume is haiku-length, or that I can't find a real job to save my life, or don't know what to do other than doubt myself, my ambitions, and my abilities and just resort to sobbing.
I know the message I was being sent wasn't "that hope you had is alive, you should move back to that house to right the past." I know better than that. But it seems like an awfully big and weird coincidence for there to not be a message. It made my heart hurt to remember walking out for the last time, and unfortunately, the severity of that situation makes the painful parts the only memories I default to when I'm taken back to 1507 Sevier Court mentally. There are good memories too, but I have to really dig to find them. And realizing how much garbage and hurt I have to pull away to get to those good memories makes me remember just how lost I truly was. It makes me sad and sorry that it took me so long and so much pain to feel okay again. It didn't have to be that hard, but at the time, I was swallowed by it all. At the time, it felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders.
I am not cured. An alcoholic is always an alcoholic, just in recovery. A depressive is always a depressive, just in recovery. But whatever size the load of fear and hurt I carry when things get difficult, I'm glad it's no longer world-sized. That's something worth having hope over, even if it's not the exciting kind of hope to make a person giddy.
I don't know what message the universe is sending me, but on the first page of craigslist postings, I clicked on one ad for a two bedroom house on the eastside and the page loaded photos, info, and the address of the house in East Nashville Jacob and I moved out of seventeen months ago, as we moved into this condo.
There was a tiny part of me that felt nostalgic and thought about sending an email to our old landlord- who loved us and repeatedly offered a glowing reference if we ever need one for another lease. Aww, wouldn't it be great to just go back to Sevier Court? Nostalgia set in briefly.
Yeah, those thoughts flew out of my head as quickly as they got there. It just wouldn't feel like moving forward, and as much as I really liked that house, and the things it meant to me at one time, it just wouldn't feel right. The last few months we lived there were terribly hard. I lost my job. I couldn't find work. I sunk into a terrible depression and so did Jacob, and then he had a meltdown and everything just got worse and scarier and the whole house just felt sad the last few months of our lease.
I have a very vivid memory of the day we finally finished getting everything out and got done cleaning, and taking one last walkthrough, surveying the place as it was the first time Jacob and I went to go see it. An empty, clean, white canvas of endless possibilities. All I felt was sadness. We had so much hope then, so much we were looking forward to- ideas about how we might decorate our first home together, thoughts about friendly parties and gatherings we might throw, images of spending cozy down-time together at home, the whole anticipation of a domestic fantasy and the great things it might bring. It sounds so cheesy or naive from the outside or in retrospect, but we were so excited that we couldn't help but let our minds get ahead of ourselves. And I can't say that some of those wonderful things didn't happen, we have plenty of good memories of our time there, but once things started to get bad all over, they really got bad all over.
I went from working a steady 40 hours at my huge leap up the job ladder to getting stuck at work for 50, then sometimes 60+ hours a week, usually without being paid or appreciated nearly as much as I was due. I grew to hate, and then altogether lose the first job I ever fell in love with. Jacob's hopeful momentum upward in a new career and in trade school became a slog of overtime and constant super late nights. We were both always exhausted. I finally stopped swearing to myself I would sort out and organize the boxes that sat in the spare room for months after we had moved in, after it became clear that there didn't seem to be any reason or energy in me to happily nest or spruce. We stopped spending much, if any, quality time together at all. We were over worked and under paid and tired and stress-riddled and we started to bicker more often than not. I lost my job and went on interview after unfruitful interview. The money from all that overtime ran out. The money from my short lived 401(k) cash out ran out. The insurance ran out. Everything ran out. Jacob never got the raise he was repeatedly promised for months, and blew up over it. He lost his job, I guess he was officially fired, but deliberately or not, he was fed up, and if he hadn't been told he was fired, he would have quit that night in frustration anyway. Then, unemployed and mostly unhinged, Jacob wrecked his truck, totaling it on the icy freeway.
All I could think about on that final walkthrough was how much we had both let ourselves down, and how we were now tucking our tails and slinking off to lick our wounds somewhere we hadn't carefully chosen out of hope for the things it might mean, but had been chosen for us by the mess of a circumstance we found ourselves in, and had helped to create. By the end of the lease, I had resolved to go to college, applied, and been accepted to school, which was a hopeful accomplishment, but with months to wait around and figure out what to do with myself until fall, the achievement seemed too far off on the horizon to appreciate, a speck-sized lighthouse in the distance dwarfed in proximity by all the trauma that had finally shipwrecked me, forcing me to abandon the life I knew, leaving me vulnerable and to blindly to swim toward something I knew nothing of. I could only, in my panicked state, gasp for air and dwell on the many hardships in my imagination that awaited me on the journey, waiting to seize me from just beneath the surface.
Super dramatic, I know, but I was sunken in all over with depression and self-loating and feeling like a total failure. In my head, I had failed at my job I was so devoted to, I had failed to find life after entry-level position #1, I had failed to protect Jacob from my exhaustion and sadness, and I had failed to muster up the strength and self-love to make a true home out of the place and opportunities we had been so giddy with excitement over the day that we signed the lease together.
Considering how tough the past few months and especially weeks have been, there have been a lot of parallels to the rut we're trying to claw out of now and the rut we found ourselves in then. I don't know if it's naturally cyclical, or if it's a self-destructive pattern we've yet to overcome, but as similar as the low spot is from now to then, I would be lying to myself and indulging in self-pity if I said they were identical. It's at least comforting to know that some of the hard stuff is easier to handle now than it was a year ago- as much as things have sucked lately, I haven't slid into the depths of depression I did then, despite flirting with the edge of it when things have been particularly difficult.
When I meltdown today, as upsetting as it can be, it has nothing on the breakdowns I had when my time in East Nashville was coming to an end. They were marathons that never really ended, but underwrote my every thought, every action, and every interaction with others. I just don't have that sort of stamina for depression anymore. I haven't gone off the rails to the emotional wasteland I couldn't imagine a way out of then, when I had no idea what to do with myself or what to look for or where. At least now I'm consistently broke because I'm in college, working toward something concrete, and not because my industry resume is haiku-length, or that I can't find a real job to save my life, or don't know what to do other than doubt myself, my ambitions, and my abilities and just resort to sobbing.
I know the message I was being sent wasn't "that hope you had is alive, you should move back to that house to right the past." I know better than that. But it seems like an awfully big and weird coincidence for there to not be a message. It made my heart hurt to remember walking out for the last time, and unfortunately, the severity of that situation makes the painful parts the only memories I default to when I'm taken back to 1507 Sevier Court mentally. There are good memories too, but I have to really dig to find them. And realizing how much garbage and hurt I have to pull away to get to those good memories makes me remember just how lost I truly was. It makes me sad and sorry that it took me so long and so much pain to feel okay again. It didn't have to be that hard, but at the time, I was swallowed by it all. At the time, it felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders.
I am not cured. An alcoholic is always an alcoholic, just in recovery. A depressive is always a depressive, just in recovery. But whatever size the load of fear and hurt I carry when things get difficult, I'm glad it's no longer world-sized. That's something worth having hope over, even if it's not the exciting kind of hope to make a person giddy.