Hope Returned In The Most Unexpected Way

Something happened yesterday which unexpectedly freed me of the hopelessness that’s hitched a ride for much of the past decade – my landlord raised the rent. I refuse to pay the new amount, so I need to find a new place to live by mid-April.

I never wanted to live where I’m based now, heck, I wanted to leave the day I moved in. But at the time, I didn’t have much choice. I’d needed to bolt from an ‘idyllic’ Yorkshire village following unnerving behaviour from a neighbour. While this place was only meant to be temporary, the smothering fear that I’d never leave has been debilitating. I’m taking this rent hike as the cosmos’s way of nudging me to prepare for the next chapter.

Now, I couldn’t tell you what it’s like to have neighbours with whom you have life-affirming friendships, but that probably accounts for most of us. I could, however, tell you plenty about neighbours hell bent on causing trauma.

My house is connected to neighbours on both sides. I don’t know their names, nor could I confidently pick them out in a crowd. One side refuses to acknowledge my existence. The other side has a militant stance against me feeding birds. (See my previous post for a poem about this depressing situation.)

Some time ago, I made a vow to myself that my next home would have a swathe of forest between me and any people. Saying that, I can’t deny the ache I have for community and I’ve contemplated exploring communal living. I spent much of my childhood in a Camphill Community whose ethos is shaped by communal living, and found it stabilising for my sensitive way of being. Though if it were to be stabilising for me now, at an almost forty-year-old late diagnosed neurodivergent introvert with limited capacity, I’m not sure.

It’s odd to be feeling excited, especially about something as stressful as finding a new place to live, but I’m relishing it. The overwhelm I’ve been experiencing for, well, fuck knows how long really, made excitement foreign; to be in tune with it again is remarkable. Is this the event that shifts my life into something I can enjoy rather than endure? Could this optimistic pondering be ushered along by the higher dose of ADHD medication? Perhaps. Though even if it is, I’m on my knees, thankful.

If you’d like, please weigh in with your thoughts; they’re valued more than you know.