Stability

Stability. Never had it.

Not in my friendships. Not in my relationships. Not in my dwelling places. Not in my head. Nor in the pit of my stomach. 

I know. The only thing in life that stays the same is change. I've become really good at adapting to new situations. I guess that's the upside. I've written about this before. So why am I writing about it again? Because I've moved again.

This makes five times in less than five years I've moved. And I count about 15 total moves in my lifetime. I just want some stability. I want to settle down. But I know myself. I'll quickly get bored with that, too. I've mentioned my ADHD-type behaviors before in my post about closed captions (I think), but, honestly, this time I didn't want to move. And I prayed about it, asking for a specific thing to happen and it did, and now here I am. The counterpoint of my ADHD behavior seems to be my OCD stuff, which is an overcompensation for lack of control, I think. I used to be obsessive about keeping things clean and put away, but that has lessened, so maybe I'm not obsessed about order as much anymore because, well, where would I even start? Everything is a mess.

This wasn't just any move, though. I moved to the town I work in. Nay, I moved to an apartment directly ABOVE where I work, an apartment owned by my father. The first time I looked at this apartment in January, I nearly had a panic attack. First of all, it's a shoebox. It's about 3/5th the size of my last apartment, so I've had to throw even more stuff away to make it all fit. And I've sold more books and other things. Then the visions started. Yes, I started to imagine killing myself in this apartment. That's how bad my head has been. In February when I moved, my depression spiked, and not just because I moved into this apartment. But the proximity to work and parents and the fact that my life will not be my life anymore is daunting. There's something to be said for having distance from ... certain people. It gives one control, even if it's just a little bit. I must have the biggest balls in the world because it seems everyone has me by the balls.

It's been tough trying to sort through the various reasons I'm depressed. I've pinpointed three main things and even wrote them on a Post-It note. I bring those three things to God daily. The thing about all of them that bothers me is they are all things I prayed about and thought I got an answer from God about, yet horrible things surround all three of them. One of those things is the apartment. It just didn't seem like a good move for me. 

Let's look at why it wasn't a good move. First of all is the fact that I'm still paying rent on the other apartment. I know, it's probably just my stupidity at play there, but I did pray about it and got the go-ahead to move. Was I being presumptuous? I didn't even want to move here, so that doesn't ring true. I honestly didn't even want this, so why would I make this decision without a clear answer from God? Am I just not hearing His voice? Sadly, this is how I feel about all three of those things on the Post-It note. Those things seem to be at the root of my depression. I can handle disappointments. I can handle some challenges. I can handle not getting what I want. I don't know what to do with something I prayed about, was willing to do what God told me to do, got an answer about, and then the whole thing turned to crap anyway. That's the most perplexing and demoralizing thing I'm dealing with. And I am angry. I'm angry with myself. I must have deluded myself somehow.

When I bring these things to God, I still get the same answers. It's like a recorded message I keep hearing. The main thing I hear is I have to wait. Things aren't done playing out. And I have money enough to pay rent in two places. It's not the money that bothers me that much; it's what I thought should happen and what did happen are not the same. God doesn't work how we think He should sometimes. 

Anyway, the second thing that bothers me about this apartment is I now am forever tied to work and whatever else my parents want me to do. Keep in mind I'm still taking classes, so my free time is not even free time. Just yesterday (and again today) I was down in the basement trying to get water out of the carpet because the spring thaw has flooded a part of the basement just like it does every year. My mailbox is on the front of the building, which is convenient. Yet, the post office often puts my mail in the company's post office box. If I get it at all. I have about 15 magazine subscriptions (before you judge me, please know I get them as cheap as $2, and I like to read, dammit), yet I haven't gotten a single magazine in weeks. Where is my mail going? Somehow, the bills still manage to arrive, though. 

My parents are extremely controlling people. They try to run my life as if I am one of their employees, and, guess what, I am one of their employees. And now I'm an employee who can never leave work. And they can pop in whenever the hell they like. I have never liked my father. I love him, but I don't like him. And I've grown to greatly dislike my mother in my time working here, as well. While I have no choice but to do what I'm told, it's pretty easy to see I've just made myself a bigger bitch than I was by moving here. I am going in the wrong direction, clearly, yet I am reminded that I prayed about this, so eventually have to be at peace with it. The key word is eventually. There's something to be said for distance. For leaving home and not looking back. For just ... getting away while you still can.


Before I move on, let me say a few things about this apartment. It smells. It is a funky smell I can't figure out. Air fresheners don't mask it. I put all kinds of stuff on the carpet to see if I could pull the smell up. I guess I'll have to live with it until I can open the windows. Not that the windows keep much air out. They are the draftiest things I've ever seen. Another strange thing is the fact that I have to use my Dust Buster to vacuum up flies every single day. I'm not even kidding. Why, in the middle of winter, am I besieged by flies? They are cluster flies, which are not normal flies. They don't eat the same things nor do they behave the same way as your run of the mill flies. They are ... odd. And they die off daily as they come out of the woodwork of the building in search of ... what, exactly? I'm sure they'll get worse as the weather warms, too, which I'm not looking forward to even though I complain about our eight months of winter in the Black (Bleak?) Hills. I started naming them Eugene. They're all the same, pretty much, so they're all Eugene. Except for Eugene's girlfriend, Eugenia. I've thought about getting a plant or a succulent to liven this place up a bit, but it would just be another thing I'd have to watch die. And I'd have to name it Eugene, too. 

My apartment does afford me with more sunshine. I have three windows that receive sun at some point in the day. This is really nice especially in the dead of winter when I can't really get out and go somewhere. I can also watch TV as I make food in the kitchen, which is nice. Hell, I can watch TV as I brush my teeth in the bathroom. That's how small my place is. Somehow I gained a chair, though, so now I'm up to three chairs. And I get to hear live music (and so far, a few fights with lots of expletives) because I'm close to an outdoor part of a bar (The Gold Pan Saloon), so that's going to be fun as the tourist season ramps up. Suddenly, I remember what it was like to live in a downtown apartment. Only I'm not in my 20s anymore. 

What I wanted to talk about here is stability. I have, for as long as I remember, felt unstable in nearly every aspect of my life. Most of that was not my doing. I remember being in the backyard of the house we rented in Broken Bow, Nebraska, tending to my meager garden, when someone came out to tell me the house had sold and we had to find a new place to live. Only there were no other places to rent in town and no houses up for sale. It turned out a house came on the market at the last moment, and that was the house we moved into. And I had another garden. And that garden was not on top of an ancient trash heap. I fault the fact that I didn't finish my college education on the fact that my parents moved away while I was attending school, which meant I was going to be the only one in Nebraska. I couldn't handle that, so I moved with them. Who knows what my life could have been like had I had more stability and support? Yes, I've become adaptable and flexible. But at what cost? 

I worked for a retail company for 16 years that gave me the worst schedule ever. It was all over the place. I had to be at work anywhere from 4:30 in the morning to midnight. I worked literally every shift, even up until the day I left. There were kids I worked with who told me I had the worst schedule they had ever seen. And I did that for 16 years, folks. I had no stability. And the woman I went home to every day (or night) was busy doing everything she could to tear down our relationship, a woman who was trying so hard to show me she didn't need me at all. And, of course, she didn't. None of us really need anyone, but it's nice to have someone around. And nice to know that someone at least appreciates you, even though they don't need you. How did I stay in that situation for so long? I am an excessively loyal person who wants things to work, no matter how hard it gets. But, sadly, I was starving inside as I gave myself to so many things and people. I can honestly say that being alone is better than being in that relationship. As someone told me recently, I don't know how to be disloyal. And I lived with someone who didn't know how to be loyal. 

If I continue to offer up examples of how my life has lacked stability, I'll just beleaguer the point. I don't know that I'd be happier if my life had been more stable. Childhood trauma has consequences that extend far into adulthood. Being the victim of abuse and neglect and abandonment in childhood often assures those things are sought out in adulthood. Don't ask me how that works, but it does. Maybe there's something in us that wants to retraumatize ourselves so we can face the original monster that hurt us. Or maybe trauma is our normal. But I'm getting off track here.  

I didn't mean to take a huge break from writing, so if anyone is still reading this, I'm sorry. I've simply been too depressed to write. I can barely function some days, having to force myself to do simple things I wouldn't normally even think about. Please don't feel sorry for me. I don't feel sorry for myself. I want to feel better. And if you come across someone you think is just being lazy at work, but you know they experienced some trauma in their life recently, please give them a break. That laziness is a symptom of depression. They're doing the best they can. Just getting to work that day may have been the most effortful thing to them. Just because someone isn't crying in a corner doesn't mean they're not hurting. 

While my life may be a colossal earthquake, never allowing me to settle, I have things I've consistently turned to for solace. I have my Bible, which I have read since I was a boy, even when my heart turned from God. I have my writings, which have allowed me to externalize my journey. And that's about it. If everything and everyone is taken from me, I'll still have at least one of those things. And I guess that's all I need.