Thirty, Flirty & Hanging on by a Thread | Article

Back at the spry young age of 29—a mere three months ago—I overcame my fear of aging just enough to actually start looking forward to the decade ahead. I saw my 30th year as one to take my goals more seriously, and myself less seriously. A year that combined growth with just plain fun.

I celebrated my birthday in Mexico City. The weekend was light, spontaneous, and carefree. Just like the year I had in my mind.

Things changed quickly.

I came back to LA and got food poisoning so bad, it involved a trip to the ER, a need for new sheets, and a phone call with a doctor who told me, and I quote, “You should have died. The meds they gave you should have burst your colon. Never go back to that ER.” Cool. Also disgusting.

Unfortunately, the downhill spiral was just getting started.

The same day I went to the ER, a friend helped me move all my plants into my dream apartment—a beautiful space lofted above a garage with more natural light than I could have ever imagined.

I was stoked, and after weeks of packing and months of searching for this unit, I was excited to finally settle in and level up to the year I had in mind.

While moving my plants in (and trying not to puke), I met another tenant who lived in a separate unit on the property. As we were chatting, she told me about a man who is often heard in screaming fits with his girlfriend.

“Interesting,” I said. “Where do they live, next door?”

She paused for a second. “…No. Below you, in the garage.”

Come again? That can’t be. The lease I signed was for a standalone unit on a property with three others. The secret garage resident was not mentioned.

I called the landlord in the morning and told him this is not what I signed up for. He gave me two options. 1) End the lease and don’t move in. 2) He can kick the man out and take a couple hundred dollars off my rent in the meantime. Against my better judgment, I moved in.

You may be asking yourself: Where does the secret garage man go to the bathroom? Where does he shower? Who’s paying for his electricity? I never got those answers.

Three days later, movers came to take my stuff from one hard-to-reach apartment to another. The day was stressful and the movers were unprofessional.

At about 8pm, after a long and tiring day, I was excited to sit down and binge some TV. I headed to my bedroom to get some comfier clothes on when I noticed a strange bright light outside. I did a double-take, and that’s when I saw him.

A different man, about 60 years old, was standing in a brightly lit bathroom masturbating directly in front of his window while watching me walk around my apartment. He concealed nothing. In fact, he was putting on a show. I dropped to the floor in shock and panic. It was dark outside, and he could see me clearly. There were no blinds on any window in my apartment. My driveway was in an alley, and the man’s apartment was just across the alley about 15 feet away, also above a garage. We were at eye level. I crawled to another window to peek my head up and confirm what I just saw. There he was again, staring at me with eyes that said “I control you. You can’t get away from me. I hope you like this as much as I do.” I didn’t.

Panicked, I crawled over to the lamp to turn it off, pushed my bed next to the closet so he couldn’t have a direct view of me sleeping, and went to bed hoping I’d wake up in an alternate reality.

Instead, I woke up in fear.

I tried to focus on work and pretend none of this was happening. I tried to avoid walking in front of any windows, which was virtually impossible given the natural light I pined so hard after. I tried to quiet down my intuition and fake it into believing this was a safe place to make a home.

Then I saw him again.

Sitting in front of the same bathroom window, staring at me. Watching as I traveled from room to room. He had even cut out a rectangle from the bottom of the screen for a better view. His eyes still haunt me.

This is when I believe my body took over and sent me plummeting into fight or flight. From this moment forward, for the next two weeks, I was not inside my body. I was 100% disassociated and only capable of handling “the next 5 minutes” at a time. Anything beyond that was a problem for a future iteration of me I had yet to know.

I called the landlord and burst into tears. I had texted him the night before telling him what happened. On the phone, he told me he thought I was joking (classic), but that he’d be over soon. When he got there, I was shaking and inconsolable. I made it clear that I felt unsafe and uncomfortable living there, hoping he’d give me another opportunity to end the lease. He didn’t.

He went over to confront the man, telling him: “I will kill you if you ever do that again.” As he relayed this back to me, I sobbed. He hugged me. It was strangely comforting. I left to file a police report.

The rest of the day consisted of the landlord hanging up blinds, me shaking and avoiding any and all windows, and the man across the alley doing whatever it is he does when he’s not examining my every move.

I went to bed at 8pm defeated, exhausted, and still recovering from last week’s food poisoning.

At 1am, I woke up to use the restroom. As soon as I opened my door, the entire room was flooded with the smell of gas. It was everywhere, coming from every corner of the apartment except my bedroom. I was so beyond the point of reactivity, and like any strong, independent 30-year-old woman, I called my mom and asked her WTF to do in this situation. Thirty minutes later a deliciously sexy fireman (and his two forgettable friends) were in my kitchen turning knobs and making a scene.

After inspecting the unit, they told me to go back to sleep and call the gas company in the morning. Too exhausted to even care whether or not it was truly safe to sleep in this house another night (and unwilling to crack any windows because of what happened the night before), I popped another sleeping pill and went back to bed.

The next morning, a representative from the gas company arrived at 8am. After a thorough investigation, he concluded the leak was in the pipes and, though valiant, the effort of the [hot] firefighter was unproductive. He turned off the gas for the entire property and handed me a literal red flag to share with the landlord. Using his technical gas company man terms, he told me this is pretty damn bad, and I could take this landlord to court if I wanted. He also informed me that the washer and dryer shared between the four separate residences are all run on my utility bill. Great, keep the good news coming, Bryan.

The rest of the day, I managed the ins and outs of all the people hired to come to fix this disaster, hustled to get any amount of work done for my actual job, took a scolding from the landlord at how I should have called him at 1am instead of 911 or the gas company (lol no), and was the lucky recipient of not one, not two, but THREE more red slips left by the gas company—each, I was told numerous times, hold up in court.

Consider my breaking point reached.

After sobbing to the second gas company representative (sorry Jason), I called the landlord to tell him I’m not comfortable living here anymore and that I’d like to end my lease. He said okay immediately. I was relieved, and also dead inside.

This is around the time when I found out the woman who lived in this unit before me lasted less than 30 days, and the one who lived here prior to her had issues with the man across the alley for the duration of the lease. She even went so far as to yell at the man’s family in an effort to make the harassment stop. Instead, he just waited for his next victim.

I also found out the other residents had been complaining about the man in the garage for over a year, and had been told by the landlord time and time again that he would be “moving out soon.” He never did.

I tried to use this information to convince the landlord that he owed me all of my money back because he knew what was going on. He denied everything. Eventually, he gave me back my security deposit but kept most of the rent I had already paid. I was too weak to fight back.

While navigating the fight or flight response, my intuition made one thing very clear. In order to feel safe again, I was to ignore the advice of other people and follow three simple steps:

1. Get your shit out of there.

2. Put your shit in a storage unit.

3. Go home and chill for 2 weeks to 2 months.

So that’s exactly what I did.

That night, my lifesaver of a mother hopped on a plane to help wrangle me out of this mess. She handled my lifeless self with grace, and the movers were there by 8am the next day, just four days after moving in. She also found an opportune packing moment to joke that when I posted on BeReal earlier in the week that I would “sell feet pics before moving again,” the universe said, “Okay, bet.” Good one, mom. (Sadly she didn’t say those words verbatim, but you get the point.)

Back in Seattle, I spent two months coming back to my body. I got a much-needed haircut and took a trip to the nail salon. I snuggled the cutest babies my friends and family had recently welcomed into the world. And I ate Taco Time as much as I possibly could (IYKYK). The months were colorful, lively, and busy.

At the same time, I was still very much living in fear. Anytime I was sleeping somewhere new, I caught myself wanting to lock the bedroom door. When I couldn’t, I had to remind myself that I am safe, I am okay, and nobody is watching me.

At a certain point, the same gut feeling that told me to pack up my shit and go home for a bit made it clear that I needed to go back to LA. I craved a home base; a space to unravel and sit in the quiet and read and write and eat and sleep. I had spent two months regaining my footing, but I needed somewhere I could come back to myself. I had been repotted, but it was time to be watered and put in the sun.

I also wasn’t about to let a city kick me out before I decided it was time to go, so I hopped on a plane and found myself a furnished studio to sublet for two months; which is where I write to you now.

Life as a thirty-year-old has been completely different than what I had expected. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe aging isn’t as linear as we think it is. Maybe it’s not about things getting easier and life getting better, but rather getting to know yourself on levels you never could have before. Maybe it’s about being here now, no matter where here is, and having the confidence to gracefully carry yourself to the next destination.

If nothing else, maybe it’s about realizing there’s always a hot fireman on the other end of 911.