From Car to Motel! · 10:08am Apr 25th, 2022
...someone's going up in the world!
One knows they've chosen an interesting location to spend the remainder of their week when 'Stop Human Trafficking' signs appear more than 'No Smoking.' I'm no stranger to such places, but with the whirlpool that has been the month of April, it suffices to say that my brain is slanted inside my head.
This isn't a call for help or for anyone to signal post. This fandom has done more for me than I deserved, and my life has been easier and better because of the generosity of those who dwell here. Rather, I would like to take this time, in a room stinking of smoke (and another element I'd rather not think about), I'd like to regal of exactly how the fuck I wound up here.
The place I was staying at before was being put up for sale and, therefore, I had to go.
I'd been trying for the last month and a half to find a place that wasn't a ridiculous price but, in Ontario, your average basement apartment is still $1600 a month. Every place that I saw was taken shortly thereafter. When you did apply for it, the application process was long enough that another person filled it out before you. One place was looking nice but, at the last second, the people cancelled because, even though they said it would be okay, my roommate wouldn't have his job letter in time.
It's hard to speak about the troubles of finding a place because, on paper, it seems easy. Supply X amount of evidence of things and then get approved. But those also looking for a place in the current market understand—it is hell to get everything in order. You have to provide bank statements and paystubs going for 6 months. You have to provide the ownership of your car and the landlord reference from before. Then you have to wait days because something of what you did wasn't to the way they wanted or needed. The back and forth takes days and weeks and, by then, the place is already gone.
I've spent the month looking at apartments, going to work, working, going home, sleeping, and then going back to looking for apartments while dealing with a family that's falling apart because they now have something of contension. My nanny and pappa had allowed me to stay for a couple of weeks until I got a place that went through.
Advice: Never live with distant family.
What should have been just a bed to sleep in while I spend the day working and where I'll be living next turned into an absolute shitshow that I'm still trying to process. These people didn't grasp the idea of a night shift. They would awake me in the morning to afternoon—angered that I was sleeping in. Everything had to be tip-toe. All I did was smile and try to be polite (and be out of the house as much as possible), but somehow, they brought their bullshit around my surrounding family into things.
It's weird saying this due to my past: but I don't fuck with bullshit. I'm trying to get a place to live, create a routine for me to be able to do the things that I like, and become steady in my life. I hang with people to hang with people and have a good time. At my work, I work with my uncle, someone who's cool but has retreated from the family because, in his words, they're fucking crazy.
It's true.
They're fucking crazy.
I've been dealing with phone calls and texts and nags as to where I should live and this and that—but without help or means to do or find somewhere nicer. I've been stressed from work and finding a place which is then doubled by them. They mean well... somewhat. But this is my first moment of peace in the last 38 days.
I mentioned to my Nanny a funny story about working with my uncle. That blew open a can of worms, and she blasted off like Jimmy Neutron. Yelling and screaming and crying and crazy shit. I can't bring myself to write how the whole thing went down—only my inability to take it seriously because of how confused I was and fucked the situation was.
Has anyone else dealt with that? Where someone just fucking goes crazy because you mention someone or something, and it just fucking escalates to insanity? I tried calming her down and reasoning with her, but she would take something and twist it and run it to an absurd place. She got to the point where she was yelling that she was sorry that I was offended by an Irish saying that I had no idea what the fuck she was going on about.
Like it's weird. She's yelling and crying and saying she's being traumatized, and I just have no fucking clue what's going on, and even an lesser ability, after working a 12 hour night shift to take it seriously.
So finally I said fuck it and decided to live in my car. It was a nice few days. It gets old quickly—but you get used to it. I'd been kicked out once and slept in my car. Bought the homeless kit of hygiene and bare clothes because I couldn't get my shit back. Then they felt bad I was living in a car and aplogizsed and wanted me back. I went back with all that stuff and, the next day, this shit happens. I have to buy all the basics again, at the same walmart, at the same time.
You can sleep in a cold car. It's not the best way to live but, with a good sleeping bag, you can make it work.
But when it starts getting hot, there isn't shit you can do.
I woke up sweating in my trunk and pulled the latch to let me out. I had popped out the same way the day before when a cop knocked on my glass in fear of seeing feet sticking out from the trunk. I was in an approved place, so it was okay. He was Scottish but came to be a cop here. Shot the shit with him and had a smoke with a trucker before going to work to have my shower and such.
Anyway.
So this brings me to now. Due to getting off at 4 AM, I won't have enough time to sleep in my car before it gets too hot. So I decided to plop down the funds to get a hotel. The crazy part is that, within a week, I had pick and carry and bury my dog, get kicked out, move back in, kicked back out, broke off from everyone in my family (except for my mother and father, somehow) and now I'm truly alone.
Which is probably for the best.
I don't claim to be a good person and, after that shitshow with my nanny, I have to deal with the fact that I'm actually, in some ways, a terrible person. A good person, no matter what, will feel bad that they've brought someone to tears or hurt them. But with my Nanny... I don't know. Because the whole situation was fucking retarded, aided by sleep-depervation, I just couldn't, and still can't, bring myself to care.
Some people are just fucked and, even though you can list all the reasons why someone is or did what they did, you can no longer bring yourself to care. None do that for me, and now, I can do that less and less for others. I caught shit from my whole family preaching a different thing to me. My sister, somehow, made the situation about her.
The fucked part is I don't have it bad with my family. They've always been fucked, but I've always kept out of it. I keep on good terms with all for the sake of being on good terms with all. I eat shit from my Pappa, no matter what, because it's not worth upsetting him or the balance of the house. But within a week, everything I've repressed or thought about everyone has come out.
You always hear about family drama from a distance. Know that your nanny fights with your mom and this and that. They're not talking, then talking again. Then a fight happens and it's no talking again. But this time... I was at the center at it. The one time I decide to depend on my family, and it goes tits up.
I've done and said some fucked up shit. Shit that I know that I shouldn't have said... but shit that I don't take back. That's kinda where I realized that any hope of me truly being good was gone. Maybe it only has to deal with people that I feel don't deserve it. When you say horrible things, you're supposed to apologise and say you didn't mean it.
But the problem is that I meant what I said. I was decent and fair for as far as you could expect from someone. It was only after being pushed to the point of pure absuridy that, even though I kept it together, laughing and cracking jokes and trying to keep reasonable, that I would then drop some shit when the other person pushed it forward.
I just can't be a punching bag anymore. My sister tried to preach at me and say my name with the tone of a parent. I'm expected to understand and respect all the hidden reasons and feelings on why others do what they do—but me, and what I'm going through, my feelings and thoughts, because I can handle them better, because I don't let my deperssion be an excuse for me to be lacking of character or to be shitty, am expected to take the high road.
I want respect as a person.
My side matters as much as yours, and it's only through the understanding of each other that we can resolve and grow closer. But when you make it about yourself, latching onto a 'fault' of another—then you're not worth it. I've become a really shitty person with all that I've done in this last while. But nothing I've said, despite its harshness, has been unture.
My sister disrespected me for most of my life, and though I was nice and tried talking to her a hundred different ways, I was treated the same. It was only when I yelled and tore into her a year ago that she treated me as a equal. I hate that. Why do I have to become a dick, a terrible person, for you to listen—to earn your ear from then on?
But this is where my story closes for the moment. I have an apartment that, once I have the hydro people call me back, will then become my own on May 1st. I had to pay 3 months extra rent in order to resevere the unit. Funds are tight at the moment, but at least I have a good enough job to work Overtime at.
This isn't a signal post or anything like that. Those are for emergencies and should be kept as such. To be honest with you, from what you've read from above, you shouldn't be supporting me. Not with the kind of person that last few weeks have been making me into. I don't feel remorse for the things that I've said to certain people. I should. I shouldn't have been as harsh as I was with my words—but it felt nesscary.
But if you have an extra few bucks to throw at someone, and for whatever reason, the above hasn't caused you to dub me as evil, then consider tossing a coin to your writer.
If not.
The fact that you read this is more than enough.
These are tough times.
Don't let it make you into a worse person.
But at the same time.
Don't ruin your sense of self, your worth as an individual, by tolerating things you shouldn't.
Sometimes, you don't have a choice in life.
But all those words I said were worth sleeping in a car.
Goodnight, y'all.
My man!
Well I hope things keep getting better and we we are here for you
Imagine that instead of speaking for yourself, you were speaking for a good friend that needed you to speak for them. Would you still have concluded that you weren't a good person?
You should be one of your own good friends. It makes life easier for yourself and everyone around you. I don't think you'd be a bad person for getting angry and defending a friend that was being abused like that. I actually think you're a better person for being able to do that.
Saying something, if you truly mean it, shouldn't be a game of "I'm sorry." A real man dosen't play the sorry game and take back what he said.
My family is also batshit crazy, and full of druggies. I've said stuff to them that basically caused them to disown me. My mom kicked me out of the house at 15. I stand by my decision, and I will not play the sorry game. Don't think that saying what you feel and mean makes you a bad person, above all do not fall into playing the "I'm sorry" game.
A real man dosent take back what he meant.
Take care B. Keep being a real one, you got this.
I agree with the others here about sticking up for yourself. Respect isn't something you have to fight to get from family. You're not evil for demanding it.
I hope things brighten up for you sooner.
*hugs*