there's piles of laundry to the right of me on the floor, and the adjacent web page box to this one shows that I have roughly $743.00 to my name. that would be awesome, except I owe my mom two hundred bucks, the credit card company a mere seven thousand, another ten for the car, and another almost ten to the timeshare george fucked me with that I can't afford to use.
did I mention he just bought a multi-family downtown with his girlfriend? with credit I helped him to fix? right. I'm not bitter. at all.
no, really. get married. love each other. peace be with you (and also with you, handshake) - just make sure you live together for a while. please. and when you think you really know, do it for like, another year. I mean, if they're the one, they're not going to go anywhere.
but - sigh - everything that I have been through piles up and becomes, well, me, this, now, here, Who I Am.
so, right. $743.00, and $27,200.00ish in bills. what's that, like less than 3%?
awesome.
mom took pity on me and bought me a new bed. it's a nice one too, not some stupidly priced top-of-the-line brand name bullshit, but a good quality mattress and boxspring and frame made by these old guys in a shady part of hamden for less than a third of what it would cost in a fancy store with mirrors. I bring up the mirrors because in talking to him, he goes, "those, you know, stores, with all the mirrors and stuff? you pay for that. I mean, it's not much to look at here, but we make mattresses. just as good as they do. better." and he was right, the low-fi of it all, dusty floors, cluttered office, and a small area of all the different grades of beds, probably about nine of them. I sat on a bunch and asked what they all cost and picked one of the two reasonable ones. reasonable being mom is buying me a bed, so we're not going to get the piece of shit, but we're not going to get the one we want. we're going to go a notch above piece of shit - which is still completely respectable - and save the big bang for cohabitation. if that ever happens. the clock is ticking, people... well, no, not really.
jesus there's so much running through my head, I hope I can type fast enought.
yeah, so, not really. that's just something I'm conditioned to say, thirtieth birthday looming, what have I done with my life, blah blah blah I've typed it all up for you before and I'm not going to go into it again now. I almost want to, just to reinforce my self-proclaimed awesomeness, but I'll refrain. and besides, I said it already - good, bad, or indifferent, everything that's happened in my life up until 10:54 pm today, this very thursday, has created who I am. and based on this week's conversation with the psychiatrist, I should be WAY more fucked than I actually am, so really, I'm doing much better. and I didn't even have to do anything. don't you love it when that happens?
so kristin has been wearing slippers everyplace (and using lots of links, which I am following suit with, because I think it's cool and I want to do it too, and it's helpful and informative and stuff) and I've been in my sweatpants, like, forever. it started about... the spring after the ex and I split, valentine's day 2005 in cabo, when my fat summer clothes barely fit. and I boxed up the best stuff and threw away everything I didn't even remotely like and opted for lots of stuff with elastic waistbands. and so the weight became excessive, and then I saw some pictures of myself, and then I began Doing Something About It, and we've been on the road to steady improvement ever since. but I've gotten into this bad habit of wearing sweatpants everyplace, and the thing is, well, I guess I have to tell the whole story.
so I get all fucked up about jobs telling me what I have to wear, because they should respect me for me, and not the kind of shoes I feel like wearing - and the thing is, that's accurate, but only to a degree. because now I am more Grown Up and There Is A Time And A Place for (insert capitalized Thing here), and sometimes that means playing the part, not to compromise self, but just out of... whatever. self-respect, respect for others, dress codes for fancy buildings, it can be a bunch of stuff. so couple the elastic waistbands, excessive sleeping, and general depressive state, and now I'm really wearing sweatpants everyplace even though it's completely unnecessary, and sometimes inappropriate. and I talk about it with donna, and she goes, well, all of that might be valid, I don't know, but this stuff usually has something to do with self-esteem. that's all I've got. you'll figure it out. keep showing up. I slept alot too when things got tough, because it seemed like all I could do then, and someday it will probably happen again, and it's okay. but this aversion you have to wearing pantyhose has nothing to do with the pantyhose, or the people who are telling you to wear the pantyhose. it's about you.
so then, let's couple all of this - brought about by a soon-to-be change in workplace / dresscode / commute / everything - with a bunch of realizations and awakenings and you know, maybe it's not about me being who I am through my clothes defining me, blindly, like all the cattle people addicted to shopping - maybe it's about my insides matching my outsides, for once, consistently. like how I felt all dressed up for raf's family and his grandmother's wake and funeral, and how I felt more like myself than I have in a long, long time. like, maybe, there's a good way to do that without letting it consume you. not in the way where these shelves / this plant / my wardrobe / my hair has to be here / bigger / better / more expensive / hot pink so that my world will be okay, but... maybe just a little of it might be helpful. a few more skirts, and it wouldn't kill me to upgrade my flipflops, and maybe some of those better fitting jeans might be able to be squeezed into. the me I was before I got lost inside trying to figure myself out is trying to resurface, polished and patched up and scarred but in a good way (yes, scarred, not scared) and these hard-and-fast things and rules and horribly uninformed opinions I had about everything - maybe there's a time for some shifting. some room to grow, if you will.
tonight it peaked out again, the same way it did last weekend all dressed up, walking down crown street past the bars and bar-goers and people standing outside restaurants smoking cigarettes... and I go by, blue sweatpants, hoodie, ponytail - like I have every day for a while - and people looked through me. and it's not the most important thing in the world, in the respect that I could give a crap what people I don't know are thinking or not thinking about me, but - some of them just looked right through me. all the fancy clubs and expensive shoes, and me, in fuzzy flipflops (almost slippers), going, it wasn't always like this. I was hot. I am hot, just not externally as of late. short hair. a few extra pounds. but... if my insides are so much better, how hard can it possibly be to fathom that maybe my outsides should match? like when you dress nice, and you know you look good - not necessarily trendy or expensive - and how it's like a suit of armor, a better you, you know? I don't think there's much wrong with that.
except me wanting to go spend a thousand dollars on clothes tomorrow. maybe like, a little bit of the massive credit card payment I'm making with my commission check tomorrow could go to old navy. and not for jeans or cargo pants, I mean, in the back, where you find things to wear to like, brunch and stuff. like an investment in myself. in moderation, like I said, not a thousand dollars, and not on the operative that doing this will Make It All Better (plants, shelves, hi steve, yes, here we sit, and I almost just said "in the same boat" but then I realized how cliche and bad that would be, so I'm stopping myself) and so, yes, so that's either some wonderful rationalizing of a shopping trip I can't afford or me doing a little bit of external caretaking that I've denied for quite some time now.
I think that's everything flying around in my head. I'm not going to shred open the whole therapy session here, nor will I take the space to talk about the thing that I did that I don't usually do that has now made my life a little annoying and uncomfortable, but it's funny as all hell, and I'm glad I had the experience of it... oh, and the frames are playing summerstage on august 3rd. cool stuff happens here too, sometimes at least. I wonder if glen hansard ever got my email.
kisses and new bed christenings and less belongings instead of more shelving units and slippers and happy repotted plants for all,
~vvb
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