It's become apparent to me in the last few years that I really don't deal with change well. To further complicate that, I am an exceptionally fickle person. I have always had what I've very cleverly coined the "Eight Month Itch." When I was about 18, it occurred to me that, with almost everything, I lose interest after about eight months. Jobs, friends, men, my hair, my home...you name it, I get sick of it. I haven't quite overcome this "itch" just yet, I'm just better at controlling my impulses.
Despite being so constantly desperate for change, I often become panicked at the many roads that lay before me. It's my nature to second-guess myself and everyone else. I am terribly analytical. I have so often picked a decision to death that when I view the tattered remains of my choice at my feet, I find I have no idea how they got there in the first place.
As such, it's no wonder that, at a time when I was doing so well learning to balance life as a family of four, I have slid back into a very dark place of insecurity and mania due to the fact that we are moving in three days time.
A few weeks ago we decided to start looking at bigger places. A home big enough for the four of us was wildly out of our price range in the suburbs, so we began to look in the city. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Public transportation is so much more accessible, the college's programs are better, a lot of our friends and family are down there. So we started making appointments to see places.
After a few showings of rowhomes that had been largely hyped by the owners/realtors, I kind of filed the whole thing into the "is not going to happen now" cabinet in my head and moved on to something else to obsess over. We were still looking but I just sort of assumed that it wasn't going to work out. So when we agreed to take a place after only one week of actually looking, I found myself sort of shell-shocked.
I grew up in a very small suburban town. Up until four years ago, I'd been in the city a total of three times. Everything I know is in this area. This town that I'm in now, this apartment, is the first place I've felt at home in my entire life. This is my first apartment. This is where I lived when I got married, when I had my second son. This is all I know. So, understandably, I'm a little scared.
Being a little scared is ok. It's when natural and acceptable fear starts to ransack your life and psyche that you have a problem. I now find myself an inconsolable mess over both the legitimate issues and minute details alike. I feel like a failure as a parent for pulling my son out of a school he loves. I feel unprotected and unloved in my marriage. I feel like I'm on uneven footing with my in-laws because of their worry and disdain over our decision. I call my friends and cry, skating back and forth on tangents that no one can follow because I can't even follow them. I want to move. I do not want to move. This was originally my idea. I feel like my wishes were completely disregarded. I love the city. I am afraid of the city.
I am six weeks post-partum, still off the medication that saved my life a year ago, and I was so proud of myself. I felt strong and together, I felt like I could hold off the demons long enough to breastfeed my son for several months. Long enough to walk around feeling human, instead of feeling like the transparent version of myself that any medication makes me. Now I'm afraid that I've lost my grip, that my fear and paranoia have come back full-force to reduce me to that same old stuttering idiot who is lashing out and hurting people because she feels alone and terrified.
I want to wait this out. I want to settle into this new place, this new city, and see if I can make it feel like home. See if maybe it was the right decision after all. Maybe I'll get down there and find that I am truly home. But, like every other time I've stood in front of a big decision, I'm just so afraid now that I can't even see myself coming out on the other side.
