Well - Part XXVI

Sooner or later, every depression or pocket of trouble reaches a point where you are just sick of being depressed and commit yourself to some happiness (someway or anyhow..)

I hit that point the following Monday morning. I decided that it was probably a blessing that I was laid off of a job that was undoubtedly a “dead end” providing me with no real future. The timing wasn’t impeccable but these things never are.

I left the apartment that morning and decided to peruse the morning papers in a comfortable neighborhood coffee shop. I purchased the NY Times and the Post and started scanning the want ads. I also left notice back to my sister to save me some area papers in that city as well. I hadn’t quite decided where I was going to land here but wanted to take all avenues into consideration.

I checked in with Cheryl’s family and her condition appeared to be getting better. It seems that she will be spending some time under observation but she was responding well to the anti-depressants that they had prescribed to her. I told her Dad that I would definitely be back in the area the next weekend and would stop by.

Jennifer has been pretty great considering. We had a couple of conversations now and she basically is willing to let me be as involved in the parenting experience as I want to be. She wasn’t looking for any money right now (which was really good as I was pretty much in Dutch with all my creditors and the bank accounts were dwindling fast.

I have a lot of mixed emotions as to what I want out of the near term. My priorities seemed to be pretty clear. I needed to nail down some gainful employment. I needed to come clean with both Jennifer and (more importantly) with Cheryl.

Cheryl’s condition makes that a skittish situation to say the least. I was fearful given the small town environment, that word was going to get to her at some point through some other means. I didn’t want to wait too long but this was definitely going to be a tough subject to broach with her.

I talked over my monetary situation with my landlord and decided the easiest thing to do was to use the balance of my meager savings to break the lease. I couldn’t afford the apartment without a job. I had enough left to buy a storage facility in Danbury and began to plan migrating my belonging to storage until I could get my feet under me again. My sister agreed to let me bunk there for some time beginning the next month.

All that was left was to say goodbye to the few city friends I had. There were several powerful forces that were conspiring to place me back in my hometown area. I was of the mindset to accept this. There were more reasons to go home then there were to stay in the city.