28 DEC 2022
mood: 
listening to: boards of canada - audiotrack 12
weather: clear, cold
and just like that the longest night of the year has come and gone.. Ok well i'm quite a few days late but happy holidays to those who celebrate them and i hope that whatever you celebrate was warm and cozy this year. i meant to post this entry last night but as I was going to upload everything the power to my upstairs area where my computer is was shut off - ill get to the reasons why in a second. this wont be a whiny post i promise, but i want to get all my complaints out of the way first so we can end it on a good note.
so last week i left to drive from NC to where my parents live in TX. it's about 18 hours (19 if you skip atlanta) but factoring in all the stops and traffic it can be anywhere from 20-22 hours. i really hate spending that much time in the car but i know better than trying to fly during the holidays, especially when theres going to be weather problems. i meant to leave the night of the 19th so by the time i got to atlanta i'd just miss morning rush hour.
plans changed though because i finally got a hold of this office that i need to get a hold of in order for me to outprocess my job- and it turns out the paperwork that i had been waiting 11 days for without any word or update had been ready the day that i submitted the forms to receive it. needless to say i was pretty furious as i was receiving this email at 4 PM (when the office closes) and i knew i'd have no choice but to postpone my trip to the next dayt so i could go down and pick up this paperwork.
ran down to work, grabbed the paperwork, learned that i would need to take the paperwork to another office but i would need to be in uniform to take it there- my uniform was an hour away at my apartment and the office closed at 1:00. there was no way i'd make it in time so i cut my losses and left down to texas. turns out that this office doesn't even close at 1:00 but 5:00 like all the other offices there do, they just told me that because... idk why. so i drove straight through to texas and it was kind of a hard trip. i have a bony ass and have back problems so i dont do well sitting upright in the car for that long.
while the trip was rough, it was good to see my parents again. i haven't seen them since last year. the trip was pretty short and my mom worked all of the days i was there (except christmas) but it was still nice to see her.
speaking of my mom- look at what she made me! she made this awesome quilt!!!! she always insists that she's not creative or an artist but she does amazing things like this. all of the quilting was done by hand and she'd been working on it since june all while juggling working fulltime. i think this is probably the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me and it was hard not to cry looking at it
i left really early the day after christmas and hit the road deciding to go north then cut eastwards to go through memphis instead of atlanta as the time i left would be putting me in atlanta during evening rush hour but that kind of turned out to be a mistake as it started snowing once i got out of memphis and it started getting dark. now im from texas and i am not used to driving in the snow- and despite what you may think the "north" in north carolina doesn't really mean anything as we rarely see snow here (at least in the part im in now.) so i was a little nervous.
despite how pretty it was i was gripping the steering wheel so hard yall i was reaching out to my ancestors and everything. was so tense from that i ended up with a big knotted muscle in my neck that i'm still trying to get out. my landlady called me while i was on the road and informed me a pipe in the laundry room had burst so they were taking care of it so when i got home there was no water.
i'm thankful it was that pipe and not any of my indoor ones (my laundry is out on the porch) so it certainly could have been a lot worse but coming home at 4 am after 23 hours of driving to no water and a freezing cold apartment (my heat was acting up so i turned it off before leaving and had the cat sitter run it while she was there) was killing me. i also had to be somewhere at 8:30 the next morning but i gave up on that one real fast. slept for about 5 hours then i got up and rolled straight into town so i could take care of that paperwork i mentioned above.
this was when i found out that the paperwork they gave me had been ready back on december 8th when i originally turned everything in to receive it. the guy was soooo mad at me talking about how "you should've been in here on that day" and rushed me out of his office before i could explain to him how bad his ppl in there had screwed me over. he told me to come back at 1 so i chilled in my car for 2 hours (after driving the whole night in it) waiting... and waiting....
went back in and got everything settled. i go back tomorrow morning to FINALLY get that set of papers in my hand- and then i hit the ground running. i'm going to have to go to different departments to inform them that i'm leaving this job and they have to stamp off to ensure that i've been there and there's a lot of departments i have to go to so i'm feeling determined on knocking EVERYTHING Out within Just A Few Days. i have no choice as i move on the 4th and then leave for vegas on the 5th to then move my bf in across country.
when i got home yesterday evening after being out all day i was so exhausted, back was killing me for being in the car so long and i came in to find both the water and the power was now off... so i was really at my limit last night. landlady called me right after i left again to go get water jugs from the store and told me my neighbor was working on it and things should be running again. this is the same neighbor that helped me with my dishwasher and also saved my apartment when my fire extinguisher turned out to be several years expired (and empty..)
SO LONG STORY SHORT.. if you are even still reading (i dont blame if you skipped all that or even left by now) it's been a LONG fucking week and i still have more to go. but theres a light at the end of the tunnel maybe? if not i am not going to lose my mind. well if it makes me miss out on school then yes, i will lose it. but if not then i think i'm at the point now where i'm so stressed out that i have simply transcended stress.. i have lost so much hair and weight over the last month alone it's not even funny.
the closer it gets to this move the more i realize it's time for me to say goodbye to this apartment and the neighborhood around it. i think it'll be easy for me to say bye to the apartment as there's been so many problems i dont feel at ease living here anymore, but it will be hard to say goodbye to the forests and all the areas id spend time sitting in looking up at the milky way in the summer.
but then i remind myself - and ive talked about it here before already - that even if i stayed the forest is slowly shrinking and the areas i used to sit in are disappearing to house lots and now the security lights in driveways are so many and so bright i can't see the milky way anymore anyhow. it's sad but it's good to move on and there will be so many opportunities to connect with nature once i reach my new town. i think adjusting to living in a much bigger city will be difficult, but living on the outskirts and close to a nature reserve will help me a lot. i also have an interview for a job in a few days that's focused on work outdoors so that will help me a bunch too.
either way, the excitement seriously outweighs the anxiety and stress. ive been feeling so stalled/stagnant this year and waiting so hard/long for some type of change to help me become inspired and determined again and i think this is it. im also so excited to be moving in with my bf and not have to be long distance anymore. and itll be nice to live in a reliable building that doesn't have 30 million issues with it... well hopefully we'll see what happens
its also almost 2023 which is kind of Mindblowing considering just how fast this year has flown by like WOW i know the years going by fast is just a symptom of getting older but this year really does feel exceptional with how quickly it moved by. i'm really looking forward to this next year it's going to be full of a lot of new things and a lot of firsts for me but i'm excited for all of it
so happy to have spent this year surrounded by some of the most creative and awesome people ive ever met in my entire life. i love all my friends so much and i cant wait to see what 2023 brings for all of us. so i guess i will see yall then. not sure when my next post will be as next week i'll be busy moving and travelling across the country but either way i'll post as soon as i'm settled in.