When I used to live in my old apartment, I felt so isolated. Even though friends came and visited me, and I had fun when I was not alone, I tend to have this social object permanence where, as soon as everyone was gone, I felt so deeply alone.
I think it comes from the fact that I had never lived alone until then. I grew up with people always around; my family home was five people, and I was almost never by myself in the house. Moving out for the first time, I lived with a roommate, and though that was its own uniquely isolating kind of situation, I always leaned on the fact that at the end of most days I would have someone else in the apartment.
Now, being back at my family home, I feel so much more alive. And that comes from what I’ve talked about before, about being a part of a unit. It feels good to know that even when I’m spending personal time doing art, watching TV, or resting in my room, I can go upstairs whenever I want and speak with others. My mom is usually watching TV in the living room, and my brother is usually playing video games at my stepdad’s desk. There is company. I feel like I’m working within the unit.
I’ve been at a friend’s house for the last four days. They are fostering my cat while I stay at my parents’, and I’m watching him while they briefly leave town. They live alone in an apartment complex in Centretown, and it felt like such a gift to be able to come and spend a weekend away with my sweet kitty to keep me company. I miss him dearly, and it was an exciting and gracious offer that they would let me stay in their apartment overnight to spend as much time with him as possible.
The first day was great. Walking in, seeing Jeff, spoiling him with toys and playtime. It felt like nothing had really changed. He’s still his same old lovingly independent, yet sort of needy, self. He bumps my phone out of my hand when he wants pets, he scratches at the hall door because he yearns for the outside world, he bugs me when I am in the bathroom, he curls up under my blankets. It’s a quiet kind of love that only your animals can give. That dependent, loyal, pathetically sweet kind of love.
After a week of productivity, fun plans, friendship, and joy, I was thrilled to be in a private space with my cat. It would be a little respite from the unit, a reminder that I am an adult and I can have my own space. But after the first night, I felt so deeply, crushingly homesick.
I’ve dug my heels into the dirt with my productivity this week. On Friday, I cancelled my evening plans after feeling too sick and anxious to get out of the apartment. I felt guilty, ashamed, and like I had failed. I know that I can’t get hooked on brief stints of euphoria-inducing days and fulfillment. I know I have to be realistic, understand that I’ve only been improving my life for the past two months, that this is all just the start and it won’t look linear. But I can’t help feeling so depressed about the sudden stop.
I have to address the environment. I know that this sudden change has to do with me being alone at my friend’s apartment. Although I love being with Jeff, the human connection is what keeps me going. I know my anxiety is coming from being here, being alone, in this apartment complex. And I know that complexes can trigger me.
My last three difficult relationships, which ended, were all with people I had met while they were living in apartment complexes. My ex best friend, my ex girlfriend, my ex boyfriend. All different complexes, but complexes nonetheless. I visited all of them numerous times; I was buzzed in at the lobby, pressed elevator buttons to ride my way to their floors, walked down dimly lit, plain-looking halls of identical doors until I passed thresholds into their curated worlds.
I don’t have many bad memories inside their units, but knowing they are all linked to apartment complexes does trigger me. All three of these people hurt me deeply in unique ways, and entering a unit inside an apartment like the one I’m writing from now brings back memories of pain.
My last day here is tomorrow. I feel lost about how to feel about it all. I will miss Jeff, but I know he’s being taken care of so well here. I’m not worried or anxious about him. I’m more so worried about myself.
What will my future be like in living spaces? I’m realizing being alone is just bad for me, but I also struggle to be a tidy, organized roommate. I struggle to share space with another person. When I am depressed, which will happen again, I get deeply depressed. I sink out of life and the expectations I have for myself and those others have for me. I crumble apart and split at the seams. I’m hard to be around and hard to live with.
So what do I do? Who do I live with? I can’t be alone, and I can’t be at my family home forever. I know there’s time to think about it, but it all scares me so much. I often wish my brain didn’t work this way, but it does. This is what I have to work with. I have to find accommodations and solutions that I can adapt for myself. I know it isn’t impossible. I just wish it wasn’t all so daunting.
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