mistressofmuses

So all of this frustration is certainly not the best way to spend a birthday that Alex has ever had, ugh. And we got dinner, but it seems to have disagreed with him. Crapass birthday. :/

 

In another kind of weird note, I realized just HOW different having an apartment is than living in the car. Not that it isn't completely obvious every day, but it really struck me today. March so far has been record-breakingly cold in Colorado. Lots of below zero temps, with news articles heralding the fact that it was the coldest March day (not just for the date, but for the whole month) in 139 years. I don't like the cold, and I basically never make that a secret, lol. But as annoying as it is when I have to walk across a parking lot or the like to run errands, I haven't noticed the cold nearly as much as I thought I would. And it drove home how comparatively lucky I am this winter as compared to last. I go from my climate-controlled apartment to the car to my climate-controlled office and back. So I don't HAVE to feel the cold so strongly and constantly now. Last year, we had to loiter in a Starbucks as late as they were open and then spend the night in a freezing car, trying to stay warm but not risk running the car too much and running out of gas or drawing attention, because sleeping in a car overnight is illegal.

 

I'm continually grateful that we're in the position we're in now, even as I'm constantly terrified that it will be taken away. (This is apparently very common for people who have been without housing and then get it, and I know Alex has a lot of anxiety around it.) I'm always scared something will happen to take this away from us. In theory, we are "safe" for another six months, and then it's time to renew the lease. We should still be all right after that, but I'm still afraid they'll change their requirements, or decide there's been some mistake and we have to leave... I don't know when or if that anxiety will ever go away. It's been about six months, but we were homeless for five+ years. This got more introspectively whingey than I wanted it to, haha.