The keys on this keyboard are so worn, most of the letters are missing. I like it though. I don’t need to see where they are to hear the satisfying tap-tap-tap of each one as I write out this entry. It’s unseasonably warm here and frankly, I hate it. I’m tired of shorts, skirts and tiny little tops. I want to go back to winter, when everyone is the same size and no one cares if you look like crap, if you match, if anything about your appearance makes sense. Everyone is the same size, everyone is cold and everyone just wants everyone else to feel warmer than they do. It’s my favorite season. Anyway, there’s a quite bit I’ve wanted to write about these past few weeks but haven’t had the chance nor the energy to do so. My emotions are all in a tizzy for various reasons. I’ve been on my period 3 times in the last two months and I’m not sure why. I am sure that that’s what’s feeding some of this inner turmoil, though. Hormones can be salt on a wound sometimes, if not all the time. They suck. Brendan and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary (of dating, whenever I say that people think we’re married but I can assure you, we aren’t) this weekend and it was fantastic but the entire weekend he kept asking if I was okay. I wasn’t emoting enough, I guess. I really did enjoy myself but didn’t express it much. And while I’m not the type to overly express myself about most things (or I am, in my dad’s opinion, to the opposite extent), Brendan has been with me long enough to know the subtle changes in my voice and facial expressions to know when my mood shifts. Granted, he’s not a Lucy-expert, but hey, neither am I. Having this weekend off work was nice, especially since my coworker is not necessarily the friend I thought he was going to be. We hung out a few times but it turned into something twisted. Whether or not what I was seeing was actually there, I can’t say. And Brendan heard my side of every story so I could have been skewing the facts but this dude was basically turning into a parasitic relationship. He wanted to call me at all hours of the night to talk about things that didn’t warrant being preceded by “emergency” texts. He slept around a lot and while there’s nothing wrong with that, avoiding serious relationships for the sake of one hook-up or another does present as rather worrisome. Soon, after every single shift, I was being asked to hang out, to drink, to come to his place for no purpose at all. That’s great; I love when friends don’t need something to do to hang out with each other. But…I have a life. Granted, it’s not an interesting one, it’s not exciting or adventurous. I have pets that need to be taken care of and a boyfriend I’d honestly rather spend time with over someone I just met. I’m not sure if the novelty of this relationship was what was alluring and potentially blinding, since I spend so much time with Brendan, but in the end, the novelty wasn’t what was going to keep us in any sort of relationship. Work glued us together some of the time and was our initial gateway into each other’s lives but was also not sustaining itself. I dreaded coming to work every shift I knew I was with him, listening to his “problems,” not having my own heard or taken seriously, being triggered by potentially hazardous material. It was difficult to maintain even a work relationship after a time. Until this weekend. I took off the entire weekend for my anniversary, unaware of what our plans were, and missed the usual grapevine of gossip at work. Well, turns out, he was fired. Now, his story is that he’s serving more as an “on-call” staff member that will come in in times of utter crisis or dire need, like a doctor with a pager set to go off in the occurrence of a ten-car pile-up. However, from more reliable sources at work, he was, in fact, fired. Now, I don’t celebrate the demise of someone’s job, life or any other thing that may hold value, but in this instance, I can’t help but feel a little relief. I won’t have to continue the facade of what could’ve been a friendship and instead turned into an uncomfortable farce. I feel bad but not bad enough that I would financially assist him or anything. And I don’t feel guilty for any action I’ve taken towards him at work. There was some tension a few weeks ago when I was promoted over him and when his hours were cut based on his performance. I can’t control others’ success and will certainly not feel guilty for my own. I’ve done that enough for two lifetimes, let alone this one. But, the entire lifespan of this…whatever you want to call it, short as it may have been, begs the question: Is there something I’m doing that attracts the same type of people into my life? Am I serving as a verifiable bug-catcher for anyone that has the destructive and damaging qualities of other people in my past, that allows myself to be taken for granted and abused at the expense of my own health and well-being? Part of the problem with that type of person is the fact that they don’t consider their problems stem from within, for whatever reason. They blame everyone else in the world and do not feel that they share any responsibility, even in the event that the blame is a joint operation. What if I’ve done the same, but in a different sense? What if, somehow, others are perceiving me as being this person, this cold, heartless person, that I don’t wish to be and once they get close, determine I’m not but instead, mushy and spineless and figure they might as well get the most out of what they’ve put in? Have I turned into a Dalek? Cold, ruthless and hard on the outside, but completely gooey and spineless on the inside? I may perceive myself to be this strong, independent person but what if I’m not and rather than work with what I’ve been given, I’ve created an exosuit that is virtually indestructible, with little known weaknesses. And now I’ve come to realization of what I am but driven internally by something unknown to me, I continue to do the same things, to wage the same war and continue to destroy everything in my path in the pursuit of a singular goal. While the empire of the Daleks is intent on destroying any and all Time Lords, I am intent to destroy relationships and anything good for me. It’s incredible that writing something down is the same as injecting me with truth serum and getting all the secrets, lies and unrelated bits to pour out of me like coffee from a percolator. Whenever I sit in front of a computer with the intent to write, I may have some expectation as to what’s going to come out but I never actually know. I don’t know what inferences are going to be made, what revelations will occur and what sort of journey I’ll take myself on. It’s sort of fun. Like driving aimlessly, with no destination and finding little treasures along the way. Although the realizations can be painful (as the comparison to a Dalek), it helps. At least, maybe if I keep telling myself that I’ll be convinced it is. Which is also why I wish I could blog more often. I never get a chance because of the Internet situation at my house but soon, that won’t be a problem. The house is under contract to be sold to some Australian couple. And while I’m excited about moving and getting to start a life with Brendan the way we want to, in the place we want and doing what we want, it’s a bitter sweet situation. While I move and handle the excitement, I also have to handle and deal with the sadness of moving. My grandparents bought that house together. My mom, her brother and sister, grew up in that house. My fondest memories are of me and my grandmother picking snap peas in the garden and attending the snowdrops and blue bells. And now? The property is going to belong to someone else. While the area has become less sacred because I live there, I am still able to physically be there. When it doesn’t belong to us, I’ll lose that privilege. Yes, I’ll still have my memories, as I have for the past 12 years, but I’ve also always had the potential to visit, to walk around, to enjoy it. Once we sell, I won’t. And with all the inner conflict I’m experiencing, I can only imagine what my mom is going through. She was the one that actually lived there. She’s lost things, she’s found things, she’s experienced the majority of her life with that property in her family. And now, it’s slipping through her fingers. She mentioned spending the night one more time in a symbolic gesture of saying goodbye. I think it’s a grand idea but I’m also confused about how I want to handle making her feel better. I can’t be there for her and I can’t say I’ve experienced this (well, I’ve moved but it was across the street. I would happily argue that the psychological significance is not the same). I don’t know. The whole time is quite confusing. And the unrest surrounding everything and everyone is almost palpable. I worry sometimes that Poco’s health problems are stemming from us. Like he can sense some energy we’re emitting about the uncertainty of our future. It’s probably just my imagine. As most things are. But that’s why I write. To sift through the rubble and determine what is a valuable notion and what is complete nonsense. To figure out what is actually, physically in existence versus the tricks of light on the air one might mistake for dust particles. To determine that, after the wreckage has settled, what was there when it went down and what has come into existence since. It will probably take me ten lifetimes to figure out just one.

“…Disappointment & Heartache Is All Part Of…Growing Up…”

I’m freaking out. That seems to be all I do lately. Sitting in Starbucks while Brendan is in his interview for the latest notch on the corporate ladder that is the massage world. The coffee I’m drinking probably isn’t helping my nerves (I’ve had 2 cups today) but I wanted some so badly that the bags under my eyes basically disappeared at the mere thought of enjoying a cup. But, back to why I’m freaking out.

I designed an Excel sheet for my church when I was still in high school for my Girl Scout Gold Award. They’d been using this archaic cataloging system for the food pantry they run. Since the Gold Award project has to be something that benefits the community, I took the 1500+ index cards with dates on them dating back into the 90’s and input them one by one into a spreadsheet. It took me about 2 months with hours of dedication to the task. Well, now that it’s been in use for years, I can step back and examine the problems with the initial system. Firstly, the computer we bought at the time (through donations, I do believe, because you aren’t allowed to fund your project. That’s part of the process) is starting to quit on us, though it isn’t used for anything else. I took it home one night to connect to the Internet and update it, to give you an idea of how old this is, and it took nearly 3 hours for the whole thing to complete. Ridiculous, right? I went to the people with power and convinced them that it was time for an upgrade. We did nicely with an HP. I chose the one with the number pad built in since we spend a lot of time inputting dates and phone numbers. Anyway, I wanted to move on from the Excel spreadsheet because it was almost as archaic as the computer, and frankly, did not meet our design needs. People were deleting things and saving them in the wrong files. This group of individuals is on the older side, leaving me the sole person with enough computer knowledge to navigate any program safely, even if it is as simple as Excel. Well, now, my computer savvy is failing me and this group of people is completely dependent on my knowledge to get this mess done. Since Microsoft likes to charge you a gazillion times for each program, we had to pay extra for Access, a database program I was repeatedly reassured would serve our needs best. The problem is, Access is a new program (as far as I know. How about we just say it’s new to me?) and I have absolutely no clue how to use it. I’m stuck in this position of knowing what the hell I’m doing in front of them and completely losing it when I’m working on the forms. I took the measly form I did have in for a test run and it was a complete disaster, not only because we have new paperwork we have to fill out, but also because one of the volunteers was complaining in my ear the entire hour about problems with this form. I tried to explain that this was a beta-test run, that I was still working out the kinks and had even volunteered my time for every opening for the rest of the month, but she wasn’t listening. I feel like a creditor that is secretly broke. Or like someone that owes a loan shark a lot of money and has to repeatedly reassure the loan shark that “I have the money, I swear. I’ll get you your money!”

Let’s see, why else am I panicking? Oh yea, Brendan’s car. He spent a lot of time and effort getting it painted, modified and decal-ed the way he wanted it. It looks good, although a bit flashy for something I would drive. He had fun doing it and everything but now the engine has completely failed. Failed as in it has to be completely replaced. He needs a totally new engine before his car will rule the road again. I mean, I wouldn’t be waiting for him if his car hadn’t died in the driveway when he tried to leave this morning. Now, it may seem a bit first-world to complain about not having two cars. With patience, we can make it work. Waiting for each other, splitting gas costs, stuff like that, is perfectly manageable. That’s not what I’m worried about though. He decided to replace the engine. Now, someone explained how much a new engine would cost and that he could buy a “used” engine for less money but it would already have miles on it. Great! He doesn’t have to give up his car! Except that, paying his regular bills on top of paying to replace this sucker is going to put him in the red. Like, way more than either of us is comfortable. And I’m not good financially but paying my own bills and fixing my own car has temporarily put me in the red as well. The house has had several showings this week, more than I ever thought would happen, but at this rate, we’ll be moving back in with our parents. I mean, last week, I literally burst into snotty, sobbing tears at the mere thought of paying for independent living. It makes me shake. And I can’t completely get mad at Brendan. It’s not his fault the engine puckered out. And it’s not his fault I spend my money the way I do. I mean, it’s mine. But this is getting harder way before I ever thought it would. Being an adult sucks.