While not everything has been bad in 2008, I'd like to say GOOD RIDDANCE to the year 2008.
Things went funky early on in the year and just went downhill from there. I know it was not just me and many people had a rather unpleasant year. But for me, here are some of the things that made 2008 a year to forget:
~February 24- spending time with my parents on their 30th anniversary when we received a phone call that my cousin --my dad's older brother's daugther-- had committed suicide. We weren't close-- I remember meeting her a few times when I was still in my single digits-- but suicide always messes with me. Having it happen in my family messed with me more.
~On top of my emotional issues (which are gradually improving over time...) this year was also fraught with physical issues. I started having joint problems-- the biggie was the ankle that hurt on the bottom and went numb on the top. That one has not been resolved yet. Others just randomly decided to hurt on random days. Whatever. Then there were some other issues that came along on top of the ankle issues leading to me not getting that resolve. These issues are being examined over time (yippee...) to see if anything changes. Then there was the tummy trouble that started with not just milk products, but other random foods as well-- eating is not enjoyable when nothing seems to agree with you. Then of course there was my clumsiest moment in the history of my existence, leading to my elbow injury-- that was fun. Amazingly enough, the month or so that my elbow felt really bad, everything else felt GREAT. Weird. And then there was the fact that for the two months prior to hurting my elbow as well as about a month and a half after, I was waking up at least twice a night. With all of this going on, my weight has suffered and my doctor is apparently not concerned by any of this. Well that's special. Particularly given that my mom has been diagnosed in the last three years with Type II Diabetes, a thyroid condition and Rheumatoid arthritis. All of which I am at risk for and all of which will hit me harder and sooner if I can't get my weight under control. But apparently this does not matter to my doctor.
~ I really did not want to move until I could afford to buy a place and moving was made even more complicated by the whole stupid elbow thing. I couldn't have done it without such fabulous friends.
~ This year has been the most difficult yet to be alone. The hardest part has been watching all of the new kids arriving to their families. Of course it is a joy-- but it is also painful for me because I worry that I will run out of time. I know that 29 is still young, but I also know that it is going to be VERY difficult for me to have a child if and when that time comes because of the "other issues" mentioned in the above section and so each year that goes by that I'm still alone is another year that I've lost.
~ I have struggled with hope and with trust. I have watched my parents' marriage continue in its destructive path of not communicating and the blame game. At the same time, I have watched my brother struggle as his wife goes out on the town with friends and leaving him at home. All the while, he brought in the only income for most of the year as she was unemployed for six months and he still was left to do much of the housework despite being the only one working and despite being out of town frequently for work. As far as trust goes, I have found that because of many past experiences, I am having a hard time trusting men to do anything they say they will do-- which may keep me from getting a date should anyone be miraculously interested.
But 2008 hasn't been all bad. Here is some of the good:
~ I made several great new friends and reconnected with a couple of old friends.
~ I got a better position at work- working in claims rather than customer service. My co-workers are much more friendly and accepting and much less catty and gossipy. I also feel much more appreciated. Not only do they say it and show it more-- I also received an unexpected promotion which resulted in a 9% pay increase. It's not a different job-- just a higher level of the same job because my boss thinks that I'm doing great.
~Smokey is still the cutest cat ever. And since I got my digital camera, it's easier for me to prove it. :)
~Now that I've moved to the new place, I'm starting to see the pluses-- I have much more space than I used to. It is walking distance to the grocery store, coffee, dollar tree and several food options. Also it is walking distance to the park where there is a beautiful walking trail.
~I've started to learn to believe and accept that the people who say that they love me really do love me-- it is not just an act and it is not pity.
Next Post: In with 2009-- My goals and hopes for the year to come.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
A Post About Nothing.
I am here to post about nothing. I, like some others, have been experiencing a case of the blog BLAHS and have not posted anything for a while. Don't worry-- I haven't posted anything on the emo blog either, so it's not because things are bad. I just don't have much to say.
I generally do not enjoy the holidays as much as I should because it means extra extra time with the family and my mom tends to make drama out of everything that goes wrong this time of year. She has been much more mellow this year-- I'm not sure what to attribute it to, but I am grateful.
I received a fifty dollar gift card for Wal-mart from my boss because of all the overtime I worked a couple weeks ago to help clean up the claims we had. Since I do not shop at Wal-mart, I offered to give it to my parents. My mom would not take it. I offered to sell it to them for forty dollars. My mom said that she wants me to spend it. The good news is, the gift card can ALSO be used at Sam's Club. I know it sounds weird, but I don't boycott Sam's even though I boycott Wal-mart even though they're essentially the same company-- the main reason being that Sam's has a much better track record on employee relations since they have to remain at least somewhat competetive with Costco.
So soon, I will be purchasing some items of bulk goodness. Perhaps some potsticker are in order. And I could definitely use some more individually wrapped chicken breasts (very convenient for a single gal cooking for herself). And some Laughing Cow Cheese. Yes, that sounds good. We'll see what else I get.
I am glad that Christmas is almost here. Because I will be very glad when it is over with. I'm not saying that to be all anti-holiday spirit or Bah-Humbug-y... It's just that all of my gatherings with friends are after Christmas, and I am rather looking forward to spending time with people who love me the way I am-- as cliche as that sounds, it is the truth.
I think that's about all the nothing I can write about right now, so I am going to eat breakfast now-- a cinnamon streusel muffin and perhaps some coffee.
I generally do not enjoy the holidays as much as I should because it means extra extra time with the family and my mom tends to make drama out of everything that goes wrong this time of year. She has been much more mellow this year-- I'm not sure what to attribute it to, but I am grateful.
I received a fifty dollar gift card for Wal-mart from my boss because of all the overtime I worked a couple weeks ago to help clean up the claims we had. Since I do not shop at Wal-mart, I offered to give it to my parents. My mom would not take it. I offered to sell it to them for forty dollars. My mom said that she wants me to spend it. The good news is, the gift card can ALSO be used at Sam's Club. I know it sounds weird, but I don't boycott Sam's even though I boycott Wal-mart even though they're essentially the same company-- the main reason being that Sam's has a much better track record on employee relations since they have to remain at least somewhat competetive with Costco.
So soon, I will be purchasing some items of bulk goodness. Perhaps some potsticker are in order. And I could definitely use some more individually wrapped chicken breasts (very convenient for a single gal cooking for herself). And some Laughing Cow Cheese. Yes, that sounds good. We'll see what else I get.
I am glad that Christmas is almost here. Because I will be very glad when it is over with. I'm not saying that to be all anti-holiday spirit or Bah-Humbug-y... It's just that all of my gatherings with friends are after Christmas, and I am rather looking forward to spending time with people who love me the way I am-- as cliche as that sounds, it is the truth.
I think that's about all the nothing I can write about right now, so I am going to eat breakfast now-- a cinnamon streusel muffin and perhaps some coffee.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Beauty: A Fallacy in My Thinking AND Roommates Part 5 of 6
This probably not news to most of you, and it is most certainly not news to me, but I've never though of myself as a beautiful, or even a slightly pretty person. I've just never had that sort of confidence. I've had days or moments when I felt pretty but as a whole, I've never seen myself this way. But as of late, I have come to realize... Or instead let's say that I have been beat over the head with the fact that this is a lie. That it is a fallacy in my thinking and it needs to stop because God is not pleased with the way I've always seen myself.
Here's where the fallacy comes in: It is sort of like the "if/then statements" that you learn about in high school geometry-- like "All 4 sided shapes are quadrilaterals. IF all 4 sided shapes are quadrilaterals and a square has 4 sides THEN it must be a quadrilateral. But in this case it goes something like this:
Everything God makes is beautiful. IF everything God makes is beautiful and God made me, THEN I must be beautiful, too.
I have believed for quite some time that everything that God makes is beautiful. And I apply that to nature, and to other people and to music and to everything I can think of except for myself. Somehow I've always managed to exclude myself from the everything. And in the past it has been pointed out to me that this is an insult to God. And even though I always knew this in my head, I could never translate that to my heart. But recently my head and my heart have started to find agreement-- I have started to recognize, with the help of many people I love, that I am not the exception. God did not make everything beautiful EXCEPT for me... I am included in EVERYTHING.
*************************************************************************************
Roommates Part 5 of 6 - The Extremist
The Extremist was the most... let's just say interesting... of the Christian roommates I've had. We'll call her Dawn for the sake of the story. That is not, of course, her real name.
Dawn was, as I said before, a friend of a friend who moved into our three bedroom apartment on the day of my graduation ceremony. She did not have a car, but she borrowed her mother's for the move. We later found out that she also did not have a bed. Apparently she sold these things a few months prior because she wanted to live more simply. She told us that she wanted to sleep on the floor so that she could more easily relate to the suffering that was felt by persecuted Christians where they are not free to worship Jesus. We just nodded and smiled and went with it for the time being.
So for about a week after Dawn moved in, she slept on the floor and so on. But then one night I came home from work at about 2:30 am and there she was, sleeping on the futon in the living room. So much for getting a little snack before bed. This continued for about a month until she finally went out and bought a futon of her very own. Well, actually I think her mom bought her bed because she wasn't working at the time, but whatever...
During this same period of time that she was sleeping on the floor/living room futon, she was also doing the Daniel Fast as a full time diet. She would concoct strange soups in my slow cooker and leave them in there for days. All the while she would nibble on whatever food Becca and I had purchased for ourselves. Actually perhaps nibble is not the proper word. One time she ate a half a loaf of wheat bread in one sitting. Another time she ate a box of taco shells-- just the shells. And still another time she consumed a container of DRY OATMEAL. She said that she was doing the Daniel Fast because she had a wheat allergy, but she kept eating our wheat products in mass quantities. At one point she accused me of being a bad Christian sister. She told me that by buying wheat products and keeping them in the house, that I was causing her to stumble. Because apparently she was never supposed to have to develop self control.
Ah, and if only this is where the entertainment ended. But alas, there is still more to be said about Dawn. During that summer, the fifth Harry Potter book came out. Now I know it's not uncommon for Christians to be opposed to Harry Potter, and I'm fine with that. But when the fifth Harry Potter book came out, Becca and I had my niece, who was 11 at the time, come with us to the release party and then spend the night at our place. The next morning Dawn comes out of her bedroom, asks what we did the night before, and the instant that we tell her she goes into a rant about the evils of Harry Potter and how I am corrupting my niece and she can't believe that I would be such a bad influence on her-- all of this in front of my niece. Then when after her grandma came to take her home, the lecture began. She pulled out her Bible and started reading me verses and following me around the apartment ranting about how horrible Harry Potter is. I asked her if she'd ever read any of the books to which she responded with a resounding NO-- at which point I asked her to kindly butt out because she had no idea what she was talking about. I told her that her issues are not always going to be mine and she needed to just deal with it. Eventually she left me alone on the matter.
And now for the final piece of entertainment for this tale-- I guess this roommate is more a series of stories rather than one continuous one-- the trip to the emergency room.
So shortly after Dawn's 30th birthday, we had planned a trip to go to Great America for Joyfest-- I invited her because I didn't want to go alone. At the time, I was working the 4:00pm -12:30am shift and had split days off. In order to accommodate for my trip, I had to switch shifts with a coworker, which put me in the position of having to work a long shift on the Wednesday before we left. So instead of my usual 4:00 start time, I had started at noon that day. By the time I got home, I was exhausted and I went to bed immediately. I barely even took the time to change into my pajamas before falling asleep.
About an hour after I fell asleep, there was a pounding on my bedroom door. And then another. Then a yell-- "Jeni! Jeni! I think I need to go to the hospital. Jeni? Can you hear me?" And then some more pounding. After a couple of minutes I'm able to drag myself out of bed, and there is Dawn outside of my door with a blood soaked towel wrapped around her finger. So I put some shoes on-- I was not about to change out of my pajamas-- and we headed for the hospital. Turns out, Dawn had cut off her finger tip while cutting an apple. As we left the apartment, I couldn't help but notice that all of the lights were out in the apartment. I thought it was strange that she would turn out the lights after cutting herself-- but of course this is not what happened. She cut her fingertip off while cutting an apple IN THE DARK because she was "afraid that she would wake us up" if she turned on the light. Eh, whatever. So while we're on the way to the hospital, she tells me that we will have to throw away the towel. And the sponge in the sink. And we should probably bleach the sink, the knife and the cutting board. Because Dawn had Hepatitis B, which is spread through the blood-- so we needed to make sure that there was no blood lingering anywhere.
So we go to the hospital and I hang out in the waiting room while Dawn gets her finger taken care of. And by the time I get home, I am COMPLETELY wiped out-- but not so wiped out that I forget to babysit her while she tosses the towel, sponge and APPLE and takes them to the dumpster then bleaches the sink, knife and cutting board.
Fortunately, a month later our lease was up and Becca and I decided that the apartment in Lemmon Valley was no longer the place for us. And since Dawn's parents lived in Stead, she decided to go back to their house. And on Thanksgiving Day (yes, again!) Becca and I moved to an apartment in Sparks where my brother joined us. Turns out my brother was the BEST roommate I ever had. Who would have thought?
Here's where the fallacy comes in: It is sort of like the "if/then statements" that you learn about in high school geometry-- like "All 4 sided shapes are quadrilaterals. IF all 4 sided shapes are quadrilaterals and a square has 4 sides THEN it must be a quadrilateral. But in this case it goes something like this:
Everything God makes is beautiful. IF everything God makes is beautiful and God made me, THEN I must be beautiful, too.
I have believed for quite some time that everything that God makes is beautiful. And I apply that to nature, and to other people and to music and to everything I can think of except for myself. Somehow I've always managed to exclude myself from the everything. And in the past it has been pointed out to me that this is an insult to God. And even though I always knew this in my head, I could never translate that to my heart. But recently my head and my heart have started to find agreement-- I have started to recognize, with the help of many people I love, that I am not the exception. God did not make everything beautiful EXCEPT for me... I am included in EVERYTHING.
*************************************************************************************
Roommates Part 5 of 6 - The Extremist
The Extremist was the most... let's just say interesting... of the Christian roommates I've had. We'll call her Dawn for the sake of the story. That is not, of course, her real name.
Dawn was, as I said before, a friend of a friend who moved into our three bedroom apartment on the day of my graduation ceremony. She did not have a car, but she borrowed her mother's for the move. We later found out that she also did not have a bed. Apparently she sold these things a few months prior because she wanted to live more simply. She told us that she wanted to sleep on the floor so that she could more easily relate to the suffering that was felt by persecuted Christians where they are not free to worship Jesus. We just nodded and smiled and went with it for the time being.
So for about a week after Dawn moved in, she slept on the floor and so on. But then one night I came home from work at about 2:30 am and there she was, sleeping on the futon in the living room. So much for getting a little snack before bed. This continued for about a month until she finally went out and bought a futon of her very own. Well, actually I think her mom bought her bed because she wasn't working at the time, but whatever...
During this same period of time that she was sleeping on the floor/living room futon, she was also doing the Daniel Fast as a full time diet. She would concoct strange soups in my slow cooker and leave them in there for days. All the while she would nibble on whatever food Becca and I had purchased for ourselves. Actually perhaps nibble is not the proper word. One time she ate a half a loaf of wheat bread in one sitting. Another time she ate a box of taco shells-- just the shells. And still another time she consumed a container of DRY OATMEAL. She said that she was doing the Daniel Fast because she had a wheat allergy, but she kept eating our wheat products in mass quantities. At one point she accused me of being a bad Christian sister. She told me that by buying wheat products and keeping them in the house, that I was causing her to stumble. Because apparently she was never supposed to have to develop self control.
Ah, and if only this is where the entertainment ended. But alas, there is still more to be said about Dawn. During that summer, the fifth Harry Potter book came out. Now I know it's not uncommon for Christians to be opposed to Harry Potter, and I'm fine with that. But when the fifth Harry Potter book came out, Becca and I had my niece, who was 11 at the time, come with us to the release party and then spend the night at our place. The next morning Dawn comes out of her bedroom, asks what we did the night before, and the instant that we tell her she goes into a rant about the evils of Harry Potter and how I am corrupting my niece and she can't believe that I would be such a bad influence on her-- all of this in front of my niece. Then when after her grandma came to take her home, the lecture began. She pulled out her Bible and started reading me verses and following me around the apartment ranting about how horrible Harry Potter is. I asked her if she'd ever read any of the books to which she responded with a resounding NO-- at which point I asked her to kindly butt out because she had no idea what she was talking about. I told her that her issues are not always going to be mine and she needed to just deal with it. Eventually she left me alone on the matter.
And now for the final piece of entertainment for this tale-- I guess this roommate is more a series of stories rather than one continuous one-- the trip to the emergency room.
So shortly after Dawn's 30th birthday, we had planned a trip to go to Great America for Joyfest-- I invited her because I didn't want to go alone. At the time, I was working the 4:00pm -12:30am shift and had split days off. In order to accommodate for my trip, I had to switch shifts with a coworker, which put me in the position of having to work a long shift on the Wednesday before we left. So instead of my usual 4:00 start time, I had started at noon that day. By the time I got home, I was exhausted and I went to bed immediately. I barely even took the time to change into my pajamas before falling asleep.
About an hour after I fell asleep, there was a pounding on my bedroom door. And then another. Then a yell-- "Jeni! Jeni! I think I need to go to the hospital. Jeni? Can you hear me?" And then some more pounding. After a couple of minutes I'm able to drag myself out of bed, and there is Dawn outside of my door with a blood soaked towel wrapped around her finger. So I put some shoes on-- I was not about to change out of my pajamas-- and we headed for the hospital. Turns out, Dawn had cut off her finger tip while cutting an apple. As we left the apartment, I couldn't help but notice that all of the lights were out in the apartment. I thought it was strange that she would turn out the lights after cutting herself-- but of course this is not what happened. She cut her fingertip off while cutting an apple IN THE DARK because she was "afraid that she would wake us up" if she turned on the light. Eh, whatever. So while we're on the way to the hospital, she tells me that we will have to throw away the towel. And the sponge in the sink. And we should probably bleach the sink, the knife and the cutting board. Because Dawn had Hepatitis B, which is spread through the blood-- so we needed to make sure that there was no blood lingering anywhere.
So we go to the hospital and I hang out in the waiting room while Dawn gets her finger taken care of. And by the time I get home, I am COMPLETELY wiped out-- but not so wiped out that I forget to babysit her while she tosses the towel, sponge and APPLE and takes them to the dumpster then bleaches the sink, knife and cutting board.
Fortunately, a month later our lease was up and Becca and I decided that the apartment in Lemmon Valley was no longer the place for us. And since Dawn's parents lived in Stead, she decided to go back to their house. And on Thanksgiving Day (yes, again!) Becca and I moved to an apartment in Sparks where my brother joined us. Turns out my brother was the BEST roommate I ever had. Who would have thought?
Saturday, November 15, 2008
And I'm Back With Roommates Part 4
To anybody who is still reading, sorry for the delay. I'm back here with more stories of roommate rendezvous--or whatever you want to call them. There will also be new poetry posted on my emo blog--it's not exactly emo, but it's more emo than the roommates story, so that's where it's going for now. So without further ado:
Roommates (Part 4 of 6) The Time in Between:
After my ex-best friend's sister moved out in November of 2002, my remaining roommate (now known as my SIL, also known as Becca) and I signed another year lease in the same apartment and decided to try to find a perfect third roommate. The problem with this was that neither of us could actually REALLY afford not to have a third roommate.
It seemed as though things were going to work out well when a friend of my SIL's that she knew from work got kicked out of his parents' house. It seemed like the perfect situation-- we needed a third roommate, he needed an inexpensive place to live-- perfect, right?
He moved into our apartment on Thanksgiving Day when Becca and I were hosting a murder mystery dinner for our parents for Thanksgiving. So the roommate number 3 and his friend show up, make a couple of trips to get his things, and when they finally come back for the murder mystery dinner, they are carrying beer--I'm not sure how they got it, since they were both 18. This put me in quite the awkward position being that I was the only one living at the apartment who was legal drinking age. I told roommate number 3's friend that he could not bring the beer into my apartment where I was the only resident of legal drinking age. He got all huffy with me, and went out to his car where I'm sure he downed at least one of the beers. He came back in for dinner and was basically snarky with me the entire night about how uncool I was for not letting him drink. Whatever.
After that night, things were not bad with roommate number 3. He mostly kept to himself and spent all of his time on the internet. This was a bit of a problem since we had dial-up back then and Becca and I were both in college. We occasionally had to ask him to stop the games so that we could get online for school related things. There was also the debates. Some nights, Becca and I would have these conversations where we just sat up debating things-- politics (which she is very good at, now having her degree in Political Science); religion (which I was very good at due to passion and persistance); hot button types of issues (abortion, gay marriages, etc.). We sometimes got a bit loud during our debates and would eventually end up crying and laughing and baring our souls about things that have made us who we are. And roommate #3 was freaked out by this. He just thought that we were always fighting.
Needless to say, roommate number 3 did not last long. Shortly after Christmas, partway into January, he decided to move in with his beer drinking friend in an apartment closer to town. Lemmon Valley is not a good place for the beer drinkers to live should they have to make a quick escape for more beer.
After roommate #4 moved out in January, we began the search for a new roommate. We put up fliers at UNR since it was just before the beginning of the spring semester--right when lots of people are looking for a new place to live. We got a few phone calls, but most people didn't want to live in Lemmon Valley. We weren't terrible worried for the rest of January because roommate #3 had paid a partial month's rent before he left, so we were okay for money.
We posted our open room on one of the roommate finder sites online, but really had very little luck there. It was a stressful time. I had changed my major from education to English writing in November and that left me needing 5 writing classes and a social science to graduate. So in the spring of 2003, I was enrolled in 4 writing classes, working full time at the Evil K and I had no idea where my future would take me-- I just knew it wouldn't be teaching. That decision was a long time in coming and came after I received a swift kick in the butt from God after two years of nudging had failed. But that's a story best left for another post.
In March we finally got a response from someone on the roommates site. He was a recent college graduate who was going to be doing some science thing with little kids for Americorp. He was moving from Indiana and wanted to have a place lined up before he made his move. So he came to visit the apartment in early March, and we didn't hear from him again. Finally, two weeks later he sent us a message saying that he wanted to be closer to the campus, but that he had really enjoyed meeting us. So we continued into April in the same frenzy we'd been in for most of February and all of March. I was particularly frenzied with graduation looming near. That semester I had 150 pages of final portfolio work due at the end of the semester and every paper I'd written for the entire semester had to be reviewed and revised one more time. And things were exceedingly tight with just two of us paying rent-- but emotionally it was a very easy time. During that time Becca was quite a good roommate even if it was a little weird having my brother stay the night every Friday.
Finally, at the beginning of May a friend of mine let me know that she had a friend who was looking for a roommate. We eagerly took her information and made contact. She came to look at the apartment and decided to move in ASAP. So she gradually moved her things in and while I was receiving my unofficial diploma at UNR's graduation ceremony (I wasn't officially done until August), she was moving the last of her things into our apartment.
Stay tuned next week for Part 5 where you will learn all of the terrors of the new Roommate #3.
Roommates (Part 4 of 6) The Time in Between:
After my ex-best friend's sister moved out in November of 2002, my remaining roommate (now known as my SIL, also known as Becca) and I signed another year lease in the same apartment and decided to try to find a perfect third roommate. The problem with this was that neither of us could actually REALLY afford not to have a third roommate.
It seemed as though things were going to work out well when a friend of my SIL's that she knew from work got kicked out of his parents' house. It seemed like the perfect situation-- we needed a third roommate, he needed an inexpensive place to live-- perfect, right?
He moved into our apartment on Thanksgiving Day when Becca and I were hosting a murder mystery dinner for our parents for Thanksgiving. So the roommate number 3 and his friend show up, make a couple of trips to get his things, and when they finally come back for the murder mystery dinner, they are carrying beer--I'm not sure how they got it, since they were both 18. This put me in quite the awkward position being that I was the only one living at the apartment who was legal drinking age. I told roommate number 3's friend that he could not bring the beer into my apartment where I was the only resident of legal drinking age. He got all huffy with me, and went out to his car where I'm sure he downed at least one of the beers. He came back in for dinner and was basically snarky with me the entire night about how uncool I was for not letting him drink. Whatever.
After that night, things were not bad with roommate number 3. He mostly kept to himself and spent all of his time on the internet. This was a bit of a problem since we had dial-up back then and Becca and I were both in college. We occasionally had to ask him to stop the games so that we could get online for school related things. There was also the debates. Some nights, Becca and I would have these conversations where we just sat up debating things-- politics (which she is very good at, now having her degree in Political Science); religion (which I was very good at due to passion and persistance); hot button types of issues (abortion, gay marriages, etc.). We sometimes got a bit loud during our debates and would eventually end up crying and laughing and baring our souls about things that have made us who we are. And roommate #3 was freaked out by this. He just thought that we were always fighting.
Needless to say, roommate number 3 did not last long. Shortly after Christmas, partway into January, he decided to move in with his beer drinking friend in an apartment closer to town. Lemmon Valley is not a good place for the beer drinkers to live should they have to make a quick escape for more beer.
After roommate #4 moved out in January, we began the search for a new roommate. We put up fliers at UNR since it was just before the beginning of the spring semester--right when lots of people are looking for a new place to live. We got a few phone calls, but most people didn't want to live in Lemmon Valley. We weren't terrible worried for the rest of January because roommate #3 had paid a partial month's rent before he left, so we were okay for money.
We posted our open room on one of the roommate finder sites online, but really had very little luck there. It was a stressful time. I had changed my major from education to English writing in November and that left me needing 5 writing classes and a social science to graduate. So in the spring of 2003, I was enrolled in 4 writing classes, working full time at the Evil K and I had no idea where my future would take me-- I just knew it wouldn't be teaching. That decision was a long time in coming and came after I received a swift kick in the butt from God after two years of nudging had failed. But that's a story best left for another post.
In March we finally got a response from someone on the roommates site. He was a recent college graduate who was going to be doing some science thing with little kids for Americorp. He was moving from Indiana and wanted to have a place lined up before he made his move. So he came to visit the apartment in early March, and we didn't hear from him again. Finally, two weeks later he sent us a message saying that he wanted to be closer to the campus, but that he had really enjoyed meeting us. So we continued into April in the same frenzy we'd been in for most of February and all of March. I was particularly frenzied with graduation looming near. That semester I had 150 pages of final portfolio work due at the end of the semester and every paper I'd written for the entire semester had to be reviewed and revised one more time. And things were exceedingly tight with just two of us paying rent-- but emotionally it was a very easy time. During that time Becca was quite a good roommate even if it was a little weird having my brother stay the night every Friday.
Finally, at the beginning of May a friend of mine let me know that she had a friend who was looking for a roommate. We eagerly took her information and made contact. She came to look at the apartment and decided to move in ASAP. So she gradually moved her things in and while I was receiving my unofficial diploma at UNR's graduation ceremony (I wasn't officially done until August), she was moving the last of her things into our apartment.
Stay tuned next week for Part 5 where you will learn all of the terrors of the new Roommate #3.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A New Blog
So, since I generally stop blogging when I'm feeling emo, and I've been encouraged not to do so, I have created another blog that will be all about those emo days. The link is in my menu on the left and it will include all my emo rants, poems, songs, etc. If you are into emo, then you can pop over there every once in a while to get your dose-- and if you're not then you can just pretend like my emo blog doesn't exist and just hang out at this one. The current feature on my emo blog is a lament-ish sort of poem. If you visit, then I hope you enjoy!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Random Thoughts-- And Roommates Pt 3 of 6
Random Thoughts:
*Right now, my seven favorite people in the world are the people who came to help me move yesterday. I am all moved and my old apartment is already completely cleaned and ready to go. I suppose that the one person who offered to come but was unable due to circumstances beyond his control can be included, therefore making it my EIGHT favorite people in the world.
*My dad and my brother are the most dependable men that I know. I owe them a fabulous Mexican dinner and some beer.
*I can see cows from my kitchen window.
*Bowling left-handed is challenging. It's helping me learn to laugh at myself a lot more. (I know that I already laugh at myself a lot-- but usually only with friends, not strangers.)
*Earlier, I was watching TV and there was a commercial on about one of those expensive programs that is supposed to prevent identity theft. It's good to know that our most important identity, the one of "Child of God," cannot be stolen from us.
____________________________________________________________________
Roommates Part 3 - My ex-best friend's sister and my brother's girlfriend
After the special experience I was treated to my second year in the dorms, I decided it was time to move on to greener pastures. Then I realized that I am in Nevada, and therefore the pastures are BROWN. While the dorms were not the most pleasant living experience, they were still a vast improvement over living with my parents. So during the seconds semester of my las year in the dorms, I started looking for roommates to share an apartment with. Conveniently, my brother's girlfriend (also known as my current sister-in-law) decided that she wanted to move into an apartment around the same time. To keep it affordable, we decided that we should find a third roommate and get a three bedroom apartment. The third roommate wound up being my ex-best friend's sister who was the same as as my brother and his girlfriend, and who'd had a crazy crush on my brother since they were about 12, though she would never admit it.
To make it clear, the ex-best friend wasn't an ex-best friend because of anything bad that happened. She just moved away for college and we drifted a part. She was actually quite a good friend for most of high school. She was the friend I went to church with occasionally. The trouble was, both her and her sister, who would become my roommate, were raised in a rather legalistic Christian home and were not really allowed any sort of freedoms. So when my friend went off to college, she rebelled and became a bit of a wild child for a few year. These were the same few years when I was beginning to find myself and my identity as a Christian-- We drifted apart because we were headed in different directions.
I have to admit that when I found out that her sister was looking to move out of their parents' house, I was excited for several reasons-- The first was that I had hoped that it would bring me closer to my friend again. The second was that I had hoped that she wouldn't feel the need to rebel against her parents if she had moved out of the house and was living with someone she felt comfortable to be herself around; afterall, she had known me for about eleven years by this point. And the third was that I thought that maybe if her and I went to church together, we could get my brother's girlfriend to go with us, too.
As I'm sure you can guess, I was overly optomistic. By the time we all moved into the apartment in May of 2002, she had already rebelled, though I didn't know it yet. It turned out that she was dating a guy several years older than her and after a few weeks, we basically acquired a fourth roommate. Her boyfriend started spending the night most nights. She never warned us when he was going to be there, she never asked if it was okay and she let him eat all of our food. At first, my now SIL and I tried to include her when we made plans for dinner or nights in, or whatever, but she always turned us down. Then her boyfriend would show up and they would lock themselves in her room. There were several problems with this plan:
1) He was practically living with us, but was not paying rent.
2) He would oversleep, then try to rush to take a shower in our home, where he was not paying rent, or utilities, and would wind up making my SIL late, even though she had woken up in what should have been plenty of time to get ready.
3) She asked me to lie to her parents if I happened to see them at church. That if they asked I should tell them that she was not sleeping with her boyfriend and that he didn't stay the night. I made it clear that I would not lie for her, but fortunately her parents never asked me anything.
4) There were three shows that my SIL and I watched together every week at the same time every week. And every time the other roommate's boyfriend would be playing video games and would get pissy with us when we asked him to let us watch the show, and then even more pissy when we suggested that if he paid rent then he would have the right to decide what the living room TV was to be used for.
Who would have ever thought that it would be more awkward to have her boyfriend stay the night than to have my brother stay once a week?
Fortunately, we had only signed a 6 month lease, and when that 6 months was up, the third roommate decided to leave (sigh of relief) stating that she just didn't feel welcome because we didn't include her in anything and because we didn't like her boyfriend (aka the leach). Good riddance!
*Right now, my seven favorite people in the world are the people who came to help me move yesterday. I am all moved and my old apartment is already completely cleaned and ready to go. I suppose that the one person who offered to come but was unable due to circumstances beyond his control can be included, therefore making it my EIGHT favorite people in the world.
*My dad and my brother are the most dependable men that I know. I owe them a fabulous Mexican dinner and some beer.
*I can see cows from my kitchen window.
*Bowling left-handed is challenging. It's helping me learn to laugh at myself a lot more. (I know that I already laugh at myself a lot-- but usually only with friends, not strangers.)
*Earlier, I was watching TV and there was a commercial on about one of those expensive programs that is supposed to prevent identity theft. It's good to know that our most important identity, the one of "Child of God," cannot be stolen from us.
____________________________________________________________________
Roommates Part 3 - My ex-best friend's sister and my brother's girlfriend
After the special experience I was treated to my second year in the dorms, I decided it was time to move on to greener pastures. Then I realized that I am in Nevada, and therefore the pastures are BROWN. While the dorms were not the most pleasant living experience, they were still a vast improvement over living with my parents. So during the seconds semester of my las year in the dorms, I started looking for roommates to share an apartment with. Conveniently, my brother's girlfriend (also known as my current sister-in-law) decided that she wanted to move into an apartment around the same time. To keep it affordable, we decided that we should find a third roommate and get a three bedroom apartment. The third roommate wound up being my ex-best friend's sister who was the same as as my brother and his girlfriend, and who'd had a crazy crush on my brother since they were about 12, though she would never admit it.
To make it clear, the ex-best friend wasn't an ex-best friend because of anything bad that happened. She just moved away for college and we drifted a part. She was actually quite a good friend for most of high school. She was the friend I went to church with occasionally. The trouble was, both her and her sister, who would become my roommate, were raised in a rather legalistic Christian home and were not really allowed any sort of freedoms. So when my friend went off to college, she rebelled and became a bit of a wild child for a few year. These were the same few years when I was beginning to find myself and my identity as a Christian-- We drifted apart because we were headed in different directions.
I have to admit that when I found out that her sister was looking to move out of their parents' house, I was excited for several reasons-- The first was that I had hoped that it would bring me closer to my friend again. The second was that I had hoped that she wouldn't feel the need to rebel against her parents if she had moved out of the house and was living with someone she felt comfortable to be herself around; afterall, she had known me for about eleven years by this point. And the third was that I thought that maybe if her and I went to church together, we could get my brother's girlfriend to go with us, too.
As I'm sure you can guess, I was overly optomistic. By the time we all moved into the apartment in May of 2002, she had already rebelled, though I didn't know it yet. It turned out that she was dating a guy several years older than her and after a few weeks, we basically acquired a fourth roommate. Her boyfriend started spending the night most nights. She never warned us when he was going to be there, she never asked if it was okay and she let him eat all of our food. At first, my now SIL and I tried to include her when we made plans for dinner or nights in, or whatever, but she always turned us down. Then her boyfriend would show up and they would lock themselves in her room. There were several problems with this plan:
1) He was practically living with us, but was not paying rent.
2) He would oversleep, then try to rush to take a shower in our home, where he was not paying rent, or utilities, and would wind up making my SIL late, even though she had woken up in what should have been plenty of time to get ready.
3) She asked me to lie to her parents if I happened to see them at church. That if they asked I should tell them that she was not sleeping with her boyfriend and that he didn't stay the night. I made it clear that I would not lie for her, but fortunately her parents never asked me anything.
4) There were three shows that my SIL and I watched together every week at the same time every week. And every time the other roommate's boyfriend would be playing video games and would get pissy with us when we asked him to let us watch the show, and then even more pissy when we suggested that if he paid rent then he would have the right to decide what the living room TV was to be used for.
Who would have ever thought that it would be more awkward to have her boyfriend stay the night than to have my brother stay once a week?
Fortunately, we had only signed a 6 month lease, and when that 6 months was up, the third roommate decided to leave (sigh of relief) stating that she just didn't feel welcome because we didn't include her in anything and because we didn't like her boyfriend (aka the leach). Good riddance!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Dorms Part II (Post 2 of 6)
Fall of 2001
I returned to the dorms for a second year in the fall semester of 2001. I remained in the same room because my friend T and I had decided we wanted to continue living in the same suite. We didn't really know anyone else that we wanted to live with, so we decided to just wait and see who we wound up with. This may not have been the best idea. This was my first experience with Christian roommates, and I am quite sad to say that it was not a good one.
I had started attending Intervarsity Christian Fellowship during the previous school year and had met quite a few new people. Four of those new people wound up being my new roommates, and they were all best friends to boot. This would not have been so bad had it not been for the fact that this was the year I was working graveyard at the Evil K and they were VERY loud best friends. But of course that was not the worst of it. I was used to not getting much sleep-- that's what college is all about. There were several other quirks that made this an interesting year-- though nothing quite as umm... let's just say special, as the previous year.
For example-- all four of these girls were from Las Vegas. To them it was cold when the temperature got down to 80 degrees. They started wearing sweaters in early September. And that was their choice to make-- but they also started turning on the heat and setting it to 70 degrees around the same time. Since I was trying to sleep as much as I could during the day because I worked at night, we developed a heater war. I would turn it off in the morning when I laid down to go to sleep so that I wouldn't melt, and I would wake up a few hours later covered in sweat because it had been turned back on. And there's more:
As you may have inferred from the previous post, my best friend at the time was a male. If you have known me long enough and well enough, you may even know who the male is. This is only relevant because he was also a part of the Intervarsity group that I was a part of and therefore all of my new roommates also knew who he was and had an opinion about our friendship. They had decided amongst themselves to create a set of rules regarding how they felt they needed to behave around males, and they claimed that this list of rules were the way that all Christian girls (I say girls and not women because they were 19...) should live. The rules, as best as I can remember, were as follows:
1) Girls shall not spend time alone with a guy at any time.
2) Girls should not be in mixed company (ie, guys and girls together; same place, same time) after midnight
3) Girls should only have friends who are girls.
Needless to say, I broke each of these rules-- I did not feel that it was inappropriate for a single girl and a single guy to hang out together in public, nor did I feel it was inappropriate to be in mixed company after a certain hour. For this, I was never really accepted among them and was constantly being "confronted" (because that's what people did in Intervarsity) with claims that they were "concerned" with the choices I was making. What this really means is that I received numerous lectures about the dangers of having a male best friend-- primarily that even Christian guys could not be trusted to control their urges, and the fact that I trusted my best friend implicitely was somehow an indication that I was not right with God.
Now, you would think that a group of girls who were so anti-guy would be above the drama of celebrity gossip... Not so. These girls were obsessed with celebrity gossip-- who was dating who, who was having a baby and who was the daddy. Apparently, it was okay for them because they weren't Christians. Why a group of Christian girls who were deadset against relationships would condone the glamorization of celebrities' rocky romances is beyond me. It didn't really bother me most of the time.
But there was just one time when it went a little bit far. I came home one afternoon after class and I found the four of them in the living room with a box of tissues, all of them crying. I got worried. Had somebody died? Was somebody sick? Was it somebody I knew also? I waited a minute and then I asked what was wrong. A couple of them blew their noses, rather dramatically, before one of the girls opened her mouth and sobbed, "Justin and Brittany broke up," which was followed by some more nose blowing. (Keep in mind that this was back when Justin Timberlake was a boy-bander dating Brittany Spears who was likely just as trashy then as she is now...) This rather unimportant and predictable event elicited almost as severe of a reaction as what these girls had on September 11, which we all experienced together that year. How can anybody feel that this was an appropriate reaction? How does the end of the relationship between "Justin and Brittany" affect us? And that was pretty much how the whole school year went. Between the lectures about my "inappropriate friendship" and the overdramatization of the impact of celebrity relationships on our everyday lives, the noise, the heat, I was quite relieved when the school year was over.
I returned to the dorms for a second year in the fall semester of 2001. I remained in the same room because my friend T and I had decided we wanted to continue living in the same suite. We didn't really know anyone else that we wanted to live with, so we decided to just wait and see who we wound up with. This may not have been the best idea. This was my first experience with Christian roommates, and I am quite sad to say that it was not a good one.
I had started attending Intervarsity Christian Fellowship during the previous school year and had met quite a few new people. Four of those new people wound up being my new roommates, and they were all best friends to boot. This would not have been so bad had it not been for the fact that this was the year I was working graveyard at the Evil K and they were VERY loud best friends. But of course that was not the worst of it. I was used to not getting much sleep-- that's what college is all about. There were several other quirks that made this an interesting year-- though nothing quite as umm... let's just say special, as the previous year.
For example-- all four of these girls were from Las Vegas. To them it was cold when the temperature got down to 80 degrees. They started wearing sweaters in early September. And that was their choice to make-- but they also started turning on the heat and setting it to 70 degrees around the same time. Since I was trying to sleep as much as I could during the day because I worked at night, we developed a heater war. I would turn it off in the morning when I laid down to go to sleep so that I wouldn't melt, and I would wake up a few hours later covered in sweat because it had been turned back on. And there's more:
As you may have inferred from the previous post, my best friend at the time was a male. If you have known me long enough and well enough, you may even know who the male is. This is only relevant because he was also a part of the Intervarsity group that I was a part of and therefore all of my new roommates also knew who he was and had an opinion about our friendship. They had decided amongst themselves to create a set of rules regarding how they felt they needed to behave around males, and they claimed that this list of rules were the way that all Christian girls (I say girls and not women because they were 19...) should live. The rules, as best as I can remember, were as follows:
1) Girls shall not spend time alone with a guy at any time.
2) Girls should not be in mixed company (ie, guys and girls together; same place, same time) after midnight
3) Girls should only have friends who are girls.
Needless to say, I broke each of these rules-- I did not feel that it was inappropriate for a single girl and a single guy to hang out together in public, nor did I feel it was inappropriate to be in mixed company after a certain hour. For this, I was never really accepted among them and was constantly being "confronted" (because that's what people did in Intervarsity) with claims that they were "concerned" with the choices I was making. What this really means is that I received numerous lectures about the dangers of having a male best friend-- primarily that even Christian guys could not be trusted to control their urges, and the fact that I trusted my best friend implicitely was somehow an indication that I was not right with God.
Now, you would think that a group of girls who were so anti-guy would be above the drama of celebrity gossip... Not so. These girls were obsessed with celebrity gossip-- who was dating who, who was having a baby and who was the daddy. Apparently, it was okay for them because they weren't Christians. Why a group of Christian girls who were deadset against relationships would condone the glamorization of celebrities' rocky romances is beyond me. It didn't really bother me most of the time.
But there was just one time when it went a little bit far. I came home one afternoon after class and I found the four of them in the living room with a box of tissues, all of them crying. I got worried. Had somebody died? Was somebody sick? Was it somebody I knew also? I waited a minute and then I asked what was wrong. A couple of them blew their noses, rather dramatically, before one of the girls opened her mouth and sobbed, "Justin and Brittany broke up," which was followed by some more nose blowing. (Keep in mind that this was back when Justin Timberlake was a boy-bander dating Brittany Spears who was likely just as trashy then as she is now...) This rather unimportant and predictable event elicited almost as severe of a reaction as what these girls had on September 11, which we all experienced together that year. How can anybody feel that this was an appropriate reaction? How does the end of the relationship between "Justin and Brittany" affect us? And that was pretty much how the whole school year went. Between the lectures about my "inappropriate friendship" and the overdramatization of the impact of celebrity relationships on our everyday lives, the noise, the heat, I was quite relieved when the school year was over.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
After a Monthlong Delay...
I am proud to present my series on roommates as promised before my life momentarily imploded. Reconstruction has begun, and I am now ready to write these stories, which I hope will be entertaining if nothing else. The series will be six parts and will only include the most entertaining roommate stories. These stories are really about my crazy roommates--not the roommates I enjoyed my time with. I will be changing the names just because that's what writers do when they write about real people. :) I hope ya'll enjoy the series, and I hope they are worth the wait. Just as a teaser, the six parts will be as follows:
1) The Dorms, Part I
2) The Dorms, Part II
3) My Ex-Best Friend's Little Sister and My Brother's Girlfriend
4) The Time In Between
5) The Extremist
6) The Faux-Vegan and the Gamer (Or 4 Evil K-er's in One House?!!!)
The Dorms Part I
In the fall of 2000, I did something quite out of the ordinary and moved into the dorms for my first senior year of college. It had originally been my mom's suggestion, but somehow I became really excited about it. I moved into Canada Hall in August of 2000. My roommate was to be a Japanese student, which I had hoped would be an interesting experience. When I arrived on the day we were able to move in, my suite was already completely occupied. The living room was already set up, the kitchen shelves were all full, the bathroom counter had things piled all around and on my first day I was already feeling shut out. It turns out that I was moving into a suite with 4 Japanese students and a student athlete who had already been there for the whole summer together.
After about a week, I had a small space on the very top shelf and a drawer in the kitchen, a part of a shelf in the bathroom and of course my half of a bedroom. I also had three Japanese suitemates who were extremely shy but talked to me a bit, a Japanese roommate who wasn't shy, but who didn't talk to me and a student athlete suitemate who spent almost no time in the suite. I don't even remember my roommate's name, but I do know that she was a biology major. She was planning on going to med school because it was what her parents wanted, and she was dating a black man because it was what her parents didn't want. This much I got from the shy suitemates during our limited conversations. I'm also not sure whether she actually ever finished college because she was quite the party animal.
Unfortunately, there was nothing terribly noteworthy about these suitemates, and I was not making any friends. So when a space opened up in my friend's suite across the hall for the next semester, I jumped at the chance to make the move. I would not be roommates with my friend-- neither of us wanted to jeopardize our friendship in that way-- but I would at least have a friendly face in my suite. Plus I'd met a couple of her suitemates and they also seemed nice enough. It was looking like the spring semester was going to be MUCH better.
Fall semester drug on and on, and finally it was December and my new suitemates had told me that I could start moving my things in before it was time to go home for Christmas break. We set a date and I prepped myself for the move across the hall. Come moving day, they had cleared two full shelves for my food in the kitchen, plus one smaller shelf for my dishes and a drawer for my silverware and other similar things. My room was supposed to be ready for me to move in. My future roommate had been told that she needed to gather her things and get them all on her side of the room so that I could move in but when I opened up my room, I discovered that she had made no attempt to prepare for my arrival. Her clothes were strewn all over my side of the room and there was a blanket covering some boxes on the bed that would soon be mine. My friend came in and helped me toss her clothes over to her side of the room. She stepped out after that was done, and I proceed to remove the things from the bed. I picked up the blanket and before I could toss it across the room, I realized what was in the boxes on the bed. It was her umm... let's just say her personal pleasure toys. I was startled and disgusted all at once. I didn't know what to do. So I covered up the boxes with the blanket, wrapped it all the way around and tossed the whole package across the room and onto her bed. And then I considered burning the mattress, but I figured I would probably be charged for it, so I just settled for flipping it over.
I wish I could tell you that was my only encounter with her personal pleasure toys, but unfortunately it was not. We would meet again soon, during the spring semester, in a much less subtle way. I know that this first encounter was not at all subtle, and yet, it gets worse.
When we all returned for the spring semester, I almost never saw my new roommate. The suitemates said she spent a lot of time at her boyfriend's house in Carson. What they didn't tell me, was what she did with her boyfriend when she stayed at home in the dorms. So about four weeks into the semester, I came home late one night after hanging out with my best friend and my roommate was already asleep. I left the lights off and went to my computer and was instant messaging with my best friend (yes, I know I had just left him, but we were bored college students awake at 2am with nothing better to do) while I was working on an assignment for the next day. I heard my roommate's phone ring and I heard her answer. I expected it to be quite brief since she had been sleeping, but then I heard her start moaning. I continued my instant message conversation, thinking that maybe she'd just been yawning because she was tired. But then I heard a buzzing noise and the moaning proceeded to get louder and louder, until it became screaming. I called my best friend on the phone thinking that maybe she just didn't realize I was awake and that if she heard me talking, she would be embarrassed and stop. But instead, I wound up giving my best friend a sneak peek of what was happening in my suite, because she just proceeded to get louder and the buzzing persisted. I decided to go back to my best friend's room for a little while and left the room just as she was saying, "And now I am touching..."
The next day, she started up a conversation with me, as though nothing abnormal had occurred. I played nice, all the while just wanting to hurl as I tried to block out the buzzing sound.
Fortunately, that was the last time I saw her. Apparently she moved to Carson to be with her boyfriend, ditching her student housing contract and leaving me with a room to myself. I didn't find out about this until two weeks later when I came home after a weekend at my parents' house to find all of her things cleared out of the room. And by all of her things I mean everything that buzzed or hummed was gone, but she did leave me an unopened bottle of Kahlua, so I guess the experience wasn't all bad.
1) The Dorms, Part I
2) The Dorms, Part II
3) My Ex-Best Friend's Little Sister and My Brother's Girlfriend
4) The Time In Between
5) The Extremist
6) The Faux-Vegan and the Gamer (Or 4 Evil K-er's in One House?!!!)
The Dorms Part I
In the fall of 2000, I did something quite out of the ordinary and moved into the dorms for my first senior year of college. It had originally been my mom's suggestion, but somehow I became really excited about it. I moved into Canada Hall in August of 2000. My roommate was to be a Japanese student, which I had hoped would be an interesting experience. When I arrived on the day we were able to move in, my suite was already completely occupied. The living room was already set up, the kitchen shelves were all full, the bathroom counter had things piled all around and on my first day I was already feeling shut out. It turns out that I was moving into a suite with 4 Japanese students and a student athlete who had already been there for the whole summer together.
After about a week, I had a small space on the very top shelf and a drawer in the kitchen, a part of a shelf in the bathroom and of course my half of a bedroom. I also had three Japanese suitemates who were extremely shy but talked to me a bit, a Japanese roommate who wasn't shy, but who didn't talk to me and a student athlete suitemate who spent almost no time in the suite. I don't even remember my roommate's name, but I do know that she was a biology major. She was planning on going to med school because it was what her parents wanted, and she was dating a black man because it was what her parents didn't want. This much I got from the shy suitemates during our limited conversations. I'm also not sure whether she actually ever finished college because she was quite the party animal.
Unfortunately, there was nothing terribly noteworthy about these suitemates, and I was not making any friends. So when a space opened up in my friend's suite across the hall for the next semester, I jumped at the chance to make the move. I would not be roommates with my friend-- neither of us wanted to jeopardize our friendship in that way-- but I would at least have a friendly face in my suite. Plus I'd met a couple of her suitemates and they also seemed nice enough. It was looking like the spring semester was going to be MUCH better.
Fall semester drug on and on, and finally it was December and my new suitemates had told me that I could start moving my things in before it was time to go home for Christmas break. We set a date and I prepped myself for the move across the hall. Come moving day, they had cleared two full shelves for my food in the kitchen, plus one smaller shelf for my dishes and a drawer for my silverware and other similar things. My room was supposed to be ready for me to move in. My future roommate had been told that she needed to gather her things and get them all on her side of the room so that I could move in but when I opened up my room, I discovered that she had made no attempt to prepare for my arrival. Her clothes were strewn all over my side of the room and there was a blanket covering some boxes on the bed that would soon be mine. My friend came in and helped me toss her clothes over to her side of the room. She stepped out after that was done, and I proceed to remove the things from the bed. I picked up the blanket and before I could toss it across the room, I realized what was in the boxes on the bed. It was her umm... let's just say her personal pleasure toys. I was startled and disgusted all at once. I didn't know what to do. So I covered up the boxes with the blanket, wrapped it all the way around and tossed the whole package across the room and onto her bed. And then I considered burning the mattress, but I figured I would probably be charged for it, so I just settled for flipping it over.
I wish I could tell you that was my only encounter with her personal pleasure toys, but unfortunately it was not. We would meet again soon, during the spring semester, in a much less subtle way. I know that this first encounter was not at all subtle, and yet, it gets worse.
When we all returned for the spring semester, I almost never saw my new roommate. The suitemates said she spent a lot of time at her boyfriend's house in Carson. What they didn't tell me, was what she did with her boyfriend when she stayed at home in the dorms. So about four weeks into the semester, I came home late one night after hanging out with my best friend and my roommate was already asleep. I left the lights off and went to my computer and was instant messaging with my best friend (yes, I know I had just left him, but we were bored college students awake at 2am with nothing better to do) while I was working on an assignment for the next day. I heard my roommate's phone ring and I heard her answer. I expected it to be quite brief since she had been sleeping, but then I heard her start moaning. I continued my instant message conversation, thinking that maybe she'd just been yawning because she was tired. But then I heard a buzzing noise and the moaning proceeded to get louder and louder, until it became screaming. I called my best friend on the phone thinking that maybe she just didn't realize I was awake and that if she heard me talking, she would be embarrassed and stop. But instead, I wound up giving my best friend a sneak peek of what was happening in my suite, because she just proceeded to get louder and the buzzing persisted. I decided to go back to my best friend's room for a little while and left the room just as she was saying, "And now I am touching..."
The next day, she started up a conversation with me, as though nothing abnormal had occurred. I played nice, all the while just wanting to hurl as I tried to block out the buzzing sound.
Fortunately, that was the last time I saw her. Apparently she moved to Carson to be with her boyfriend, ditching her student housing contract and leaving me with a room to myself. I didn't find out about this until two weeks later when I came home after a weekend at my parents' house to find all of her things cleared out of the room. And by all of her things I mean everything that buzzed or hummed was gone, but she did leave me an unopened bottle of Kahlua, so I guess the experience wasn't all bad.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Breaking Free from Unforgiveness
Over the last few weeks, I have started several posts about the fabulous "Growing Up" series-- particularly about the need to break away from the ways of our families. I have found several unhealthy ways of living that are passed down through my family, such as secrecy, shame and self-sufficiency (that was actually the title of one of my prospective posts). But today I realized the one that is the most crippling, and the one that I drew the line on several years ago--unforgiveness and holding a grudge. That's not to say that I am always perfect at forgiving, in fact FAR from it, but unforgiveness is the biggest thing that I have drawn the line on and said "NOT IN MY HOUSE."
I have talked about my family and their lack of communication skills on my blog before. This was a major roadblock in my life for a very long time. I used to keep everything hidden, to myself-- but my tongue was let free almost immediately when I accepted Jesus' gift. The unforgiveness was a harder one to deal with. My whole life, my mother had used her unforgiveness as a punishment. She would scream at us so that we knew that she was mad, and then she would punish us with the silent treatment until we caved and apologized, whether we were guilty or not. And my dad stood by and went along with it, but when she was not around, he let it be known that he didn't agree with her ways. I, on the other hand, was always the vocal one, always making it clear when I thought something was not right, always trying to get what was fair and right, even if it was somebody else that my mother was angry with. As I'm sure you can imagine, this meant I got more than my fair share of unforgiveness. And I eventually always caved and apologized for whatever I had not done wrong. Actually, simply apologizing was never enough-- it was actually more like grovelling.
I drew the line on this about four years ago, not realizing at the time what a difference it would make. It was about a week before Thanksgiving and I was at my parents' house for a visit. My mom was making dinner and she went to the sink to fill up a pot and found that there were dirty dishes from the night before in the sink. At this point, she began to scream at my dad, berate my dad, rant at my dad, etc about how lazy he was and how if she hadn't married him her life would be so much easier and so on. This had been going on for weeks before this, every time I came over, my mom would ruin my ability to enjoy my time with them by flying off the handle on my dad. I'd had enough-- and I will admit right now, this was FAR from my finest moment--I stepped in for my dad, since he never stood up for myself... Only it came out totally wrong and I asked my mother, "If you are so f---ing miserable, why don't you divorce him." Now let me make it clear-- this was a very poor attempt to make my mother realize that she was being overdramatic and that dirty dishes in the sink were not cause for divorce. I am fully aware that what I said was wrong. And I immediately apologized. However, my mom would have none of it. She turned her wrath on me. But it wasn't the suggestion of divorce that had made her angry as I would have thought, it was the fact that I used the f word in her house. I am aware that this was not a good thing to say, and I have only let it slip a handful of times when I was EXTREMELY angry as an adult. I apologized again, quite sincerely, crying of course, as is my nature, but still she would not even take a break from her yelling. And this is the important part-- I am, and was immediately, fully aware that what I said was wrong. And I made my attempts to seek forgiveness. My mom told me to give my house key to my dad and get out. I did as requested and went home. For a couple of days I was miserable. I made my attempts to apologize, to seek forgiveness, and I fully understand my mother being angry for what I said, but she was not open to hear my apologies-- she hung up the phone each time I called for the first couple of days. And then she told my sister-in-law (though then she was just my brother's girlfriend) that she was having Thanksgiving dinner at her house and that I probably wouldn't be coming since I still hadn't apologized. At this point, I decided to break the pattern. I had made my apologies, several times and I was not going to grovel this time. I had said all I could possibly say, and there was nothing left for me to do. So I just let the situation be. I made my own plans with friends for Thanksgiving. After all, being miserable wasn't going to make my mother speak to me, and holding a grudge against her for holding a grudge against me wasn't going to do anything but make me unhappy. So for the first and only time in my life, I had Thanksgiving separate from my family. And I enjoyed myself.
Several days later, my mother apparently realized that I was not going to grovel this time and she sent me an instant message. We talked that way for several minutes and then she called me. She talked as though we hadn't fought-- I had let it go several days before, and since she was ready to let go, we were back on track. Since then, I have made it clear that I will not tolerate the dad-bashing, and I have also made it clear to my father that I will not tolerate mom-bashing. It is their relationship and I should not be expected to pick sides. They still do it, but I remind them that I don't have to come to see them if they are going to put my in that sort of situation. Additionally, as my communication skills have improved, both of my parents have come to communicate better with me. This doesn't mean that my mom doesn't occasionally fly off the handle, but I don't really fight back anymore. If she wants to be miserable and angry, that is her choice, but that is not something I want for myself. If only they could extend this improved communication into their relationship with one another. They both need it, especially my mother, but they just continue in their old ways.
I wish I could say that the effect of this unforgiveness in my family is only emotional, but there is definitely a physical aspect as well. My mom has a slew of health issues and most recently has discovered that she has rheumatoid arthritis-- this is important because it is aggravated by stress. I have noticed that when she hurts the most is when she is angry at my father for some thing he has done or not done that he was supposed to know on his own that he should do. If I could, I would explain to her that by getting angry with him for every single unintentional slight, the only thing she is accomplishing is causing herself pain, both physically and emotionally.
So the train stops here-- I am not willing to cause myself pain by holding a grudge.
Finito
I have talked about my family and their lack of communication skills on my blog before. This was a major roadblock in my life for a very long time. I used to keep everything hidden, to myself-- but my tongue was let free almost immediately when I accepted Jesus' gift. The unforgiveness was a harder one to deal with. My whole life, my mother had used her unforgiveness as a punishment. She would scream at us so that we knew that she was mad, and then she would punish us with the silent treatment until we caved and apologized, whether we were guilty or not. And my dad stood by and went along with it, but when she was not around, he let it be known that he didn't agree with her ways. I, on the other hand, was always the vocal one, always making it clear when I thought something was not right, always trying to get what was fair and right, even if it was somebody else that my mother was angry with. As I'm sure you can imagine, this meant I got more than my fair share of unforgiveness. And I eventually always caved and apologized for whatever I had not done wrong. Actually, simply apologizing was never enough-- it was actually more like grovelling.
I drew the line on this about four years ago, not realizing at the time what a difference it would make. It was about a week before Thanksgiving and I was at my parents' house for a visit. My mom was making dinner and she went to the sink to fill up a pot and found that there were dirty dishes from the night before in the sink. At this point, she began to scream at my dad, berate my dad, rant at my dad, etc about how lazy he was and how if she hadn't married him her life would be so much easier and so on. This had been going on for weeks before this, every time I came over, my mom would ruin my ability to enjoy my time with them by flying off the handle on my dad. I'd had enough-- and I will admit right now, this was FAR from my finest moment--I stepped in for my dad, since he never stood up for myself... Only it came out totally wrong and I asked my mother, "If you are so f---ing miserable, why don't you divorce him." Now let me make it clear-- this was a very poor attempt to make my mother realize that she was being overdramatic and that dirty dishes in the sink were not cause for divorce. I am fully aware that what I said was wrong. And I immediately apologized. However, my mom would have none of it. She turned her wrath on me. But it wasn't the suggestion of divorce that had made her angry as I would have thought, it was the fact that I used the f word in her house. I am aware that this was not a good thing to say, and I have only let it slip a handful of times when I was EXTREMELY angry as an adult. I apologized again, quite sincerely, crying of course, as is my nature, but still she would not even take a break from her yelling. And this is the important part-- I am, and was immediately, fully aware that what I said was wrong. And I made my attempts to seek forgiveness. My mom told me to give my house key to my dad and get out. I did as requested and went home. For a couple of days I was miserable. I made my attempts to apologize, to seek forgiveness, and I fully understand my mother being angry for what I said, but she was not open to hear my apologies-- she hung up the phone each time I called for the first couple of days. And then she told my sister-in-law (though then she was just my brother's girlfriend) that she was having Thanksgiving dinner at her house and that I probably wouldn't be coming since I still hadn't apologized. At this point, I decided to break the pattern. I had made my apologies, several times and I was not going to grovel this time. I had said all I could possibly say, and there was nothing left for me to do. So I just let the situation be. I made my own plans with friends for Thanksgiving. After all, being miserable wasn't going to make my mother speak to me, and holding a grudge against her for holding a grudge against me wasn't going to do anything but make me unhappy. So for the first and only time in my life, I had Thanksgiving separate from my family. And I enjoyed myself.
Several days later, my mother apparently realized that I was not going to grovel this time and she sent me an instant message. We talked that way for several minutes and then she called me. She talked as though we hadn't fought-- I had let it go several days before, and since she was ready to let go, we were back on track. Since then, I have made it clear that I will not tolerate the dad-bashing, and I have also made it clear to my father that I will not tolerate mom-bashing. It is their relationship and I should not be expected to pick sides. They still do it, but I remind them that I don't have to come to see them if they are going to put my in that sort of situation. Additionally, as my communication skills have improved, both of my parents have come to communicate better with me. This doesn't mean that my mom doesn't occasionally fly off the handle, but I don't really fight back anymore. If she wants to be miserable and angry, that is her choice, but that is not something I want for myself. If only they could extend this improved communication into their relationship with one another. They both need it, especially my mother, but they just continue in their old ways.
I wish I could say that the effect of this unforgiveness in my family is only emotional, but there is definitely a physical aspect as well. My mom has a slew of health issues and most recently has discovered that she has rheumatoid arthritis-- this is important because it is aggravated by stress. I have noticed that when she hurts the most is when she is angry at my father for some thing he has done or not done that he was supposed to know on his own that he should do. If I could, I would explain to her that by getting angry with him for every single unintentional slight, the only thing she is accomplishing is causing herself pain, both physically and emotionally.
So the train stops here-- I am not willing to cause myself pain by holding a grudge.
Finito
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Processing the Emo
Things are starting to catch up with me. I don't like not doing things I would normally do the way I would normally do them. I don't like feeling inept and I don't like needing help. Yes, I know this is an issue and yes I am working on it, but I don't like it. I don't like asking for time off from work in small amounts twice a week. It makes me feel like a nuisance. And I feel like an idiot. I feel like there should have been something I could have done to prevent myself from tripping on my pajama pants and making a mess of my life at the moment. My head knows that it could not be prevented, that it was just one of those freak things that could happen to anyone. But the enemy is telling me that I screwed up big time. That I've made a mess, dug a hole that's going to be hard to get out of. I feel like I'm not getting better fast enough, even though I'm still within the time line that was given to me. I just want this whole thing to be done, and yet is nowhere near being done-- I have at least two and a half more weeks of therapy left, depending on how things go, and we are just starting the grip/strengthening on Thursday of this week, depending on how I feel. Mostly my pride is hurt. It's stupid, I know, but that is the reality of the situation. I'm tired of laughing it off and I'm tired of the pajama jokes and it's probably just because I'm cranky right now, but that's part of the emo that I'm feeling right now.
I have 18 days before I move and I am freaking out. I am being quite bad in that I am not trusting that I will be taken care of. I'm kicking and screaming and trying to hold onto the control that I'm simultaneously trying to let go of. Ugh. What is the matter with me? Why is it so difficult for me to accept that the people who truly love me are genuine in their desire to help? I have a genuine desire to help those I love, so why should I expect it to be any different on the flip side? How did I get this stubborn and controlling? I think it is a bad habit picked up from my family, and the hardest one by far to move past--particularly as a single individual. My head knows all of this and my heart is trying to get in line with my head.
I am physically and mentally drained. I need to stop worrying, because all it is doing is making me more tired. I don't know why I'm telling ya'll this, except that maybe seeing it in writing will make it easier for me to do.
At any rate, it is time for bed. Tomorrow is another day, a better day. :)
I have 18 days before I move and I am freaking out. I am being quite bad in that I am not trusting that I will be taken care of. I'm kicking and screaming and trying to hold onto the control that I'm simultaneously trying to let go of. Ugh. What is the matter with me? Why is it so difficult for me to accept that the people who truly love me are genuine in their desire to help? I have a genuine desire to help those I love, so why should I expect it to be any different on the flip side? How did I get this stubborn and controlling? I think it is a bad habit picked up from my family, and the hardest one by far to move past--particularly as a single individual. My head knows all of this and my heart is trying to get in line with my head.
I am physically and mentally drained. I need to stop worrying, because all it is doing is making me more tired. I don't know why I'm telling ya'll this, except that maybe seeing it in writing will make it easier for me to do.
At any rate, it is time for bed. Tomorrow is another day, a better day. :)
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