Six.

Here it is: the halfway mark. Six months from today my lease is up.
That means that I've been here for a little over six months. (It was six months yesterday.)

Let's recap:

• I realized that I only wash my face in the shower, and that's with an exfoliant. So early last month I bought pre-moistened wipes to make it as easy as possible for my lazy ass between showers. I think I've used three at most. 
• I have a shampoo-conditioner combo in the shower (to save time) but I also have an expensive conditioner that I bought specifically to use just on the ends of my hair. 
• I've been sleeping with the veranda light on because my imagination is too vivid.
• I'm currently boiling water to cook ravioli in because I'm not feeling a complicated meal right now. Or the five-day-old leftovers of broccoli-pesto spaghetti.
• I haven't been to a doctor in nine months. I'm only going this Thursday because they need to check my TSH levels. After the requisite copays for that appointment, I will have 43c left to my name. 
• My body, despite being 273.2 lbs, is malnourished. I'm supposed to "feed the body I have not the body I want," but I still come up with a six-to-seven hundred calorie deficit each day. Unless I eat only half a medium pizza and 14 chicken wings in one day like I did this weekend.
• Bailey came up to me today and I ignored her, only to find out that she just wanted to play, as evidenced by the noises I heard coming from the bedroom a few moments later of her tearing up a paper towel tubie.

I have tried so hard in the last six months to ignite my own American Dream. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, living on my own. I knew there would be things I'd need to face that I didn't want to face alone. I try to justify my shortcomings by telling myself that it's acceptable, the way I'm living now, because I am doing this on my own. That it's okay that there's been an empty water glass in front of the television for four days, and it's okay that there are still recyclables by the sink that need to be rinsed out, and that my magazine stack is getting unstable as it breaches twelve inches high.

I thought, foolishly, that I could survive on $400 a month (for cable, internet, food, dog supplies, gas, and miscellany) and still have a portion of it left for saving. 

The time has come for me to start packing, if only figuratively: I'm looking at the horizon and I see another ship -- this one called Cohabitation. My dreams are tainted, though, looking through the glass of the example I have to follow. During the Five Year Conversation, Jake and I made the goals of getting married, welcoming children into our lives, and becoming homeowners within the next five years. I should only count myself lucky to still be alive within five years from now. 

I try to tell myself, in the moments that sunshine pierces the clouds, "So what if you don't have [something that the Johnsons have] or [something that society tells you you should have]? You're alive. You have food in the larder, a fed dog that adores you,  and 400 square feet that you don't have to share with another human being if you don't choose to. So what if your kitchen is the size of a closet and you're basically paying $2 per square foot? You have an apartment, you're paying for it, and the heat is working."
It doesn't work.

I eventually accept that, while I'm doing this all on my own, it sucks.

I have realized that I need contact with people outside of my job because otherwise I spend too much time in my head. And on Pinterest, building a life I'll never have.
Oh, sure, I'm pretty certain that Jake and I will move in together. And I'm sure we'll forge through. I'm sure we'll never go hungry. But isn't life more than that? Isn't it? Or am I too tainted by the idea of a picket fence, 2.5 children, and a kitchen the size of my current apartment? 

We'll have memories, and laughter, but will we ever host Thanksgiving at our house? Will we ever have friends over to our apartment for a dinner-and-game night? Will we ever have the bittersweet, frustrating joy of picking out paint colors? I'm not so sure that my dreams will come true, or that our Five Year Plan will bear fruit.

Honestly, what it comes down to is this: 

I started this year out with vigor and excitement with the adventure I was embarking on.

I have met the middle of said year fully accepting that I have social anxiety and depression (both of which I knew I had BEFORE I moved in but I had no idea to the depths those two were affecting me). 

I look forward to ending this year with the promise that I won't be alone and things will get better.