05.16.24

I’ve been dreaming of a green bedroom, a darker green. I want to buy a new quilt and a new lamp to go on a new bedside table. I want to arrange all my little tchotchkes and things differently than I have them now.

I am going to move out of my apartment. I have lived by myself a couple blocks south of Dyckman Street for over three years now, and while I deeply love my neighborhood and place, and I simply can’t afford it anymore. I lost my job in February, and haven’t gotten my hands on another one save some babysitting and the occasional freelance event work. My severance ends tomorrow. It just isn’t sustainable.

I am, amidst a flurry of seismic shifts in my life, clinging to the prospect of getting to design a new bedroom. I’m hoping to move into a place with common areas furnished already so I only have to worry about my own space. I want to sell all of my furniture, most of my clothes — the majority of my stuff. I have to downsize a full one-bedroom apartment to an appropriate number of belongings for someone with roommates and communal spaces. I have been starting to get sick of my things, of the very specific and unique space I’ve curated for myself, and don’t feel attached to it the same way I used to. I want to unburden myself. I want to shirk some of my responsibilities.

I am planning to throw a birthday party that is at once a hang and a garage sale. I have been tying price tags to various items and packing away things I want to keep, creating signage to indicate that you can buy my books for $2 each, or 3 for $5. It has left my apartment in some unavoidable form of disarray, consistently, for the last several weeks. Feeling like I am going to be leaving makes it hard for me to bother cooking, or fix anything that breaks, or clean up. The only organizing I can seem to muster is separating my magazines into piles of The New Yorker, Bon Appetit, Writer’s Digest, and Poets & Writers for potential passers-through of this yet unplanned Fire Sale, Everything Must Go birthday party — any four for $1.

I met with my career coach today and she told me she thinks I have great direction. My mom texted me that I’m doing a great job rolling with the punches of all the changes happening in my life lately, especially since most of them are not my choice and out of my control. Neither of these assessments resonate with me.