12. Senior Living Community

Because I was still paying rent in Morrisville, I tried to live somewhere rent free for as long as possible. I lived with my mom for a couple months and my grandparents in the senior living community they had an apartment in for a month.

Living with my mom was okay. Because of my work schedule I hardly saw her. She worked a regular day job and I worked evenings and weekends. She was starting to see someone new,  someone I eventually would call my step dad, so she was very much emotionally involved with him. This became a good thing for both of us. I don’t remember feeling like we were at each other’s throats during this time.

Living with my grandparents was special. They had a two bedroom apartment in their senior living community. The landlords said I was allowed to live there for a month. I tried really hard to not be a burden and to clean up after myself, etc. I two meals a day at my job so I wasn’t eating too much of their food. My grandmother doted on me and made sure the fridge was always stocked with avocados and pickles, the two things I said I liked and would like to have around. 

I could tell they loved having me there. This was hard for me to get used to. My grandfather would ask me about my day whenever I was eating dinner with them when I wasn’t working. I immediately felt uncomfortable. What if he thought I handled a situation poorly? What if he thought I wasted my day doing useless things? I instinctively didn’t share much, and almost had an “...why are you asking?” sort of tone when I answered. My grandmother stated “your grandfather likes hearing about your day”. This floored me. I wasn’t used to being asked about the goings on of my personal life, and was baffled someone was interested. I began sharing more and more, and noticed that my grandfather was interested in the world of young people. This also surprised me. He was always a very politically conservative man and shared his opinions about things like he was the expert in everything. I was surprised to see that he had a genuine interest in what my life was like. This isn’t to say I was shocked he was a nice person, I just don’t think I spent much 1:1 time with him before living with him, and my assumption was that he didn’t think I was doing anything right with my life.

I ran into Tim at school because we had a course together. “How is your Burlington life?” he asked me with a smile. Like I wanted to move to Burlington and bar hop, or make it a party. I wanted to punch him in the face. “It’s good” I said, “I’m living with my grandparents right now”. He immediately stopped smiling and looked like he was in deep thought. I wanted to ask him how he and Elise were enjoying having the apartment to themselves while I paid half their rent and half the utilities, but I kept my mouth shut. I never spoke to him again.