If you know me, you know that I just moved across country to San Diego. So many people asked WHY! We had very established lives and careers in a great city like Chicago, why would you ever leave? Main reason: mental and physical health. I grew up with DV and an incident over Christmas 2017 was my breaking point. NO ONE should ever threaten you or try to lay a hand on you, especially in Santa uniform. It was time to leave and start new lives. Our kid is starting kindergarten so this was the perfect time. It took over a year of therapy, several years of convincing my husband and 2 years of planning. We haven’t even sold the house or rented it out yet. My Husband was ready to jet for his own reasons that he can post.
It was actually really hard to leave because my friends threw me several going away parties and dinners. We even cried with our neighbors, and may I add that we have some of the best neighbors anyone could ask for, I will return to them later as they totally saved my ass at the end of the trip.
So let’s start from the beginning bc the story is long and I don’t feel like being creative and editing the story to seem more interesting, bc it’s pretty crazy already. Here is a peek into mi vida loca.
Before we even started loading the truck there was a bad omen. I booked the mover for the wrong fucking month! Shit. Luckily that night our brother-in-law helped us get the heaviest items in the truck. But later we, excuse me, I scrambled to replace the person I hired. THAT was insane. A music fan showed up first (I’m a DJ for those that don’t know). He was of good help, but he ended up getting a ticket for parking in front of the hydrant. Our second mover……was interesting, in the end we paid him to leave. He came to help, then his friend showed up, they had to leave for a “job” 5 minutes later and he told me to take everything outside and he would be back to load in at 7. 8pm rolls around and he says he is not coming. So I scramble again to find a replacement till my friend found this BOMB ASS guy to help (thank you Rich!). Then guy #2 texts that he is returning too, so they arrive at the same time. BOOM 2 packers! Not so quick, guy #2 kept taking pot breaks (I smoke weed, so it’s not a big deal, but it was already dark out and he couldn’t focus. In my experience I would say he was tweeking but who knows could be horrible ADHD *eyeroll). He then suddenly has a “family emergency” when only boxes were left and ditched us. IMO he got bored and wanted to leave. We paid him, but only bc he wouldn’t shut up and we just wanted him to go so we could focus on finishing the move with guy #3 who KICKED SO MUCH ASS. I can’t thank Eric enough for his help.
Know this, this is NOT an advertisement for Uhaul as you read on. The cats went with me in the Suburu (thankfully for them not me). See the fucker on the left, you can see his mouth is already open and MEOWING. We call him our “$7000 cat” because we saved his life twice costing this much. He cried the ENTIRE TIME. I gave him a benzo of mine, cat calming treats, covered his cage, bought the calming collar. NOTHING. Just incessant crying for FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT. Yes, I lost my shit at one point and muttered to myself “I paid seven grand for this”. I won’t go into details, but there was a point where I pulled over in the rain ready to strangle the cat. Instead, I threw him in the hatchback by my subwoofer to drown out the sounds. I could give a fuck if you think this is abuse with sound, it was that or through the fucking cage onto the interstate. breath cry breath cry breath cry breath cry. HE. WOULD. NOT. STOP. He has even sat next to me and it meant nothing. He just cried and cried, I had to make it stop wo hurting him (unlike some people in my past I don’t beat animals).
Our first truck issue started withThe Uhaul dying the night before and we had to call in for service. It was a 90 minute call hold time and it took about an hour+ to show up at the house where the swapped the battery. WRONG MOVE. We entered in our service request that there was an Alternator issue. They ignored that, and low and behold, on moving day an hour out of Chicago, in Itasca, my husband gets stranded with the truck. It was in the 90’s that day. It took them FIVE HOURS to answer his call and tow him to a closed Uhaul lot where they dumped my husband with no direction or instruction. Basically, he had to then wait another fucking hour or so just to reach a Uhaul rep as to what to do with the truck and where should he go bc they cost him a day. He got a shitty hotel stay out of them. On top of that, our driver for the VW got a flat before leaving our old neighborhood and luckily we knew the cheap tire guys and were able to do a quick repair/replace and the VW was on the road…after forgetting to go the pet store to pick up litter and a pan for the 3 beasts. So much loose ends to tie up! I even left a dishwasher full of clean dishes. ooops.
MY first day was pretty easy. Minus the fucking cats wigging out. Me, the kid, and the cats were in the Suburu with my most prized possessions. Basically my heirloom jewelry and my dad’s stained glass. Just bc we don’t talk anymore it doesn’t mean I don’t value the things they gave to me. As ugly as my parents were and are to me, there are still some moments where they did shine. I value those so badly I drove them in my car. It’s all I got of them that is positive.
I made it to our first location in Springfield with the kid and cats. No husband. Driver #3 arrived very late. I didn’t know what took him so long until I found out later he was avoiding tolls. Dude, the tolls were on us. In the end, it cost him a good 5-10 hours of driving throughout the entire trip, but he had no complaints so if he’s good, I’m good, bc God damn it the old 2004 VW Jetta with Turbo was kicking ass. ….and made it to San Diego with no issues. It has over 100K miles on it! It’s the “new” first car I bought. I bought it cash with DJ money. So thanks cuz for driving my baby. Much appreciated. He’s really my H’s cousin but I don’t communicate with much of my own blood.
At some point on day 2 my husband calls me and tells me that Uhaul needs to repair the truck and some parts need to be ordered to replace some belts and it would be days. BULLSHEET. I am beyond livid and someone was watching over those poor Uhaul employees bc if I was there, I’d own Uhaul right now. Like it would be my company now.
They wanted him to release liability of my possessions and hire movers to move the items in another truck. No. (At this point my head is exploding with cats crying and the thought of my shit getting fucked up and my H being ditched). We had a 5 br home packed in that truck, the more fucking around with it and my shit would break. I don’t know how my H keeps cool like this. This is why he is the only man that can put up with me. I can get so angry and unfortunately for most, I have an education and get all fucking legal and technical. It is not fun for the person on the other side. I keep receipts, I quote reliable sources. It’s awful.
WE, as a husband and wife agreed upon not releasing liability and my husband was to stay in Chicago until the repair and do his work as needed. BUT NO. He then called his mom and then she called her brother; so he had his uncle and mom squwaking in his ear to just reload the truck and move forward and release liability. I did not get into it with him, but knew this was a stupid idea, considering they took ZERO part in the load in and had no idea what we were dealing with. (truth be told our phones didn’t work correctly and he couldn’t hear me yelling on my end. Instead it came off as me just listening to him LOL.) Nor had they taken part in a move in 20 years or so. I’ve run a fleet before for Grainger Risk Management and you NEVER release liability. Especially when it isn’t your fault.
I let the Gods take this one over and of course I was right. And they were on my side. Because I am a fucking PIMP and so is my H. My husband had a third Uhaul mechanic check out the engine before this reload in and what the fuck, they fixed the fucking alternator. LIKE I KNEW IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE. I should just run the world and fix shit because it is full of morons who don’t know up from down. That first mechanic who swapped out batteries, and that second mechanic cost us a ton of hassle. Fuck them. And fuck Uhaul for them dumping my husband in a closed parking lot and fuck them for not having an emergency line to talk to a centralized risk management department who tracks these cases instead of you randomly calling a help number or going online. NO ONE would let me to talk to a human. My favorite part, is if you call or go online to their site it’s a “30” to 90 minutes call wait. I Tweeted my issue and someone DM’ed me in minutes. So much time wasted.
We made it location number two in Amarillo, TX. The above image is just an example for how you can’t get proper customer service from Uhaul if you get stranded….anywhere.
Nothing excited in TX. NOTHING.
At this point my Husband is trying his damnedest to catch up with us but we are already done with stop 2. Poor guy. It also sucked without him and as much as I loved having the adventure with my kid and the cats, things at this point were stressful because every time we thought things were in the clear there was an issue.
Ok, so maybe I’m crazy, I drove too fast, but Texas is boring AF. Now New Mexico…it ranks up there with some of the best states I’ve driven through, including Utah and Colorado and California. WOW. I’ve seen many states and I loved NM.
Then we get to Arizona and it was 64 degrees and monsoon season. So glad I have my Chicago driving skills because it was NBD but I couldn’t believe how cold it was until it hit 120.
So finally we stop at our third house in Arizona where we are not supposed to have pets. It was supposed to be a private residence, but it was a fucking guest house of these nosey assholes that were fucking home. The guy greeting me immediately. I was so mad bc 1. I needed to sneak the cats in and 2. I don’t want to talk any assholes, I’m tired and worried about my husband….of which I should have been bc at 2 am he gets a hold of me and the God damned oil light is on in his Uhaul and the engine is choking and going only 20 mpg. The man was hallucinating and telling me there were animals in front of his parked truck and talking all sorts of nonsense (turns out there were boulders in the truck when he was woken up by the tow driver in the morning). He did not know he was in the mountains bc it was so dark and he was so tired. Did I tell you he was only an hour away from our 3rd home, stuck in Eloy, AZ. Do you know where Eloy is? Exactly.
So we get a hold of Uhaul service again only his phone stops accepting calls because of spotty mountain service. It’s 114 degrees at 2 am. Raining/monsooning and he has no water on him. I tweeted Uhaul begging them (that image was above) to let me SPEAK to a human and they refused and kept on sending me links to their site. FUCK YOU KAREN. I fucking hate them. It took a couple hours for someone to reach my husband for a quick fix and water and he was back on his way, but in the mean time I was coordinating all this at 2-3 AM, bc at times texting would work so I had to go back and forth bw talking to Uhaul, directing them with GPS coordinates and texting my husband AND ordering the stupid Rx cat food for the cats to arrive at the new home in case my Husband didn’t catch up. So much for getting good sleep before driving the next day.
At 7am my Husband shows up delirious and guess who is there to greet him? Those fucking assholes at the Airbnb. The man needed to sleep not chit chat. NEVER share an Airbnb with the owners. They ended up fucking me over in the end but I got them good and won my case. More on that later bc we’re still not in CA.
The guys sleep till 11AM while I pack up and get the animals ready to sneak past these assholes. The next day was beautiful and sunny AND HOT and we were supposed to relax with friends in Phoenix, AZ but alas we cannot bring the cats into their house bc one of the kids has horrible asthma. So much for rest. On to CA, all of us tired, and fucked up in the head somehow (our 3rd driver got bit by some fucking ants that came with my plants, it just didn’t stop).
5 hours to San Diego area. At this point, I’ve had enough care taking bc the cats are still meowing so we gave my kid to my Husband. He didn’t even give a shit about the truck ride, but minus the breakdowns we knew that if we got in an accident a 28 foot uhaul truck would win. So I felt confident in letting my kid travel in the truck.
We can only go as fast as the truck goes because this particular leg of the drive is treacherous. As shown, the temps were well into 120 and it was safest, especially after THREE service calls to Uhaul taking hours to assist. My H pisses me off at times but I’m not leaving him to rot in the desert. If anything kills him, it will be me. I kid.
We made it to San Diego area with no issues, but I am certainly not done yet. The truck wouldn’t fit into the fucking driveway so we had to back out and then try to back in. Luckily, my girlfriend was there to greet us, she speaks Spanish fluently (you’ll know why this is important in a sec). So, I am trying to direct my Husband, but the man cannot hear me over the car engine. Unfortunately, due to my upbringing or because at the end of along trip, I have no temper. I get very angry very quickly. Through therapy I have curbed it, but I am still a work in progress and at one point I just yelled some nasty curses to my husband and screamed “could you hear that!?”. He didn’t lol. But our neighbors across the street did and suddenly five latino guys (is it offensive to say Mexican? I mean we’re right by fucking Mexico, plus I speak Mexican dialect best vs the other spanish languages.and that’s what I heard them speak) run to our yard and offer their help. I am fluent in understanding but my speech lacks. My gf talked to them and they helped park the truck correctly in our driveway. Like, one dude got in the truck and did it for us. It was so kind and yeah we tipped them. In the mean time, they cracked joked in spanish and when they saw I understood we had this great bonding moment. I think it is SUPER important to be friendly with your neighbors. THEY are the best security, better than any ADT. I’ll tell you why good neighbors are important in a minute….because as stated, it doesn’t stop.
We are home! I threw a dirty sheet on the floor (everything was packed in the truck) and never slept better in my life. In fact, some of my terrible back pain disappeared that night. I have even gone to the doctor over it. It was stress. My back was jacked because I hated being in Chicago. I have PTSD. Some of you close to me think this a joke and I should “get over it”. It’s not that easy when you get distressed and want to help out someone who is screaming for help outside, only to find out that when you mute the TV, those screams are the sound of a drill. You read that correctly. I thought someone was begging for their life when it was a fucking drill. Yes, people drill in CA. And belts jingle in CA. And my kid has toys that I was beaten with as a child, in CA. But my abuser is not in CA.
Speaking of which, my H’s Godmother/Aunt lives here in CA and she lives in the exact same model home as my childhood home. So weird. Only it looks exactly like it did before my dad did all his renovations. Going there is surreal. But here is the best part. His Godmother and her husband (our aunt and uncle) are so gentle and kind. We went over for dinner and it was…..perfect. I knew that spending time in this home with these people will reset my memories of the bullshit that went on in my childhood home. Name it and I got beat with it. Any item around me, including my own toys. And Santa, if you or any of your friends are still reading, I am done protecting you. You need to own up. You should feel shame. You would rather die leaving me with nothing and my child with no grandparents than just say you have been cruel and it was wrong. So I followed mommy’s advice and “Changed my Address” because you’re right. I AM no longer family. I should post the letter she wrote it on one more time but it would mar my great post. I could go on, but this article isn’t to trash everyone, it’s to give perspective on my trip and how I got to this point. So yeah, San Diego and my new family and framily, is going to be a good thing for my self care and health. Which is really what this is about, even with Uhaul trying to bust my steez.
The fucked up thing is I really miss my family. But they refuse to acknowledge the damage they did and still do. In fact, they don’t seem to have to ability to make it better. Or want to. I always felt they didn’t love me because how do you love someone and do those things to them and constantly break them down. My 5 yo is 35 lbs and it started before that when I was little. How can adult to that to a 35 lb baby who just wants to love. All my kid wants is to be near me and to love me. I mourn that poor child who was confused by the inability experience that. I thank my stars I get a child to give that to. Oddly enough they didn’t that to my sibling. She still got the emotional abuse and it has left her in her own place. I will not speak on her behalf, but I love her and miss her babies already and it kills me to not see them grow up. But it was KILLING me to be near things and them not be right. It was best for me to remove myself from the picture so they can move on their lives without me tainting every holiday and special occasion.
Back to this move. So we arrive, I sleep on the floor. They next day these 2 movers come in and HAUL ASS. What took us a full day to pack, took 2 hours to unload. Only one broken glass in our curio cabinet and so far that is the extent of any damage BECAUSE I AM A FUCKING PACKING BEAST. THAT is why I didnt want anyone touching our fucking truck. I am a DJ, I know how to pack shit. It’s my job to play tetris with my car on the weekly and I know what will break shit. I ended up breaking a piece of china while unpacking but in all, nothing important was lost. Including the idiot cats.
Just when we think things are quiet, shit starts going haywire again. My neighbors from Chicago call me. Someone called in the vehicle we left behind for our cousin as abandoned. And I know who too. Those motherfuckers across the street who own that beat up Chevy Suburban did it bc they called in my neighbor’s van too. It’s so mean and fucked up bc I did nothing when they left their ugly ass truck in front of my house for three fucking weeks. Because I was being “neighborly”. And this shit head literally called the car in as abandoned the minute we left the driveway because Chicago does a tow for abandoned vehicles in 7 days, and they have to mark the cars to time them. So I had to go on my neighborhood watch and find someone to tow the damn car into our driveway so my cousin from IN doesn’t get stuck looking for a Chicago tow yard. Anyone who has been towed by the city of Chicago knows what a horrible experience this is and that you need proof of ownership and CASH to release the car. Another $100 wasted. Thanks neighbors to the left for having our back. Fuck you neighbors across the street. A POX on your family and may you all get hand foot mouth disease.
Thank Allah for my next door neighbors. They were there when the tow guy arrived and help guide the car into the our driveway. Why didn’t we park it in the driveway in the first place? Because we were supposed to have tenants by now. BUT that didn’t happen so now we are paying rent and mortgage. So pray that we get tenants because as of right now, we are house poor.
In the same hour we get a text that my VW is stranded downtown. I didn’t get the full info at first and it sounded like my broken car was in an expensive hotel garage. I couldn’t believe it. Turns out, the car was fine. Our aunt just didn’t know the steering wheel was turned slightly and that is why the ignition wouldn’t turn over. And the car was parked in the hotel she works at. So no $50 a day parking fee. Phew.
Guess what. I’m not done. Remember those nosey assholes in AZ where I tried to sneak my cat in. The idiot cat tried to run out when I looked at the monsoon and they happened to be outside opposite the pool (see pic above). They said NOTHING to me about animals. I even messaged them when we left and thanked them and left their place spotless. The minute after I gave them a 5 star review the bitch of the house reviewed me and snitched on me and stated I had a nasty ass dog with me. My Husband is allergic to doggos. Fact is, we had no dogs with us. Cats yes, Dogs no. So you bet your ass I contacted Airbnb and denied the dog. They are now deleting that hog’s comment. Dicks. If they had confronted me, I would have accepted the lick, but to wait until my review then sneak in a bad review for me is fucked up. They should have confronted me. In the end, those assholes can’t prove shit. And that is what I learned as a kid. If there is no receipt (video of my dog/cat or admission on my part) then it did NOT HAPPEN. Know that for your own knowledge.
AND THAT is how we ended up in the San Diego area. Safe and sound and in a home I love. I love the layout, I love the yard, I love our neighbors and am looking so forward to sharing my new life with my readers. I have wanted to move back out West since I left Las Vegas to return to Chicago, but it never was the right time. So thank you Santa, best present ever.
Not so much the end, but the beginning.
