Meanwhile...

So, when I left you, I was pretty preoccupied with apartment hunting, and the awfulness thereof. Apartment hunting turned out to be, in fact, so awful--and made me feel so inexplicably depressed--that I abandoned it for more than a month, in favor of flipping forlornly through the Ikea catalog and going wedding dress shopping.

(That actually turned out to be a really good choice--the start date of my job ended up getting delayed by an additional two weeks, and it was another few weeks after that before I was finally able to fill my days with billable hours. As a result, I still haven't gotten my first paycheck. Yeah. Also, I found a wedding dress.*)

But at some point I had to get back on the horse, so one afternoon I plugged a new city into Apartment Finder's search, found a new apartment with really good ratings, went for a visit, liked what I saw, applied for a lease, and got one. I will be moving on December 11. Maybe by then I will have gotten a paycheck.

I am excited. I am back to the Ikea catalog, I am looking into getting my grandparents' fabulous mid-century dining room set re-finished, I am bookmarking tutorials for tacky/awesome wreaths with which I can decorate my bachelorette pad. I am throwing myself at startlingly grown-up to-do lists (renter's insurance? a BGE account? a credit card?) and actually making headway on them.** I am doing better than I thought I would. It's not as hard as I thought it would be.

I am also depressed. Still? Again? I'm not sure which. Intermittently, inexplicably. It's all the changes, of course. Probably. Maybe not. I'm not sure. Mostly, I don't really care. I am functioning, it will pass, I'll be fine. Mostly, I'm just tired of having to remind myself--constantly, with great effort--that these are not my real feelings. They feel real, but they are an illusion. The fear that crowds my mind when I'm tired and overwhelmed, the terrible distrust of my own judgment and capabilities, it's not real. It will pass, and my real feelings--the excitement, the confidence, the capability--will remain.

But the depression, as I said, is intermittent. Today was better than yesterday, which was better than Sunday, which was better than Thursday. All of which was probably worse than a month ago, but probably also worse than a month from now. I think we are trending upward.

So, there's that. That, and maybe sometime this week, a paycheck.

We live in hope.

---

*More on that later? Maybe. Probably not. But maybe.
**James has promised me the trophy from this hilarious, deadly-accurate Hyperbole and a Half post. He's right; I've earned it.

Singing along to: Iron & Wine, God Made the Automobile