April 22nd, 2016

I’m currently sitting on my twin-sized bed with my unicorn themed lamp shining brightly on the bedside table. Justin Timberlake and the gang are staring back at me from the *NSync posters taped up on my walls. My purple dresser is scattered with Wet N’ Wild makeup and a bottle of Britney Spears’ Curious perfume. The desk on the other side of my room is bare except for a few R.L. Stine books and the entire Harry Potter series stacked neatly on top of it. This, in every form, is hell.

I suppose I should explain so this journal entry will make sense to my elderly, and slightly senile future self. Yes, I’m sitting in my childhood bedroom at the age of twenty-nine with a large glass of wine in hand because I live with my parents…again. They’ve preserved my room like it’s a museum exhibit open to the public for admiration.

So, how did I get back here? Well, it’s a funny story.

I’ll go back a few months to January 21st, 2016, my 29th birthday. Like most people, I was looking forward to celebrating. I wasn’t scared of being another year closer to saying goodbye to my twenties because I had a plan. I was one year away from achieving my goals and having it all. I had the job, the fiancé and even the realtor. And why are you speaking in past tense, Abigail? Just keep reading.

I woke up that morning with an extra bounce in my step. I was four months into my promotion as Bank Manager and six months from my wedding day. The fact that I was one month behind my projected schedule for finding a new home didn’t even bother me. No, I’d decided that day was going to be a good day but boy was I wrong. 

Walking into what I thought was an early birthday surprise from my staff, turned out to be a catastrophic speech from management about cutbacks followed by a termination letter with my name on it. The bullshit part was that I didn’t even get a lousy happy birthday. Not even a crappy piece of grocery store bought cake. I’d been there five years and nothing. I was devastated.

I left the bank shaking, and as I rode the subway to Derek’s place,(That’s my fiancé. Well, was my fiancé.) I was ugly-crying my eyes out. The strange looks I got didn’t bother me. I’d never been let go from a job before. I felt so inadequate, but I knew Derek would comfort me. He always knew what to say to make everything better. Except for that day. No, that day he decided, as I had mascara tears streaming down my face, to tell me he couldn’t marry me.

WTF?! Apparently, he’d been planning all along to tell me…ON MY BIRTHDAY! The man I was going to marry, have babies with and grow Allie and Noah Notebook type old with was just a big, stupid jerk. How could I have not known? I was blinded by love, that’s why. I’d desperately chased the ideal of having a career, husband and family, like Kim Kardashian. I truly thought Derek was my Kanye but it turned out he was just my Kris Humphries. I was so focused on following the plan, that I ignored all of the signs that pointed out our failing relationship. But, more on that another time.

After that I found myself at home with a bottle of wine every night for two months. I still hadn’t found a job and I quickly learned that not paying rent on an executive condo suite in the city gets you evicted and out on your ass.

Fast forward to today, and I still have no job, no fiancé and no realtor. My savings are in the form of a ridiculously expensive designer wedding gown with a custom veil that I’ll never wear and I’m now down to my last credit card. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a Bank Manager. But Abigail, now you get to live at home and be spoiled by your parents again. What could be better than that? I should slap myself for thinking that.

While it was generous of my parents to take me back in, the past month has been so unbearable I scream into my pillow every night. I’m woken up at 6am every morning by the sound of a vacuum. Every. Single. Morning. I get to see my father take dramatic puffs from his inhaler each evening and my mother yell loudly in his good ear to take the trash out. I have no privacy and I won’t even get started about taking long showers. Those are now non-existent, like my dreams.

So why did I start this journal? I read an article once about how writing down your feelings is self-soothing to the soul. Similar to wine, but I thought maybe I’d try something that won’t leave me hungover in the morning. I am beginning to realize that I was only in love with love, or rather the concept of love. I’ve even been questioning whether I ever really wanted to marry Derek. This journal is basically to help me figure out what the heck I need to do to get my life back. I guess I will see how it goes. For now, my mother is yelling across the house for me to help her rewind a CD…