The Thrill of Being In Motion
lexapro, month three: moving back to the city and de-influencing home ownership
Sorry for writing less lately, the SSRIs have got me packing boxes and selling all my stuff on the internet!
Okay, it’s not just the Lexapro, I don’t want to give the drug too much credit, but I don’t think I could have admitted to myself that we needed to move in my previous state of agitated despair.
Everything seemed too impossible then, but now it just seems kinda hard, and a little bit annoying. I’ve developed this strange ability to notice when I’m irked, say something to myself like, wow, that’s pretty annoying, and continue on my way. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to zen, I think.
My chemical unburdening has changed my close relationships, too. I love my dogs again, for one, because I now have the patience and confidence to train them. It’s cheesy as hell, but I guess they are better dogs now because I am a better me?
I used to lean my big feelings pretty heavily on my partner, but now I’ve become the calm one telling them it’s all going to work out, which has made a little room for them to unload some of their big feelings, too. This is how I discovered that they weren’t happy in the suburbs either, and I wasn’t the only one who felt like my life was over.
Gray and I bought our house four years ago, right around the time I started writing this newsletter. I think this is actually the longest, most consistent stint that I have ever done anything for money — my work life before this was a series service jobs and gigs cycled through in volatile seasons.
This house anchored me; my desire lines have worn grooves in her creaky wood floors, the ones we unearthed from old carpet, staple by rusty staple. But my life is also a series of projects, and I am cursed to forever race my waning attention for any given one, before interest jumps me sidewise into something else.
They talk about an inner sense of restlessness in ADHD, ‘being driven by a motor’, but I wouldn’t describe it that way. I think of the feeling I get on a train platform, that thrill of being in-between places, in motion. I love that feeling, going somewhere and leaving something, the mix of excitement and nostalgia.
A house in the suburbs doesn’t feel like that. It’s a stationary life, where walking has no purpose because everything you need is too far away, so you end up having to go on scheduled walks around the neighborhood for the sole purpose of wiggling your joints. You’re not going anywhere or leaving anything, just wandering in circles for the sunlight. I hate it, and I hate the person the suburbs have made me — isolated, fearful, sedentary.
