I finally unpacked a box.

Have you ever had a complete moment of clarity?

I don't know what my mindset had been the past couple of years. I have been perfectly fine, up until this point, to just get by. Not necessarily in a bad way. I haven't settled myself anywhere, because I had no idea what the plan for my life was. At this point, last year, I was living in a cute house with my friend and his dad. My family life hasn't always been the greatest, and while it's better now, it's really only good when I'm not living at home. I wasn't financially stable enough to be living on my own, so my friend and his dad invited me to stay there. The only problem was that I never let myself settle. 

I never unpacked any boxes. I never hung up artwork, or even let myself call where I was living "home". That housing arrangement ended up not working out because we were renting the house, and life happens. I bounced around last year... an insane amount actually. I even house sat one of the preschool parents' houses for two weeks while they were in Italy, for the pure and simple reason that I had NO WHERE else to go. It was the saddest and craziest time of my life thus far.

At the end of those two weeks, I was texting a friend of mine who owns his own house, and now I rent the downstairs floor from him, and I love it. Obviously I'm not going to stay here forever, but I had a major revelation last night. After I posted last night's blog post, I was sitting on my bed, watching Glee on Netflix (again) and looking around my room pondering my life and it's direction. I have boxes that aren't unpacked. I've told people I've unpacked, but I really haven't. In all honesty, I've been afraid to. I haven't had much stability in my life... like ever, so to let myself unpack boxes means that for the next 6 months or year or whatever, that I'm okay calling this place "home". 

I love my space. My room is really big, and fits all of my things, and there's room to spare. Right now, half of the room is packed up boxes, but last night, I unpacked one. I actually ended up throwing most of what was in it away. I was looking through this box that has been packed since LAST JUNE. Last June was when I moved out of the house with my friend and his dad, and until I moved into my current house, these same boxes were in a storage facility. Now, they're in neat piles in my room, and since I moved in, I've been living around them. I haven't felt a need to unpack them. I haven't felt a need to settle, because if I settle, that means that I am allowing myself to be emotionally vulnerable.

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, emotional vulnerability isn't my strong suit.

So, long story short, I finally unpacked a box. I feel secure enough in my life that I unpacked a box. Tonight, after writing this post, maybe I'll unpack another one. Maybe I'll unpack another one tomorrow night and one mroe the night after that.

But there has been a step in the right direction.