For the past several months, I’ve been tracking the weather, and I take a photo to prove that I’ve been outside; my own small ritual to make me feel that I’m still a part of the world. I have an online journal that I update and currently have a 63-day streak. I did accidentally break it one day, otherwise it’d be close to six months.
I do this because I have agoraphobia and I mostly don’t go outside.
Ever.
I’ll segue quickly because I’m sure people are curious. I’m an extrovert. I like people and love the energy of crowds even more, which makes agoraphobia very painful for me. I just get panicky and afraid. I don’t want to get stuck somewhere. Even if it’s outside my door. People assume it’s a social disorder- I don’t think it is (any psychologists please correct me), but I don’t have a social disorder.
I’m just afraid most the time and want and need to feel safe.
Secondly, I can drive and sit in my car. I actually don’t mind it. I can drive long, simple trips easily. I also don’t mind sitting in the car. I listen to music or do crafts and it makes me feel slightly normal to do those things.
I have a camping chair that sits right near my door so that I can easily go out. And it’s hard because I’m on the second story of my complex and I’m afraid of heights. My legs get shaky and nervous as soon as I sit down. But I do my best because I want to get on a frequency that’s similar to most people and where I’ve resided in the past.
It’s a bigger chair, because I’m a bigger girl. I have arthritic knees - and lately it’s been hard for me to balance. I don’t have the knee strength to fuss with it so I leave it out there.
The neighbor next to me, a tall skinny man, usually sort of leans closer to the railing and walks by. I’ve asked him if he needs me to move and he says no and goes on his way.
Tonight, I was sitting peacefully in my apartment chatting with my daughter when my neighbor walked by my window, and yelled at me through the open window, cussing at me and demanding that if I’m not using the chair to fold it up.
He’d been acting weird the past few times I’ve seen him. If I was out there, and would say hi, he’d grunt and walk past me. He avoided eye contact. He’d open the door like he was going to leave then retreat back into his apartment. One time he left, came back after a couple minutes and sat in his car. I knew he was waiting for me to go inside - but I rarely go out and sometimes I’m okay to actually sit out there and enjoy the cool air. I love listening to the song my tree Seraphine sings when the breeze ruffles her leaves.
I had a feeling he was waiting for me to go inside and finally I did. Within minutes, I could hear the rustling of his work boots against the balcony and then his door open and shut.
I was right. He was waiting for me to go inside.
Then tonight, obviously my chair has been bothering him.
He comes home from work in the middle of the night and I’ve heard him kick the chair. I assumed he was drunk and just runs into it. He does get drunk sometimes and stands outside yelling nonsense into the night.
Live and let live.
Until tonight.
He, at any point, could have calmly and with heart told me whatever problem he’s having with my chair and ask me to fold it up. Furthermore, he could have even kindly offered to fold it for me, knowing I have problems doing that myself.
Instead he chose aggression. And with that aggression, now I’ve internally clocked every time he kicked my chair. Now with every memory of him waking me up because he was slamming into my chair and in his moment of frustration, he took away a small thing I did for myself and my well being.
Now I’m afraid to step outside my own door. I filed every complaint on him I could think of. I can’t enjoy the fresh air because now I have to keep my window close.
To him, it was something in his way, and if he was a nice person, could have easily been resolved. Now he’s sort of a terrorist in my life, who took away my freedom. A small piece, the only peace, of my sky.
I’ll fold up the chair. And his problem is resolved.
But my problems have multiplied. What was a nuisance to him was a place where I literally had a seat of dignity. A reclamation of my space; some vinyl on a crisscross of aluminum legs, the world where I watched construction workers, made friends with the tree that grows outside my door, crafted, socialized…lived.
To him it was an annoying chair.
But to me, it was my humanity.