Get out your checkbooks, people. Remember in my last entry when I said that you'll need to send me donations for a high-speed internet connection the next time I move? I was jesting, but suddenly the prospect of moving has become a complete and immediate reality.
My friend (and housemate) Patrick and I have had a strained relationship for most of this semester. It's not really either of our faults, or it's both. Either way, we've both been pretty unhappy with it but haven't had any idea how to make it better. We've also both been keeping our feelings about the situation to ourselves all semester, so I hadn't any idea that he missed my friendship as much as I did his until last Friday when I returned home to find a letter from him saying as much taped to my monitor.
We had "a talk" on Sunday night, and basically concluded that it would not be good for our friendship for us to live together again next year. He also made it perfectly clear that his plans include staying where we live now. I understand why Patrick feels he has more 'claim' to a spot in this house (his name is on the lease, he's lived here longer, and some of the bills are in his name), but I'm angry with him for assuming from the start that I would be the one to move out. This whole situation is simply wrought with emotional baggage- over the past week I've felt alternately sad for losing my home of much of the past year, relieved that I wasn't alone in feeling that something in our friendship had gone wrong, fear about my housing for next year, anger that he didn't tell me sooner, and insecurity about my capacity to live with others.
Intellectually, I understand that I am moving out to save our friendship, which will ultimately be worth all the hassle and emotional stress. Nonetheless, I'm still at the point where it is hard to argue logic with my feelings. The stress of my schoolwork and summer job hunt are only compounding the issue; I've had a number of random crying jags in the past several days. The one thing that is keeping me sane, ironically, is that Patrick is willing to accept his part of the responsibility of fixing our friendship.
I could easily let my anger take over and make him out to be the villain, but he's more than proved to me his investment in our relationship and willingness to be my whipping boy. I knocked on his door at one in the morning the other night, immediately burst into tears, and even though I had awakened him, he just hugged me and let me cry into his shoulder for about ten minutes. He had been planning on driving home the next day for Easter weekend, but stayed here an extra day so we could talk again before he left. Believe it or not, our relationship has actually tangibly improved in the past few days.
Of course, I'm now faced with the problem of finding housing for next year. I have a number of tentative possibilities, but the timing is such that I can't make a final decision yet. I could live in a house with my friend Anne, but the room that is open is windowless and impossibly tiny. I could try to move back on campus, but I can't apply to do so until Monday, and anyway, I'm not sure I'd be at all happy living on campus again. I've been trying to spread the word that I'm looking for a place, but nothing has really panned out yet. To make matters worse, my homestay disaster last semester has left me permanently skittish about not being certain of where I'm going to be living.
I'm feeling a lot better than I did a few days ago, but I'm not really going to be able to relax much until I find another place to live next year. And this week, well, this week is going to go down as probably one of the most unpleasant of my life. C'est la vie.