A moment of clarity

Shaking off the weird stuckness of the past couple of- however longs. A clarifying conversation yesterday around some stuff happening that I didn't understand but do now really helped. It occurred on the same day as the following strange tumble of events:

Waking up realizing I am leaving next Friday for the month of July and my lease is up August 1st. Emailing my landlord to see if he'd be okay with me going month to month after that. No, he would not be- he wants to snag the incoming students in August, or I could stay until December. I don't want to stay until December, even though I have no clear idea where I'm going. He did say if I could find someone from my graduate college who could be flexible about move in, that would work for him and he'd pay me $100. So I put out the alert and no one is into it. 

It quickly dawned on me that I need to move before I leave next Friday. So I scrambled, rented a storage unit ($48 a month!) and reserved a UHaul truck for next Wednesday. The plan is that I am going to put everything in storage before I leave (except the cacti, which are going to the neighbor's yard, and the few record albums I have left, which the neighbors are kindly taking until I figure out my next situation). So weird- I woke up not really realizing that yes, next week is the last week of June, yes it is. When that really sank in, it became crystal clear that I have to move pronto. 

I've been so buried in the dissertation and matters of my meat-grindered heart that I have not really been thinking clearly. But I know I'm not going to stay here in Tempe after July if I can help it, and I am ready to move out of this little hermit cave anyway, which truthfully has a great many intensely sad memories associated with it. I didn't even realize that until yesterday. I was feeling more like "ah what a shame I have to leave my cozy little place and nice patio and nice neighborhood," but I paid attention and realized I wasn't feeling it. I was feeling like I just want this entire chapter of my life to be fucking over to whatever degree is lovingly possible, and a huge part of that will be moving out of here, even if I do end up having to stay around for another semester or whatever. I don't want to run, or burn any bridges, or fool myself into thinking a geographical cure will resolve all of the pain I'm in, but it will certainly help. I do acknowledge this place as a great place for me to have worked on the diss, and a sanctuary to some degree- but also- a hermit cave, lonely- associated with the weird idea that someone was going to visit and no one ever did, and with memories of being face down for days on end over the holidays, and so on and so forth.

There's a huge difference between chronic low level background heartache and snapped to it flat out clear as fuck sharp as a sword surgical incision heartache and suddenly everything moved from one to the other yesterday. 

Here's to yet another change, not so gracefully orchestrated, but it is what it is. It feels real and like it's what needs to happen.