YKWIM #82: Arrivals and departures

I don’t know what to say except it’s Mercury Retrograde and we’re all in misery.

Hey y’all, how’s it going? Happy Father’s Day to all paternal figures and much love to anyone out there for whom today is a tough day. I hope you’re surrounded by supportive friends and good snacks.

My week: Our fridge has been slowly dying for a while and the new one that was brought in on Monday couldn’t fit through our very narrow doorway. A charming century-old apartment is no match for massive modern future. It took until Friday for a new-new one to come in, but don’t worry, the first thing I put in it was a pack of seltzer (duh).

And I don’t know, the whole thing brought up a lot of weird feelings about still being a renter when nearly all my friends are homeowners, though truthfully I don’t even want to buy a house and I especially don’t want to buy a house in Pittsburgh, but I still had these off-and-on pangs of shame for having to rely on an unreliable property manager instead of handling it myself like a homeowner would. It’s this strange FOMO except it’s not a fear of missing out because I know I’m missing out and I don’t even really want what I’m missing out on but FOMO is the closest cultural marker to say how I feel.

Yes, I still have friends who are also renting, yes, I know millions of people in this country don’t own their own home, yes, I know the market is bananas right now, yes, I know homeownership comes with its own stresses, yes, I know, owning a home doesn’t make you an ‘adult,’ yes, I know, I know, I know. My head knows these things but tell it to my heart.

Honestly, it’s not even about owning a home. There were other weird feelings this week that are more complicated and I don’t want to get into them at the moment. All I’ll say is that I’ve been working towards changing some things in my life and I think I might be at that point sometime soon.

Here’s the best way I can describe it: It’s as if I’m at an airport with all my favorite people and they’re waiting for a different plane than I am. While we’re all sitting around, shooting the shit, having as good a time as you can in an airport, I’m a little sad inside. I know I have to get on a different people-mover than everyone else to a different departure gate and to top it all off, I don’t even know where my plane is headed right now. I keep telling myself, I know I’m making the right decision even if it looks wrong to everyone else.

Shit, I’m crying just writing this down. This was NOT at all what I planned for this newsletter, I just started going off about my week and this all came out in one big blob. ANYWAY, wow, thanks for being a friend and sticking around to the end, I really want to delete this entire thing so I’m going to send it in the next ten seconds, BYE!

Love you, take care—

Andrea

Hey friends, thanks for reading this newsletter despite the overabundance of ~feelings~. I write and edit this myself, so please forgive any spelling or grammar errors. Links to my social and website can be found below. If you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee here or here, I will say a cheers in your name. xoxo

@andrealaurion | andrealaurion.com | @andrealaurion