After 4 months and 15 days (or 138 days, if you want me to be like one of those parents that says "my child is 32-1/2 months old, how old is yours?". like, no offense if you're one of those parents.) of struggling with homelessness, I am now in an extended stay hotel, paying 2 weeks at a time to keep a roof over my head, working my butt off, and making an attempt to save for a "real apartment" to acquire some time in the future. Technically, it's kind of like an apartment. I have my tiny little kitchen area across from the bathroom, my work desk area, and my sleeping/living area (that would be my bed). Okay, so it's like an efficiency apartment, but the point is, it's mine, it's a room, and I'm living in it.
It's my first stepping stone of many toward a future that does not include sleeping on the streets, having to depend on others for a lot more than I care to, and a journey on finding
me again. I got lost somewhere inside, but I know I'm in there. I got caught up in the madness of loving someone else, and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with loving someone else, if you aren't loving yourself at the same time, it's pretty much the same as killing yourself.
If the transition into my newly obtained room were completely uneventful, I wouldn't have a whole lot to write about. Chances would have it, that I have plenty to write about. Dear Lord, do I have stuff to write about. It starts with attempted murder-suicide and ends with me sitting here on my bed wondering if I should be worried about my "neighbor." The two are completely unrelated, by the way.
My best friend and I rounded up my little gathering of belongings on Wednesday afternoon, September 17, 2014, and packed them up into her sister's SUV. Bringing them to my little hotel room was uneventful in itself. I was super excited when they told me they had found a non-smoking room for me, then subsequently let down immediately when they found out I had a cat and would have to take the smoking room on the third floor after all, because that's where the pets go. The third floor. It was almost like an episode of rapid cycling. Alas, I cannot part with my cat. She is my companion who has been with me through all of this, and before, and has been my source of unconditional love through the mess of my relationship with my ex-fiance; besides my love relationship with God, of course.
I'd never be able to leave her anywhere. She cuddles up to me without reservation, and really is not like that with anyone else, so I know I'm special. However, she is the one who tried to commit murder-suicide when we first got here. After bringing my stuff, we went back and picked Confetti up, who was already placed in a pet carrier and ready to go. When I got back to the hotel, I had 2 pillows left to carry, one of which contained my laptop inside the pillow cushion, 2 cooler type bags with a few canned goods and food items, and the cat carrier with Confetti inside. I'm on the third floor, as already stated; but what I haven't stated is that when you get off the elevator, you have to walk down to the very literal end of the hallway and turn in order to get to my room. I did that. My key suddenly didn't work. I'd barely made it to the room without dropping anything. I literally tried my key like 13 times at least, praying that "one more time" it would work. It didn't. The realization that I would have to go back down and get it fixed sunk in and I decided to leave everything but my laptop and the cat in the carrier by my door. I got my key fixed and returned to my room. That's when the
real fun began. Confetti has peed in the carrier. Poor kitty. A little too much freaking out and change again. Only I didn't really realize how much she peed until I went to lift her out of the carrier. Oh my gawd, her underside.. my hands... URINE! Gross. I didn't even put her down, because the last thing I wanted was my freshly made bed, or anything else for that matter, smelling like urine. So, I immediately carried her into the bathroom and put her in the sink.
Thank the sweet little baby Jesus that none of that stuff in the picture was on the counter yet and the sink was, for the most part, free of clutter, because psycho attack/murder-suicide attempt was about to commence. As soon as the water came on, she flipped a little. I rubbed some nearby shampoo into her belly and was just about to start rinsing off, and riot-cat appeared, flailing all legs with claws out, grabbing onto anything within reach. Unfortunately, one of those things was a hairdryer, which was currently plugged into the wall, and subsequently went flying into the sink filling with water that I was holding the cat in; thus, her attempting to kill both of us. It's hard to know how to react in given situation, so I pulled the hairdryer out at lightning fast speeds by the cord and let it hand from the wall. Just as I did that, Confetti did a spiral ninja attack move and latched onto my shirt around my neck and shoulders with both front paws, then wrapped both her bottom legs around my chest. I'm staring in the mirror saying, "okay, this is a major dilemma." I'm being soaked by a shampooed cat, I don't want my throat slit, she isn't peeling off easily, and I really need to rinse her. So, I carefully removed her paw by paw and finished bathing her. By the time I was done, she needed to be dried, I needed to be dried, the floor needed to be dried, and I never did get the hairdryer back in it's holder, so it's still hanging there. Once freed, Confetti immediately went under the bed, never to show her face again until she finally got so hungry she HAD to come out to eat.
The adventure had only begun. She's come out from underneath the bed a lot more often now. She loves being by her mommy, but when someone is too loud outside the door, something happens loud, she scurries for coverage again. She'll adjust. I'm trying to adjust. I think the adjusting is a little harder for me at the moment. My biggest challenge is getting enough sleep.
I don't care how cute you think they are, I'm totally 100% convinced right now that these little dogs are the spawn of pure evil.
Yip yip yip yip yip! Seriously, please just stop. You guessed it, they placed me right next to someone who has a little yippy dog that barks incessantly through the day and a lot of the night. I don't know where the owner is during this time exactly, but what I do know is that I've gotten about 8 hours of total sleep over 3 days, and I'm really starting to feel it. What really broke me was this morning at about 6 a.m. when the dog started up and the dude across the hall suddenly yelled
SHUT THE F&#^ UP! then proceeded to run across the hall and bang on the door like they were the po-po until the dog did shut up. I've said something to the front desk and I've emailed management. Tonight I went a step further and slid a nicely-worded, yet firm, note under my "neighbor's" door letting him know of the situation and to please fix it. Since he got "home", all I heard was cabinets slamming and haven't heard the dog since. I don't know if I should be worried or not; and whom should I be worried about if I do worry? It's a definite relief, though. I can't lie. I feel like if I say anything more about it, I will have just cursed myself and the dog will start up again. This would be
part of the reason for my episodic mania right now. Sleep deprivation and bipolar disorder that is only partially medicated do NOT mix well. I swear the question
"I wonder if I dove out of my third floor window head first, would I die, or just suffer a traumatic brain injury or broken neck and then have to live like that?" crossed my mind.
I also stood in my little kitchenette the first night with a can of tuna fish in my hand for like 20 minutes just staring off into space, because I had come to the realization that I had no can opener. And I was hungry. No worries, I made do with something else after I snapped out of my eye-burning, numbing, catatonic state of sudden crash of reality. It's funny now that I can look back a couple of days. It was really not funny at all at the time. I've since had someone bring me a can opener, as well as some pots and pans, a spatula, a potato peeler for when I actually have potatoes, and a few cooking utensils. I'm so thankful. Thus endeth the kitchenette series of the almost-nervous-breakdown. Now all I need is food!
The ants have been driving me crazy just a little bit. The little ghost ones that you can barely see and you don't even really know they are around until you feel one crawl on you, then you notice the almost inconspicuous line of them crawling from each corner of your only window down to the floorboard, along the floorboard, on the nightstand, along the ceiling, and... some other places. I borrowed some spray and literally sprayed EVERYWHERE. All floorboard lines, corner lines, around the window, around the door, the ceiling lines, the cabinets. I've had to repeat twice around the window, but for the most part it seems to be working. The spray is for other bugs, too. Yesterday, I kicked a cockroach out my door and it ran across the hallway and underneath the door of someone else's room. Oopsies!
There goes the dog whining again, but it seems a little less. I'm doing a whole lot of deep breathing to keep from going totally crazy. I hope I don't have to complain again, but it is what it is. Respect; that would be nice.
Aside from the mania, I really am adjusting. Some have had the misconception that this transition has been easy for me. Don't get me wrong, I love that I am in a room now. How could I not? I'm not sleeping on the streets, I have space, I am taking steps to regain who I really am. Emotionally, it is hard. Bipolar disorder does not help. Neither does realizing that you really are moving forward. Now THAT must sound like a crazy statement; but, see... there is always this little piece of hope in us that the really painful losses of love we have in our lives will find their way back home. Mine doesn't seem to be finding it's way home. In fact, it's still as uncooperative as ever, and honestly all I really want is to have my belongings back. Everything is a challenge. My brain is a roller coaster. A never-ending roller coaster. Physically, I've been in pain for a few days. It's annoying. My fatigue is still there. My swollen lymph node is still swollen. So, that stuff just leads back to emotions and frustration and it is a vicious bipolar-fear-hope-worry-joy-needabiopsy-rested-fatigued-anorexic-hungry-gotthis-needfood-foundmyglasses-goingtothedoctornextweek-paycheckisntsoonenough-thankgodicanpayforthedoctor-cantpayformytestsormedications-imadjusting-istillneedhelp-beingresponsible-steppingforward-prayingforamiracle-depressed-thankful cycle. Yes,
all of that.
