Day One

I didn’t know how today would go. Even now, as it’s almost over, I’m not sure it’s real. Yet, as with any event that changes the course of my life, nothing stopped. I didn’t give up. I got up this morning and followed my usual routine, just in a different location.

Yesterday, I emptied my apartment and turned in the keys to a landlord who was highly sympathetic to my situation. He even told me he knew it wasn’t my fault. I finished out my lease successfully, so there are no ill feelings. I can come back when I’m ready.

Mindset makes all the difference, but rock bottom is still rock bottom.

*Newsflash*

Rock bottom has multiple levels to its basement. When you think you can’t go lower, life teaches you that not only can you go lower, but you can adapt to the subterranean environment surprisingly quickly.

In a few weeks, I’m returning to the state I grew up in to stay with my stepmother for a few weeks. Maybe longer. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

A lot of things have gone wrong lately. It’s been a shitshow avalanche of disasters and explosions. Yet, somehow in the wreckage, I’m finding myself.

The girl I buried years ago to protect her from the world. The girl who wanted to live in a Winnebago and travel and write and watch the sun set in a million locations. The girl who loves to read whatever book catches her attention. The girl who cries when it’s necessary, doesn’t hide it, doesn’t fight it, and isn’t ashamed to feel so much. The girl who wrote whatever came to her, poured her heart out onto the page, stuck it in a folder, and forgot about it for decades. Those early works are the kind of raw emotions only a teenage emotional dumpster fire can produce. Unfiltered, unpolished, but entirely relatable still.

I already miss my apartment. And I know this is a temporary transition. But as an autistic adult, transitions are super hard for me to tolerate. I’m happy that I’ve been surrounded by my closest family and my most treasured friends these last few days.

Knowing that my pain is being seen has made it easier to bear.

As I close Day One and move into Day Two, I’m noticing my patience getting a little thinner, my tolerance for chaos a little less abundant, and my need for my own space growing. Tomorrow is a new day and one that I hope will be filled with more time with my family and perhaps a few hours at my writing studio.

If it doesn’t happen tomorrow, no worries. Monday and Tuesday will definitely find me spending hours inside my studio. My need to write, create, and exist inside my sanctuary is only going to keep growing while I try to find my footing in this “in-between” place.

One thing is for sure.

What happened to me wasn’t my fault, but I’m the one living with the consequences. Now, I sit and ponder. Should I pursue a path that forces those consequences back onto the place where they belong, or should I walk away and spare my mental health the trouble of dragging a legal thing out for however long it takes?

Cathy Marie Welton