Here is where I am at now: Currently at the heavily-congested Downtown Disney, inside the Starbucks, typing all this down. Why not at home? Because I don’t currently have a home. I am at a hotel; a heavily-congested, rather-cramp, and secretly bug-filled hotel. Little ants ramble in the background. There was a spider that had been making a web on my t-shirt while I was sleeping the other night---I am not making that up. It comes with free breakfast (the hotel, not the spiders), and its in the thicket of the once-mighty-but-now-just-a-faded-memory east side of 192. The wi-fi gets iffy every so often and I feel a bit claustrophobic from time to time. I sleep on a mattress on the ground for the time being. My ability to write has been severely diminished because I don’t have the space and time necessary to actually write. It has been an interesting year to say the least, and one that has brought upon a lot of complications, a lot of lessons learned, and an entire layer of uncertainty that has been extremely difficult to shake off.
I am typing this to practically explain where I have been mentally and physically in the past year, maybe year and a half. It has been a trip, it has been a ride, and I think typing this all out will allow me to move to the next step…..which only God knows what that is going to be. And only God knows where this extremely long post is going. But here goes nothing.
To sum it all up: I have made an extremely egregious series of mistakes that didn’t produce any consequences until the collision with this year’s events, and now before you know it I am currently homeless and will be living by myself behind Universal Studios for the time being. Even that might be a mistake, but we shall see. But over the years there have been decisions I have made and decisions that I have not made that ultimately led to this day:
August 10th, 2014
I got out of a rough day at work and headed to my apartment to prepare for my next work day before the day off I was going to use to start moving my stuff. I had made an agreement with the roommates that the move date was going to be the 16th since they had needed more time to find a place for the future. Times were tough, and apartments were not getting any cheaper. However when I arrived home I was met with the awful discovery that one of the roommates had changed the move-out date to the 12th and decided not to notify anybody. Now, I had less than 48 hours to pack up, make the phone calls, figure out if I got my necessary loan, and move out everything and turn in the key. It was quite possibly one of the more selfish acts I had ever witnessed in my life, it was a poor decisions that affected everyone—even him when karma knocked on the door and didn’t give him the apartment he needed in September. Unfortunately, the brother was also affected. To this day, they don’t really have a place.
The original idea was to move with my best friend whom lives in the outskirts of Downtown Orlando in a nice hidden area. But a nice hidden area always has the catch of being farther away than you would desire. It would be a 40-45 min drive to work every single day. Turns out the next week I would be working 6 days, 70+ hours, because of the lack of people working the location. That would be a lot of gas, a lot of tolls, and because the move was so unexpected, might be a hassle because I just didn’t have enough time to prepare a way to distribute all my things and keep my presence to a minimum in the temporary household. So with that I joined family (also looking for a house) and we decided to move to a Howard Johnson for the time being until a) I can move and b) they get the house.
We are doing quite well considering the circumstances but there is an ugly truth swirling around that might be getting noticed but isn’t being said:
I’m not happy.
I have not been happy for a very long time. And even with good moments that had occurred throughout the year (not saying it was all clouds and rain), my overall demeanor is shattered, is scarred, and it’s really jaded. And then you need to throw in the death of a celebrity, which I swear up and down didn’t think would affect me as much as it did. But Robin Williams passing away struck a horrific nerve and opened up a door of the harsh reality that there is a heavy, heavy, heavy chance that I not only have the traces of depression, I just might actually be suffering from a small case of it. Now, I call it small because I have never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever considered harming myself or committing the final dark deed. But the signs are there. Some of them. I know loss of appetite is a sign, and trust me that will not occur to me.
But Robin Williams lived his life essentially with the same demeanor of insanity and going the distance to entertain a crowd, entertain the people he loved. So if his routine was always the same, how long was he in depression? That’s the most jarring thing. We saw the downward spiral of other celebrities like Michael Jackson, Britney Spears (who recovered), Whitney Houston, and Amy Winehouse. But Robin Williams? He did nothing wrong, he was an amazing entertainer, and everyone loved him. He had a wife, kids, money, success, fame, and everlasting support. So…..how long has this thing been creeping underneath him?
So I evaluated my life, my mannerisms, everything I do. And I am not saying I am Robin Williams---but what I am saying is that I honestly have not changed much at all in the past couple years, the circumstances around me has—but my character has been consistent. So….how can I possibly stop the sinking if I am still riding the ship the same way?
How can I stop the wounds from getting deeper if I keep making the decisions that leads to me going through the same thorn bushes of life? The truth is I have played the victim for such a long time and I have been so convincing to everyone that I am just an innocent victim that I didn’t notice that there is a good chance that some of the things I have been doing over the years have been doing more harm than good.
I got comfortable.
I built myself a simple bubble of success.
And that bubble never shrinks, never expands, but the air is starting to get thin.
I have spent so many years being a footnote in people’s lives that I started doing the same towards others. And you and I both know I never discuss relationships, and that’s simply because I never took the issue seriously. I never truly bothered to analyze that aspect of my life because I have been wronged so many times (only one person in my entire life knows each horror story), I subconsciously decided to deride others in the same manner. And after spending the countless hours on the road trying to get my last few things out of the apartment that had remained empty from visitors 75% of the time I have noticed that there have been 2-3 instances in which I could have actually pursued and had something meaningful, something wholesome, something decent, if I had just actually put forth the effort.
And I didn’t, and I am paying the price for it right now, as I prepare for an empty apartment with minimal belief of improvement.
I am not going to throw names in this equation that is this article because I didn’t seek the permission to write about anyone so I will be vague while being detailed about what’s been happening to me: my life peaked in the spring of 2013. I honestly had something going, I had something nice, and all I needed to do was to actively pursue, actively attempt to seal the deal, and actively seek out and take the step and announce that I truly was happy and wanted to keep what I had going. I had someone that truly cared about me close by, and I honestly did find someone that could have made up for all my dark dots that scattered my previous years.
Life is funny because you can forgive the stupid little things that people do, but you won’t forget. I won’t forget the abundance of lies that led to my disastrous trip to New York in 2009. I won’t forget the time that one of my close friends’ female friends each refused to help me find a way home even though it was 7 minutes away by car—leading to me in embarrassing fashion to take a taxi home. I won’t forget the time that we dated and had a fight, and it led to you suddenly trying to flirt (awkwardly) with one of my friends at work in front of my face. I won’t forget the countless times I had people come back to visit Orlando for several days…only to not make the effort to actually see me. I have a good memory, which is a gift and a curse. I can still tell you how it sounded when the car going 70 collided against my dad on that one fateful morning that we ran a yellow light….
Either way, at that point I did reach the point that I had been trying to reach for such a long time: special gal, good job, and my finances didn’t suck. It was comfortable. I took that flight, which was the easier solution.
The flight comment is a reference to the movie above, which is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen of the romance/drama/indie genre: Before Sunset. To make a long story short, it’s about two people that reunite 9 years after a fling they both had engaged in one a special evening that they had shared together. Now the main character, Jesse has a difficult choice: he can take the easy road and head back home to his wife and son—even though his marriage feels incomplete or decide to stay in Europe and practically leave everything he had built up behind. Not telling you what happens in the end—even though the fact that there is a next chapter in this saga pretty much confirms his decision. But…I “took the flight.” I took the easy road, and it was a road that ultimately was a lot less fulfilling then I could have ever imagined. Summer of 2013 there was an emptiness to that apartment that I could never have enough words to describe.
That’s where I messed up, royally: I got comfortable. Got lazy. Didn’t abide by one of the main rules I claim I follow in life: “Nothing in life worth having ever comes easy.”
I screwed up. I may have screwed up in similar fashion the year before, and the one before that, and once a couple years before that. I had dated a select few, and for the most part they were wonderful women. Let me rephrase it, they were all wonderful, I can’t lie. My pickiness does help in some cases. However, this one mistake was legit, this one was a certified 1,000% mistake. And its one that I may never be able to recover from. I didn’t fight. I didn’t do much of anything. I was too prideful, too proud to realize just how weak I was becoming the second I found myself back in square one. It was a pitiful feeling, and everything was spiraling downward from there on. And even with my noted (I am a mild legend in Art of Animation’s food court for my January 50+-hour giveaway in 24 hours and my stories about surviving Tennessee driving) drastic attempts at reconciliation, I might never get that life back. And if I do get it back, it will definitely take years of recovery. I don’t deserve that second/third/fourth chance. I don’t. I know this, but was too proud to tell. She knows this, and was kind enough to tell me.
Now I am not seeking sympathy for any of this. And I am not saying that it was all me, because there definitely have been some unnecessary roadblocks in the past two years that has led to me being where I am: but for the first time in my life I feel like I truly hit rock bottom. Every decision I have made in my life has led up to this; so if at 27 years old I am living in a rather small one-bedroom apartment still working in the same position after 11 years---I have definitely done some things wrong. And the realization hit in summer of 2013 when I had a mini-breakdown after getting my 10-year plaque 5 minutes after folding the 1200th pizza box…..
So why not move back with family? It has nothing to do with them, for they have been supportive 150% and I am by far not an easy person to handle. I have each of my mom’s characteristics and that is a loaded personality full of absolute insanity. I need a reset button, I need to figure everything out going forward, because there have been dozens of things I have done wrong that led to this moment in time.
I never said how sorry I was.
I never said how much I truly cared.
I never truly pursued my love for movies, for video games, for sports, for baseball, for business, for writing, for certain people, for anything for that matter.
I have done the work. Just not enough of it.
I have made the effort. But gave up too easy….although I can have system force to blame (Only Omar will understand that joke).
I have never planned that far ahead.
I have never actually taken the major risks.
I have never ever actually had to do anything major.
Because I love Florida. I do lov---well, like my job at Disney. And I am a simple creature with simple likes. But until I swallow my pill of pride and actually launch myself to the next step this is all I am ever going to be: a semi-depressed but slightly-content individual that works for Disney 60-70 hours a week and writes articles that nobody reads on the side. I am not saying that I have wasted my life writing the over 1,000 articles and 5-10 movie scripts and 30+ movie ideas I have whirled in my head and sometimes put down on paper----but what good is it to be good at something if it doesn’t lead to the success you might deserve? What good is it to go out with someone you care for and yet never deliver the necessary words? I have been a person on a dangerously small bubble that never feared it would burst and now feel exposed and broken now that everything has come crashing down.
I am a person that lived in flammable conditions without fire insurance.
I lived without a true plan. I like to say I plan things, but that’s all a big lie.
So anyone that asks me what I have been up to, what is new with me, what is exciting that is coming up, I never had an answer: because I never set off for anything. I never actually explored for new beginnings, new opportunities. I never took on an actual major challenge. I didn’t do much of anything these past couple years, even when chances for life improvement did occur. Never took them. And like I have been saying all along, the tab had been running for a long time and now it is time to pay the bill.
So this is where I am at: the Starbucks in Downtown Disney unleashing all the details I could possibly give without spoiling too much—I will save the nitty gritty details for the select few that know me best. I have an apartment lined up, but that’s about the only major revelation I can tell you. Maybe things will improve, maybe things will get better and I won’t feel as low as I have been feeling. But it starts with me. I need to change. I am not saying that I am a terrible human being, but I have let too many major opportunities slip and the slope needs to stop. I am not sure how, but its something I will figure out.
This is not a gloom and doom post, this is a life update. And if you had skipped everything and went straight to the bottom then I will keep it simple: I have begged, borrowed, and dealt my way through a comfortable life (you’d be extremely surprised what sarcasm, wit, humor, and a few sly words can get you---I semi-talked my way to getting a free frappuchino in the midst of writing this post) but didn’t seek the extra necessary steps. I was always barely afloat. And now there is too much weight and I am sinking. But I am strong enough to get back to shore---its just a matter of finding the lifeline.
I am not doomed forever. But the life I live needs to end…..now. This chapter needs to end…soon. I need to collect the few chips I have left, and move on to the next table. Alright, enough analogies.
“Nothing in life worth having ever comes easy.”
I need to heed these words, starting now. Thanks for reading.
P.S. No, I am not going back to school………….
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