Montevideo - first 24

 5:45am my cellphone gleamed. Why this early? The shuffling of clothing and sheltered cell phone light coming from the bottom bunk had woken my deep sleep. I tried to pull the covers up a little more over my head, but at that point my mind was already off to the races.

 I thought about him.  That looming fear of him shutting off my cellphone still under his plan, or not paying the credit card bills from the debt he had transferred over to me. It made me mildly ill all of the time, like the slightest tinge of fear running on the backdrop of my existence. I hated it. Especially now trying to rewrite my life without him and he still was there.

I have blamed myself for giving him this control over me. The amount of blame I placed on myself is something I have been working on all year. I’ve been examining then limiting, and lessening the feelings of shame, feeling  dirty, regretful, stupid and ashamed. Hearing the testaments of other young women who had been through the same kinds of manipulation, lies, scheming and seducing made me feel less crazy, a word he often used to describe me, lowering me deeper into a pit of self loathing.

The first year of us being together, when I was asked to move in with him, and move out of the tiny apartment I had scored for a deal on campus, I became suicidal. It made no sense to me why I wanted to cut, and couldn’t remove myself from feeling less than. But I did understand, at least the small voice inside did. It was around the time when we first got serious about exploring his desires for threesomes. This was something he said he would need. The idea ate at my biggest fear- not being enough. Here I was, now living in a giant hillside mansion, with my dark prince in shining armor and he literally was telling me, nope you’re amazing and all, but I will need more. Like vodka or cocaine I found myself in a reality where I couldn’t imagine life without something, and I couldn’t imagine continuing life with the exact same thing. This predicament made suicide look like a viable solution. I sought counseling and cried a lot.

 Now in Montevideo, 2 and a half years later, he still controlled parts of my life even though I was so far removed. The similar nausea I felt when he would suggest how pretty my friends were, or his friends were, I now had when I received emails from credit card companies. He had taken giant chunks out of my existence and piecing them back became more difficult when at 33 I had to hear that 19 year olds were doing the same because he had dissected their lives too. I hated him for this. Those memories passed through parts of my morning subconscious. I needed a shower. I needed to be clean, and warm and alone.

 I did the routine check of my bank accounts, social media, Airbnb, credit cards, and phone service. Everything was on and functioning normally, check. I crept down the ladder of my bunk’s steps trying carefully not to slip and cause a greater noise waking up the rest of the sleeping women lining the walls in their respective bunks. When I was able to tip-toe out of the room, bath towel and toiletries under my arm, the first bathroom I approached had a closed locked door. The second did too. Slow breaths, this will not bog me down, their showers will end soon.  I repeated inner mantras to not lose it entirely in rage or surrender and topple onto the floor dramatically. I was feeling both dramatic and tired.

 I held it together for the total of 45 seconds before one of the doors opened and I would have my turn. The bathroom was tiny. For a week I had been showering in a public men’s shower with a chaperone to make sure I wouldn’t get harassed so this was a small slice of heaven, in its tiny cramped existence. The slow stream of watered alternated from hot to luke warm which amplified my fear that at any minute it would be out of hot water entirely, but I relished the privacy. It both made me smile and cringe that I was in a situation, or a part of my life where my only personal area was a shared showered, that doubled as a bathroom, in a hostel. I had friends back home that were buying their first house and garage-sale-ing on Saturdays to accumulate stuff for their new pieces of owned space. I was relishing in 5 minutes of a shared shower.

 My physical possessions had been reduced to easily movable items, art pieces in friend’s apartments, art supplies in my parent’s garage, and two suitcases. My physical space was always overlapping someone else’s physical space, in tandem, in contrast, in community, in chaos, and in harmony. It has painted 2018 with the color of a sharing economy warrior, mixed with frustrated, and unproductive nomad. I long for personal privacy, and I crave community and freedom. So here I find myself, forcing a slice of heaven out of a cramped, shared, hostel bathroom for a 5 minute shower that I would need to extend into a week’s back log of desired solo naked peace.

The shower ended before I could shave my legs, which was fine. With the smell of shampoo and soap I felt new. The hostel was starting to wake up and buzz as I crept out, and back into the shared room. I love that buzz, it holds you. I returned to the dining room where I had been engaged in lively conversation the night before, to find the same people filtering in, this time quiet and half awake. Small talk was minimal before coffee. Living with so many people, and with less space of your own softens the edges around the areas in which you think you are unique, or weird, or different or fearful. There is no choice to attend the holiday party or not, because in order to eat breakfast, you will need to share a large dining room, and meal with 20 strangers, half awake and looking like it. Like jumping into a heated pool in the winter, its seems crazy and uncomfortable and once you get in and start swimming you’re fine. In fact better than fine, you are floating.

 That morning I would run four miles to find the host of the Airbnb who had lost her phone the night before and get the keys. Soon I would find my solitude. I said goodbye to the friends at the hostel and gathered all of my things into my back pack and rolling suitcase and started the urban hiking adventure, suitcase in tow, to the Airbnb. Privacy, peace, I could hear its sirens call.

 That day I took a three hour nap in my new temporary home. I fell asleep, stayed asleep, and then woke up with no one knowing. An eerie feeling to be so alone. Beautiful, and scary. Tomorrow would be a new day and one step more away from the past and closer to the present I wanted to expereince.