I have learned to stay. Stay at a job whether you like it or find it boring or outright hate it. Stay in a relationship through the good and the bad. Stay, stay, stay. Like a good dog.
Because staying at a job looks good on your resume. Staying at a job that sucks the life out of you builds character. You build friendships. Or, hello-ships. Your pay rate usually rises over time. And the benefits are good. So you stay.
Staying in a relationship shows you to be faithful. You stay because, in the good and bad times, staying is the right thing to do. I have stayed even when things became abusive and miserable. Because I am a good dog.
Stay, stay, stay.
Then your rented house is destroyed by all-of-the-sudden floodwaters and you have no place to stay.
And your brother takes you in but you feel uncomfortable because it's not your home. But you stay because there is literally no freaking where else to go.
Because 90% of the city flooded, demand is high, and there are few places available.
So you stay because you're stuck.
And your partner whom you do truly love is driving you FUCKING BAT SHIT CRAZY because there's something fucking wrong with every potential home you find.
"Baby, our choices are very limited right now." (you say for the million-teenth time) "We might have to make some sacrifices."
But nothing is good enough.
You think of moving to another city, or out of state. But your family is here... your 90 year-old grandmother whom you treasure to the depths of your soul is here... so you stay.
I am at my wit's end. I am so frustrated and miserable and angry. It's all churning inside me and I don't know what to do with it. My fight-or-flight reflex says, "RUN!!!"
I want so desperately to get in my truck and just GO til I feel like stopping.
But that would mean leaving, and that would be wrong. And selfish, or whatever.
I want to rent a freaking apartment and live there! But she says no, it has to be this and this and this, and it can't be that. So I feel beat down, and trapped. And increasingly resentful.
I wish we could make a decision and move forward together as US, but it's soooooo complicated and difficult!
And I'm mourning over the loss of my home and 90% of my belongings and journals and books and projects and artwork.
I can't do this. It's too hard. I am so broken.
