Becoming a grown up

    If you know me you know I've never lived on my own.

(This was written several months ago, and for some reason was only drafted never published )

My life was never meant to be conventional, it simply wasn't in the cards. I graduated high school,

( to the surprise of more than a few) and it only took one extra year to do it. That was because of apathy as much as illness and I never said otherwise. 

     There was never a plan for me to go to college, it was rarely ever even mentioned or joked about except by people who did not know me. I didn't have health insurance after I turned eighteen, and without it health was an issue and I never had "real employment" except for seasonal work at summer camp and a couple of other seasonal camps I loved working for. There was never enough money to pay bills with. If you can't pay the bills you have, how the hell are you expected to move out?

There was no money for college. ( Just skip any presumptions you have there, it didn't exist and the government wasn't giving it out ).

Now skipping a lot of my life to the proto-relevant period, a few years ago I met a girl, she changed my life. Not only for the better but in ways I'm still only becoming aware of. She had her shit together and why she ever put up with me I will never know. 

She had a plan, all her bills were always paid up on time and her car was reasonably nice and her house along with everything in it ; all very well organized. Things weren't the amazing for me back then. I had an Ex- who was an awful creature and was constantly hanging around pretending she was my friend, but the new girlfriend gave me my first taste of being an actual adult person.

I vote, own a gun, drink occasionally; "The adult age stuff" but never had any space that was expressly my own. And while I was with her I pretty much lived at her house, I never had a space which was expressly mine at her place but there were some allowances made for me and it was weirdly gratifying. When that ended there was the throwing of everything back into my parents place. All the old grievances and preconceptions were there waiting for me, anything that was "wrong" was invariably my fault, problem or somehow connected to myself. No matter how it happened or when, hell things that happened while I was away for days or weeks were my fault. Sink full of dishes? My fault, though I hadn't eaten at the house for a month. There was / is a dishwasher that works too.

Now I'm theoretically healthy, if you look at me it's bound to fall out of your face "you look healthy", 

And on the sliding scale of filling a pine box to running marathons I'm closer to "can walk a mile" on the marathon side than the pine box side. But the fact is, fundamentally I am not now nor ever have been "healthy" . It is fair enough to say my baselines are high, rather enough to have employment when I'm not actively sick, but if you can't go an hour without even slightly coughing the realms of employment open to you are limited. 

A while back I met some folks by chance, which is the story of my life certainly and this was no exception to the hilarious and weird tale that is how I come to know anyone and everyone. We are friends of friends, they have a house and after some segways about my health, life and occupational skills they decided I should move in. Now I've always been leery of moving out because I knew I couldn't move back home afterwards the situation simply would not be possible baring extreme illness or worse. I was pretty excited and certainly terrified at the prospects.

 I work a job, sort of; I work four hours a day, three days a week. Which was just paying my bills and assisting in my food requirements. No food stamps or government assistance for some time.

The plan was to convert the laundry room into a bedroom, roughly twelve by thirteen feet. Having a doorway into the Kitchen/hallway of the house, and has a back door into the back yard. It's not a bad space really about the same size as my old bedroom with several important improvements.

1 ) It is not the access to the attic or any other space in the house.

2 ) It does not have a closet taking up valuable space.

3 ) It was in nearly every sense of the phrase; a blank canvas. 

I'd made CAD files of the room's possibilities and hoped to have all the angles figured out. Then while my folks were out of town, we showed up on a sunny day with a truck and trailer and grabbed piles of stuff I figured I needed. That was a month ago.

In a stunning series of health issues which turn into economic issues the room is not done, it's mostly there now but by no means a finished work to anyone's eyes. Other than the doorway I wanted into the house and shelves around the top of the walls; none of it has played out as I had planned or anyone else's plans really. I have a five foot doorway in and out of my room. Yes, it's five feet wide, and if there are ever doors on it I will be ecstatic. 

Why are you building a room with a huge door?

*Good question, but it's the wrong assumption.

     I designed a room which would have two pocket doors, each a full size solid core wood door. Meaning if I had people over we could hang out in my room while food was cooking and it would not feel like a small space.