So my best friend of twenty years, Andrea, and I are going though some major relationship bullshit. You know how I now it's major? We're not really that young anymore. Her and I both have run the gauntlet. (Maybe her a little more than I; she's got a beautiful five year old daughter that I absolutely adore.) Regardless, we've seen each other through some cruddy times when it comes the end of our relationships with men.
I remember consoling each other after middle and high school breakups, and I sometimes wish we could go back to those simpler times. In college, life (and relationships) got a little more intense for both of us, and I remember when she broke up with her high school sweetheart. It was like the end of the world, and I was almost as devastated as she was. I remember thinking "If they didn't make it, is there hope for any of us?" How foolish I was.
When I was about 18, the shit hit the fan with the guy I had fallen for, the one I crushed on my entire senior year of high school. I had a mental breakdown in our friend Dara's parents' kitchen, and Andrea was right there counseling me and doing what best friends do. Granted, the guy overcame whatever obstacles he had been facing at the time and we ended up together for five years.
Fast forward to our mid-twenties - Andrea was getting married as I was breaking up with the guy I thought I wanted to marry. She and another close friend of ours were right there by my side as I endured the aftermath of the nastiest breakup of my life.
Fast forward another three years or so and I was floating along, single as hell, her marriage hit the rocks and never recovered. So there we were, coping with divorce before we were even out of our twenties. (And when I say "we," I mean it. Their divorce affected me almost as much as if it had been my own, because that's just how her and I roll.) So what the fuck? That's not how it's supposed to work! I had always admired the faith and the hope that Andrea invested in Love, so to see her in that kind of pain was unbearable, not to mention having to deal with the process of figuring out custody and new living arrangements. Life was not supposed to take that turn. My dearest friend was not supposed to have go through something like that.
Not long after the shock of that life changing event had subsided, the relationship I had with Buzzard blew up in my face. I can't decide if that was more difficult to cope with than when I had broken up with my ex, but it sure as hell sucked. And who was right there to get me back on my feet? Andrea.
Fast forward to the present - The morning after Philip broke up with me, I met her and her daughter at breakfast, not taking my sunglasses off because of how swollen my eyes were, weeping the entire time into my napkin. Just recently I got a text from her - things had come to blows with the guy she was seeing and the relationship has come to a halt, only to be revived if he makes some major changes that should have been taken care of a long time ago. At thirty years old, Andrea and I are both trying to pick up the pieces of our hearts that have been shattered by the end of yet another relationship.
The bottom line is that love doesn't get easier as we get older. It just gets harder and harder. We are doing our best to continue on with our lives, Andrea devoting everything she's got to her daughter and her job, I'm devoting all I've got to my nephew and my writing. But the pain is still there and we are sharing it as if we were one person.
We have hit the realization that we aren't in middle school anymore. We are having meaningful relationships that ultimately we want to last forever, but fate keeps throwing wrenches in that plan. It's not like we have awful taste in men either (well, I used to but have gotten a lot better at judging character.) It isn't until "shit gets real" that we discover our partners' true colors. Our concerns about "should I text him or should I not," "the anxiety I'm experiencing is killing me," "what did he mean when he said that," "I'm over analyzing this but I cannot control myself" are not comparable to what goes through a girl's head when she's still a teenager. Outsiders looking in may think we are crazy, but we know we're not. We're just going through the shit life throws at us, together.
I thank God for Andrea every day. She'll send me positive quotes at random and I send her funny ones back. We make each other laugh, we cry on each other's shoulders, we tell each other everything will work out, everything will be okay. We remind each other to keep on truckin' on the days we just can't get it together.
Is it fair? No. Is it life? Absolutely. We may not have quite figured it all out yet, but we can accept that we probably never will. If we ever do though, watch out because we will take over the world.
When I Hit A Fork In The Road
Is it possible that the things that are lacking in my life are that way simply because I'm not a big enough bitch? Or because I tend to hesitate to say how I'm really feeling when I really should just let it out? I just finished reading The Theory Of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch and it got me thinking - maybe I should take the advice sprinkled throughout this novel and do something with it. Maybe, I should start taking left turns instead of right ones. Maybe, instead of staying within my comfort zone, sometimes painstakingly, I should venture outside of it a little more often.
I'm not saying that I'm going to morph myself into a royal bitch that no one will like. I need to learn to stand up for myself more often. I tend to keep my mouth shut when something is bothering me or I am being treated unfairly, whether it's at work, in relationships, or even when I know I'm getting screwed over while making some sort of financial transaction.
I've gotten a lot better at it over the last few years - I used to be a complacent doormat, I might as well face it. Not so much anymore, but there's always room for improvement.
I can only control the present. To an extent. Like when I learned last week, from a fellow photographer, that apparently someone at work had an issue with the posing of my subjects and that was the reason I had been put on a few jobs as assistant and not a photographer. The thing is - I had been doing it my way since August and nothing had been said to me. I was so upset I nearly launched into a full blown panic attack on the job. Ordinarily I would let it go and not bother to speak up to person I should have, the person who had the opportunity more than once to address this issue with me as I sat in their office. But I remembered the book, and I did the opposite - I spoke up. I called one of the supervisors (the person I needed to talk to directly was out of town,) on my way home that day and told them how upset I was that there were "issues" with my work and I was never informed, that if there was a problem, someone should have addressed it with me so I could rectify it. I also made it a point to shoot over the two-day job to prove that I am a good photographer, tweaking the things I knew needed improvement anyway.
So yeah, ordinarily, I would have sat back and done nothing until I was approached about the situation. But if I had done this, who knows when that would have happened. I had to take action, especially because the integrity of my work was technically in question. I have yet to hear any backlash, so I don't even know if I did the right thing, aside from the person I had expressed my grievance to informing me that they checked out my past work and didn't see any problems.
It's a tough call sometimes. I'm one of those people who has a crushing fear of angering someone, whether it be a friend, a lover, a family member or an employer. I sometimes stumble over my words, even in my head, and fear that saying whatever it is that I need to say will do more harm than good. Past experience and the environment I grew up in contribute heavily to this.
So it's definitely time to start making the left turns when I hit a fork in the road, because I've become painfully aware that always going right hasn't really been working out for me.
I'm not saying that I'm going to morph myself into a royal bitch that no one will like. I need to learn to stand up for myself more often. I tend to keep my mouth shut when something is bothering me or I am being treated unfairly, whether it's at work, in relationships, or even when I know I'm getting screwed over while making some sort of financial transaction.
I've gotten a lot better at it over the last few years - I used to be a complacent doormat, I might as well face it. Not so much anymore, but there's always room for improvement.
I can only control the present. To an extent. Like when I learned last week, from a fellow photographer, that apparently someone at work had an issue with the posing of my subjects and that was the reason I had been put on a few jobs as assistant and not a photographer. The thing is - I had been doing it my way since August and nothing had been said to me. I was so upset I nearly launched into a full blown panic attack on the job. Ordinarily I would let it go and not bother to speak up to person I should have, the person who had the opportunity more than once to address this issue with me as I sat in their office. But I remembered the book, and I did the opposite - I spoke up. I called one of the supervisors (the person I needed to talk to directly was out of town,) on my way home that day and told them how upset I was that there were "issues" with my work and I was never informed, that if there was a problem, someone should have addressed it with me so I could rectify it. I also made it a point to shoot over the two-day job to prove that I am a good photographer, tweaking the things I knew needed improvement anyway.
So yeah, ordinarily, I would have sat back and done nothing until I was approached about the situation. But if I had done this, who knows when that would have happened. I had to take action, especially because the integrity of my work was technically in question. I have yet to hear any backlash, so I don't even know if I did the right thing, aside from the person I had expressed my grievance to informing me that they checked out my past work and didn't see any problems.
It's a tough call sometimes. I'm one of those people who has a crushing fear of angering someone, whether it be a friend, a lover, a family member or an employer. I sometimes stumble over my words, even in my head, and fear that saying whatever it is that I need to say will do more harm than good. Past experience and the environment I grew up in contribute heavily to this.
So it's definitely time to start making the left turns when I hit a fork in the road, because I've become painfully aware that always going right hasn't really been working out for me.
Sometimes There's Nothing More Gorgeous Than A $100 Bill
If money is the root of all evil, then why do I feel like if I just had a little bit more I would be happier? Maybe because I wouldn't stress so hard over never feeling like I have enough to make ends meet? I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night with depressing thoughts creeping into my vulnerable, sleep-groggy mind, thoughts that tell me I'll never amount to much because I chose a career that I actually enjoy, that I'll never be able to afford to meet another human's basic needs, (a child's,) because I can barely meet my own, I start to panic about getting older and still not really having it together and I end up feeling utterly desolate, unable to fall back asleep.
There are times I feel like no matter how much money I squirrel away, something will always happen to make it disappear. Then I think, how do people do it? How do they get married, buy houses, and have children when I know they are plagued by the same fears that plague me? I guess the answer is simple - they just do. My mother says the same thing.
Things change, people are born, they live, they work, they love, they hate, they work some more, try to live a decent life, and then they die, life goes on.
It is a simple concept, it's just a really hard one to accept, especially for people like me.
I'm not sitting here bitching and complaining about my awful life, as I sip gourmet coffee (a Christmas gift) in a mug I bought when I went out to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past weekend, bundled up in warm clothes with properly running heat. I unbelievably aware of how lucky and blessed I am to have a roof over my head, don't think for one minute I take anything for granted.
Maybe if I list the ways I've fucked up that I have since worked so hard to remedy, I'll feel a little better about myself? Let's go.
So let's now look at how I remedied (or at least tried to) all of these problems.
But that little voice still nags me. "Sure, you may be relatively back on your feet and supporting yourself, but what about a family? Don't you want to buy a house one day? How will you afford a mortgage payment? Childcare? College-fucking-tuition?"
Maybe once I realize that it's a never ending cycle, that there will always be things out of my control, I can accept it and just keep moving forward. This constant feeling of being stuck? It's getting really old.
There are times I feel like no matter how much money I squirrel away, something will always happen to make it disappear. Then I think, how do people do it? How do they get married, buy houses, and have children when I know they are plagued by the same fears that plague me? I guess the answer is simple - they just do. My mother says the same thing.
Things change, people are born, they live, they work, they love, they hate, they work some more, try to live a decent life, and then they die, life goes on.
It is a simple concept, it's just a really hard one to accept, especially for people like me.
I'm not sitting here bitching and complaining about my awful life, as I sip gourmet coffee (a Christmas gift) in a mug I bought when I went out to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past weekend, bundled up in warm clothes with properly running heat. I unbelievably aware of how lucky and blessed I am to have a roof over my head, don't think for one minute I take anything for granted.
Maybe if I list the ways I've fucked up that I have since worked so hard to remedy, I'll feel a little better about myself? Let's go.
- Back in 2009 I defaulted so bad on my car loan that my car was repossessed.
- Around the same time the car insurance company became tired of not getting paid and dropped me.
- I lost my health insurance for the same reason.
- I've had to borrow $20 from friends just to put some gas in my car.
- I've defaulted on my school loans.
- My credit card debt was so out of control that I just started ignoring the notices that came in the mail and the phone calls that came every day.
- For months, every bank statement I received had a negative balance.
So let's now look at how I remedied (or at least tried to) all of these problems.
- I got my car back and resumed making the payments on time. (We'll leave it at that.)
- I did end up driving without car insurance for a good year or two. I don't condone anyone doing that, but once I was a little more financially stable, I secured myself some affordable insurance and have never missed a payment since.
- Same goes for my health insurance. I did my best to take care of myself so as not to get sick, I went off birth control for about a year (which is actually recommended for women who are on it for long periods of time.) And again, once I was back on my feet, I applied for individual coverage that I could afford.
- I called the company associated with my school loans and got back on track with them. I was able to defer my loans until I was able to start paying them again, and since then have not needed a deference, nor missed a payment.
- I consolidated all of my credit card debt. I know that's not the best way to handle things, but it was my only hope. The woman I worked with offered me comfort and solace as I cried to her over the phone, as she pointed out to me that my case was no where near the astronomical ones they typical handle.
- I also stopped wasting money on trivial things like getting my nails done, (which I can do myself,) going out to the bars so often, and packing my lunch for work instead of hitting the Wawa every other day. (Except for coffee refills of course.)
But that little voice still nags me. "Sure, you may be relatively back on your feet and supporting yourself, but what about a family? Don't you want to buy a house one day? How will you afford a mortgage payment? Childcare? College-fucking-tuition?"
Maybe once I realize that it's a never ending cycle, that there will always be things out of my control, I can accept it and just keep moving forward. This constant feeling of being stuck? It's getting really old.
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