From the High Chair

I’m in therapy yesterday, and towards the end my therapist says to me,

“ Now, I don’t want you to get mad at me, but I’m wondering why you keep putting yourself into these risky situations. I think that is something for you to think about and for us to try and work on in the future”

At the time she was saying it I gave her a pass. I wasn’t upset with her, but as I reflect back on it I can’t help but be a little perturbed. It’s hard for people living comfortable lives that conform to what is deemed socially normal, to understand how personal choices are so often dictated by outside forces. So it seems that my only options are to conform and live a “normal” life or a “fringe” life. What this does is completely dismiss how race, gender, privilege, money, and societal norms shape the decisions someone will even have access to.

Some Backstory.

I live in Oakland, and moved here in 2010 from San Francisco and two years before that I was in Ohio…where I am from. Unlike most people in the Bay Area, I did not move to SF for a tech job, I moved there because I loved SF. Two years later I found myself exploring the East Bay by way of a relationship, and I like Oakland; there are houses with garages and yards, warehouses, it is diverse, and a great queer lady scene, Berkeley is close and there was the guy I was dating. I got to see the sort of last vestiges of Oakland as it was, though as I understand it, it had changed significantly even at the point I was learning about it; however, that is neither here nor there for this particular story.

One year ago I ended a relationship and I was forced to move out of my apartment in Oakland, I won’t go into why it was “mine”. Looking for a home in Oakland that I could afford (with two cats) became a probable impossibility. I had to give up a cat just to have an opportunity to meet people about shared living spaces because I was (and continue to be) unable to afford to live alone (though I could have in “my” apartment because the rent was pre-gentrification prices).

After tons and tons of emails and no responses, I came across a place through a friend of a friend. A place that would not only take me and my two cats, but a place with wonderfully positive and creative people, that had studio space in it.

The downsides would reveal themselves later. Mostly in the name of one of my roommates, Narnold. Narnold likes to cross boundaries. He’s a lot like my ex in that way (he also shares a birthday with him, both Sagittarius, in fact I know a third Sag who is much the same). Sag’s love to test the edges of things. It started with Narnold propositioning me- then a series of actions and subtle behaviors that followed his propositions that I won’t get in to because I said “No” at first proposition and he should have respected that. The second incident of note came in the form of purchasing drugs — which we discussed and I hope we as a group reasoned him out of.

The point is that it’s super easy to sit in a comfortable place and ask someone why they aren’t making better decisions. I could never have predicted all those possible scenarios, I didn’t even know he was doing drugs when I moved in, let alone foresee him propositioning me. The reality is, without a lot of money I didn’t have a lot of available options. This is the same sort of chiding that many white people employ when talking to and about people of color with regard to a spectrum of problems that people of color face everyday. Narnold isn’t worried about the safety of his home or getting caught doing bad things in public. He’s a skinny ass white boy who makes $55 an hr and who’s family seems financially stable. If he gets caught with drugs, he can afford a lawyer, he can afford to find a new place to live (alternatively, he’ll just go somewhere else because he has no attachment one way or the other to this town). For the rest of us, Oakland is a haven from the rest of the world. It’s a place where black, latinx, asian, and white live together. Where queer ladies can afford to own homes with their partners (cis and transgendered). Where artists can afford to flourish. Where a strong history of political activism and anti-establishment thinking have rooted down to create a community of people who are working towards something greater (San Francisco had a lot of that as well, and still does, though the tech industry is and has been choking it out for some time).

I tried to keep my apartment, but ultimately my ex was as selfish in the end as he was throughout the entirety of our relationship. It’s important to understand and listen to people — while it’s easy to offer up solutions that you “know” will work, some things are out a a person’s control, and some people have to work that much harder to navigate those obstacles.