Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Difficult time in life.

I am so excited to be beginning my adult life. A life of my own, where I can choose what I want to do, where I want to be, and who I want to share my life with.

Cavan and I will be signing a lease agreement on Friday. We found an apartment to call home. It's great. Small, but I think it'll be perfect for us. We found a mattress to buy, have payment options for it, and we're on our way to making our lives for ourselves. Affording a home and a life together. Doing what we can with what we have. I don't think we could be more excited about it.

I am the happiest I've been in a very, very long time. At the same time, though, I'm scared. I am not financially stable in the least. There seem to be no jobs out there for someone like me, even though I'm intelligent, educated, and capable of anything. I'm starting to really get down on myself. And I really have no one but Cavan to lean on. Right now, we're doing what we can.

I talked to the loan lady this morning. She's very nice, and I'm glad I scheduled a meeting with her. We talked about consolidation and what that would mean for me. It's going to mean payments at about $275 a month, which I can handle. Originally they would have been around $450 which I absolutely could not handle. But, she did bring to my attention that I qualify for economic hardship deferment, which is one of the most depressing things I've heard in my life. I just want to be normal. I want to afford my debts. My lifestyle is very affordable, seeing as how I just spend money on food and shelter, I just want to be able to afford the schooling that got me into this wonderful predicament.

I need to make some really hugely grown up decisions. It's a very scary time for me and I'm all on my own. But something deep down is telling me that I'll figure it out and I'll be okay.

Thank goodness for that feeing.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Not the best day of them all

Does anything ever just wring your guts? I have had that feeling almost all morning. I have a feeling I know where it's coming from, but everything is giving me that half-guilty, half-angry feeling and I can't seem to shake it.

I thought that talking to Cavan would help me. Apologizing for starting a fight last night while slightly inebriated. I feel really guilty about it, but I also feel angry. There are reasons, even if they were magnified last night, for why I was upset in the first place. I felt vulnerable, I felt at times like I was being treated like a child. But at the same time, I know that he would never do anything to hurt me, so I feel guilty for being even the least bit mad.

Cavan is good to me. He loves me more than anything, and a day never goes by without him doing everything he can to remind me how much he loves me. I don't want to do anything to put that in jeopardy--and I know that starting a fight with him is the best way to put him off. He's been through worse, he knows I would never do anything to intentionally hurt him, and 95% of the time I'm on my best behavior. So I guess I just need to chalk this one up to a learning experience and not get drunk when he's not around anymore. Or at least not contact him when I'm drunk and have nothing to say. I need to be better about things, I need to be nicer to the people I love. Period. End of rant.

I hope that work can help me to get out of this funk. It seems that it usually cheers me up, or at least gives me something to do, so I'm thankful for that. We'll see how today goes.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Give me your eyes, I need sunshine.

This weekend was full of sunshine. Full of good things and glimpses into the future. Of course, there are always the little things that try to rain on your parade, but sometimes they just don't matter enough to change your day.

Cavan is my sunshine. No matter how long my day is, no matter how hard work is, how crappy I feel about my money situation, or how cold and harsh the weather is, Cavan is the sunshine that I need to perk up. I don't think I could get sick of being around him. Being with him is like being by myself but a million times better. All of the peace of being alone, but the comfort of having a partner and the utility of having someone to do things with if I want to.

That being said, I do like to hang out with my girlfriends. It's a shame that things feel a little more odd around them since I moved in, but its still nice for all of us to hang out sometimes. I think it'll be so much nicer once I move out and don't have to feel like I'm imposing all of the time. I really just want to get the hell up out of this place. It's cold, I sleep on the floor, and I'm always feeling awkward about being here or not being here. I can't feel like I'm at home here, so I just need to find a place that I can make my own.

I need somewhere to call home. Anywhere that I can sleep on a bed and feel comfortable doing whatever I want to do. I'll go there.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Good days from bad days

I had a terrible morning. Absolutely terrible. The last thing I wanted to do was go to work. But sometimes when I'm having really, really bad days like that, the most important thing for me to do is to feel productive. To get out of the house and do something.

Work was very productive for me today. I dealt with some great customers, I worked with some good people, and I made some money. Money to get me to where I really want to be : sharing my own place with the most amazing person I know. Starting our life. Being the people we want to be.

It's very hard trying to make ends meet by working retail. It's one of the most frustrating jobs you can do. Nothing is steady. Everything is reliant on traffic, attitudes, moods, sales. One hour is great, the next hour dead. There often is nothing to keep your brain occupied and the seconds tick by slower and slower until it feels as though you're suspended in space and time. It's what I've got for the moment, but I cannot wait to get something else. Something that will engage my mind a little more. Something steady. Something that'll make me more than $8.50 an hour.

When I have my manic days like today, I simultaneously pull people closer to me and push them away. I cry out for help, but then reject any help that is offered. It's a hard thing for the people closest to me - my mom has most often dealt with it (I rarely put the responsibility on anyone less close to me than her) and she's usually the only person I call on when I'm in a particularly self-loathing mood. Today, I called on Cavan with little expectation. I didn't want to make him feel like anything was his fault, I didn't want him to feel completely helpless in the situation, but I needed him. Cavan and only Cavan is what I need sometimes. Though I didn't feel much better after we talked the first time, after I got to work I felt the pressure slowly lifting off of me and knew that I have both him and my mom to thank.

I was lucky enough to fall in love with someone that is full of grace.

Lucky, lucky me.

Save it for a Sunny Day.

It's winter in the Great White North. It's cold and drippy outside.

Even though I can really get to hate the winter here, it's different this year. In some ways, I look forward to getting all bundled up and going places, getting home and taking off layers of clothes just to cuddle up in bed. I might regret saying this later but : winter can be okay, too. Even in Minnesota. Ask me how I feel in March, though. Guaranteed, I'll be pissed that I live here.

Today I'm going back and forth about going to work. It could be a really long day, it could go really quickly. There's no way of knowing until I actually get there and put myself in the thick of it--not like I have much of a choice, anyway. I much prefer going into work in the morning so I don't have hours and hours to dread it before I ever get on the bus. Usually after mornings like that, dreading the few hours I have to spend at work, I feel just fine once I get there. Sometimes I'm on the verge of tears throughout my shift. It's a craps shoot. Really.

I always hated retail most because my schedule was never regular. This summer at American Eagle, it was tolerable. 9am-1pm everyday. Perfect. I woke up, went to work, got off of work, ran errands, went home, hung out with my family, and then started it all over the next day. This is different. It's irritating.

Now that both Cavan and I have jobs, I think we're going to struggle a bit more to see each other. I still spend the majority of my time thinking about him and the things that we have to look forward to, and that gets me through a lot, but having to wait a week in between the nights I get to stay over is quite hard.

I'm going to cut this short now because I'm rambling and there's nothing I hate more.


This life is blessed, it always has been. I need to remember that on days when I really don't feel like doing what has to be done.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

How did we get here?

I just got back from a wonderful visit with Zuri. Though she and I didn't really connect until second semester of senior year, we have a lot in common. I see that more each tome we sit down and talk. She can be so wise, and sometimes that's what you really need in a friend.

One thing she said tonight will stick with me during the hard times. "We all just need to be a peace with ourselves" and each simple aspect in our lives to really create peace in a broader context. I think that's something I've been getting at since I moved back to Minnesota, but sometimes I just get stuck. Sometimes I get stuck in the 'what I should be doing with my life' instead of focusing on what I am doing with my life.

And you know what? I am doing some really wonderful things.

I am preparing myself to become the person I've always been meant to become--and I'm going to do it right this time. I'm sharing my life with a partner that I couldn't have dreamed up if I tried. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by beautiful and intelligent women that I can call friends.

I should be happy all of the time. I should work harder to be at peace with myself and my life.

That's my task for the week.

Welcome back, Kaylie.

This is my life.

I am sitting on a cold floor which also functions as my bed. This room is probably 60 degrees at the most. I am listening to Neil Young and my roommate talking on the phone the next room over. She's Ecuadorian, beautiful, popular, smart, and has so many things going for her. My other roommate (whose floor I sleep on) is somewhere studying, without a doubt. She's smart, capable, remarkable and overachieving. They are best friends. I love them both, but we are far from the three musketeers.

I am lonely.

Even calling them my "roommates" is a stretch. As soon as I get a paycheck from my "just for the time being" job, I will pay them all I can, but for now I am simply crashing their floor. So it goes. I can't even have roommates right.

I tried to do it right. I tried to be an activist. That didn't work out. Now I sell overpriced home items. They're pretty, but I don't even have a home/apartment/shack/storage facility to put them in. Nor do I have the money to purchase any of the things I sell. I'm great at my job--was called a 'superstar' twice last week--but I'm really just good at talking to people, smiling at people, and making them feel comfortable with me.

Day to day, my understanding of my life varies from "fuck, I'm pathetic" to "man, my life is working for me right now." I don't know where I'm at, and I hope that this blog will help me come to terms with what is right and what is wrong with all that I'm attempting to accomplish. One thing I do know about myself is that everything I do is intensely personal. So goes this blog. I cannot be simply professional. I cannot disconnect myself from people, from my writing, from my thoughts. Everything I say and do is personal and I don't think there's a problem with that.

One more thing. There's a man in my life. The kind of man that holds and consoles me when I miss my dog back home so intensely that I spend the whole morning crying in bed. The kind of man that will drive over to see me for ten minutes if that's all the time allowed in the day. The kind of man that tells me it's all going to be okay and I believe him.

The kind of man you move across the country for. The kind of man you quit jobs for.

That kind of man. That kind of life.