Mumblings of a Muddled Mind

I like to write about what matters to me and to raise awareness for mental health. I suffer from mental illness but that does not define who I am.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Constantly on the move

Last night I was up in my bathroom having a conversation with my cat, Cartman. He responds after I end a sentence so stop laughing already. Anyway, I was babbling about how old he is getting and how he's been through a lot with me. That is when I said "Wow, Carts, you are such a well-adjusted cat for having moved a bunch of different places in your short life." and then I thought "Shit, I have been around longer and in just as many plus more!" I tried to count the number of places. I lived in one spot until I was 8 and then mom and I moved to another neighbourhood and we moved once within it.

That was pretty stable right?
After my mom died I moved in with my aunt and they tried to make it nice for me. They painted it green and purple for me because they were my favourite colours and tried to have me live with them. I stayed at the same school so I could finish grade 8 and it was a long bus ride away. Not only that but I was jealous of her kids for having both parents still alive and together. I was miserable and I didn't want to see happiness I suppose.

I tried moving in with my grandparents after my aunt's place but it didn't go so well. It was a horrible mess, actually. I was angry and they liked to drink. It was a bad combination at the time. They sent me off to live in the Children's Aid Society and I was put into a group home that was co-ed and on a level system. I did not get past level 3 which was the entry level. I was a "problem child" with no counseling at the time and the staff were young and antagonistic. I ended up living on the streets for a while as a result.

After getting picked up by the police numerous times for being AWOL (like I was in some angsty teen army or something)I was threatened with a teen detention center. My grandparents took me back in so I wouldn't have to go there. It didn't work out again (surprise, they were still drinking and I was still angry!) so they sent me to another group home. This time I lucked out and it was all female and it was run by a lovely group of women. I felt cared for there and as if it were a family most of the time, so I was happy.

That is when my dad found out what had happened with my mom and contacted CAS. I had only met him once through an old friend of mine who's mother knew him. He was living in northern Alberta at the time and the CAS offered to fly me out there to see if I wanted to live with him. I arrived out there with my worker and I was so nervous I greeted him with "Oh! Hi! You look like you are pregnant with triplets!"
Luckily for me, he had a sense of humour about his belly. Things went well for a while and my worker deemed it to be fit so I moved in. I lasted six months. I made some awesome friends and was pretty damn popular out there but I seemed to have inherited my father's temper resulting in some interesting moments.

I moved back here to Ontario and back in with my grandparents. They had stopped drinking so much and I was being drugged so I was subdued and zombified. I was not totally innocent either as I was doing a lot of shrooms, lsd and smoking a lot of pot. I lasted there until I was 17 and then I started moving from place to place like crazy.

I think I was just so lost and trying to find "home" that I felt the constant need to move. Always out of place. Little did I know that "home" was in my head. I had my own room in a rooming house at first. After that I had a roommate and we lived in two different apartments. We had a falling out so I moved in with her mother (yes, I know that sounds weird but that's another story)and that is where Cartman was born.I then moved in with my father again who was now back in Ontario.

I lived there with him for a while and decided to get my own place down the street from him. I was trading places with his current girlfriend so she could live with him and I would have my own place for when my ex-fiance was moving back to Canada.

I didn't like it there for whatever reason so I moved to another place a little further away, closer to chinatown. In hindsight it was a good move because the building I was in prior, burned to the ground about 8 months after I moved!

Things did not work out with that guy from Poland and so I moved in with my best friend who wanted to live in the city as she was from the country. We lived together for a year or so and then she wanted to move to Montreal so I was left to find a replacement roommate. That was hell. I ended up moving back in with my grandparents after that for a while to help them out and so I could work and go to school. I was working at the time but never made it into school. My Grandpa died and my Nanna sold the house.

I was pregnant at the time and had nowhere to go. We found this home for pregnant young and troubled women and teens and they accepted me into the home. I was living in a group home all over again only this time, it was hormonal and stinky! Cartman would go on to live at my dad's place until I found my own, which I did.

I got an apartment with my daughter's father but I didn't like that it was only a one bedroom so I put myself on a waiting list for a two bedroom should one come up in the building. Priority was given to families and we counted as that so we moved again but within the same building.

He and I broke up and I moved back to my old neighbourhood around where I went to high school and where the grandparent's house used to be. I thought I would feel more like I was at home. Whatever that meant.
I ended up staying there for four years! I guess I had found my "home". I was also trying to consciously make it my home because I had my daughter to look after now and she needed stability. I was able to provide her with that at least.

I have since moved out of the stinkin' city and into a small town about 40 minutes from the downtown core. I absolutely love it out here but unfortunately, the house we are in right now is not working for us at all. We have a lovely slumlord who knows that there are exposed wires in the walls and floors because rats and/or squirrels (who knows maybe they are mutant rodents for fuck's sake, they sure are loud enough) are chewing them. He doesn't fix anything right the first time but tries to go about the cheap route, which of course never works out! He's pretty damn hot for a guy but he has zero happening upstairs, if you know what I mean. He also likes to go back on his word about things, often. It's time for another move folks!

The good thing about moving this many times is that I have gotten rid of a lot of clutter. If I hadn't moved all of those times, you would be watching me star in an episode of "Hoarders" instead of reading my drivel.

4 comments:

  1. You have had quite a life, my friend. Wow. Cartman sounds fab. How did that name come about? Just curious.

    Love you.

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  2. Hopefully this next move will be the last before we buy our own house :D Then you will truly have a place that you can settle into and call home where we can raise our family in a place we can be proud of!

    @ Sarcastic Bastard: I think Cartman was named after the South Park character ;)

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  3. I moved a lot too, so I can relate, but not for the same reasons. It was because I was a freak with a coping problem, hehe. :)

    Cartman sounds awesome!

    Love and brilliance sent your way!

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  4. exposed wires is a safety hazard. it seems to me you can call the fire marshall or some shit to look at it who will MAKE the landlord fix it right.

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