The holidays

I hate the holidays.

If you know me, that's weird.

Every year, my house is a winter wonderland. Sometimes until June of.... you know.... 6 months later. I live Christmas.

Literally live it. There is nothing better.

Last year, decorating was rough; gramps wouldn't see it in pictures or real life.

This year, I almost dread it.

Extrapolate the rest.

The real reason...

The real reason I don't post is abhorrent.

I'm a pansy.

I was once called out to write about things that matter.  Not just what happens in my life, what's frustrating in my life, etc.

Fact of the matter is, 80% of the things I'd write about "intelligently" are things where I'd use my surroundings (people I know) as an example.  It ALWAYS causes SOME sort of drama.  And usually not with the people I'm actually referencing.  It's almost always someone I don't have in my mind when I'm writing. 

I'm not a pansy.

I'm not gonna hide behind a keyboard and post anonymously.  I'm not going to put a disclaimer on the top of every post I write.

I recently posted on Facebook that I'm suddenly fascinated by adolescence because in the UK, child psychologists are expected to treat "kids" until they are 25 and older.  My intent has been to research it (in a LOT more depth, but not like I'm gonna major in it and will eventually go on to get my masters and have to defend the research or anything) and then write a blog about my findings and state my opinion.  

Fact of the matter is, I know several people who are 25 or older, who I would guess would still be classified as an adolescent.  I know that if I used their situation as an example, I'd get angry texts and whatnot.  So I'm a little bit shying away from the idea of actually doing this "project."

Another friend recently was telling me I should start writing professionally or publicizing my blog or writing for a blogging team somewhere that's already popular.  I don't feel like my writing skills are at that level. 

My pansy side is what is keeping me from being at that level.

I could write some fairly hilarious things about this whole government shut down.  I'd have fun researching it and writing about it.  It would be for amusement only.  But that's about where I'm tapped out.  

I don't want to write to piss people off, but I also don't want to NOT write so I don't piss people off.

It seems like an impasse.

That moment

You realize you're an adult.

In many ways your decisions have fewer consequences (they tend to have less options) and in many ways they can hurt you for years instead of months.

The decisions become harder.

How you handle even just the day-to-day becomes a dilemma.

Selfish is sometimes the way to go. But when?

Rising above. Taking the higher ground. It's often the best way.

But when do you break?

Seems it all floods you in a few seconds.

That moment sucks.

Selfies..... I've complained about this before, right?

As far as I'm concerned, Selfies are stupid. I was gonna say pathetic. But stupid seems more appropriate.

No matter your age (sort of), you've probably fallen prey to Selfies. Whether it be because you've had to see them or because you've posted one.

Regardless of why you've fallen prey, I feel an apology is due because of my generation. We are pathetic losers. Period.

Senior year of college, I would have been utterly appalled. And at the time, my biggest issue with social media (based on studies) was basically that it took the personal out of communication like a self checkout did at the grocery store.

It's gone far beyond that. FAR beyond that. And I am not beyond the influence. I take Selfies fairly regularly. I feel the difference between my Selfie and the regular is that I take "true" Selfies.

I take pictures of a bloody finger or me looking like some kind of idiot ready to kick a run in the butt. But you'll never see me taking (and posting) a selfie of myself (is that even the right grammar) going on the town.  Granted going on the town is something I don't do often. Really, I went thru a TON of my profile pics and just pics with me tagged. Most of them weren't selfie-afied. They were pics my FRIENDS took. Or pics of me and my FRIENDS together. Our pics of me and children to little to take pics of me and them together.

Call me old fashioned. Selfies are just overly social media-ed "photos" that say, "this is me. Aren't I hott? Please say so. Because if you don't, I'm not totally sure why we are Facebook friends."

Maybe my  insecurities have played out as security. Go thru my photos. They are me in face masques with friends, pre run with friends, "selfies" with children, group shots, etc.

I dare you to look thru them and not know the basic Kristen.

Seriously, I dare you.

I'm a basket case. I'm a nut. I'm weird. My randomness will always be random while sightly predictable. Honestly, there are no words.

Selfies are for dating sites. If you want to fake people out. That's it.

Facebook is for your friends to keep in touch with your day to day. More than likely, you're not gonna date someone who has been a Facebook friend for 5 years (depressing).

Stop with the selfies. Especially selfies that aren't recent. They're lies unless with coupled with WHY your life is sad enough that a 2 year old selfie is your profile picture.

Really, tho. They are a lie that wouldn't have been a "thing" as few as 8 years ago. Let it go. Be yourself. If you have the friends.

Aging...

For some reason, I decided to browse through previous posts.  Funny story, I wrote one about my older brother.  You can read it here.  I was going crazy because he was turning 26 and he was OLD!

I turned 26 in June.  Guess who's old now?

Also, I feel old.  One of my best friends is about to pop out her first kid.  My little nephew Kade.  That's crazy to me!  She's ready, for sure.  She's going to be a great mother.  Ten years ago I DEFINITELY WOULD NOT HAVE SAID THIS, but her husband is ready, too.  He's going to be fantastic at raising that little kid.  

It's super hard to wrap my mind around people having kids, for some reason.  I think it probably has something to do with the fact that I AM 26 and definitely have no intention of having a child in the super near future.  Having one in 10 years seems scary.  

But, clearly, my plans are never really what happen.

14 Months...

...ago today, my dear old grandfather passed away.  Definitely one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with.

Frankly (and he would roll his eyes at my saying this), I think his passing is part of why I don't write much anymore.  I don't mind being useless as much as I used to, either.  Hear me out, though. 

In my cobwebbed brain, I have a blog trying to unravel its way out.  But, the harder it tries, the more my brain wraps sticky webbing all over it and pulls it further and deeper into the darkest confines of my emotionally unstable self.  

The post will be titled, "What I Should Have Said".  The premise is that at Gramps' memorial, there was open non-mic time.  All kinds of people spoke.  People I didn't know, people I did know, some of them didn't make a ton of sense, all of them loved Gramps.  A couple days before the funeral, I had told my mom (who mentioned they were having a hard time finding people to do eulogies) that I would be happy to do one and even had some stuff written up that I could throw together and read.  When open not-mic time started, I couldn't speak.  I knew I couldn't.  Honestly, I didn't even try.  I knew I'd basically say, "I'm not gonna make it through this without breaking down, so bare with me," break down and that be all I got out.

Fact of the matter is this, I had/have a TON to say.  There are soooo many things to say about my grandfather.  I talk about him all the time.  I'm finally at a point where I don't cry about it every day, but I definitely couldn't have said them then and can't find a way to write it down now.

No joke, I think of things to say almost every day.  There are so many stories, so many fond memories about him, part of me wants to write an all out memoir.  Probably still call it "What I Should Have Said", and make each "chapter" about one bullet point I should have said at his funeral.

But that's why I have nothing of value to write about.  Maybe during this whole being unemployed thing, I'll actually sit down and do something about it.

Unemployed

More than anything, I hate being unemployed.  I feel it looks and sounds irresponsible.  I've been unemployed since the end of May and, for the most part, no one has said anything about it being ridiculous (to my face, at least).  There was one LOVELY comment on Facebook to David about how he's the only one paying the bills.  To say I flipped my shit would be an understatement.  There was throwing of things... I've worked long and hard for a long time and get some pretty awesome money from unemployment insurance (bam, baby!).  David had to almost physically keep me from commenting rudely to the person since they definitely could not say that.  I can cover all my own bills and them some.  So whatever.

Being unemployed is SOOOOOOOOO boring.  I can't stand not having tons to do.  So I've found ways to keep me busy.

I'll admit, it took about three weeks to get bored enough to start finding ways to stress out.

After that, I just basically kept the house cleaner than normal and swam all the time.  I eventually got to a point where I was working out more than once a day.  Then I added just intentionally being awake at a decent hour every day.  Even if I wasn't doing anything terribly productive at all times, at least I wasn't just ultra lazy.

Then about three weeks ago, I decided I wasn't going to just keep talking about renovating parts of the house.  It was time to act.  I was raring to go - let me tell you!  I ripped out all the hall and front room carpet and padding in about an hour and 20 minutes.  By the time the room was prepped to have the floors redone, it dawned on my that I was throwing a going away party later that week.  The floors are going to need about 72 hours of either no walking on it or only light traffic.  So that had to wait.  Then, during the party, things were spilled on the concrete and I had to wait.  Then, David was going to have people over too soon for me to paint it until this week.  THEN, it was too humid today (although, I think we may be being too careful about the humidity part).  I'm just afraid to start it when it's humid because if it does take longer, I might end up with two extremely hateful cats (they're going to be locked up somewhere for all of this).

After the whole front room is done, I really have no idea what I'll do to keep myself busy.  Swimming a mile only takes up about 50 minutes of my day.  I think I'm gonna up it to two miles as soon as I can, but that'll still only be around 1.5 hours.

Maybe I'll renovate another room.  Maybe I'll actually start writing again.  No idea.

Disappointed

I'm disappointed.

In myself.

I sort of always considered myself to be a decent judge of character. Turns out, I'm not even sort of a judge of character.

In only 7 months, I've lost two friends, both of whom I was somehow duped into considering close friends.

Apparently both were totally two-faced. They were both liars (sometimes in action and sometimes with words). I reached out to both as best I could. I even attempted to form bonds between them and people I considered friends who considered them acquaintances (neither of them are a treat, and forming bonds seems to take outside help/bumpers).

The loss of each of them are not even similar. Frankly, they can't be compared outside of that.

All I know is this: I thought they were good people. They aren't. Horrible is a better word to describe the types of people they are. As far as I know (and I've had other people in close to judge me and help me come to this determination), I'm not to blame. When communication was needed, I initiated. When backing of was necessary, I backed off. When they needed anything, I offered, at bare minimum. If they had a bad day, I invited them to come play with me. Etc.

Turns out, one of them seems to find pride in the fact we aren't friends anymore and they can successfully avoid me. The other is hiding behind an "attempt to make up" (without giving detail, since I'm clearly cloaking myself, no REAL attempt was made. The closest it came to a real attempt put me in a potentially horrible situation I didn't feel I needed to put myself in). At least the first one had never claimed to make an attempt to right their wrong - just victimize themself.

Both of them have caused rifts that don't only involve me. One specific cut really cut many people, several of whom are waiting for me to forgive before they forgive (but still no apology has been made).

And it makes me sad. I all but pushed these people into friendships with others that are now ruined. I, in a fairly huge way, am the root cause for so many people being hurt. The people hurt would probably lay no blame on me. But I do. And that bugs the ever living out of me.

I'm hurt, too. Obviously. And I'm starting to feel like I just need to stop making friends and trying to keep friendships.

I strongly believe that friendships that are worth having are not friendships you try to keep. But because my judge of character is apparently worth shit, I'm starting to wonder (with no logic, I'll admit) which ones (if any, which isn't fair) are worth keeping.

I'm insecure enough that I consistently assume I'm bothering anyone I see or talk to on a regular basis.

I've always struggled to feel truly bonded to people. I feel like I've blogged about that before. I think it has to do with being adopted. It's easier to feel fully attached to people who only sort of matter than those who always have and always will. In many ways, I think my grandfather was the only person to fully break that barrier. It's easier for me to hear the L word from a friend than a really good friend. It's easier to hear, "I'll miss you," from an acquaintance than a friend. And it has nothing to do with .... anything. Really. It has to do with the fact that the more invested I feel, the more it will hurt when the relationship goes away.

So when I get burned, I'm afraid of someone else burning me and something inside me puts up a barrier. My subconscious assumes that I'm going to get burned by someone else close to me and it really is a fight in my head to continue to continue being close to them.
Example: friends A and B screwed me totally. I assume friend C (who is as loyal as a puppy.... I have a real person in mind for friend C) will "dump" me eventually. To the extent that I don't text her things I normally would at the risk of seeming clingy or dependent or needy or just whatever.

It's the worst feeling in the world. And it's totally unfair to people who do care abt me. I'm assuming (honestly without really knowing why) the worst in people who don't deserve that. And it even halogens with family members I don't necessarily talk to every week.

Long story short (sorry the first part was so lengthy), I'm insecure enough to totally fall into depression and true insecurity because people who mean a lot to me are so OK with tossing me into the dirt and hoping I become a fossil in their memory while I continue to fight for friendship and connection (even though it should not be a fight).

Not sure what to call this.

Sometimes I feel like I somehow ended up growing up when all I've done is try to not grow up. Sometimes I feel like I'm one of few in my age bracket who did grow up.

A lot of times, I feel like I'm still 16. Not only because I can totally just lose myself to fun/adventure/silliness/kid behavior, but because so many people around me seem to think we're still in high school and create drama.

I've realized that I have turned into my mother. I think because I tried not to turn into my father (there's a semihidden sitcom reference in that).

That said, no offense to my mom, but she never had great advice for how to deal with drama in my high school years. I think that probably has to do with the fact that she had bigger, deeper drama happening in her teen years. Stupid crap like, "Jenny is mad cuz the guy she likes likes me, but I don't like him, so it's not my fault," is something she never dealt with.

Book

Some of you may remember a book title and idea that I mention YEARS ago.  "Family... Or something like it."  There are two things you should know about it.  One, I'm lazy, so I never started.  Two, since the idea came to me my entire idea of family has shifted.

My Uncle Jim said something along the lines of, "family is what you make it".  His point was that it's not something I'm born into, it's not something that chooses me, it's what I choose to make my family.

I'm lucky.  I have an awesome family (according to Uncle Jim's definition).  It includes those who chose me and those I chose.  Which is ultra fortunate because I'm adopted and there's no "born into" family.  I have people I've met thru my boyfriend who I'd sooner go thru hardship with than anyone else.  They're the ones who showed up at my house mostly naked for my 25th birthday without my knowledge (seriously... I should make a whole post JUST about that).  They are the ones I spend "Christmas" with... except for the actual day.  They are the first to know big news, to celebrate big news, to cry with me, to watch stupid TV with me, to know I'm just having a crappy day, to spend pointless time with me, run errands, get pierced, get tattooed, go camping.... The list goes on.

There's the family I was adopted into.  Who are the second to know anything, never get tattooed with me (largely because those who would live tons of miles away), hardly know if I'm having a bad day, don't typically come be dumb with me, etc.  I love them just as much as those who are my firsts and are my solid ground, but it's not the same.  Again, a lot of this has to do with mileage, but a lot also has to do with ... So many factors.  Those that are in NM have completely different life paths then I do.  They're all gonna teach something or have kids or have too many "real" things to do.  Those that live far away... Live far away.

Then there's the family I inherited from a now ex-friend.  They are the ones who are as close the first definition of family, but also live far away but typically remain(ed) more involved in whatever I am.  But now it's weird.  Because of the "ex" part.  It's all very petty.  It's all very lame.  But I was there first and someone else got jealous and it all went to hell.  I miss this family the most because so much of the first "family" is still there, but they're slowly slipping into the second "family" and .... I just fucking don't know.

That's it.  I don't fuccccckkkking know.  I probably never will.  

I'm lost.

Grampa would know what to do.  Even gave advice as they started slipping.  But then he ... couldn't.  And "ex" was like, "Oh, who the fuck cares.  Your grampa's gone.  He was basically mine, too.  But I was told to go lick this frozen pole, so I'm gonna."

I'm lost.  I probably always will be.  I have no established "family" as defined by Uncle Jim and probably never will.  I'll have classes of family.  My life will be like.... I dunno.  Some class-systemed, outdated country that the internet talks shit about and I'll always be lost, confused and wishing it was years ago and hoping I can meld everyone together even though I have about 10 people in my "family."  So fuck it.  I give up.  I have three dogs, two cats, a boyfriend and some people I'm closer to than the others.  I'll deal with it.  I'll find a way to be ok with the fact that I feel like an orphan who was never adopted.

No offense.