Yay! I am alive! (and in case you are wondering, I did finally purchase my rename token. It has been a long time.)
I am still in Athens. I have a kitten named Blue (actually, Sir Reginald Junior the Second, but that's a bit lengthy till he's no longer a kitten). He's sweet and adorable when he's not pretending my legs are tree trunks and my hands are vicious kanids that beg for their own destruction.
I am working at the same place - a Sears warehouse - about 30 miles *read, long a.g.o.n.i.z.i.n.g. miles, sheesh - commutes SUCK* for decent pay, and missing my rl friends like crazy who are all back in Kennesaw. I want to move back so badly, but at the same time, I would like to be able to show I can stay at a damn job for at least a solid year. Haven't done that since I was finishing up my first year of college.
I am taking a break from school right now. I just don't want to be there. Sure as hell, I will NOT be finishing my secondary English degree anytime soon. Just don't want to. I would like to be a professional writer, but that is going to take more work than I am actually putting forth just now.
I am tired now, so I'm getting off, but I will try to post again soon. Maybe even something with actual content.
For those of you who knew me as Alariya, this may have been as surprising to you as it was to me. Welcome. But surprising. So we are going to get together sometime this millennia (probably) for coffee, (in my case) cigarettes, and a chat. I'm looking forward to that. The end of our friendship was horrifically messy; so maybe, you know, it will at the very least get cleaned up... and at the best? We might find we still like each other enough to want to keep up some form of friendshippyness.
We'll see.
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It's almost been one full year since I broke up with Kevin, my former (and second) fiancé. I find that... weird, you know? I didn't realize, for one thing, that it had been almost a year. I don't regret breaking up with him... I don't really regret having the relationship, because I learned some things, but for goodness sakes, I could totally use learning things in a less traumatizing way for once.
Though, you know, I'm doubting the stick-a-bility of things learned the "easy" way.
The Mike and Lily portion of my love life has been over since March... And I have been off my psych meds for about two... three? months now. I'm doing okay. You do remember, those of you who would, that I didn't actually need the psych meds that badly until I started dating the both of them? So I'd like to place the majority of the blame on Mike for that, as there are at least two instances I can easily and readily bring to mind of him pushing me purposefully off my balance, but things with Lily weren't that healthy either. And though I still miss her, and him every now and again too when I'm feeling especially lonely, I think those are two people that I really should remember what I learned from them and leave a deadened relationship at that. In the grave. After all, necrophilia is considered rather gauche these days, is it not?
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I am currently working a third shift position (which I love) at a job 36 miles (ew) away from my house in Athens. I haven't decided if I like Athens yet, but then, in a paradox those close to me just can't seem to understand, while I am perfectly happy walking up to random strangers and complimenting them on their eyes/hair/outfit/younameit, being brave enough to go to a completely new bar where I will be surrounded by completely new people and actually striking up a conversation in the hopes of making a friend/friendly acquaintance is not really my forte. So I have been sitting at home reading/sleeping a lot lately... and I am bored.
Really, I should get to know the city a little better before I decide that I don't like it... and I did not like Kennesaw (blame the college for that. And don't go to KSU - it sucks - not in the happy sexual way either) I at least knew where everything was. My friends are all down there (obviously - when you move, you can't just up and pack your friends into your suitcases. Some nonsense about the need for fresh air and them having their own life or some such blather...). And I'm being a wus about going out and making my own friends here. Gar.
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I am still in the midst of an existential crises... since my parents decided to stop talking to me (I expressed to them my memories concerning one known instance of sexual abuse and a few suspicions of both grandfathers; both known and suspected instances of any sort of sexual abuse by either of foresaid gentlemen being vehemently denied by both mother and father after they confronted the grandfathers concerning instances ending in both mother and father refusing to have any more than written contact with me unless I said I was lying. Which, as far as I know, I am not and thus cannot say.) I find myself refusing to believe in the God that my father believes in. Mainly 'cause I think that God is a jerk.
So I find myself searching to find my definition of God, or what I define as God... or simply what I can, in good conscious, believe in. If I have children, I will raise them to believe in the Creator, because there is more magic in that universe than in the universe of science, and I want to give them and their (hereto nonexistent) selves every advantage in believing and faith as possible while they are still young enough to appreciate it... but myself, while I believe in the Creator (or A Creator, singular), I don't know that I believe in the Judeo-Christian God... for a child that was raised in a Judeo-Christian home and taught in that mode for the entirety of 18 years, it is a bold thing to say you don't believe in God, in THE God.
You know though? My theory is, if I am wrong, and the Judeo-Christian God is the ONLY God, and he is exactly like what my father has taught me God is like, I am truly lost - but I can't, at this point, find it in me to worship that God anyway. If I am wrong, and the Judeo-Christian God is the ONLY God, and he is kinda like what I thought he might have been like before my faith was shaken, then he's the sort of Father that takes back errant children. So I won't have the biggest suite in heaven - I'm not angling for that anyway - but I will still be there. If I am right, and the sort of God that church teaches you about it just the parts of him they want to use to make you feel badly enough to manipulate you into certain behaviors, then that means that the real God (yes, I am assuming there is one) can be found. And trusted. That part's important.
Still, it's weird for me to find myself actually questioning/thinking about things.
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I would like to officially apologize for letting my friendships with you all lapse while I was in hiatus from LJ. Hopefully, we can pick things up again and remain chummy. I have missed you.
I'm still alive! But, alas, without the computer access.
I have a nice, juicy post in the works, but it's going to take a little bit of time to get it all out here, as I don't have it written yet. :D
I am working still at the Sears warehouse on third shift kickin' ass, with a dollar pay raise (thought half of that was because I took third shift, but fitty cent is fitty sent, aye?)
I am going to buy back my very first LJ name on either this next paycheck or the one after it. My reasons for callously abandoning that journal have had time to rest, and though probably one former friend will be twisted about it, she will live.
Perhaps one of these days I will wake up to find myself in a life devoid of major humps, bumps, and roller coaster rides, but until then, there will be long periods of no updates and then a billion things all wrapped up in one.
1. My car is broked. (Yes, I know I misspelled that.) Last Monday I hit a deer - or a deer, rather, committed suicide by jumping in front of my car. I could swear he was telling the other deer he was standing by good-bye before he turned completely around and jumped in front of my car. I have never hit a deer before, and frankly, I can say once was damned well enough, thank you. But yea, my car is pretty crumpled up in the front. If I had been going any faster (45-50) or the deer had been any bigger, I would have totaled my poor little car, and I don't have the money to afford a new one right now! I only have liability insurance because it's easier to afford ($40 versus $120).
2. I'm getting a cell phone! I had not had a cell phone for quite a while because I simply couldn't afford one, you know? To be completely honest, having a cell phone will put a cramp on my paying my bills off more quickly. However, I have been really lonely up here because my two best Kennesaw friends have been in, you guessed it, Kennesaw. They WERE my social life. I simply don't know enough people up here to go out and go do stuff, and I get so... despondent when stuck at home all the time. Having a lifeline to friends is just as vital as having water and electric in my new apartment...
3. I'm moving out! I have a room in a three bedroom, 2.5 bathroom, three story town home that feels as though it will be in a really safe area. I love it. This will be the very first time I have had an apartment that was not at the kindness of friends or at the mercy of the school system - the only expectations there are of me in this place are that I pay the $330 rent on time.
I am really excited about it for another reason too - at the moment, I am the only one there, and while that means I'll be paying the utilities myself (there will be roommates soon, there WILL be roommates soon), it also means that it will be MY apartment that people will be moving into. After I acquire some seating (I have one chair and a desk that will be used as my kitchen table so far), I will have my very own and my very first house warming party... and guys? That's a pretty big deal to me.
I will probably look at the thrift stores first, though I may save a teensy bit and acquire for myself a futon.
I will invite you all, though I realize that not all of you would be able to come, seeing as how you live so far away.
oooo... which reminds me. I got the most lovely package of gorgeous teas in the mail from talkingpotato - you made me feel loved and very, very appreciated with that package. <3 Thank you.
Karen sent me a beautiful painting a while ago, that I hope I talked about, and if I didn't I shall make a proper gift post with pictures. I have a pretty purple something to send to her soon here too, soon as my next paycheck gets here.
I feel unappreciative today. As though there are more things going on for me to be thankful for than I have been being thankful for, as though I am taking for granted things I thought I was being grateful for.
I keep expecting the sky to come crashing down and kick me to the ground again, because surely this can't be me who is being so blessed. I am at poverty level. If it were not for Cree and Richard, I would be living on the streets right now, or bumming off of other friends who were not so prepared to shelter a broken person, who would soon grow tired of me. To their credit, though I have at times displayed assy behavior, they have been patient with me and understanding. I don't deserve that, I don't deserve anything other than to be hanging on to my fingernails from being homeless, lacking money to buy food, lacking money to buy gas. That's what I deserve, that's what my financial decisions bought me.
Yet here I am, typing on my computer, in my room, in the home of my two friends, not deserving any of it, and hardly being grateful enough - hardly realizing what all there is to be grateful for.
I love my new job - it's with a company I could easily see myself staying with for a number of years. Richard helped me to get the position.
It came to me in one of those flashes of "Ah-ha!" the other day that perhaps part of the reasons that women are so conscious of their body image is because of how we are taught as little girls that we are supposed to be the Princess In Need of Rescuing (PINOR) laying in wait for the tall, handsome, "manly", suave, well-spoken, supremely intelligent Prince Charming. There are several things that are wrong with this picture that we teach (however unintentionally) our little girls.
1. The PINOR. a. Body Type Have you ever seen or heard of a fat princess? All these princess stories, all the old Disney princess movies, all the cartoons, have a slim, athletic, perky-breasted (small or medium sized), fine-featured Princess. She eats small amounts (for the most part, and if she eats more it's only because she was held somewhere hostage and not fed and is filling a week's worth of hunger) because gluttony is for her fat, I-got-smushed-in-the-face-by-a-tractor-trailer-and-then-pasted-on-some-hair-and-frogs' faced antagonists. Fun fact: Birds actually eat MORE than crocodiles per year. So telling someone they eat like a bird is really telling them they eat three times their weight in food a day. BUT - you see the problem here? How many girls do you know who actually fit into this physical ideal? And yet we are teaching ourselves and our little girls that they must fit into this pattern. b. Attitude Excuse me, for just a moment, while I ask a deeply personal question: How many of you are still waiting around for someone else to come and rescue you? Rescue you from loneliness, rescue you from sadness, rescue you from depression, rescue you...? me for one. I am one of those women that bought into this attitude lie, and I am working my ass off to change that belief. But we are teaching ourselves this attitude every time we look at the Princess myth as something that we need to follow, as the way that we are supposed to be living. On the other hand, the problem with this myth is not only that we are teaching ourselves that we should be waiting around for Prince Charming to come rescue us, but also we are not teaching ourselves that we can reach our own goals!!! All this time that we have spent waiting we could have been out there making our own lives happen. I just came to the realization at 23 (my birth mother was married with one child and trying for more by this point) that I don't have to wait to get married before I start trying to get a house - I can pay off my bills, get my credit back up, and then work on getting a house. My very own, oh, I would be so proud of myself! But I don't have to wait for a Prince Charming to come and try to make that house happen for me. I can do it by myself. It will mean hard fucking work and lots of pain, time, and patience, but I can do it. But then every now and then I start wondering who out there has been taught to wait and that their dream must be to be rescued rather than going out and adventuring on their lonesome.
And I have more to say on this post, so come back to read the edit at a later point in time. :)
(EDIT1.) 2. Prince Charming. a. What sort of man are we taught to look for? We are taught to look for a tall, muscular man. Why? Well, I have been thinking over this for quite some time. For one thing, the tall man is able to look out and over his petite bride seeking out any potent. The muscles will protect his slender, non-muscular bride from having to exert herself when trouble does actually come. And who ever heard of a Princess Charming? Of course it has to be a man who comes to rescue us from our problems and life. This view point poses problems on several levels, some of which I'm sure you're already seeing. For one thing, let's focus on the males for a moment. Think of all the guys you know who fit into the tall, muscular man category. No extra fat, no extra problems - for if they have baggage of their own, how are they supposed to be our Saviors? The Princess myth expects us to focus on the outward appearance of our males, as though the outward appearance is truly indicative of the type of person the man will be inside I happen to know plenty of short men who are just as manly and wonderful in any way as their taller more muscular companions. I know short men with muscles and tall men with none. And all the types in-between. The physical appearance of a male is no more an indication of their worth as a human being as the physical appearance of a woman is an indication of her worth as a human being. And yet we continue to teach this story to our children - and to ourselves. Here pardon me if I am not as articulate as I'd like to be, but another thing I have thought of is we are teaching our daughters to play the part of the physical weakling just as much as we are teaching our daughters to play the part of the emotional and mental weakling. If the man is the tall one in the relationship, what happens to all our tall women friends? I have a high school friend who is 1/2" of being six feet tall, and does she not deserve marital bliss because of her height? Not to mention the fact that the man in the relationship is supposed to be the one with the muscles, leaving all of the strong, athletic women to feel shame in the joy they are supposed to feel when they work their bodies to the max and revel in the strength of their muscles. Is this a way to keep women weak? Or to make them think that they are only attractive when they are weak? HAH. My own preferences for myself aside for just a fraction of a second, the majority of men I have met (if we are talking about being attractive here) may think they want a weak woman but are turned off when meeting a woman who is truly incapable of taking care of her own business on her own. We hear in the adventure stories that we're supposed to be weak and rescue-able, yet in those very same adventure stories, women are regarded with scorn and looked down upon because they are not more capable.
As a woman in today's society, if you want to get somewhere, you have to go there yourself. If you want financial security, YOU get a job. If you want a car, YOU pay for your car. If you want to have someone to sweep you off your feet - well, I ask why. I ask you to think about your why, as I have been thinking about my why. I feel that until I come to the point where I want someone rather than feeling as though I need someone, the "right" someone will never come along.
But then again, even if the "right" someone never does come along, I want to be strong enough and independent enough to take care of myself too. I want there to be room for humanity in my fairy tale - because after all, isn't a Princess Charming meeting a Prince Charming (no relation to each other) much more romantic than the Princess in Trouble needing rescuing?
sick
expectant