I've had a lot of people tell me how brave I am for striking out on my own, that what's happened isn't easy to endure, but the fact that I'm fighting to make my life right and good for myself and my kids is a good thing and something I should be proud of doing. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I'm fucking terrified.
When I was 18, my mom took a teaching job up North and I got my own place so I've been an adult in that sense for a long time. But my boyfriend at the time moved in with me and helped with the bills, so I wasn't on my own for long. When things went south with him, I lived alone for a couple months. I would say that was probably one of only two times in my life I've been really depressed and I withdrew from a lot of my friends. I made $800 a month and my rent was $500. I was broke and lonely. Spent a lot of time drinking alone. I ate one slice of pizza and a coke from Gino's pizza every day and that was it, because it was all I could afford. Always seemed to have money for smokes though. It was around that time I came up with the idea that they should make edible cigarettes. Then you'd always have something to eat and something to smoke. Brilliant!
My mom sent me money whenever I got desperate enough to ask for it, but my pride didn't allow that to happen very often. Eventually I found a roommate and I had a drinking buddy and with half the rent, more money to drink. Met a bunch of people through him (including my ex) and suddenly my house was the party house. It was the place everyone came to pre-drink before the bar and it was the place everyone crashed at after the bar closed. I loved it. I loved having people around all the time. It actually got to the point where I wanted them all to go home and leave me alone! That was mostly because I was usually hungover and bitchy, but we were young and foolish and it was almost always good time. Lots of fucking drama, my god, but generally a good time!
Anyway, my awesome, adorable roommate turned out to be a fraud. He stole our friend's bank card and withdrew all her money. Bought us all Christmas gifts and a flight home for himself to Halifax for the holidays and told us his rich dad sent him money. I bought it of course, I was young and stupid. And I would have never in a million years done that to anyone, let alone a friend, so it didn't occur to me that he had stolen the money. I came home from work one day and there was hammering at my door. I went down to see who it was kind of cautiously (because everyone I knew would have just walked in and started drinking, fuck knocking). It was the cops, there to arrest my roommate for theft and fraud. I was heartbroken at his duplicity, I trusted him, he was my friend and he'd lied to all of us. I freaked out, like really, screaming and crying and saying it was a lie, that he would never do that. Then my ex (who was just a friend at the time) and a couple other friends of ours came and got me and took me away, sat me down at a neighbour's and told me my roommate was a proven liar, that he probably did do it. I was kind of pissed that I hadn't been told this earlier, I'm not going to lie, but they all knew how much I loved him and he seemed like he was a good friend to me, so they never said anything. After all, maybe he had changed for the good. Evidently not. Eventually I calmed down and stopped hiccoughing and crying, but I was still so upset about it that the boys took me out to the bar and we got shitfaced. It's how you deal with everything when you're 19.
After that debacle, I moved with my then boyfriend to a new city where I went to school for awhile, but that all went south too. School, the boyfriend, the whole shebang. I was 20 and coming back from my big, brave move away from everything I knew with my tail between my legs to live with my dad. But then my ex and I finally hooked up after being best friends for about a year. We moved in together after a few months and the rest is history. We were together from that time until just a few months ago.
My point with all this? Through all that craziness, the ex-boyfriends and the fraudulent roommate and the drinking and the partying, I was never really alone except for those few months when I was super depressed. That scares the shit out of me. Because...here I am....on my own for the first time in my life. I have lots of great support, especially my mom who has been simply splendid. But now I have to stand on my own two feet and make an honest go at this thing we call life and I'm terrified. I know I can do it, I mean, I'm not going to die from terror, or starve to death because I can't afford food. Times are a little different for me now, I have a great job and even some assets. I'm a grown up, not a 19 year old kid.
But still. Eep. However, fear not faithful reader, I do believe that it will all be okay because of that quirky eternal optimist inside my brain. She's a bit of a pain in the ass, but I love her. Plus, I believe this wholehearted:
