I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!

"No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late I'm late I'm late!" -my life in a nutshell today.  Only two out of three jobs finished up today, but still crazy.  It was a long good day of work, but so very tiring.  I'll have to start waking up earlier to get more out of my day! And now I'm looking to start a side business on top of it all! Craziness.

I wish I had something more ingenious to say, something that truly meant something.  But I am working on a longer one for later, and my brain is shot right now.

I hope your day was as productive as mine and much, much happier!

Love,

Alice

Pain without love

"Until we see someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are.  Until we forgive someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is."

I don't like thinking of the past.  Sometimes yes, but for the most part, I tend to just think of it as just everything I had to get through to get to where I am.  Everything from age ten to now.  Everything from the pessimism  the pain, the hurt, the climb, the heartbreak, the mistakes, the tears, the anger and frustration -everything that has caused me to doubt and want to give up that only pushed me further.  Those were not enjoyable years, there were years with enjoyable moments, but it didn't happen in a flash.  I'm glad those days are over, I'm glad that I can look back and say "at least I've survived."

There were days when I didn't know if I would survive.  Moments that caused me so much mental pain that I felt physically sick.  Days that I wouldn't even want to get out of bed.  Days that my teeny tiny brother had to sit on my bed and tell me that he would take care of me when I was sad, because he didn't want to see me cry anymore.

Moments and flashbacks that hurt, that make me cringe.  That also remind me that even though I have a tough past, I still have a future, and my future is very bright indeed. Don't give up.

Love,
Alice

Just breathe...

Today was one of those days.

Not one of those days where I freak out and bitch about everything.

Not one of those days where I work all three jobs and get home in time to eat and sleep.

Not even one of those days where I do something crazy fun.

No, today was one of those days where I put down the paperwork, finish my 4th cup of coffee, and just breathe.  And maybe cry a little.  Today was one of those days where I just sit there with my head in my hands and call on Jesus, because I need to realize that it's all out of my control.  It doesn't matter if someone makes a stupid little comment.  It doesn't matter what I'm wearing today.  It doesn't even matter how hard I work at my jobs.  Because it's out of my control.  Every bad thing that sets me behind is a blessing disguised as growing pains, and every good thing that happens is assurance that everything will be okay in the end.  I just need to have faith.  Because faith is what will ultimately bring me joy, passion and success in life.  Because all things that truly matter to me, are firmly grounded in it.  All I need to do today is just relish in that one little fact, let all the rest go, and just carry on.  In the words of Anna Nalick ~

"Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize
Hypocrites, you're all here for the very same reason

And ‘cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable

And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table

No one can find the rewind button, girl

So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe

Oh breathe, just breathe"

Just breathe <3

Love,

Alice

Breakdown 1.0

Well, I made it 15 days into the new year before I had an exhausting "Why-don't-things-happen-faster" breakdown.  I'm really hoping that impatience is something that I outgrow, but at the rate that I look forward to things, I'm thinking not.

If anything, all of the new changes in 2013 have forced me to get some better perspective.  People don't always agree, things aren't always easy, some jobs are better than others, among other things.  These are all things I find myself working through this week, and it's a little tougher than it normally is.

I've found myself disagreeing with my best friend on some fundamental issues, nothing detrimental to our friendship, but important things none the less.  Things that I'm basing my life on and striving for, while she rejects and denies.  Things that won't drive us apart, but won't necessarily bring us closer.

I'm struggling to make ends meet and to keep people happy, to feel good about myself a midst a world that forces me to over analyze and criticize every aspect of myself, and to persevere   All of these things seem more and more difficult this week, and I'm hoping that that changes soon.

My newest job is exciting and crazy, regardless of hangups, it's given me more purpose in a work environment than I've had in many many months.  The pay is very good, the hours are crap, the work is hard, but it's all very rewarding.  Then there's my other job that I just can't seem to shake.  I job that I've never been able to figure out how to ask for a raise, a job that drives me insane and has so little purpose that I often wonder why they don't fire me.  Because if I was my boss, I would set aside a few hours a week and just do my freaking job.  Not higher somebody.  But I'm not my boss.  I am my boss's employee. And I work flexible hours for crap pay in a crowded office next to screaming children.  I wonder every single morning why I don't quit, but I suck it up and drag my ass in to work.  One thing's for sure, this is a job I will never miss.

Never.  There are people who say "never say never" -but those people never had this job.  If you want to feel completely useless, you've got it.

So here I am, saving money like a boss.  Praying and hoping and working hard to get ahead.  Stressing over things I can't control.  Trying like hell to be a professional young working class citizen.  Wish me luck.

Love,
Alice

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

I'm beginning to think that I fail at life.

It's all just a jumble of fails and mistakes and substantial days that could have mattered falling apart and landing together in one big box.  I should be able to pick out the details and be happy with them, but it's getting harder and harder. Maybe it's called depression, maybe it's being ungrateful, maybe I'm just falling behind. I'm not quite sure.

I've been forced to re-evaluate my life in light of my upcoming birthday.  A birthday that I have, in all honesty, been planning for 8 years.  A birthday that I've had far more interest in over the course of my life than even throwing a wedding.  I had always planned on eloping, and saving money to throw a party for this particular day.

But, surprise surprise, it's not happening.  I had planned on a trip, a party, and a fabulous new dress. That was before life became a game of Monopoly; holding the right cards, holding the wrong cards, winning, losing, bankers taking all your money, in a game that never ends.  Now I find myself considering the pros and cons of scraping together enough spare cash to go see a movie.  Maybe go out to dinner with all of my friends -except that they can't afford to go out to dinner anymore than I can, and I feel weird anyways asking them to pay their own way.  Maybe I shouldn't, but I do.

Let me explain:

I always felt that this particular birthday would be a grand opening into a brand new, accomplished, fashionable, confident, happy, adult me.  Now looking back, this seems to be rather a barbie reality instead of one that I can reach. But that isn't going to stop me from trying.  I will be try to be happy.  I will try to look good.  I will try to have fun.  I will try to not be disappointed in myself.  Now I will try to take the "try" out of all of those sentences, that would make everything much better.

So here I am, working.  Wondering if I can afford $60.00 on a sparkly, sophisticated new party dress, or whether it would just be just as memorable to go through my storage boxes and pull out an old prom dress from high school and see if it still fits.  It shouldn't be such a depressing thought, but it is.

And so I don't know what will happen, I just might end up renting a movie and sitting inside with a container of cool whip and a can of pringles, bringing in the new me in an enviable fashion.  Wish me luck.

Love,
Alice

Blessed to be a mess.

Two jobs down, one to go.  I feel like this day is never ending, but I'm okay with that.  I started it out with extensive training at my favorite job, two hours of data entry at my most steady job, and now a few more hours of studying and paid prep work for my newest job. It is crazy, and so exhausting, but I am glad.  For even though I have had no spare time today, and expect many more days like this one over the course of the next 6 months, I know that I am blessed.  

I am blessed to live in a Country that, as messed up as it can be, gives me the opportunity to work in multiple environments with equal rights as men. I am blessed to live in a town that has provided me with all of the opportunities to find these jobs, and keep them. I am blessed that it has been over a year since I was laid off from a job because of the economy  and that it hasn't held me back. I am blessed that my truck starts when I turn the key every morning and gets me where I need to be, even though it desperately needs a trip to the mechanics. I am blessed to be engaged to a man who supports me in my jobs and all that I do, encouraging me to work hard and be happy. I am blessed to have little smiling faces greet me when I get home.  I am blessed to have an optimistic view of my future, even if I have a pessimistic view of my present.  I am blessed to have friends who know how to make me smile, even when they're struggling as much or more than I.

Yes, I am busy.  I am tired.  I am hungry.  I can't remember what my hair looks like.  I don't know if I have enough clean clothes to put together a presentable outfit for tomorrow's busy schedule.  I'm itching to check Facebook.  And I know I have to go and clean when I'm done with this post... but I'm okay with that.

I am blessed to be a mess, and while I look forward to a day when I make enough money to only require one job, I am thankful. I hope that you are too.

Love,

Alice

Gah.

People are dumb. More accurately, every engaged woman in my current age bracket is dumb. They all seem to think that their wedding is not only the only important thing in their life, but in every single person whom they know's life as well. They take every indecisive moment and question everyone, publicly count down every freaking day, hour and minute until they're no longer a single woman, and loudly celebrate every purchase towards their big day. With obnoxiously colorful photographic evidence.

Now, i think that it's great that they're so happy about their big day. Just fabulous. But do i care about every detail? No. Nor do i care about their dress's hemline, their floral arrangement dilemmas or what cliche phrase they should have embroidered on their ring bearer's pillow. Yes, these are all decisions that need to be made (apparently.) But not every one of their 485 Facebook friends are truly interested, and sadly, the ones who do offer input will undoubtedly not be invited to the occasion anyhow. I find myself wondering if these women are as ecstatic about their upcoming marriage as they are their upcoming black tie party. After all, a party lasts one night, marriage lasts forever.

That being said, when i eventually pick up a book and start planning my wedding again, i will not be putting every tiny detail on any sort of social network. In fact, I don't really want any outside input at all. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that they should have to worry about is showing up and enjoying themselves. I'm not into planning huge parties, and i don't even know when, where or how it might possibly come together. The excitement has worn down, i will get around to it eventually.

In the meantime? My fiance and I are actually living our life without the interruptions that wedding planning persists. We are working and supporting each other and figuring it out as we go. Who needs a wedding to start taking care of each other indefinitely? Not me.  Wish me luck.

Love,
Alice

Keep moving forward!

Today I finalized the last bit of paperwork to start my new job.  It's not a long term job, but it is a good job. A good job that I am hoping that I will be good at -which is refreshing considering the fact that my last job was so completely derogatorily awful that I just flat out quit.  So I am hoping and praying and wishing that this is a fabulous fresh start to 2013! I know that this year will be good, and as long as I stick to my few but important resolutions, I should be okay.  I'm not going to let very much get me down this year.  I would say 'let nothing get me down' but, let's be realistic -I'm a pessimist at heart.

But so far, it has all be okay.  Money is starting to loosen it's death grip on my life, my family is getting a little happier, I got to see my best girl friend on the first day of the year, I've got several jobs lined up, I'm wonderfully happy with my relationship to my amazing man, I'm blogging and writing again, and I'm almost all caught up on Grey's Anatomy. Yes, this last one is important.

On that note, I am off to eat sweet potatoes and watch Terra Nova on Netflix with my man. Because there's nothing quite like watching every episode of an awesome show in one night, only to find it's been cancelled 

Love,
Alice

Working for the weekend.

I don't think I ever want to own a business that hires employees, because I know how many rules there are to stay legal. Let alone to keep your employees happy. It requires consistent work, accurate lunch breaks, pleasant communication, limited harassment outside of the actual workplace, yearly raise evaluations and a little appreciation   None of which seem to be important to some business owners. And I happen to work for one. Now, I have worked for two others before, but I've never been stuck in one of those jobs this long.  And unfortunately, there is no "bringing this issue to their attention" in this situation. this is who they are.  And I've often discovered this when husbands and wives run a business together, that stuff falls between the cracks. And it just kind of sucks.  Especially when you as an employee, falls between the cracks.  At this point, it's better to just look for another job.  Which, I'm constantly doing, but rarely with much avail.  It's a dog eat dog world out there, and it's just not happening.  I know that some day, everything will be fine, that these are just pointless bitchy musings that will fade over time -but still, it's hard to go to work with a good attitude knowing that the best part of your day is already over. Hopefully your job brings you more joy than mine does.

Love,
Alice

First post of 2013, might as well!

Good morning 2013! Oh how I hope you will be good to me. It's been a year of long, honest, and tiring perseverance with very little reward. Yet there was some. I got engaged to the most amazing man I have ever met. My best friend and confident. My person. So that was essentially the best day ever.

The rest of the year however, has been long and tiresome. I feel like comparing myself to a hobbit, except he has his own hobbit hole. I had started on a crazy journey last year and followed it through an awesome but temporary job, a cheap and reasonably lousy job, a terrible awful black hole of a life job that didn't last, gaining and losing friends, road trips, hurdles, new household residents of the munchkin variety, not enough running, struggles, faith and much more. I don't know why I used a hobbit as a reference. Possibly because I feel relation with the little fellow in his long and difficult quest, but most likely because I just saw the movie and read the book. Too much awesome to be contained in my mind where hobbits are concerned.

Last night was an interesting end to the year, it was planned for weeks to be a fun get together of friends and movies, and ended up visiting with family and old family friends, discussing politics and where we are now. All the while holding desperately on to my immaturity through playing lego's with my nine-year-old cousin and wearing polka-dotted leggings.

And now here I am, in a whole new year, with all new chances to make this year the "Best year ever" before it all gets out of control and takes off like a bat outta hell. Off to work, off to friends, of to adventures, off to big crazy dreams and plans.

But first, coffee.

Love,
Alice

One size fits all.

"Friendship isn't about being inseparable, it's being separated and nothing changes."

At age seventeen, I thought that this was like, the best friendship quote ever.  But most seventeen year olds are stupid.  Or at least, stupid about the things that they don't know out of lack of experience.  They are experienced in the life that they know, in school and friends and petty dating and big dreams.  But life? No.  The ones that still believe that people are good until proven bad, that teenage boys who wear leather jackets and smoke pot are capable of life long love and commitment, that you don't need to save money because getting a job after college will be easy, and that the friends you have now will be your best friends for life.

Fuck that.

Now sure, people aren't all bad, nice boys can wear leather jackets too, getting a job will happen but not fast or easily, and one of those friends might stick around.  One of these things probably happened to you, because just about everybody in my age group with a brain has admitted to one or two.  (The others are all idiots or drug addicts.) But in reality, a teenager's view of reality changes them into who they're going to be based on how many times they get screwed over by those around them.

I still believe that there are good people out there, but they have to prove that they're good first.  I am always suspicious.  I was always a jaded, pessimistic child.  None of that changed as I got older, I just learned that you can learn to trust people, but sometimes it will hurt when they fail you.  Because everybody's going to fail you once or twice.  Some people suck, and you don't give them a second chance to hurt you again, even if they apologize and you forgive them.  Some people screw up, but you're both willing to figure it out.   Wether a best friend makes a mistake, or someone you love doesn't know what to do, some people need help and you just move forward.

Most pot smoking, leather jacket wearing teenage boys will never grow up.  They will get a job at a hardware store and a dog and a roommate and take some classes at the community college and be content to live a mediocre life of moderate broke-ass partying and a possible damnit-now-I'm-stuck-with-you marriage to the first girl that they happen to knock up.  I mean, we always hope that they turn out better, but let's be serious.  Move on.  Get better taste in men.  And grow up.

I think the money one is something that you only learn the hard way, when you're trying to pay a bill and you realize that it's either a night out with your friends ooooor paying that lovely cell phone bill. Or filling up your gas tank. Or that car insurance. Or a medical bill. Or some morbid combination of any and all of those.  That's when you realize that you have to figure out your finances.  Now, this wasn't always a problem for me, I was extremely careful with my money, I just happen to own a truck that needed work done, insurance paid, and over $250.00 to put in the gas tank budgeted every month between commuting and driving around.  It all adds up.  And the better job you have, the more money you make, the easier it is to pay your bills.  It's easy enough to plan out, it takes some serious effort to implement, and I have it a little easier because I didn't go to college.  I don't have student loans to drown in, and I'm a little ahead of the game trying to figure out where my life is headed.  The college graduates who think that their life is going to fall together the day after they're done graduating? Cool story bro, let me know how that works out for you.  And good luck, you're gonna need it.

Those friends that you grew up with? Yeah about that... Have you ever noticed that nothing ever adds up with them anymore? You tell a bunch of "remember when" stories, laugh about stuff that you had in common five years ago, drop your maturity level to the embarrassingly low point of where it was the last time you were close with that person, and hope to God that you decided to meet them at a restaurant so that you can fill the awkward silences with coffee or food or something.  There's always that one person who want s to act like their life is better, even though they are as equally lame or worse off than you are.  Whether they're telling you to get money to go to school cause that's how they're surviving, telling you about their roommate and the parties that they go to, or whatever place they traveled to last year, it all levels out.  Nobody has their life together.  The ones that do? The ones who've made a substantial difference.  The one's who worked their way up the food chain, or got married, or bought a house, or started a family, or are sincerely happy with the direction that their life is headed.  Those people are doing alright. Those are the friends that you congratulate, but unless you went through any one of those things right along side them, you probably still have those awkward silences.  Because life is not a one-size-fits-all scenario, not in the least.  Whatever is going on in your life, don't be ashamed about it and don't be an asshole about it. Never be too embarrassed or too proud of your life.  It's your life.  It doesn't matter where these people are or were, everything changes.  Those friends that you had in high school? Hopefully they're doing great, but between college and jobs and life, I doubt you talk to them for an hour every single day like you used to.  Hopefully you're still connected  but don't try too hard if they're so opposite that you can't enjoy talking to them.  Because people grow, and people change, and people mature.  And some people don't.  The ones that still go get hammered and party every weekend? Yeah, leave those behind.  They'll catch up when they're ready.

I had some really fun friends in high school, and we had all had different dreams, and different plans, and we all laughed and cried and told each other that we'd all be best friends forever, no matter how far apart we were.  We were all lying, we just didn't know it yet.  And you know what, I absolutely love the friends I have right now.  I have the best girl-friend a girl could have, we met when we were teenagers, but didn't actually become close till we were both out of high school.  And I know that I can always count on her, because we've been through some tough growing-up moments that are a lot more important than things either of us dealt with in high school.  Life changing things, that none of our other friends have ever had to deal with. And maybe someday we'll grow apart, but I hope that never happens, because she's one of the most important people in my life.  If I stuck with my high school friends, I might not know her at all.  And that would have sucked.

So all in all, don't hold onto things or people or ideals that don't want or need you anymore.  Find new ones, appreciate the ones you have, move forward and don't look back.  Don't feel bad, and don't put more effort into something that doesn't want to give any back.  Just move on, and if you're lucky enough to be one of those people who completely embraces their differences, then don't ever change.

Love,
Alice