Lost In Wisconsin

It all starts the same.  A friendship that becomes increasingly valuable turns to something more.  You can fight it all you want, but if there’s something there, this is the point every friendship like this comes to.  The attraction is growing, and somehow, friendship isn’t enough.

Now, if you are lucky, dear reader, this feeling goes both ways.  When it’s one sided, a friendship is suddenly doomed.  The discomfort of your feelings pushes the other away, slowly at first, and then with a huge turn down that can be heart breaking.

I’m not talking about the latter, however.  I’m talking about the point where friendship, strong friendship, is suddenly an overwhelming mutual attraction.  These are the things I appreciate about my collective memories of these moments.  The long glances, the casual touch, hugs that linger, closeness, bonds not easily broken, new loyalty.

I laugh at these moments, however.  The tension . . . the delicious tension . . . avoiding eye contact and behaving akwardly and rather goofily.  The fun part is when the eye contact lasts.  When the playful eyes turn serious, and suddenly . . . a kiss.  The friendship has now changed.

It brings to mind the times where the playful eyes and goofy behavior don’t turn serious.  The moment you realize the moment is gone and you wonder why.  For the most part, dear reader, neither of you were ready.  It’s why the kiss that is so badly wanted doesn’t occur.  The time is going to come.  That moment, should the friendship continue to build and grow, and the attraction along with it, will come.

In its own sweet time.

It may happen . . . it might not.  But wow.

Oh, it is so worth the wait.  And so worth wandering down that path for as long as possible.

I go through these phases in life, where it’s feast or famine.  Right now, I’ve been spending so much time at Facebook with my real persona that I never get here to vent feelings and thoughts under my ‘other’ persona.

I guess I just like being real, and lately it’s led me to wonder if I should ‘come out’ over here.

But, let’s not be too hasty.  I have lots of things over here that I don’t really want people knowing I have written, and certainly don’t want my dirty laundry aired all over the place.  So it would take lots of deleting and clean up to make this my true ‘me.’

And I’m not so sure I want that, either.  There are times I want to hide.  But right now I’m happy, so I’m not writing too much here.  Anyway, most of the people who read this ‘know me’ now and see me at Facebook.

It’s truly a dilemma.  I know I have the time to be here and there, but lack the volition to actually come here and spill thoughts.  Maybe my angsty period is over and I’m ready to deal with things head on.  I don’t know.

Time will certainly tell.

I admit it, dear reader.  I am a bad blogger lately.  There’s no excuse . . . I just haven’t been around.  Honestly, there’s this thing at Facebook called “Hatchlings” and it has been a near obsession for me when I have free time.  I have nearly abandoned you, dear reader, and I’m sorry.

Life is good.  My brother and sister in law are packing to move, which, while bittersweet, is a good thing.  You can only hear about how much someone doesn’t like living somewhere before it affects you, too.  So new blood will be good.  I’m happy here.  I want others to be happy here, too.  I can’t wait to see what happens in the future . . . them on their paths and us on ours . . . living under different roofs.  Should be fun.

My reward for quitting Starbucks finally arrived–I got a brand new iPod Touch over the weekend.  It’s a fun little toy, and a jillion times better than any iPod I have ever owned.  I might even marry the little sucker.

Work is work.  I go there, I come home.  I work about 7-1/2 hours a day, which isn’t bad, but I don’t get to see my boys nearly as much as I’d like to.  Again, some things are just bittersweet, and in this economic climate I’m just happy to have a job, so I can’t really complain about hours or anything.  I’ve got things others don’t, and I feel for them while I realize I’m incredibly blessed.

My house is a disaster.  I actually have off today, so I’m going to tackle things like the floors and laundry in the hopes that little things will help make the house look a little better.  I am just tired of a dusty, dingy house and need to consciously make the changes myself instead of hoping someone else will.

In summary, I’m a bad blogger, with a messy house.  Yay me!

That’s my life in a nutshell lately.  I get up, take the boys to school, do some stuff around the house, go to work, come home, go to bed and do it all again.  I don’t mind . . . I just sort of miss being here for the boys when they get home.  And I know they miss me.

Orders are starting to come in at the shop again . . . just as my husband begins to go into panic mode.  It’s a little relief to know we aren’t getting hit too hard by the recession . . . but why would we?  Most of the places who purchase from us are government funded.  Lucky.

I’ve been finding most of my online time spent at Facebook, thus causing me to not come here and update and write.  I also don’t have too many “deep, dark secrets” lately that I feel the need to lay before you, dear reader.  Yes, I still bear my torches and miss him, but that can’t be all I write about.  I’ve been trying to stay focused and upbeat, and so far, that’s working pretty well for me.

Mostly, I’m just tired.

My kids just went back to school after five days off.  It was like a little ‘mini vacation’ for them.  Not for me, of course, but they loved it.  It was too cold for school last week Thursday and Friday, and for the first time ever they had off for Martin Luther King Day.  I’m not quite sure why, but needless to say, after five unexpected days off I was glad for them to go back to school.

My computer decided to take a major memory dump yesterday, leaving me without a computer.  Desperate, I called Compaq and paid the fifty dollars to have them walk through some tech support with me.  Get this.  After several failed attempts to get the computer working, they had me open her up, unseat the memory cards, put them back in, and reboot.  It worked.  I was shocked.  It’s amazing to me, considering I was ready to leave, check card in hand, to go and buy another tower.  So instead of spending $400, I spent $50 and a little bit of space in a landfill.

My camera came back to me . . . apparently it had a fuse busted in it.  Didn’t know cameras had fuses.  Learn something new every day, I guess.

All in all, dear reader, life is pretty dull.  I like it like that.  Mundane can be good, and I personally don’t mind the lull.

A friend and I were talking about some things going on in her life with her family, particularly her parents.  Basically, she’s old enough to be on her own, yet still would like a relationship with her family.  Contact.  Assistance.  A bond.

It led me to thinking about my own childhood, my adulthood, and how, through all of it, my parents never backed down or backed out on me.  From what I can tell in this day and age, that’s rare.

What is it with parents who raise their kids with the frame of mind that when they are 18 they are absolved of any parental responsibility?  The government sets an age of an adult, and suddenly parents are no longer responsible for their kids?  This makes no sense to me.

When I was 21 or 22, I went to a friend’s 18th birthday party.  As a joke, her parents gave her a really prettily wrapped box.  Inside of it was an old boot.  I didn’t think it was particularly funny . . . neither did my friend.  She moved out the next day.

This other friend of mine has pretty much been on her own since she was 17.  I know that kids crave the age of 18 . . . that they think it is their “freedom” . . . but honestly.  What is wrong with people that they think their parental duties end because of a certain age?

A few weeks ago my husband was being very hard on my oldest son, and when he walked away my son said under his breath, “Just eight more years . . .”  I laughed and said, “Honey, you have a lifetime.”  See, because I don’t plan on writing my kids off the second they turn 18.  I don’t plan on kicking them out of the nest to see how well they fly.  That isn’t parenting.  That isn’t what raising a child is about.

In my opinion, parenting is ongoing.  My parents still parent me to this day.  No, they can’t always help.  But they are still there for me.  Had they written me off when I was 18 . . . said that I was on my own . . . I wouldn’t be who I am.  I’d be lost.

A child is nothing without their parents beside them.  Age 18 does not absolve a parent from being a parent.

Honestly.  I’m starting to get what’s wrong with this world.

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Hello dear reader.  It has been a while.  I’ve had quite a lot going on as of late, and really wanted to process it before sitting down and writing about it.  Sometimes, writing things right away . . . the second they happen . . . leaves room for hurt feelings and anger to fester.  Better to leave them lie and look at them in retrospect rather than in the heat of that moment.

My brother in law and best friend came to us earlier this month and announced they were moving out.  Moving on.  At first, the anger and annoyance was too much to handle.  Sitting on it . . . dwelling on it . . . making peace with it makes it easy to write about it.

See, I don’t begrudge them the opportunity to move on with their lives.  To close this particular chapter and find new paths to take.  Isn’t that what life is about?  It’s all the little things that lay in the way that made this pill so bitter.

I remember what I hated most about working for an apartment complex.  I know why it was so hard for me personally.  It isn’t cleaning the unit.  It isn’t putting out the little daily fires that cropped up along the way.  It wasn’t even maintanence.  It was renting.

I look back and recall each time we got the “60 day notice” from a resident.  Each time I recall becoming angry.  Nothing personal.  I just know what goes along with getting that 60 day notice.  It means renting a unit.  It means endless phone calls from people, all asking the same questions.  It means showing units that people still live in, hoping they cleaned up or it isn’t too cluttered.  It means making appointments that only about 25% of people actually keep.  It means endless applications from people who are in no way qualified to live in the complex.  Weeding out the good ones from the bad, hoping they will actually come and stay for more than a year.

So when my brother in law and best friend told us they were leaving, yes.  It was a little personal.  But, it was also the flash of what was to come.

We’ve been blessed.  They lived here for four years.  That is longer than most people stay in apartments.  So honestly, we’ve been really lucky that this hasn’t come up sooner.

So now I have ads out for new people to move in.  It’s a new beginning for all of us.  And that’s OK.  Now that I am used to the idea, it’s fine.  It isn’t them.  It’s me.  It’s all that goes into finding good, quality people that you want living side by side with you.

I just really hate looking for new tenants.