๐งต View Thread
๐งต Thread (10 tweets)
When I left home I had no idea I was leaving home.I packed my car with 3 suitcases and drove from Dallas to Asheville to stay with my girlfriend for a week or two. That became 3 years.I thought about going back, the thought made me too anxious, and so I didn't. https://t.co/4BRwXqTx4u
Rising into the mountains at some absurd hour, day or night, I'd be dropped off on essentially a roadside with my suitcase and backpack, then eventually be picked up.My ex had an orange two-door Kia that I would come to know quite well after we moved in together.
Every love starts differently.This one started online, in a chat group. She indicated interest in me, I reciprocated. She flew me out. It went well. I think I told her I loved her that first trip.I didn't know what to make of that. I kind of just said it, unplanned.
I'd never really been driven crazy by romantic feelings before.At the beginning there are moments where that person's name just resonates through your head.You look at faces and expect to see them. The mind fixates. You're awake, but only half-present.
So by the end of the first year I'd graduated, gotten a job, quit a job, and had no clue what I was doing.I visited Israel, mucked about Dallas for a month, then drove out to be with my girlfriend.Completely unplanned, I stayed.
Shortly after deciding to stay, I realized I needed a job.I was a political science graduate. I applied to a bunch of nonprofits, but I didn't have any direction, any real sense of career. I just needed money.And I was universally rejected.So I blasted apps to service jobs.
I ended up working at the front desk of a fairly nice hotel in the city.I made shit.My girlfriend and I lived in a duplex up an unpaved road.It was dark. She was used to moving all the time, and hadn't acquired much furniture.There were 2 lamps in the whole place.
And yet that first year we were together I remember a profound feeling of luxury.We had one table that I absconded with for a desk.We sat on the floor in this nest of cushions and blankets in front of a tv for all our work and relaxation and meals. https://t.co/g3O9fzEsEx
Our neighbors were strange, but kind.They were a married couple, one a head maintenance guy for a hotel who worked 80 hours a week and, from his skin condition, clearly did meth. The type who prided himself on the extraordinary amount of labor he could put out.
His wife was something of an agoraphobic, refused to drive. Anxiety raked her, and I don't remember seeing her without a weed pipe, a drink, or obviously on xanax.We would hang out on the front porch together. My girlfriend would share weed. I'd share booze. We'd talk.
I have nothing but fond memories of them, and felt vague worry for them for at least a year after we moved out.The husband would work sleeplessly to the point where his body started giving out.I don't know what the wife would do if he should collapse, or get in a wreck.