If I write it maybe it’ll be clearer
January 28th, morning: I decide that today is a good day and that I will celebrate my starting a good day by removing my ex-best friend from my Facebook friends because every time I create a new conversation or a new event, she was the first or in the top 3 people Facebook suggested to me and I was sick of it. So I open her page and see that she got engaged. Which hurt because that meant that she really, really was over with our friendship if she didn’t even bother telling me. Which I sort of knew, but still, hurts to get it slapped across your face. Removed her anyway, but the day already wasn’t good anymore.
On the lunch break of January 28th, I learned that one of my friends was in hospital because she had attempted suicide. I was in shock. I contacted my dance teachers because I was in no state to attend that evening. With teary eyes I did my best to complete my work day while texting all of my allegedly “close friends” because I needed not to be alone that evening. None of them showed up, so I had to call my parents and spent two hours crying on the phone with them listening and worrying because they were powerless, living seven to eight hours from me. After what I spent the whole week with this knot in my stomach because I couldn’t reach my depressed friend while she was at the hospital. On Friday February 1st, I finally heard from her, she was out of the hospital, claimed to be okay, but had to remain home. I was a little reassured, yet still scared for her, because you never really know what’s going on in a person’s mind, do you?
I used my going-a-little-better to go audition for East2West on Saturday February 2nd. Audition which I thought went pretty well. I did miss a step at some point, but nothing important. I went to the movies and to my dance classes later that day.
That very little relief was short-lived as that evening, I received a call of my dad casually telling me my mom had been hospitalized and wasn’t well. Understand, now I was the one living seven to eight hours from them, with no brother or sister to take my place by her side or to share the fright with. My dad assured me I needed not to take a leave of absence from work to go see her. That she was going to be fine. The following day, he tells me she was brought to intense care during the night because she had trouble breathing. Yeah: fine alright. But thanks to the doctors, she was back into her room. He was going to see her later that day, so I asked him to give me the news when he came back. I had plans that evening at my dance school for Chinese New Year, but as the day went on, I never had feedback from my dad. So I cancelled my plans and waited a little more, very worried. Then I called just to learn that since he didn’t have anything new to tell me, he had decided to not call or text me. Geez. On Monday, I finally ended up talking to my mom directly. She sounded very weak and explained that on Friday, my dad wanted to take her to the ER but she refused, saying it was nothing. But that, had she repeated the same thing on Saturday, she would have passed away before Sunday. I told my boss about it just in case of it going worse and me having to leave for my hometown.
After that, it was always mostly the same news: they don’t really know what she has, but she is going a little better – although she clearly didn’t sound any better on the phone. So life went on. On Tuesday evening, I got the mail from East2West saying I wasn’t going to step 2 of the auditions. I was not really surprised – it was my 6th failed audition after all – but I was still upset about it.
But not as upset as of Thursday February 7th. For the first time, I left work early on just because I was sick… of it. Not that I had somehow developed an aversion for close captioning, but we had the worse news at a department meeting. It’s been two weeks and that’s still all that’s on everyone’s lips at work. Because they need the place for some more important department and because they apparently have “no other option”, they are moving us to Longueil, near Boucherville. Everyone is pretty mad about it, most people are living in Montreal and a lot of us depend on public transit which will cost us twice as much if we need to go to the south shore, and will take us more than twice the time to get there. Some are talking of carpooling, but my work schedule is different from everybody else’s. To work at the same time I already do, I will have to take two buses and two metro lines and it will take about an hour and a quarter, whereas I moved to my current apartment because I could go to work by walking 25 minutes or taking one bus for about 9 minutes. They are talking of making us work from home, but they can’t tell when that’s going to happen and how long we are going to have to work at Longueil before being greenlighted for home. Work from home does take the traveling around out of the equation and would allow us to work pretty much at our own terms schedule wise – as long as we meet the deadlines and do all of our hours per week. Which is pretty dope. But even if it was to happen soon enough for us to avoid Longueil, it does include a lot of problems too. Loneliness being the biggest issue, but also ergonomics and work space. So I’m left pondering whether or not to quit. Both options bring their questions too. If I stay, do I quit my dance classes or do I quit sleeping or eating? Because it’s either start working earlier to go to class but then class still ends at the same time so I still arrive late home and I have to shower – be it in the evening or morning, it will take an hour off my sleep schedule – and the next morning get up earlier to be at work earlier and then not sleep enough – or work later or about the same time, but being unable to attend classes because they are still at the same schedule, they don’t rely on mine. If I quit, what’s next? I didn’t know what my job/career/work would be before joining this company and still have no idea what I would do if I didn’t have it. And what of my vacation plans if I don’t have a job to pay for it, right? My flight for Greece is not refundable. Whether I choose to stay or quit, do I renew my lease for my apartment or do I move? Because the only thing that was close enough was work, but otherwise classes are far, metro stations are a bus ride away, hanging out always include having to plan how early I have to leave to get there on time according to the bus schedule. Do I stay in Montreal or do I move back to my parents to get some writing done and some me-time? Because yes, being license and car-less, I would go back to my hometown before moving to Longueil. Or do I try to live abroad for a while? When I get sick of everything, the only thing stopping me from going abroad is my work. But if my job isn’t there to put breaks on it anymore, why not?
You know what’s worse? I can’t even talk to my mom about it because she is sick and she is even more anxious than I can be so that would pretty much kill her.
And now, since February 4th, I would say, my left foot and ankle have been hurting. I took advantage of the dance studio being closed on February 4th, then didn’t go for my classes Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, to try and get it better. But I couldn’t take it anymore on February 9th, so I started back my classes. Even spent that evening helping at my studio’s auditions. Which led me to go take an appointment at the health clinic by my workplace on February 15th because it still hurt. They obviously didn’t have any availabilities on the same day, so I came back on Sunday February 17th, got my foot and ankle X-rayed and… We don’t know what is wrong with it, but I have to rest from dance, put the least effort on it as well as ice daily, and take anti-inflammatories. I was at work on a Sunday, so I asked around for helped getting back home – my bus is a weekday only bus – and for some help cooking that evening if I wanted to be able to feed myself that week. My coworkers were all out of town or busy with other people, but they still took the time to reply. Contrarily to my “friends” who didn’t care enough to do anything more than put a sad smiley on my post saying that I was hurt. So I had to actually walk home which is exactly the contrary of what I was told to do. Once home though, I didn’t cook, I told myself SOMEONE HAS to take pity on me the following day. Knowing I don’t have my parents here, don’t have a roommate nor a boyfriend, my friends SHOULD ask me if I needed help. So I repeated the “help needed because of injury” message on Monday. I never had any reply. Ah, not true. The ex-boyfriend of my ex-best friend, in Rouyn, said he was too far. That’s the offer of help I got. Now, I can totally understand that people are busy. Can totally understand that not everyone sees my messages on Facebook. Can totally understand that if you live in another country or far from where I live (read: out of Montreal. Do not read: 30 minutes by metro and bus.) you’re as helpless about it as I am about my mom being at the hospital. But you’re allegedly my friend, you live in Montreal, you saw my messages, you are fully aware of my situation, and not only did you not come to help, but you never once stopped to ask me how I’m doing or IF I needed help? Are you fucking sure you’re my friend? I’m injured goddammit. I went to a doctor who prescribed me medicine because I’m injured and she told me to put the least stress on my injury and still I get to do the groceries by myself, the cooking by myself, all those tasks that requires to be up on my injured foot by myself. And so I cried on the phone with my parents again. Although the last thing I want is to make my mom stress about me, I couldn’t control it. They thought I was scared about my foot, thought I was pissed that I couldn’t dance (truer than the first thing) but I was crying upon the realization that indeed, my friends don’t give a shit.
We’re February 27th now and still, the only people that I talked too were my coworkers at work, and the employees at different places I had to walk myself to like grocery stores.
