Spider Epiphanies

One of the worst things about living alone is the living alone part.

Which, duh SuperCareo, didn't you know that before you decided to move out?

But it's not so much that as that one time I lived with a boy and he was around to do the icky stuff like plunge the toilet or kill the crazy big spiders I find in my dresser - which happened the other night, BTW. Which is what brought this whole thing on.

So I opened my dresser drawer and there is a spider looking up at me - clearly ready to jump up and eat me if given the chance. So what do I do? I text my friend Ashley in call caps stating that I NEED A BOY!!!!!!! (and yes, there were that many exclamation points involved).

But the good news is that I did kill the spider with minimal squealing and I was not eaten (thank the lord). But the moment made me pause and think about my independence and being a woman hear me roar and blah, blah, blah. Did wanting a boy (Armini specifically) to kill the spider make me less of a woman? Have I somehow lost that bit of myself (without realizing it) that makes me brave enough to kill the spider?

I know ... killing a spider with a shoe isn't usually a moment for epiphanies.

But, all things considered, I think it's ok. It's not the first time I have wanted made boys to kill bugs for me. All I think it means is that living back here (I am living in the same complex where Armini and I lived before he left for China) makes me miss him and in that moment I just missed him more than normal.

GAH. He hasn't decided if he's coming home to stay when the school year ends, so please keep your fingers crossed for me. I am so tired of this game. Also, I am tired of killing my own bugs.

Due North

It always surprises me how quickly my sense of self vanishes after a break up. It's like, one day your sad and the next day you wake up and you're still sad only now you have no idea what to do with yourself.

Which is what happened to me. You know, after the reset button on my life somehow got pushed.

I was at a point where so much had happened in such a short amount of time that I was overwhelmed to the point of losing my internal sense of direction. The sense of direction that propels you to go to that place. That place, of course, is different for everyone. Maybe that place is a fancy job, a career, or maybe it's a family. Maybe your internal sense of direction is pulling you in the direction of becoming the crazy cat lady for your neighborhood or trying to turn you into a giant hippie. You know, I'm down with whatever your place happens to be.

The last three weeks, I have had no real sense of self. No feelings of being pulled to be anything - even the crazy cat lady (although, to be realistic, I would probably end up being the crazy poodle lady).

You never really know how weird it is to not feel like that until you experience it. But the best part of losing that internal sense of direction is finding it again. Which I thought about tonight and was all ... "Well duh miss smarty pants. That's the only good part of losing anything."

But then I stopped and thought about it. Really thought about it. And I realised that it's not just about finding something that was lost. It's more about how it always finds you at the oddest and most obviously right moment and you're just over come with a sense of well being. Your internal sense of direction finally is pointing north again and you can move forward knowing that you're at least heading in generally the right direction.

The other day my dad was telling me about how he hoped that I either found a career that I loved or married well so that I could stay at home. And even though he wasn't trying to get me back on track, his words totally switched a light bulb on in my head and my Sad Little Ghost, who also took a vacation apparently, was all like ... "Let's do this!".

It's nice to at least feel like I'm back on track, even if there is still some grieving that I need to deal with. At least I know where I want to go.

Not-Really-A-Moment, Moment, A Real Moment and a Ghost

If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I like to have Moments (with the capital M!). In fact, I have so many that I have a blog tag for them. I like to think it's because I am a deep thinker rather than the fact that I have so many due to the fact that I am a silly girl who is not yet well versed in the way of the world and the way that I interact with that world. Right? Well, something like that. I think. It made sense in my head, anyway.

Moving on.

This weekend I did not have a Moment. I had a Not-Really-A-Moment, Moment. Why would I call it a Not-Really-A-Moment, Moment? Well that is actually quite simple: I realized something that I have realized on many, many, many (times infinity) times before this last time that I realized it. Which sounds repetitive because this thing that I realized (again, for the eleventy billion-th time) is something that is a reoccurring theme in my life. You could even go so far as to say that it haunts me. It follows me around like some Sad Little Ghost that doesn't know what to with itself. If only the solution would be to hold a seance and tell it that it's ok to leave me alone now. Unfortunately, the solution is not simple (or even close to being that simple) or else I would have gotten rid of my Sad Little Ghost a loooong time ago.

Want to know what makes my Sad Little Ghost sad? I'm a lazy, messy, bum of a person/roommate. Always have been. Armini can attest to this.

{This is where I would normally start going on and on about how I don't mean to be a lazy, messy, bum of a person/roommate, but I'm TOO LAZY to stand up for myself. Plus, they are all excuses and this is about getting past the excuses to the root of the problem. Right? Right. Let's continue.}

My Not-Really-A-Moment, Moment (which, as a result of writing this very post may have turned into an actual Moment), is when I realized that the messiness of my living space is having a direct effect on the level of Teh Craziness that I am feeling in my life outside of my bed/apartment. It probably is also having a direct effect on how hard I find it to get out of bed in the morning (because I don't think that there are many people who are itching to jump out of bed in the morning when their life feels like it's spiraling out of control). But, like I said, this is not even remotely (not even a little bit) close to being the first time that this thought has crossed my mind.

It's also not the first time I have sat down and thought to myself, "What can I do to be a pro-active, organized, gem of a person/roommate short of moving home and having SuperMama yell (in a tough-love sort of way, of course) at me every day for being a lazy, messy, bum of a person/roommate?"

However, this is the first time that I have sat down and looked my Sad Little Ghost right in the face because, until I started writing this post (and not even until the second draft!) I didn't know that I was being followed around by a Sad Little Ghost. Well, I mean, I knew there was something, but I didn't know what it was until about 20 minutes ago.

{This Moment brought to you by Havi the Pirate Queen (@Havi on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing) because she is awesome - and also, she has monsters and walls and encourages others to find their own versions of their stuck. /PSA}

So now I am in the process of working out a way to lay my Sad Little Ghost to rest, aka Step Two in my Brilliant Plan to rid myself of Teh Craziness (Step One is here). Which was the whole reason that I started writing this post, but now, because I have a Sad Little Ghost that I need to talk too, has been rendered useless. One cannot go about dealing with ghosts unless one first holds the seance to find out what they want or need in order to leave you alone.

Girl Jelly Redux

Thank God for my friend Hilda (even though she is officially living in California now, which is SO NOT COOL HILDA). I mean, sometimes I wonder how I survived my younger years without her around.

Although, now that I think about it, we would never have been friends before the time that we became friends. Most probably she would have made fun of me along with everyone else in elementary/middle school and we never would have moved past the occasional passing glance of "I am not a fan of you" in the hallway.

So. I guess I'm glad that it all worked out that way. Moving on.

I was talking to Hilda last night about my whole day of insecurity and how I had questioned myself in the car on my way home and how my answers had really, really surprised me. And then she totally told me why I felt the way I did. And she was totally right. And I was surprised by the answers (again) and I made some decisions. I made some ... commitments to myself. I now have a mental list of things that I want to do, FOR ME. And then I totally had a moment.

I still am kind of having a moment. It's weird to spend so much time working on something and then realize that maybe you are going about it (e.g. my life) in a way that works but may not really be the best way to go about it overall. (That makes no sense what-so-ever. I'm not even sure that I understand it, even though I just wrote it.)

But isn't that the way it goes, the words just sort of tumble out? When you have these sorts of moments when you feel like the light bulb in the closet of your life finally got turned on and all of a sudden you understand where to find that one thing that you were digging around for in the first place? (Again with the totally weird sentence that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sorry about that). I am trying so hard to describe this moment that I had ... without going to any sort of uber-graphic detail.

Even though I don't know why I don't want to go into any graphic detail, I mean, I am writing this on the internet where anyone can find it and read it.* So I suppose I will go into graphic-er detail for you (but not all the way because that would require the telling of some very long stories and delving into a part of a year of my life that I am not a huge fan of talking about.) OK? OK. (wow - I am feeling a little manic right now. Must have been the two cups of coffee).

Armini is going to China. He will be there for 10 months teaching English at a university somewhere (we don't know where yet, but should know sometime during the first week of April). I will not be going with him. That is the part that troubles/confuses/scares me.

I have been feeling more and more as of late that I don't have a handle on the China situation. I do know that I want him to go and I want him to have fun, and I want him to live his life so that he won't look back and wonder what could have been and I don't want him to end up resenting me for trying to make him stay (which I have never even thought about doing). But every now and then I have these moments when I feel like my life is slipping away and that I have to hang on very, very tightly or everything that I have now will dissolve (which I know that it won't, I don't think the dogs or my apartment are going anywhere on their own). And that is where most of my issues have been stemming from.

But the light bulb moment that I had was that I realized that I am deeply jealous of him and his willingness to say "I want to do this, so I am going to do this and I will deal with the fall out when it happens" (Even though I think that last bit is a very girly sentiment to have. I'm sure that the word 'fallout' has never even crossed his mind in relation to the whole picking up and moving thing). And it occurred to me that I have not allowed myself to have those sorts of thoughts outside a day dream (I mean, who doesn't day dream about moving to Hawaii and getting a job at a resort and spending all your free time at the beach, right?). I have never really allowed myself to consider, really consider, just doing [whatever].

For instance, I really like to knit. But I haven't really dedicated myself to it. And even though I really want to go to Sock Summit in Oregon this summer, I have never really, really thought I would because it's so far away and I have a job, and what about the dogs, and blah blah blah. Or, I have always wanted to get a job at Disneyland. But where will I live? What about the dogs? Blah blah blah.

One of my Resolutions this year was to say yes to doing more fun things. I think that it's high time that I stop worrying about EVERYTHING ELSE and do the fun things, even if it means that [insert lame excuse here] is just going to have to keep its pants on until I get done doing the fun thing.

I am not married, I do not have children, the dogs travel well and my parents are always willing to care for them if I need them too, so what the heck is holding me back from just going out there? I know what it is: ME.

And she is just going to have to move the hell out of the way so that I can live my life and have fun and not have to look back when I'm older and wonder what could have been if I had just gotten off of my high horse and done it. And I don't want to be that person who secretly resents her friends for all of the adventures they got to have before settling down to have a family.

WHEW. Like I said, I had a MOMENT. Thank the sweet Lord that I have a friend like Hilda to point me in the direction that I needed to be in to realize this. Seriously ... she is like the best friend I have ever, ever had. Oh man ... now I have something in my eye (no I am not tearing up at work. I would never do a thing like that).

My first act of putting myself before others and having a bit of fun: Drinking a beer while working. The work fridge is stocked and it's beer Friday (please ignore the fact that it's 11:34 am).

*Once upon a time, when SuperCareo was just a tender, innocent youth and was setting up her first AIM account and the internet was brand new, SuperMama told her that everyone who reads what you write on the internet was actually only interested in luring you to a meeting spot where no one can hear you scream so that they have have their way with you, murder you and hide your body in a barrel behind their lake house (am I right Ashley?). As a result, SuperCareo has always been a little timid when it comes to publishing her life on the web. She is currently working on it, ok, so give her a break. She is doing the best that she can already.

I just had a moment.

I am the sort of person that, when I get an idea in my head, I become pretty much obsessed with that idea. Beanie Babies? Yup. Marriage? Yup. Babies? Yup. Monsters under the bed? Double yup (I still sleep with my cabbage patch doll and an alarm clock that is really bright because I hate the dark).

But tonight I had a moment, and I realized something about myself. A realization that set me back on my heels.

I do not want to have kids anytime soon.

Now, I can understand how you could read that and think "Well, yea. I don't want to have any kids right this second either." But seriously, let me tell you something. I used to want a baby real bad. Like: really, really bad. Part of the reason that I babysit as much as I do is because I love to spend time with other people's kids and spend a few hours pretending that their kids are actually my own. (Please don't judge me for that last comment. I swear I am a good sitter and I really do enjoy spending time with the kids I sit for).

Since Tuesday I have been in Florida babysitting for a wonderful family with a pair of super cute, wonderful kids (and that is not sucking up at all - it warmed my heart when H told me today that lunch by the pool meant that it was the "best Florida ever").

But after two days of dealing with a level of excrement that I have never had to deal with, doing battle with a clogged toilet with the tiniest plunger in the world as your only ally, and a baby that will not go to sleep in her own bed (and is a kicker so I don't really want her in my bed), tonight I realized that I really am not down with dealing with this on a daily basis at this point in my life.

It really shocked me. I stood up from cleaning the freshly, un-clogged toilet and took a nice, long look at myself in the mirror. That's when I realized that I am too selfish right now to bring a little munchkin into the mix. I have trouble sharing my food (especially my cookies; I missed that day at preschool) as it is, I don't want to sacrifice it to someone else.

Marriage? I think I could handle that. I mean, I'm already living with Armini and marriage really isn't much more than that right? I'm sure that many people who just read that sentence and are married are probably getting ready to write me a nasty comment. Please don't, I know that it's more than just living together. But at least he knows how to wipe his own butt. And when he clogs up the potty, he fixes it.

I love the kids I sit for. I just realized that I am not ready to have any of my own. I mean, I'm having enough trouble paying for vet bills as it is now ... with a baby? Forget about it. Poor pups would be shit out of luck. Also, babies tend to put a damper on your sex life (I hear), and I am enjoying the parentlessness of our apartment too much to change it.