1 City, 3 Homes, 6 Years || My Time in Greensboro

Growing up in the Archdale area of North Carolina, Greensboro was considered the big city. You only went there for shopping and college. I was struggling to find my footing after I returned from Chicago. I didn't know what I wanted to do and I didn't know how I would do it. I got back in the groove of retail management easily enough but even that seemed like a dead end. Any time I tried to move up I was met with the same question: "Where's your degree?". 

I hadn't considered going back to school at all until a good friend of mine at work had told me about how much she enjoyed her classes in the history department. Striving for some sort of stability, I mapped out a possible path with that friend. I would go back to school, study history, and move into education. With the encouragement of some family I did just that. In 2017 I enrolled in school and was moving into a house with a friend of the family. Things were running fairly smoothly as I started school. I had no car, had to quit my job, but was making the best of my life for the first time. Then, unexpectedly, my roommate died. I was living in her house, renting a room from her. All at once I was in jeopardy again. Thankfully, because of the generosity of my family and hers, I was allowed to live out my lease with the discounted rent for the remainder of the year. I made that house my home and things seemed to be looking up again. When the lease came to a close, though, I couldn't find a roommate and it became very clear that with my sole library job at the time, I wouldn't be able to afford it. It was then in the summer of 2018 that I moved into a studio apartment. 

The studio was small, to say the least. I had a bed, private bathroom, walk-in closet, and a shared kitchen. By this time I had bought an old mini van from my parents and was able to secure my first job in education as an after-school teacher. My life was busy. School, two jobs, freelancing on the side, and purely using my studio for sleeping and cooking. To be honest, I hated almost every minute of living there. The people around me were younger by half a decade, they were strangers, they often didn't have jobs and responsibilities like I did, and my busy schedule was putting stress and pressure on me in ways that I wouldn't be able to unpack for years to come. I remember once going to the school's therapist at the on-campus clinic and telling them everything I had gone through in my 1st year and I was literally told "These are real issues. We're not really equipped to help with this. We deal more with homesickness and academic anxiety." While validating to hear that what I was coming up against were real struggles, it was also very disheartening to hear that someone who was supposed to be there to help me, wasn't able or willing to do so.

Things grew more complicated just before the pandemic. Roommates changed, I was gently forced to change my major (story for a different time), and I was growing ever impatient with my stagnant growth in my career(s) (I had one toe in education and one toe in marketing). Once the pandemic hit, I actually began to make strides towards a clearer future. The library I did marketing at essentially promoted me to full-time and had a promise of a salary position once I graduated. The school, although shut down, enlisted my help with IT for the remainder of the school year. By the fall of 2020 I was so stable financially (and happy) that I was able to pull together the resources to get a condo on the nice side of town. As the pandemic raged on into winter, the school let me go. Not a problem, I thought, the library was paying me enough to sustain myself. I graduated that winter. Was hired as a private tutor. Everything was looking up! Then the library let my contract lapse without warning. Unceremoniously I lost my first and only job in marketing. I had a new condo now, but no way to pay for it. 

Again, the generosity of others, or the pulse of the universe, or whatever you believe in, came to my rescue. My private tutoring gig of one turned into a whole pod learning scenario with 4 kids. I was making my weekly fee 4 times over with no taxes being taken out. I spent that time saving, paying bills, splurging when I could afford to. But what was important was that throughout the chaos, I found a way to stay afloat. Schools eventually opened up and one by one my students left the pod learning so I decided to try and go back into education in a more official capacity. Luckily, although my degree was no longer in history, I had enough credits to prove proficiency. I was hired as a middle school teacher with no lapse in time for me to fall behind on any bills. Someone or something was watching out for me (or I'm just a boss like that who has learned how to do anything I can to survive). 

This little condo, with a landlord who lives 60+ miles away but has never left me hanging, has been the sweetest living situation in my recent memory. I am steps away from a park that I can let my dog, Stevie, run around in for hours. My front yard is a small clearing with tall oak trees for shade that I've sat in for whole days during the spring and fall reading countless books. My neighbors are all 30-40 years my senior which means the community is quiet and they often leave me alone. My kitchen door opens to a small patch of grass for Stevie to potty in in the mornings without me having to get dressed. I have a room for me, a spare room/office, a small galley kitchen, a bar table to fold clothes on, a living room with a large picture window. Why would I ever want to leave?

When I left education to further my career in marketing (read this blog for why I made that decision), my new job was in a town 40+ minutes to the West. It honestly isn't a hard drive, two roads and a highway. I would listen to audiobooks for a while until they became too boring and then I could normally listen to whole albums on the drive. But it was still nearly 2 hours out of my day that I couldn't get back. I worried often about Stevie being home for 10+ hours, once she was sick and alone and I hate that I couldn't do something about it. I can hardly do anything after work hours because I knew that I was so far from home. It didn't take me long to realize that if I was going to move forward with this company in a serious way I would need to move. 

And so I am. 

The story of finding the place I'm going to is a good one, so I'll save it for another time. But, as I'm writing this, I am planning to move in a little less than 2 weeks. I began packing up my spare room yesterday and I was filled with emotions and memories of this place, of this city, of this time that I've spent finding myself, losing myself, and just living life. I think it's fitting that I'm starting this move, this new career, this new journey, on the eve of a new decade. Something I never truly did with my time in Greensboro was build community. I found community in the places I went but I don't feel like I ever set down roots. Maybe in the next stage that will change. But for now, I'm happy with the growth that happened here. In a way I'm glad I didn't plant roots because now I can scoop myself up and be repotted somewhere else. 

Six years is a long time to be somewhere. I hope the next place is even longer.