Starting Over

For more of my Home Series check it out here.

It took us over an hour and a half to make the drive to NYC but by the time I arrived, I was excited. I said goodbye to CT once and for all and vowed never to return. I was a Manhattan girl now, one who didn’t commute 5 hours every day in and out of the city.

I barely had time to think about the breakup, I was busy unpacking and organizing everything. The only thing I missed was the large walk in closet I had traded for a tiny closet which could barely fit half my wardrobe. When I wasn’t organizing and decorating, I was busy with finals at school and the now all out flirting war I had going on with The Forbidden. As soon as I became single, the flirting and sexual tension was taken up a notch and two weeks after I arrived in CT, he was at my doorstep for our first night out together. And the rest is history.

I’m not going to go into the relationship with The Forbidden. I  have detailed it before and have no desire to reopen the wounds that are so barely patched up.

I loved this apartment, its two seperate floors, my own private balcony, another shared outdoor roof, the large kitchen, and my large bedroom. I loved looking out onto the busy street five floors below, loved that my favorite bagel shop was right across the street, the best bars and restaurants just around the corner. The way the sun shown abundantly into my apartment through a large sliding glass doors which I would leave open, even in winter (because hi, ever heard of HEAT CONTROL?? We had none). I was very content in this apartment, especially since my sex life was awesome and I was even more comfortable being that I loved my roommates.

At least one of them. The roommate who lived upstairs with me ended up becoming a good friend of mine, well after I packed up my bags and left that apartment. She introduced me to a nightlife in New York City I never had because I had a boyfriend who requested my presense every weekend. I loved the freedom I had, even with having a guy I was falling more and more for on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Granted, there was a reason I had more freedom.

In February, after my split with the Forbidden, I slipped into depression. I was miserable and experienced a few too many wild nights where I blacked out (including the night we broke up) and didn’t know how I got home alive at 4am on the subway. (not one of my finer moments)

I then was faced with the reality that I was alone; there was no backup plan. And suddenly I was mourning the ending of both The Forbidden and The Ex. Simultaneously. One hurt a hell of a lot more but I started to miss my old life. And my old life was still emailing me weekly, reminding me what I left behind in my haste to get out of the relationship. I started to doubt my decisions, something I usually always do. I always miss what I once had.

Eventually I would snap out of it and realize that it ended for a reason, a VERY good reason.

On the outside I appeared fine, after all I was in about 20 feet over my head with thesis research and more busy than I could even manage. It was when I slowed things down and tried falling asleep when things got sketchy. I would cry myself to sleep, often for hours.

To make things worse I skipped my period after I broke it off with him. For the first time I went to Duane Reade and picked up a pregnancy test and while waiting, may have had a slight panic attack in my small bathroom. I had put it off and put it off, ignoring the little red light going off in the back of my head. When I got a call from Wyoming telling me she was pregnant, I nearly fell out of my chair. Not because she was pregnant, I was happy for her, but the fact that ohmygodicouldbepregnant.

I almost took another test when it came back negative, just to check and make sure that I hadn’t done it wrong (was VERY possible). I was so relieved but then a couple weeks later I saw him again. We had planned a trip to Chicago for valentines day but since i broke up with him the week before vday (smart move, I  know) I lost out on the money paid on the ticket. I decided I wanted it back and he agreed to pay it. A month had gone by and neither one of us had gotten the ball moving on getting our stuff back to their respective parties so we agreed to meet in Grand Central.

It was hard seeing him. It was even harder the next morning when I found emails from him from the night before wanting to hook up after I had gone to sleep. We emailed off an on for a few more months but eventually it died out.

To void the pain I started on a self-destructive path of sleeping with different guys with reckless abandon. I dated a lot too, went on roughly 10 or more dates within a few months, rounding out the year with 25 total, thanks to a Match subscription. I had a lot of bad dates, and quite a bit of going home with guys because they gave me the attention.

The one man in my life that was giving me too much attention was a little blackhaired gremlin also known as a pomeranian. (the blond poms are cute, this one though? Scary.) He always was barking. Morning, noon, night, even when he was sleeping. Especially if I was in the vicinity. ESPECIALLY if i had a guy over. Sunday mornings often were the worst and I would wage a screaming war with the little gremlin. He would stand at the bottom of the spiral stairs (he couldn’t get up them THANK GOD) and bark and bark and I would stand at the top.

You know, you’re not that big! I can just come down there, pick you up and throw you off my balcony without breaking a sweat!

I usually don’t threaten violence towards animals but when he’s been BARKING FOR THREE HOURS, starting at 9AM you are ready to have a throw down.

Our lease was coming to an end when we were told she was moving out in June instead of July so we would have to find a new place. Fine, whats a month early? Its midmarch when suddenly we get an email telling us that we have to move out may 1, she just can’t stay in the apartment with the mice. She blamed us for the mice problems, despite the fact that she has a dog with dog food sitting out all the time.

One night, about two weeks prior to our move out, I hear a lot of movement coming from downstairs. The next morning I wander downstairs to find my roommate up on the counters, dozens of mice running around on the floor. I shrieked and ran BACK up the stairs. 

It was the start of a long week, of cleaning up live mice on sticky pads and dealing with their squeaks while shrieking ourselves.

There was a lot of good things about that apartment, mainly just the apartment and roommates themselves. I loved living there, but it also held a lot of painful memories there, ones I want to bury for good, even now that I’m out of those walls.

I moved only ten blocks away, paying a moving company top dollar to move me at the end of a long and hard semester. The new apartment is where I call home now, a four bedroom, old apartment that is smaller than small, the door on the bathroom falls off annually and we all know my roommate problems.

But you cannot beat the rent, you cannot beat the neighborhood. I love being so close to the park, I love that its so quiet I can hear other people in their apartments. Its been my home for a little over a year, the longest i’ve ever been in one place in 8 years. Is it home? No. Its still other people’s furniture, still another person’s apartment, someone else’s design. 

One day I will find my home. Is NYC it? I don’t think so. Out of all the places I have lived, are any of them home? Maybe. But maybe not. 

My home series isn’t quite finished yet. Theres still a few more posts left in me, of places that I haven’t lived, but consider my home and then, whats next for me?

All this and more on the next episode of This? Is Not the Life I Ordered! (haha I had to do it)