Half-Empty Normal

I threw my little SUV in park and stepped out to find a small, two-story apartment building that looked like it had survived more storms than the captain of a rusted fishing boat—the kind of guy who drank saltwater for breakfast and bad decisions for dinner.

I had just driven for a week to the east coast, cramming everything and anything that would fit into my vehicle. Months of planning had led me here—this place. My escape from my ex-fiancé. We sold the house. I took my cut, changed my number, and now, for the first time in a long time, I was ready for something that resembled normal.

Only... I had no idea what normal actually looked like. Not really.

I wasn’t normal before I met him. I was chaos with a drinking problem, masquerading as someone who was just "young and directionless." Before him, I was someone who didn’t even realize her mother had abused her—didn’t understand that was why she couldn't take care of herself.

Before him, I was pretending. And with him... it all hit me. Hard.

The door to the apartment opened. A man stepped out, gave a friendly wave, and smiled—tentative, like he didn’t want to spook me—holding out a set of keys.

"Are you Francis...?"

I nodded, half-smiling. "Yeah."

Holy shit, this was a small place. He just waited there like a good neighbor, like he had all the time in the world. I found myself praying he wasn’t the type of landlord who’d knock unannounced, the kind who thought "friendly" meant boundary-less.

He insisted on showing me the place. I insisted I could find number eight and navigate a one-bedroom apartment without a goddamn sherpa.

I took the keys, signed the lease, answered the basic questions: Yes, I’m from out west. Yes, I drove here—it took a week. Yes, I’m happy to be here. No, no moving truck. Yes, I’m fucking insane for doing this. And yes, I realize there are no mountains out here.

I climbed the narrow stairs and opened the door to number eight. Exactly what had been advertised: Small. Outdated. Dusty.

And just like in the pictures, I could tell it was going to have a smell. It did.

It was the smell of decades of cooking with only two windows to vent it, layered with the damp stink of old pipes and a faint, stale trace of cigarette smoke.

Perfect. Exactly the kind of place where a person could go missing and nobody would notice until the unpaid rent stacked up high enough to block the mail slot.

I spent the day unpacking, losing myself in old girly pop from the early 2000s. It was the kind of bubblegum fluff I’d blast sometimes just to piss him off—the kind that would have him cracking beer after beer, bitching endlessly about how "shitty" my taste was.

Yeah, I knew it was fluff. But I loved my fluff just as much as I loved Billie Holiday. Fucker.

The lack of anyone yelling about my music while I unpacked felt... wrong. Unsettling. Like watching a sitcom without its laugh track—like standing in the middle of a crowded room and realizing you’re the only one breathing.

I tackled most of the kitchen first—half-assed, mostly. I spent more hours making the bedroom and bathroom my sanctuaries. My knickknacks and art hung in their rightful places. Fresh, clean bedding on the bed.

The bathroom took hours. I scrubbed every inch of it, because I can't feel comfortable until I know the previous tenant’s nasties have been fully exorcized. Bleached. Banished.

Nothing made me feel more at ease than the smell of vinegar-clean—the kind that stings your eyes and settles into your hair, so later you smell like fresh survival.

I didn’t have any furniture yet, so I ate take-out using a moving box as a table and a throw pillow—meant for my future couch—as a seat.

Not terrible. Kind of felt like the perfectly imperfect start of some fresh, chaotic venture.

I dove into my fish and chips, half-laughing at myself. But somewhere between bites, the reality of my situation started to settle into my soul.

I had nothing left to distract me. No endless home renovations on a shoestring budget. No scraping by every month to pay legal bills. No crushing weight of a mortgage I was somehow expected to pay alone.

I still couldn’t believe he got out of paying his half—because I had "kicked him out."

An order of protection was considered "kicking someone out" of their home. And if you dared to protect yourself, well... you could deal with the aftermath. Because maybe you were just a lying whore.

I spent more time than I wanted to admit thinking about the word normal.

I had a pretty clear definition of fantastic. But what was fantastic to one person could just as easily be someone else’s standard Tuesday. And when I thought about my own life... it felt sad. Small. Pathetic, even.

But maybe that was just the wrong perspective. We’ve all seen that story—some variation of The Prince and the Pauper. Two lives, side by side. One in silk, one in rags. Both thinking the other has it better.

Maybe my normal could be my fantastic.

I had so many options now. So many freedoms I hadn’t realized I was missing.

I could join a book club. A gym. A boxing class.

Without hearing how book clubs are for "boring chicks"—or "chicks who read their porn."

Without being asked if I was "turning into a dyke now."

Yes, I had options. And coming from a world where options were like winning the golden ticket, I suddenly had all of them. Wide open. Mine for the taking.

So why didn’t I feel elated? Why wasn’t I grabbing life by the balls—like every ending of every movie where the woman comes out the other side, all triumphant and shit?

I know life isn’t like that. It’s not a movie.

I was sitting on my small apartment floor, a stomach full of fish and chips, and an empty, echoing void where a self was supposed to be.

I didn’t just lose pieces of myself. I never developed a self at all.

I was at the start. Again.

I had no idea what I was doing. Again.

No, I never did much of anything with my life. Right now, the only reason family even spoke about me was to whisper behind my back about how they were "sure" I was in a bad relationship.

I knew—because when I finally left, they all lined up to tell me they knew he was bad news.

Like they’d just finished watching a psychological thriller or a murder mystery, and they wanted credit for knowing who the bad guy was the whole time.

Of course I wanted to say something. Scream at them. Tell them how ignorant they were being.

But I didn’t. I just let them talk. I politely listened. I let them.

Because by that point, I had already watched my family react to my abuse. I’d seen who made it about them. I remembered who cried louder than me, who told me I was being "dramatic," who said nothing at all.

I made a point to remember that my dad was too emotionally inept to handle any of it. He hung up the phone when I tried to talk about how I was feeling. Didn’t say a word. Just clicked out of my pain.

I was alone. And I will remember those people.

And I will never—never—feel guilty about not sending a happy birthday or a Christmas card ever fucking again.

Maybe survival doesn't come with closure. Just a list of names I stopped writing cards for.