Moving On

It’s been fun. No, really is been a lot of fun.

Mike and I moved in together on May 16^th 2015. If you are a longtime reader of my blog, you know this move was a major change in my life. I ended a nine-year relationship, and was throwing off the binds that a toxic relationship can wrap around your soul. Suddenly I was free. It wasn’t on the level of Celie gaining freedom in The Color Purple, but for me, it felt like that.

We will soon be in our current apartment for a year. This is the place I had in my mind every night when I dreamed of escaping an unhealthy relationship. My vision of peace.  All that time, painting in my mind how my own place would look like, how it would feel. Now, a year has passed, and the escape is just a memory. It is now the time for the roommate and I to move on with our lives. We have learned a lot in one year. The best lesson is how well we get along. Suddenly we were best friends, and most beneficial critics.  

After a drama-filled search we have chosen a new apartment. The only thing we did not like about the current place is how far away it is from the city-center. The new place is close to downtown.  Literally across the street from the train line, and a station. The only bad news is that we can’t move in until the end of June. I mean, our current lease is not over until the end of June, but I can’t wait for the new place.

I however, am already missing the feeling of the current place. It feels like Miss Celie, after leaving the farm gets a swanky apartment where she can do whatever she wants; whenever she likes. Now it is time to move on. Yes, the new place will be better. Yes, I’m now dating a wonderful and caring guy. It’s a simple matter of a chapter closing. For many years I dreamt of my own home. I imagined how it would feel. Now, we move on. It’s funny; life. If you live long enough, you’ll do everything.  

 

Purgatory

If there is such a thing as Purgatory, in the afterlife, I know what my Purgatory will look like.  If it is like the Catholics describe it; a place of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven, then I can tell what it looks like.

My personal purgatory will be spent wandering around the prepared foods department of a Whole foods.  

Hours are spent with me dazed and confused moving from one bar to the next.  Approaching the soup bar to squish the ladle down in over-cooked chicken noodle soup, or white bean chili. Then, to the deli counter to gaze upon the chicken wraps. Starving for something, yet not sure how the normal people of the world make a decision in a sea of choices.

Last night, I approached the area with the intent to pick up dinner. The boyfriend quickly made some healthy choices, and disappeared. Leaving me to fend for myself. I had the look of an eight-year-old, who after hiding in the middle of a clothing rack full of women’s blouses, emerged to find his Mom, gone. I was alone in Hell Foods. I entered the Whole Foods convincing everyone around me that it was a “soup night.” Only to find none of the eighteen dozen soups to be quite right. Maybe salad…..? no. It was either malaise, or my fear of food commitment that sent me into the desert for a plastic-boxed food vision quest.  

What seemed to be hours later the boyfriend called out from the edge of the desert. “Ready?” He asked munching on kelp-kale fun crisps. I left with a tiny container of tomato soup. My soul still hovering over the olive bar.