on living in one place for ten years

It’s my tenth city-versary today. I’ve officially been here ten years. And that feels weird to think about.

I moved under pretty stressful circumstances and my first several years here were rough. It was just one bad thing after another, to the point where it all blends together in hindsight; I’m not sure when the Bad Times ended and Real Life began. I’m not sure when I stopped being a Wreck and started being a Person. I know it happened somewhere, somehow, but the narrative isn’t exactly linear.

For a long time, I blamed it on this place. I didn’t understand how people could ask me to love a town that was so brutal to me. The idea of having fun here, making friends here, building a life here was insulting. I came here because I needed to and I stayed because I had to and it’s impossible not to wonder what might have happened if this place never did. It’s an impossible question, to ask whether it was all worth it.

It settled down at some point. Anticlimactically. Like a fire alarm that rings and rings — at first, it’s all you can hear, but, eventually, it fades into the background, and when it finally stops, it takes you a second to remember what you were trying so hard to ignore.

That comes with its own complications too though, right? When something demands so much from you for so long, until it doesn’t, and you have to be like, “No, trust me, this was real, this was terrible,” but now you look like the one who’s holding on.

The fire alarm stopped ten minutes ago, why are you still talking about it? Because the fire alarm was on for almost a decade and it felt like I was the only one who could hear it. It was real! It was terrible!

It doesn’t help that this anniversary is bookended by others.

Ten years since moving here means twelve years since that one thing and almost ten years since another and another and another.

When I realized that July was a milestone, I felt excited. I have had fun, and I have made friends, and I have built a life that I’m pretty settled into. I have things to celebrate.

But as the date’s gotten closer, I’ve felt myself shift. I’m more guarded. Tender. I feel like I’m in an emotional limbo — not apathy, but something more empty.

It finally clicked last night that what I’m excited about is that I’ve survived. Ten years ago, I could not imagine being here this long; I didn’t think it was possible. But I made it. I took the shitty lemons and made shitty lemonade and I added sugar until I could stand it.

These days, honestly, I hardly taste the shit. It feels more like home here than any place I’ve ever known, which is a bitter twist of irony that I didn’t ask for, but am glad is there.

But every now and then, when I get that gross aftertaste, when nothing else seems as sweet or full-flavored, I remember that the shit’s still there. It was real. It was terrible.

And it’s okay that it feels complicated.

I just got home from watching Mean Girls with my pole friends. I’m about to get ready for drinks with my other friends. This weekend, I’ll go home-home to see my family. I might make it out to a beach or a park or a trail. And Sunday night, I’ll curl up in my bed with my partner and my cats and I will feel safe and loved and I will have made it ten years and three days and maybe that is something to celebrate.