Possibilities

If I ever compile a Happy Song List, "You've Got Possibilities" 
would be on it.
I've just discovered that the Peggy Lee version I know is an abbreviation of a song from a not-very-successful 1966 Broadway show "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman". 

Here's the full song from the show, sung by Linda Lavin as a secretary with a crush on Clark Kent.
With the full lyrics, it's even better!
"Relax sweetheart, I'm not gonna bite you... Yet."


Linda Lavin. Why is that name familiar?
Oh! Wikipedia reminds me she played Alice on the TV show of that name.

I was listening to the song today to give myself courage, because I'm maybe ready to do something more...

I don't want to say that too loud because it scares me as much as excites me to think of possibilities.

In many ways, being Custodian of BOOK's is my ideal job.I wouldn't want to quit! But after a year, I no longer go to bed wiped out nor lie awake thinking about it. 
I have energy--I could do more than one part-time job. 
(And I could earn more: I can't live forever on $600/month.)

The thrift store has possibilities, in theory, but at this point I mainly see the many guy ropes keeping in stuck in place.

The big picture is very much not like these hot-air balloons:

I think, too, of how I moved to this apartment seventeen(!) years ago, only intending it to be an interim place to live. 
I'd been living in an ideal place: a studio apartment in an old brick apartment building. High ceilings, wood floors, big windows, clawfoot bathtub. (Water stains and crooked door- and window frames too, but I prefer old buildings.)

While I lived there, I'd gotten stuck in a sticky relationship with Mr. Classics. Every time I'd thought it was dead, it would stumble back to life like a zombie. 
I decided that moving would drive a stake through its brain.

Looking back, I don't think I needed to take the drastic step of giving up my nice apartment, but I didn't know that at the time. 
I acted in good faith, and, . . . I don't know, maybe I did need to move. Maybe that's why the zombie stayed dead, finally.
Who knows? 
In life, there's no control group of "the you who didn't do that thing you did".

What I know for sure is that nine months after I moved, my mother killed herself, and my sense of possibilities plummeted like a deflated hot-air balloon.
I cancelled everything I was going to do and stayed in and––I've written about this before––prayed nothing would change.
And nothing much did.
And this apartment was fine, just fine.

The apartment was (and is) cheap, because friends own the house its in. If you follow my blog, you've probably seen in photos that it's pleasant enough, even if not exactly charming. It's located near everything. For years, even after my energy came back, those things were enough to justify the less-than-ideal things. And when Mz moved to town, she ended up living here with me for four years.

So it's been fine, mostly. Though looking back, I really should have left when meth addicts moved in next door. They were scary, and their three-year tenure ended with a shooting death. 
God! Why didn't I move? Was I just so used to things being traumatic?
Am I still?

If you know my home owners, don't mention this! because it's a long shot, but finally I'm starting to think about moving.
Rent in this city is atrociously high, but if I added a second job,  some freelance writing/editing work, perhaps? I could swing it.

I don't know. 
Come back in a year, or ten, and I might be right here, living on minimum wage, doing a part-time job I love. 
That would be OK. 
But, I just wanted to whisper it out loud here: 
"I've got possibilities..."