Waiting for a soft landing

But leaving didn’t mean I’d left much behind. I took my ingrained inclinations with me. And recreated a similar scenario amongst new people.

A new job, a first real job, tugged me away and asked me to reconsider my life. I had one foot through the door and the other grounded in a familiarity too comfortable to abandon. I hastily lured a new boyfriend—so new, we’d only dated for about a month—south and clenched tightly to my old security blanket.

The new job, the new people, stood at the edges, inviting me to come along but I hesitated, opting to retreat to the dark corners of my dingy, overpriced apartment. I blamed the boyfriend for holding me back, pouted and picked fights. It took years for me to realize I was alone responsible for my own stagnancy.

So rather than taking charge, rather than working to undo my unhappiness, I shrugged helplessly. I tossed and turned and cried about my stomach pain, cried about my constipation, cried about weight gain, cried about everything but the real problem at hand.

At work, life wanted to give. At home, it wanted to take. I ignored many of work’s offerings and gave myself up to whatever home needed. I gave but it wasn’t a selfless sort of giving; my giving—my staying home—was also my own personal shell, a place and excuse to hide from the scary new world that was unfolding before me.

And so the scary new world spit me out. It tried but I wouldn’t listen. Who can blame it for giving up? Not me, at least not anymore. Laid off exactly one year from the date I was hired, I moved back home where I teetered between the new (not so new) boyfriend and the old friends, struggling for something familiar, something assuring, something that told me I was in a good place, doing good things.

I spent the next five years hovering awkwardly, searching for a soft landing.