Life Hurls Lemons: Home Edition

So in part one I spoke of loneliness , in part two I told you my money drama. In part three I’d like to talk about HOME.

I’m sure after part one you get the idea that home is very important to me. I moved from NYC to San Diego in 2008. In 2 years I moved 7 times. One of those moves was to Colorado. Yep. I finally landed in LA and have been in this particular apt for 3 years. 

I’d like to preface this with the fact that my ex is an incredible person. I just couldn’t live with the anxiety, nor with the fact that I came second. In any relationship there is two sides and no one leave faultless. 

I’m explaining the downs in my life so that when we get to the ups you know where I started from. 

When my ex and I moved here we both were worn down from a ton of moving. We decided to make this space a home. I feng shui-ed the place and picked colors based on our ayurvedic doshas. I bought high quality earth friendly paint. The whole apt got painted. To the point that we agreed we’re never getting our deposit back. Because hell no we aren’t painting this back!

I wanted a home. I thought having a home would help both of us. The problem was when I came home there was still this moment of anxiety. I didn’t know what was waiting for me on the other side of that door. Would my significant other be drunk? Have taken some prescribed pill? Be alive?

I learned how to break into every room of each apt we lived in. I would come home to find a door locked and be terrified that this was the day I would have to call 911. 

After we broke up I was on my own for a year, at the end of that year I took in a friend who needed to get out of a bad situation. What I didn’t see in my loneliness was that he was also an alcoholic. I really wanted someone I could come home and hang out with. I thought that having a living room room mate would be fine.

This was supposed to be a 3 maybe 4 month situation. I know what you’re all thinking. You’re right. It turned out to be 10 months. He turned out to be drunk for most of it. He also spent a lot of time disrespecting me. 

At one point in those 10 months I began dating again. I began dating someone specific. My drunk living room roommate got drunk a number of times and told my boyfriend a bunch of mean things ( I won’t go into it but suffice to say I was really upset ). He also spread a rumor about my boyfriend to most of the locals. Fortunately everyone knows better. After setting off the fire alarm at 5am (cooking something on the stove, burning one of my good pots black and passed out on the couch sleeping thru all the smoke and alarms) then never apologizing for it. I told him it was time to go. It took another month and a half. (During which he drank a beer that doesn’t exist anymore that I had bought for a special occasion and never said a word about it, just hid the empty bottle) -ok there was a little ranting there, sorry.

Most of the time I felt just like I did with my ex. A ton of anxiety when I put the key in the lock. Terrified of what was on the other side of the door. To my own home.

I couldn’t live like that anymore. I learned a few things 

1. Don’t let loneliness cloud your judgement

2. “They” are right. The couch guy will just stay.

3. People who drink or pop pills to the point of blacking out have a very different outlook on your relationship. They don’t remember waking up at 5 am to the fire alarm terrified. They don’t remember having to break into a room to check and see if they are still breathing terrified that today is the day they aren’t. They don’t remember having to clean up the mess, the fear, the anxiety or stress that you went thru every single day. They remember the good times and that’s about it.

and Most Importantly:

—You should never have anxiety about entering your home—