#countbasey

Welcome back! A lot has happened in the past year or so. I quit a stable job that was (literally) killing me. I lost a job I really liked, but just wasn’t good enough. I went through 3 months of unsecured employment (that’s my fancy way of saying I was a temp, and grabbed every odd job I could get my hands on), and I’ve spent the last 2 months in a new job I love with people I cherish. That’s just the occupational aspect of my life, but I can finally say: things are looking up around here!

Along with my new job, I relocated back to the town I grew up in (not that I’d moved far from it to begin with). I now live with 3 room mates, 2 of whom have spent the past few years renovating the place. At the beginning of the year, I was still living in the same fixer upper studio I’d lived in for 5 years, and it was still a fixer upper. Intermittently, I moved out of town to the cleanest air I could find in the area, but landed in an apartment with 3 guys who saw me as their mother, and kept absolutely nothing clean, air included. Meanwhile, in a convoluted twist in fate, my dad moved into said fixer upper. The Fallen Shelf is currently in storage, doing its job, and currently not falling apart for the moment.

I mentioned the clean air thing? Yeaaaah, um, so I went through an episode of Revenge of the Asthma, and for the first time in a decade, I was weaker and more immobile than I’ve ever been. I got pneumonia twice in an 8 month period and still had time to get eye surgery to freeze my eye in place, because the top layer of skin was coming lose (yeah, I know, gross, mhm).

I’ve gone from making all of my own meals, to existing solely off of fast food, to gradually being able to bring healthy cooking back into my life, and at one point being so poor that I was only so lucky to have an oven around to cook my own sourdough bread in.

It wasn’t all bad, though. My housemates took pity on me when I lost my job, and my landlord adjusted my rent so that I could still live in the space while I got back on my feet. There were ugly moments of me kicking and screaming despite other people’s kindness. Let’s be real, when you’re miserable and just trying to survive, there is always something to complain about. No excuses, just reasons and reactions.

I made some pretty awesome friends, lost some others, and secured a high school friendship to last the ages. I went through a tortured relationship with a very insecure person who was friends with my worst enemies. I actually had enemies. Finally, I met someone who, like anyone still has insecurities, but we have a wonderful relationship I wouldn’t trade in for the world. It’s hard not to make comparisons on past relationships, when the guy you’re dating is everything you ever wanted in a relationship and more.

It’s true, things are seriously looking up around here. I’m even finally filing through all of my possessions and, uh, “cleaning out my closet,” you might say. And it’s true, I live in a reno, a flippers’ reno. It’s not going to last, here. Everything is constantly changing, but that’s just motivating. In the coming months, I plan on recapturing my life, getting my driver’s license (finally!), and working toward converting a van to hit the road and explore this beautiful continent we live on. Hopefully Count Basey, my basil plant, will survive the transitions! Wish me luck!