October and November have been a helluva transition. Last time I posted, I was still living in the city nearby the University I go to. Now, I'm living back at my parents house in the suburbs.
What happened?
Essentially life threw me some very sour lemons in my way.
I was living with a friend from work who's dad owned the townhouse. Everything was going great between me and her and suddenly, at our second workplace she met this supervisor who was very charming and loud. He performs poetry in the area and I suspected in the workplace that we all were working at that she had a thing for him. He was in a bind with the rent at his place so she let him move in to the spare room in the townhouse in July. She asked me if it was okay and I replied, yes (I sympathized because Denver rent is monstrously expensive).
What happens next is a weird part of the story. He states after I was living there for a month that he cannot move into August because some rent mix up. She obliges and lets him move in later, but I find him once I had moved into the townhouse crashing on our couch everyday for the next month until he moves in. I find it a bit scummy that he's basically already crashing at our place without paying for rent but I figure that this is some short term thing.
Once he moves in the house does a gradual 180 degree in life change. My roommate starts staying up later at night into the wee hours of 2am-3am to chat with this guy outside and drink- something that she wasn't really into in the first place. The house starts becoming dirtier and dirtier. I find myself having to take care of the house by myself. He starts inviting his friends over who stay for days on end crashing at the place and are pretty entitled and rude themselves. I also notice that he also invites very young girls over to the house as well as part of his "mentoring" with poetry to youth. A close friend of mine discovers a police record on him of assaulting a young girl back in his hometown. We try to talk to my roommate about this negative spiral that has been going on since this guy has moved in as well as the large age gap between the two (she's 20, he's 28), his predator behavior and how he isn't paying rent or utilities on time and always bailing. Me and my boyfriend discover a mouse colony in the house and do a large clean up operation. It's at that point where I couldn't really handle this in the calmest way and I told off my roommate saying that she was getting taken advantage of and living in really filthy conditions.
In the end my friend decides to choose him over me and doesn't want me living at the place. I move out relatively quickly with a lot of feelings in my mind back to my parents house. I'm really grateful to my parents for letting me live with them before I decide to venture out again. Hopefully, I want to be able to live on my own even if it is just a tiny studio.
The situation overall left me with a lot of emotions- disgust, anger, sadness, disappointment, and most importantly grief. I lost a friend and a place. I initially was very angry. I placed my rage toward the poet deadbeat living there. It was all his fault, he ruined something that I had. Everything else was going well, my job, school, my relationship, etc. Why did it have to be this?!
I look like a f*cking wreck and you can see the unhappiness in my eyes. I still struggle with this and I want to get better at not dwelling on the negative and despair.
But I took some time to analyze it and talked to my support network. My friends and my family. I realized something. Life throws you these curve balls all the time. I sincerely believe it is to test you and to teach you something . When I looked at the problem in this angle I saw a different perspective. My friend is an adult as well and it wasn't entirely all the poets fault- she complied with this behavior and living conditions, being complicit is an action in itself. All of us had differing personalities that was going to clash eventually. And I realized that I needed to move out just for the reason of finding myself even more. What I really wanted and who I really wanted to be around with and what I really want to do with myself in life.
At the end of the day I think I am making lemonade out of the situation, that's not to say that lemonade can be a bit bitter. I still hold a little bitterness about the situation. I am trying to add some sugar though to make the lemonade sweeter so to say.
I've been able to hang out with my younger brother more since moving in, save money, be with my family and explore parts of Denver and South Denver that I couldn't before. Overall, it's a work in progress that I'm going to work on day by day, making everyday sweeter at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment