Moving In, Moving On, & Bastille Day
On the days leading up to my move from my parents’ house back to Iowa, anxiety electrified my brain causing moments of short circuiting. When I should’ve been packing, all I could focus on was the trivial things. Like the entirety of the next year of my life, and breathing, and how I could have been so blind to the massive tumor that was my previous relationship, and breathing.  Never minding the ex himself, my mind was only capable of criticizing my past self for letting things get so unhealthy. That, and judging my future self for things that had yet to happen.  And breathing.
Looking in the mirror at my snot-nosed face surrounded by un-packed wine glasses, period panties, and cold medicines I would hopefully not need this summer, I decided the best method of action was to sleep and get on with it. I needed to not stop or perpetuate the uneven electric current, but let it run its course, then knock the fuck out.
It’s a strange thing to let yourself be anxious. To just sit around and cry and feel your heart beat so hard it feels like it’s trying to fuck your veins. And when your room in your parents’ house has giant mirrored closet doors, you’re forced to watch yourself panic, red-faced and sweaty.
Eventually I fell asleep, knocked the fuck out.
Fast forward to getting on with it. To getting it on.
My present self knows that people do not cure short-circuits, the right voltage going to the right place does. However, sometimes people and their sparks can help, the emotional and physical intimacy they’re capable of providing. Easing the pain as some would call it.
And that’s what happened my first night back. Sparing the juicy details, it was one of those glass-of-lemonade conversations that washes over your worries and turns them into excitement. It was one of those against the wall, on the sink, in the shower hanky-pankies that reminds you what a healthy connection feels like.  He was the reason I had come back into town a couple days early. I wanted to see him before he left for a week long trip to Pennsylvania the next morning.
The next day we said our bitter goodbyes and I retrieved my keys from the landlord. The day after that I was finally set to move in.
As my air pump vehemently blew air into my new mattress, I became aware of an anxiety I had forgotten about, the anxiety of the present. It was an emotion I had attempted to distance myself from by boxing it off as belonging to either the past or future. Yet, there I was face-to-face with it in the present, its tense eyes blazing into mine. I was unreasonably worried that my new roommate who I had yet to meet would judge me and the loud noise coming from my room. Â I figured she would think I was drilling holes into the walls like a mad woman, or I had a kink for extremely powerful vibrators. Any other person would assume it was a hair dryer or rightfully an air pump, but irrationality made me believe I was going to be judged.
It took me two days to meet my roommate. The first day I tried to string together a picture of what I thought she might be like based on the detailed clues she never meant to leave; the all-natural soaps in the bathroom, the strong, shiny black hair in the shower, the various sauces with the Chinese labels in the kitchen. When she finally appeared while I was cooking dinner the next day, she asked no questions about my noisy air pump. She asked only the big things like how long I’m subleasing, what I’m studying in school, where I’m from.
It was then I noticed how rash my fears had been and remembered an important self-inflicted instruction from several nights prior, the night I attempted to simultaneously pack while fighting off a panic attack. My future anxiety had become present, but then dissolved into nothing. It didn’t become a past anxiety, it became a passed anxiety. I had to take a step back to remember to separate reality from irrational fear,  a coping strategy so obvious if you can only remember to do it.
With this mindset I was able to brush off the fact that my room was depressingly ill-furnished, and that my car was stuck in the parking lot I stationed it in for the move because someone had lowered the pass-code protected gates overnight. I simply emailed my landlord asking for the key code to raise the gate, and told myself there was nothing I could do but wait. Â A broken candle, a missing kitchen knife set, a dirt-spilled-on-the-clean-carpet fern later, and I was moved in. Another task to check off and drink to.
In this town, there are only two ways to celebrate. The first is going downtown to a crowded bar and spending way too much money, and the second is going to a BYOB house show where you can get drunk for cheap but have to pay the price of seeing your ex. That night my friends and my wallet were leaning toward the latter.
In-between sets, I shuffled outside to the smoking porch for some fresh tobacco air and the promise of catching up with my band mate. However, one of my ex’s minions didn’t hesitate to join in our conversation.
His bro-ey buzz cut head hovered near us like a vulture. Every few minutes minion boy would interject, his wet-cough laugh following unwanted remarks.
Trying to ignore him, I continued gushing to my band mate about my move until he interrupted mockingly, “Oh, but I thought you were shacking it up with your drummer.”
I paused, turning to him with livid stillness.
“What?” I asked. I didn’t know what shacking meant, but I did know the way he said it intended to shame me. As he repeated himself, I imagined grabbing him by the collar of his stolen Hawaiian shirt and spitting on his stupid sneakers.
Instead to my dismay I calmly replied, “No, I’m talking about my move because I’m subleasing for the summer, but we are still dating.”
“Oh, I thought you were shacking it up.” Another infantile gurgle of a laugh.
“She’s an independent woman doing her thing,” My saintly friend commented. With that it had been established to everyone outside that minion boy was the dick of the night and needed to slither back to his cave.
Later, I found myself alone in the kitchen conveniently as my ex walked through. I thought back to the dozens of panic attacks he had caused during and after our relationship, the hurt, the blame, the manipulation, and of course his minion’s comment. Most importantly, I remembered that all of that was in the past, a worry I no longer had to anticipate.
I took a swing from my PBR and uttered, “How’s it goin’?”
“Good.” He replied as I left the room, not looking back in my metaphoric rear view mirror.
The next morning I received an email from my landlord informing me that I had parked in someone else’s parking lot and there was nothing she could do to help me escape.  I dismissed the impending panic and planned on asking the next person I came across in the parking lot. That night on my way to a friend’s house, two men dressed in grey collared shirts wandered out from the back door of the neighboring business for a smoke break.
“Do either of you happen to know the key code to get out of this lot?” I approached.
“Oh yeah! I think it’s one-four-o-seven. Is there a pound key in there somewhere?” The one with the cigarette replied, turning to his buddy.
“Yeah, I think it’s at the beginning. Or no! It’s at the end.”
“Actually it’s o-seven-one-four. Yeah try that!”
“Thank you so much,” I beamed and began walking toward my car.
“It’s Bastille Day!” Cigarette man called out. “Can’t forget!”
Thanking them again, I drove to the gate, entered July 14, and exited in silent victory, not even needing to worry about the pound key.
Bastille Day, a day to commemorate the storming of the Bastille and the liberation of the French. The Bastille, a medieval prison keeping political prisoners through unjust royal indictments, or a fucked Iowan parking lot designed by sociopaths who like to trap innocent civilians and delivery drivers.
I couldn’t help but bask in the symbolism. It made me feel more like a French revolutionary, and less like a twenty-something trying to escape her anxiety and ex-boyfriend.
I parked my car a hideous number of blocks away, and began my walk to my friend’s house.  The full moon grabbed my attention with its luminosity so bright I could see a few jets and their smoke trails like it was still daytime. I thought about calling him in Pennsylvania and telling him how they brushed by like slow motion shooting stars. I wanted to tell him I missed him, and that I had stormed the Bastille of everything that sucked. But I kept the preciousness of the moment to myself, waiting until he got back.