Unveiling the Enigma
Hi. I’m new here. I’ll start this out by sharing a little (or a lot) about myself. My name to you is Chaela. I am currently 26 (a leo with an aquarius moon and rising if that matters to you) and living in a small-minded Midwest town as a ✨lesbian✨ — you can imagine how that is…fucking miserable.
I am in a relationship with my soulmate — yes, I believe in those. We have the most beautiful fur babies around: we have 3 cats Sage (black shorthair), Salem (orange tabby), Ampersand (black longhair) and Dobby (Kings Charles Cavalier Spaniel) — I will gladly add pictures below. They are also currently living with me in a small-minded Midwest town…my hometown, actually…with my parents. Living with my parents honestly isn’t even that bad, but I miss having our own space and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t constantly reminiscing on having our own home again. It wasn’t always this way, but life has been kicking us in the ass lately. We recently moved from the PNW, which we are desperately planning to get back to…horrible decision on our end. Why did we make that decision in the first place? Money problems of course, but guess what? We have those here too. I guess that’s what we get for being two overly anxiety ridden 20 somethings trying to figure out how to survive in a world that doesn’t feel suited for us. Like how STUPID could we have been? Well we went from living 5 minutes away from where we both worked, seeing mountains just by taking our dog out, hiking trails in said mountains, countless things to do for free, so many different fun restaurants and bars to choose from, cool open-minded people and so on and so forth…to driving an hour to work (because that’s literally our only option because we live in BFE), seeing an endless amount of cornfields, no hikes (just very boring walking paths), nothing to do for free unless we want to be discriminated against and lots of closed-minded people who literally do not want us here (believe us, we don’t want to be here.). Oh, lets not forget we are getting paid less here while things are JUST as expensive as over there. Our thinking went something like this: wow right now we are so tight on money maybe we should move in with my parents to save money to get a house, because right now it feels impossible. GOD what I would give to go back and shake myself and my partner and tell them that of fucking course they are tight on money! They just got settled in…it takes more than a year after making a cross country move to feel “settled” and to just please, be patient. We might be broke, but we are HAPPY! Going back to the Midwest would be the absolute worst option for us. But, I can’t. So instead, I will sit here silently kicking myself.
Anyway…so yeah. We are currently now miserable and saving money to hopefully move back after the election…or to Europe if the election feels icky. And before anyone is like “So you are just going to escape from reality and move to Europe?”. One, yes…yes, we absolutely would escape the reality of America right now. Two, my partner is from Ireland, so this has always been an option for us, we would just like it to work out here for awhile before we decide to make that move because we make more here, so we could save more to live comfortably over there — not that I should have to explain myself to anyone.
Okay moving on from THAT. I went to university for Communications with a focus in PR and writing and added on Theatre with a focus of acting and script writing — what am I doing with my degree you ask? Nothing. Right now I am unemployed, BUT I am trying to start up an online business. Before COVID, I was going to move to Vancouver BC and act with their theater company there, but I’m sure you can take a guess at what stopped those plans…and I’m not complaining. If it wasn’t for the pandemic I wouldn’t have met my partner and I am more grateful for that than anything else this world could have to offer me.
Being unemployed isn’t necessarily a choice right now, before anyone ask. My partner has Glaucoma and isn’t able to drive, so I drive them to and from work and because of having a strict time frame for hours, no one will hire me — yay. So instead of working my ass off for a company that won’t appreciate my time, I write. I’m currently also taking free online college courses in Psychology and working to get my certification to become a Yoga instructor. So, I’m not doing nothing and I feel fulfilled enough for now. I’m just really hoping my business ends up being somewhat successful — even if I only bring in an extra $3000 a month I would be so beyond happy. It’s really hard not to have an extra source of income, though. Even with not paying rent we’re feeling the heaviness of not having financial freedom and at 26 that can be pretty daunting. My partner makes $21/hour, but with the amount of debt we are in we don’t necessarily view that as a livable wage. I hate complaining about this, especially with everything going on in the world right now…but things are just so stressful and overwhelming it’s hard not to feel something about it.
I was recently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and severe anxiety — which has been a challenge on it’s own. I always knew I had anxiety and depression. I was first diagnosed with depression when I was in middle school and have always just delt with it. But the past 6 years have felt so intense and I always felt crazy — other people were depressed and didn’t take things as hard. Well, now, thankfully, I know why. I’m still learning about BPD and am currently trying to find a psychiatrist to help me navigate my life. When I was first diagnosed, I was seeing a psychiatrist and was put on lamotrigine and it seemed to help! After a month of taking it I was noticing a difference in how I would react to certain things, my mind seemed to get quieter, etc. But, sadly, when I met my partner I stopped seeing my psychiatrist and stopped taking my medication, because I was embarrassed. Embarrassed of what exactly? I don’t really know. There’s such a stigma already around your average depression and anxiety, but tell people you have BPD and all of a sudden they wonder if you hear voices or actually have other personalities with their own names — which in my case, isn’t necessarily true. I do hear A voice — my voice. Constantly. She’s mean. She is my own personal bully and I fucking hate her. As far as “other personalities” go, I don’t have other personalities perse, but I do tend to adapt to the people around me and will slowly change myself to fit into whatever box I believe I should be in to be considered important in their life — how sad, I know. I think Taylor Swift said it best when she said, “I’m a mirrorball, I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight…I’m a mirrorball, I can change everything about me to fit in.”.
What else is there to tell about myself? I have 3 adopted siblings that I adore so much — two brothers and one sister. My partner and I have the best group of friends and we want nothing more than to get together with all of them more — it’s literally a goal of ours. I love intermingling all of our friends ahhhh! I recently lost one of my best friends, my grandpa Rex, from cancer. I’ve lost a lot of people in my life (through natural causes, suicide and just life), but this was the hardest lost I’ve had to deal with. I’m still learning how to cope with the grief and guilt I feel about his death. The guilt part is tricky…before we moved to the PNW, we lived with my grandparents for a year. My grandpa got super sick during the end of our stay — he couldn’t walk very well, was losing a lot of weight, etc. Our last night there, in the middle of the night, he collapsed on the floor trying to move himself from one place to another and my partner had to help him get back to his chair — that’s the last memory I have of him in person. When he passed, we had been in the PNW for 5 months. Right after we left he was admitted into the hospital and wasn’t doing good. I had been talking about wanting to fly home and see him, but everyone told me not to, that he would be okay and it was the holidays so getting a flight for less than $1000/person was almost impossible at that time, so sadly I never got to go home. The last time I talked to him on the phone via Facetime, he wasn’t speaking (for some reason he woke up one day nonverbal). But I remember when my mom handed the phone to him and he saw me he smiled really big and the whole room got excited — he hadn’t smiled for anyone before that. I remember getting a call in the middle of the night from my dad on January 6th telling me that he passed. I remember scream crying. I felt so fucking angry — and I still do sometimes. I remember being so mad that everyone got to say goodbye and I didn’t. I remember the morning we left for the PNW telling him that I couldn’t wait for him to come visit — and now I’ll always be waiting. I keep hoping I’ll see him in my dreams, but so far that hasn’t happened. I would give anything to see him just one more time. damn it. Although living with my grandparents for the year that we did wasn’t on my bingo card, I will forever be grateful that we did. I will never look back on our time spent there without thinking of him.
Until next time.
xoxo, Chaela.
