Happy Halloween!

Today was gorgeous and the weather was perfect as the sun went down. I spent the evening with my dad and stepmom, handing out candy and making dinner and having an excellent conversation about media and what makes up a person's character as well as how you can change in your lifetime. It was great

Brain Block

Can't think of anything to write for NaNo. Might be screwed. Dammit!

Antsy

I'm super sleepy but all I want to do is run around like a hyper five year old. Restless leg syndrome?

Mini Freakout

It's almost Halloween and I can't wait for the candy. The big downside of not being able to trick or treat anymore (or steal from children's candy stashes) is that the variety of candy that I eat this holiday will be much lower than usual. A couple mini candy bars here and there, practically no weird candy that I pretend I don't like but eat anyway. I'm almost disappointed about it but I keep having to remind myself that I'll be able to bake anything I want, like pumpkin scones with maple glaze. Mmm guess I know what I'm doing this week!

I've been having a tiny meltdown that started this past weekend and peaked last night when I got home from the trip with my mom and asked my dad to push my resume at his company in the hopes that I might get a job there easily. I'm struggling in the same way that I was back in LA; I can't find an industry that suits me. My qualifications are few and I know I'm stuck in entry level positions for now, but even narrowing things down that much doesn't help me at all when it comes to choosing an industry to enter. I've worked in telecommunications and I think I have a good sense of what I don't want to do, which...also doesn't narrow things down much. Part of me wants to forego a career right now and work on learning programming languages and trying to succeed as a writer. A basic no-frills job with good benefits and little stress would be ideal for me to pull do for at least a couple months while I apply to a non-traditional programming course in NY, learn on my own, and write. I'd be able to save up and spend my mental energy outside of work rather than killing myself for a career I don't yet know I would want.

What's stressing me out the most (besides the fact that I do need a job and the income and stability it would provide) is completely conflicting advice that I get from the important people in my life. It's not particularly useful to be told over and over, "You could be doing something so much more with your life." Okay. Couldn't everyone? I feel like I know what I want but there's still that risk that I face, say, with writing. I could spend the next five decades trying to write and perfecting my craft, but never find success doing that. At what point do I either give up or relegate it to a hobby rather than a pursuit? At the same time, jobs come and go and I could build a career, giving everything (time, energy, more time) I have to that, then have it pulled out from underneath me.

There are no guarantees in life. So what do I do with it?

Come on, life, tell me what I should do.

Drive

I never realized just how much blood dead animals can leave on the road. Came down from DC on the backroads of Virginia (for funsies) and saw a lot of live and dead deer. I started kinda hoping to see a moose, but apparently they don't live here. :/

DC

It's freaking cold out here! I don't know why I left LA when it comes to weather, wow I am so unprepared for this winter. I think it's time to locate some soft wool yarn and make myself a sweater!

This city is gorgeous. I was a politics major and being in the Library of Congress and outside the Capitol was pretty damn exciting. Last night I went to the Kennedy Memorial and even though it was freezing (55 degrees. I'm a wimp), it was incredible.

Just have half a day left here tomorrow, so I'll try to make the most of it. Can't wait to come back!

So tired

I'm afraid I might be coming down with something...I swear I've been so sleepy lately. It's crazy.

And I have a backlog of emails to read and write. Gah!!

Last Minute Plans

My mom and I are going to DC tomorrow for a quick weekend trip! I'm really excited, but I hope that my knees will be good and the weather will stay clear. I'll get to see a friend who's going to law school at Georgetown, so I'm really excited for that too.

"Rain"

The leaves still haven't changed fully but today the sound of falling leaves almost lulled me to sleep.

Science Fiction

I've been starting to look into NaNoWriMo for November and I'd really like to write a science fiction story, but can't seem to come up with any good ideas. I stumbled across this flowchart with fantasy/sci fi book suggestions and I'm looking forward to going to the library now!

Damn

Today I received what should have been an upsetting email. What bothers me most is that I didn't feel particularly upset by it. Is this what being callous feels like?

Mess

I am the messiest person alive. I need to try this cleaning tip a good friend gave me about setting a timer and cleaning for 10 minutes then stopping so as not to overwhelm myself with what I need to do. Unpacking is almost more work than packing! Geez.

Lazy

Jet lag convinced me to take a nap from 6pm to 10pm last night, and then I slept again from 2am to 10am. Craziness. It's been completely overcast almost all month here, and it's definitely getting to me already. I thought it would take much longer, considering how sick I was of the LA sunshine (and corresponding hot weather).

Family, Part 4

I just had a conversation with a friend about how completely crazy my family can be. There are lots of things that frustrate me about my family, and living closer/with my parents really does open the door for lots of crazy to happen. Holidays have always been complicated and I worry that I'll be more stressed out being closer to my parents and their multitude of issues. It's always complex to be wrapped up in someone else's life, which was why it felt nice being in California where I could be wrapped up in my own life. But is that what happiness is?

My friend is wonderfully blunt, which can be really helpful at times. She asked me why the hell I moved out here if I don't know if I can live near my parents. Fair question. What did I expect? It's not like these things were new to me, I'd just been removed from them for several years. And what kind of daughter would I be if I weren't willing to help my parents out with their issues (we've got a inevitable foreclosure pending here)? Sure, I didn't ask to be born and I'm not really obligated to do anything to help them out...except aren't I?

I've been struggling with the constant fear that I'm not doing what I want to do in life: don't know where I want to live, what I want to do, who I want to be. But one of the most important things in life is to help others. I do want to help others, so why not my own family? It doesn't have to kill me with stress and anxiety if I don't let it.

Pain

I've been trying to take it easy but apparently not easy enough. Shooting pain in both my knees is fairly uncommon for me, even in the past month when I feel frequent full aches, but now I've had two days of pretty bad pain in the evenings. Am I just getting old?

Goodbye Road Trip!

So the road trip that everything was leading up to has finally come and gone. The deserts of Arizona and New Mexico were pretty but monotonous. Oklahoma City was surprisingly large, and we got to cross the Mississippi River right into Tennessee, which was kind of fun. Everything got super green and the trees grew larger each day until we were in the Great Smokey Mountains on the winding mountain roads getting to see the gorgeous color that has just started in the area. It's definitely not fully autumn yet on the East Coast, possibly due to the fact that it's been cloudy since the 3rd and I've heard speculation that the lack of sunlight tricks the trees into staying green. Whatever it is, it was pretty neat to see green trees just barely starting to tinge red, almost as if the tips were painted with a paintbrush.

In all, it went very well and I'm glad to be home. Here's a Newsweek-like roll-up of the numbers from the trip:

2620.2 miles driven
70 average speed limit
~42 hours of driving
~36 average miles per gallon
10 gas station stops
3 podcasts completed
2 traffic jams
2 detours (Santa Fe and Asheville)
1 instance of yelling
1 near accident
0 items broken

Home

I have returned...

Too tired

We're finally in Tennessee, which feels a lot like North Carolina and thus very familiar. Oklahoma also had a lot of stuff--very little driving through nowhere.

I'm sick of hotels now though. I wanna be home (or a place I can call home).

Halfway Point

I should probably write these things while in the car rather than at the hotel right before I pass out.

Hit Oklahoma City today, which is about halfway across the country. We probably could have attempted the trip in three days but four is much calmer. We spent some time in Santa Fe, which has very unique architecture and a pretty cool art scene. I felt like I'd seen it all before though, since my grandparents used to travel there a lot and would acquire lots of pottery, artwork, and jewelry from the local artisans.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful except for a McDonalds where we stopped specifically to get drinks--they had no soda water (and thus no soda) or iced tea. Weeeak

So it begins...

I ended the first day of my trip turning down Denny's for late night dinner (paaaassss) and watching The Hobbit dubbed in Spanish. It's weird watching the action scenes and then getting back to dialogue and suddenly the world is in Spanish.

I definitely didn't eat enough today, but I just can't eat fast food like I used to--the last thing I need is discomfort after meals while driving. No thanks.

Today we got through California and Arizona--pretty quick, lots of trucks, and the speed limit was 75 once we got into AZ. I guess you could say we're almost a third of the way back, which begs the question of if we wanna get back earlier than planned...

Guess we'll see!

Last Day

This is completely crazy. My last full day in Southern California is almost over. I'm sitting on the chair I just sold to my roommate and listening to my dad snoring upstairs. I just opened a card from my aunt that made me cry and earlier I said goodbye to my aunt and cousins. It's been a whirlwind of a day and I can't believe the time to leave is finally here.

I've taken so much for granted in the past three years and I feel like I'm leaving such good friends behind just to begin again. I'm torn about whether i should really feel happy about the change I'm about to make or sad about the realization that home truly is where family and friends are. This is not to say that I have no family and friends in NC, but to point out that I had an established life out here and it's finally hitting me that I'm totally and completely uprooting. It's actually terrifying.

On a weirder note, I accidentally packed all my socks somewhere I can't access them. Dammit.

Rain!

So it rained in Southern California for probably the first time in a couple months. It was fantastic, and I loved looking at the clouds while driving down to Laguna. Less fantastic was the intense cloud that followed us as we drove and caught up to us when we stopped in Laguna all set to walk down and see tide pools. It trapped us under an awning and flooded the streets a little. This place is not made for rain.

There was at least one flash of lightning and one clap of thunder, which was not at all enough, and I was disappointed that the rain never turned into a proper storm.

Strange

Saw a friend in Irvine that I only speak with a couple times a year, and see maybe annually. I've had such great conversations with people lately when saying goodbye that it makes me wonder if I'm making the right decision.

How would I ever know?

Wait!!

I'm totally not ready!

This shouldn't be an everyday thing...

I've been proud of myself for managing to post something every night on this blog, but things are getting monotonous. It feels more like a diary than an actual blog with things that might interest other people. Which is fine, I suppose, but not for other people to read.

I'd love to write something maybe on a weekly basis about politics or other interesting topics. I'll have to see if I can do that instead after this trip is over.

Quantity Time

My cousin has been bugging his mom to let him have some time alone with me before I go, and we finally scheduled some time today. It turned into an all day event, with us going to the park in the morning (and the weather turned insane! Since when is it 85 degrees in October?), then back to my house where he proceeded to eat sixteen spicy chips (he counted), and then back to his house to bake with my aunt while the kids watched Minecraft videos for a couple hours.

It was a nice day, particularly because it was technically the last free day that I had before I go. Things are moving so quickly. Part of me is freaking out but the other part of me is freaking excited.

Family, Part 3

Tonight my aunt threw a huge going away party for me and invited all of her friends that I've gotten to know over the years as well as a couple relatives that I don't see often. It was great to see everyone but it was hard saying goodbye to a lot of them. Some I've seen on an almost weekly basis for the past couple years and it's surprisingly hard to comprehend that this period of my life is over and I won't be seeing these people except occasionally when I visit or check my social media.

I keep coming across the following phrase, "Blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb," which is often misinterpreted to say that, "Blood is thicker than water." In modern society the saying goes that family bonds are stronger than bonds between friends. But traditionally the line meant that bonds of friendship are stronger than the bonds of family. It's an interesting saying and it always reminds me that friends are a family that you choose. 

Maybe it's due to my imminent departure, but I've gotten a chance to see over the past couple weeks the bonds that I have with friends and people around me and how important those bonds are. When I left school, I felt a breaking of many bonds with people--friends who weren't that close, people with whom I had little in common besides the same major, classes, or dormitory. Everyone dispersed around the world and we were left with only those bonds that we cared enough to maintain, which (I am sorry to say) was fewer bonds than I expected to have. People grow apart and it's the natural order of things. It's to be expected, and I suppose that it can be relished, especially for those of us who sometimes have friends who are emotionally draining, unsupportive, or abusive. But it's just change, plain and simple, and it can be hard to accept.

It's going to hit me at the end of this week when I say goodbye to my aunt and her kids. I've spent three years close to them, and it'll be hard to go from seeing them a couple times a week to once a year. I'm grateful for the internet and smartphones, as it'll be easy for me to email videos and pictures on a regular basis, and I can email or call my aunt as often as I need to. But it's not the same as living out here. I'll be going back to counting down the days until I get to see them again, just like I did when I was a child and I counted down for my aunt to visit in NC.

Everyone wished me luck on my trip and my next "adventure". They know I'm flying blind, that I'm totally lost and unsure of where I'll end up. I really am ending a chapter in my life and embarking on a new one, one that I'll have to write as I go. 

And I'm so used to using outlines.

Content

I went to dinner with two of my roommates tonight at my favorite sushi place. We ordered a ton of food and chatted about things. It's something I really wish we'd done more often in the year we lived together. It'll be sad to leave these guys. I'm really starting to feel this imminent move.

Overworked

I have physical therapy in the morning but I can't do my exercises tonight like I'm supposed to because as I was packing up and moving things from my room, I pulled a thigh muscle and my right knee started giving me trouble. Lovely.

I can't wait to explain to the woman who told me, "no heavy lifting!" that I totally ignored her advice. In my defense, I don't have much of a choice about it.

Work has been socially draining lately. I'm sad to leave people but it's hard to have people ask daily "when are you leaving?". I've had lunch dates every day this week and the introvert in me is getting a little tired. I'm also starting to think of my last day as super important (exit interview and I actually don't know what time I can legitimately leave since my schedule is kind of....flexible). I don't know why it matters, I mean, I've spent nearly three years here, what's one last day?

Quitting

I've been doing a countdown to my last day at work. I'm feeling particularly unproductive at home (with regards to packing and getting ready to leave) but work has been busier than ever. Four days left now, and I'm counting down the hours. It'll be sad to leave the people I've spent tons of time with for the past three years, but what's really strange is how quickly everyone will forget me....and I will likely forget them.

Of course there are good friends that I'll still write and see when I visit LA, but the majority of the salespeople and account managers that I greet on a regular basis now, I'll see only on my LinkedIn page after the 8th. It's unusual.

I can see why people who are fired after decades with a company can be truly devastated by the change, even if it was semi-welcome.

It's been such a strange experience, spending so much time at a company and then leaving abruptly with no interest in continuing to work within the industry. It's just....odd.

Family, Part 2

I went to see my family last Sunday. It was a nice visit and conversation centered around getting to see everyone more than discussion of what I've been doing, which was nice. My cousin's son played with a set of Fisher-Price golfballs and clubs and asked politely for iced tea and a second cookie. We played Santa animals while the grown-ups talked a bit and he quite enjoyed it.

It was like being in another dimension, walking into the same living room, same kitchen, same den, and same bathroom that I remember from my childhood. What's weird is that I'm pretty sure things haven't changed since my dad was a boy too--the wastepaper baskets in rooms are emptied hourly, dishes don't pile up, and Papa sits in his armchair watching TV on maximum volume. It's like stepping back in time entering their house, and the only change I recognize is that the old tree in the backyard was removed a couple years back.

Then there's my grandparents. 84 and 94 years old, they're getting on in their years, and during my visit I kept it in the back of my head that I might not get to see them again when I visit next year. It was disconcerting, but the strangest thing was seeing how much they've changed since I last saw them. My grandmother has always been a harsh, bitter woman, and she would often take out her anger on her husband, who sits back and takes the abuse, keeping his hearing aids turned down so he can't hear any of it. Due to his poor hearing, Papa would always sit in his armchair and watch family reunions and visits, sometimes asking loudly how someone is doing or question who a specific person was (his grandchildren have all grown up and now we're onto great-grandchildren). But this visit was entirely different. Perhaps because everyone was at the house, or perhaps because she's getting older, Grandma was far more subdued than I've ever seen her. There was very little snark, and when she spoke to me about her health and stress surrounding caring for Papa, she sounded tired and beaten. It's almost scary to see such a change in a person, even a somewhat welcome one. Papa, on the other hand, hardly spoke at all during the visit. His hair is almost gone, and he looks older than he ever has before. For the first time, when I hugged him goodbye, he did not squeeze back when I took his hand.

Everyone else is aging too, and my cousin mentioned that her 40th birthday is looming out there on the horizon. Walking through the house and looking at all the pictures, those of my siblings and me have been largely overshadowed by pictures of the great-grandchildren, my second-cousins, one of whom I've not yet met.

My father moved to Colorado from Los Angeles in the late 80's, then eventually to North Carolina after I was born. I've always believed that part of his reason for leaving home was his overbearing mother. He lived at home through college, and has told me many stories surrounding his mother's inability to accept things that are new to her, like eating fish. Even her children's significant others were subject to scrutiny--it's like that old philosophy that everything should stay in the family and outsiders are not to be trusted. My dad told me that he didn't want to see his kids treated like his sister's children, who learned to manipulate Grandma in order to get what they want and visited her frequently despite her harsh disposition. The decision may have cost him his relationship with his mother, who now holds a grudge over the fact that he doesn't call or send letters often enough (she hangs up if he calls and has sent back letters and cards). It's quite a dysfunctional situation.

When my maternal grandparents passed away, I felt sad that I'd never forged a relationship with either of them. I spent the next couple years that I lived in LA hearing about how wonderful a person my Grandma was, but I feel so young--I don't remember much at all, besides the basics that a grandchild remembers. I remember her generosity at Christmas and how much she loved Santa Fe and southwestern jewelry, I remember her difficult relationship with her husband and how sad it was to see her fade away in the years after she was diagnosed with cancer. I remember that I never got to know her as a person. She passed away the first semester that I was in school in Los Angeles, and had been very sick leading up to it. I didn't know her, and as a stupid kid, I had never seen the importance of trying to get to know her. I regret that immensely now. I hear so much from my mother, my aunt, and other relatives about how giving and wonderful a person she was, how she coped with her husband and how she raised five children as a navy wife, moving every couple years. I learned that she'd wanted a white Persian cat, and my aunt had wanted nothing more than for her mother to be able to have what she wanted. But Grandpa outlived her, and I did get to see him decline. We were never close, but he visited me at school occasionally, and I would go to San Bernadino a couple times to see him. He was a talker, couldn't take a drive without him explaining the history of the area and what used to be in a certain location. We went to an art gallery once in my college town and he spent thirty minutes chatting with a salesman while I stood staring at a boring piece of art. He struggled to take care of himself, buying all his food and produce at the 99 cent store, which sells items close to their expiration dates. We would find food in the fridge that had expired years ago and have to throw it out when he wasn't around.

I feel like I've been rambling and not going anywhere with this.

My aunt likes to say that it's strange to think that you only know your grandparents when they're old. As you grow older, so do they, and so for the self-centered child (as most of us were), it can be difficult to ever see grandparents as different than they currently are. It's true, I only ever knew my grandparents (or remembered knowing them) when they had started to age. I don't recall Papa without hearing aids and participating in everyday conversation just as I don't remember my (maternal) grandmother being able to keep up easily on our trips to amusement parks and zoos. My (maternal) grandfather and (paternal) grandmother have always been angry people in my memory, but they mellowed with age.

Sometimes I really wish that I'd lived closer and could have known both sets of grandparents better than I did. But when I look back at who I was at 15/16, when I would most likely have had the forethought to try to get to know them as people...I know that I wouldn't have done it. Hell, most teenagers don't even get to know their parents as people.

I'm glad at least that I'll have a chance next month to get to know my parents as people, no matter where I end up afterwards.