Ch-ch-ch-changes

I moved out of my beautiful apartment today. My beautiful apartment with exposed brick, dishwasher and washer and dryer, big backyard with a big deck. My beautiful apartment that my best friend and I had decorated with peacock wallpaper, horse paint-by-numbers, and hundreds of books arranged by colour. My heart is broken.

Our lease is not up for another three and a half months and despite the whole not living there, I will continue paying rent. I’ve made the decision to leave because it was becoming more and more clear that to stay would be putting my mental health and ultimately my life at risk. 

When I moved into the apartment I was doing so with my two best friends. Visions of happy dinners and legendary theme parties danced in my head. There were certainly times of laughter and harmony but unfortunately one of my roommates and I spent most of our time fighting. 

For two years our relationship has oscillated violently from wonderful to horribly dysfunctional. Each time the pendulum swung the effects were much more devastating; that a loving and passionate friendship could in seconds devolve into vicious, rage-fueled confrontations began to erode my own self-worth and shake my confidence. 

How cruel that I must make important decisions now when I cannot even be trusted to keep myself alive. How unfair to my other roommate that I have played a part in filling our beautiful apartment with tension. 

God, I am so angry. So fucking angry. I have tried so hard only to be thwarted at every turn. I wanted to live out the summer eating the tomatoes from the garden and throwing barbecues for all my friends and drinking homemade sangria. I wanted to get through this depression with my relationships intact.

Without the anger I am overcome with debilitating sadness. I am fully responsible for my own bad behaviour; for the role I have played in fracturing my home. I will mourn the loss of my home, of my sanctuary and I will mourn the death of my roommate family.

I want to think that I am being proactive, even brave but all I feel is failure. Couldn’t I have tried harder? Or adjusted my reactions and expectations? I’ll never know but what’s done is done and now I must look forward and take the lessons I’ve learned from this ill-advised partnership. But with the hard-learned lessons come happy memories that one day I’ll be able to look back upon fondly. 

I will miss my friend dearly and even now, after yet another knock-em down brawl that resulted in name-calling and yelling, I can’t imagine life without them. Every person that enters our lives leaves an imprint and there is now a hole in my heart, in my soul that will never be filled.