not goin' anywhere fast.

Up until about an hour ago, I thought I was moving.

I am not. 

Last week, I stumbled onto the Edison Apartment listings on their website and was shocked to discover a 2BED/2BATH unit for $2,895. For the area, that's an incredible price. I jumped at it. While I can't say I've been hardcore looking for a new place, it's on my mind a lot. I'd like to have a baby and I'm not sure how I would fit a baby into my current apartment with Harvey and me. This nags at me. Sure, I'm not pregnant yet and maybe this move would be a little premature, but I also work from home. A 2BED unit would allow me the ability to separate my work life and home life a little bit more than I currently do. So, it seemed like a win-win situation. The price hike was giving me some nerves, but I felt I could make it work. Plus, when would I find another unit of equal size for $2,895?

Well, turns out, I never will. 

In the midst of negotiating the move-in date and working through the details of the finances involved in transferring from one unit to another, I learned that $2,895 is for NEW residents only. Current Edison residents like myself are only offered the market price; which in this case is $3,605. $710 more than listed. Way, way out of my budget. I could not even consider that. 

So, I'm not moving. Despite days of thinking and planning and worrying and adding necessary things to wishlists, it's all done and over. We are staying put. And I'm sad about it. I was nervous and excited about the idea of moving and now that the possibility has been ripped from my fingers, I am feeling rather hopeless. The floor just dropped right out from under me.  

Le sigh. 

this is 40.

Every time I try to re-launch my blog, I do one, maybe two, maybe even three posts and then abandon the idea for another couple of years. However, every time I open the blog to look up something obscure from my past, I wish I was still doing it. So, with that in mind, I will attempt yet another re-launch. I say this like anyone else is reading this but me. It's not intended for mass consumption, or even for friends at this point. This is just for me. While Instagram is a pretty great way of documenting things, it does lack the long-form format of a blog. Hey, anyone else remember Livejournal? 

Speaking of Livejournal, I just turned 40 last Sunday. That's a heavy statement for me. Intellectually, age is just a number, life is what you make it, you're only as old as you feel, yadda yadda yadda. But, for women, it's an alarm bell in a way that it's not for men. Or, it can be depending on what you want in life. I'm single and childless and would definitely not like to be, so it's more like a siren. They say the biological clock ticks, but at 40 it feels more like a second-by-second gong. With that gong comes questions of personal value; why am I seemingly the last girl at the dance? Why are other people falling in love, getting married, having babies, and in some cases, getting divorced all while I am perennially alone? 

I could blame Martin, I suppose. He wasted 3 solid years of my 30's leading me nowhere. If he were reading this now, he'd say we were just friends and he wasn't leading me on. But he was never turning me away either. He was allowing me to follow. He did not attempt to deter me. He kept me wanting more and thinking so often that if I was patient more would come. That situation burned me out in a way that I have yet to recover from fully. I haven't seen or spoken to him since May of 2020 and yet here I am thinking and writing about him. Still in disbelief that he's actually married and that I could be so stupid. Still replaying everything. Still believing that what we had was special and real. I imagine that's not the case for him. However, he won't attend any work events that he knows I'm attending and he refuses to attend even the digital meetings I'm invited to. I guess it could be a coincidence, but it feels like more. But I guess I always read too much into everything Martin does and I should have learned better by now. 

Fuck, I just realized it's his birthday today. What are the odds that I would be writing this today? Universe, what the actual fuck? 

Anyway, I'm 40. I'm single. And I'm childless. This year I'm going to try to remedy at least one of those things. If this post is the only post I make in 2024, when I inevitably return and attempt yet another re-launch, I hope I'll have at least accomplished that. 

Fingers crossed.