I need to take more care. Care to keep control. I have, again, lost control of everything.

My house is a mess. Dishes dirty, laundry piled and unwashed, half-upholstered chair in the living room, chaos in the workroom, dust everywhere. Taxes filled out but unfiled. My guitar gathering dusty fingerprints that aren’t mine. I cannot control my bad eating habits, despite knowing that when I eat crap, I feel like crap. When I feel like cooking healthy, the dishes are dirty and I order out instead. Broken record, constantly running. Yesterday, while I did drink my deliciously healthy fruit smoothie for breakfast, I had cookies, chocolates, burgerking, and a giant piece of pound birthday cake at work.

I want to move out. I want to live with Kevin. I want us to find a house where we can start building a life together, one where he doesn’t go home to go to bed - or worse, where he’s never here at all. One with a button you can push to wash the dishes.

We have not been to the bank for a mortgage pre-approval. I am confounded by the definitions of amortization and amortization term. I do not know if we can afford to buy, even at prices as ridiculously low as $20,000. Apartment living is old; so old. the noisy neighbours have me at my wit’s end.

The thought that I could pack up my stuff and move into my parents’ upstairs - kitted out to be rented - occurred to me. I’d get out of here, I’d save money, and my parents would get some money, too. But a 30-day notice is required to break this month-to-month lease. I thought, yesterday, that I would do it. I would discuss it with Kevin - because being a pair, we discuss major things - and then I would call my landlords and plead to be let out at the end of this month. It would involve the major stress of packing, and moving - and when we find a place, moving again - but I thought that being out of here and saving the money would be worth it. Even though I never make decisions like that within a couple of days, I felt it was necessary. Stressful.

When I called Kevin, I asked him what he thought. He paused. He said, “I don’t know how to say this.” Turns out, 1/3 of the company he works for has just been sold; another 1/3 put on the auction block, and we don’t know what will happen to the rest, despite a brand new building having been built less than six months ago.

Turns out, the thought of not having a job in a year makes him wary of being locked into a mortgage. Understandable, but with my mind being in a time-pressed state as it was, I had a teeny bit of a meltdown. The stress got bigger. The thought of being trapped here for not only all of this month, but all of next month too (due to not having enough notice-time) made me despair. I cried. I pulled myself together. I cried some more. He came to visit; we looked at houses in the paper, despite the tension - he didn’t want to talk about any of it, and I felt I needed to make this decision of moving to my mom’s immediately.

And then. Then. The rap music. It was inexorable. At least 5 days a week, I scowl at the wall in my living room; I turn the TV up when I really want it off; I call the neighbours assholes. Sometimes, I bang on the wall. Sometimes they turn it down; once, they turned it up. But, except for once, I haven’t called the landlords. Until last night.

My hands were shaking. I’m scared of making waves; I’m scared they’ll know it’s me and get back at me somehow; I’m scared of the goddamn phone and of calling people I don’t know and of making accusations and, of all things, scared of being thought of as a tattletale. I kept (barely) from crying on the phone with my sympathetic landlady. She said if it’s after 10pm, which is the local bylaw for noise complaints, it makes it easier for them to act if they know the police have been called.

I told her it had taken me this long to phone her; I cannot see me ever calling the cops. Anyway, we discussed frequency, etc. She called her husband, then phoned back. He told her to tell me that he’d “take care of it.” I don’t know what that means, but for an hour today - for I’m home today, and I’ll get back to that in a moment - while I was trying to rest, the music was going. However, five minutes after I got off the phone last night, it stopped. Also, I was told to lock the front door due to the fact that the neighbour’s friends have gotten into the infrequent - but far too often - habit of waltzing in at 3 and 4am on the weekends to bang on their door and scream when they don’t answer, and also leave their nasty garbage behind - paper plates, cigarette butts, what was either cheese with bacon bits or puke, and a paper towel full of mustard and relish, on one memorable night. I was told to get a key for the front door for my boyfriend, and it was on my list for this morning.

So. Kevin went home, locking the front door behind him. The neighbours have a key, and if they didn’t, they have a back door, which I do not (and which they love to slam). As my landlady said, if they don’t have a key, that’s their “tough luck.” When he left, I cried and cried at the stress. It makes him so uncomfortable when I cry, that I don’t always when I’m with him and I the mood strikes me. I wonder what his past experience with crying women has been; I’m pretty sure he just doesn’t know what the hell to do, even though I’ve told him to Just Hold Me, it calms me down.

By 10pm, I still hadn’t eaten supper. I had debated ordering a pizza, but since the outside door was locked, that would involve going out into the dark hallway (burnt-out light) and risk the chance of running into the people I just tattled on; people who had possibly just finished exams, who definitely drink, and who possibly do some hard drugs as well.

So I had a small fruit-cup can of peaches. And then three or four handfuls of bits and bytes. And then I went to bed, with a pain in my stomach and a feeling of bloated that I assumed was gas.

I woke up at 1:30, with the terrifying realization that I was about to be violently ill. It continued throughout the night, cold sweats and all, disturbing my sleep and making me feel awful. And scared. I haven’t done such a thing in probably ten years (except earlier this year with the flu, where I coughed so hard... ahem); it’s a bit of a phobia with me. My tummy still hurts, and I’m not sure if it’s empty, still grumpy, or just muscle achy. This morning, Kevin called looking for the addresses and phone numbers of some houses we’d looked at, so he could check into them further. I cried and told him I was sick, although what I thought he could do for me, I have no idea, as he was on the way to work. I was just so relieved to hear his voice when I was so miserable.

I called my mommy and my daddy (they’re definitely mommy and daddy when I’m sick) and they said they’d bring me something if I needed anything.. but.. the front door is locked, and I was prone in my bed at the time.

So I’ve been home all day. I’ve only had a little bit of sleep, and my tummy still hurts, although it’s doing far less disgusting things than it was doing all night. My back is sore from lying down and from sitting crooked in my TV chair. I’m bored. I’ve read a book and a half since last night. I was unable to get to the store before work and get groceries, as was my plan. And my boss phoned a little while ago to say that instead of coming in from 12-8 tomorrow, I have to go in for 9am for a staff meeting. So much for a few extra hours’ worth of recovery time; so much for the quiet weeks that have been the norm at work.

I still don’t know where I’m moving, or when, or even if. If things really are “taken care of,” I won’t mind staying here the extra month; and maybe I can get out of the lease in the middle of the month.

The thought of cleaing and packing and moving everything I own (twice) still makes me weak. I’m sure it was the rich food plus the stress that caused my illness, because I don’t feel sick otherwise. I can’t keep control of my life. I feel like once it’s a new life, with the love of it, it will be easier.

If only I can get there in one piece.

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