It’s Funny, Really…

I am eating sushi in a hotel suite. It sounds so glamorous. Spicy tuna roll, spicy yellowtail roll, and a hotel room with an office and living area, and two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows. Who wouldn’t want this? Me. I don’t want this. I checked into this hotel because the brand-new condo that I bough less than 5 months ago is full of water. As a first-time homebuyer, I splurged and spent way too much money for my first ever home. It is a lovely 2 story townhome in a condo building. It is 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and just enough space for me, my son, and my dog to enjoy our lives without being on top of each other. Delivery of the unit was delayed by about 9 months because of 100 little issues and then one giant one, which was COVID. There was the pandemic and difficulty in getting supplies, but there was also the illness. Several construction workers and many of the front office folks got COVID in late 2020.

Let me rewind a little bit. The week before I closed on my new condo, the apartment I had been in for 4 great years flooded. Same scenario of water pouring down from above. That was from a fire on the 9th floor that caused the sprinklers to go off. The water had no where to go but down, down, down the walls, the elevator shaft, everywhere underneath that apartment. I was the basement unit under that apartment. That was a headache and I had to stay with my ex-husband for a week before we moved. Never in my stupidest, wildest dreams did I think this would happen AGAIN less than 5 months later.

I don’t go out much anymore (on account of the pandemic), but that night I was finally able to go out with some new friends. I came home about 12:45 am to find water pouring out from under my door into the carpeted hallway. It looked to be traveling to the units on either side of me. I freaked out, I ran back to the lobby and told anyone and everyone who was still standing there. I squished back up through the carpeted hallway to knock on my neighbors doors to see if anyone was home, and then we went in together to survey the damage. I was wearing flip flops and as I stepped onto my hardwood floors, the water came up over the top of my flip flop wetting my feet. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it was flowing towards me. My first panicked thought was that I left the front door open and that this had caused it. Luckily, I was wrong on that, but it was worse. Water was coming in from above, down through any opening – light fixtures, exhaust fans, smoke alarms, and when it couldn’t go anywhere else, through the drywall. I made a video, and my neighbor took a bunch of pictures. And all of this while I’m sobbing and trying to figure out what is so important that it needs to be moved to higher ground.

I should have this down by now. I should understand what protocols, who to call, etc, but I don’t. No one from emergency maintenance was available. About 3:30 or so, a flood remediation crew came out from Manassas, Virginia to start trying to dry things out. I let them in and watched what they did. Then I went and slept on my neighbor’s couch for a few hours.

Sunday was a blur of not enough sleep and anger and explanations and phone calls and hotel bookings. I had to take an afternoon nap to help fix my mind. I emailed work and let them know what was going on. I asked my ex -husband to please keep our son and the dog for the week if he could, which he graciously agreed to do.

I am fucking exhausted. Not from working or packing or any of that. I am exhausted of my life being like this. It feels like crisis after crisis after crisis. I never get a chance to breathe, or hear myself, or heal myself from the crisis before. Am I manifesting negative things? I am trying so hard not to slip back into depression, but the world is trying my goddamn patience.

What is the lesson here? Be positive? Be happy? Find a silver lining? Be able to manage crisis plus a full-time job plus being a single mom plus living in a pandemic with someone too young to be vaccinated? And what if I can’t? What if my nerves are so frayed that I can’t play the long game? Is “life” those 3 minutes I get between when one life crisis ends and another begins? Because I can’t live like this anymore. And JFC the restaurant forgot to add any packets of soy sauce. I tipped 25% to come home to a hotel without my normal home amenities (read: full sodium soy sauce) to eat this dry-ass sushi. Before you tell me to slow down, to cherish these moments, to be present, and to soak it all in, you can come over here with a mop because I have plenty for you to soak up.

Life is good. I feel really positive right now. Positively out of my f*cking mind.