going home

Thanksgiving.

"Eat and eat and eat and eat and eat..." (I hope one of you recognized this Gilmore Girls quote.)

Thanksgiving is near, and to me this means two great things. My husband and I get off work AND we get to visit our friends and family. We've only seen three of our friends since we moved at the beginning of August. We both got six days off. SIX DAYS. This doesn't happen at Starbucks. And it's just as shocking coming from ESPN. I know this is all God, and to God I give thanks.

We have a lot of driving ahead of us. Wednesday we head to Lynchburg, Va which is about a 9 hour drive. Then, Thursday we go to Harrisonburg from there which is about 2 hours. Then back to Lynchburg. Then to Blacksburg (1.5 hours) on Friday. Then to Ringgold, Ga on Saturday (5.5 hours). Then back to Blacksburg on Monday(5.5). Then alllllll the way back to Bristol, CT on Tuesday (9 hours again). So, out of the approximate 144 hours we have off of work, about 35 - 38 (I can just see the NY traffic now) hours on the road. This sounds dumb to some. Almost as if we should just spend our time in one place or at home together.

However, we love our families. And Zach already got his schedule for December... he's working both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I'll be working Christmas Eve as well since I got Thanksgiving off. We have to take what we can get. This also means we'll be having Christmas with my family when we go in. I've gotten almost everyone's gifts in the past two days, since that's when I got the confirmation that we'd be doing this. It's a little stressful combined with work and school, but I know it will all be worth it.

We're having this get together at my aunt's house, and she said I could invite my dad. My step dad will also be there, and they make things kind of weird. My step dad didn't come to my high school graduation party because he didn't want to make my dad feel uncomfortable. Which, in the end, it was still weird.

So, last night I invited my dad. I hadn't talked to him in almost a month because he's been in his depressive state and for a while he was without a phone. This happens almost every year. I just gave him his space. It was good to hear from him, but it was also hard. He started a job at Amazon and also got accepted to a great online college like me, but he stopped going to school and is planning on looking for a different job again. I know he really feels like he can't do it, but it's sad to me that he probably never will just because of his disease. 

A part of me wishes that I could be there, living with him in his apartment again. I wish that we could take on school together and both get our degrees and work hard at our jobs all at the same time. But then I'm reminded that as much control as I may have over some situations, this one is not for me. This is God and this is my dad. I just trust that God has a greater plan for my dad, because right now it's not so good. He'll be fine, he always is, but right now it's just so hard to watch.

He said he has to work the day of the get together, so I'll just see him the next day or the morning before me and Zach leave Georgia. I hope that I can keep myself together. I just know it's going to be an emotional trip for me. These things never get easier, they're just a little different every holiday or event.

For those in a divorced home, know that you have so many others who you can talk to. And know that being a divorce kid doesn't mean you have to be a divorce person. I found my husband who loves me no matter what, and he's fought for my undivided attention because sometimes I don't let him in. It's still hard every now and then, but when it's good... it's really, really good.

And for those living in a family of mental disorder, understand that there is a purpose. Find your personal purpose and focus on that. If you focus on the disfunction or the negative aspects, you will lose yourself in it. My mother did for a while, and it was almost harder to watch her suffer than it was to watch my dad suffer, because she allowed herself to it and he had no control.

God is our father. Though my earthly father isn't what every girl dreams of, when he's himself he's the best person I know. But God is my ultimate father, and He is who I go to in times of need... in times like these. 

2 cool 4 school

/I CAN'T DO THIS/
Dog ate my homework. Even though I don't have one.
I forgot. It was a voluntary forgetting, but still.
I honestly didn't know how. I probably would if I actually paid attention, but I didn't.

School has always been so hard for me. Neither of my parents have any schooling beyond their high school diploma. Until a year ago, when my mom went back to school and got her Associate's, go Mom!! I almost didn't go. If it wasn't for my husband, I don't know that I would have even bothered applying to places. I would probably still be living at home working some dead-end part time job, and babysitting my siblings for the other part time. Which, isn't even paid in real money but in groceries and a roof over my head. I don't mind that pay.

I decided to apply to Virginia Tech only because Zach was going there at the time and it meant we'd be living in the same city for the first time in two years. Long distance is not something I recommend for anyone unless you are planning to be with the person forever. It is only worth it if they are. Anyway, so I applied. I got in. I took out a little over $20,000 in student loans. I didn't even choose a major my freshman year. Then, I decided it was way too crazy expensive to be wasting my time at a school I didn't even really enjoy going to... I didn't enjoy going to any school.

January 13, 2013 I went back home to Chattanooga, TN putting me and Zach back in a long distance stage. We had gotten so much closer over the past nine months, though, and I knew this time would be the last. I picked up two jobs, moved in with my dad to avoid babysitting and transferred to a community college in the area. I was so poor that the school gave me so much financial aid that I didn't owe anything. In fact, I got checks sent to me to assist me in things other than tuition and fees. It was great.

But I couldn't do this for the next four years. I wasn't going to be away from Zach for any longer than I could control. I saved up enough money to get me living back in Blacksburg, VA with Zach. I moved in with two girls who I had went to high school with my freshman and sophomore year, when we all lived in Lynchburg, VA. They weren't the greatest roommates, but this way I was there. Zach and I had agreed we wouldn't live together until we were married. Which, at this point was about seven months away. Another reason why I needed to be in the same city. I wasn't about to marry a man I had hardly spent time with in the prior year. Sorry, I just wasn't. Remember, I'm a skeptical being. Or was. I can't figure out which.

So, I was advised by my academic advisor to lie about where I lived. Seriously, he told me to say I was still living in Chattanooga and he even helped me sign up for all my classes in their online versions. He made sure they didn't require me to come in town except for my finals. Dear God, that weekend I went home just for finals was dreadful. I hadn't seen my family in three months and I was supposed to be studying and acing my exams. That did not happen. I passed, though, and that's all I cared about to be completely honest.

Fast forward to August of 2013, Zach and I were newly wed. Some things for school fell through and I had already decided not to take summer classes so that I could focus on planning the wedding. Which, I didn't actually do. My mother-in-law did that for me (thanks!!!). Then, I decided that with my new job at Starbucks (I started that June) and just being married (hell yeah) as well as being a Mary Kay consultant (I started that in July. what a laugh) that I should focus on those things.

Okay, I don't have any idea how I filled my time because I honestly got very little progress of anything worth mentioning done that semester I took off. Oh, I watched all six seasons of Dawson's Creek. SEE, not worth mentioning. (Pacey and Joey though)

After this ridiculous decision, I made sure to sign up for classes that would help me graduate. (OH, I didn't mention how I took BS classes because somehow my schedule got deleted from the previous semester and I had to re-register, ending up with classes that didn't count toward my Theatre degree) So, I had to make certain that this semester would finish my Associate's degree for real. I was sick of messing around. Spoiler: I DID IT. I actually got my degree. It got mailed to my mom's house, and I'll get it when I visit Thanksgiving, but still!! I couldn't believe it.

Then this awesome incredible thing happened where my job that I already LOVED offered to pay for me to get my Bachelor's degree. Wait, what?! God loves me. Seriously, He does. So, now I'm going to Arizona State University online to finish up and I don't have to pay for it! This is a blessing.

It's still hard sometimes, though. I find it so incredibly difficult to be interested in Western film. Even though I'm a film student, I do have films I prefer. Westerns just don't make the list. Not to mention it's all about the identity of the state of Arizona, too. That just sounds like history and I never ever did well in those courses.

But I'm going to push through. I just sent an email to my Western film professor asking for feedback, because I wasn't happy with my last discussion post grade. I noticed I was caring less and less. I don't know if it's the winter depression thing or if work is distracting me, or if I just don't care about Westerns. Whatever it is, I have to shake it. I can't be letting school fall by the wayside. I've done it before and the circumstances just aren't worth it.

I did my homework. I didn't get the best grade, but I know better now.
I know what I have to do to get the grade that I want.
I'm going to have a Bachelor's degree.
I'm going to be the first in my family to have a Bachelor's degree.
This is my motivation.
I have to remember my motivation.
/I CAN DO THIS/

what if

"It is a risk to love. What if it doesn't work out? Ah, but what if it does."
- Peter McWilliams

My, oh my, how I love this quote. Because of my parents divorce, it was hard for me to completely give myself to someone. I still struggle with vulnerability every now and again, mainly because I saw my parents of twenty years let go of one another. My mom let go before my father. Four years later, I think he's still holding on. It's sad in a way, but so romantic in another. If my mother were to ask my dad back, he'd go back in a second. My husband and I actually met four years before my parents divorced. I was 13 and head over heels for the high schooler who asked if I could hang out at the local coffee shop. I still get giddy when he asks me out on a date.

Growing up, I only ever saw my parents hold hands once. I saw them kiss less than ten times. I never, ever remember them having a 'date night.' I do, however, remember constant bickering and many days spent apart. My dad's job required him to be gone approximately 200 days out of the year, none of which did my mom ever seem like she missed him. I'm sure part of this is due to my self-obsessed personality back then. This part of my upbringing has messed with me, I've at times thought that I will end up like my mother did and just throw my hat in. I am then reminded that it is only me who can control my future.

Though I struggle with all of this, I am also comforted by the fact that I have met a man who it did work out with. We've had our fair share of arguments and in all honesty we could have called it quits because of them, but we didn't. And we won't, because we have decided to honor and love one another until death do us part. Unlike most people today, that really means something to us.

I am by no means knocking on either of my parents. I feel like I constantly have to state this, because much of my feelings of my childhood come off that way. They aren't so, though; not in the slightest. I love both of my parents. They are two of the best people I know. They, however, are the other what if in the quote.

l is for the way you lie to me

I don't know who I was more mad at. Yes I do. I was mad at my mom. Then he hurt her. He had never hurt her. Well, not physically anyway.

I still have flashbacks of the night I was woken up by my mom screaming for me to call 9-1-1. This wasn't the first time. But it was different. Standing across the hall yelling, screaming, begging for him to stop. Nothing. He was ignoring me. Did he not realize how insane this was?

It's a ring. Yes, you bought it for her, but it was a gift. One you gave her twenty years and some change ago. You do not have to twist her arm over it.

But he almost did. I had to take pictures of the bruises for court reasons. Or family services, I'm not really sure which. Either way, I took them. And they're there in that fun little part of my brain for probably forever.

He's much different now. They both are. They're so much better without each other. How they got together in the first time I still don't understand. For me, I think. And Noah. And Rachael.

Rachael. Rachael was a surprise to everyone. A beautiful, fun, and pleasant surprise. In 2005 we were living in Franklin, Tennessee. Right out of Nashville, where all the stars were born. Where I went to church with Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus in a church. Sounds like a bad joke. Rachael made us all better.

I didn't see my dad for a while after that night. He got arrested twice more. Had he gotten himself thrown in just one more time, it'd have been prison. Georgia didn't care about mental illnesses. You commit a crime, you do the time. With or without medication. Medication: something you should take if prescribed to you when you have said illnesses.

He had stopped a few months back. Probably right before he got laid off. He did that. Unfortunately, it's a part of bipolar disorder that sneaks up and acts.

Doctors also don't help this matter. If my dad felt he was too sleepy, they would edit the amount. Stupid. Side effects are inevitable. You must keep people sane. You must keep them well.

I think that's why I haven't been to a doctor but maybe five times since this instance. I find it hard to believe what their saying when I look at my bill for the pain killers I don't need and can't take because with them I cannot drive or go to work. I need to work to pay the bill. Do you understand where one would get baffled?

It wasn't his fault that he had this disease. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't hers either. It is, however, what caused it all.

the ugly d word

This is what it's all about. This blog is to get my feelings on the page. The web page. I hate that. I miss pen and paper. I miss coloring. I miss coloring with my dad. He's an awful drawer. My mom's an artist, though. In my eyes, anyway. I used to get so frustrated because I couldn't draw like her. I tried and I tried and well I still can't. Maybe when I become a mom. (Whoa there, five years in the future, hello.)

My dad sings. He's my favorite singer. And I have about 30,000 songs combined in all of my music libraries. Another thing I hate... why can't there just be one? He's on number seven of change of groups. That group is actually just him this time. He's even better when he sings with just himself, if you as me. And I would know.

My mom does a lot of stuff. She used to work in retail, and now she works in laser hair removal and skincare. In between those she worked in makeup. Man, can she do great makeup. Anytime I go home I make her do my makeup every day that I'm there. Before we go to Starbucks and run errands.

They were perfect. A blonde haired beauty who did no wrong but was a tad spastic, and black haired singer who loved his kids. The fairy tale life. The model family. We made all the right faces and said all the right things. Almost.

It was 2009 and my life was perfect. I had just switched from advanced English to regular because, well, it was two weeks from junior year of high school starting and I obviously had no time to read the three required books. I was lazy. And I was good at it. I still am when I really put my mind to it.

Zach and I had been together for two years and five months. We were happy. We'd been through the rough bumps. His dad died only two months into our relationship, and that was hard. It still is some days. He's strong. Much stronger than I am. I'm just really good at acting like it.

My dad lost his job with the singing group he was with at the time. It didn't seem like the worst thing to me, though, because he had lost singing jobs before. That's why we were where we were. He lost a job in Tennessee, we moved to Georgia, he got another job, and then got offered an even better one in Virginia.

I was hopeful even when my mom looked me straight in the eye saying that we would have to go back home. Home meant her home. That meant Georgia. That meant seven hours away from Zach. That meant bad.

I tried to convince her to let me live with Zach. His mom was just as strict so I'd take the bedroom next to hers and he'd stay downstairs. All would be well in the world. I tried living with a close friend who I had a falling out with but will always be like family to me. I thought it could work.

But in the end, the sixteen year old must follow her family. I made the sacrifices. You might not think that was a sacrifice. You might think I didn't have a choice. But you don't know my mom. She would have let me stay. I was so close. On my last day at school, the day I was to get in the car and follow the completely filled U-HAUL to Georgia, I was still telling my friends that I might not leave. I left.

It was one rough few months when we got there. We lived with my grandparents. No internet, two bedrooms, and one bathroom. There were seven of us. I found myself lowering into a depressive state, but I wasn't going to be like my father. Well, the summer and winter version of him anyway.

It was fall. The high before the crash. He was hyper. He wasn't worried. He was lying. She was lying. She was hiding. They both were. His disorder was his crutch. It was also hers.

Another month passed and we found a house. What is this? A room to myself? I'm confused. I forgot what this was like. What's that across the hall? My mom is rooming with my sister? Hmm. That's odd. Well, I hate my new school and my best friend of five years is hardly paying any attention to me so I'm going to focus on that instead.

She told him. She finally told him. She was through. She'd been through. For four years she'd been keeping this from him. For four years she was lying to him, to herself. The decision had been made. It was their twentieth wedding anniversary when she told him she wanted a divorce.

sorry. so sorry. i'm so sorry *runs away*

Sometimes I just want to go on an apology spree and tell every single person that I'm sorry for every moronic thing I've ever done or been associated with. I do mini sprees every now and again. Last night I apologized to my husband for something I said almost seven years ago that he didn't even remember me saying to begin with.

It's always awkward when the person doesn't even know what the hell you're talking about. But I'm sorry anyway. I'm sorry even though I'm human and it's natural to be imperfect and dumb. I want to apologize to my mom all those times I stayed up on the phone past my bedtime. Even though I wouldn't be who I am today without all those important and unimportant conversations. And, to be honest, I actually like me now.

I don't like past me nearly as much as I like present me. It's really like a one to ten. That's pretty bad, isn't it? Or is it a good thing? Who knows. You might.

I want to apologize to present me for being past me. Even though it made me who I am, as I said before. I think that every single teeny tiny decision we make molds us into who we are. I know that's cliche, and I honestly don't mind being cliche. I don't mind being on the optimistic side. Though, it can get lonely. I enjoy hoping the best for people. I enjoy encouraging people. I enjoy helping people. And that I won't apologize for.

o, othello

"Speak of me as I am."

This line from Shakespeare's Othello has stuck with me since I first read it three years ago. It's become even more prevalent recently. I haven't ever stayed in a location consecutively for any more than three and a half years. This is because of a few reasons.

The first eighteen years of my life, the years where I had two people whom I legally had to reside with, I attended ten different schools in four different states. The three years to follow were of my own choices, all of these spent in the lovely South. I put emphasis on the word lovely because as of late I have been finding that to be a bit of a joke.

 The South, where people say 'sir,' 'ma'am,' 'I reckon,' and 'fixin.' They open your door for you and tell you all the things that you want to hear. That is, I've realized, only to your face. It isn't until years of knowing someone that you can actually be straightforward with someone. Unless a circumstance forces this upon them, whichever comes first.

My husband (my best friend of seven and a half years and soulmate for always) and myself recently moved up North for the first time. We met and began our liaisons in Commonwealth of Virginia. I was ignorantly under the impression that all Northerners were evil, perhaps the very spawn of Satan. I blame modern television and my small-minded upbringing. My upbringing is not limited to those who conceived me, nor to the teachers who inevitably drove me to confusion of the meaning of, well, everything.

By day six of living in the state of Connecticut, we were thoroughly surprised. We had our assumptions and expectations completely destroyed. People were nice. I mean, really nice. People asked how we were. I mean, really asked. I made six friends my first visit to church. I made three at my new job. Before my first day. It was delightful. And you know what? It still is. I'm constantly happier and happier.

There's this thing that they all do, though. This thing that not everyone might enjoy. They tell you what they think. Sometimes, more often than not I might add, when you don't even ask. I had a woman almost cry when I told her that Starbucks was discontinuing the infamous eggnog latte. (Sorry. It's out of my control.)

Some of this has to do with my current job choice... you know, customer service. Customers are always right, right? Wrong. They do have their rights, though. Anyway, I'm getting on a tangent. Back to it.

The people here are real. You know pretty quickly whether or not you're going to enjoy a person. You know right off the bat what isn't gonna fly. Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule... there are always exceptions. But in all... In all that I've seen in these first three months, it's been incredible. It's been real.

Speak of me as I am. Tell me what you really think. Save the fluff for pink fluff. (It's a Southern dessert... it's also gross.) Life should be about getting to know people and yourself. Life should not be spent wondering who a person is and who that makes you. You should know. Really know. And here, I'm finding it out.