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The Friends Who Hold You Together When Everything Feels Heavy
If you’ve been following since the first of the year, you already know it’s been a lot. We’ve been blessed and stressed at the same time. We moved. We rebuilt. We set boundaries. We navigated tension. And somewhere in all of that chaos, I’ve been thinking about the friends who hold you together when your life feels like it’s constantly shifting. Because I would not have survived this past year without mine. The One Who Came and Got Me My oldest friend lives in South Carolina now, but our story started when I was nineteen. I was working for Waffle House, INC. with her brother. I was fresh out on…
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Trying to Build a Life of Our Own
Trying to Build a Life of Our Own Without Feeling Watched We finally got internet yesterday, and I did not realize how much I missed it until it was back. It sounds dramatic, but getting connected again felt like another small step toward trying to build a life of our own. Not in someone’s basement. Not under someone’s rules. Just… ours. I caught up on Monday Night Raw. I watched a few episodes of Supernatural. The toddler got her Bluey back. During the day she mostly lets it run in the background while she tears through the house playing, narrating her own little world. But still, the familiarity of it…
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Setting Boundaries With Family When Your Not a Child
I knew this was coming. Back in my January 7th post, Trying to Stay Calm While Everything is on the Line, I said I had a feeling this would turn into an issue of setting boundaries with family. I said if we got the place, my partner’s mom would still try to control how we show up, how we live, and how we handle things. Welp. I was right. She showed up yesterday. She texted from the parking lot, which gave me exactly zero time to mentally prepare. Not that anything needed to be done. I’ve been unpacking and cleaning nonstop since we moved in. The house is fine. We…
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Trying to Stay Calm While Everything Is on the Line
Welp. Today is the day. The day we finally get to tour the place we applied for and meet the guy who owns it. I woke up already tense, because trying to stay calm while everything is on the line feels nearly impossible right now. Of course, it can’t just be a simple “show up and be ourselves” situation. My partner’s mom has turned it into a whole production. She’s telling us how to dress, what to wear, making my partner shave his beard, all of it. Like we’re auditioning for something instead of just trying to find a place to live. Then came the part that really set me…
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Holding It Together in Uncertainty
Trying to Hold It Together While Everything Is Uncertain Right now, everything feels like it’s hanging in the balance, and I’m doing my best at holding it together in uncertainty. As of yesterday, we still hadn’t heard back about the place we’ve been waiting on. Today, that finally shifted, sort of. The landlord got back to my partner’s mom yesterday afternoon and said he wants to meet us tomorrow so we can tour the place and he can meet us in person before making a final decision. So we’re not approved. We’re not denied. We’re just… waiting again. At least this time there’s a plan attached to the waiting, but…
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Waiting for Answers Without Breaking
Waiting for Answers Without Breaking: It’s Harder Than You Thank Today is January 5th, and we are still sitting here waiting. Waiting to hear if we got the place. Waiting for a call, a text, anything that tells us what happens next. At this point, waiting for answers without breaking feels like its own full-time job. What makes it harder is that the landlord was so confident he wanted us moved in by today. January 5th. And yet, here we are, with no approval, no denial, just silence. My partner’s mom is handling the communication, and she plans to reach out this afternoon to see where things stand. I’m grateful…
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Living Grateful and Traumatized
Living Grateful and Traumatized at the Same Time It’s Sunday, but it feels like every other day since we’ve been here, and that sameness is starting to wear on me in ways I don’t know how to fix. Sundays are supposed to feel quieter, slower, maybe even a little safer, but instead I’m stuck living grateful and traumatized at the same time. Today doesn’t feel restful at all. It just feels heavy. My partner’s mom is off work, which means her boyfriend is also home. That also means the arguing has already started, and none of it is actually about today. It’s about the past. Years and years ago. And…
