I wasn't ready to leave Jacksonville. It was a decision I made out of desperation and loneliness. Yeah, I was dead broke, but I didn't even try to find a better job. I knew I needed to, but I gave up on myself. I decided I wasn't worth it, that I would just give up and go back to the house I swore I'd never live in again. That would be preferable to more failure.
It's not easy being (almost) 25 and living with your parents. I had this lady come up to me a few weeks ago and ask me how it was being back home, my mom standing right next to us. I said something non-committal, and she said something along the lines of, "Kids are meant to move out when they're 18. It's not easy to come back." WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY TO THAT WITH MY MOTHER STANDING RIGHT THERE? Was that supposed to be helpful? Because it most definitely was not. It wasn't easy being here the first time around, hence the 3000 mile move, and it sure as crap is not easy being here all over again.
I'm a very independent person, I always knew I needed to be on my own. Now, having experienced that, it is so incredibly difficult to have that stripped away. I have to go back to telling someone whenever I leave the house, being expected to call if I'm going to miss dinner. I have to justify every move that I make, which is especially difficult amid all the anxiety attacks I've been having. I can't really have people over, which is unfortunate now that I'm back in a place where I have more friends. In Florida, I was learning how to be an adult. Now, I have to learn how to be somebody's kid again. I have to re-learn what it is like to have people in the house with me most of the time. I can feel my family tip-toeing around me as I tip-toe around them and pretend to be okay.
It's not just being back in this house, but this town that's hard. Every conversation I have with a person who is not super close with me (mainly "adults") is so difficult. I have to smile through all the "I told you so's" and all the pity I receive for being an unemployed 25-year-old living with her parents with nothing but retail in her sad little future. I have never liked small talk, but now it is completely unbearable.
The real reason it's so hard to be here is that I tried to do something to make my life better. I failed. Now, my life is more difficult than it was before I left because now I have all this debt and am so far from ever being able to live anywhere besides this house. And home? Home isn't home anymore.
First of all, this is really well written.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all, you didn't fail. It's not as simple as that. It took so much chutzpah to move across the country, and you did. You moved. You lived in another state. Give yourself credit for the courage it took to do that.
Third of all, I hate the small talk too. It was especially awkward last year, when people would ask what I was doing, and what I wanted to say was, "Trying to recover from the worst depressive episode of my life" but instead I'd have to say something generic and vague.
Thanks, Chloe. I appreciate you
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