Been over a month since I last heard from the city housing authority. I know I’ve been accepted into the program. Just a matter of time before a place comes open. It could be next week, it could be over a year from now. We just don’t know.

Had some rough days a couple weeks ago. Stayed pretty low profile and avoided people as much as possible for several days. I guess the fact that I’m in my 40s, living with my parents temporarily after being on my own for 18 years, and don’t have a lot of privacy finally got to me.

It’s now hot and humid here in Oklahoma. Still getting used to the hotter and longer summers. I moved here in the middle of winter. The winters here don’t appear very bad. Seemed like when we got snow and ice, it was usually gone within a few days. It’s a culture shock from spending the first 40 plus years of my life in Nebraska. In Nebraska, we usually got our first snow by early November. Most years, snow stayed around well into March. We often got bad blizzards and ice storms in April, but those were usually melted within a few days.

Part of me is worried how I will adapt to my new neighbors when I get my own place. I’ve never lived in an urban area in my entire life. I grew up on horror stories about the drugs, violence, crime, poverty, and lack of community in the big cities. Heard this my entire life. Yet I saw poverty, drugs, crime, and lack of community in every small farming town I ever lived in. For many years I never considered moving to an urban area because I feared it was even worse than rural areas. I was just convinced I would never fit in anywhere. Still am to a degree. I’m excited yet afraid at the same time.