If someone were to ask me how long it takes to feel adjusted in a new place, I'd say thirty days.  Of course, that depends on numerous personal circumstances, so maybe this answer only applies to me. But it seems like a nice round number. Anyway, right at the 30 day mark, I felt a shift.  I looked at my place through the same eyes but saw and felt more comfortable surroundings. 

I was timid before, kind of hurried inside, carrying around that freshman feeling, the new kid, the stranger.  But now I stop and talk to everyone.  Smile and ask how they are. Pet their dogs. I walk confidently into my building, grab the right keys without looking and without fumbling for the right one.  There's much less lock jiggling now.

I move confidently through the building, whereas I used to tiptoe (literally, I crept down my own hallway) afraid to make too much noise and arouse the neighbors, even though I wasn't doing anything wrong. I didn't own my space.  Now, I dance in my bathroom.

The upstairs neighbors and general apartment noise seemed like quite a racket my first few weeks and about sent the cats into cardiac arrest. Now, nearly fifty days into my new place, I hear them, but they don't bother me.  Maybe that explains why I used to tiptoe through my hallways; I assumed everyone else was just as jumpy as me behind their walls.

And this is weird--but sometimes I'll catch a glance at the living room, and I don't know, there's something about how the light brings warmth to the room.  It fills my stomach with butterflies and I think, "happy."

More than happy.  I'm humming with joy.  Last week I told several people "I'm the happiest I've been in my entire life."  I surprised myself when I said it, but holy fuck did it feel good to say it.   Then I straight up cried in my therapist's office when I tried to explain my overwhelming state of bliss.  Have you ever done that?  Cried because you could barely tolerate all the positive energy coming out of your body?

I don't look back often, but when I do I see a girl who was so stuck--and I mean absolutely entrenched--in misery and self-loathing that she couldn't see how beautiful it could be here on the other side, that she could shine, and that she would be more than okay on her own.  Misery had become a way of life and I didn't even realize it.

I am so stinkin' proud of myself for following through with one of the scariest moves  I've ever made.  I crossed over and discovered that an entirely new person had been patiently waiting for me to figure her shit out for a very long time.