When I first got out, I didn’t just land in a new city.
I landed in a place I didn’t choose. A halfway house. Not just any halfway house—one meant for people struggling with addiction.
And I remember thinking, almost immediately, this isn’t even my story.I don’t have a history with drugs. I’m not in recovery. That’s not the path that brought me here.
How do I relate to that?
And yet. . . this is where I was placed. Because it was safe. Secure. I could be (mostly) anonymous.
So there I was, dropped into a room that wasn’t mine, surrounded by people whose lives didn’t mirror mine, trying to figure out how I was supposed to exist inside something that didn’t fit.
It wasn’t just the city that felt unfamiliar.
It was everything.
The rules.
The routines.
The expectations.
The conversations happening around me that I didn’t know how to step into, because they weren’t built for me.
Even the people.
And at the same time, there wasn’t another option. I didn’t have the luxury of saying, “I’ll figure something else out.” Or thinking, “this isn’t the right fit, I’ll go somewhere that is.”
Just. . . this is where you are now. Figure it out.
It’s not just being somewhere new. It’s being placed somewhere that doesn’t align with who you are, with no ability to step outside of it. . . and trying to make yourself exist there anyway.
I remember moving through those first days feeling like I was slightly out of place in every direction.
Not enough to cause a scene or enough to be noticed in any obvious way. Just enough to feel it constantly.
In conversations.
In routines.
In the way people related to each other.
I didn’t even have a phone.
No way to reach my family or friends. No real link back to my own life. To who I was before any of this.
That was one of the first real moments I understood what groundless actually felt like.
Groundless isn’t just unfamiliar.
It’s not just uncomfortable.
It’s more like everything is misaligned.
And there’s still no option but to stay in it and keep going anyway.
~Annie