Heartbreak and Warfare: Potentially Final Thoughts on 2009

I can't explain how excited I am to be so near the end of this year. Or how excited I was back in September to turn twenty-two and be done with twenty-0ne. It's had it's bright spots, for sure. My first female friend (K.) as a grown-up and I are still getting along quite well. I was in her wedding. She and her hubby (T.) got their own place. A large part of my school loans was finally realized to be paid and I don't have to deal with it. I became obsessed with an independent coffee shop after a conversation with the stranger from the previous post and entered into it's family like atmosphere. Aforementioned stranger and I dated VERY briefly, but... I got my first kiss.
I quit working at Starbuck's and started working at a different independent shop than the one mentioned above. Which is doing fantastically well and opening a second location in a week.

But, all in all, 2009 has sucked. I have been tested time and time and time and time again. My sister moved in with my mom and has been cutting again. My brother moved to Oregon, became an alchoholic and a pothead, and then had a breakdown which resulted in a last minute rescue mission which meant my dad and I drove halfway to Oregon and back over a weekend, and then in and out of doctors and psych offices until he was stable again. He has since moved in with my bio-mom... Then, my boyfriend and I broke up. My dog got hit by a car, I got into an accident in the parking lot of the emergency vet after they told me they couldn't help unless I had over a thousand dollars up front and sent me home thinking my baby wouldn't make it through the night (she's fine, tail-less now, except a little nub that wiggles), then I found out my insurance had been canceled. All of the above happened as my other best friend (H.) planned a huge wedding to a man twice her age (V.) in four months and made me her maid of honor - which I was unfortunately in no condition to be. I almost didn't go to the wedding. And I wasn't much help when I did. With my new ex as my date. A complete emotional wreck at a very disorganized wedding. Unable to be there for a woman I consider my sister when she needed me most. I did my duties and left early... Although my reasoning was very apparent and valid, I still feel guilty about it. And I didn't hear from her again until a month after her honeymoon... At which point I learned that she had had a miscarriage. It was around this point that I lost count of how many times my heart could be broken in one year.

There have been blessings all throughout, as if God never wanted to be completely absent. My boss didn't fire me when I said I needed the time off to save my brother. And actually welcomed me back saying that they "needed me" because the store was a wreck without my OCD. My dog lived and actually looks kind of cute with a stubby tail. The woman who's car I hit let us pay out of pocket for the damage. V. turned out to be a decent guy from what I can tell, and I look forward to getting to know him better in the future. I gained an external support system in the crowd of regulars at the shop, where I also sold my first coffee cake. And a close friend in my best friend's brother (B.) - once my archnemesis. His gramma actually tried to pair us up after word got out that we went to an old friend's wedding together. Which is probably why he didn't take me to the next one.

It has been turbulent, dramatic, glorious, and very, very painful. I don't regret any of it. But there aren't words to describe my delight at it's end.

Now that you are mostly caught up... My brother got better for a while, but is slowly going back to his old ways. At least he isn't so far away this time.
I haven't seen K. & T. in a couple months. But they are doing fantastically and their place is reportedly decked out in full christmas regalia. They are having a party after the first of the year. Hopefully I see them before that.
B. got his paramedic license and moved to New Mexico for work. So he is far away and I miss our bi-weekly coffee much more than I imagined I would. But he is doing well, we keep tabs on eachother and he has visited since. I send him goody packages with books and cookies and novelties approximately once a month, to keep him from getting bored in the middle of nowhere.
H. is pregnant again. We are holding our breath and keeping our fingers crossed for her. She is passed the point where she lost the baby last time, but not out of the woods yet.
I got a laptop for my birthday, which is how I can post again. And we are all going to Pennsylvania for new years. Courtesy of gramma and poppa - who miss us terribly out there in the cold of the East Coast winter.
Things have normalized in the last couple months - tighter than ever due to the holidays and slow season for Dad's business. But I work steadily and can help when he falls short. I considered moving out for a while, but with the economy on it's steady decline and no sign of change to come, have decided that we all need eachother more than any of us will admit. And I'm okay with that.
A move to Pennsylvania is on the table, depending on business and the variables of two siblings being out of the house - one still a minor - but if we get to where we can't make enough money to support us all... Something will have to be done.
And I'm off. The Sandman has come with my dreams. Thank you for your patience with this entry, as I know it is long and probably full of typos. If you are a praying soul, mention me if you remember. I hope all is well with you, and if we don't meet somehow before, have a beautiful and enriching holiday season.

Facepunch Time and Nick Hornby

Maybe it's just the time of year, but I think I might start posting something real again instead of hiding out behind various things like family and work...
Life has really been kind of crazy. I mean, it sounds kind of funny (and you should see people's faces when I say this) but I can't think of any other way to describe it except that it's been punching me in the face. Yes. Life has been punching me in the face.
By that I mean mostly that it has dealt me a few blows in succession and caused me to be stressed - and sometimes it actually affects my face, by way of expression. But that is all superfluous information. Allow me to illustrate instead:

As with most people in the world, money is continually a problem for me. Not because I'm a spendthrift or anything like that - but simply because I seem to be constantly unable to make enough of it to ease the financial burden that comes from having a car, a place to live, and having gone to school for most of last year. Especially the last one, and not counting maintenance costs like food, clothes, and personal hygiene. Unfortunately, this has also got me into a situation where I couldn't buy my parents anything for christmas. And still haven't. And probably can't for a while. It's important to me - to gift at christmas, so that really bites. But that's a small issue when I compare it to the fact that my school loan is just this side of being sent to collections, both of my credit cards are maxed because of bills, and I am on my way home from court because we had to make the choice between feeding the kids and keeping insurance on my truck. Which unfortunately has only resulted in yet another bill. Usual suspects in most tough financial situations, right? Couple that with getting laid off from the restaurant the same week that my hours get cut at starbucks and things start getting ugly.
Then, there's the custody battle. My bio-mom and lonely middle sister get everyone all tied up in that drama and there are court dates on which I have to babysit - but then the judge issues some kind of gag order so they go out for the day and can't tell me anything about it. So we all just have to suck it up and pretend they were at a spa all day or something.
The girls argue with eachother and everyone else because of the stress, which stresses everyone else out, they throw away their homework, we're out of milk again, the baby needs potty training, the dog figures out how to let himself out of the kitchen, you start breaking out in stress hives, the school calls again to invite you back when you absolutely know that it's completely impossible, your best friend gets engaged to a guy twice her age that you can't judge because you haven't met- and wants you to be in the wedding... And little things pile on from there until you get to a point where you sort of start to understand a little bit (like, less than an inkling) of what Job felt in the bible when he wished that he could just die instead.

And you just pay your tithes and keep on plodding through the craziness. At this point it's so crazy that you've got to making it a competition with yourself to see not only how long you can stand it before you become an alchie or take up smoking for good, but also just how crazy it will get before it breaks.
It's kind of like keeping an eye on a good old fashioned fever.

But it was when I reached this point that I started to say "screw it" when I worried about silly things and started doing what I actually felt like doing. Which is probably how I found myself intentionally sitting with an attractive stranger on a break at work (you should have seen his face when I replied honestly to his polite inquiry about life punching me in the face), and reading a very interesting book. By a man named Nick Hornby.

"Hold onto everything you know
Hold on for winter wind and snow
Time stands still
But we go on

It's over this notion
This couldn't last forever
We'd know much better had we
Given this over, sadly
Our time now is ending
And nothings left withstanding
Another day of knowing...
This is the last day of our love."

- vhs or beta "time stands still"