Hold On

I just spent the last ten minutes sitting on the couch, contemplating whether I should cry or write... What would help let out the most emotion? I guess writing won, because here I am… The truth is, I’ve finally reached the point of feeling defeated. So much has happened during the past week, specifically during a 24-hour period from Thursday night to Friday night. I swear that you could name any type of emotion, and I would have felt it at least once during those 24 hours. I am so emotionally drained right now, and it’s already been three days. Let me catch you up…

Last weekend, Gabi and I looked at our three house options, which I think I’ll write about in a completely different post. The good news is we’ve found a place that we’ll be moving into this Saturday, on the 19th. On Saturday night, Gabi decided to go into Melbourne to visit her friend, so I spent the evening with my two French roommates since they were moving out the following day. Gauthier helped me make cookies, which I don’t think he was too happy about, but I appreciated the gesture. Then Nico, Gauthier, and I watched Love Actually, because why not force two guys to watch a rom-com on a Saturday night? The next morning, they left to go work on a different farm about 7 hours away, and I was so sad to see them leave!

On Monday, we went back to work, and my department collectively decided to work as slow as possible while still meeting the target. Unfortunately for my coworkers, on Thursday, my supervisor told everyone that they’d be going to a different shed after lunch. Then he came up to me and said that everyone would be leaving after lunch except me! I tried to hide how happy I was, but it didn’t work. Anyway, I did arch support all by myself that afternoon, and I left in such a good mood! My supervisor said that the next day, it would just be me and another girl. That evening, I was just getting ready for bed when my friend Judy sent me a message with a link. A link to an ad with the house that I was currently living in.. It said that the house would be available for inspection on May 19th at 11am (the day that we were moving out), and people could move in on the 20th. It also said that there was a minimum 6-month term, and they raised all of the prices for the rooms ($200 for one person, $300 for two - we were currently paying $125 each). I was livid. I felt stupid because I ACTUALLY thought that they might be having family problems at home, which was the reason why they needed to repossess the house. But no.. they were kicking us out just to get more money. I decided to write a post of my own and post it on Gumtree, which I’ll attach. I actually ended up getting a reply that evening, asking more about it and thanking me for the heads up. 

On Friday morning, I got up to get ready for work and then came back into the bedroom to get changed. Gabi then went to the bathroom so that she could get ready.  As I was changing, the heater was on so it was drowning out all of the background noise, but

I kept hearing yelling by the front door. I honestly thought that the landladies had shown up to the house at 5:30 in the morning to get mad about the post. Then I heard my name being called, and I really didn’t want to deal with them. I finished getting dressed and walked out, only to see Gabi lying on the floor in the front entrance, and a couple of my housemates kneeling beside her. I instantly knew that Gabi had had a seizure, as she had told me that she had epilepsy, but she hadn’t had an episode in 3.5 years. I ran over and she was lying on her back, motionless, with her face as white as a ghost and her lips blue. I had never seen anything like it! I knew we had to get her to lie on her side - thanks to my previous flatmate in London who had epilepsy, and told me that if she ever had an episode (which luckily, I never had to deal with), I needed to roll her on her side. When we rolled her onto her side, she woke up but her eyes were rolled back and she was frothing at the mouth, and she was trying to talk but only noises were coming out. It was like she was braindead, or a zombie. She then started pulling away from us, trying to get on her stomach instead of her side, which I let her do because at least she could breathe. Everything else is a blur - all I remember is running back to my room to grab my phone so I could call an ambulance. We all thought the number was 999 but I tried it twice, and it said that the number was disconnected! Up until that point, I remained quite calm, but I started freaking out when I couldn’t call for an emergency. I literally had to Google what number I had to dial (which for future reference is 000). The lady kept me calm and told me to put Gabi back on her side, which Mei and Wendy helped me with. She then asked me if I could try to wake her up so I tried. Gabi kept going in and out of sleep, waking up, looking confused and wanting to get up, then lying back down and sleeping again. The lady stayed on the line with me until the ambulance arrived, which took 12 minutes (they came at 5:50am). Then the two paramedics got Gabi onto the couch. I had to run into the room to look for Gabi’s passport and insurance information, while the paramedics tried to keep Gabi awake. One of them asked if I could come with her to the hospital so that she’d have someone there when she woke up so I grabbed my things (completely forgetting any money or credit card) and Gabi’s things while they put her on the stretcher to take her into the ambulance. The paramedics were quite nice and visited with me on the way to the hospital, asking what my plans were after the tomato farm and what it was like working there. We then got to the hospital, where they transferred her onto a bed. Then there were two nurses and two doctors who came in and out (I think they were just changing from night shift to day shift) to do numerous tests. They took blood samples but then the doctor came in and said that they cancelled the blood tests because it might end up costing Gabi a bunch of money, so they were just going to stick to basic tests. Gabi fell in and out of sleep during the morning and I was completely exhausted from everything that had happened, but the doctors wanted to keep an eye on her for a couple of hours. They finally let us go around 10am so I called a taxi and we got home just before 10:30. Four hours in the hospital and both of us were exhausted!

At 11, I got a text message from the landperson, which said, “Hi Janelle just read your house warning on gumtree, very poor form young lady & slanderous as well. All of the other tenants had already given US 2 weeks notice and were not evicted & after discussion with u we gave you 28 days notice which doesn’t seem to be mentioned. We require longer term tenants for this property & unfortunately we had to ask u to leave. The comments u have made are stretching the truth in your favour & quite frankly are defamatory to us. You have the right to your say but when it is a personal attack & what I consider defamation of our character on a public site, I will advise you that we will be seeking legal advice. Leanne.” I decided I should call my family for advice and they told me I should remove the post and then apologize, which I did, “Hi Leanne, I have removed the post and I am sorry if it seemed like a personal attack. When we were told you wanted to repossess the house, I understood because I thought that maybe you were having problems at home or with your family, and I was truly trying to empathize. However, when I saw the post that you were looking for new tenants, I did feel like it was a personal attack on us. Personally, I would have liked to know that this situation was going to occur before I moved in, because it caused both of us a lot of undue stress, and Gabi actually ended up having a seizure this morning because of everything that’s been happening, so we both aren’t at work today because we had to go to the hospital. I don’t want this to cause more stress on her or me, and again I’m sorry about the post but I just didn’t want this happening to more of my coworkers. Janelle.” I then phoned her as a follow-up and she was nice once again and asked how we’d be getting to work since everyone would be moved out that weekend, then asked if we wanted to take the beds and said that they could help us move them if we wanted, asked how Gabi was doing, and wished us the best of luck. I just told her I wanted to move on and not have to worry about this any longer, as the stress was obviously not worth it for either Gabi nor I. I still felt horrible and nervous that something else would come out of it, but there wasn’t much more that I could do. I then went on my Facebook and saw that my mom had sent me a message about being kind to unkind people, and not letting a person’s bitterness change the person you are. To keep your character at all times. And that’s when I realized that maybe, I was letting this situation really get to me, and I was dealing it in a way that I probably shouldn’t be proud of. I was disappointed in myself.

On Saturday and Sunday, other than walking to the shops and back, I was still too tired to do anything. I felt lost. I was still feeling all of the emotions from the day before, and I felt like I needed to escape. The past three months of me being in Warragul, I feel like I’ve been constantly trying to defend myself. I haven’t been able to fully relax because as soon as I do, a new problem arises. I have finally reached my breaking point and while I’ve remained strong during this entire time, I don’t know how much longer I can do it for. Even though I haven’t reached my 88 days at the farm (I'm only on day 60), I've been seriously contemplating moving to Melbourne so that I can just start my life there because I feel like Warragul is making me into a toxic person. On Monday morning, our housemates said that they would come pick us up for work at 6:40 (I started at 7) since they normally drove us when they lived here. However, at 6:45, they still weren’t there. I then called them at 6:50 and there wasn’t an answer. I then started freaking out because I figured we wouldn’t be getting to work on time and since I already missed work on the Friday, it wasn’t looking good for me. They arrived at our house at 6:56 and we didn’t make it to the parking lot until 7:02. It usually takes 10 minutes just to walk from the parking lot to the front door so I had to sprint into work and walk into the staff meeting late, at 7:08. :( After the meeting, my supervisor asked to talk to me and another guy who was also late, and said that we couldn’t do that again. He said he knows that we’re good people, but if we start coming in late then everyone else would start coming in late as well if they don't see it as a problem. I assured him that if I had known I was going to be late, I would have just walked to work and that it wouldn’t happen again. I absolutely hate disappointing people so it definitely started work on a sour note, and I was still full of emotions from the weekend. On top of that, I got the following seven hours to myself just to think about everything (I swear if the tomatoes could hear my thoughts, they’d know everything about me). All of a sudden, my chest felt extremely heavy, the air felt extremely thick, and I was having difficulty breathing. I had to bend over and take deep breaths, and fight back tears. I actually felt full. Like I couldn’t fit anymore feelings inside of me. I got through the day, but spoke with my colleagues about how I wanted to escape Warragul. They were all so good with trying to cheer me up (which is why I love my job and my coworkers!) and telling me to just wait until I move into my new place, and things will get better.

I came back home, which is what brought me to writing my blog. Actually, halfway through me writing it, Gabi came home from work, saw me, asked if I was okay and if I wanted a hug, and I instantly burst into tears (sorry if I made you feel awkward, Gabi!). I feel a MILLION times better now - I must have just needed a good cry. I haven’t let myself cry since I’ve moved to Australia because I needed to stay strong so I could figure out plan B and C and D and E, etc. But I think it was finally just too much for me to handle. So I should be good for another four months at least :) Hope everyone is doing well!! Love always

Hold On - RIVVRS