perhaps i haven’t blogged in the past month for the same reason i’ve failed to put laundry away in a timely fashion, left my girl cave untouched, and spent the best part of each day hiding in tree hill, north carolina. i haven’t been talking about my thoughts because as soon as you say something you’re unsure of out loud, it suddenly becomes real, tangible, and cannot be taken back.
i’ve been thinking strongly about moving onward without brandon. i told no one about these thoughts and just stewed over them in my mind until i couldn’t hide from them anymore. my girl friends are all for it. they see brandon at face value, and at face value, he isn’t worth much. since he lost his job, we’ve been back at square one. in the beginning he seemed to possess the utmost confidence that this would only be a temporary setback. and yet with each day that goes by, i see less and less desire in him to get back out there.
i had some really difficult conversations these past few days. i was reminded how endlessly loving he is. as i slowly break his heart, all he can respond with is “i love you,” and it’s all he wants to hear at the end of the conversation. he truly just wants to hold me and forget about the rest. it’s sweet, but it won’t work forever.
maybe it’s the lack of sunlight i’ve absorbed lately or the abundance of artificial hormones i put into my body, but i’m having a hard time remaining optimistic about the state of our relationship. i reached a point where i couldn’t help but spontaneously cry every so often. the worst part was not being able to tell him what was wrong when he wanted to comfort me. he has the biggest heart i know, and my mother would be the first to tell you that i have one of the smallest. it’s inevitable that i will someday break his heart.
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but does it really have to be that way? today i sat down and asked myself why i fell in love with him 13 months ago in the first place. i was flooded with memories of our early days. he has this childlike curiosity, this adventurous spirit in him. he has an insatiable hunger for knowledge and discovery. he’s always exploring new places, looking for someplace worth being. he spends hours reading and studying topics that interest him. though he hid this from his high school teachers, he really has a beautiful mind. his answers to life’s biggest questions are well thought out, insightful, and great food for thought. and what really made me fall for him is what i mentioned earlier - his gigantic heart. although the version of him you may have seen walking down the hallway with his friends would never admit this, brandon is the sweetest person i know. nothing makes him smile bigger than babies or puppies. no argument is so awful that a hug can’t end it. and no matter how badly i treat him sometimes, he has never failed to enthusiastically make me food the moment i ask for it (sometimes even before that!). maybe on the outside he’s a guy who’s done time in jail, but on the inside, he’s a guy who puts love in my sandwiches. every single one.
if i send him away, i’m gaining the freedom to fill my closet with whatever my heart desires (although i’m truly stumped every time i try to brainstorm what i even need room for), a lower electric and food bill, and probably some sort of feminist confidence. but what i’m throwing away is far more vast than that. i’m throwing away a best friend, a one tree hill watching partner, a cuddle buddy, a christmas song duet partner, a kitchen cleaning teammate, a shoulder to cry on, a really cute smile, a kiss hello and goodbye every time i come and go, a hand to hold while i’m walking across wobbly rocks on a river, a sincere “i love you” when i need it most, a guy who loves to vacuum, someone who gets it when i quote spongebob, an enthusiastic audience when i feel like breaking out into disney songs, a home improvement expert, a reminder to live simply and be less of a hyper-consumer, a tomato gardener, an aunt and grandparents i like better than any of mine, and god knows how much more.
i often forget how we got here. i spent a few months crying frequently and missing him more than i thought possible. i felt compelled to drive overnight after work and call in sick just to spend 48 hours with him. i moved to a place i had zero interest in because i knew that i really had zero interest in living without him. all of this happened in the past year. had he moved away a few months prior, i’d have moved on just fine. but like someone once told me, time is nothing. timing is everything. i have to believe that there is a reason i fell for him right before he left. there is a reason he and i spent those two days together in tennessee. there is a reason he and i ended up here right after i had begun to give up on being with him. yes, he may gain a lot from being with me financially, but i gain so much from being with him mentally and emotionally.
i really do believe that opposites attract and my neurotic behavior balances his simple, relaxed demeanor. it’s up to be if i want to put the effort into staying together, or run away because sometimes it sounds easier. i cannot imagine that a single couple who has been married for 50+ years has never thought of divorce once. they decided that whatever went wrong was not worth throwing away what they had. their love was worth fighting for. that’s what I want to believe.
i’m deciding right now that you and i are worth fighting for. please remind me why i came here.
when i think quantitatively about brandon, his cons list is actually quite short:
the chore issue isn’t a huge deal, really. he definitely will do them eventually, and when he was unemployed he did them much more willingly. the growing weed issue isn’t really that big of a deal either. i dislike that it makes my house smell foresty, but that’s because he didn’t reinstall the carbon filter after we took everything down. he said he would today, and i hope he keeps that promise. aside from the odor, it really doesn’t inconvenience my life terribly. my electric bill is higher; that sucks. he doesn’t spend a ridiculous amount of time in the grow room since he has to leave it 100% dark from 9am till 9pm. in the beginning i did have to put some money into it since he didn’t budget responsibly, but now that he makes money i haven’t done that lately. the growing will actually make money once he has a harvest. so honestly, the growing probably isn’t worth being mad about. i don’t typically make a big deal about it.
so that leaves the smoking. i cannot put into words how much i dislike the fact that he smokes weed. for one, it’s one of my least favorite scents in the world. i hate it when my house smells like it, when my car smells like it, and most importantly when he smells like it. i tell him all the time that i wouldn’t care as much if i didn’t have to smell it. and it’s true. i didn’t really care when he ate that fudge thing last night. it didn’t smell.
i wish i could quantitatively explain why i hate his smoking so much, aside from the smell. i definitely think it’s a waste of money. but at the same time, it’s not my place to tell him how he can or cannot spend his money. i spend my money on things he might not think are worthwhile (this beautiful macbook pro, a big bag of clothes from express, brand new matching bath towels, etc.) but he’s never actually tried to control me in that way. i get mad when he takes out a good chunk of money from his paycheck, but when i look at the facts, it’s pretty on par with how much of my checks i keep separate. when my check is about $650, i end up keeping $150 of that. his check was about $750 and he kept $200. i’d be a hypocrite if i told him it wasn’t okay.
so quantitatively, i have no right to be upset about the amount of money he spends on weed. he does it exactly the way i told him he had to. i don’t want him putting weed and junk food purchases on the debit card we use for joint expenses. it messes with my bill pay schedule and could lead to overdrafts if we don’t communicate properly. i told him to take whatever amount he’s gonna take out right at the beginning, and from that point everything he does with that money is up to him. gas and groceries go on the card, fast food, weed and whatever else he wants comes out of his pocket. that’s how it works for me and that’s how it should work for him. and he’s been doing exactly that. i’d be a hypocrite and a liar if i told him it wasn’t okay.
so then if it’s not about the money, then why is it such a big deal aside from the smell? for one, it’s the principle. when we were first talking about moving in together, he told me he got this out of his system in california and wouldn’t be smoking that much - maybe once in a while at most. and i believed him. and at first, it was accurate. he had no money so he had no way of even thinking about smoking. once he began making money, however, this went right out the window. had i known i’d be living with someone who smokes several times a day, i would have reconsidered this living arrangement. might i also mention that this is just one of the many lies he told me at that point in time. he also told me i wouldn’t have to support him. funny, because i supported him 100% for several months until i finally put my foot down and started threatening to kick him out if he didn’t start working. he had no intention of ever getting a job in the first place. i forced him to get one. and we won’t even get into my personal favorite lie - her name is jordan. so i guess it irritates me because this lifestyle isn’t what i signed up for. had i known, i wouldn’t have signed up at all.
but is that something i can really hold against him? a broken promise of change? i can’t decide if it’s his fault for lying or my fault for believing it. just because someone tells you they’re changing/have changed/will change does not mean it’s an unshakable truth. i should have known that. for the three years i’ve known him, he’s never been able to stay away from weed for more than a few months. i’m not sure why this time should have been treated any differently.
perhaps i had unrealistic dreams about our new life together. it still is our life, not just mine. my vision and his vision have to come together somewhere. he wouldn’t be happy living in my heaven, nor would i in his. i often try to remind myself that the true reason i dislike his weed habit is because it doesn’t fit my vision of perfection. i never envisioned myself living with a pothead. and he probably never envisioned himself living with someone as uptight as i am. but he doesn’t seem to mind that his dreams have been shattered like i do. i just can’t shake the feeling that it’s childish and not something you do for the rest of your life. i’ve never smoked weed alone. the few times i did it happened with a group of friends. it was an experience very similar to having a few drinks. that’s how it’s supposed to be - a few kids getting stupid and having a good time. if someone drank alone every day, they’d be highly looked down upon and thought to have a problem. drinking and weed both make sense to do in moderation with friends. they can be great fun in that context. doing them alone every day just seems pathetic. i can’t imagine feeling the need to enhance my state of mind every single day. being outside when it’s sunny or laughing with brandon or watching spongebob is all i really need to have a good time. adding substances to the mix would ruin the genuineness of it all. i know brandon doesn’t feel that way. it’s just something i’ll never understand. and for some reason, it really upsets me. i can’t help but take personal offense when he feels the need to enhance our quality time with substances. i couldn’t be happier just spending time with him. but apparently he could. he tries to argue that it’s not like that, and he just likes smoking weed. i just can’t see how the pursuit of happiness can not come from discontentment. i would have to be incredibly discontent with my current situation to even be thinking about substances that could improve it. i’ve never really had those thoughts to be honest. when i am discontent, i think more about what song i want to listen to or what colors i want to paint with. i’m trying to find a way to compare our points of view and connect them and i just can’t.
another pathetic way that it bothers me stems from my fear of being alone. i can’t help but mentally connect his smoking weed with being away from me. i always get really sad when we’re both home and he wants to go somewhere without me. in the beginning, we spent way too much time together and i craved “me” time because i never got any. now, we’re apart more often than together, and i’d like to cherish the times we are together. i can’t help but be upset when he chooses to have “me” time when the two of us are having a perfectly good day together. why can’t he have “me” time while i’m at work, and then spend time with me when we’re finally together after a long day apart? but once again, i have no right to be upset about this. i chose to sign up for yoga and zumba classes, both during times we would have otherwise both been home. so i voluntarily leave the house when we’re both home. i do it to hang out with friends at night too. so yet again, if i don’t allow him to have “me” time when he wants it, i’m being a hypocrite.
i think another thing that just plain irritates me is the way he plays the “open minded” card. he tells me the only reason i’m not open to the idea of marijuana is because i’m not open minded. he argues that society has convinced everyone that it’s bad, but there is actually nothing wrong with it and it’s even helpful. he argues that i don’t like it because i’m still latching on to what society wants me to think. but, as usual, the more “open minded” approach is of course whatever he happens to believe. whether it’s religion, politics, or any other subject, he believes that he is so open minded, he has already thought it through from every angle and determined the “correct” opinion. that’s impossible. no one will ever have the answer to most of the questions he’s “solved.” so part of me just wants to hold on to my view as a way of saying “fuck your view, i have my own.” i know that’s illogical and just plain stupid. i’m stubborn and argumentative. i have a lot of pride. logically, i know that there really isn’t anything wrong with marijuana, at least the way he uses it. i cannot tell a difference in his personality after he’s smoked. but that sort of contributes to the thought that it’s a waste of money. does he even get anything out of it? it doesn’t look like it. but regardless, it’s not like being high makes him unpleasant or annoying. it truly doesn’t inconvenience me. if i did something that he thought was dumb but really didn’t get in his way, he’d leave it alone. once again, i’m unfair to him.
it all comes down to one thing, really. i cannot expect him to change for me, just as i would never consciously change for him. he’s not choosing weed over me. he’s not dating weed. it’s background noise in our lives together, a radio station i’m not terribly fond of. but it doesn’t truly inconvenience my life. i need to be logical and rational. i took a personality test today and it told me i actually have a very rational view of the world. the quiz didn’t ask me if i was a teenage girl though. i probably would have scored lower. i truly do try to appreciate every other aspect of our relationship every day. this is my vice though. but reading over this post, the only thing i’m seeing that really is an issue is the lies he told me before we got here. but i got over the biggest one, so i should be able to get over the smaller ones too. not to mention, every time i tell him i wouldn’t have moved in had i known something, he responds the same way. “well are you going to move out now that you know?” i’m always overwhelmed with the same feelings when i have to answer this question. being with him makes me so happy, the bullshit he told me 6 months ago is irrelevant at this point. after six months of living together, we’re simply not the same people, and we don’t relate to each other the same way. we’ve changed as individuals and as a couple for the better. he accepts my shortcomings and for the most part, i try to accept his. i’m still working on this one. as far as i’m concerned though, as long as he’s still sweet and loving while he’s high and he doesn’t squander away our entire live savings, it shouldn’t matter.
isn’t that the first rule of relationships? a known fact. nonbelievers are just asking for an “i told you so.” so why is it such a shock to me that he hasn’t changed like i thought he might?
that sounds bad. you don’t really love someone if you only love some future changed version of them you made up in your mind. i know this, and i’ve known it all along. i always try to stress the difference between change and growth. i want you to grow up, myself also. i want both of us to become more mature as each day goes by. but the one thing about you that i really strongly wish i could change, i’m afraid it may not be just a growth issue.
taking responsibility to start earning money and contributing it to taking care of yourself, that’s part of growing up. that was my number one wish, and i got it. if i hadn’t, i would likely have given up on us by now. but no matter how many battles i win, i just can’t seem to reach contentment.
you did tell me several lies when i agreed to move away with you. most of those things are okay now, great even. but this time it’s my fault. i honestly believed that you would grow out of the weed phase. not because of something you told me - it was something i told myself. yes, you said california got a lot of things out of your system, and that your need for weed had mellowed out a lot.
i guess i just figured this was part of your growing up process. you would reach a point where you decided weed wasn’t necessary for happiness. i guess i assumed and hoped i would play a part in that. if you had love in your life, you wouldn’t need any substance to fill in the gaps. i personally can’t imagine needing anything like that to be happy now that i have you. and it hurts me a lot that you still do.
regardless, i suppose the real issue is that what i consider growth, you consider change. you don’t consider weed to be an immature waste of time and money. for you, it’s one of your biggest loves in life, regardless of how old you are. and i don’t think i’ll ever understand that.
i really do try, i hope you know that. i told you that as long as you were putting your paychecks in the bank to help me pay our bills, you could do whatever you wanted with the rest - no judging. to you, the things i spend my money on might seem like a waste. so it’s only fair that you can do what you’d like with yours. and i felt that i was being perfectly fair with that concept.
but it still upsets me. now that you can buy a whole bunch of it, you do. and you smoke it all the time. time you could spend with me is spent with weed. i know it hurts you when i tell you that i feel like weed is more important to you than i am, but not as much as it hurts me.
i try to remind myself that everyone needs “me” time. hell, for a while i wanted it more than anything. and now i have more than i ever wanted. we spend much more time apart than we do together, mostly due to work. so when we had two days off in a row to just be together, i guess i had high hopes. i was so excited to just be with you again like we used to. and all you wanted to do was sleep, smoke, and ride your bike - the one outdoor activity where you KNOW i can’t join you. i would have gone for a walk in a bug-infested woods, played 36 holes of frisbee golf, anything you wanted. but as you have a tendency to do, you chose weed over me.
maybe i’m not being fair. you don’t give me shit for spending my free time scrapbooking and watching one tree hill. and maybe you could argue that it’s not fair for me to argue that weed is different.
actually, when i started typing this, i had hoped to convince myself that smoking weed was part of who you are, not a big deal, and overreacting was my fault. i really wish i believed that. we’d probably be happier together.
i know that you say you need it to feel productive and calm and intelligent, and those are great things. but i guess it just makes me upset that you feel that way. i want you to feel great naturally. i want to be the reason. but if i’m not enough, i’m sorry.
last night brandon and i watched water for elephants, which if you haven’t seen is a great movie. toward the end, there’s a scene where reese whitherspoon asks robert pattinson “where were you when i was seventeen?” because she already married a complete asshole, and now wishes she could run away with r-pattz because he’s sweet and caring and would never hurt her.
and in that moment i realized how lucky i am. the boy i ran off with when i was young treats me so well, all the time - even when i go into bitch mode for little to no reason. i am so hard on him sometimes. and at the end of the day all he wants to do is smother me with hugs. if i get on him to do something, he does it. almost every time. and usually with no complaining at all. if we’re fighting, i’m absolutely never ever afraid that he’s going to hurt me, no matter what.
he’s the lover, i’m the fighter. and i take that for granted. if i was a lover and i was with a fighter, i don’t think i could handle that. but he puts up with so much more than he deserves. i want to give him as much love as he gives me.
so i’m going to make a conscious effort to cut him some slack. now that he has a full time (sometimes overtime) job, i cannot treat him like dead weight anymore. he contributes just as much as i do to this house. and i think i’m so used to having all of the power, that it’s hard to shift my mindset. we can and should both wear the pants.
i am going to stop getting mad over (and making a big deal out of) little things that he does/doesn’t do.
i am going to stop trying to control everything all the time. our decisions are not entirely for me to make.
i am going to share household chores with him equally now that we both work a lot.
i am going to love him at all times, not just when it’s convenient.
i am going to focus more on us and less on just myself.
i am going to remind myself and him how much i appreciate him on a regular basis.
i am going to ask myself how i would react if he said it to me before i say anything harsh or bitchy. i will stop being such a hypocrite and put myself in his shoes.
i am going to help our relationship more than i hurt it. make it a relationship that we both love being in always.
–Albert Camus
i want this to be true for me so badly.
as soon as i started to look forward to my week of independence, it got cancelled.
i think i still benefitted from thinking about it though.
and i’m still going out to the B.O.B. on thursday night with chelsea for some underage partying. sorry, brandon.
i wished for more me time. i wished for the opportunity to live alone. i wished for independence. and now brandon is going to be gone for a whole week, days after i took back those wishes. he’ll only be in lansing, maybe an hour or so away. and i can call or text him whenever i want. but as soon as he told me that his job was sending him away for a whole week, i was immediately upset. since we moved in together, we haven’t spent a single night falling asleep in different beds.
i think this week is going to change my perspective quite a bit. it’ll be really sad, but i think it’ll be worth it. i hope when he comes back i’ll realize that being alone wouldn’t fix any of my problems. i want to appreciate what i have and stop taking his presence for granted.
so monday begins my week of forced independence.
i can’t help but think back to the list i made on june sixteenth, almost two months ago. it was made on a brilliant notepad i purchased at schuler books (the greatest place on earth, or at least in west michigan). the notepad is titled “MAKE A DECISION” and asks me to fill in each of the following blanks:
DILEMMA: kick out brandon?
DATE: 6/16/12
DECISION NEEDED BY: whenever
DECISION IMPORTANCE LEVEL: trivial non-lethal worthwhile weighty life changing
INDECISIVENESS LEVEL: wishy washy neutral partisan mind made up
BEST CASE SCENARIO: Brandon stays, starts being a responsible adult, and we have an amazing life together, happily ever after. (PIPE DREAM? YES NO)
WORST CASE SCENARIO: I kick him out and end up all alone, regretting all of this. I have to face my family and tell them I was wrong. (APOCOLYPSE? YES NO)
GUT FEELINGS: I cannot tolerate his lazy, immature ways forever. He is dragging me down and making me work harder than I should have to. But I love him. I came here because it was the only way to be with him. And I want to prove everyone wrong and make this work.
PLUSES (+) AND MINUSES (-):
+ I have more money for me
- I can’t still date him
+ I can be me
- I’m stuck here alone
+ He will learn his lesson
- I will have to face WI eventually
+ I get to find myself here
- Nobody else will love me
+ I can date hardworking guys
- I’m giving up really soon
INTUITIVE CONCLUSION: Be patient. Give him a chance to change.
RATIONAL CONCLUSION: Work on being more independent, but wait.
DECISION: Give it some more time. Make it clear to him that if he does not change things, i will. (FOR TODAY? YES NO)
NEXT STEPS: Talk to him. Work on establishing myself here as an independent woman and I’ll be okay regardless.
I absolutely made the right decision. I cannot even put into words how optimistic I am right now for our future. Brandon now works full time (more than that actually) with the contractors who fix our vacant apartments for the next tenant. Most of the time, he’s right here at our property. Sometimes they take him to another property on the other side of town, but he doesn’t even need my car to get there. I never expected things to be this perfect.
And after the talk we had last night on our late night stroll down the street, I no longer have the worries I expressed in my last post. I cannot get out of my head the words he reassured me with.
“I’ve never actually loved anyone before”
I’ve always been afraid that you throw around the word love to every girl who’s ever been cute and funny and easy to talk to. In fact, I have proof of this to some degree. But the fact that you can see the difference now between me and everyone else you’ve dated makes me feel the way I’ve wanted to feel all along - special.
So whether we live here or Tennessee or New York or California or Wisconsin or Oregon or god knows where else, I know it’ll be the two of us.
I won’t let Jeff scare me with his stories about when he broke up with his “first everything.” There will be no first, second, and third everything. He is my everything. And if I don’t always love him, then I never really did.
‘till you chose weed over me; you’re so lame
avril knew what was up in 2003. it’s still up in 2012. someone wise once said
“do not tell me what your priorities are. show me how you spend your money, and i’ll tell you what they are.”
i could not have said it better myself. explain to me why everytime i think “wow, he really is growing up and taking responsibility,” i realize within a few days that i spoke too soon?
when we first got here, i had many a breakdown about how alone i felt in all of this. we are supposed to be in this together. we talk about where we want to live in a few years, and saving for a house (and a boat! once we have a driveway to store it on of course) but with you, things like that just won’t come to fruition unless i do them all by myself. i have no issue doing everything myself; i think we all know this. but i don’t want to have to.
i just don’t think it’s too much to ask that if my money is our money, then your money should also be our money. i crunched plenty of numbers and figured out how to make everything fair so we would both always have some extra money to ourselves after the bills have been paid together. i don’t expect you to bring home as much money as i do, or pay 50% of everything right now. i do expect you to work as hard as you can and help me as much as you can before you go out acting like the fucking dumbass you were in high school.
you especially should have learned from the first time we had this argument. i broke the “don’t go to bed angry” rule two nights in a row the first time you did this. and i broke it again last night.
this one could be a deal breaker for me. like J-LO, my love don’t cost a thing. but you better not fucking take me for granted or use me. go move back in with grandma if that’s the kind of man you want to become. you’ll never be the king of your castle unless you pull your weight. and trust me, it feels fucking great to be the queen.
but i would love to share the throne if you’re ready to be a man.
(Source: Spotify)
(speaking of shaant, he’s actually been all over facebook lately. hmph. new music coming?)
anyway, i feel like i’ve said absolutely nothing about this new life of mine since before it actually started. i should probably explain how i got to this point.
truthfully, i was not happy at all in the beginning. i didn’t feel like myself anymore. i literally had zero time to myself. i never listened to my music, never got to drive more than 5 minutes by myself, never got to be home alone. a typical day went something like this:
4:45 AM: alarm clock goes off, playing the oldies station. we lay in bed and listen to it, half asleep.
5:30 AM: i wake up and spend about 15 minutes getting ready, essentially throwing on a tee shirt and jeans, brushing my teeth, and not much else.
5:45 AM: i leave for work in pitch black darkness, miserable.
6:00 AM: i arrive at costco and spend the next 5 hours all by myself with nobody to talk to, lifting heavy items above my head, with more tasks to do than time to do it. all the aloneness encouraged my brain to run wild and remind myself how much my life sucks.
11:00 AM: i get to leave. thank the fucking lord.
11:15 AM: i get home. brandon is sick so he’s laying in bed with a pathetic look on his face. i make us lunch.
12:00 PM: brandon says something like “i’ll feel better if i move. let’s go play frisbee golf.” and we go.
1:00 PM: we’re on our way back home from frisbee golfing. finally. if you didn’t know, i find frisbee golf quite boring.
1:30 PM: we realize we need to run some sort of errand, so we go grocery shopping or whatever.
3:00 PM: brandon says “let’s go outside and play tennis.” so we go.
4:30 PM: i have to go to work at american eagle now. i leave hopeful to make friends with girls my age and that never happens.
11:00 PM: i get home from a frustrating evening at AE, and find that brandon’s already asleep. i hurry up and go to bed because i have to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and do it all over again.
okay, not every minute was miserable. but i really did feel like all i did was work and kiss brandon’s ass for a while. and i had huge breakdowns at night on a semi-regular basis. breakdowns about everything from the feeling that i’m losing myself, the feeling that brandon only likes me because i make his life so easy, all sorts of stuff. there was actually one situation that i’m not sure i’m ready to talk about. we’ll see. everytime i think about it, it’s like the first time all over again.
honestly i just knew that we weren’t ready for this. as individuals and as a couple. we’re so fucking young. i don’t know anybody else my age in this situation. i know other young couples who live together, but not in a state that they’ve never been to before. not to mention, our relationship status is a complicated story in itself. we weren’t technically, officially “together” until this happened. that was such a risk in itself. we went from living in different states to living together, away from everyone else we know. and when you’re still approaching your 19th birthday, that’s fucked up.
i’ve always taken pride in the fact that i do everything before most people. i started working at 14, full time at 17, had my own apartment 2 weeks after high school ended. and apparently lived in another state with a boy before turning 19. if you told me that was going to happen even just a year ago, i would not have believed you.
but all of this misery slowly but surely turned into the amazing life i have now. here’s how that happened:
· dave, the assistant general manager of costco noticed that i was really stressed out in my morning merch position and offered to let me work the front end at night. i had a mini breakdown right there and accepted without a hint of doubt. dave impresses me every day with his kindness.
· jeff, my apartment manager heard me say i had a job interview and responded with “we’re hiring! apply here!” and somehow that turned into me getting a job as a leasing agent in his office. i thank the serendipity gods all the time for that miracle. on my 19th birthday, i was offered a job at my own desk that pays $12/hr plus commission.
· the office job allowed me to quit american fucking eagle.
· my sleep schedule became perfectly manageable. the office scheduled me 9-5 or 9-6, and costco scheduled me 5:30-10:30 pm. i never had to wake up before 8 or go to bed after 11 if i didn’t want to.
· i wasn’t so stressed about money. i worked 2 jobs that paid well and we could eat out once in a while and still have all of the bills paid. i relaxed a lot at that point.
· i took charge of my “losing myself” issue and started playing my music, singing in the shower, calling wisconsin whenever i felt like it, and designing the apartment to look like a place where i actually live (before i designed it, it looked pathetic. nothing matched, no couch existed, it was not organized AT ALL. and it didn’t feel like home one bit).
· some of those breakdowns actually had great results. the first time he told me he loved me came toward the end of one. and it was actually a really emotionally powerful moment, not just a “will you stop crying if i say nice things to you?” type thing.
· we worked through enough fights to basically run out of important things to fight about. and opened up with each other and became really comfortable.
· i got brandon to realize that i will not tolerate him being unemployed; i literally came really close to kicking him out and being out here on my own. and he grew the fuck up. right now he works with a temp agency.
and somehow, all of these things turned that miserable life into the one i love now. i am very confident in our relationship and i am very confident in my ability to succeed out here on my own.
that sounded like the beginning of a lame facebook status. but honestly, it’s been a topic of interest for me lately. my addiction to self-help books has made me quite introspective. i’m on a mission to makeover my life. i literally created a typed document that lays out the five phases of my plan:
· make house feel like home
· get and keep finances under control
· build and repair relationships
· maintain a healthy body
· grow into the person i want to be
but none of those things can be measured in a quantitative manner. so how do i really know when i’ve succeeded? happiness is not completely black and white. so when do i decide i’m content?
here’s my theory. anyone who knows me knows how much i hate sitting still. i need to be constantly entertained and moving and leaving my house at all times or i go insane. this is a well known fact. actually, the first time i smoked weed, my most exciting moment went something like this:
jeff: so what do you wanna do? where do you wanna go? this is your experience, whatever you want!
me: do? go? …why? i’m totally fine just sitting here.
only marijuana can make me content with the absence of activity. when sober, i absolutely cannot go a whole day without leaving my house, even if i don’t have any important destinations.
but that isn’t true anymore. lately i spend almost all of my non-working hours at home, often doing nothing terribly stimulating or important. and you know what? it honestly doesn’t bother me. i think back in waukesha, free time reminded me that i had nothing better to do, so i ran from it and tried to always be moving. but now, a day spent sitting at home is a day spent with brandon. and i’m not lonely anymore.
quantitatively, i’m more alone than ever. coworkers and customers excluded, i associate with one person and one person only. back in waukesha, i spent my days with all sorts of different people. but at the end of each day, i was alone.
i cannot think of a single moment lately where i’ve felt alone. “me” time is spent by choice. i built myself a girl cave filled with craft and office supplies that i enjoy very much. i still love being productive, and i do it pretty often. but when i’m not productive, i’m no longer discontent.
a few days ago, i did absolutely nothing. brandon and i watched spongebob for several hours, and laid around in bed goofing off for a few more hours. i think we also played diddy kong racing for a while. that was pretty much my whole day. and it was a great day. i didn’t go anywhere, didn’t do anything productive, and didn’t feel discontent with that. never in my life has that happened before, sober anyway.
so that’s how i know i’m finally happy. and god, does it feel so good. (‘cause i got him where i want him now, right hayley?)
for not blogging at all since i got here. i wrote a few the other day that i couldn’t post until i got internet access, so i’ll probably just do that from now on.
since this new life of mine started, every day i have new rants i’d like to post here. but everytime i’m online, the subject of my rants is sitting right next to me. so i think i’m gonna start ranting on paper with a pen. yeah.
*original rules of contract still apply. i’ll send you the paper rants or type them up with dates on them ahahaha…
when i finally worked up the courage to seriously talk to you about things that upset me, i guess i had high hopes that i would hear what i wanted to hear. and to a slight extent, i did. but overall, i didn’t hear much at all. when you said “i hope you feel better” as i was leaving, i had no idea why i was supposed to feel better. and i had no idea how you couldn’t tell i was kind of almost crying. and no idea how i managed to wait until you closed the door before i really started. i did hear a few things i was hoping to hear, just not enough. i finally feel comfortable calling us “together” and stuff, and i thought it was cute that you said you’d buy me a ring out of a vending machine. but you missed the point. i don’t want material things from you. i just want to know and feel that you care about me. and i still need to feel that.
and yet,
i only get upset like this when i’m not actually with you or talking to you. which should be a good sign right? whether it’s an 8 minute phone conversation about nothing or we’re taking a nap till noon or driving around singing along to britney spears or getting frozen yogurt or standing in all the showers at menards, you just make me happy. without even trying. honestly, just talking to you on my break makes my work day so much better. today, i came back from break late because i was so distracted by talking to you, and that made me smile. what a mess you’ve made of me. but i don’t regret a second of it.
