Author: jennhorning95

As a 20-something, I never felt pressured to leave my parents’ house. I was lucky that we had a great relationship. They had made it clear I could stay at home as long as I wanted. Though, there was something inside me that questioned it and wondered when the time would come for me to leave.

I weighed the pros and cons of living at home many times and the benefits would always come out on top.

Though, after a camping trip with a couple of friends in May 2021, my dissatisfaction began to grow. Two had been living on their own in their own apartments for a few years and the other had just bought a house. I can’t quite describe the feeling but I remember coming home from that trip, wishing I was in my own place.

It just so happened that our washing machine was no longer functional and it would take a week to get a new one. I was extremely frustrated that I couldn’t clean up from my trip the way I had planned.

I continued to waffle for a few months after that trip but began to realize it was time for me to leave. The one thing that still kept me at home was our dog, Cinnamon. She had been diagnosed with kidney disease in mid-2020 and I knew she didn’t have much time left. I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could before she passed. I didn’t know when that would be and I slowly started to think about leaving without her. In July 2021, she took a turn for the worst and 6 days after her 16^th birthday, she passed away.

@jennaexsm3989

#exsm3989

♬ Puppy? Cute Puppies! – SiLLy ViRaL

After many years of internal debate, I finally felt it was time. I began conversing with friends and people at work about the idea. I think I wanted to put it into the universe to make sure I would actually do it. If I said my plans aloud, it would be harder for me to back out.

Like I had done many times before, I scoured rental sites including RentFaster. This is where I found a place I was seriously interested in. I was still too scared to reach out to the poster but a friend said I should. I built up the courage and did it. I didn’t get a reply.

Not long after, the posting said rented. I wish they would have responded even to say it was no longer available but alas, I was left in the dust. It was okay though, it was only my first try.

Very aware of my plans and willing to help me, my friend was also on the lookout. She had come across a link to a place on Kijiji. She was familiar with the building and had looked at a place here, herself. So, at her recommendation I reached out to the landlord. I was scared it wouldn’t be available as the posting had been up for a while. But I got lucky this time and it was! We made plans to go look at it on Labor Day. And once again, I began to freak myself out. I had never lived on my own before, never had a lease. I had no rental references. Would this be a problem?

Various articles also told me that my rent should only be 30% of my income while others claimed the 50/30/20 rule. Based on my current income, I wasn’t going to fit into either of these categories. Would this be a problem? Would the landlord deny me because I didn’t make enough money?

• Rule of Thumb: How Much Should You Spend on Rent?
• How Much Should You Spend on Rent? Ignore the ‘30% Rule’

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that weekend because I was so scared of being denied. The day came and my friend and I met up in the parking lot. The landlord met us at the front doors and we went to look. I probably should’ve looked a little harder at some things but at this point I just wanted to move out so bad that I didn’t care. I did also have my friend there who’s lived in three places herself. Had she noticed anything alarming, she would have mentioned it. I already had the rental application with me, ready to go.

And as luck would have it, I signed the lease on the spot. All of my worries had been for nothing as they so often are. My landlord had no worries about me moving out for the first time and only commented that I worked full time, not worrying about the amount of money I was actually taking in every month. I signed the lease for the 15^th agreeing to move in on the 18^th.

It was a rush, a serious anxiety inducing rush. I had nothing. I hadn’t built up a stash of things to bring with me when I left my parent’s house. I didn’t have anywhere to store them. I signed the lease only 3 weeks before I was set to move in.

So I continued to panic. I began shopping around for the stuff I wouldn’t be able to live without, pots/pans, cutlery, toilet paper and the like. Furniture wise, all I had was my twin bed and an outdoor patio set a friend happened to be giving away. That was it.

I did what I could in the weeks leading up to the move, packing my stuff in boxes, getting renter’s insurance and scheduling my Internet installation. The “adult” stuff you don’t really think about until you have to set it up for yourself. After trips to Walmart and and a few other places, I was as ready as I could be.

Saturday, September 18th I moved in. With the help of a Home Depot van, my dad and friend, it only took two trips up the elevator.

That first day was weird. I remember thinking I should go home soon, only to realize I already was home. As days went on, the place became more familiar to me. It was a pretty empty box for a while but it slowly began to fill up with furniture purchases from IKEA and the Brick.

Now, It’s been almost three months since move-in day. When I made my final decision to move out on my own, I truly thought it would take a year to get everything in order. I’ll continue to collect bits and pieces in time but I’m quite proud of how it’s turned out in only a few short months. I may spend more now on rent and food but the freedom and extra space has been worth every penny.

In Ashley Fell’s TED talk, called “Why storytelling is so powerful in the digital era,” she mentions the Four I’s of Engaging Storytelling. Essentially, these are four elements any story must have to engage the reader.

The Four I’s of Engaging Stoytelling

1. Interest. Engaging stories pique the reader’s interest and maintain their attention.
2. Instruct. A good story instructs the reader and creates meaning for them.
3. Involve. Great stories involved the reader in some way.
4. Inspire. After taking in a well-crafted story, the reader will feel inspired.

In Ashley Fell's TED Talk, she mentions "The Four I's of Engaging Storytelling." #EXSM3989https://t.co/1NUR5le2Qs pic.twitter.com/dur2m2vEAv

— Jenna (@JennaEXSM3989) November 29, 2021

Tonight I watched You Season 3 Episode 6. I won’t lie it was a challenge to live-tweet because it’s an episode of a TV show, it’s one story within a bigger story, a piece of a puzzle. But nonetheless, we did it!

Alright, tonight we're watching You Season 3 Episode 6! Yes, I'm behind. Don't judge me. #EXSM3989 pic.twitter.com/TE4G3t6Z7I

— Jenna (@JennaEXSM3989) November 9, 2021

You is kind of hard to explain. It’s complicated. But it all stems around Joe, the main character and as we get into Seasons 2 and 3, Love also becomes a main character. Basically, they’re sociopaths. They become obsessed with other people and then long story short, somebody ends up dead.

The story of this particular episode revolves around Joe getting to know his co-worker a little bit more. The episode begins with him in her house looking for clues and bits and pieces to help him understand who she is. As the episode goes on, he finds out more and more and ultimately, the two end up having feelings for each other.

To make matters more complicated, Love, Joe’s wife, has just cheated on him with the teenage neighbor and could be pregnant with his child. Fortunately, she gets her period and his thankfully not pregnant. A bullet dodged if you will. She’s had a complicated relationship with her brother and it’s continued even after he died. While he’s no longer around, she’s found solace in sending him text messages. In one of the scenes, she’s in a bathtub and she hallucinates that her brother, Forty, is there with her. In the end she comes to the realization that she has to give her brother up and focus her attention on Joe. This, at the same time Joe is mingling with his new crush, Marienne.

The episode ends with a conversation between Love and Joe about how to keep the neighbor away. In a previous episode, Love killed the neighbor’s wife. Anyway, Love’s idea is essentially to seduce the neighbor’s son, Theo, the one with whom she cheated on Joe. Joe thinks it’s a great idea but only because it means he can spend more time with Marriene.

When I was live-tweeting this, I tried to follow the basic principles of good storytelling. It’s not a whole complete story, so I will say it was challenging. But within the confines of the the one episode, the beginning was Joe looking for more information about Marienne, the middle and conflict were what to do about Marienne and the ending was him deciding that he was still going to be involved with her. Love went through a bit of a different battle in the episode, where the beginning was her struggling to come to terms with potentially being pregnant with someone who was not her husband, letting go of the unhealthy relationship with her brother and deciding she wanted to be happy with Joe.

Throughout the course of the show, I’ve found myself rooting for different people. I think in this episode, though, I was rooting for Love. While she’s certainly not an angel, I could see her struggle. She just wanted to be happy but that’s so hard to do when you understand how complicated her life is.

The underlying theme in this show, at least this season, is Love and Joe’s continued struggle. They both want to be with the other person or at least think they should want to be but always find something that gets in the way. And then, somehow work through it and crawl back to each other. I think this particular episode definitely drove that forward.

I first heard The Veldt as a song by deadmau5, one that makes me cry every time I hear it. I’ve been fortunate to hear it played live twice by the man himself. The story behind the song is one of amazement, in itself. Joel Zimmerman (aka deadmau5) released the instrumental of the track and asked people to submit their own vocal. And alas, what we have today was the very first vocal he ever heard. There’s even video of him discovering it.

And then, I learned the song’s concept is based off a short story called The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. Once I read the story, everything about the song and the video made so much more sense and gave me an even greater sense of meaning and emotion toward the song.

Click to access The%20Veldt%20-%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf

What stands out to me about this story is how ahead of it’s time it was. It’s a science fiction story that starts with details about a home cleaning and cooking itself. As the characters move in their home, the lights turn on and off by themselves. Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1950, there isn’t the slightest possibility this story was routed in the reality of its time. It is soon discovered the parents in the story have a “nursery” in their home which will become the main subject of the story. It’s a two-dimensional box that somehow changes into a real African veldt, complete with sun and heat, essentially virtual reality in the 1950’s.

As the story continues, a sense of uneasiness develops. While the home the couple have chosen to live in can do everything for them, they begin to not feel at home. They want to do everything again for themselves, the housekeeping, the cooking, the taking care of their children. They begin to contemplate the idea of “turning off” their home including the nursery. The father begins to contemplate the nursery and how it’s taken over his children’s lives. In his thoughts, you realize that the landscape/theme of the nursery is a direct result of what the person inside of it is thinking about, meaning that the children have though up this African veldt.

The parents decide to consult a psychologist because they are concerned about their children’s well-being. He recommends they shut it down as the nursery is becoming a channel toward destructive thoughts instead of a release. At this suggestion, the family decide it is time to leave their home, to leave the place where everything is done for them and to leave the nursery that has turned their children away from them.

After learning of this, Peter and Wendy, the two children are not happy and beg to go to the nursery one more time. The parents finally agree and not long after, their children call them to the Sahara. The door slams as the children lock them in and soon lions surround them. All they can do is scream. The very last scene in the story is the two children and the psychologist in the nursery eating a picnic lunch. The psychologist asks where the parents are as lions feed in the background. Wendy says, “Oh they’ll be here directly.”

The first time I read the story and even as I read it again just now, I was shocked. Just the right amount of details are provided to point the reader to the conclusion that the veldt was real and Wendy and Peter wanted their parents dead. Reading it in 2021, I see it as a commentary on technology, how we’re so reliant on it and we would go to extreme lengths to keep it, very Black Mirror-esque. I still can’t get over the fact that this was written in 1950. It makes me wonder what the people of that time thought when they read it.

It’s only a 13 page story but I can still get all of the elements of a good story out of it. The beginning, middle and end are clear. I root for the parents to figure out their lives so then can become happy again. And there becomes a very clear conflict that needs to be addressed. Ultimately, it is addressed but not in the way you would think.