11. I moved
to Urbana, OH into my boyfriend’s mother’s house. This was both a good thing
and a bad thing at the same time I think. The house was crowded… really
crowded. Before I moved in, there were six people living there – him, his
mother, his two sisters, his grandmother, and his friend – in a three bedroom
house. After I moved in, his friend started staying with his girlfriend but
then his mother’s boyfriend moved in. There was the living room which had the
end of it being used as the dining room, the dining room that was being used
for his sisters’ bedroom, the kitchen, the one bathroom, and the master
bedroom. Upstairs were the other two bedrooms.
There are a
few memories here that stand out. The best is when I found my cat – yes I still
have this cat. It was the middle of winter and my boyfriend and I were at work
– yes we worked together, that’s how we met… at Lee’s – and one of the other
ladies there came running inside almost screaming that there was a cat outside
that came up to her (the only cats that were around there were feral cats that
would eat out of the dumpster). So I went outside and there was a small black
cat curled up under one of the small bushes against the building… and he was
shivering. So I went inside and got a piece of chicken that had just been
cooked and tore it up into small pieces and took it outside to him. He ate it
of course. But then he kept trying to climb up inside the drive-thru window –
even when there were cars coming through! I tried to chase him off multiple times,
but it didn’t work. I felt horrible leaving him there when we went home that
evening. But when we came back the next morning, he was still there. So I went
outside, picked him up, and put him in the car. We stopped at Petsmart on the
way home to get things for him. His name became Shadow.
Shadow had a
curious nature. One day when we got home, Shadow wasn’t in our room where he
was supposed to be. Sometimes, his sisters would get Shadow out of our room to
play with him, so we asked them if they had him. Neither of them had seen the
cat. We finally noticed that he had knocked the heating vent off of the side of
the wall (it was down by the floor and not really secured at all). So I started
calling for him and I could hear a very faint “meow”. We followed it to the
furnace in the little closet off of the kitchen. He was inside, but thankfully
it wasn’t on. Anyone that knows me knows that I’m an animal fanatic, so when my
boyfriend told me that there was no way to get him out, I flipped. He finally
found a screwdriver and a crowbar and started prying the furnace apart. We
tried to put the furnace back together once we got him out and did a pretty
good job I thought, but it probably never worked the same again.
I also had
my first “cooking on my own” experience while living here. The first attempted
dish? Homemade biscuits and gravy. My mom had always made it look incredibly
easy, so I figured I could do it. The biscuits turned out great. The gravy on
the other hand was a different story. I browned the sausage, added some butter,
milk, and a little bit of flour. But I didn’t know you have to take it off of
the heat to let the gravy thicken, so I kept adding more and more flour. By the
time it was done, I had used half of a 5LB bag of flour. And then it was too thick,
so I kept trying to add more butter and milk to it to thin it back down. But
this was an EPIC FAIL. By the time I was done trying to get it right, it had
turned out to have the consistency of wallpaper paste which made it inedible.
On another
hand, I started Clark State Community College and got another car while living
here. This car was a grey ’99 Chrysler LHS that had almost every option
available. It had a 6-disc CD changer, sunroof, and leather. I sold the LeBaron
and from what I was told, the engine blew in it not too long afterwards.
12. But
after about a year of being there, we decided that we needed to get our own
place so I ended up back in Springfield, OH at Dover Place apartments. It
wasn’t a very big apartment… only about 600sq ft or so. There was a living room
with dining area, small galley kitchen in the back, and a bedroom and bathroom
in the front. It also had a small patio in the front by the door.
Things with
this boyfriend seriously deteriorated after we moved here so there really
aren’t many good memories here. It started with me being in college. He would
tell me that he supported me in going to school, but then would tell me that he
didn’t like me to go to class because he “didn’t want guys to look” at me. He
would have an absolute fit if I got stuck in traffic or if class ran late. Even
if I called him, he would suspect that I was messing around on him. Seeing as
he continuously accused me of cheating, I started to suspect him of it also. I
scrutinized everything that he did. There was a certain group of people that he
continuously was around – even though I wasn’t “allowed” to leave the house –
and I began to suspect one of these women. Granted, I knew that she wasn’t his
type… at all. But hey, he was a guy and most guys I knew just wanted to get it
anywhere they could, so I wasn’t going to dismiss the possibility.
Things
continued to spiral out of control. I had completely dropped out of school but
was still getting loan money, but I used it for us to live on instead of sending
it back like I should have. We spent around $1500 on Christmas gifts that year.
We bought a leather coat for my Dad, a bread maker for my Mom, and a Game Stop
gift card for Boo. The rest of it went to anyone and everyone in his family.
Then in
April 2008, his ’97 Olds Bravada kept breaking down and he was working in New
Carlisle and I would have to take him back and forth to work. I had changed
jobs and started working in Springfield Ford and had to be at work at 6:45AM.
So I would get up and go to work, take my lunch hour to go to the apartment,
pick him up, drive to New Carlisle and drop him off, drive back, work some
more, get off work around 6PM, then drive back to New Carlisle to pick him up,
and then drive back. That took a lot of time and money in gas to do, so after a
couple of weeks, I told him that we either needed to get the car fixed or he
needed to get another vehicle. His response was that he would only get another
vehicle if it was a Mustang. And not just any Mustang, but it had to be a 2005
or newer so that it would have the new body style. So seeing as things were so
screwed up, I figured if he got what he wanted, things would go back to being
good again. So I bought a 2005 Mustang from my work so he could have what he
wanted.
Of course
that didn’t work. So once June came, we took a vacation to Mason, OH to Kings
Island. I paid for us to stay in a suite for two nights, our tickets to the
Beach and to Kings Island, and tickets for four of his friends.
The day
after we got back, he got a late night phone call and told me he had to leave.
He said that his half-sister was going to be sent to juvenile hall for stealing
cigarettes and that he needed to go see her. Mind you, she had been in there
before and he hadn’t seemed like he cared so I didn’t understand why this time
was so much different. It’s not like she was leaving right at that minute, so I
tried to talk him into going to see her the next day but he refused. So it
ended up being a huge fight and he packed some clothes and left.
13. I stayed
in our apartment for another two weeks until I moved back in with my parents. I
couldn’t afford the apartment on my own and quite honestly, I didn’t want to be
there anymore. My parents let me put my things in their storage unit while I
was staying with them so I only had to have a few things in the house.
The month
and a half that I was there was one of the hardest times. I already had trust
issues from how I grew up and I had finally been able to open up to someone and
let my guard down for a while only to have it stomped on. Thankfully my parents
were there for me, even though I moved out in the manner that I did.
14. Once I
got things situated financially, I started looking for someone to get another
apartment with. There was a guy that I had gone to high school with that was
also looking for a roommate, so we agreed to look for an apartment. Next door
to my parents was a duplex and I knew the landlord, so he agreed to rent us the
bottom two bedroom apartment. We were also able to work off part of the deposit
by painting.
It was nice
to have a male roommate. He didn’t hog the bathroom or tell me how to decorate.
He didn’t mind when I put up pictures or mirrors and even helped with the
Christmas tree. I worked first shift and he worked second for the most part so
I was there when he wasn’t and I wasn’t there when he was. We were there
together in the evenings a lot, and we didn’t have cable, so we would go to the
library once a week and rent movies so we could have TV at night while we ate
dinner.
It was while
living here that I met Brian. I had been in the sales department up until that
point at work but I needed a more stable check instead of one that was by
commission, so the owner offered me a position in the service department.
15. There’s
no set time that I moved into Brian’s house. Once we got serious, he eventually
asked me to stay the night. He asked every night for a few months until he
cleaned out some drawers for me and then I think it was implied that I was
staying. But even though I was staying with him, I still paid my portion of the
rent at my apartment so I could have a safety net… just in case it was needed…
up until the lease ended. At that point, I sold a lot of the furniture that I
had in the apartment and moved the rest of it into Brian’s house.
I started
staying with Brian four years ago this coming December. This is where we have
built a life together. He proposed to me here. We have family events here. We
have our life here. I get kinda stir crazy sometimes from being in the same
place for a while and there are times when I would like to get a house together
to where it could be both of ours where we could just start over. But then I
look around and see everything that we’ve worked to accomplish and stop to
think that this was Brian’s vision when he built the house. So that’s still
something that I’m battling within myself. I’ll keep you all updated on that
one. But for now, the number is holding steady at fifteen.
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