2016: A Rotten Year in Review

In January of 2016, I was facing eviction. So it didn't start out well - tensions were high between my partner and his father - they were always screaming at each other. We were both jobless and struggling to make ends meet at that time.

Oh yeah. Bowie died that month. Let's not forget that.

In February, my partner got a job as a dishwasher at a local co-op grocery store and things were okay for a bit. I was still jobless but looking at various different things - like hotel laundy attendant and child care assistant. None of that panned out. My anxiety was at an all time high.

In April, Prince kicked it too - less than ten miles from us while were parked at a Kwik Trip.

Fast forward to May of that year and we faced the finale ultimatum - leave the house on our own or get kicked out. To faciliate our peaceful vamos-ing of the premises, my partner's dad signed over his pick-up truck so we'd have a vehicle. This also meant we absolutely had to move out - the house was on the market anyways and about to sell. There was little choice left.

That month we packed all of our belongings into the back of said pickup truck and headed west. No plan. No real destination. No jobs lined up. Very little money. A lot of that journey is referenced in this post, this post, and that post.  Trying to make it in Washington was a real bust - we camped out at a rest area for over two weeks, only managed to shower a handful of times in that period, and had no luck finding any kind of lucractive work in a timely manner.

So in the middle of June, we made the choice to come back to MN - and that was an arduous journey fraught with arguing, bad weather, and a fear of not having enough gas money to make it.

We spent a few days in Minneapolis crashing with some of my partner's friends....it was unbearably hot. We eventually hopped over to Chanhassen, where some other friends were getting ready to move out of their apartment and were willing to let us sleep there until then.

THEN we moved into Tammy's hovel. This is kind of detailed here, and not something I want to talk about or relive EVER again.

In the meantime of all that unpleasantness, my partner got a job canvassing for our local PBS. This was down in St. Paul and required quite the commute, so we began looking for residencies near there. In the end, we found a nice studio in a remodeled building less than a mile from his workplace. This came near the middle of August, just in time before it would start cooling off. The rent was a little high, but you couldn't beat the location and nothing else was panning out.

In November, USA elected the Devil. I don't even want to add a photo of him to my blog, it feels like a curse. Nor will I utter his name - but since the orange cheeto is going to be the new president, I kind of fear for my safety and wellbeing. So that's fun.

And that kind of brings us up to now - my partner still works for PBS even though it's colder than Hell out there and I'm still jobless - I've tried a few things here and there but because of my extreme anxiety nothing really panned out. All I want this holiday season is a good job that I'll stay with - because only one income has been really rough on us and I don't want my relationship to be this strained any more.

OVERALL, I would rate this year a 3.5/10 stars. I didn't really have a good time of it and I'm hoping that 2017 is more bearable. That's the best I can hope for.