Only a Year?

Today marks one year of my being back here. I still do not want to be here, although a lot of healing has happened over the past twelve months. I am more hopeful for the future, now. I think I have grown; I hope I have, at least. It is hard to believe that it has only been a year - it seems so much longer than that. But then again, it also astounds me that it has been a year already. Time has always seemed paradoxical to me, I suppose.

Not much more to say about it, really. But it needed remembering.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Driving back to Spokane from Seattle is always difficult for me. Interstate Ninety goes across Washington (and all the way to Boston, for that matter), but to get to that freeway I have to drive on the Five South (which stretches from Canada to Mexico) for a few miles. This time was the hardest: a full tank of gas, a good eight hours before I would be missed, enough clothes to get by for a while.

In my head, I know that Seattle is not much closer to LA than Spokane is - only about a hundred and fifty mile difference, since from Spokane one cuts through the middle of Oregon. Pythagorean theorem at work, there. But being on that road, it seems so much closer, so much more possible. Yesterday I cried as, at the last second, I took the exit for I-Ninety. Twice I nearly turned around and went back, ran south.

But I know that I can not go back, not yet. I have school starting soon. I have a job. But two years is so long to wait to be back. So much can happen in that time, and I am so afraid that I will never be able to return. I constantly fear that I am losing my friendships, that I will end up alone.

I am still angry that I was forced to come here. I am still lonely and hurting. I do not know if I will heal from it, because it hurts, awfully. I do not know if I want the pain to lessen, if I want to be comfortable and happy here. I want to go back; I do not want to become complacent here, stuck here forever. I am so scared of that.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

On My List of Things That frighten Me.

Yes, that is frighten with a little 'f.' The list is not of things that Frighten me, or of things which I Fear, in the style of A.A. Milne, where Important words are capitalized, especially Nouns. Perhaps the list is more Things that Make Me Nervous. Anyway. On this list is Chiropractors. I think I may have been raised to be Nervous about Chiropractors, or even to be frightened of them.

I like my job (this is not as horrid a non-sequitur as it may seem). It is not something that I want to be doing for the rest of my life, but it is steady and active and my shifts go by quickly. And, of course, it gives me money. However, the past two weeks were hellish. I flew back from LA on Monday, June twenty-ninth, and worked the next nine days without a break. And really, my visit to California was not much of a break, because I was seeing people and down late and up early and quite busy overall. So, I worked over the holiday weekend, and most of my shifts were nine or ten hours. My longest, most horrid day/shift was Thursday, July second - that one was twelve hours long; I was called in two hours early for my scheduled eight (and one-half, if you include my lunch break) hour shift, and did not finish closing until an hour and a half after my shift was supposed to end: ten-thirty to ten-thirty. Horrible.

So, sometime in there I strained something in my back. And then not having a break aggravated it. And it was hurting quite badly by the end of my shift on Wednesday, and on Thursday I could barely move at all. I had planned to get a lot done on my day off - mostly cleaning my room and doing laundry - but I ended up spending most of the day curled up in an armchair. In a moment of temporary insanity, perhaps, I called my best friend and asked for the name and number of her chiropractor. I did not know if he was covered in my insurance, but the one thing in the situation that I wanted less than to go to a chiropractor was to go to a chiropractor chosen indiscriminately off of a list from my insurance company's website. (As it turns out, he is a provider for my insurance, so that is going to work out nicely.)

So on Friday I faced my Nerves, and went to see the Chiropractor. The doctor, while working on adjusting me, informed me that he had never seen anyone my size (height, weight) so tight and tense. I am unsure as to whether or not I should be proud of this accomplishment. He was especially impressed/horrified by the knot in my left shoulder which I have had since I can remember - probably at least since junior high. Afterward, I was able to move and straighten up some, so that was a significant improvement, though I was still in pain. I went in again this morning, very, very, very sore from yesterday, for another adjustment, and this evening I am feeling well. That is, I am feeling no worse than I generally would at the end of a work-day. But the doctor says that we are going to get me Well, or All Better, which is fairly Exciting, although the whole thing still makes me fairly Nervous.

I do like having movement, though. And the cracking is simultaneously absolutely terrifying and extremely satisfying.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

My Wretched Day

It started out not so badly, you see. Got up, showered, dressed, had breakfast, made tea. Realized that my interview was in twenty minutes and that it takes ten to drive there, and so did not get to drink my tea. The first bad thing of the day.

The interview was not horrid, but I was nervous. Also, the ladies interviewing me were very casual, which was a bit off-putting for me. That is, I was not entirely sure how to interact with them, because it was very different from the atmosphere one usually encounters in an interview. So that made me more nervous. They said they would be making the decision today, and that I would hear back by five.

I came back to the house, and called EWU to check on whether they had received my transcripts yet. I had faxed Biola with my transcript request ten days ago for EWU, WSU and CSUF, and none had received them yet. Eastern confirmed that they still did not have it. The lady I spoke with was so lovely and nice, she made me feel as though everything in the world would be all right.

So then I called the Biola Registrar. They did not answer their phones. I called again and again, finally left a message, and then continued to call about every ten minutes. Finally they answered. I asked whether my transcripts from my request on the twelfth had been sent. They are very far behind, so nothing on my account has been entered into the computer. She leaves me on a soundless hold for about ten minutes while she (supposedly) rummages through papers. I had to check my phone about once every two minutes to make sure that I was still connected. Could they not at least have had some horrid music or something? No, just dead silence. Anyway, she came back, finally. (I realize I am switching back and forth between past and present tense, but I really do not care at this point.)

"Emily? Your transcripts to San Diego State got sent on the seventh." I know that. Ye gods, did you not listen to me at all? "No, the request I sent on the twelfth." ... ... "We never received any other transcript requests from you. Are you sure you sent them?"

At this point I started crying. I am so frustrated with life and already emotionally unstable this week from having to come back to Washington, and from being worried about my interview from that morning. Yes, I sent them. Yes, they went through. So essentially, they lost them, but refuse to take responsibility for it. Now, my EWU and WSU applications are due on the first of February. I had my requests turned in in plenty of time, but now they make me re-fax my requests, and I have to rush-order them, which costs ten extra dollars per transcript. Forty extra dollars, just because the stupid Registrar people lost my paperwork. I know that I am not the only person to whom this has happened. My mom drives me, sobbing, to her work to re-fax.

I do not have the money for this. My credit card is nearly maxed out, my savings account is dwindling, I have loan payments due on the first, and a phone bill coming up, and other stupid expenses. Stupid Biola, I can not wait until I am no longer dependant upon you.

I finally manage to calm down. But then five o'clock comes and goes, and I still have not heard from the credit union about the job. So I stress until seven-oh-five when my phone rings. I am sure you have guessed by now that I did not get the job. And if so, then you guessed correctly. I really wanted it, too. So that sucks. Anyway, anything more I would say here would just be whining, and I do not like doing that. So I will close.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

Trouble

Trouble, oh trouble set me free.
I have seen your face, and it's too much, too much for me.
Trouble, oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away and there's nothing much left of me

I've drunk your wine, you have made your world mine,
So won't you be fair? Oh won't you be fair?
I don't want no more of you, so won't you be kind to me?
Just let me go where, I'll have to go there -

Trouble, oh trouble move away.
I have seen your face and it's too much for me today.
Trouble, oh trouble can't you see?
You have made me a wreck, now won't you leave me in my misery?

I've seen your eyes, and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me, hangin' on me.
I'm beat, I'm torn, shattered, and tossed, and worn,
Too shocking to see, too shocking to see.

Trouble, oh trouble move from me.
I have paid my debt, now won't you leave me in my misery?
Trouble, oh trouble please be kind.
I don't want no fight, and I haven't got a lot of time.

(Yeah, okay, so I have not done the whole 'entire post of song lyrics' thing since I partially abandoned my xanga. But this is mine, and I can do what I want with it.)

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

Labels and Applications

I admire people who use labels well on their blogs. I feel like since I often touch on topics several times over, I ought to use that function as well. I think that when I am done with my grad school applications (about a month from now), I am going to go back through my archive and apply labels to my posts.

I dislike grad school applications. They all require something to the effect of, "Write a three page essay telling us why you are so much more awesome and wonderful than the other hundreds of students applying here." This is not a good exercise for someone who thinks that she probably is not more awesome and wonderful than those hundreds, and that she probably should not be accepted to a graduate program anyway. Except for the fact that she desperately wants to go to grad school, wants so much to continue in her field that it hurts. I wish I could just take a snapshot of my soul, and give that to them instead. Perhaps then they would see, and understand, and allow me to come.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

Quick Update Time!

Well, I survived (and even enjoyed) Thanksgiving.
And I survived the day after, opening at Bath & Body Works. I nearly enjoyed it, but it was insane and crazy. I now know that I can manage working retail, but it is certainly not what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I finally got all caught up on Alien Dice, which is happy. One down, twelve to go. Plus, you know, various videos/tv shows I'm supposed to be catching up on. Three of those, I think?
I changed my desktop background on my computer for the first time in two years. Does this mean I am starting to move on and heal? I hope so. Besides, Swiftpaw is just so cute!

My room is still a mess, and while it bothers me, I can not seem to find the energy to clean it up and get more organized.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

Yesterday

I got horribly homesick yesterday, right after church. There was the annual parish meeting, and I stayed for about half of it. And during Fr. Michael's talk, he mentioned that this weekend, at the baptism in Wenatchee, he met a couple from St. Barnabas in Costa Mesa, and then proceeded to hold that church up as a good example for us, mentioning that they generally receive about thirty new members every year at Pascha. And I broke down (quietly). Because, for one thing, two of my dear friends, Sara and Jimmy, were fewer than two-hundred miles away from me and I could have been there and I missed the chance. (edit: as it turns out, this Sara and James were not the Sara and James that I know. odd.) And for the other thing, it just made me homesick. I know about half of the people who were baptized last year at St. Barnabas. I probably know about half of the group that will be baptized there this year. These are my friends - my dear friends - and I miss them. It was awfully hard for me. It is especially difficult at church, even though they have all become a wonderful family for me, because people can not seem to comprehend that I didn't want to leave California, that I want to go back. Comments like, "great job making it out alive!" make me want to cry. But I do not want to cry, not there, for that.

I also worry, because part of me is terrified of getting too attached. I do not like being torn between places. I am scared to make friends here, because I hate leaving friends. I know that that is not right, that it is not healthy, but that is my gut reaction. I miss my friends and my life so much, I just want to go back - even with all the horror that has been happening in the area with the fires as of late.

Then, last night, my best friend came over. I can not praise Glennda enough. She has truly been the best friend someone could ask for, especially in supporting me through all of my conflicts and confusion over the past year. She is being especially patient with me right now. I apologized profusely last night, through my tears. She is so glad to have me back here, and all I do when we are together is vent about how homesick I am. Poor dear. She is so good to me. I do not deserve her, but I am glad I have her. She just smiled, and reminded me how many times I sat and listened as she poured out her own heart in mourning.

Then after I pulled myself together I started trying to convince her to move to LA with me. As always. I will not understand how someone would move to Russia in a heartbeat, but would not even visit California when her best friend lived there. Not that I do not understand the wanting to move to Russia part, just the not even wanting to ever set foot in California part. But, as I explained to her, it would be much easier for me to move her down to LA than for me to move my whole life from down there to up here. She mentioned how then she would be in essentially the same position that I am in now, except worse, because no family there. Which is true, but I pressed on: "You'd get along great with my friends. I have excellent taste in friends." At which point we both collapsed laughing, and I wrote down what I had said in order to post it later. It is a conversation we have had many times, too many to count. She will not move to California, and I will continue to try to convince her to do so. I am so glad for the times that I have with her.

Then we kept talking as I sorted through some boxes of old things, from high school and before. I found my collection of her letters, from summers she spent in Oregon and I at camp, and read them aloud to her. Then I found some pages ripped out of an old journal, from my sophomore year, and read some of the entries to her. Highlights: "Glennda is my best friend in the whole world. I can tell her almost anything." Then, from a later one, "Confession - I am totally and completely in love with [name]. No one knows. Not even Glennda." We laughed so hard over that. Apparently that was where the 'almost anything' came up. She was confused: "Really? I didn't know?" I am pretty sure she did not, until after I was over it. Or if she did, she never said anything, because she is just an awesome friend like that. It was good to laugh with her, and remember.

My day ended much better than it began. But I am still sad. Sometimes I dislike the complicated emotions that come from being human. Why can't I just only be sad about being away, or only be happy to spend time with my best friend? Well, that is likely enough for now. I have survived three weeks.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Grief

Hello again. Thank you for your patience.

According to dictionary.com, my constant source of definitions, grief is keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret. a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow. I wondered, because I have been thinking about grief a lot over the past week.

I wanted time away, to grieve, as I mentioned below. Last week was difficult in this, as my mom's boss was ill so she was home from work for the week. I did not really have any time alone. My parents want me to be happy, in the they are upset that I am not sort of way. And I want this situation to not be entirely miserable, so I do my best to not upset them. So I did my best through the week. I even went out one evening, by myself, which seemed to please them. After all, if I'm out at a ballet, I must be all right, right? (I saw the Moscow Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty, which was wonderful, despite the idiot behind me who seemed to think that one comes to a ballet for the plot and would not stop whispering about how there were too many dances. Idiot. And despite the music being recorded rather than live. And a few other annoyances. And my being alone.)

Anyway, I waited out the week, looking forward to this past Tuesday. I had decided that that would be the day where I could grieve, good and proper. I fully planned on lying on my bed in the dark, listening to angry music and crying a lot. I went out to the store Tuesday morning and got bread and cheese and ice-cream, because those are good and proper grieving foods. It did not last very long. As it turns out, you can not induce those sort of days, however much you think you need them. I have decided that my idea of grief is vastly Romanticized. I had this picture of what I ought to look like at this time, and wanted to fulfill that. Which, when you think about it, is rather silly. Of course, I am a rather silly person, so I suppose nothing different should have been expected.

I think that it is likely that that sort of thing will happen, eventually. The lying in bed all day, not wanting to move or do anything but cry. Just not yet. And I know that I need to allow that. I am grieving, still, although I am not staying in bed with my blinds shut and refusing all social interaction. I do cry, I do wish dearly to come back home, back to where my life is. I grieve that I have been torn away from the places and people I love. I grieve in the way that is natural for now, because foremost I need to survive, so that I can return.

Tuesday I ended up getting back up after about an hour, getting dressed, eating some bread and cheese, and then going for a drive. Driving is very therapeutic for me, especially on fairly empty, familiar roads. It was raining, which helped. I drove out to Camp Four Echoes, my Girl Scout camp, where I spent several weeks every summer for ten years, and many weekends in between. I love that place, and I love the drive. It has been driven so many times that it was all automatic. I needed that - the familiarity of something beloved, familiar enough that I did not even have to think about it, I could let my mind stay on my grief without having to worry about the road or traffic, just winding through the countryside.

So, for now, I am back online. I will be in touch, and write more frequently than I did when I was in California (since now I am not seeing my dear friends every day, so updates are more necessary). But do know that when the grief does hit harder, as I expect it will eventually, I may disappear again for a time.

I miss you all so very much.

Blessings on your travels,

Emily

Beginning of the Beginning

I made it back to Spokane, managing neither to drive headlong into an oncoming truck, nor sneak off in the middle of the night to drive back south. I do not want to be here.

The end of one chapter? Yes, I suppose so. So that makes this the beginning of the next. But that does not mean that I have to like it.

I am going to take some time away from the computer. After some thought, I decided that I need time away to grieve. The past two weeks have been so filled with people and emotions - it was beyond draining for such an introvert as myself. So I need time. I will be back. My word on it. But for now, I am going to disappear for a bit.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Rambling

As I was driving to campus tonight, Led Zeppelin's Ramble On came on the radio. The first ten lines particularly struck me:

Leaves are falling all around,

It's time I was on my way.

Thanks to you, I'm much obliged

For such a pleasant stay.

But now it's time for me to go,

The autumn moon lights my way.

For now I smell the rain,

And with it pain,

And it's headed my way.

Ah, sometimes I grow so tired...

-

Both my identified readers know that I am leaving, moving back to my parents' house. I am full of pain this autumn. The initial shock has worn off a bit, these few days, leaving me fairly numb as I tell the few people I hadn't yet talked to. But smaller things are hurting, as I think of them.

I won't be able to see the TTC play. I was really looking forward to it - to seeing one for the first time that I didn't already have memorized from a semester of involvement.

I will be missing the senior art show of a dear friend from my Torrey group.

I will be missing the dead kitty party at Christmastime, which is somewhat silly, but was something I had thought of happily when I made the decision to stay here for the year.

I just bought groceries, and now only have a week to eat them. What am I going to do with several packages of frozen vegetables?

-

Biola HR called me today. "We were wondering if you could come in for an interview." "Oh, for what position?" I asked, half-hopeful. "Oh, no, just an initial interview, the next step in the process." "Oh. Well...you see...*explains that I'm leaving, trying not to cry*" "Okay, we'll withdraw your application then. Thanks for letting us know! (*way too cheerfully*)" If only the HR department wasn't so horridly slow.

-

If onlys plague me. If only I had started applying to jobs sooner. If only I had applied to more places. If only I had one more month. If only I...I don't even know. I have a bad tendency to live in the past, and am trying hard to not do so right now. Several people have reminded me that I have not failed. This is not a step back, it is the next step forward on my journey. I'm in too much pain to really see and understand and believe that right now, but I know they are right. It feels like my life is over, but it isn't. I will live through it, and perhaps become stronger. Or perhaps it will break me, but I will not die of it.

-

I am tired of moving. Since graduation, I have moved from the apartment into storage, from storage into the crazy lady's house, from there into the house where I am now, and now will be moving from there. That is four times in five months. Too often. I thought that I would not have to move again after graduation, now that Biola isn't forcing me out of housing every few months. And, horror, I plan on moving again within the year, back down here as soon as I can. But I do not look forward to bundling up all my things yet again, forcing them into my car (the poor dear, she has been so patient with me these few years) and driving them 1500 miles away. And each of these (aside from the moving into storage) has come with change of address notifications for everyone who sends me things, closing and opening post office boxes, calling magazines, letting Biola know my forwarding address has changed yet again. I just got settled in and fully unpacked - it simply isn't fair that I have to move again. I get more weary just thinking about it.

-

And leaving is such tiring work, even before the packing begins. My agenda is filling up quickly with seeing people. Having all of my friends wanting to take me out to meals doesn't do much for getting those groceries consumed, however wonderful it is to be able to see people before I go. And seeing people is so bittersweet. I have never been good at goodbyes. I do not like change, and saying goodbye is so definite, even though I will be back. I said goodbye to the IT desk this morning. Stayed up too late baking cookies to take, and didn't have enough time to spend talking there. I want to hang on to every last moment, I don't want to walk away. I hate it terribly. The gentlemen there have been so dear to me for the past two years. It is like this for everything and everyone I have to say goodbye to...it is just that that was particularly hard for me today. Next Wednesday, Bible study/alum discussion group will be the same, although for that there will at least be cake. *half-hearted smile*

-

Well, I think I have rambled on enough tonight. I do still plan to write about the things in my list below, but for now, I have enough on my mind.

-

Blessings on your travels,

Emily