So my roommate informed me tonight he's not going to re-sign our lease. We've been living together for close to 7 years now.
Things have not been great between us. Won't get into it, but over the course of 2020 there was a shift in our relationship and we went from being long-time friends to merely sharing a living space. Known this dude for over 20 years now. At one point I was furious and looking to move then and there. After I calmed down I realized I didn't really want to go through the hassle.
So when our lease renewal came up, I was dreading it because I knew there was a good chance I'd have to move. So I wasn't surprised when he did that "Hey, wanted to let you know...." thing.
What surprised me, and gave me my WTF, was my reaction to it.
After I went back to my room I.....think I may have had a literal panic attack. My skin became insanely hot and I started pouring sweat. It was dripping down my face and soaked my hair in moments. My stomach knotted up and my heart started racing. I had to sit there and just breathe, mentally trying to tell my body to chill the fuck out, that this wasn't a thing to truly stress over, that I had at least a month to really get things figured out. Then I started googling apartments for rent and the feeling subsided as I had something to focus on.
I've had moments of acute stress in my life, but I'm still surprised at myself. I know I'm not good at adulting. It fills me with dread. The time. The money. The mistakes one can make. I'm not a fan. I can handle it, get things done. But I hate every minute of it.
Despite there being a lot of things I didn't like about this arrangement, it was stable and I hate instability and unanswered questions more than anything. And on the scale of adulty things that are cause for instability, moving and finding a place to live ranks just below changing jobs, getting married and having kids.
That and, while I have a good job, my cost of living is about to go way up. Been splitting rent and utilities with someone for a long time now. I'm probably? ok. But I'm going to move from putting money away to possibly only breaking even at best. For a side-grade if anything. Going to have to sink some money into actual furnishings, too.
UGGGGGHHHHHH I hate adulting. Trying to see the bright side but it'll probably take me awhile. Not having to walk out to the literal edge of the property to smoke. Not having the smallest room in the place. Not having to listen to comically loud yawns through the other side of the wall. I am looking forward to living alone (I think?) for the first time in a long time. But it dawned on me that, while covid has been going on, I've been kinda blithe about the isolation and I don't actually know what it's like to live alone anymore. Despite not talking to my roommate for days or weeks at a time sometimes, the apartment is too small to let one ever forget there's someone else in it.
So UUUGGGGHHHH. And I'm a little concerned about my panic attack. The last time I had a physical reaction this severe to something, it was when I nearly got one of my fingers cut off in a fork lift. This felt eerily similar to what I felt in the doctor's office then sitting in the doctor's chair while people fussed over me: heat, extreme sweating, nausea, mental vapor lock. I guess my body and/or mind was just as thrown off by that as this. Truth is, any time I've ever been wounded significantly to the point I lose blood, I experience something similar. I've been dreading this moment but I didn't expect to react so negatively to it happening.