I consider myself a generally upbeat person. Usually I am the one rallying the troops when the overall morale is failing, and I am almost disturbingly proficient at pushing aside discomfort and prevailing with smiles and laughter. My friend Cate says she relies on me to always be the upbeat voice. Unfortunately, this week I am having a hard time with this. I'm not really sure when it started -sometime late yesterday afternoon I guess, but I cannot seem to manage to channel my normal self.
For the last year I've been living at home. Like home home, as in, my parent's house. Being that my parents are divorced, and I'm living with my mom, it's not entirely bad. She's more like an ever-present roommate that asks annoyingly intrusive questions. On the up side, however, I don't pay rent, and I don't pay for groceries. I guess you could call me an annoyingly ever-present squatter. However, at 25 I am about to go crazy living in my mother's house. Inviting people over dinner doesn't occur too frequently because not many of my friends want to come hang out with my mom; having any semblance of a romantic life is shot, because it really kills the mood to bring a date back to your mother's house; and, my cat is suffering because he is forced to live outside year-round since he and my mom's cat (indoor) can't seem to find a common ground.
I've spent the last month or so scouring the internet for a shockingly cheap, yet beautiful, place to live but those don't seem to be too prolific. Being that I net, after other bills, only around $650 a month, I think I'm going to be pretty hard up to find somewhere to live where rent, cable, electricity and water all come in at around $500, and isn't next to a crack den or a prior murder scene.
So, I'm sort of resigning myself that until next August when I (hopefully) go back to school, I'll be confined to my mother's house and drowning in my self-pity and ho hum attitude. I've also taken account of the fact that since I have moved home I have tripled my drinking activities and undoubtedly am subjecting myself at three times the normal rate to cirrhosis of the liver. I guess you could say that living at home is killing me both mentally and physically.
The best thing about being here though is my wonderful friends and their wonderful ability to always be available to accompany me to the bar.
