Home Sweet Home

You want to know what is wild? I am moving in with my boyfriend in a couple weeks. I moved into my current apartment almost one year ago exactly. It was July of 2018 when I left behind an apartment that filled with hurt and tough times. My old apartment is where I simmered in pain from the aftermath of being in a terrible relationship with the wrong person for three years. It is where I sat single for 5 years feeling palpable level of loneliness combined with paralyzing fear of putting myself out there again. Fear that somehow I would end up in a relationship worse than the last. It is where I made the decision that I’d rather feel the pain of being lonely than feel the pain of another human tearing me down piece by piece. It is the place I spent days and nights overtaken by depression and anxiety. I’d stare out those windows and contemplate if today was the day that I was going to choose to end it all. I was in that apartment the day I lost my first handful of hair. I cried on those floors the day my hair left me for good. I stared in those mirrors when my eyebrows started to leave me and then my eyelashes. I laid in that bed and screamed in excruciating pain from what I later learned was a pulmonary embolism. It is where I gave my cat Jasper his final kisses and snuggles before sending him over the rainbow bridge.When I left that apartment a year ago, I wasn’t expecting things to change, but boy oh boy was I wrong. My current apartment is where I healed. I don’t look in these mirrors and shed tears over my hair loss. I stare in these mirrors and think of ways to help others who are struggling with alopecian pain. It is these floors that I sit on when I’m laughing at my new kitten Neville and all of his silly antics. It is this bedroom that I sit in when I read all the amazing messages from my fellow alopecia brothers and sisters. Messages of encouragement, messages of emotion, messages of courage. It is here where my days of being single came to an end. It is this apartment that I learned what being in a good relationship is. This apartment taught me that there are good, kind, loving, accepting, supportive men in the world, and it taught me how to found one who is the perfect match for me. These hallways are where I see a man who looks at me exactly the same no matter if I am dressed up to the nines or without hair, brows, and makeup. Here is where I raised the bar for myself. Here is where I learned to live again.Now I am about to leave this amazing apartment for a new adventure in a new place with my new little family. If you had told me a year ago that this is where my life would be now, I would have never believed it. Yet somehow, some way the pieces of my life found a way to fall back into place again. Thank you little apartment. You brought me my happiness back. You helped me find a part of me that I thought I had lost forever. You showed me how to live my best life and not settle for less. I can’t wait to take all of that with me to my wonderful new home. xoxoxo