25
I moved away from my family, 2000 miles away. No holidays with them unless it’s Christmas. I’m so far removed from college that my friends have scattered across the country. I don’t know when I’ll see most of them. I watch one of my best friends starting her family while I’m far away. My cousins grow up without me. My parents are growing old without me. I can’t afford to fly home often.
Right now I’m emotionally supporting a friend who’s dealing with severe mental illness. Making sure her basic needs are met, trips to the psychiatric ward, canceling social plans to care for her on her worst nights. I spent 2 hours the other night being an emotional punching bag for another friend who is severely traumatized by the fires. This is all while dealing with my own anxiety and post traumatic stress.
I got emotionally involved with a man who is in an open marriage. We appear to have strong mutual feelings for each other. We have similar values, grew up in a similar music scene, we laugh at the same things. Amazing sex. We just...connect. I felt it. He certainly felt it. There’s a soulmate connection. Inevitably, our connection makes his wife uncomfortable and he abruptly ends our relationship, with little communication about it all. Even after I talked to him about trauma around feeling disposable and unlovable.
I have other partners who abandon me with little to no explanation. I deal with one man who berated me on a date because I dared to call him sexist. Another one sends me his pornography that he made, with women who are 100 pounds lighter than me with huge breasts. He stops talking to me after he sends the videos. Various other partners just decide I’m not good enough to even text anymore. One partner sexually assaulted me, but I don’t know how to tell him and feel guilty for it.
I was supposedly exposed to HIV or AIDS, and was notified through an application. My most recent test said my status is negative but I still don’t know if someone pulled a cruel prank or if I should be worried about a former partner. It was one of the scariest days of my life.
I deal with multiple weeks of infections after having a condom stuck inside me for 3 (THREE) days without realizing it. I go through multiple rounds of antibiotics and infections. I spend an evening in the hospital.
I watched my old apartment building burn down. My old roommate and the woman who took my room lose everything. I deal with guilt and fear because I was supposed to be living there. I mourn the most beautiful apartment building I ever lived in, and feel awful for my neighbors and friends. Any romantic dream about what life could have been like if I had stayed is crushed.
I live with a miserable roommate, a strange man who is prone is outbursts, in a city I feel constantly at odds about living in, for a number of reasons (not that I think *boo hoo poor me,* but it is a feeling and decision I grapple with and spend significant time wrestling with).
I deal with constant drama back home. Everyone unloads their bullshit on me. I get caught up on it on Twitter, via text, I have to check in with people at my old job and mediate conflict.
I decide that I’m going to pursue new opportunities. I apply to a series of really great jobs. In October, you applied to a dream job in San Francisco. You land an interview days before you turn 25, and spend all of November, December and January day dreaming about a life on the coast.
I got the job. I moved 2000 miles away for an amazing opportunity. When else would I be able to up and go to another side of the country with such security. I’m lucky enough to get help via my new job with a moving stipend and enough money to live on in the Bay Area. I sold almost every single possession, pack up a few boxes for my mom’s basement, and take exactly 7 bags, 3 boxes of art and my drugged up cat on a plane to California on February 27th.
I live in amazing city and area. There is so much to do and the people are amazing. I make friends quickly - through a desperate plea on the local emo nite page, through Facebook groups, I made friends on Lyft lines, I connect with old friends, I meet some people off Tinder. I have patch worked a group of people that I can lean during hard times.
I have a job that for the first time, respects my need for space and self-care. For the first time, I have SPARE TIME. I can CLEAN. It feels like a surreal gift. I am involved with volunteering and local organizing and hobbies?
I start to go to shows again. I am regularly attending things and having a lot of fun doing it. I am going to FEST??????????
I take a break from social media and feel more in touch with my community. Somehow the world kept turning without me being on Twitter. Somehow I kept up with the world.
I meet some amazing partners who I care about deeply. One evening at Eli’s, I was talking to a new friend and she says I would love talking politics with her coworker, B. B is persuaded to come to Eli’s and there’s an instant connection. He’s from Detroit. He worked in Ohio. We even have mutual friends. Eventually we both realize we’re nonmonogamous and I end up back at his place. We’ve seen each other regularly ever since that fateful weekend. I was there for him during his breakup. He was there for me during my everything. I have J, who in his own weird robot way, cares about my well being. WR is always there for me.
I go on some great trips. I go to Seattle, DC, NYC, I go to Florida in 2 weeks. I have seen all of California now - Sacramento, San Diego, LA, OC, the Valley, Yosemite. I connect with old friends. I get to see my ride-or-dies.
I am less than 30 days out from 26 (shit, I need to use my dad’s health insurance before then). Let’s hope that 26 is a little less dramatic but keeps me content and healing.
