No One Told Us

           When you’re young, you always talk to your friends about all the things you’re going to do together when you grow up. Unfortunately, no one told us we don’t always grow up at the same time.

           My best friends and I are on completely different playing fields. Some are back in school, not working or working but not being paid enough to do anything but pay their bills. Also, a lot of my friends like to drink whereas, I’m completely fine not drinking for long periods of time. To me, drinking has never heightened my happiness or improved my night, that’s done by the people I’m with and the activity we’re taking part in.

           How unfair for us all to be the same age, or within a couple years of the same age, and yet be on completely different levels from one another? I wanted to experience things together. I wanted us all to be able to go out and do things. Go to the zoo, go to dinner, go to plays, travel, go on vacations together etc. But because of everyone’s different financial situations and let’s face it, everyone’s varying interests in what constitutes a “good time”, almost none of these things are possible for us.

           So what do you do?

           Do you wait? Wait for your friends to not want to drink so much? Or wait for your friends to finish school and try to find jobs so their financial situations change? Take it from me, you’re going to be waiting a long time. The sad fact is, the people you grew up with, your best friends, may never be on the same page as you. I’ve come to this realization a lot in the past year. The things I once found fun just aren’t anymore. I want to branch out to do things I’ve never done before but I want to do those things with my friends. I can’t and I don’t know if I ever will. No one told us we wouldn’t grow up at the same time.

           So what do you do?

           Now the obvious thing to do would be to go out and make new friends. Find people who share your interests and can take part in activities you deem fun. However, if you’re anything like me, this is one of the most difficult things to achieve. I’m terrible with meeting new people. I want to meet people and usually after someone introduces me to new people, I’m totally fine with talking to them and having a good time. But my crippling fear of not being liked stops me from approaching anyone new. Not to mention, I’m not very funny. I mean, I can get a couple of pretty good one liners in here and there, but I’m not someone anyone would classify as “the funny one”. And it takes a while for me to be comfortable with someone to even start showing my true self. All in all, meeting new people is really hard for me.

           I’m invited to this open book club thing every month and I want to go, every single month, but because none of my friends will be there, I stop myself. I need back up in case I can’t speak to anyone and then I’m just standing there awkwardly and alone. Being awkward and alone is my worst nightmare and you want to know why? Because awkward and alone is embarrassing.  Anyone who knows me or follows this blog knows, to me, feeling embarrassment is the worst thing in the world.

           So what do I do?

           I would love to be able to walk into a room full of strangers and start talking to them. Several of my friends would have no problem with this. I’m not that girl. I need a friendly face with me, at least the first time, for me to become comfortable and to start branching out a little bit.  

           So what do I do?

           Unfortunately, I can’t offer up any solutions to people in a similar situation. I know from talking to my best friend, she feels this on a completely different but equally depressing level. She doesn’t have any money to do anything she would love to do because she’s back in school and has to pay her bills. She has no time for fun because she has massive amounts of homework and when she finally doesn’t, she’s exhausted. Also, like me, she doesn’t find the same things as fun as she used to, we want more culture, more excitement in our lives.

           So what do we do?

           I could say I’m going to go out by myself. I could say I’ll go to the book group on my own and talk to people. But the truth is, I can’t even fathom that at this point. For now, I write about it because writing always makes me feel a little better.

           I hope one day I can go to the book group. I hope one day to take a vacation with my best friends. In the meantime, I work on my fears of insecurity around new people, and I work on trying not to feel embarrassed at the drop of a hat.

           I wish someone told us though.

           I wish someone mentioned we don’t always grow up at the same time.

@Valtimari

Moving Drama and Life Assessment

    I turn twenty six on Wednesday. Twenty six years old. I used to think about being in my mid-twenties all the time when I was a teenager. Being a teenager sucked and I would wish for the point in my life where I could be an adult, make my own decisions, design my own home, and buy my own stuff. That’s probably why I started working when I was 15 (14 if you count babysitting). I wanted money to buy my own belongings. Now I’m almost twenty six.

    I moved into a bigger apartment on Thursday night. The whole day was a whirlwind. I thought I was just picking up my keys with Bill and Chrissy and moving in a few small items ourselves. The movers weren’t supposed to come until Friday. Around 3:45 pm, we were about to go pick up the keys when the movers called and said, “You want to do this thing tonight?” Let me just preface this by saying, I was NOT ready. Boxes weren’t sealed, the bathroom and bedroom still needed to be deconstructed and packed and I still wanted to clean the place. But I said, “Sure, let’s do it tonight.” 

   Cue my insane freak out. 

   Chrissy, Bill, and I grabbed what we could, BOLTED to my new apartment, grabbed the keys, dumped the crap we had with us then rushed back to my old apartment. We started throwing everything we saw into boxes and sealing them up. I was panicking. I tend to think I never have enough time to do everything I want to do. Let’s not get into the deeper psychological reasons behind that right now. So I’m panicking and Chrissy, the ever calm one, kept saying, “Veronica! You have a lot of stuff to do but everything you’re thinking of, in reality, only takes five minutes to do. We have enough time.” She was right but I was still freaking out on the inside. 

   The movers came around 7 and I was moved out of my old apartment and into my new apartment by 8:30. These guys were fast and awesome and did a fantastic job. But as much as I loved the movers, I give all the credit to Bill and Chrissy. They kept me laughing when all I really wanted to do was flip out. Chrissy unpacked my entire kitchen, Bill helped moving boxes and bookcases and lamps and everything else. They made the day fun and easy instead of stressful and manic which is usually my default settings in these situations. 
It’s Saturday now, so I’ve been in this apartment for not even 48 hours and I’ve managed to unpack the entire place, my Dad hung most of my pictures, I bought a sofa and loveseat (to be delivered next Saturday), and a coffee table and end table which my Mom and I put together (after Bill helped carry them into the apartment). This is the first living room set I’ve ever purchased and it’s mine. It’s my taste and I used my money and it’s going into my apartment. No more hand me downs. I’m finally at a place in my life where I can afford to buy nice things. I can afford to invest in real furniture. It’s an amazing feeling.

   The night I moved in, my friends Greg, Derek, and Chuck came over. And Greg walked in and said, “Living the dream, Veronica!” He also said, “This is a nice kitchen to learn to cook in, Veronica!” I’m ignoring that part and focusing on the “living the dream” part. 

   Living the dream. Usually whenever someone compliments the status of my life, I thank them and try to change the subject as quickly as possible. One reason being, compliments in general make me uncomfortable. The other reason being, every time someone compliments my life, I can’t help but think about how I’m still not a published author. I haven’t even had time to write on my website because of moving and work being crazy right now and it really bothers me. So I usually discredit anyone who says kind things about my life because there’s still a huge part missing. But I’ve come to the realization, no matter where I am in life, there might always be a part that’s not quite right. Whether it be my writing or a relationship or a job, or whatever. It’s never all going to fall into place but in comparison to where my life has been in the past…yeah, I’m living the dream.

   When all my friends were over Thursday night, I looked at them and felt so incredibly grateful. For everything. I’m grateful to my parents for raising me to be an independent woman and for always working hard for what I want. I’ve been on my own for three years and without feeling the constant support of my parents, I doubt I would have made it. I’ve had two amazing jobs, the first being a legal book editor and now my job as a technical writer. I love the people I work with and I enjoy my job. My current job allows me to save money, move into a bigger place, buy furniture and live comfortably. And my friends, my wonderful friends, are the biggest part of my life. Bill and Chrissy had just come back from vacationing, they’re on their last week of summer vacation and they spent so much of their time helping me move and settle in. Then there’s my boys: Derek, Greg, Chuck, and Tommy. These guys listen to me rant and they help me when I have completely shitty days by inviting me over to sit on their roof and relax. Greg, Chuck, and Tommy also did me a huge favor by taking my second hand couch, ottoman, end tables, kitchen table, chairs, and mirror for their place. 

   Now, let’s reassess. Almost 26 years old, living in a bigger apartment with my newly purchased furniture and working a job I love. An amazing, supportive family I love immensely. And the best friends I could ever ask for in this life. 

   Yeah, I am living my dream. It’s about time. 

Honesty

Quick Note: I wrote this a while back but it still rings true for me.

I used to have a really hard time being honest with people. Usually it was white lies I would tell but then as I became a teenager the lies became bigger. I would tell them for a few different reasons. The number one reason I would lie is because I wanted to make my life sound way more interesting than it actually is. I could never tell the lies to people like Chrissy or Kait because I’m too close to them and they would know. But to people at Huberts, to "friends" I didn’t see very often, they would get complete and utter lies and fabricated stories. Anything to make me sound like I was a normal teenager.

I didn’t want to be the nerd. I didn’t want to be the girl who stayed in every weekend. I didn’t want to be the bookworm or the freak who’s obsessed with movies and television. The loser. The loner. The freak with no friends. But that’s who I was to the girls at Huberts for two years before I started lying to them. Stupid made up stories just to get them off my back. To get them to stop making fun of me. To get them to shut the fuck up.

When my Mom was diagnosed, I stopped lying. My life, our lives, were no longer boring. I didn’t need to lie because my life now had “excitement” or “interest” whatever you want to call it. So I turned to honesty. Brutal honesty some would call it. I stopped caring what other people thought of how I lived my life. I preferred to go to the movies on prom night because I hated the people at Huberts and I didn’t want to spend any more time with them than I had to and I was damn proud to tell people. I preferred to read than drink from a keg in the woods and that’s okay. I preferred to sit and talk to my family for hours on end then sit in a basement and get high and that’s okay. It took me a long time to realize that.

I’m very honest when I tell someone how I feel about a situation or a person. Sometimes people get really mad at me. Some people won’t talk to me for days afterwards. Some people admire it. Some people act like they admire it but secretly hate me for it. I don’t let negative people stay in my life anymore. People call me harsh. People call me a bitch. People call me unforgiving. Honestly? I don’t give a shit. I rather not have someone constantly poison my mind with their horrible negative comments. It’s easier for me to cut people off. Sometimes I get upset about it. Most of the time, I get over it fairly quickly. 

 The person I have the hardest time being honest with is myself. Which sounds cliché but it’s true. I lie to myself all the time. Tell myself I’m okay, tell myself I can deal with certain situations, tell myself I don’t care as much as I do about someone. Sometimes they’re lies, other times they’re partial truths. I’ll play out different situations in my head over and over again, making sure I’ve planned out every conclusion to an occurrence possible. Half the time I don’t use any of them because I’ll be too scared to go into the situation in the first place. Or I won’t use them because it’s a made up situation. You see, I never really stopped lying in a way. I used to tell other people made up situations, made up stories. Now it’s something I’ve created in my head, a story, a scene, really. A scene I wrote, starred in, and directed. A scene to make my life seem more interesting in my own head. A scene to placate my boring reality. Sometimes I’ll go entire days where I’ll live in those scenes. Act them out over and over again. Mostly in my car when I’m driving, I’ll rewrite them, I’ll act them out in my head, rewrite, act it out, no, not perfect yet. Another rewrite, act it out. Still not right. Another rewrite. Act it out. Perfect. Finally. Next scene.

Probably seems utterly insane to normal people but I’ve always wanted my life to be like a movie. So if I have to live two lives, one in reality, and one in my head where things are easier, more fun, and interesting then that’s what I’ll do. That’s what I have to do for my own sanity. Be honest in reality, lie to myself in my imagination. It’s my normal and that’s okay.