My rent just went up. I can still afford it, but combined with rising utilities and grocery costs, I find very little money left to enjoy and enjoy life, so I can forget that there is no point to any of this. I want to make enough money to have shelter, food, and some streaming services to help me escape my realities. At the end of each pay period, I run on fumes and want to know why I keep doing this.
One solution to this is to move into my friend’s basement for a lot less per month. I would save around $450 to $550 monthly on rent and utilities alone. Rufus and the dog that lives there get along alright, and I like the friend who owns the house.
If you’ve been a long-time reader of this blog, then you know one of my reoccurring themes is Home. I don’t mean a house or converted church, but the feeling of being somewhere and at home. For the first time in my life, I live in a space that is 100% mine, and the cleanliness, interior decoration, and chores are entirely up to me. I have always moved into other people’s spaces where their mark is concrete, and I am just a temporary presence that haunts the hallways. It’s their family pictures on the wall, it’s their art work, their placement of the couch, and its their kitchen set up. I have to adapt to their program.
I’ve always longed for home, and it is always an elusive idea that I might be confused about when I see it in movies, read it in books, or even see other people having it. I don’t know if it’s being adopted or the fact that I am an addict, so I find connection difficult, or not realizing that I have it already, I can’t seem to feel at home.
My apartment now is the closest I have felt to that. It is my space; besides Rufus always sleeping right on top of me, I am the king of my domain. It’s my pictures on the wall, the kitchen is set up the way I like, my family pictures on the wall, my artwork, and I don’t have a couch. It’s close to where I want to hang out with some friends. I live near excellent food. Rufus and I keep finding new places to explore.
I like it so much that I have difficulty wanting to leave. I have to be careful how much time I spend alone because I get that crazy stirring in my head, and then suddenly, I have to pretend I’m an average person around other ordinary people. My voice can jar me when I haven’t heard it in so long. Usually, I sing and talk to Rufus in strange voices. I have to make sure I go out and get social for my mental health.
So it saddens me that I may have to leave it for a smaller space, and a space that is someone else’s. I will again be at the mercy of someone else’s artwork and family pictures, where the couch is, and how the kitchen is set up. Again, I will be a stranger in someone else’s house. Is it too late for a late-night snack? I will have to learn another person’s habits and living rituals. Since it is their home, their space, I would have to adapt to them.
I have lived in Rhode Island for almost three and a half years. I love a lot about Rhode Island, and some stuff I don’t like. I miss Oregon, but I don’t see myself being able to afford it there anymore, and I know if I returned, it wouldn’t be like it was. People and places change. That is a fact that I know I struggle with. No matter how much I say I love chaos, I seek comfort, which is in the known, even if that is an unhealthy place. I always want to know that I will be okay, and living somewhere I didn’t grow up in can make that knowledge hard because I still don’t know where the cardinal directions are half the time.
While I miss the vast skies, the tall snow-capped mountains, and choppy gray oceans, the high desert and the lush fir rainforests that line the valleys in Oregon, I also have grown to love the small old villages, the calm green ocean, and the rock walls that zig-zag in the woods here in New England. It has never been the exact where that haunts me search for Home, it can be anywhere. I could move somewhere else and probably find much to love there.
Life gets complicated when you can’t afford it. I wonder if my pantry will have enough before the next check comes in or if I have to say no to social events because I won’t afford the cost of dinner, so I go home feeling lonely and self-pity. I can’t save for trips or things. I had to move a dental appointment because I knew I wouldn’t have the money for the procedure. My weekly grocery bill is growing, and I buy less. The electricity bill keeps increasing, and I am trying to use less. I am making more money than I have ever made, and it feels like it’s less than I have ever had.
So, it comes down to keeping my space and sacrificing things and other financial luxuries or losing that space and moving in with someone. This is not an easy decision to make. I have gone back and forth several times. I want more money, or I want my own space. I can’t have both.
It comes back to the feeling of Home. Sometimes, being in a house with someone else creates a family-like atmosphere, which can have a Home quality. Still, if it doesn’t end up working well between us, then I really will be a stranger in the basement, the cellar dweller who pretends not to be home when he hears footsteps upstairs. I can feel at home alone, but if something big comes up, I won’t have the resources to bail myself out and possibly create a much worse living situation. So many factors are at play with either decision.
I know that affording a place is different from finding a place that feels like Home, but attaining that feeling does make it more challenging when money is a factor, especially when housing and money are hogged by a few and kept away from the many.
Here is to making decisions! I hope I make the right one.