By the time I reached my apartment building, the annoyance had baked itself into my bloodstream, settling next to my usual cocktail of stress and mild career despair.
I really needed one of my roommate Livvi’s calming teas.
And possibly a new life.
My apartment was small but cute, filled with thrifted furniture and mismatched pillows. Normally it gave me comfort, my own little pre-loved style.
None of it matched. None of it was expensive. And that was the point.
Every scratched table and thrifted pillow was an item I’d lovingly chosen myself, not something picked out by an interior designer hired by my mother.
But today the cramped living room felt more like a shoebox, and someone had forgotten to poke air holes.
I opened my laptop at the tiny kitchen table and logged in to my job. And by “job,” I meant: the lowest-paying, most soul-sucking entry-level social media position in the history of corporate America. I managed posts for a chain of discount home-goods stores that insisted I remained relatable online by using phrases like#Blessedand#LiveLaughLamps.
My paycheck barely covered rent and groceries.I’d started rationing coffee like it was an endangered species.
The paycheck wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was the quiet, creeping fear that five years from now I’d still be here, still orbiting other people’s brands instead of building one of my own.
I could’ve found something else. Probably. Another junior role. Another cubicle. Another version of the same ceiling. But I didn’t wantajob. I wanted my own thing. Something I could build, shape, claim. I just hadn’t figured out what that was yet, and jumpingsideways for marginally better pay felt like it would take time I couldn’t afford to waste.
Besides, I was good at this.Verygood. I could run circles around my supervisor with strategy, analytics, aesthetics. I told myself that eventually someone higher up would notice. That hard work counted. That I’d advance without having to beg or settle.
Until then—or until one of the managers retired, evaporated, or was abducted by aliens—I was stuck.
I opened the content calendar.
Another thrilling day to spend scheduling posts about end tables and baskets. The stuff dreams were made of.
My phone started buzzing across the table, vibrating aggressively against the wood.
I didn’t even have to look at the screen to know who it was.
My mother.
I briefly considered throwing the phone out the window. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford a replacement.
With a sigh, I answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“Roxie, darling!” she sang through the speaker. “How is my princess?”
I pressed two fingers to my temples. “I’m not a princess, Mom.”
“You’ll always be my princess,” she said, ignoring me completely. “Are you eating enough? You sounded thin the last time we spoke.”
“I sounded thin?”
“You did! There was a hollowness in your voice. You know, the kind that comes from not eating real meals.”
“I’m eating.” I opened my fridge. Inside: a lone yogurt, half a lemon, and a suspicious stick of butter. “Totally thriving.”
“Well, good. I just worry. You’re so far away, and you know how I get anxious when I imagine you in that tiny, little apartment.”
“It’s not tiny,” I lied.
And I wasn’t far away. I was twenty minutes from their house.
