There’s No Place Like Home

I sit here tonight, at my store, very much at a major crossroads. I am on the cusp of leaving California for home in the East. I really don’t have much of a choice. The Kid, my roommate, is just not good for my mental health. She is as clingy as ever. 

Tonight, I was out after a week of actually working good hours. I am in a program that actually is beneficial to my healing and welfare. Plus it gets me around people who really care and want to help. But, The Kid is having a bad day, and wanted me to come for her lunch. I really wasn’t keen on going back to work to get her and take her to lunch. She doesn’t drive. She actually doesn’t do much except work and sit in her onesie playing games in her apartment. 

Amanda’s space with The Kid.

I got caught up with her originally last year, here at work because I felt bad for her. I was in need of a place to live. I couldn’t afford to stay where I was. I would have not been able to pay rent. At the beginning of the year, my retail store cuts hours. But . . . mine never came back up to the level I was used to for four years, 34 to 38 hours a week. Anything over 30 is considered full time. 

So, I said FU to the Crazy Landlady. I came to live with The Kid because she was offering rent free living but I would help around the house, give rides to and from work, love, support, hugs, cat care, fixing up of the apartment, cleaning, getting her out into the world, as well as giving whatever monetary support I could afford. I’ve done, and continue to do that. 

In April, about three and a half months in, I was stricken with terrible anxiety after stopping a medication. I was planning on leaving in the late Spring or Summer for either Baltimore or Philly. But my anxiety was so great, that I could barely get through my days. Work noticed and kept my hours low. Those were some really tough times. 

I started on a new med after a false start, and continued to make progress. I’m not sure I am really feeling great right now, but it is mostly manageable. So . . . here we are, just after Thanksgiving. I would really, really love to give myself a Christmas present and return home. The plans are in the final stages. I think it’s really going to happen. But — how to tell The Kid. 

It could go well, it could go badly. She may freak out and make it impossible to continue to live in her apartment. She will probably say I am abandoning her. She will probably be angry. She may even ask me to leave. I may want to leave just to avoid the whole scene. The other side would be her understanding that I have to go home where I belong. The moment I tell her my plans, I will find out. Here is the kicker though. I don’t exactly have the money to get home . . . yet. A friend, our own Sophie Lynne, set up a Go Fund Me for me to return. I am grateful. 

I have some who have pledged money to get me out too. I may have enough to get back, buuuuuut — what to do about work. Should I just quit or should I give two weeks? If I give two weeks, tell The Kid, and it goes sour, then where do I stay to finish out the two weeks? If she’s cool, which I am betting against, then I could just stay where I am until I leave. It’s all such a pressure-filled paradox. 

As I sit here, I don’t know what to do. If I had a stash of money, I’d just go sublet a place or do an Air BnB for two weeks. I could put in my two weeks, hiding it from her for as long as possible, then on the last day, tell her I am going. There are so many possibilities, complicated by the fact that she’s not just a cool roommate who would just say, good luck, it was cool to live with you, I understand that you need to go home. That’s what a normal person would say. Yes, they may be sad, or disappointed. But, they would probably just move on. 

So, this is what I face. What to do, what to do? How do I get out of this mess I created for myself? How do I finally get home like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz? I wish I had ruby slippers that would take me home, but, with my stuff of course. There’s no place like home . . . There’s no place like home . . . .

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