In my last post, Moving and Miracles, I told you about a few of the times I had to move. One of those times my living arrangements didn’t work out. I would like to tell you that story now. This particular move taught me a life lesson that I still find valuable today.
The day I left my ex-husband, I went to a women's shelter. Nervous, alone and perhaps a bit naïve, I arrived at the safe house. A young woman greeted me and helped me bring my things inside. I told her my story. About my husband's erratic behavior and verbal abuse. About my lack of close friends and nearby family. About my mound of insecurities. She agreed that the shelter would be a good option for me.
I felt intimidated by the shelter when I arrived. My roommates were nice enough and helped me the best they could. But it still didn’t take away the feeling of being lost. It had been six years since I had been on my own. And before that I had only lived on my own for less than a year. How was I going to handle this?
One of the house rules was that you must be actively looking for a place to live. To be honest, this kind of terrified me. Housing in the area wasn’t cheap and I feared I could not find an affordable place. That’s when I started praying.
A few days later, it seemed my prayers had been answered. A mother and her adult daughter, who we will call Audrey and Desiree respectively, approached me. “There’s a house for rent over on…” Audrey said, “They are renting the bottom and the top separately. We are going to rent the downstairs and, we don’t want just anyone renting the upstairs. We want someone we know we will be safe with. Someone cool. Like you.” Wow! What a quick answer to my prayers. How nice of them to think of me. I agreed almost immediately. Within days, I had an attic apartment. And to top it off, I had made new friends. I finally felt hopeful.
Right after I moved in, Audrey and Desiree introduced me to our neighbor, who I’ll call Peter. Peter knew the previous renter of my apartment and he wasted no time bringing up the subject, “So that guy who lived there before you, he went to jail.”
I nodded; Audrey told me this before I moved in.
“You wanna know why he went to jail?” Peter asked in a conspiratorial tone, “He stole a bunch of food from the store over there.” He pointed to a grocery store less than a block away.
“Oh,” I said. Because what do you say when you hear something like that? “And I took some of it from him. But it’s not like I did anything wrong. He wanted to give it to me, and so I took it.”
O-kay, I thought to myself as Audrey and Desiree stood, nodding in total agreement. Then I saw the flicker of a red flag, waving in the corner of my consciousness. But they're my friends. The thought rushed into my mind, crushing my doubt. Peter might be a bit morally ambiguous, but Audrey and Desiree? They helped me in my hour of need.
Some time later, Audrey had me come down to her part of the house. She was sitting in the living room with Desiree. “Would you like to have me put some blond streaks in your hair?” she asked. “I’m a hairdresser and can do it for you. I just need you to help pay for the dye.” I had never dyed my hair before and the idea intrigued me. What a nice gesture.
“Sure I will,” I said. No sooner than the words had left my mouth, Audrey started to speak in Pig Latin to Desiree. While I sat there, smiling, that little red flag poked up it’s head again. And again, I ignored it. If they wanted a private conversation, then let them have it. They were still my kind, accepting friends. Right?
After their “conversation” Desiree asked me if I would take her to get some hair dye. I agreed, because what else would a good friend do? We went to a beauty supply store where Desiree picked out some blond dye. As agreed earlier, I paid for the dye, fully believing my new friends would pay me back with a new hairdo.
But when we got back, mother and daughter wanted to watch a movie with me. The blond streaks were forgotten for the evening. In fact, a week went by and it was never mentioned. There’s that pesky little red flag again. In time I forgot about it. I didn’t really want to mess with my hair color anyway.
So I continued to live in my attic apartment for a couple of months. Occasionally Audrey or Desiree would ask me for a favor and I would continue to oblige. It wasn't that bad, even though they never once said “thank you” or offered to return the favor. Am I seeing that red flag again? Huh. But otherwise I couldn’t complain about my living arrangements. Or should I say I didn’t.
Peter had a penchant for using a chainsaw. Which wasn’t so bad, until he started using it at four am. There were also loud parties on the weekend and a whole other host of things that I don’t want to get into here. Many of them brought up those red flags that I was insisting on ignoring. But I figured I should just deal with it. After all, everyone has problems with their neighbors. If I moved somewhere else, there would just be different problems. It was worth it to have my new friends so close by.
Then one day Desiree got a job. When she told me, she seemed pretty proud of herself, which I suppose is to be expected. I didn’t think much of it until about a week later when mother and daughter asked me for a ride to a friend's apartment.
I use the word “apartment” here loosely. It was really just a revamped hotel room. It was about a third the size of my current living space, featured a microwave instead of a stove and the only sink was in the bathroom.
The friend in question was a man who talked the whole time about the money he made as a logger. Apparently he was in between jobs and planned to move out very soon.
“So how much do you pay for this place,” Audrey asked.
I don’t remember the amount he said but it was too much; I paid less for my apartment. An apartment with a real sink and stove.
“Wow,” Audrey said, standing up and stretching her arms out, as if awed by the beauty of some grand, celestial space, “All of this for only…”
Seriously? I thought. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. One that illuminated a red flag the size of North Dakota. These people didn’t really want me to meet their friend. They wanted to try and trick me into moving into his “apartment” when he moved out. It all made sense. Now that Desiree had a job, she could afford to rent out the upstairs. So it seemed like I wasn’t the only one having problems with my living arrangements.
It wasn’t long afterward that I started looking for another place to live. After living there for four months, I was done with being used, the loud parties, the early morning chainsaws, and a whole slew of other “questionable” things that happened, many of which had their own little red flag attached that I either explained away or just ignored. To tell the truth, I’m a bit embarrassed that I stayed for that long. But staying there taught me that I should not ignore signs that something may be off in a situation or another person’s behavior. I’m not saying you should never give someone the benefit of the doubt, but you should give heed to warning signs, especially if they are regularly repeated. My willingness to finally see these flags was all that I needed to decide to move on with my life and into the mother-in-law apartment that I mentioned in my last post.
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