Sour Lemons

They say that every closed door leads to an open one, or an open window. They also say that when life gives you lemons to make lemonade. What do you do with the sour lemons, though? What if the open door and window throw you right into a tsunami of shit that you never asked for? Then what do you do?

I left my wife almost a month ago. Our relationship was getting to be extremely toxic and unhealthy, and I could not handle her codependency. I felt trapped by her constant need to have me home. I felt like I could not leave for more than an hour without her trying to find some reason for me to come back. I was unhappy, as was she. We were both trying to work on the things the other needed, but it just wasn't working. We were fighting more, over the smallest things, and I feel that we were beginning to resent each other. So, I left.

When I left, I felt like a weight had been lifted. I no longer had to feel as if the world would come crashing down if I left. I felt like I had been holding my breath for the longest time and I was finally able to let it out again. Don't get me wrong, my wife is not a bad person. Neither of us took the necessary time to heal ourselves, or even begin to sort through the crap we had been through previously before we started our relationship, and so we trauma bonded. It made for a great relationship in the beginning, because we knew what the other had been through, having been through it ourselves. But the lack of therapy for us both, the lack of time before becoming a couple, made things unhealthy. We just didn't see it before it was too late.

Three days before I left, on Thanksgiving, I lost my job. My boss didn't give me much of an explanation, even when I asked for one. I left the following Sunday, going to stay with a friend until I could get into a shelter or some other type of emergency housing. About three or four days later, I lost my car, making getting a new job near impossible without transportation. The friend I was staying with couldn't take me in for very long, as she is married and they don't have very much space in their home. So I spent the week calling every shelter in the area that I could find. I had appointments with two of them early in the week, but I didn't actually get into one until that Friday. I called five different shelters in three surrounding counties. No one had any open rooms. I called each of them three or four times a day, because they could have something come available at any moment, and it is first come, first served.

I was relieved to have finally found somewhere that I could go that would allow me to find work and hopefully be able to help me find housing for those with little to no income. I have been here for about 3 weeks now. I have been lectured on the amount of items I have in my room (which is set up like a hotel room). They expect residents to pay for a storage unit for anything more than "one or two suitcases worth of stuff". How they expect me to pay for a storage unit when I don't have an income is beyond me. This is not something I was made aware of when I entered the shelter, either. While I'm thankful for a place to stay that is relatively safe and has heat, my spirits are pretty low.

I'm not sure if it's the lack of snow or if it's that this is the first year I will be by myself, but it does not feel like Christmas. I'm trying my best to keep myself positive, mostly because I know what happens when I let the depression and anxiety take over. But I am lonely. I am sad. I am scared. This is 100% new territory for me, and I'm not sure what will happen next.