Okay, it's happened. This week I am officially sick of living alone. Just really. Yes, it's nice to be able to wander around naked and put things wherever I want but I want roommates now. I want people to casually and spontaneously be around. I want to be able to see friends without extensive texting trying to figure out what they're doing and where they are and if it's okay if I come over. I want people to be around all the time whom I can play games with (I've started playing Magic recently and I really have been wanting a game for a couple of days but there is no one here to play with me). I want people to cook with and for. I want a real kitchen and a table and all those things that you have in real apartments. I want people around to tell me "Hey, stop watching TV shows on your computer and do something with us." or even just "Hey, watch TV shows on your computer with us." I want people who will give me outfit input (I have been this person at Maggie's place, and I miss it from college). I want to be able to casually remark upon something I see or read without having to call someone, go to someone else's house, or post it on the internet. When it's cold and snowy I want to have people be around without having to trek out into the white abyss. And I want the kind of apartment that there is any point in inviting anyone else to. Basically no one who lives in Madison has seen my place because there's very little reason for them to, and very little seating or space if they did come over.
Don't get me wrong, it's comfortable enough, it's just that I would feel so much more productive if I had a room that wasn't my bedroom to be in all day when I'm at home. I get lazy and bored and I have the internet so I spend inordinate amounts of time doing that. Not that I would necessarily be able to break this habit with a bigger place and roommates, but I could at least, when I realize I've been on Failblog or Cracked for more than an hour, get up and go into the living room, leaving my computer behind. Or call over a roommate and see what they are doing, if there's anything they want to do. I'm having trouble with the "learning to cook" project because it is just for me. So I say to myself each night "Well, I'm hungry. I could try to make a new recipe, or I could heat up noodles and put pesto on them." Fundamentally, I am easy to please with relatively bland things and willing to eat the same thing over and over again, so without anyone else's input I generally do the latter.
Most of all, I'm bored and lonely a lot of the time but also lazy. Or bored and lonely but don't want to text people every single night asking if I can come over to their place and hang out with them. I know it's strange but that just feels weird after so many years of being able to just walk up or down stairs or at the most across maybe twenty yards and find a whole bunch of people just hanging out and for it to be perfectly reasonable to drop by without asking first and just see what there is to do. I miss that so so so much. It feels much more like an imposition to have to text first and see what they're up to and ask if I can come barge in on it. Not that they mind, I know they don't, but it's just how I think. I want people to talk to and hang out with that are just here. And honestly, having my own room in a place with roommates, if the room is decently sized, will be a lot like what I do now but with people, which is excellent. Also, if my kitchen is not 10 feet from my bed, I feel like I will be able to cut down on the snacking, which would be nice.
So, I knew it would happen. I'm sick of living alone. A lot of that might be that my default when I am alone is the internet, and I am so sick of that but addicted and I need to find other things to do. But I need the internet for things like job hunting and apartment hunting. So I can't just say "I won't go on the internet today, instead I'll be productive" because being productive almost always involves going on the internet. And once I'm on, I'm on Facebook and Failbook and webcomics and then it's four hours later and I've done absolutely nothing but open a whole bunch of Craigslist tabs for potential jobs that I might apply to later.
I really hope this whole thing with Tanya and Brianna works out. The more I've been looking at places the more excited I get about it. It won't be until August which really sucks, because I have months more of living on my own and I know I can do it, I just have to try harder. But it's also the tail end of winter, the hardest time to try because everything is bleak and awful and you keep thinking it's going to be spring but then it snows all day like today.
Also, I have way too much time in my own head. My job is largely me alone with the horses and as I'm also alone at home I have far, far too much time to think and brood and worry and then little problems become large and large problems become huge and then I feel less like doing anything and it is a vicious cycle.
Long story short: Karises were not meant to be solitary creatures. But hopefully this will be like Australia and the Tortoise job, where after a couple of months I hit a wall and go "No, this is the end point, I cannot do this anymore, this sucks" (although for both of those it was 3 months and I'm only 2 months in now) and then after that I find that it's actually totally fine and I enjoy it again. So, since I have five and a half months left of this, let's hope that happens and I don't just spend all of it laying on my bed on the internet.
Maybe having more furniture would help.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Horsing Around
Hey so sorry it's been so long. I waited for a while to post because I didn't want to put anything too bitter out on the internet about Epic. I was really really disappointed when they decided not to hire me. I had been applying since October and over the months my hopes had gotten really high. No one I'd talked to had gotten to the final interviewing phase without actually getting the job, and I was on campus for almost an entire day during which I got to imagine what it would be like to work there, so by the end of all that I was sort of banking on getting that job. It sounded like fun and everyone I met was great and I liked the idea of it a lot. But, when I'm completely honest with myself, the main reason I wanted that job was because it sounded so very very nice to not have to worry about money for a little while. It would have just completely taken that set of anxiety off my plate, would have let me pay my loans, my rent, and still save, start a 401(k) and not spend ridiculously lavishly or anything but just not have to check my bank account before I went out to dinner, you know? It would have been nice to be that comfortable. And it's not that the job didn't sound fun and interesting, it really did, but the money was the big thing. I probably could have saved up and taken vacation time to go see my brother, which I really really wanted to do and am scared that I won't be able to now.
But, alas, I did not get the job. I was sad and bitter and I ate a pint of icecream. The worst part really was that a couple days later I put up my resume on Monster and almost immediately I got an email from Epic telling me I was a good candidate and should apply. Really?! You can't take two seconds to check whether or not you rejected someone within the past week before you send out that kind of email? But anyway, even though I am still not financially set, I am glad I didn't get that job now because it led to something so much better!
I had applied to a job with a nearby polo club to exercise their horses and had never heard back, so I called the woman a few hours after I heard back from Epic. She hadn't gotten my email, or at least couldn't find it, but was impressed by my resume (14 years of riding horses) and invited me out to her stable to try out. She was even more impressed with how I handled Remy, one of her biggest horses, and invited me back for a second try out with the other top three. She and her trainer watched us ride and they were both very nice and seemed impressed. I left feeling fairly confident but then didn't hear from them for a few days. Finally I called to check and she said she would make a decision by the next day. I was a bundle of nerves for the next day and a half until she called and said I'd got the job!
I started on Saturday and have been at the stable for at least three hours every day except Tuesday. Most of her horses are Thoroughbreds, which I haven't had too much experience with but are mostly very well behaved. There are a couple who got aggressive in the stall and still kind of freak me out, but for the most part they are a great bunch of horses. The one thing I'll say about Thoroughbreds is that their canters are different. I don't know exactly how, they're just a little hard to get the hang of compared to Morgans. It's weird. By now my muscles are mostly used to riding so often, but the first few days I was ridiculously sore. Luckily, I have a very large bathtub and I bought a box of Epsom salts.
Besides the comfort level around some of the horses (which I'm sure will get better the more I work with them), my only problem with this job is that it makes me miss my horse. Lark is so special and he's getting older and he's far away. It's been a long time since I've ridden him regularly and although he seems very glad to no longer be a show horse I still feel bad. I mean, he's got a good life. He's at a stable where they take good care of him, he's got a herd, he's got food and water, he's got a pasture, Mom goes out to see him, but I just feel bad. I miss him. If I knew I were staying in Madison for at least a couple of years I would move him out here but I just don't know what I'm doing and that is really unfair to him. I feel a little bit like I'm letting him down having fun with so many new horses when he is back in Minnesota. I know that is stupid, but it's true.
On the other hand, I'm really enjoying this job. So far I think my favorites are Aria, Breez, and Raz. They are extremely responsive and Raz is just so ready to go. It's a lot of fun. In addition to the nine polo horses, the stable owner has two fairly new additions: young paints rescued from a nearby farm where the owner was starving and neglecting them. They're very young and very cute. One of them (Tux) is a bit wild but other than that is very well-adjusted. The other (Picasso) is extremely timid. When they first got him he wouldn't let people get near him. He's improved a lot but is still very afraid of people and noises and, well, really everything. He's been lame for the past week but absolutely flipped out when we tried to soak his hoof to help it. I've been tasked with the job of socializing him, which I am just so so happy about! He really is a sweetheart, and he seemed to take to me pretty quickly. I spent a while in his stall today just hanging out and talking to him and getting him used to petting and brushing. By the end of a half hour he even let me put liniment on his bad foot. I'm going to spend time with him every day and slowly get him used to people and movement and all sorts of things. I think he could make a really good western horse eventually. I'm really excited about this project.
I still need to find a second job, but I'm working on it and as of right now I'm just happy to have a fairly well-paying job that I love. It's funny, I've spent so many years paying large amounts of money to ride horses, I never really thought I'd be paid to do it. I'm still worried about the future and many many things but when I stop to think about it, I'm happy. Right now, when I'm not visiting the boy (that is also going quite well, by the way, and we have now been together for over a year! So happy!) my days mostly consist of riding, laying around, and dancing. I know this can't go on forever, but really, life is pretty damn sweet and I intend to enjoy it.
But, alas, I did not get the job. I was sad and bitter and I ate a pint of icecream. The worst part really was that a couple days later I put up my resume on Monster and almost immediately I got an email from Epic telling me I was a good candidate and should apply. Really?! You can't take two seconds to check whether or not you rejected someone within the past week before you send out that kind of email? But anyway, even though I am still not financially set, I am glad I didn't get that job now because it led to something so much better!
I had applied to a job with a nearby polo club to exercise their horses and had never heard back, so I called the woman a few hours after I heard back from Epic. She hadn't gotten my email, or at least couldn't find it, but was impressed by my resume (14 years of riding horses) and invited me out to her stable to try out. She was even more impressed with how I handled Remy, one of her biggest horses, and invited me back for a second try out with the other top three. She and her trainer watched us ride and they were both very nice and seemed impressed. I left feeling fairly confident but then didn't hear from them for a few days. Finally I called to check and she said she would make a decision by the next day. I was a bundle of nerves for the next day and a half until she called and said I'd got the job!
I started on Saturday and have been at the stable for at least three hours every day except Tuesday. Most of her horses are Thoroughbreds, which I haven't had too much experience with but are mostly very well behaved. There are a couple who got aggressive in the stall and still kind of freak me out, but for the most part they are a great bunch of horses. The one thing I'll say about Thoroughbreds is that their canters are different. I don't know exactly how, they're just a little hard to get the hang of compared to Morgans. It's weird. By now my muscles are mostly used to riding so often, but the first few days I was ridiculously sore. Luckily, I have a very large bathtub and I bought a box of Epsom salts.
Besides the comfort level around some of the horses (which I'm sure will get better the more I work with them), my only problem with this job is that it makes me miss my horse. Lark is so special and he's getting older and he's far away. It's been a long time since I've ridden him regularly and although he seems very glad to no longer be a show horse I still feel bad. I mean, he's got a good life. He's at a stable where they take good care of him, he's got a herd, he's got food and water, he's got a pasture, Mom goes out to see him, but I just feel bad. I miss him. If I knew I were staying in Madison for at least a couple of years I would move him out here but I just don't know what I'm doing and that is really unfair to him. I feel a little bit like I'm letting him down having fun with so many new horses when he is back in Minnesota. I know that is stupid, but it's true.
On the other hand, I'm really enjoying this job. So far I think my favorites are Aria, Breez, and Raz. They are extremely responsive and Raz is just so ready to go. It's a lot of fun. In addition to the nine polo horses, the stable owner has two fairly new additions: young paints rescued from a nearby farm where the owner was starving and neglecting them. They're very young and very cute. One of them (Tux) is a bit wild but other than that is very well-adjusted. The other (Picasso) is extremely timid. When they first got him he wouldn't let people get near him. He's improved a lot but is still very afraid of people and noises and, well, really everything. He's been lame for the past week but absolutely flipped out when we tried to soak his hoof to help it. I've been tasked with the job of socializing him, which I am just so so happy about! He really is a sweetheart, and he seemed to take to me pretty quickly. I spent a while in his stall today just hanging out and talking to him and getting him used to petting and brushing. By the end of a half hour he even let me put liniment on his bad foot. I'm going to spend time with him every day and slowly get him used to people and movement and all sorts of things. I think he could make a really good western horse eventually. I'm really excited about this project.
I still need to find a second job, but I'm working on it and as of right now I'm just happy to have a fairly well-paying job that I love. It's funny, I've spent so many years paying large amounts of money to ride horses, I never really thought I'd be paid to do it. I'm still worried about the future and many many things but when I stop to think about it, I'm happy. Right now, when I'm not visiting the boy (that is also going quite well, by the way, and we have now been together for over a year! So happy!) my days mostly consist of riding, laying around, and dancing. I know this can't go on forever, but really, life is pretty damn sweet and I intend to enjoy it.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Pictures as Promised
Well I finally put my bed together (I have slept on it several nights now and had up to three people sit on it at a time so hopefully this means it is sturdy and will not suddenly fall apart while I am sleeping (*knock on wood*). Having the "under my bed" storage place meant I unpacked most of the rest of my room and even put up a few decorations. Finally I am ready to show it to people.
It says K on my door. Very convenient.
Said bed, my two large glorious windows, and my very first piece of art - complete with frame - purchased in sophomore year and not used until right now. It is a series of anatomical drawings - the heart, mind, and soul. You may also see in this picture my desk with a very excellent website up on my computer and the plant my parents got for me for my birthday which is now slowly dying despite my best efforts.
Closet/dressing area. I am especially proud of the postcards from my various adventures this summer.
My tiny adorable kitchen. Made slightly less tiny by my enormous organizer filled with appliances and other cooking implements. Many thanks to my mother for helping me put it together, I think it would still be in pieces on the floor without her.
A preposterous amount of dishes and glasses for one person but if I ever get a table I will be all set for dinner parties.
My strangely enormous bathroom, large enough for convenient (if odd) vacuum storage.
My extremely large bathtub which makes me extra glad I don't pay for water (although I've only used it once so far, it was wonderful), and possibly my favorite thing I've bought for my apartment so far: owl bathmat.
So there you have it, the virtual tour of my apartment. Not finished, not perfect, but very comfortable and now it feels like home. I hope you can come visit it in person sometime. And now I believe I shall head down to Beloit to see a boy.
It says K on my door. Very convenient.
Said bed, my two large glorious windows, and my very first piece of art - complete with frame - purchased in sophomore year and not used until right now. It is a series of anatomical drawings - the heart, mind, and soul. You may also see in this picture my desk with a very excellent website up on my computer and the plant my parents got for me for my birthday which is now slowly dying despite my best efforts.
Closet/dressing area. I am especially proud of the postcards from my various adventures this summer.
My tiny adorable kitchen. Made slightly less tiny by my enormous organizer filled with appliances and other cooking implements. Many thanks to my mother for helping me put it together, I think it would still be in pieces on the floor without her.
A preposterous amount of dishes and glasses for one person but if I ever get a table I will be all set for dinner parties.
My strangely enormous bathroom, large enough for convenient (if odd) vacuum storage.
My extremely large bathtub which makes me extra glad I don't pay for water (although I've only used it once so far, it was wonderful), and possibly my favorite thing I've bought for my apartment so far: owl bathmat.
So there you have it, the virtual tour of my apartment. Not finished, not perfect, but very comfortable and now it feels like home. I hope you can come visit it in person sometime. And now I believe I shall head down to Beloit to see a boy.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Home, Sweet Home
So I've been in Madison a little over a week now. My apartment is still not entirely put together, but it's getting there. I still have a bunch of boxes to store or throw out, my bed is not exactly cooperating with me trying to fix it, and I could really use some more storage space but I really like my apartment. I hung up my first real bit of art. I bought it at Gallery ABBA in Beloit sophomore year but have never had room for it before. I'm super happy about it. Once things are in order it will be in the pictures I post, hopefully.
I'm enjoying being alone a lot more than I thought. Part of that might be that I'm still getting used to having the internet all the time, and part of that is that How I Met Your Mother is all available on Netflix, so I spend a lot of time doing that, but I've also been starting on doing other things I set out to at the beginning of the year. I've started my NaNo story over and have decided to do it in January instead of November. I'm not sure I'm writing fast enough to actually get it done, but I've been writing again which was the only goal. I've been working on my dad's scarf, I've cooked a little, and most importantly, I started a new hobby.
This weekend I researched places I could start pole dancing up here. I've been doing pole dancing in Rockford with my former roommate for a couple of months (not stripper pole dancing, the athletic, Cirque du Soleil kind, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZlD2Yt3t7A&feature=related ) and I liked it so I wanted to keep going. I found two places, both are very expensive, one of them has very strict six-week classes and seems a bit like the National Karate of pole dancing places. The other one, I found out, was started by someone who used to do it at the first place. I went there anyway, just to try it out. I went to a Level 2 class because my last place didn't have levels and I just guessed. As we were stretching the other girls in the class said they'd been going for two years and three years, respectively. I said two months, and I hadn't done it in a month. They used stationary poles, I'd only ever used spinning ones. I don't want to sound conceited, I really don't, but this is the truth. I was better at it than the other girls. I'd been doing it a fraction of the time and I wasn't used to the type of pole they used but I got the combinations faster, even though I'd never done any of the moves before and they'd already been working on the combinations. It was fun and certainly an ego boost but I don't know if I want to take lessons at a place where those are the people who have been doing it for years. Maybe the Level 3 class (which she said I could go to after a couple more weeks at Level 2) would be better, but it was still pretty expensive and I missed rotating poles.
So I decided to scrap pole dancing, at least for now, and go to another dance studio I found, only a few blocks away from my house and they do all sorts of different types of dance with sort of a "drop in and have fun" mentality. They did have pole dancing listed but it seemed like much more of a stripper kind of pole. Anyway, last night I went to my very first hip-hop class, and more than that it's the first time that I picked up a hobby without tagging along with a friend or family member or being given lessons by my parents. I found a place I wanted to try out and went by myself. It didn't even really occur to me that that was a big step until afterwards. Anyway, hip-hop was super fun and afterwards I decided to stay for the pole class. They had two stationary and one spinning pole, not as nice or as fast as the ones at my old place but still! For the most part it was more floor/stripper-type-dancing oriented but I talked to the teacher and told her about my experience and she basically let me and two other girls who were more experienced hang out together on the spinning pole and try to teach each other things. Occasionally she would come over or check on us, make sure we weren't killing ourselves or show us something cool, but basically we had free rein and it was awesome. Today I am incredibly sore because between the two classes I basically danced for two and a half hours straight, but I'm probably going back tonight for bellydance. It turns out that I just adore dancing and since I have a two-week pass and no job...well this is basically what I'll be doing for the next two weeks.
Oh! Birthday! I forgot to tell you about my birthday. It was lovely. A little low-key but filled with friends and delicious food (Maggie introduced me to a lovely place called the Weary Traveler on Willy Street and then we discovered that the delicious sushi place on State delivers...so that's going to be a problem for my wallet) and board games, plus it was warm enough that I walked around all day without a coat on and climbed a tree which has never ever happened on my birthday. It was pretty great. Plus, Mike gave me an adorable tiny fat narwhal, and my parents gave me some very beautiful flowers that are making my apartment much more homey right now.
Things on the job front are a little weird right now. I know I shouldn't just count on getting this Epic job, especially because it's another week and a half before I even have my interview, but I have my hopes really high and I really want it, plus I don't know what else to apply for and I hate doing applications. I keep looking at environmental jobs but I'm really not qualified for any of them or they're not in Madison, or usually both. I really hope this Epic job works out, but in the meantime I should probably actually do application work.
Overall, though, I'm really very happy and I can't complain. Life is good.
I'm enjoying being alone a lot more than I thought. Part of that might be that I'm still getting used to having the internet all the time, and part of that is that How I Met Your Mother is all available on Netflix, so I spend a lot of time doing that, but I've also been starting on doing other things I set out to at the beginning of the year. I've started my NaNo story over and have decided to do it in January instead of November. I'm not sure I'm writing fast enough to actually get it done, but I've been writing again which was the only goal. I've been working on my dad's scarf, I've cooked a little, and most importantly, I started a new hobby.
This weekend I researched places I could start pole dancing up here. I've been doing pole dancing in Rockford with my former roommate for a couple of months (not stripper pole dancing, the athletic, Cirque du Soleil kind, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZlD2Yt3t7A&feature=related ) and I liked it so I wanted to keep going. I found two places, both are very expensive, one of them has very strict six-week classes and seems a bit like the National Karate of pole dancing places. The other one, I found out, was started by someone who used to do it at the first place. I went there anyway, just to try it out. I went to a Level 2 class because my last place didn't have levels and I just guessed. As we were stretching the other girls in the class said they'd been going for two years and three years, respectively. I said two months, and I hadn't done it in a month. They used stationary poles, I'd only ever used spinning ones. I don't want to sound conceited, I really don't, but this is the truth. I was better at it than the other girls. I'd been doing it a fraction of the time and I wasn't used to the type of pole they used but I got the combinations faster, even though I'd never done any of the moves before and they'd already been working on the combinations. It was fun and certainly an ego boost but I don't know if I want to take lessons at a place where those are the people who have been doing it for years. Maybe the Level 3 class (which she said I could go to after a couple more weeks at Level 2) would be better, but it was still pretty expensive and I missed rotating poles.
So I decided to scrap pole dancing, at least for now, and go to another dance studio I found, only a few blocks away from my house and they do all sorts of different types of dance with sort of a "drop in and have fun" mentality. They did have pole dancing listed but it seemed like much more of a stripper kind of pole. Anyway, last night I went to my very first hip-hop class, and more than that it's the first time that I picked up a hobby without tagging along with a friend or family member or being given lessons by my parents. I found a place I wanted to try out and went by myself. It didn't even really occur to me that that was a big step until afterwards. Anyway, hip-hop was super fun and afterwards I decided to stay for the pole class. They had two stationary and one spinning pole, not as nice or as fast as the ones at my old place but still! For the most part it was more floor/stripper-type-dancing oriented but I talked to the teacher and told her about my experience and she basically let me and two other girls who were more experienced hang out together on the spinning pole and try to teach each other things. Occasionally she would come over or check on us, make sure we weren't killing ourselves or show us something cool, but basically we had free rein and it was awesome. Today I am incredibly sore because between the two classes I basically danced for two and a half hours straight, but I'm probably going back tonight for bellydance. It turns out that I just adore dancing and since I have a two-week pass and no job...well this is basically what I'll be doing for the next two weeks.
Oh! Birthday! I forgot to tell you about my birthday. It was lovely. A little low-key but filled with friends and delicious food (Maggie introduced me to a lovely place called the Weary Traveler on Willy Street and then we discovered that the delicious sushi place on State delivers...so that's going to be a problem for my wallet) and board games, plus it was warm enough that I walked around all day without a coat on and climbed a tree which has never ever happened on my birthday. It was pretty great. Plus, Mike gave me an adorable tiny fat narwhal, and my parents gave me some very beautiful flowers that are making my apartment much more homey right now.
Things on the job front are a little weird right now. I know I shouldn't just count on getting this Epic job, especially because it's another week and a half before I even have my interview, but I have my hopes really high and I really want it, plus I don't know what else to apply for and I hate doing applications. I keep looking at environmental jobs but I'm really not qualified for any of them or they're not in Madison, or usually both. I really hope this Epic job works out, but in the meantime I should probably actually do application work.
Overall, though, I'm really very happy and I can't complain. Life is good.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Why Hello, 2012!
So far this year has been pretty great. I rang in the new year with some of the Madison folks, and it was so much fun. Everyone kept talking about how excited they were for me to be their neighbor, and I'm just so so happy that I decided to move here. With the help of my mom, Sam, Alexis, and Ben I am now all moved in to my new apartment, and with working pretty hard at it for the last couple of days I am almost all settled in, too.
I'm almost entirely unpacked at this point, and most of my furniture is where it will stay, at least for now. I forgot just how much stuff Jason and Gaea bequeathed me when they left for the Peace Corps, and so I ended up with probably more kitchen stuff than my tiny little kitchen needs, but it's way better than the alternative. My only problem at this point is that I have barely any food. I just sort of let it run out slowly at my last place because I knew I'd be going home and then moving here. The day I moved in Ben pointed out a nearby grocery store and I finally went down there today, but it turns out it's less of a grocery store and more of a really expensive convenience store. I bought a few things to tide me over, but I really need to get to a real grocery store soon. I would have had time today, except I also got my internet all hooked up (all by myself) and since then I have been somewhat (read: a lot) less productive than I'd hoped.
Once the last few boxes and bags are unpacked and my bed is fixed (oh yeah, my bed broke in the move. The part that connects the sideboard to the headboard fell out, and Home Depot didn't have the right size screw, so I am trying my hand at furniture repair, and the wood filler is currently drying in my bathroom. Wish me luck!) I will post some pictures.
So far I really like it here. It's a nice size and while it's not perfect it feels very homey already. I'm actually kind of enjoying having this space to myself and being alone, although I'm sure the loneliness will set in once the novelty wears off. There's some more furniture and things that I would like but I've already spent a lot of money (even just the basics for moving in are expensive) and I'm not spending more until I get a job. Although, things are looking up on that front, too! I'm in the process of scheduling a time to go visit the Epic campus! Very excited, but also nervous.
I'm hoping to explore the city some more tomorrow. I've been wrapped up in the internet and in organizing my new place, so I haven't been very many places in Madison, yet. I'm going to get some groceries and then figure out some way to experience the city. Not sure how yet, but a hot chocolate crawl was suggested. I'll figure out something fun.
It's hard to believe tomorrow is my 23rd birthday already. I know a lot of you reading this are older than me and will roll your eyes, but 23 feels so old! I sort of consistently feel about two years younger than I really am. When I was 20 I had to fight the urge to tell people I was 18, when I was 21 I felt 19, etc. I still sort of feel like I should be turning 21 instead of 23. 23 just seems like I should be more worldly and wise than I am. Although, living alone in a real city, even a small one, makes me feel a little more legitimate. It's just scary because life is starting to get real now. It's not my graduation year anymore and after tomorrow I won't be the same age I was when I graduated. I moved out of my college town (but I'll still be visiting a lot, of course). It's scary but exciting. I am excited to be able to make my own decisions but scared because those decisions will be much more lasting than anything was before. So far I've only had jobs and places to live for a few months at a time. I'll be in this place for at least 8 months and presumably the next job I get I'll have to commit to for longer. What if I don't like it? I mean, the real thing I have to remember is nothing is permanent and part of being an adult means accepting consequences, but part of it also means having more control and being able to change things when you're unhappy. I think this is going to be good. I'm positive and happy and things will be good.
Oh man, I meant for this to be a short entry and that so did not happen. I have to go get ready so I can go to an open skate with friends.
Long story short: A new year, a new city, a new apartment, a new me, and old friends to share it all with. I'm really lucky, and this year is going to be good.
I'm almost entirely unpacked at this point, and most of my furniture is where it will stay, at least for now. I forgot just how much stuff Jason and Gaea bequeathed me when they left for the Peace Corps, and so I ended up with probably more kitchen stuff than my tiny little kitchen needs, but it's way better than the alternative. My only problem at this point is that I have barely any food. I just sort of let it run out slowly at my last place because I knew I'd be going home and then moving here. The day I moved in Ben pointed out a nearby grocery store and I finally went down there today, but it turns out it's less of a grocery store and more of a really expensive convenience store. I bought a few things to tide me over, but I really need to get to a real grocery store soon. I would have had time today, except I also got my internet all hooked up (all by myself) and since then I have been somewhat (read: a lot) less productive than I'd hoped.
Once the last few boxes and bags are unpacked and my bed is fixed (oh yeah, my bed broke in the move. The part that connects the sideboard to the headboard fell out, and Home Depot didn't have the right size screw, so I am trying my hand at furniture repair, and the wood filler is currently drying in my bathroom. Wish me luck!) I will post some pictures.
So far I really like it here. It's a nice size and while it's not perfect it feels very homey already. I'm actually kind of enjoying having this space to myself and being alone, although I'm sure the loneliness will set in once the novelty wears off. There's some more furniture and things that I would like but I've already spent a lot of money (even just the basics for moving in are expensive) and I'm not spending more until I get a job. Although, things are looking up on that front, too! I'm in the process of scheduling a time to go visit the Epic campus! Very excited, but also nervous.
I'm hoping to explore the city some more tomorrow. I've been wrapped up in the internet and in organizing my new place, so I haven't been very many places in Madison, yet. I'm going to get some groceries and then figure out some way to experience the city. Not sure how yet, but a hot chocolate crawl was suggested. I'll figure out something fun.
It's hard to believe tomorrow is my 23rd birthday already. I know a lot of you reading this are older than me and will roll your eyes, but 23 feels so old! I sort of consistently feel about two years younger than I really am. When I was 20 I had to fight the urge to tell people I was 18, when I was 21 I felt 19, etc. I still sort of feel like I should be turning 21 instead of 23. 23 just seems like I should be more worldly and wise than I am. Although, living alone in a real city, even a small one, makes me feel a little more legitimate. It's just scary because life is starting to get real now. It's not my graduation year anymore and after tomorrow I won't be the same age I was when I graduated. I moved out of my college town (but I'll still be visiting a lot, of course). It's scary but exciting. I am excited to be able to make my own decisions but scared because those decisions will be much more lasting than anything was before. So far I've only had jobs and places to live for a few months at a time. I'll be in this place for at least 8 months and presumably the next job I get I'll have to commit to for longer. What if I don't like it? I mean, the real thing I have to remember is nothing is permanent and part of being an adult means accepting consequences, but part of it also means having more control and being able to change things when you're unhappy. I think this is going to be good. I'm positive and happy and things will be good.
Oh man, I meant for this to be a short entry and that so did not happen. I have to go get ready so I can go to an open skate with friends.
Long story short: A new year, a new city, a new apartment, a new me, and old friends to share it all with. I'm really lucky, and this year is going to be good.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Holidays, Moving, and Being Alone
Happy holidays, everyone! In case you didn't hear, I got the efficiency apartment I was looking at in Madison! I sign the lease on Friday and move in on Sunday. If you ever want to make the holidays very easy on your family, just decide to move into your first apartment where you can't just use everyone else's kitchen stuff right after Christmas! I got basically an entire kitchen for Christmas, which means that I will actually have to learn to cook, which is one of those things I always tell myself I will do but then always find ways to get out of it. I have a lot of these: writing, doing crafty things, etc. and I'm really hoping that living on my own will help encourage me to start doing these things instead of to sit alone in my bed reading Cracked articles or just constantly going to other peoples' places instead of being home alone.
I have this fear of being alone. I think a lot of people do. It's a problem. I don't like it. Often, I find I can enjoy being by myself, but my first instinct is to never let that happen. If I have the choice I will be with other people almost constantly (until I can't stand it anymore and *have* to be alone, but that's usually only for a night or so), but I've decided recently that that is pretty unhealthy. Especially since when I am with other people I usually try to make them happy before myself, being a polite midwesterner and all. Now is the time in life where I'm supposed to get to know myself, be a little selfish and make myself happy, figure out what it is I want, etc, so that I am a whole and complete person by the time I decide to marry someone or whatever. I know this all sounds a little hokey, but I feel that it's important for me to feel comfortable being on my own. I'm starting small, afterall, alone in a small and somewhat familiar city close to lots of friends and not too far away from more friends and boyfriend, not even *that* far from home, but a start nonetheless. I hope to spend lots of time with my friends, of course, but I also want to become comfortable being at home with myself, not feel like I have to frantically run around finding other things to do but just be alone, you know? I want to start cooking and writing on a regular basis. I want to do crafts. I want to do a lot of things. I might hate living alone, and maybe in August I can find others to move in with (as was the plan but now I have no idea what's happening with that) but I think it's an important experiment for me to run.
To that end, I celebrated Solstice all by myself. I really love the idea of celebrating Solstice, because I hate the dark and sadness of the winter, so celebrating the last day of it getting darker is perfect. My favorite part about any winter holiday is the lights and the idea of making a dreary, cold, hostile season warm and bright and friendly. If I were at home for Solstice I would probably have gone over to Gaea's dad's house where they have a fun celebration (although I wouldn't know anyone since Jason and Gaea left) and they write down things they want to let go of from the past year and burn them and things they want to keep for the new year and keep them. I really love this tradition and I was thinking of having a party of my own this year but alas, Solstice fell the day after everyone had to be out of the dorms and the day my roommate left for Texas. So I was alone. My first instinct upon being alone is to turn on the TV or a movie so it feels like I'm not alone and then stay in and do that all night. Instead, I finished my Christmas shopping and then drove down to Rockford to go to something I'd heard about on the radio called the Miracle of Lights or something like that. It was a road through a public park where various companies from the area had made seasonal light displays on either side of the road for miles. It was a little silly and kitschy but it was fun. Then I went home and I did my little ceremony, writing things to keep and things to let go of. They were quite ambitious for this year, but I think I can do it. Then I read and enjoyed the lights in our living room. It was a lovely night.
My last day at work was lovely, too. I got cards and a hunk of cheese and the coworker who hates me was nicer than she ever had been since my very first day with her. This leads me to believe that possibly she is a good fairy/guardian angel type who made my life awful because she realized I wasn't supposed to be working there and in the long run it would get me stuck in a rut and be very bad, so the only way she could get me to quit would be to make it unbearable for me to stay. Preposterous? Maybe, but as I like to think the best of people this is what I'll decide for now.
Now I am home and it's been very nice. I thought almost a week at home would be a lot but it's looking like I probably won't get to see everyone, which is sad. But I'm enjoying quality time with the parents and in a little while I'm going to go downtown to see Kathleen, which will be lots of fun. Also, it is Monday and I'm not at work. I actually woke up in the middle of the night last night and almost leaped out of bed thinking "Oh my god, I have to get to work!" Then I realized where I was and that I'd quit and I went back to sleep. It was glorious.
I have this fear of being alone. I think a lot of people do. It's a problem. I don't like it. Often, I find I can enjoy being by myself, but my first instinct is to never let that happen. If I have the choice I will be with other people almost constantly (until I can't stand it anymore and *have* to be alone, but that's usually only for a night or so), but I've decided recently that that is pretty unhealthy. Especially since when I am with other people I usually try to make them happy before myself, being a polite midwesterner and all. Now is the time in life where I'm supposed to get to know myself, be a little selfish and make myself happy, figure out what it is I want, etc, so that I am a whole and complete person by the time I decide to marry someone or whatever. I know this all sounds a little hokey, but I feel that it's important for me to feel comfortable being on my own. I'm starting small, afterall, alone in a small and somewhat familiar city close to lots of friends and not too far away from more friends and boyfriend, not even *that* far from home, but a start nonetheless. I hope to spend lots of time with my friends, of course, but I also want to become comfortable being at home with myself, not feel like I have to frantically run around finding other things to do but just be alone, you know? I want to start cooking and writing on a regular basis. I want to do crafts. I want to do a lot of things. I might hate living alone, and maybe in August I can find others to move in with (as was the plan but now I have no idea what's happening with that) but I think it's an important experiment for me to run.
To that end, I celebrated Solstice all by myself. I really love the idea of celebrating Solstice, because I hate the dark and sadness of the winter, so celebrating the last day of it getting darker is perfect. My favorite part about any winter holiday is the lights and the idea of making a dreary, cold, hostile season warm and bright and friendly. If I were at home for Solstice I would probably have gone over to Gaea's dad's house where they have a fun celebration (although I wouldn't know anyone since Jason and Gaea left) and they write down things they want to let go of from the past year and burn them and things they want to keep for the new year and keep them. I really love this tradition and I was thinking of having a party of my own this year but alas, Solstice fell the day after everyone had to be out of the dorms and the day my roommate left for Texas. So I was alone. My first instinct upon being alone is to turn on the TV or a movie so it feels like I'm not alone and then stay in and do that all night. Instead, I finished my Christmas shopping and then drove down to Rockford to go to something I'd heard about on the radio called the Miracle of Lights or something like that. It was a road through a public park where various companies from the area had made seasonal light displays on either side of the road for miles. It was a little silly and kitschy but it was fun. Then I went home and I did my little ceremony, writing things to keep and things to let go of. They were quite ambitious for this year, but I think I can do it. Then I read and enjoyed the lights in our living room. It was a lovely night.
My last day at work was lovely, too. I got cards and a hunk of cheese and the coworker who hates me was nicer than she ever had been since my very first day with her. This leads me to believe that possibly she is a good fairy/guardian angel type who made my life awful because she realized I wasn't supposed to be working there and in the long run it would get me stuck in a rut and be very bad, so the only way she could get me to quit would be to make it unbearable for me to stay. Preposterous? Maybe, but as I like to think the best of people this is what I'll decide for now.
Now I am home and it's been very nice. I thought almost a week at home would be a lot but it's looking like I probably won't get to see everyone, which is sad. But I'm enjoying quality time with the parents and in a little while I'm going to go downtown to see Kathleen, which will be lots of fun. Also, it is Monday and I'm not at work. I actually woke up in the middle of the night last night and almost leaped out of bed thinking "Oh my god, I have to get to work!" Then I realized where I was and that I'd quit and I went back to sleep. It was glorious.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Onward and Upward
My life is about to change again in a lot of ways, most of which I'm not even sure of myself, yet. Let me explain.
On Friday, I put in my two weeks notice at my job. I'm very grateful that I've had a job for the past couple of months, I have a little more money saved up now and I've been able to pay for a lot of my own things, including my first month of student loans which should disappear on Monday, hoorah. But this job was not right for me right now. In fact, it was pretty awful. It was "in my field" in that it was at a laboratory, but it was much more of a blue-collar job than I had first thought. I think the majority of people who worked there hadn't gone to college, and it seemed that for the most part they didn't know or care too much what exactly they were doing to the dairy products or what it meant, other than following what they'd been taught and getting results that were about what they were "supposed" to be. It was annoying for someone who has spent four years learning lab sciences. And not that I'm judging them or anything, just that it is not exactly helping my career to work there.
The days were long, and the commute was very long. I woke up early and came back after dark most days, meaning that both on the way there and on the way back it became very difficult for me to stay awake and alert. I really honestly think that if I took them up on their offer to work there for six months to forever that I probably would have died on the commute at some point, especially once it starts snowing. I hope and pray that that won't happen sometime in the next two weeks. *knock on wood*.
The long days and long commute also meant that most days by the time I came home I would fix dinner, collapse onto the couch or at most come over to BSFFA and collapse on Alexander's couch and watch something until it was time to go to bed. Going to dance classes kept this from happening every night, or rather delayed it another two hours. Not having internet at home during this period means that after dinner I have to get up and go somewhere and sit in public to get anything done like searching for a better job or an apartment or just reading the latest Cracked article, and the fact that I don't get to the internet on a daily basis anymore means that every time I do a lot of my time is spent catching up on things like the latest Cracked article instead of starting to search for jobs and whatnot immediately (it is also why I've been replying to your blogs like weeks after you post them. Sorry, guys). Not that this is a travesty, but it means that if I decided to take this job on a more permanent basis that it would be harder to get out of.
Oddly, the thing that made me want to quit the job the most was also something I'm somewhat thankful to this job for, and that was one of my coworkers. I don't want to sound super petty or anything, I know every job has coworkers you don't like, and it wouldn't have been so bad if I had had friends and allies with the other coworkers, but while they were all nice most of them were a lot older and they all lived in the same little area of the middle of nowhere and knew all the same people, so for the most part no one would talk to me and instead they would talk to each other about small town gossip. Even when they did talk to me it was often about their kids or some small town event, not that I mind hearing about those things, I just really don't have anything to respond with, which makes it really hard to hold a conversation. Even the younger girl who was not much older than me and had been to college doesn't have much in common with me. She moved to Monroe to be with her boyfriend, whose dad runs a cheese factory (it is a cheese town. Seriously, their high school sports teams are The Cheesemakers. I would not make this stuff up). I asked her if she was going to do anything in the long run with her college degree, which was Environmental Science or something like that. She said, entirely seriously and straight-faced, "Nope. This is it." To be able to say that about ANYTHING in your early twenties, much less about working in a cheese laboratory in the middle of nowhere in the frozen north...it just makes me want to scream and pull my hair out. I did not want to get trapped there. And the woman who was trying to convince me to stay kept saying "Oh there's such a future in it, you could be working here for a long long time, you know, there will always be cheese to test..." and that prospect kind of made me want to cry and drive away from that place as fast as possible.
But no, none of these things were the worst. The worst was the coworker I have been working with the most. She is the bitterest old woman I have ever met. She is miserable and seems to want to stay that way. She is also the most passive-aggressive person in the entire world. I thought Minnesotans were the worst, but I am ready to hand over the trophy to Wisconsinites for this woman alone. She hated me from the get-go. I think it partially has something to do with the fact that I am young and has opportunities she thinks the world should have laid at her feet without having to work for them. Admittedly, I have been extremely fortunate but...it's not like she couldn't have changed anything in her life to end up somewhere else. And it's certainly not my fault. Anyway, I have been nothing but respectful and helpful, but this woman seems to require that I read her mind and anything less is unacceptable. She will get mad at me for asking what she wants me to do. She will get mad at me for doing something that I think needs doing without asking her. She will get mad at me for doing too much of the work she feels is "hers". She will get mad at me for standing around doing nothing when no one needs my help. She will get mad at me for not leaving at 5:00 exactly. She will get mad at me for leaving before she is done with things. She will get mad at me for doing whatever the manager tells me. She will get mad at me for asking her what I should do instead of the manager. I cannot win. And the way I can tell she is mad, besides the venom and sarcasm in her every word whenever she speaks to me, is that she will talk about me behind my back. To herself. Loudly enough that I can hear. About how terrible I am at everything and about how nobody helps her with anything and about how I am trying to take over her work or working too fast or not working fast enough or whatever. Once I even heard her mutter "somethingsomethingcollege graduatesomethingsomething" with the same bile in her voice that I would reserve for saying "neo nazi" or perhaps "baby puncher". She talks about her problems constantly punctuated by long-suffering sighs and seems to think that everything is awful, nothing will get better, and there is nothing she can do about it. She told a story once about her husband saying to her, "Let's be happy." and she scoffed and said incredulously, "How?". Long story short, she is everything I hope to never become. She makes me miserable and I cannot wait to stop being around her, but I am glad that I met her because I do have a tendency to get pessimistic or overly worried or to take my little problems and make them huge and feel like I am powerless to change anything, but those habits lead to the dark side as I have now plainly seen, and I will do everything I possibly can to not end up a bitter angry old woman who takes it out on everyone around her.
There is a quote from Avatar, the Last Airbender (yeah yeah, I'm a nerd but it's a great show shut up), a fortuneteller tells Sokka that his life will be full of "struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted" and I have often been worried that that will be my fate, as well. I have a hard time letting go and enjoying things, being positive and just letting things happen. Sometimes I feel like I miss out on good things because I'm so worried about when they will turn bad. But I see that this woman is what happens when that fortune comes true, and I do not want it. I don't think that the secret to life is to be constantly positive and then everything will work out alright, but I do know that I need to work on hoping instead of worrying, or better yet letting go of the future and being happy with where I am. Letting the little things make me happy and focusing on the positive so that even when negative things happen they don't seem so huge. I know it can't happen all at once but I also think that seeing what life could end up like when you don't have that mindset is going to help me a lot, even if it's been thoroughly unpleasant to be around for the past couple of months. Also, every time I was dishes at work and the soap container spits out a bunch of tiny bubbles as I set it down, no matter how awful my coworker is being, it makes me smile. I think as long as I don't lose that I will not end up like her.
So I have quit my job. I'm going home for Christmas and for maybe a week or so afterwards, and then I am moving to Madison. I found a fairly cheap apartment pretty close to all the cool people who live in Madison. I do the application and lease stuff starting on Tuesday, but it's a sublet so I think it should be a pretty done deal? I hope? We'll see. It's an efficiency which is scary because I've never lived alone but I think it will be really good for me, even if it's hard. I'm one of those people who tends to try to make everyone else around her happy all the time and I think it will be good for me to be alone and figure out how to make myself happy, get to know myself, all that sort of stuff. Plus, when I get lonely there are people all around. I'm not sure on a job yet, although I'm getting farther in Epic's screening process, so fingers crossed! I am staying close to Alexander, but I realized that staying in Beloit would be almost entirely just to be with him and that is not really a good decision for me or a fair strain to put on our relationship, so hopefully the short commute won't be too much of a strain, either. I'm nervous and I'm still concerned that I'm not jumping straight into my ideal career, but I also think I need some time to make a little money and have enough free time to even figure out what my ideal career is. While it is scary, I think it's a good decision for me and if it turns out awfully, well it's only until August. That sounds like a long time now, but in the long term...it's a good amount of time for an experiment like this. No matter what, I will experience and learn and I will have friends and those are the most important things in my life right now.
Sorry every single post is SO long. I will try to make the next one short enough that people are actually likely to read it.
On Friday, I put in my two weeks notice at my job. I'm very grateful that I've had a job for the past couple of months, I have a little more money saved up now and I've been able to pay for a lot of my own things, including my first month of student loans which should disappear on Monday, hoorah. But this job was not right for me right now. In fact, it was pretty awful. It was "in my field" in that it was at a laboratory, but it was much more of a blue-collar job than I had first thought. I think the majority of people who worked there hadn't gone to college, and it seemed that for the most part they didn't know or care too much what exactly they were doing to the dairy products or what it meant, other than following what they'd been taught and getting results that were about what they were "supposed" to be. It was annoying for someone who has spent four years learning lab sciences. And not that I'm judging them or anything, just that it is not exactly helping my career to work there.
The days were long, and the commute was very long. I woke up early and came back after dark most days, meaning that both on the way there and on the way back it became very difficult for me to stay awake and alert. I really honestly think that if I took them up on their offer to work there for six months to forever that I probably would have died on the commute at some point, especially once it starts snowing. I hope and pray that that won't happen sometime in the next two weeks. *knock on wood*.
The long days and long commute also meant that most days by the time I came home I would fix dinner, collapse onto the couch or at most come over to BSFFA and collapse on Alexander's couch and watch something until it was time to go to bed. Going to dance classes kept this from happening every night, or rather delayed it another two hours. Not having internet at home during this period means that after dinner I have to get up and go somewhere and sit in public to get anything done like searching for a better job or an apartment or just reading the latest Cracked article, and the fact that I don't get to the internet on a daily basis anymore means that every time I do a lot of my time is spent catching up on things like the latest Cracked article instead of starting to search for jobs and whatnot immediately (it is also why I've been replying to your blogs like weeks after you post them. Sorry, guys). Not that this is a travesty, but it means that if I decided to take this job on a more permanent basis that it would be harder to get out of.
Oddly, the thing that made me want to quit the job the most was also something I'm somewhat thankful to this job for, and that was one of my coworkers. I don't want to sound super petty or anything, I know every job has coworkers you don't like, and it wouldn't have been so bad if I had had friends and allies with the other coworkers, but while they were all nice most of them were a lot older and they all lived in the same little area of the middle of nowhere and knew all the same people, so for the most part no one would talk to me and instead they would talk to each other about small town gossip. Even when they did talk to me it was often about their kids or some small town event, not that I mind hearing about those things, I just really don't have anything to respond with, which makes it really hard to hold a conversation. Even the younger girl who was not much older than me and had been to college doesn't have much in common with me. She moved to Monroe to be with her boyfriend, whose dad runs a cheese factory (it is a cheese town. Seriously, their high school sports teams are The Cheesemakers. I would not make this stuff up). I asked her if she was going to do anything in the long run with her college degree, which was Environmental Science or something like that. She said, entirely seriously and straight-faced, "Nope. This is it." To be able to say that about ANYTHING in your early twenties, much less about working in a cheese laboratory in the middle of nowhere in the frozen north...it just makes me want to scream and pull my hair out. I did not want to get trapped there. And the woman who was trying to convince me to stay kept saying "Oh there's such a future in it, you could be working here for a long long time, you know, there will always be cheese to test..." and that prospect kind of made me want to cry and drive away from that place as fast as possible.
But no, none of these things were the worst. The worst was the coworker I have been working with the most. She is the bitterest old woman I have ever met. She is miserable and seems to want to stay that way. She is also the most passive-aggressive person in the entire world. I thought Minnesotans were the worst, but I am ready to hand over the trophy to Wisconsinites for this woman alone. She hated me from the get-go. I think it partially has something to do with the fact that I am young and has opportunities she thinks the world should have laid at her feet without having to work for them. Admittedly, I have been extremely fortunate but...it's not like she couldn't have changed anything in her life to end up somewhere else. And it's certainly not my fault. Anyway, I have been nothing but respectful and helpful, but this woman seems to require that I read her mind and anything less is unacceptable. She will get mad at me for asking what she wants me to do. She will get mad at me for doing something that I think needs doing without asking her. She will get mad at me for doing too much of the work she feels is "hers". She will get mad at me for standing around doing nothing when no one needs my help. She will get mad at me for not leaving at 5:00 exactly. She will get mad at me for leaving before she is done with things. She will get mad at me for doing whatever the manager tells me. She will get mad at me for asking her what I should do instead of the manager. I cannot win. And the way I can tell she is mad, besides the venom and sarcasm in her every word whenever she speaks to me, is that she will talk about me behind my back. To herself. Loudly enough that I can hear. About how terrible I am at everything and about how nobody helps her with anything and about how I am trying to take over her work or working too fast or not working fast enough or whatever. Once I even heard her mutter "somethingsomethingcollege graduatesomethingsomething" with the same bile in her voice that I would reserve for saying "neo nazi" or perhaps "baby puncher". She talks about her problems constantly punctuated by long-suffering sighs and seems to think that everything is awful, nothing will get better, and there is nothing she can do about it. She told a story once about her husband saying to her, "Let's be happy." and she scoffed and said incredulously, "How?". Long story short, she is everything I hope to never become. She makes me miserable and I cannot wait to stop being around her, but I am glad that I met her because I do have a tendency to get pessimistic or overly worried or to take my little problems and make them huge and feel like I am powerless to change anything, but those habits lead to the dark side as I have now plainly seen, and I will do everything I possibly can to not end up a bitter angry old woman who takes it out on everyone around her.
There is a quote from Avatar, the Last Airbender (yeah yeah, I'm a nerd but it's a great show shut up), a fortuneteller tells Sokka that his life will be full of "struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted" and I have often been worried that that will be my fate, as well. I have a hard time letting go and enjoying things, being positive and just letting things happen. Sometimes I feel like I miss out on good things because I'm so worried about when they will turn bad. But I see that this woman is what happens when that fortune comes true, and I do not want it. I don't think that the secret to life is to be constantly positive and then everything will work out alright, but I do know that I need to work on hoping instead of worrying, or better yet letting go of the future and being happy with where I am. Letting the little things make me happy and focusing on the positive so that even when negative things happen they don't seem so huge. I know it can't happen all at once but I also think that seeing what life could end up like when you don't have that mindset is going to help me a lot, even if it's been thoroughly unpleasant to be around for the past couple of months. Also, every time I was dishes at work and the soap container spits out a bunch of tiny bubbles as I set it down, no matter how awful my coworker is being, it makes me smile. I think as long as I don't lose that I will not end up like her.
So I have quit my job. I'm going home for Christmas and for maybe a week or so afterwards, and then I am moving to Madison. I found a fairly cheap apartment pretty close to all the cool people who live in Madison. I do the application and lease stuff starting on Tuesday, but it's a sublet so I think it should be a pretty done deal? I hope? We'll see. It's an efficiency which is scary because I've never lived alone but I think it will be really good for me, even if it's hard. I'm one of those people who tends to try to make everyone else around her happy all the time and I think it will be good for me to be alone and figure out how to make myself happy, get to know myself, all that sort of stuff. Plus, when I get lonely there are people all around. I'm not sure on a job yet, although I'm getting farther in Epic's screening process, so fingers crossed! I am staying close to Alexander, but I realized that staying in Beloit would be almost entirely just to be with him and that is not really a good decision for me or a fair strain to put on our relationship, so hopefully the short commute won't be too much of a strain, either. I'm nervous and I'm still concerned that I'm not jumping straight into my ideal career, but I also think I need some time to make a little money and have enough free time to even figure out what my ideal career is. While it is scary, I think it's a good decision for me and if it turns out awfully, well it's only until August. That sounds like a long time now, but in the long term...it's a good amount of time for an experiment like this. No matter what, I will experience and learn and I will have friends and those are the most important things in my life right now.
Sorry every single post is SO long. I will try to make the next one short enough that people are actually likely to read it.
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