2007-02-05
Shut the Door, Don't Look Back
I hope that upon moving, some things shift enough to make me lose my footing and fall into something new because....
I'm not totally present anymore.
I'm missing my creative voice.
I'm stagnated in an uncomfortable place.
I've lived in a place where drug dealers live across the street, strippers walk home from the clubs around the corner, and people routinely ask me if I have the day off.
On Saturday.
It's brought me down.
It worked and I made my goal but it's not come without a cost.
The seedy side of life is out my window and it's really hard to be staring at it for five years and to not become curious about it.
I was, for awhile, fascinated with the idea of all kinds of things but now that I've got the next phase and I've got it set with no goals but to live happily in my own ever-after..... now I hate everything I see out my windows.
And it's not really any better than being curious about the neighborhood comings and goings.
I have come home and felt weight added to the back of my neck, a psychic, heavy, obtuse weight of discomfort.
There's the physical discomfort of not having heat, of living in place where the landlord doesn't service the swamp cooler until it's too late and the choice is between over-heating or blowing dangerous, rotting filter dust into your house and hoping for the best.
There's the mental discomfort of being desensitized to the sound of gun-fire but not being able to sleep through the police helicopter that wakes you, nightly at this point.
There's the metal discomfort of stepping out of your car and hefting the droop onto your shoulders and you are sadly reminded that this actually IS your beautiful life.
And as you take things off of walls and each room reminds you that nothing has been done in the five years you've lived there - no repainting, no blinds installed, no nothing except for the times you've got something broken or the time you pitched a fit about not having a real refrigerator; as you go through the inches of that apartment, you realize three things:
1. You've gone down-hill. WAY down-hill.
2. It's not possible for moving to not positively impact your stagnant, rotting life.
3. You're not cleaning when you leave.
Shut the door and never come back.
If it's not done before you shove the last box into your friend's station wagon, it's not getting done.
It's not pay-back, it's not being unfair, it's nothing so underhanded.
But it is the best way you can think of to get the hell away from a place that you need never see again.
Never looking back is the best way that you can move on, especially if this time, unlike the LAST time I made a big, sweeping move... it's especially the best way to get on with it if you ARE listening to your gut and trusting your judgment and going to a place that is the right place for you.
arizonasarah at 11:18 a.m.