The Whole(ish) Story

“If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.” – Tennessee Williams

This is my 13th post. I’ve posted 13 times and I have 13 follows. I’m not superstitious, “but I am a little stitious” but I’ll be happy to put up my 14th post and get my 14th follower.

Remember when I said that I was going to do a post called “Lessons Learned” about the lessons I’ve learned in the six months living away from Hometown? I’m still going to do that, but I want the post to only be about the lessons I’ve learned. I realised these lessons will be meaningless without context so this post is the story of how I moved from Hometown to Newtown and back, without a lot of the why. That will come later when I’m posting at the airport while I wait for my flight to Hometown.

When I was sixteen I went to Newtown for a couple of weeks and I think I had a nice time. Truthfully, I can’t really remember a lot of the trip. I remember going out to Newtown again when I was twenty, though. That should have deterred me from making the trip out this time but for some reason it didn’t. During my time here when I was twenty I had difficulty finding work and I missed everybody. I liked the city, but I was really glad to get back to Hometown and see my family. This time was the same with some key differences.

I moved out here a couple of months after my last semester of unviersity ended. I didn’t have a job before moving, in Hometown or Newtown. I know now that was foolish. However, I realise that if I was doing it over (without the benefit of hindsight, which I wouldn’t have) I would have done the same thing. Again, I don’t know why. I moved out to Newtown with the help of my family into an apartment that I had found a couple of months prior. It was an okay apartment, considering it was my first one. Awesome location, good size…perhaps the only negative was that it was in an older building. The heat was controlled through a radiator; either I had heat, or I didn’t.

I’ve been praying recently that God will change my memory and not allow me to remember things that aren’t helpful to me, which may be why I can’t really remember living in my apartment. I know that I didn’t really like it that much. I was looking for work, but quickly found that the only way to do this now is online, so I was in my apartment a lot of the time. I did like my apartment when I got a full-time job, but I still missed everyone (Wow, I am really blanking here. I thought I’d have more to write. Maybe it’s good I can’t remember. I’ll just keep going until I run out of things to say.). I missed my family and my friends and was unable to find a good job. I had a couple temp jobs, but I didn’t want to work retail or food services (with hindsight, this may have been wrong, but  then again, hindsight is of no benefit). I was happy when I found a full-time position through a temp agency, even though it meant giving up two other interviews I had scheduled the first week of my new job.

The job was…odd. The people were odd and the business was really odd. It was a property management company, but it was a family company so I’m not sure what the point of the company was. I didn’t even have a computer; the position was newly created and I was the third person that the temp agency found to fill the position. When I got fired, I was upset, but I felt better about it when the temp agency that placed me made it clear that they knew it was not my fault I was fired. I can take responsibility when I mess up, but I didn’t mess up at this job. They messed up by hiring me.

I looked for work for a few more weeks, but then I realised that my savings were running out and a new job was not arriving. I suffered a near-mental breakdown and even took a couple antidepressants before realising that they made things ten times worse, and then decided to accept my fate and admit to my parents that I needed to move back to Hometown. They’ve been supportive, although I think that my mum still thinks that I want to go back to Newtown one day. I don’t. Unless I already have a job lined up, one thing I’ve learned is that moving somewhere before getting a job is stupid. I also really missed my family and friends and I’m not great at making new friends, I’ve found. I was good at making friends in school, but making friends as an adult is a skill that I need to develop.

Now I’ve sublet my apartment and I’m moving back to Hometown in a couple of weeks. There’s still some things I have to figure out, like what to buy for the apartment, finding a job in Hometown, and what to do when the sublet is up and I need to get my stuff back. (Current plan? Get a boyfriend and have him drive the stuff back. We’ll see how that goes.)

I know that I’m doing the right thing by moving back. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in Hometown. For reasons that I won’t get into until my Lessons Learned post, I think that it’s good I moved to Newtown. I needed to move here just so I could move back a changed person, and I am.

So, now that I’ve written over 900 words, it’s your turn! No, I’m not begging for comments; I just want to hear others stories of when they became, or tried to become independent. Maybe that’s the wrong term. Technically I’ll still be independent at my parents’ house, just less so. Anyway…comment if you like!

*Huh. Apparently Newtown is actually a town in America. Interesting.

Related articles

• Lesson Learned (awomeninherthirties.com)
• What it’s like to move to a city with no apartment and no job (dalethoughts.com)
• Jacked Around by Company’s (socyberty.com)
• Just moved here, may I walk your dog/serve your burger/tutor your child? (ask.metafilter.com)
• I Love Working for Temp Agencies (wemediaguru.com)
• Tips to Make Moving Less Stressful (rent.com)

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