It Was Simply Sonder

Chapter 1 - It Begins

I was crying. Sobbing, really. After living with my best friend on and off since high school, I was finally being replaced. It felt like that anyway. Slowly my little things were replaced by those of his new boyfriend's. Here I was, it was moving day, and I was sobbing as I hurriedly packed my things. We'd had a fight and I had to move out as soon as I could. It was bittersweet. Finally I'd start out on my own. Finally I'd have my own space. I wouldn't have to fight with anyone to have things the way I wanted. Except, I'd not had time to prepare. I wasn't ready for this step. I was terrified. What if I hated it? What if they hated me? What if I lost my job and couldn't pay rent?

In the end my own reservations didn't matter. My sister assured me she had found a place. A small trailer at the back of a trailer park. It was all we were able to find on short notice. She told me all about how it had a front and back porch. How the landlord would work with me on rent. I wouldn't even be living that far from her - a short three minute walk would put me at her front door. It sounded nice. It even looked okay the first day I went through it. Everything seemed alright.

Oh but as the truck pulled in and my sister's friends helped me unload my boxes before they went for another round, I was overwhelmed again. I sat on the peeling linoleum and cried. I cried until I couldn't breathe. My cat was terrified, puffed up in her crate and hiding under her bed. My dog's nails clicked in circles around me while he tried to calm me down. Trying his best to respond to my anxiety like I had trained him to do.

The longer I sat there, the more I realized how wrong this was. There were spots of the ceiling falling in. The linoleum was - as mentioned before - peeling up, cracked in places. There were spots in the floor that were soft and I was afraid i'd fall through them if I walked on them. Neither bedroom felt inhabitable. One had a rotting ceiling that seemed to be crumbling in that I had missed. The other's window wouldn't close. I could see cracks of light through the walls in some places. The longer I sat, the more problems I found. It was horrible brown paneling everywhere that matched the ugly brown linoleum on the floor.

In short, it was the worst place I had ever moved into. So I sat and cried until they came back with another load. Then I sucked it up and helped them move in the last of it. Everything I owned fit in that one front room. It was depressing, really. Other than bags of clothes that went in the closet and the mattress in the bedroom, I had only one room of belongings. I didn't have a fridge or stove yet. I didn't have a way to make food.

I looked around and asked myself how I'd gotten here. I asked myself how I'd gone wrong. What could I have possibly done in this life to deserve this? Had I wronged some higher power that just wanted to punish me for my wrongdoings? It didn't matter, this was what I had and I had to work with it.