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"

It's been a good time. I've been using up my vacation time before my weekend job really kicks up. And I ended up getting scheduled at the 'bux for a single day in the last two weeks. So I've been visiting a lot with friends (even those at work) and baking adventurously, playing wii sports with the kids, drinking hot mint tea and double lattes... A good friend recently introduced me to a version of the chai latte that did not make me nauseous.And nonfat even! When all this time I have been known widely to despise both. Hence there has been change, small yes, but it's happened...
Christmas is not even here, yet already I feel the slow creeping in of dread for my return to the so-called "real world".
This, of course, makes holiday life all the sweeter.

They are going to a chanukkah party at the Place's tonight. I am undecided as to whether I will. I want to, sure, but I still have a LOT of baking to do, I haven't been feeling well, and I really don't want to be sick for christmas... Again. This would be year three.

At last, the season is changing. I walked out to the office tonight to get the charger for the phone that I am using to post and felt, for the first time this year, the bite of cold air on every inch of exposed skin. It made my night, I've got to admit. There is something about the cold and the season that wakes me up. It reminds me to breathe, that summer was hard but the experience has made life all the more worth it.
Now is a time for sighing the sigh of contentment. If only for the moment it takes to use that breath.
At last, the season has changed...

I realize that this may all seem a bit melodramatic; I'm sure there are tons of students every year who get kicked out of school for running out of money, or luck, as the case may be. And I'm sure this is going to make me sound spoiled, and maybe you'd have to know me personally to realy understand what I'm about to say: But the truth is that I have never been unable to achieve something that I really really wanted. It's never been completely out of reach, even if it was purely a miracle that it worked out. And as a result of this I always just imagined that when someone told me (or I told myself) that it was going to be okay, that that meant it was going to work out the way you thought it would.
And I don't mean always, just generally, because there are days even now when I just know that I am going to wake up in about five minutes- on the futon I used to fall asleep on, in the house I grew up in. And my Mom is going to come down the hall humming to herself with a basket of white towels and ask me if I had a nice nap... And the last four years, good and bad, are going to melt away.

But that's nonense! And I think what I'm really trying to get at here is that sometimes God has to remind me that it's not me. And "being okay" doesn't always mean that it works out my way or the way I think it's going to. Funny thing is, this is such an old lesson, but sometimes I need a little pinch to remind me that trusting Him - with EVERYTHING - is the most important thing I can do. Y'know?
I get so caught up in the crazy blur of busy days and lack of money, and I start forgetting. I start feeling more and more like I'm on my own, and stop pausing to thank Him for every second, or ask Him to be sure that even the small things work out. And I think, maybe, just maybe, even God feels abandoned sometimes - and He's a pretty jealous guy, I think. So once in a while, He's got to stop me and remind me how to focus.

"... I've seen some cool stuff. I made a lot of stuff happen for myself. I made a lot of stuff happen for myself. That's a really cool sentence when you're in your 20s, right? "I made it happen for myself." But all that means is that I've just somehow or another found a way to synthesize love. Or synthesize soothing. You can't get that..." - John Mayer

Ecclessiastes 5:7

All right, so....
I gotta admit. I'm pretty confused. The last two weeks are slowly congealing, days are finally beginning to separate.

Last Friday (well not this past Friday, but the one before it) I found out that my financial aid for the second half of my school was not going to come through. Yep. I guess there are worse reasons one could be kicked out of culinary school than not having enough money. But that's mostly me trying to make myself feel better.

I've spent most of the week trying to creatively fill the first six hours of my day since I still wake up at 5:30 every morning. Seven months is a long time to be doing the same thing every day, and I guess - after a while, you just sort of forget what you used to do before. So I went out for coffee, ran some errands, baked some brownies and cookies, and by Friday I was taking my dog to the park pretty steadily. Which has been nice. I've applied at a few places for a second job, too. So we'll see how that goes.

Freakishly, as stressful as the weeks leading up to that last day were... All I really felt was relief. At last, there was finality. Sure, there is the possibility (and intent) to return to school, but at least I could concentrate on what the next week was going to be like. I mean, there was more than one occasion where the head of the financial aid department was explaining different possible ways of splitting up these four and five digit numbers - and the room just started to spin. You know?

My week was going along pretty nicely, actually, and it all really hit me on Thursday. I was running errands and talking to a few bakeries my Dad recommended to hit up for jobs... And I was on the phone with him (my Dad) explaining how my last little meeting had gone, and looking for this small bakery on this street in the middle of a ton of roadwork-- when this wave of frustration, and I mean undiluted, burning, almost blinding frustration, pushed me back in my seat.

This is not how this was supposed to go. I shouldn't be doing this. Why is this happening? How did it happen? I shouldn't even be here right now. Was all that I could think. Luckily I found the place not a moment later, had to turn around the construction and pull into a parking space.

And then it finally happened, still on the phone talking to my Dad about looking for a job, I just started crying. It's what always happens when I really get frustrated or angry (and pretty much only then too, I'm not really a cryer) but it felt really random when I realized that I don't actually know when I'll be able to go back. Or why this happened. Nor had I any idea what God was trying to teach me through this.
As I talked to my Dad, or rather, he talked to me, I begged God for something. For anything. And then my Dad had to go. And suddenly, just for a few long seconds, I felt completely and utterly alone. And it was scary.

Anger he smiles towering in shiny metallic purple armor
Queen Jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground
Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted
They quietly understand
The once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready
But wonder why the fight is on

But they're all bold as love
Yeah, they're all bold as love
They're all bold as love
Just ask the axis...

My red is so confident that he flashes
Trophies of war and ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring
But very unsteady for the first go around
My yellow in this case is not so mellow
In fact I'm trying to say it's frightened like me
And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from
Giving my life to a rainbow like you

I'm bold, bold as love
Yeah I'm bold, bold as love
I'm bold, bold as love
Just ask the axis...

Yeah he knows, he knows everything
I'm bold, bold as love

~Jimi Hendrix~

There is a part of me that has been starving. Probably several parts, really, and none of them have to do with my stomach. Though I am pretty sure they are located somewhere around there. Maybe a little above, there is a core area where the sensations (pangs, maybe?) all seem to congregate.
One of them is writing. I haven't written anything longer than a couple hundred words for months. Except papers for school - which are kind of like drinking water when your stomach growls, it stops the embarrassment of the growling, but only magnifies the emptiness. I've lost count of how many times I have sat in this very seat, in front of this very computer, typing the very same sentence over and over again in various ways. And then someone calls me and I walk away, leaving half a sentence, only to come back later and delete it.
I think it must be because I don't have much to say these days. No. That isn't it either. It's because I lack an audience. There has been a confinement to my recent thoughts. A caged-ness. I have taken to buying massive amounts of pens - all sorts. My current favorite being the Sharpie Pen. I hit a Walgreens during my errand running today to buy clothespins and bought two more Sharpie Pens (I now have four, two black and two blue), and a four pack of very fine tipped Sharpie Markers - but I have no idea what I'm going to use them for. I also stood staring at all the different designs they have for notebooks in the back to school section these days. I wanted one. An old school Mead Journal, I have a soft spot for those. But I knew I wouldn't use it. I would just smell it, set it on my desk, clip a marker to it, and forget about it until I ended up buying another one.
I don't know why I do things like that.

I've been out of my house for at least sixteen hours a day, six days a week, for the last month... And now I'm home alone and I don't know what to do with myself. I went to the garage and dug my Donald Miller books out of the precious box that contains most of my old room but I couldn't sit long enough to read them. I flipped through a few pages and then I came here.
Lauren is at a church function, some kind of party to mark graduation from the junior high class to the high school class. My Dad is at work, poor guy. And Jeremy is out on a date. It's like I've forgotten how to entertain myself.
If I'm not working or studying or sleeping, I don't know what to do anymore. And I just didn't envision myself getting to this point. What does it mean? I guess it must be normal, since I've heard other people mention similar things before. But I've always been comfortable with myself. Or I thought so anyway.
Lately I've been getting the feeling that God is trying to teach me something. You know what I mean? There's like this lingering something in the back of your mind corrosponding to one of those silent groans in your gut that just means there is something to be said, or there will be, for this time in your life. This chipping away at the sculpture of life is eventually going to be something beautiful, but the shaping isn't always going to be fun. And I think there is some finishing going on in some area that I can't quite pick out. Whatever it is, it's painful, nearly unbearable at times, but it's going to be magnificent.

---

Long day... I'm on a lunch at work right now. And, actually ready for a nice little nap; unfortunately, not enough time.
It's been one of those really weird weeks... (Well, actually weekEND, but whatever.) you know, the ones where you just have to wonder how it all gets orchestrated and where exactly it's all going to end up? Yep. And I'm just exhausted.

However: my dad is married! I don't think I could be happier for him... Unless maybe he didn't have a cold right now. Poor guy. I can hear him coughing all night.
But anyway, the kids are great. There are seven of us all together now if you include Mikey. Who actually has some big stuff going on as well, but more on that later...

---

>

An Old Fave

They just don't make 'em like they used to...

This morning I wanted to leave. 

I was in the middle of a sentence to Lauren about something she had to do (which I can't help having to say since it wouldn't otherwise be done) and I saw her eyes glaze over and lean toward the back of her head where I'm sure she held a picture of a certain AAR band member-- specifically stored to reference during my sentences: anyway, she was completely tuned out... And I just had it. 

A sudden urge to just grab keys and money and go until I ran out of gas just gripped me, tightly. And I couldn't. I still can't. This is probably one of those weekends that I will look back on forever as invariably life-altering, aging, and monumentally important... Why?

Because I met my stepmom today. This is the first time I call her that. 

She was here for about an hour; tiny, nervous, and adorable in her appropriately Summery dress. Her milky complexion and salient blue eyes framed in shimmering golden curls. She's coming back tomorrow to help make and have dinner with us before her flight back to New York.

I think the stress of the week, with my first lab class and all this emotional wedding craziness, plus another trainee quitting and screwing up my work schedule is starting to get to me. I should be more excited, but I am just too exhausted to feel much. All I really want is sleep. Good, long, deep sleep. I keep imagining staying in bed for an entire day. No food, no anything, just alternately dozing and sleeping... And I'll feel useless until I get it.  

Maybe I wanted to leave because I was afraid and it just happened to hit me at that particular moment. Though I don't know what I'd be afraid of - besides change, I guess. I suppose I am a little afraid of that. 

As my Dad was walking out the door to pick Her up from the airport yesterday he stopped, turned around to look over the room, and said gently, perhaps even to himself, "I guess I really am about to change our lives." 

It seemed like it had finally hit him. The purpose of everything we had all been working on for the last month straight, and the years of unknown preparation beforehand, were being realized, congealing...  I think it was one of those things you had to see to understand, to feel the tingle of the tension in the room, all of us standing silent, but there was an inexplicable profundity in it; the moment, I mean. As if the life-change itself were taking place that very second... And, hey, who knows? Maybe it did. 

 

And so begins the arduous and painfully lengthy process of preparing our house for a very special visit at the end of the month. And the eventual addition of four more people - which will make eight. Whoa.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon how you look at it, I am unable to help with the beginning tasks of the yardwork - as I go to school in the morning/afternoon, and then work all night, arriving home at about eleven-thirty... ish. So I'm sitting here biding the little time I have left to procrastinate studying before the test I have tomorrow. Human Resources Management is interesting - but not on a test.

Feeling guilty at my inability to help, I have been working on laundry and discovering that my dog is not the only one who eats socks. Did I mention that before? I think I did. She eats them whole - but no longer the only one to be blamed. Barney also likes to eat socks - and so does little baby Gary. Who, as a sidenote, actually weighs about thirty-five pounds... at four months. Yeah. Via is a year old, and only weighs about forty-five. So, he's pretty big.

Anyway, it's pretty crazy around here. Work is not my favorite these days. Too much is changing at my location, or too frequently, rather. We had a manager quit about a month ago, the one we have now is moving in two weeks, and her replacement is also going to be moving within a couple months of her arrival - both out of state. So, not the greatest times. Every manager has their own rules they want you to follow, and I'm really not looking forward to that self re-calibration happening three times in the next six months. Luckily, I already vented most of my frustration about that to my brother, so I won't be writing a book about it here. Corporations can be rediculous sometimes though, I gotta say.
It's just another reminder of why I plan to be a business owner: I am allergic to working for The Man.

Time to switch the laundry.

So the truth is...

The crazy thing that has kept me from posting - first because I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, and then because I couldn't figure out how to...

But...


Are you ready...?


... here comes....




.....




MY DAD IS GETTING MARRIED.



Yeah, that's what I said. In a good way. Contrary to the vocal-tone themes of many fo those that I have been able to tell thus far when they say "How do you feel about this?": I am very, very happy for him. It's an answer to prayer. An almost literal Godsend. What am I saying? It is a Godsend.
And it's gonna be crazy: She's moving here from across the country... With her three kids. To live with us in our three-and-a-half bedroom house.
We'll figure it out though. It's not like we haven't had more than eight people living in a single house before - in fact - it might be cool because I grew up that way.
Anyway, I just couldn't wait any longer to break the news, I gotta get ready for work.

Holy Starbucks, I am not ready to close.

Wow.

That is pretty much all I have to say about the world right now. More to come, but for now, another quote:

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." - Harry, When Harry Met Sally

Things I've Been Thinking About, Again:

"...The same One that takes care of the lilies of the field, Mr. Poppins, except that we toil a little, spin a little, have a barrel of fun. If you want to, come on over and become a lily too."
- Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff, You Can't Take It With You

"... The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles-- exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'awww!'"
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road

"I realize this sounds very Christian, very fundamentalist and browbeating, but I want to tell you this part of what the Christians are saying is true. I think Jesus feels strongly about communicating the idea of our brokenness, and I think it is worth reflection. Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror."
- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

"I wonder if the three of us would've been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as people."
- Jack Whitman, The Darjeeling Limited

Updates are coming...

they're coming... they're coming... they're coming.... they're coming...

Oh jeeze. I made it. And some teriyaki chicken. Mmmm.

I don't want to work tonight.
Really, I don't.

Oh well.

You know, sometimes I am just blown away by the aweseomeness of life and existence. I am a little wired today, from some good old Lipton and then about three shots of espresso. But wired just enough to be extra alert, instead of on the alert for heart palpitations... If that makes any sense.

I get tired of working at commercialized coffee houses, and I just want to sit and enjoy a decent cuppa in some little mom and pop place. And then I do, and I am amazed at how rejuvenated I feel because of it. And it isn't the caffeine... I'm not really sure what it actually is - possibly the act of disconnection, of sitting and simply drinking my cuppa instead of being on the road, or reading, or anything else.

Today was my last day of English class. I aced it. Would have been really depressed if I hadn't. It was a fun class though. It was kind of sad, in a way, being the last day - since we really separate for this class into our respective programs. So, sure, there will still be quite a few of us in Food History on Monday, but we'll still be losing some-- or at least some of our favorites, to Hotel and Restaurant Management. Ah well, they'll make new friends.

Speaking of friends, I don't know what to do with myself today. I have no homework, and no money... hmmm.