I have a hate-hate relationship with my living situation. This is going to be long one. My apologies.
Starting college at age 28 in a new city with no familiar connections led me to embrace life as a typical college student starting out = dorm living, y’all! Admittedly, I was gung-ho about it freshman year. I thought, since I had been deprived of getting this experience 10 years ago, why not embrace it and see now what the experience is all about. It was not bad during my freshman year — despite the dilapidation of the building and its facilities, and persistent layer of dust over everything, I had no real issues. I also had a single room to myself, and of course, the convenience of an unbeatable commute to class, right in the heart of this vibrant city.
Sophomore year I decided to embrace another new experience — the dorm roommate. I lucked out and picked someone who turned out to be one of my best friends at school and we got along swimmingly. So there were zero problems or dramatics of that kind — yay! But other issues presented themselves personally for me, and then things snowballed. I am now under an avalanche of discontent.
I have a lot of STUFF. You see, I completely vacated my life in Georgia to actually start building a new life here. My parents do not live an hour away and I do not go home every weekend to have my laundry done and switch out my clothes for the seasons— nor do I wish to! I love newfound my independence and freedom. So in making the trek across several states in hopes to settle long-term I brought everything with me. Lord knows that my two dear friends who drove me up here can emphatically confirm this. So, I have with me my winter clothes and shoes, my summer clothes and shoes, extra linens, comforters, towels, etc. Moreover, and I am trying to curb this, I can be a shopaholic. One item here and there = I’ve acquired even more stuff over the years. This is a problem of my own doing, I know. Recently, I’ve been donating bags and bags to GoodWill, and actively restraining myself from purchases, in order to lighten my load when I move back and forth (more on this later).
The dorm room is painfully small for two people. Granted, they cater to a rotation of 18–22 year-olds, not “older” women attempting to start new lives. All my stuff was uncomfortably and chaotically squished into one half of the room, with my roommate’s stuff in nearly the same state on the other side. The mini-fridge that we shared took up half the space on my desk. There were piles and stacks covering 90% of surfaces and floor space. In short, I felt physically, and by extension, mentally cramped and uncomfortable all year.
You have no privacy; no personal space. That other person, regardless of how much I enjoy her company, is always there; our beds were maybe three feet away from each other. Leaving the room every time to find a quiet, private space to make a personal phone call became an annoyance… and other things.
Wintertime happened. We are evicted from the dorms for nearly a month during winter break. During the first year, I had left Georgia a mere four months previous and I had no intention of going back so soon. Sorry, fam, I have spent 28 Christmases and New Years with y’all, I’m good. But I had to figure out where my roof and warm sleeping area was going to be. So I decided to visit with my two aunts in New York for the winter beak. I slept on their living room floor and made do. I also enjoyed spending the quality time together with them as we rarely had the opportunity to do so when I was in Georgia.
The second year, I had a great internship and I wanted to stay in D.C. to be able to continue earning the money that was paying for said room and board on a monthly payment plan. I ended up sleeping on the couch of another dear friend and her husband. Undoubtedly, they were the kindest people to take me in for nearly a month and shelter and feed me at no cost. But an overwhelming sense of the nuisance in being transient started to build up in me and here is when I first realized and labeled the misery. [I’ve figured out now the big thing that is contributing to my sustained misery with the living situation. I will come back to this part].
Summertime happened. After the successful completion of freshman year, I had to sign up for summer housing on campus, having nowhere else to go when the end of semester-eviction came around. I learned quickly that D.C. was an expensive city to rent and live in and on-campus housing provided a cheap option and pleasantly, a bigger room in another building. But this presented another challenge: moving.
Like we already established, I have a lot of stuff. Secondly, I do not have a car. Thirdly, it is hard to find someone to help you move (shocker!). Furthermore, moving in a car, just from one dorm building to another on the same campus grounds, is a freaking ALL DAY affair, with maybe 10 trips back and forth. Again, a kind friend helped me out but it was annoying and exhausting for both of us. And it turned out, that spacious summer dorm room costs more to occupy during the regular school year, so I had to pack up everything again and move back to the previous dorm room that was more financially-doable for me. Yep, I had to find yet another friend and solicit the use of their car and their time. This time, the individual was not so helpful. She merely drove me and my stuff back and forth, but stood there and just watched me reload and unload every single bit, taking things in and out of elevators, up and down, back and forth by myself. Yeah, that day sucked.
At the end of it, I did feel a sense of “I did it all by myself/strong woman pride,” but it didn’t stop me from breaking down and crying at the sheer weight of having to do all that crap all alone. I was mostly in a mood because, unlike the 18–22 year-olds who do their moves, there was no mother, father or brother here with me. Yes indeed, independence has a sneaky downside. My next beginning-of-summer move (2016) was facilitated by another friend, this time, in possession of a mini-van and we only had to make two trips! It was a glorious day. The guy I was dating at the time helped me with that end-of-summer move, where he succinctly observed that the dorm room was “like a jail cell.”
Freedom is sweet. That first summer after my freshman year (2015) was liberating. I went to a club for the first time. I got drunk for the first time. I started dating for the first time, when I turned 29 that July! Not that any these things make you an “adult,” but honestly, that’s precisely what I felt for the first time. I was a grown woman, in control of my own life, doing things on my own time, with my own money, as I had never gotten the chance to before. Sure, I had an adult 9–5 job for nine years but I couldn’t go anywhere, or do anything of my own volition.
More than making the giant move to start college, that summer had such an huge impact on me. Once I got that taste, I can’t go back. I had this feeling like, all of the freedom and independence should be mine NOW. And why don’t have it yet? Everyone knows how long I had to wait for it, right? You will call me crazy, but I have long desired to be a real adult out in the world, with every good and bad that comes with it. I was not so naive about the negatives, and of course, I started making mistakes right away, but even that carries the “adultness” that I had been yearning for all this time. I got the feeling and I was never going back. THIS. This is the major contribution to my housing woes.
You see, continuing to live in the dorm room and everything that comes with it — being dependent on sub-par cafeteria food for every meal, having no appliances to cook for myself when we have no meal service for the spring break and Thanksgiving weeks; washing my dishes in the communal bathroom sinks; having to deal with (what appear to be) college-educated ladies who have gross bathroom habits and who leave the shared spaces in a repulsive state; having to decide if I should knock on a neighbor’s door to get them to turn down the music blasting at 1 am or just try to ignore it in fear of “starting something”; having to make water trips to the cafeteria to fill up 4–5 water bottles at a time because there is no drinking water source in my building except for the bathroom tap; having the security guards at my Catholic, all-women's campus deny a guy from dropping me off at the dorm building; having a curfew for any guest, male or female, that I might want to have stay over; paying out of pocket for winter break months where I cannot stay in the room — has been slowly chipping away at my sanity.
I turned 30 last summer and after enduring this for three years straight now, I am so, so tired of it. I complain and I whine and I bitch and I moan to anyone who will listen to me about it. It’s not cool. It’s not healthy. It stresses me out and exacerbates my already entrenched insecurities and anxieties about being “behind in life.” Even though I have the freedom and independence to do more things, I still spend 80% of my time on a closed campus surrounded by people 10 years younger than me and I feel this age gap more and more. Yes, there are some amazing ladies here who have become my dear friends, who are brilliant and classy on my level, but we can’t all go out for a drink because some are not yet 21. And other things. I am not 18. I do not need all the policing.
Immigration status and dreamer aside, I am at a different stage in my life than they are. I am most likely the only 30 year old living on campus in these circumstances. My college has a lot of non-traditional students, but they are largely commuters. The women my age are living on their own, or living with partners/spouses and their families. They are able to come and go as they please, cook for themselves, have people stay over and visit from out of town… I’ve been here since August 2014 and no one in my family has ever come to visit me. They simply cannot afford to drive all the way (my parents don’t take the chance of flying due to their status) and stay in hotel rooms. I have no means to house them, not even just my brother who might want to visit for a weekend.
I am so limited and restricted on campus. I cannot function as I want to. I am sick of moving back and forth. I am tired of having to find a new place to stay every break (when I leave the city, as I did when I spent the whole month in Georgia this past winter break, I cannot work and earn money). I detest being dependent on people or inconveniencing them for cars and couches several times a year. All of this has been preying on me. Anxiety and stress and insomnia. I continually find myself in a limbo situation. Am I here or there? Where do I really fit? I am “grown” but living in a juvenile environment. A more stable, reliable living situation within my control, OFF CAMPUS is the remedy I seek. Will it solve all my existential problems? Nope. But it would be progress and a whole lotta peace of mind for the year ahead.
Now, house hunting as a full time college student without a full time job has been a challenge, to say the least. I started looking after the second winter break (on my friend’s couch), and came up with zilch. I can’t seem to get Craigslist to work for me. Everyone around me still goes home to their parents, or are already living with partners and their own families, so there is a dearth of potential roommates. I cannot afford a $1000+ a month apartment by myself, and furthermore, I cannot show proof of steady income because I go from temporary job to temporary job. I save up during the summer when I am able to work full time positions in order to pay at Trinity during the school year. So it’s an uphill climb and nothing has materialized thus far. I’ve been stuck here summer after summer, year after year.
This upcoming summer 2017… it gives me major anxiety just thinking about making those moves again and suffering all of the above for another school year. Also, it seems more risky to be finding a place to rent when I’m about to graduate next May, with no summer housing as the safety net, right? All of this has been rolling over in my mind. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve tried to lessen the whining and complaining that I inflict on the people in my life.
In typing all of that, I realize that it sounds just like a lot of whining and complaining. What’s so bad about my living situation?? I have a roof, warm bed, and three square meals, right?? It’s only temporary, right?? It really sucks that you can never feel bad for yourself because someone has it worse. I am reminded of this a lot. But to be honest, I don’t care. When I was languishing away for years in Georgia, someone had it worse then too. But what I felt, what I went through, was still misery and unhappiness. It still affected my mental health and left dark things that I have to work on daily to overcome. I fear that this living situation is now doing the same thing. Sure, I’m in a much better place overall, but there’s so much I still have to overcome due to this immigration quagmire and the fact that so much has been delayed in my life, dooming me to remain in a perpetual limbo, from one situation to the next.
I had to get all of this out, and thank you to anyone who makes it this far in reading, but I do feel so silly about this. I am completely grateful for everything I have here, every opportunity, and every kind friend, no matter their age. But I cannot deny how miserable I’ve been on campus, and how I see myself falling deeper into a depression hole of another variety.
The comfort has been that everything is temporary and nothing lasts forever. I’m sure a better housing situation will work for me in due time. But I hope that someday I can shake the feeling of being left behind because of my status, which has always been the root of my discontent.
