A Returning

 Two years, approximately. A little less.

And it's... fitting. We come back to reread our last post, and nod respectfully at what our past wrote to us, and to anyone else who would happen to read it.

The long, slow winter was very real. We found not much hope, not much creative impetus to put toward anything that was not desperately urgent or a way to cope with difficult trauma, difficult circumstances, difficult emotions.

We have lost an old friendship, we have tasted the harsh kindness of sleeping in an overflow homeless shelter, we have entered and left two houses that both became socially awful places to be.

Now... at last, we have had stability of housing which has not become terrible and full of bad conflict, for... five months, which seems to have been about as long as it took for us to start to feel safe really unpacking into it and regarding it as a place we will probably be able to stay for the foreseeable future, until we choose to leave.

And we begin to turn our minds to proactively grieving some of the things we have lost. We begin to tentatively rekindle our exploration and classification of unfamiliar music. We go out and meet people.

It seems that warmth and sunlight has come at last to nurture some little shoots of hope from those long-buried seeds, after a winter that lasted well over a year.

 Hi. We're here. I'm here now.

And we will see, what we find to want next. 

Somebody Cares

(pieced together from accounts sent to various people on the 20th of December, 2022, when the events of this story took place)

Today was a crazy day.

I went to my doctor's appointment... And...

• I checked in about the psychiatrist’s assessment, and apparently I officially have a diagnosis now.
  

• I'm being prescribed an anti-anxiety medication to try for four weeks and see how it goes.
  

• My doctor is on board with making the best case he can for my ODSP application, to help me afford the counseling I'm trying to do and the medications we’re going to try.

I told my friends, while I was leaving the doctor's office:

I feel like I've just been handed a huge golden trophy inscribed with the words Somebody Cares. And a little like this can't be happening. This isn't the world I live in.

I.... Think I might be kind of in shock for the next few weeks. Or months. Or years.

The world isn't like this. Friends, scientists, anybody, run scans on the gold in this trophy. Tell me there aren't pockets of depleted uranium in it, because this does not happen.

Heyo, House

I seem to recall a Brer Rabbit story I heard read aloud once, some long time ago, in which the clever rabbit tricks a wolf by asking "Heyo, house; Why you don't Heyo?" as though he were in fact used to the house actually speaking aloud to him... so convincingly that the wolf who is waiting inside to ambush him is fooled into revealing himself by calling out and trying to sound like a house.

It comes to mind, I think, because I have a new house to greet. Well. Quite an old house really, with some of that quirky coziness of a house that has stood a long time and been patched and updated bit by bit. But I have been here only five days.

As to the house I'm leaving... When the first roommate I waged war with there left, it was an uncomfortably novel feeling. It seems it's always me that winds up leaving when I clash with roommates. "But not this time – the ground is mine," I reflected, feeling disoriented. Well, that was then – it didn't survive the next tenant who came and took his place.

But, as I think about it, what was that house to me? What was it really but a room of my own for privacy which I had not had in far too long; and a rent I could afford for the time being; and promising at first, which didn't last past the first month? Wasn't it always intended to be temporary? Why did I stay there almost a full year anyway?

Well, never mind. The place I come to now I choose for the company. The roommate who has lived here for seven years and is determined to stay seems a promising companion, LGBT friendly and understanding. Decorations bedazzle the details - fridge magnets, old stickers and pins - with hints of nerdiness and reminders to challenge all those various foolish expectations that all people be the same and dull and perfect. My room is smaller. My rent is cheaper, but transit is now an expense worth mentioning. It takes an hour to get to work.

Yes, I have work now as well. Good honest labour for a good honest wage, pulling and stocking and tidying non-perishable groceries at a big grocery store in the city. I've been employed now perhaps a month and a half, fifteen shifts in total. I'm still learning layouts and efficiencies, but I'm pretty solid on the basic process of what I'm doing, and I'm gradually getting faster while minding thoroughness and making the necessary concessions to my poor sore body. I am anxious every day that I am not going fast enough, but I know this is disordered thinking. I also know it's okay for me to need more help than just realizing it's disordered to get through it effectively.

This past week has been... tough. My landlord surprised me by not letting me know until Nov 30th that he expected me to move on Nov 30th, not Dec 1st, and not telling me directly at all – It was left to my friendly roommate to tell me. My job surprised me by allocating me sudden shifts which had not been on the schedule the previous week on the nights of the 29th and 30th even though I asked for the 30th off. I didn't even see the change to the schedule until I'd already missed the Nov 29 shift.

And so I contacted New Roommate and made sure I'd be able to move my things to the house early, did some last-minute packing (glad I had been working on this over the previous week and had already done most of it), vacuumed the room I was leaving until it was nice and soft and neat, and took a few hours' nap despite the stress... Then hired an XL size Uber to bring me and my belongings across town. There was plenty of room and I managed the physical labour of shifting boxes and suitcases fine. New Roommate helped me stack them in the living room while their old roommates were busy leaving. I called my best friend for support and comfortable company for a little while and then went to work for the night, and for the following two nights as well, which was my first time doing three shifts in a row at the new job. I certainly hurt by the end of the third day.

Then there was last night, when I unpacked and set up my room. Today I started colonizing and cleaning the kitchen. I've done a little exploring around the neighborhood to find the nearby convenient shops, but I do not know the turns yet without consulting Google Maps.

I am... getting somewhere, I suppose I'd say. Aye, getting somewhere. Getting along in work a bit faster as my endurance and understanding improves, starting to make friends with some of my coworkers and join their banter at 2 AM lunch. Getting acquainted with a new roommate I can talk to and get that lovely sense of being on the same page. Getting back into doing a little bit of cooking, getting to know my new kitchen. Getting back to this blog after a whole disgusting half-year away. Getting all sorts of turned around on my sleeping schedule while dealing with emotions and memories and mood swings and anxiety and the fascinating surges of "nesting" energy that come to me when acclimatizing to a new house. I'll figure it out though.

So it goes. Now you knows.

How Things Have Been

I meant to come post a bloody story I wrote here. I'm not sure whether I thought better of it or whether I just forgot. For all that I post raw and intensely here, I don't typically post gruesome, and perhaps I should keep it that way.

The situation with another nasty roommate continues to deteriorate. I actually shouted at him last night, then cried and felt sick and tasted and smelled acrid for the rest of the night. There is a potential new tenant coming to see my room today. If she takes it, I will move downstairs and not be next to him anymore.

Friendly roommate continues to be friendly and supportive; friends have been accessible, and I have been doing better for the last couple of weeks at accessing them.

I've pushed some regularity into my medication schedule, taking my pills at 10 each morning. I think I might shift that to 8 now that I've been regularly sleeping nights for a few days. Waiting until 11 to eat in order not to interfere with their absorption is annoying. Waiting until 9 would not be so bad I think.

The new stability feels weird sometimes. Like the world is flatter. Not grey and dull and uninteresting, just more level and approachable. Less shaking around, less steep slopes to climb. It's like every footstep takes a little less effort and is a lot less scary. I didn't realize the schedule would make such a big difference, and regardless I don't think I was ready for it before.

I'm paused in the middle of reading documentation for a programming tool so I can try to rewrite parts of it better and clearer, and work on a portfolio to pursue technical writing work remotely online. In light of the pandemic it seems like a decent move, but actually... I took some time to reflect a short time ago and recognize that I don't want anything to tie me to Kitchener.

I want to go back to my friends in the states. I don't want a job that would keep me here any longer than a few months, and even temporary jobs may be... "sticky" that way, tempting to stay on longer. So it's more about that than COVID, really. It's more that once it's safe, I want to go and be with the family of people who support me, give cohabitation another chance. Give dealing with each other another, better chance, more carefully this time.

It's lonely staying alone inside, far from my intimate companions and uncertain of the future. But then, it always has been, really. Not much has changed for my day to day life personally in the light of pandemic except that I feel like I'm not supposed to go out for walks - and when I go to buy groceries and household essentials, there are long discouraging lines a lot of the time.

In a certain tongue in cheek way, I've been occasionally remembering a Daft Punk song which has never seemed more appropriate. I Remember Touch...