I think I'm staying, after all

A story about loneliness, fear, and six weeks left on my lease

I have a difficult decision to make, and I don’t think I’m equipped to make it.

My lease runs out in about six weeks, and I need to decide if I want to stay in Lubbock, in my current apartment, where I’m lonely all the time, but where I feel relatively safe and secure…

Or move to San Antonio, and live I-don’t-know-where, and be part of the nation’s largest veteran community, and — hopefully — break out of this self-isolation, and make new friends, and new memories, but risk being scared out of my mind for however long it takes me to adjust to a new reality.

I want to move to San Antonio… so, so badly…

But I’m afraid if I do, it’ll be for all the wrong reasons.

I know, I know… I just got out of treatment a few months ago. And the reason I had to go to treatment in the first place, is because I got so lonely, and felt so helpless, that I tried to kill myself.

That seems like it should be all the reason I need to choose San Antonio, where I can easily connect with so many other veterans, I’ll never feel lonely or helpless again…

But is it really as easy as just picking up and moving to a new city?

Because there are veterans here in Lubbock.

And I’ve never tried to connect with any of them.

Well, I guess I kind of tried to… back when I went to the Vet Center… before they told me they can’t help me because they only work with combat veterans…

But aside from that, I’ve made zero attempt to meet other veterans. I haven’t even searched for Facebook groups, or Googled Lubbock veteran organizations, or anything.

I know a handful of veterans in my church, and I’m not even trying to make friends with them. So why should I think that just moving to San Antonio will suddenly inspire me to break out of my shell, and start making the connections I truly desire?

But I don’t really want to stay in Lubbock, anymore, either.

Lubbock was good for me in a lot of ways. But I don’t think I belong here anymore. But is the problem Lubbock? Or is it the way I’ve conducted myself, since I moved to Lubbock?

Am I lonely because there’s no one to meet here — or am I lonely because I’m not taking steps to try and meet new people, and build connections? I honestly don’t know.

Besides, I moved to Lubbock so I could grow closer to God.

What happens if moving to San Antonio draws me away from Him?

I don’t want to be alone anymore. And I’m afraid if I don’t move, I’ll remain alone for the rest of my life. I’m afraid I’ll stagnate, and I’ll slowly let go of my dreams and settle into a smaller life than the one I really want.

But if I do move…

What happens if I start making friends, and I’m so hungry for connection, I compromise my own values and identity to make other people like me…

And I forget who I even am?

What if I forget to rely on God?

What if I’m so happy to not be alone anymore, that I start following the crowd, and I wind up living a lifestyle I never wanted, but don’t know how to give up, because I become too afraid that if I don’t do what everyone else is doing, no one will want me around?

What if I move into an apartment in San Antonio, and am still too scared to even leave the apartment, in order to make all these new friends? Then I’d have moved for nothing. I’d be in a new town… but still practicing the same isolating behavior I want so desperately to be free of.

Then I would really hate myself.

If I did move, though, I would have access to better healthcare, since there’s a much larger VA presence in San Antonio. And there would be a bigger community of veterans for me to consider becoming part of… and maybe that would be enough incentive to at least start to break out of my isolation…

But there are other veterans — and a halfway decent VA facility — right here in Lubbock. But I’m pretty certain that even if I avail myself of all that Lubbock has to offer, it will never be enough to keep me here permanently.

I think I’m too big of a personality to be satisfied spending the rest of my life in a small town environment.

But Lubbock is growing! It’s expected to double in size within the next 5-7 years, I think… but that’s a long time for me to wait, for Lubbock to still be too small to keep me satisfied.

Perhaps most importantly, though, and for reasons I cannot explain… I feel like God wants me to stay in Lubbock just a wee bit longer. And I don’t know if that’s really coming from God, or if I’m just scared to pick up and move.

But when I moved from my parent’s house in Seattle, to Lubbock, back in 2023, I knew it was what God wanted me to do. And I don’t know God wants me to move to San Antonio. I just think it would be an easier way for me to meet people.

But if I’m not leaving my apartment, in Lubbock, and going out and making friends and learning how to build relationships again… why would I magically start doing that just because I move to San Antonio?

Wouldn’t it be smarter to practice all that stuff here, and find out if I can make friends in Lubbock and maybe that’s all I need in order to stop feeling lonely?

Isn’t that at least worth exploring, before I move six hours away, into a larger city where I still don’t know anybody and where, yes, there’s more opportunities to go out and do stuff — but also, more opportunities to get overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear, because there are too many choices and I don’t trust myself to make any of them?

So I think I’m going to compromise:

I’m going to stay in Lubbock for now. (Which my outpatient therapist absolutely recommends as the safest choice while still learning to manage my mental health.)

But I’m going to move into a smaller, one-bedroom apartment, in my current apartment complex. That way, I still get the experience of “I’m moving to a different place to see how that affects my recovery,” but I’m still in my current neighborhood, where I know I’m safe, I know what my routine is, I know where all the stores and restaurants are, I’m close to church, all that good stuff…

At first, I thought this was copping out. Like, “If I was really brave I’d just move to San Antonio and then figure everything out after I got there!” But when I step back from that idea, it doesn’t sound brave; it sounds reckless and impulsive.

And I don’t think I am reckless and impulsive, anymore. I don’t think I need to be.

I think I can grow and heal faster by being methodical, and calculated. And I think as long as I am still growing, it’s probably better to do it in ways that I know are keeping me safe, and that are not introducing incredibly more variables than my nervous system is ready to handle.

So I think moving into a one-bedroom is going to be good for me. And I don’t even think of it as a “compromise,” really; I think of it as a smart choice, given all the available data.

Moving from Seattle to Lubbock was throwing myself into the deep end, and at that time, was exactly what I needed in order to get moving again. Today, the better move for me is to dip my toes into the water, and see, “What does happen to my sense of security if I change apartments within the same complex where I already know I’m safe?”

I think it’s the perfect way for me to show myself that my safety, my peace, my security, my comfort, don’t come from my current two-bedroom apartment…

They come from the work I put into creating a two-bedroom apartment where safety, peace, security, and comfort, can exist…

And if I can create those conditions in this apartment, I can create them in a different apartment, too.

And I think it would be worth postponing a move to another city, until I’ve demonstrated to myself that I am the source of my peace and safety, not my apartment.

Doing so may or may not have any impact on my feelings of loneliness…

But I suspect if I can teach myself that I have it within me to create a safe and stable home environment… that can probably lend itself easily to, “I have it within me to create feelings of safety and ease when meeting new people and making new friends.”

And anyway, if all else fails and this experiment truly does backfire… I do have the option of breaking my lease and moving to San Antonio — or back to Seattle to live with Mom and Dad — at any time, if I really need to. Yes, I would have to pay a penalty, but if it came down to life or death, paying a fine to break my lease is not that big a deal, is it?

So why not take this opportunity to take things slow, and just see what happens?

Like I’ve been saying lately, I don’t have to kill myself, to try and save myself.

If San Antonio is too big and scary for me today… there’s no reason why I can’t put it off until some future tomorrow. San Antonio will still be there — and God willing, so will I.