Coming up this April, it’ll be two years since I signed the lease for this apartment.
And while I’m glad I took that leap of faith…
while I’m proud I trusted myself to finally live again…
this place is also filled with ghosts.
Not literal ones (thank God),
but the kind of ghosts that follow you from trauma to trauma,
that whisper to you when the lights are low and your strength is too.
This is the apartment where I tried to claw my way back to life
while it felt like everyone and everything was trying to shove me back into the dark.
It’s hard to explain all of it in one post.
Honestly?
It’s gonna take time to fully unveil the fucked-up soul that belongs to Krystina.
But here’s what I can say for now:
This apartment is where I had to re-learn my entire first 30 years of life.
I went from living full-time in a nursing home…
to living alone with two kids.
In a world that doesn’t care if you’re paralyzed.
A world that doesn’t pause when you’re crumbling.
And holy shit… everything got real, FAST.
TOO FAST.
So fast,
I had a full-blown mental breakdown
in these very walls.
And what still haunts me?
People watched me break.
Watched me fall apart…
and were somehow okay with it.
Like I was some tragic sitcom.
Just background noise.
Another sad story they could flip the channel on.
I remember thinking of my grandmother, Mimi.
How there were moments where she’d get this wild, distant look in her eyes…
like a caged animal looking for an escape.
It scared the shit out of me as a kid.
But now?
Now I get it.
I’ve seen that look in the mirror.
That frantic, desperate, please-let-me-breathe look.
It’s real.
It’s raw.
And no one talks about it enough.
Okay… DAMN. Back to my original point.
Sorry, your girl got ADHD. Cue the forehead slap 🤦🏻♀️
Do I regret signing the lease?
NO.
Do I regret the memories made here… good or bad?
The nights with my babies, the laughter, the healing, the chaos,
the friends who came and stayed,
the ones who came and left?
Nope.
This place broke me.
But it also became the space where I began putting myself back together.
By: Krystina | #WheelStrong