I'm Moving.

Well, the cat is out of the bag. Yesterday morning I marched into work and told my boss that, hey, I’m moving out of the country in two weeks.

Then I may have had a small panic attack because, OMG … two weeks. Two weeks. From today. (!!!).

Anyway. Since my last post I have been doing a lot of things. Mostly moving (which is an event because I have more stuff than anyone should be allowed to have) and trying to sell my car and being OVERWHELMED and fighting with my apartment complex about the tiny flood that happened in my kitchen on Memorial Day, which I just remembered I didn’t tell you about.

THE QUICK AND DIRTY VERSION: There was a clog in the laundry room pipes that caused the laundry water to come out of my sink. They didn’t believe me when I told them that the laundry room was probably responsible, and as a result my apartment was flooded on at least one other occasion later on in the week. Then I had to fight with them to pro-rate my rent for the week I didn’t live there because the carpet was all ripped up, and then I had to prove to them that having my AC turned down to 65 degrees for a week would have a more dramatic impact on my bill than the “pennies a day” the office assured me it would be. And then there was the nonsense about how the cleaning service they hired to come in and clean my kitchen did pretty much the worst cleaning job ever in the history of cleaning jobs.

And the cherry on top is that my brand new hand mixer and my grandmother’s aprons sat in water for a week and got moldy and gross. But not beyond repair, thank goodness.

THE MORAL: Do not ever rent from Price Brothers. They are cheap assholes who will take you for all you’re worth, even if the whole reason there was a problem in the first place is because they were too lazy to take the months of phone calls from the other residents in building complaining about how the washer wasn’t draining properly seriously. THANKS PRICE BROTHERS.

There. Now you are up to speed.

But this past weekend I moved out of my apartment (of doom) and I am back with my parents for the next two weeks. Then I'm moving to South Korea for a year.

Now I am going to go have a small panic attack in the bathroom so that I can get back to work. Excuse me.

Letting the dream catch me for once

Since I got back from China in February, I feel like I have been chasing a dream. A dream that consists mostly of me not having to work (ever) and being able to eat as many pancakes and M&M's as I want without ever having to worry about getting fat. We all have to have a dream, right?

Hilda has been telling me over and over again that I need to "find contentment in what I have". I read blog after blog that talks about how being in the moment is so important. I even have started doing Shiva Nata as a way to try and tap into some of that contentment. Although, to be fair I have wanted to start practicing Shiva Nata for a while now (because Havi is pretty much my hero and I want to be her when I grow up) and this whole "why does my life suck all the time?" thing felt like the perfect time to finally step up and buy the starter kit.

I was trying so hard to be content with what I had, but it seemed like no matter what I did there was always something nagging at the back of my mind. Like, I would be wishing for cable (a post is coming on that, I promise) or dreading going to Macy's for job #2 of the day, or thinking about the eleventy billion other things that I needed to do over the weekend instead of being locked up in a department store.

But then the other day I was standing in my kitchen, wearing my pink polka-dot apron, kneading some bread (yes I am aware that statement makes me sound like Suzy Homemaker) and it occurred to me that I was genuinely happy. I have started listening to some of the CD's that I love, like the Godzilla soundtrack (because I am just that cool), and I finally got my apartment clean over mother's day weekend and I am happy. The quiet of not having the TV on all the time took some getting used too. Once I let go of trying to be happy - I was.

It's so cliche, I know. But I'm so happy that it found me. I am so content in my little space. I'm just sorry that I might be leaving it in a few months. Even though I am also really excited about the adventure that I will be going on (provided, of course, that the Korea's can get along without dropping bombs on each other).

The good thing is, however, that I know that I can do it. The happiness is there to be had. You just have to relax enough to let it get you.

If only I had a moon ladder, my life would be complete

I want so much that sometimes it hurts almost. Almost. Ok, maybe a little more than almost. It's the pull of desire for something (even if you have absolutely no idea what it is that you want) that starts in the center of your chest and radiates outward. Out toward the thing, whatever it is: physical, emotional, a specific event, an accomplishment of some sort.

I have decided that I am living a life that is mostly devoid of magic. And I am not like other grown ups who can go around without magic and be perfectly content. I need magic. I crave it. It is what I am radiating towards.

The only thing is I don't know where to start my search for this magic. It makes me feel very small. Like someone is telling me that I can totally make it to the moon, only they don't tell you that you should probably get a spaceship beforehand (ladders that tall just don't exist, I checked).

Sometimes I think that finding the magic will have to do with where I live and how I choose to live there. I imagine a huge back yard with huge, old trees and giant flowering bushes and so much color (green and blue and pink and purple and white and and and) that you might think that your eyes will melt out of your head. And a house that smells like cooking and baking. Warm bread, fabulous meals, cookbooks with broken spines and stained pages from years of being used and loved.

But in order to find the magic house, I have to have money. And in order to have money, I have to have a job. And that, my friends, is where I get lost.

A job that is magical. Something that I am good at and that I love to do all the time. A job that, if I did have to work more than 40 hours at it during the week, wouldn't make me want to find a mountain and throw myself off the very top of it because I am so tired and so stressed I can't stand it.

I have friends who are doing what they love. Writing or designing or what-have-you-ing. They have always known what it was, and even if they didn't know it exactly at the time, they were pretty damn close. I am good at a lot of things. I have jobs that I enjoy (to a degree) but I still manage to have about 1 day a week where my brain literally turns into jello because of the stress in my life and oozes out of my ear holes. And it's draining my will to live.

On the phone with my mother the other day, she told me that "if this was the way [I] choose to life my life then [I] should probably just stop bitching about it and be content that [I] have a job at all." And yes, I agree. I should stop bitching. I should spend more time looking for a job where I can put my college degree to good use (or any use, for that matter), be happy and make some money so that I can find the magic house where I will be able to cook and bake forever and ever, Amen.

But I think about looking for a job and all I want to do is run back into the arms of my 3 (yes, 3) jobs and the 1 day a week of brain flavored stress-jello and hold on as tight as I can and never let go. Resumes make me turn into a blabbering idiot. Looking at Monster or Career Builder makes me wonder if I will ever find anything that makes me want to dance out of bed and into the office.

And yes, I realize that I might be romanticizing this job thing. Maybe there really is not one person in the world who actually dances into their office everyday. Maybe "magical jobs" are like "unicorns" and "dragons" and while they are fun to talk about or star in movies or read about, they don't really exist.

But the thing is, I don't know that I want to live in a world where being a grown up means that you have to wait until 5:00 on the weekdays to feel the magic. In fact, I take that back. I know I don't want to live in that world. In that world, the world where everyone waits until 5:00 to be happy, I will wither and die like a flower that doesn't get enough sunshine.

So I suppose I am putting this out there to see what comes to me. I would love to have words of comfort or maybe a career idea that is something super-fun that you heard of one time because your ex-boyfriend's, step mom's brother-in-law from Texas heard about from a friend one time (maybe). The list of magical jobs that I came up with is sort of small:

• Start my own preschool
• Flight attendant
  
• Character actor at Disneyland (I would like to be Ariel please. Or Belle. Well ... really any princess, really)

Thoughts?

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.

Growing Up Might Not be that Bad After All

Something happened to me yesterday morning ... the thing is that I'm not sure exactly what exactly it is that happened.

Confused yet? Welcome to the party. I've only had to delete and re-start this post about 4 times already.

I have spent a lot of the last year complaining about growing up and finding a direction for my life and all the other usual 20-something type gripping I've been hearing from all of my real life 20-something friends. But I woke up this morning and just felt ... weird. Different.

But weird and different in a good way.

Like, I didn't want to hit the snooze button so many times that I would have to skip my shower and breakfast in order to make it to work on time. Like, I laid in bed and visualized myself in my own apartment (for the record: I have never used visualization as a motivational technique) and it made me excited to get out of bed. Like, I was right on it and had about 2 things checked off my To-Do List for the day before I was even out of the door.

Different like I am actually ready to grow up.

I know, right? I was beginning to think it would never happen. I have no idea what triggered it, however, because my life hasn't been very grown-up lately. But I can't help but feel that it has something to do with the nearness of my nightmare inducing 25th birthday. I think it's acting like the pop timer you find in turkeys, it lets you know when it's time to take it out of the oven.

Sorry about that. I couldn't help myself.

Have any of you had a pop-up timer moment yet (really, I'm sorry. I'll stop.)?

My Friday ...

I think this pretty much sums it all up for you guys.

This past week the 4 boys that I take care of after school (who also live right next door - it's the best commute EVER) didn't have school on Thursday or Friday. Plus it was wet and rainy which meant that they couldn't go outside and run off the extra energy they had on Thursday, which ended up coming out as a COMPLETE MELTDOWN at about 2:45.

So their parents took pity on me, gave me some cash and told me to take the boys to Chuck E Cheeses in the hopes that I could have one day when I didn't go strait home and drink a six-pack of beer (you may think I'm joking, but I'm really not).

It was great. They played and did a fantastic job of listening and helping to take care of the youngest brother and I got to sit and work on my sock (it's the dark blue thing in the picture up there). I also spent some more time considering what to do now that I didn't get into my Child Life program and I think I might have it figured out. Sort of. It's a start anyway.

All and all, I think things are starting to look up around here.

The Past, The Future and California

I grew up in Reno. I moved to Kansas in 1996 because my parents felt the need to be closer to family (in Illinois and Ohio) but not too close so we didn't have to spend any more time with them than we wanted too.

I have always had a special place in my heart for the west. I love the dessert, the dryness (even if it also comes with tons and tons of nose bleeds. OMG.). I have so many happy memories of being little in west. I hear that the place where I lived as a kid is totally built up now and it hardly looks the same. And I know that the people who live in my old house park their broke-ass trucks on the lawn (thank you Google Street View) so I can't help but feel like the image I have in my head and the place I would be going to if I went back would be radically different.

But for some reason I still feel drawn to go back. Maybe not to Reno, but out west - California specifically. And I have to say that I can't help but think that the universe is trying to tell me something because I know more people in California than I do here (almost). BFF Hilda is there, so is my high school BFF Newspaper Bitch. And another friend (who currently doesn't have a bloggy nickname) just got a job out there.

It's a conspiracy I tell you.

It's hard knowing so many people that are spread out so far across the country. It makes me feel old, and I am far too young to feel old.

I don't really know the point of this post other than to talk about how much I wish I could move out there where two of my best friends are living (seriously, what are the odds??) and, to sound like a 16 year old, live the life I would like to be living.

Honestly though, it all depends on how my Children's Mercy thing pans out. I had my interview, it went well (the question I messed up: tell us 2 of your strengths and weaknesses. My weaknesses answer: I'm a nervous talker and I'm sort of shy. *face palm*), I will know whether or not I got in on or before October 22. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. This Child Life business sounds like it's my calling.

The Ebb and Flow

And just like that life comes full circle again.

This weekend my Aunt Beach (name changed for the privacy of my family) passed away. While I would love to tell you all the details, it's not really my story to tell and on the off chance that someone who knows my family finds this post, I don't want them to get all "why would you put that out on the internet for strangers to see??". So please forgive me for being uber-vague about the situation.

Aunt Beach and myself enjoying the open bar at my cousin's wedding last summer. Yes, I am wasted in this picture, thanks for asking.

She was a lovely and super creative lady. I am so very sorry that I didn't take the time to get to know her better or to send her a card or ask her to teach me how to be as awesome an artist as she was. Just the last time we were at her house I realized that we both really like to decorate our houses in a 1950's-esc style and we had roamed around her house admiring her flea market art finds and I gushed about how I loved everything.

It makes me sad that I now have to use the past tense when I talk about my Aunt Beach. She is the first family member that I have known well that I will have to bury. Well, I won't have to bury her, but I'm going to be there when it happens ... you know what I mean. For Pete's sakes, I still have all of my grandparents! It boggles the mind. And while I know that I will never be able to give my Aunt Beach another hug, or hang out with her at the reunions, I still can't wrap my mind around the whole thing. I have never had to deal with death so close and it is confusing and scary and sad that I have to learn with my Aunt who should have been around for a lot longer.

There is a lot of bad in the world these days. This economy and all the doom and gloom from Washington about how "it's going to get worse before it gets better" isn't helping. Not only should you be holding your children close, but now is the time to reach out to your family. Tell them that you love them and then start planning the reunion. Seriously. If there was ever a time to start spending time with the people that you love, now is that time. We need to spread a little love to make all the bad juju in the air not quite so bad.

GiST #3 + Short Post = Trying to Stay Awake

Do you ever have days where it feels like you're in a fog? That your body just isn't working the right way even though you're on your third cup of coffee? I feel like that today. And the fact that it's raining outside today isn't helping things.

If I were still in school (sob) I would spend the day in my bed with my dogs having a snuggle fest/sleep-a-thon. But now that I'm a "grown up" and have to do super lame stuff like "go to work" and "earn a paycheck" so that I can "pay the rent and the utility bills" I don't get to stay home and have snuggle fests anymore unless I also happen to be feeling very ill at the time.

But seriously, today is going to be like yesterday where I try so hard to work hard. Sometimes I just can't concentrate and I just HAVE to spend 15 minutes doodling on my notepad or making myself another totally awesome spreadsheet to print out and write on (and highlight with the right colors).

GiST #3:
1. A FOLLOWER!

2. Being so close to finishing a knitting project that is so much cooler than my other knitting projects to this point.

3. Planning ahead to my next super cool and much more complicated knitting pattern and dreaming of the lovely yarn shop and spending tons of money on yarn (yes, I know that's technically three things ... lay off me. I'm on my third cup of coffee)

4. Boyfriend coming in my room at 3 am when he gets home to give me smooches because he misses me.

5. Good food and good friends and treadmills (just pretend it's one thing ... ok?)

I'm getting older, too.

I'm nearing my 24th birthday at a speed that sometimes makes me happy but mostly just makes me want to go away and hide. I know that it's not a big deal ... I mean, I have my whole life ahead of me and it's not like when you turn 24 you're suddenly old and feeble. The reason that it makes me upset is that fact that it's here and it seems like it got here a lot faster than it should.

The reason I bring this up is due to a conversation that I had with Rose the BFF the other day. We have decided to run a half marathon during the San Fransisco Marathon on July 26, 2009 (awesome, right?!) and we also have decided that we are going to run the Disney full marathon in 2010 in January on a date that I am not sure of right now. This way I have plenty of time to train and learn how to be a runner and not die after running 6 miles ... like I normally do. But I digress. The conversation in question went like this (edited for content and length):

me: So we do the half in SF and then the whole Disney?
BFF: yup, in jan of 2010.
me: sweet ... that'll be perfect
BFF: and then we can start having babies.
me: great, and our flat stomachs can go the way of the dinosaurs.
*moment of realization*
me: oh my god, we really are going to start having babies.
Oh.
My.
God.

And it's true. We both are nearing our mid 20's and we both are in steady, serious relationships. In fact, some of our friends who are already married (ah!) are pregnant with baby #1! BFF has a friend from her home town that is already on baby #2 that was planned. PLANNED! They planned on having a second child ... they aren't even 25 yet. Holy crap.

The thing that is really freaking me out is that I feel like I've waited my whole life to get to this point. The point when I was out of school, working at a big girl job, dating a guy that I love and who loves me back (I am 99.9% sure that this statement is true, BTW), and getting to the point where I'll be getting engaged, possibly married and maybe even one day choose to have some wee ones. I mean ... come on! It just blows my mind and I feel like I'm so in shock about it that I can't even process what's happening.

I am a grown up person.

I am! But the problem is that I still feel like I did in college (this could have something to do with the fact that I still babysit like a crazy person, live with my parents, and get paid a miserably small hourly wage). If you are a younger person reading this (HA! No one reads this ... who am I kidding?) and you just don't get what I'm talking about ... let me give you an example of what it feels like.

Boyfriend's mom: So, when's the anniversary?
me: It was October 8th actually.
Boyfriend's mom: And how long has it been?
me: Two years.
Boyfriend's mom: Does that include the time that you dated before you got back together?
me: Nope. We dated for 9 months the first time so if you counted that it would be closer to 3 years.
Boyfriend's mom: Wow ...
me: Geez, it's been two years. It feels like we only got back together like ... a couple weeks ago or something ...
*head explodes*

When you start thinking that things that really happened 2-3 years ago only happened like, last month, you're old. Believe me, the first time this happens to you, you will remember it. And then you'll tell your friend about it and they will know exactly what you're talking about ... and then you'll cry because right when you stop wishing that you were older and start enjoying the place you are in life is the time when you get what you've been wishing for and you keep getting older. And it doesn't stop for a loooooooooong time.

*head explodes*