Chasing Fullness

So many boxes. There are so many boxes to unpack. We didn’t know we had so many things, but when they’re all loaded onto a truck, it’s evident that we have more than we thought and we should’ve paid for the next size up. When those same boxes are unloaded from the truck and placed into the one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of my three-story building, it’s even more clear we have too many things and I don’t even know where to begin.

My partner is more sure. He begins moving the boxes labeled bedroom into the bedroom, same for those into the bathroom, dining room, kitchen, etc. He is always more measured and pragmatic than me. It’s refreshing to be around and I love him so much. He is my person and I am convinced he is the only one I could love forever. Prior to him, I would jump from person to person searching for someone who could fill some sort of emptiness inside of me. My partner now gives me that sense of fullness.

The movers leave and the real work begins. Placing the bed, the couch, the bookshelf, and the big furniture is our first step. Filling the shelves, the dressers, the cabinets, is next. We take it step by step until the place is unapologetically our own. We place mass-produced art on the walls, my turtle trinkets everywhere, and signs that read something like “No Talkie Until After Coffee.” Pictures of us from our various trips fill the apartment and our kitchen is overstocked with appliances and tools our parents gave us.

It’s our first apartment together in a location that is ideal for his school and my new job. We’re walking distance to stores, restaurants, and a movie theatre. There’s a small lake outlined by a one-mile loop, ideal for running and walking. 

We get my dream dog, a corgi with a blue merle coat and blue eyes. He’s perfect. I love that dog more than anything and we take him for many walks around that one-mile loop. My partner loves him too.

As we continue settling into this new place, I find myself beginning to observe the situation like I am an outsider to my own life. I watch as my partner thrives in school, makes friends with his classmates, fosters relationships with old friends that also live in this new place. I see myself going into work, coming home, and making do with a comfy routine that revolves around my dog and my partner. I begin to feel empty again.

I like my job and I like my coworkers, but I struggle to form real connections with them, or with anyone here it seems. I join apps, I go to “meet-ups,” and I really try to break out of my comfort zone in an effort to make friends on my own, but to no avail. 

I feel myself continuously emptying. The monotony of my life quickly begins to bother me and nothing seems to hold my interest for long. My happiness is completely reliant on my partner and my dog. It’s hard on all of us.

I think it’s this place. It’s ugly here and there’s no sense of community. It’s all chain-stores and chain-coffee shops. Everyone walks around with headphones on and no one says hello as you pass by. It’s very different from where I grew up, but that’s what I wanted. I wanted new and different and far away from my hometown, but now that I’m here, I know this also isn’t what I want.

I start to worry that I’ll never find the place I’m looking for and it’s made worse by seeing my partner doing so well in this location. The emptiness is back. I don’t know how to tell him that I am so unhappy, but he can sense something is wrong and it is taking a toll on our relationship.

As I slip into an anxiety-ridden depression and fantasize about moving to this impossibly ideal place I’ve created in my head, I become more outwardly sad. I can no longer put on the fake smile to venture out to make my own friends or visit with the plethora of new and old friends my partner has. They’re his friends and it feels like they’re rubbing it in my face that I have no one every time we get together. Of course, they’re not, but my anxiety has convinced me of this and I cannot be talked out of it.

On a weekend trip to see more of his friends, about two hours away, I discover my perfect place. It does exist in this little college town filled with cute cafes where intelligent people sit, read, and discuss books and culture and politics, things I am interested in. It’s a few hours from the ocean and thirty minutes from gorgeous mountain hikes. It’s small, but not too small. It’s beautiful and the people say hello when you pass them on the sidewalk.

Just seeing the life in that place makes me feel a little more full. This is it. This is where I have to be.

I want to tell my partner, but I know he will be disappointed. We just moved and the majority of his friends are in our new location. He just got a job for after graduation and he’s already taken the required exams to have that job in our new state. If we make this move, he will have to completely restart. He is already full in our new location. For so many reasons, it will be much harder for him than for me.

Over the next few weeks, I try to bring up the subject. I start with jokes just to see his general reaction. Then I start asking more about his friends in that location. I point out how similar we are to them and how happy they seem there. Eventually, I’m not subtle about what I want and we start having serious conversations about potentially moving, but nothing seems promising from his point of view.

Tears fill my eyes at any notion of staying in our current location. He can see that I am hurting. I know he loves me and wants to take away that pain, but his pragmatism keeps him from giving the okay to even start looking. It’s hardly fair of me to ask knowing what he would have to give up, but I start to think, what about me? How long must I be disappointed and unhappy because change is scary? I am no exception to this notion, but staying here in a place that gives me a visceral reaction upon returning to is scarier.

Just as I’m beginning to come to terms with causing sadness in my partner, he says something like, what if you’re also not happy there? And I come to the terrifying realization that he might be right and I may not find my fullness anywhere. What if this despair and sadness and emptiness I feel is coming from inside me and not from my surroundings? This is a question my anxiety frequently feeds me, “what’s wrong with me?” I’m not sure what it would mean if it were true, but my greatest fear is that something is wrong with me and that I will never truly feel full on my own. 

I have to try though. I cannot sacrifice myself in order to avoid disappointing someone else. 

I am scared, but eventually, I pack my own boxes. I get a truck that perfectly fits all of my things. I take them to my new destination and when it’s only my things, it doesn’t seem nearly as overwhelming. I unpack them in a messy, disorganized, unpragmatic way and set up my life in my new, ideal location.

I rediscover my happiness and I sit in a cute cafe with a friend I’ve just met. We talk about books and culture and politics. I take my dog for hikes in the nearby mountains and all of my neighbors know and love him. They say hi whenever we walk by. 

I may have lost my person, but I found my place. All by myself, I feel full.