You know when nothing goes right. When you make decisions and change things and you think, hey this is all for the better, and then it turns out not to be. And it's just worse. And you think how can things still be bad? How is it that I had this idea and it was suppose to be perfect and it's very far from perfect?
It'll be three years ago in a few months that I made a decision. A resolution. I'm not big on new year's resolutions but this time I made one. It was one of those typical one. I was going to get a new job. I made this decision when it became apparent that I was not going to be promoted into a senior position anytime soon. And that no position I wanted or was qualified for at my current place of work was going to become available soon. I was impatient. And bored. My job was fine but not particularly challenging after a while.
It took me 5 and a half months to get a new job. I was ecstatic. And that's where it all started.
Things never go the way you want them to. I had a new job and a fancy new title. I would finally be earning enough money to afford my own place, and to pay for my car and student loan. My work was sending me to Slovenia within a month and a half of joining the company. But I didn't get my passport in time because government workers decided to go on strike that month. So I sat alone in the office, looking for flats, while the rest of the new employees were off having a ball on the Mediterranean coast.
Flat hunting was not fun. None of the places were what I expected. And the ones that I wanted were out of my price range. I finally settled. I had to. My mother was now going to stay with me after I finally convinced her that she's better off divorcing my father.
So we moved into a flat complex with three hundred flats. We didn't have a lot of furniture and what we had was mostly borrowed. We were broke. The neighbours were inconsiderate. The flat was too close to the train tracks. And we couldn't get rid of the cockroaches. My rats died one after the other, from old age. Then one of my dogs died too. I couldn't get along with my mother. I had a major car accident with a car rented for work. My passenger and colleague crack bones in her back, shoulder and pelvis. I had a few bruises but I was shattered. I went to Barcelona later that year. I was promoted despite the accident and had to attend a meeting as part of my new responsibilities. I was glad since the promotion meant that I wouldn't have to drive that much anymore. While I was in Barcelona the geyser back home burst and my mother was slightly electrocuted. She didn't tell me about the electrocution until I got back but I'd already put plans in place to move. I had had enough. My mother went to stay with a brother and I found a great, new place in a neighbourhood I always wanted to live in.
The neighbours were even more inconsiderate here. I was still broke. The walls might as well have been nonexistent. I could hear my neighbours watching TV, washing the dishes, flushing the toilet. I didn't need to set my alarm clock in the morning since I was woken at four every morning my the beeping trucks outside. The bedroom and bathroom got no light at all and everything got mouldy. At least there were no cockroaches. Yet. One of the pipes for the pool on the roof burst and started leaking into my flat. The paint went black with mould. The cat I had decided to give a home was proving impossible. He'd run away and it would take me hours to catch him again. He would meow at the top of his lungs to be let out and destroyed the blinds trying to escape through a window. I hated the new job I'd gotten. I was bored and my social life was unsatisfying.
I moved again at the beginning of the new year. And that's when it ended. And something else started. I again started a new job but with the same company. The one I wanted when I had started with the company two years back but thought that I would need at least five years experience to get it. Despite crashing a few cars and hating my job I guess I still did really well and people noticed. I guess that moment when the carpet repairers left the door of my new place open and Noname sat outside, just looking, not running away, was when I first knew that this was it. When I was told that I got the job I knew then that the neurotic mess I was for an entire month was just a waste of energy. Because things had already started falling into place.
And maybe things started happening before moving to my current place, without me realising what it was at the time. My mom's divorce went well and she was able to support herself and pay off her debt with the money she got from her share of the house. Our relationship improved. I wasn't as broke anymore and started doing new, different things and meeting more people.
And things aren't perfect now. And it never will be. But it's as perfect as it can be. And I'm thinking if the pride I'm feeling right now is justified. Why should I feel proud if it's just a hodge-podge of things falling apart and then falling into place? Did I really do anything to be where I am now? I did, I guess. Even if it was only weathering the storm. I kept trying even though I was just so incredibly tired.
And I still don't know if it's worth it. If it's worth going through all that shit, for so long, then having some moments of happiness before things start falling apart again. Is it inevitable that things will start falling apart again? Is it something you cause? Is there anything you can do besides just weathering the storm?
These are metaphysical, existential questions for another day. My optimism right now is not allowing me to consider such questions for more than a trifling second.
I will just be. And things will be handled when they happen.
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