This is a long story so I understand if it's too much to read. But I have a lot to vent, so here goes.

Last month (January) I lost my job. The official reason given was that I was late. But, I contest that. I wasn't actually late to the load they said I was. I just didn't pick the load up the day before and take my ten hour break at the customer like they prefer. I had gone to Louisville for Christmas and got home later than I had wanted to. So I picked the load up that morning and delivered it. They claimed that since I did it that way, it messed up the load planning for the rest of the week. Which is fair, however it was the week after Christmas and loads were slow as hell. I think they were just needing to get rid of drivers. Especially since I heard we lost the Miller packaging account in Rock Island the first of the year so I know they had a bunch of drivers they were looking to transfer. Regardless it sucked and obviously didn't put me in a good mental place.

I had the good luck I suppose, to have gotten fired right before the worst stretch of rotten weather we had all winter. It was the second most snow for January in our areas history. Over 20 inches of snow between two snow storms. Then we got hit with blizzard conditions and a sub zero blast. So I was quite happy to not be forced to drive in all that mess. Little did I know tho, this was where things turned south with the roommate.

During the blizzard, I volunteered to come help Duke dig his car out of the snow so he could get to work as it was stuck in his driveway. I was happy to help as I have a Subaru and figured it would fare well in the snow. Which it did. But in so traveling, by already broken exhaust pipe broke fully and began dragging on the ground. I also got a flat tire. I attempted to pump it with air but I couldn't find a working gas station air pump in the sub zero temps. I was double busted when I couldn't find my portable pump. I assume I accidentally left it in the Impala when it got towed off. Regardless, with 25 inches of snow on the ground and a car that was now broken, it meant I wasn't going anywhere for a bit. Luckily the weather was scheduled to warm up so I figured I'd wait it out. The snow would melt in a week or two. Enough so that the sidewalks would become passable again. Then I could walk to Auto Zone and buy an air pump and then I could drive to a shop to get my stuff fixed. Since I couldn't drive or walk anywhere, I had pizzas and sodas delivered. I had enough money saved up that I wasn't worried about covering bills.

Meanwhile the roomie began avoiding me as much as he could. And wasn't talking to me. Save for one day he asked me to leave because he was having a play partner over. I walked through the snow and cold to Village Inn and gave him the house for a few hours even though with all the snow everywhere, it was extremely difficult. But I've always been too nice.

Around this time, I got a Facebook message from a friend telling me my dad died. I've been estranged from my family for a decade so it wasn't a big surprise that nobody contacted me. But regardless it's something that brought up a lot of mixed feelings that were not helped by already being down about the job, and being trapped in the house because of the weather and my car being broken. And add to that, January is the anniversary of my mom passing in 2018. Which was another period where I had just lost my job at the time and was homeless and that put me on a downward spiral that year. And last year, my grandpa also passed in January. My last living grandparent. So now I have no parents or grandparents left. And I got no closure about any of them. I told my roomie that my dad had passed away. He didn't even respond. Should have took that as a red flag. But my mind was elsewhere at the moment.

I didn't get confirmation that my dad passed away until a few days ago. Only the one friend had messaged me. I googled dad's name but no obituary came up. I asked him again a few weeks later and he said he was sure. But nobody else was saying anything. Come to find out, I finally saw on my uncles Facebook wall, someone posted asking him if his brother had passed away and he confirmed it. Apparently my dad had been in hospice care (cancer) and he requested no funeral service and he was cremated. So no official announcement was ever made. Which explains why I couldn't find any mention of it, and probably why my phone wasn't blown up by everyone back home, cause a lot of then probably don't know he's dead either. But anyway, more fuel for the suck pile.

Then my roomie, who had been silent in person, and on telegram, started shit talking me on Twitter. It started with "I wish I didn't have a roommate" and "someday I'll get out of Iowa, I never intended to stay here forever" and devolved into saying "even if my roommate gets a job, I want him to move out". Started calling me lazy for not immediately going out and getting another job. Saying he should have seen the red flags of my past and regretted living with me. For the record, we've been talking since 2017. He's known every bit of my past. I was homeless for three years while we were friends. When he moved in with me, it was my first home since I was evicted in 2017. So to pretend he didn't know about my issues is complete hogwash. I hid nothing from him. He knew what he was getting into. In August 2020 he was desperate to escape California and I was his only option. He had no job. No money. I gave him his freedom. Let him live with me for free for something like a half a year before he got a job. I bought $7k dollars worth of furniture and all the household things we needed.

Of course, I messed up after that. Quit my job and didn't get another one before the savings ran dry. But I gave myself plenty of excuses. We had a hard winter. And then roomie ended up needing emergency surgery so I was taking care of him. Etc. But then that was the first giant red flag that I ignored. When my money ran out and he was having to try to pay bills with his part time income. He got "scared" and went behind my back and had my name taken off the lease and replaced with his. As well as all the utilities. And told me he wanted me to move out. However, I had gotten a job at the last minute. And it was convenient for us both, for me to stay. Cause I didn't want to move, and neither of us could afford it at the time.

So then I proceeded to spend the next two and a half years being his personal atm and free Uber service. He doesn't have a car or license, so every time I came home from work, I'd bring him dinner. Every day off, I'd wake up early instead of sleeping in, and drive him to work. Stop and get him his coffee and snacks. Come back in the afternoon and pick him back up. Take him out for dinner. Take him to the grocery store and more often than not pay for all the groceries. I'd even take him to the park and drive around so he could catch Pokémon. Any errand. Any doctor appointment. Any furry convention. Wherever he wanted to go. I'd drive him around. For free. Any time he needed money. For any or no reason. I'd send him whatever. I thought I was being a good friend to someone that didn't have as much as me. Little did I know, I was being taken advantage of. Friend without benefits. Because everything was rainbows and unicorns as long as I was gone all week, sent him money when he needed, stayed out of the house when he had play partners over, and was his bitch on the weekend. I even let him redecorate the apartment awhile back, so he could have what used to be our living room and my bedroom, as his personal penthouse. And I got stuffed into his old bedroom. Which, yeah, I ended up with a bigger bedroom, but I ended up losing half the house. But it was fine. After all, I was gone most of the week and he's home every day. In reality he was slowly pushing me out.

Anyway back to the present. Everything was just fine for my dear sweet roommate. Until the moment I stumbled. As a friend, you would think if your friend had just lost their job and they told you their dad died, you'd react with some sort of empathy or sympathy. Maybe some supporting words. I got nothing. From the second I lost my job, the ball started rolling in his head that now is the time I push him out. And in the back of my mind I was already anxious about it because I remembered what he did the last time I was unemployed. And what I feared was exactly what happened. He turned on me faster than milk in the fridge. I hadn't missed a rent payment or bill, but he was talking online like I was a deadbeat that owed him money and he was being put through all this stress and anxiety cause I was being lazy and irresponsible and disrespectful to him. And oh boy did that piss me right off.

Eventually the snow melted off enough i could walk down the sidewalks again. I went and got my tire pump from the auto parts place. Pumped up my tire. Made an appointment to get my exhaust looked at. They quoted me over a thousand dollars which I declined. But I at least got my tire fixed (it had a screw in it) and they wired my exhaust pipe up so it wasn't dragging the ground anymore. I had planned on going to AnthroExpo in Oklahoma but was going to cancel due to the job situation. But when the roomie started trash talking me on Twitter, while being silent privately....I had all I could stand and packed my con stuff and drove all night to my friends in OKC. Attended the con. Tho I got sick halfway thru and missed a lot of it. It was a greatly needed escape. And I've been staying down here with them since, because I didn't want to come back home and be in the same house with someone who disrespected and hurt me so heartlessly. After all I've done for them, less than a month I'm a piece of shit. No good deed goes unpunished I guess.

So now I have to find a new job, AND a new place to live. I basically have til the end of the month. And I have no idea what I should do. Iowa honestly has nothing holding me to it anymore. I have no friends or family left there. So I can move pretty much anywhere. There's trucking jobs everywhere. It's just going to be very difficult moving cause we live on the second floor and I know I'll get no help from the roomie. He's not very strong anyway so he wouldn't help much if he wanted to. I'm open to ideas and suggestions at this point. But anyway big changes are coming. I'm just not exactly sure what they are at the current point. This whole thing sucks, but like my roomie said himself. "I have nobody to blame but myself." Lesson learnt. Don't befriend a narcissist. They won't think about you for a second. He's too busy daydreaming about Eventually moving across the country again to be with his boyfriend. Good luck with that. Both of you. You'll need it. I'm out. Peace.