In four weeks I will move to my own apartment.
That is pretty huge, believe it or not.
A year and a half ago the real collapse of my life began, although it could be said that it began in July of 2005. It was on New Years Eve in 2006, sailing into 2007, that I knew I would be returning to Florida. It was on that day that it became clear that this would be what I would be doing.
I had to destroy myself to do it, which was the most difficult part. It involved placing all my trust in someone I knew would betray me. It might not make sense to most people, but I could not be secure in the knowledge that she would betray me. I had to let her. Circumstantial evidence wasn't enough. I needed the murder weapon to seal the deal.
At the end of June, 2007, I left New Hampshire. I spent more than a month on the road. I stayed with friends for short stretches, including some noders, and I slowly made my way south with little money and no solid landing strip. I made the trip on faith. I knew I belonged in Central Florida and had gone against what I believed in to return north to resolve a long standing matter of a deeply personal nature. And when it was done, bloody and ugly as it was, I needed to go back to where I once belonged.
I had six hundred dollars to my name, a car that recently had its engine replaced, and simply knew I had to get back to Orlando to start again. I found many people willing to help me, and some went to great lengths and sacrifice to do so. At times I actually found myself choked up when they explained the reasons they were helping me were due to things I had taught them in the past.
After a month back in Florida, I fell into a part time job working twenty-eight hours a week for a paraplegic woman. I spent six months working for her. For the first two months I lived with two good friends, one of which figures into my personal mythology as my little sister. And then my "big sister" found me a roommate, who I have lived with since then.
Although he has a heart of gold and cares deeply about other people, my roommate has a lot of serious issues, including severe alcoholism, an addiction to foot porn (which he leaves scattered around the apartment), and issues such as leaving food burning on the stove and the refrigerator open when he passes out from drunkeness. I've a couple times come home and had to put out fires in the kitchen. It gets worse, but we won't go into that.
The important thing is that after this long and sometimes difficult stretch of my journey, I am about to finally go back to having my own apartment. I've had a full time job in my field for the past four months and received an excellent first review and a promotion. Things are falling into place and in four weeks I will finally be able to...
Sit down...
Sigh...
Smile...
And say...
"I'm home."
It only took a year and a half. Not too bad.