Transitions
Date: March 21, 2005, 4:19 am CST - Subscribe
Mood: mellow
Music of the Moment: Give me one Day -- Chris Isaak (Radio Paradise)
It's has been an eventful few months since I last posted. I've been working things out with my dad, for one. So when I mentioned that I was still looking for work as well as looking for an apartment of my own he invited me to join him in the inland northwest. After some thought and deliberation I got my stuff together, finished my EMT basic class, took my test, and packed up. After a very nice goodbye pizza supper with some of my closest friends (including my sister and her family) I set out for a cross country drive.
I left on a Monday and stayed a couple of days with another friends, then it was hotels and open road for the next few days. Finally arriving at my destination on the following Saturday. It was a nice drive across the top of the country, with a brief sojourn into Canada. Just me, my thoughts, and my music.
So now I'm settling in. It's odd being back in a city I haven't been to in over 10 years (we left when I was 11). I look around and it seems so foreign. Then for a second I'll see something familiar, and then it's gone. On top of that it's different looking at the place with adult eyes. I was just a kid the last time I was here.
Slowly I'm settling in, and things are starting to feel a little less surreal. Moving is never terribly easy, and despite my long familiarity with the process I still find it hard. I miss my friends. It's harder to connect when there is a three hour time difference.
It always takes about a year to really get settled into a place, and that year can be a real bitch. I'm hoping for a lot of things: a job, some new friends, an apartment. As hard as it is for me I remain optomistic. I'm feeling a lot better physically and mentally (though some days are still hard).
In many ways it's just another bend in the road (to use a tired cliche), and I'm looking forward to see what's around the next corner. And on the upside my car has had no offroad misadventures lately.
Bright blessings, safe journeys, and good laughs.
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More Adventures in Winter Driving
Date: January 17, 2005, 8:45 pm CST - Subscribe
Mood: unlucky
So I was supposed to meet a friend at lunch today so we could go for a walk. I'm happily driving along, thinking a little too much about other things and not near enough about driving. So what happens? I end up off the road and into a snowy meadow. The more I try to get out, the farther back in the meadow I move. Finally I walked to the nearest house to ask for help. She was very nice and asked a neighbor with a tractor to help get my car out. Unfortunately we couldn't figure out where the chain could go without pulling off the bumper. So we went back and called a tow truck. I'm still waiting for the truck to deliver my car. Thankfully this time, in addition to my not being hurt, my car is also unhurt. Lesson learned: Pay a lot more attention to your driving, especially when the roads are snowy.
On the up side--I got my walk in.
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Direction at last
Date: January 6, 2005, 10:48 pm CST - Subscribe
Mood: content
Well after much internal debate and struggle, I've finally decided what to do with myself. Or at least what I want to do with myself for the next few years.
I've always dreamed of joining the PeaceCorps and seeing the world (or at least part of it), of experiencing a new culture by living in it. So today I completed my application, well most of it. I've still got to get my three letters of recommendation done, and my transcripts sent. But other than that, I'm finished with the first step. There will be more steps, but it feels so wonderful to have made a decision. I don't feel so stuck anymore. And though I'm scared rather witless for many reasons (it is afterall a huge step), for once in my life I'm not going to be ruled by my anxiety fueled indeciveness.
So we'll see where this path takes me, and how it all works out.
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Auld Lang Syne
Date: January 3, 2005, 3:49 am CST - Subscribe
Mood: contemplative
Music of the Moment: none, just the crackle of the fire and electric hum of machines
Okay, so I'm a little late in posting a New Year's post. But here we go anyway. I actually had a very enjoyable New Year's Eve, and New Year's day. I spent both with a friend and her family having an Alan Rickman movie fest. We watched "Truly, Madly, Deeply," "Galaxy Quest," "Sense and Sensiblity," and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." We also watched "Bend it Like Beckham," which kind of tied into the them because although it didn't have Alan Rickman in it, it did have the actress from "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (Juliet Stevenson I believe her name was) in it.
It was a very enjoyable time, and I'm glad I didn't spend it alone brooding. Brooding is something I'm rememarkably good at, and a habit I'm trying to break. I'm also trying to be nicer to myself, and get my life back together.
It seems so odd that it's 2005. How can a year be both so long and so short. So much has happened in the last year. I've gained a job, quit a job, had a nervous breakdown, am recovering from said nervous breakdown, and am back working (at the same place no less, though only temporarily this time). Yet it also feels like I've been stuck in the same old rut all year, and that things just haven't changed. I'm still struggling with the brain fog caused by depression and anxiety. I'm still struggling to care about my life. It is the old two step of life (two steps forward, one step back--though it often feels the other way round).
I've spent so much of the past year in contemplation. So perhaps now I should contemplate the past year? I've made some hard choices, burned several bridges and mended a few others, grown apart from some old friends and made some new ones. It was a hard year, and I've spent alot of it ill (in mind and body). I started the long hard road of healing from an abusive (emotionally, physically, and sexually) childhood. And now 2004 has ended, a new year begun.
I'm not going to make any resolutions for this new year. I never manage to keep such things anyway. Most of the things in my life are not fixed by simple resolutions, but by long term planning. Something I never really prepared for since I never really thought I would make it to the ripe age of 25. So for this year, I'm just going to continue the work of last year. I am working on who I am, who I wish to be, and where the heck I want to go in life. I'm finally starting to plan my future instead of just floating along with whatever life threw my way. I doubt it will be any easier than last year, and I know I'll be back her pissing and moaning about how difficult it is.
I'm sure I'll be thinking about days gone past (therapy is good for that), and old aquaintances. I'm sure that it's not an uncommon prediciment. So "we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet/for auld lang syne."
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Slip Sliding Away
Date: December 31, 2004, 12:55 am CST - Subscribe
Mood: comfortable
Music of the Moment: Planet, Schmanent Janet from Rocky Horror Punk Rock Show
So Dec. 3rd I'm on my way home from my first day of substitue teaching. I live way out in bfe up in the mountains. The weather had been a really shitty mix of snow and rain all day. The roads down in the valley were fine, but once I got to my little mountain town they were all covered in a layer of slushy snow.
So here I am driving along beboping to whatever cd I had in at the time, when I start to turn the wheel and my car just keeps going straight. I downshifted, and was overcome with the knowledge that there was no way I was going to regain control of the car before I went off the embankment and possibly into the lovely, freezing cold stream that runs along side the road. I was thankfully stopped from entering the stream by a set of rather large boulders.
I wasn't going very fast and managed to be unscathed myself. My car was not so lucky. So after catching my breath (and feeling that someone should have announced "please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle until it comes to a complete and utter stop"), I managed to climb up the snowy embankmet without breaking a ankle. I friendly passerby gave me a lift and I managed to call a tow truck to come and get it.
It takes the weekend for the tow service to realize that the car is undriveable. So I have them tow it to the dealership where I bought the car. When I first asked how much it was going to cost I was told about $128, but when the final bill came in it was about $400. Big difference there. My insurance will cover it as it was collision related, but I have discovered that dealing with them is almost more difficult than pulling a tooth.
So $3000 worth of repair later (thankfully I only had to pay the deductible, but just seeing that amount on a bill is enough to give this girl a panic attack), and damn near a month later (took the insurance company a week *after* the car was repaired to send me the check). I finally got my car back.
It might not have been so frustrating if I lived in town where there is a bus system. But no I live up in a little mountain town away from the rest of civilization (normally I love where I live, but it is not conductive to live without transportation). Thankfully I have an amazing group of friends (one in particular has been an angel), who have made sure I got to work and got where I needed to go.
The one who has been an angel also made sure I didn't spend the holidays by myself, which would have been a very *bad* thing.
My adopted family went out of town (origianally I was supposed to go too, but that didn't work out) for the holidays. So I was rattling around my suddenly quiet house, without transport anywhere. So it was really nice to have people who cared enough to make sure I didn't spend too much time brooding.
Too much brooding is bad for your health you know. So here's hoping that we all have fun and little brooding over the next few days of drucken revelry. Have a safe and happy New Year's folks!
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