“good” is a four-letter word

… that I dare not use.

I won’t tempt the fates.

And if it’s a four-letter word I need, there are a few choice ones that pop out pretty readily.

I’ve got the best roommates in town.

Absentee.

Yes, in a radical shift to the opposite end of the spectrum of cohabitants who took my breath away in the worst way, including the neurotic stalker at abode former, I now live with two individuals.

Who. Are. Rarely. Here.

Yip. Yip. Yippeee!!

Cheers which are not to be misconstrued as commentary on their characters. Both seem like really good people. One spends half the week out of town at the girlfriend’s; the other most of the week over at his.

Which leaves me alone in the townhouse. And alone time is something I do really really really really really really well. Not only do I do it well but my need for alone time is much higher than the norm.

Not to mention that I REALLY need it to recover from the bouts with the Insane, the Thoughtless, the Cruel, the Selfish and the Just Plain Dangerous persons who have crossed my path in the most intimate of settings: the home in the past half year.

So I’ll take this, the absentee roommates. Most definitely. Perhaps it’s karmic reward for always taking the high road in the worst of situations. Perhaps it’s the universe taking pity, empathizing or both.

Or perhaps it’s simple statistics in my favor. Flip a coin 10 times, get tails — read: asses — in a row and eventually heads’ll appear.

Whatever the reason for this fortuitous find, it suits me. It affords me the luxury of “living alone” that on my piddly wage I can’t afford. I’m a reasonable commute from the workplace (longtime hard ‘n’ fast rule: I don’t do lengthy commutes. I just don’t.). And best of all in the area outside of Denver where I really wanna be … and wanted to be before I fled Tacoma/Washington.

I’m not blinded by optimism, neither am I under any illusion that this’ll last. Of course it won’t. Life is Bursting at the Seams with the Unexpected. Twists and turns that only a cruel novelist with a tender heart might conjure up.

But for now {and in my life of upheavals, that’s truly all that I have}, the home is …

no. I’m not gonna say it. I’ve learned that the second I open my mouth praising a place, it goes away.

So I’ll put it this way: Presently I’m not being yelled at. Continuously criticized directly and behind my back. Lied to. Locked out in a snowstorm. Promised things and betrayed. Treated in kindness and then excommunicated, banished. Stalked. And generally battered and beaten down.

Call it what you will. I dare not call it good.

I call it relief.

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