Returned home - Here's where I am

I just spent a week living at my friend's house. She has a typical chicago frame house, where it's long and has the hallway running down the whole thing. Nice wood detail inside, that of course was not kept up by any of the vandals who seemed to live in it before they did. It's really long, and just on the first floor there are two bedrooms, living room with a front room*, a bathroom, dinning room, kitchen and back eating area*. I am lazy, and that is a damn long house. It's a giant house because there is a half furnished basement (it's not great and no one uses it other than for laundry and a treadmill they were given) and an upstairs which has two more bedrooms and some closets, but more space for another bathroom if they add that. Giant house.

Me, gianthouse and Mimi: the little black field spaniel. Having a disappointed dog on your hands is confusing. I don't normally play with our dogs much, and I began to fear that my want of my own dog some day was just because well you have one right? But I realized it's like kids. Mimi is not my dog and we took some time to get use to one another, just the same way it would take me a lot of interactions to meet up with someone else's kid before I actually liked them (provided they are not little shits in general, which why am I friends with parents who are raising a little shit of a kid?). So by the last two days Mimi decided she wanted to sleep in the same bed as me and why wasn't I playing ball with her and ZOMG YOU'RE HOME YAY!!!! So won over le doggie eventually.

Crazy start to the first week, then I go to living at a friend's house in the second half AND now I'm able to take the bus to another store to help them open. Then weekend where I sat in her back eating area and soaked in reflected snow sunlight. Slightly crazy start to this week.

Then I'm home yesterday after work and my dad who is bored and pacing around takes on the task of getting my windshield fixed. So he finally finds someone 20 minutes away, that if I can be there when they open at 8am they can do it for 175. Okay cool. Dad got to help someone and calm the shit down, and I now have a new windshield. Like damn, no wonder winter sucks, everything is coated in salt and sadness and in this case giant cracks from a tree branch. New windshield is amazing.

I also got my fitbit in the mail. I feel so old. New technology makes me feel untrustworthy and amazed. I know how bluetooth works but damn. This is some fancy shits. It was on my wishlist as nifty thing that would give me data feedback about how shitty I sleep at night, and how I sit around a lot at a computer. But then I got second place at a work contest and they gave us amazon giftcards. Then I had a friend pay me for work for her business in an amazon giftcard....and I was just so close. Got my tax refund and damn, new windshield, new tech. Now I have to squirrel the rest of it away in an effort to periodically throw larger chunks of money at my debts.

Then while all of this is happening. There is a new store opening posted much closer to my house. Everyone says yes go for it, and I keep hesitating. I don't know why and I can't explain it. Maybe I'm a little bitter that the only place that wanted me is considered the crazy store of doom by many people. I need to spend the time and take some reddit lifehacker advice and write down everything I've done at the job I have now. Because I don't really remember any of it. I just keep diligently working away. I'm not even sad about that, but it does make me worry.

I have had to keep asking myself why I'm not doing hard things. Why am I not putting my artwork out there? Why am I not making my time be the powerhouse that people who actually know me believe that I am? It's way easier to hope to find a job that I don't hate and just...give up. It feels like losing. It feels like I never even tried, but I'm most afraid of trying and finding that the drive to keep going isn't really there to back me up. It feels sometimes like what other people see for me. That what I see for myself is too open ended for other people to understand, or know how to want. I want everything. I have always wanted everything. Someone always says I can't have it, or that I need to learn to specialize to make it in the world. Always on the surface I submit and say yeah you're right, I'll just get really good at this thing. But then my actions are all over the place, always gleening more information and more skills, asking more questions. It doesn't feel like a drive, or a passion. It feels like existing, and it's so easy and simple to keep learning and knowing and applying what I have learned and know. But that isn't a job, that basic simple thing is so amazing to so many people.

I'm fizzling out when I talk down that line of thinking, because I haven't come to a conclusion yet. Though it's possible that really is the answer. Throw the doors open and just keep wandering around. There is no answer and just face down all the bullshit with being myself, whoever that is now. woowoo stuff that is just welp, here's where we are.



*I can probably find a diagram if people are really interested, but in chicago the houses were built with porches and since the 1900s these front and back porches have been screened in and then fully enclosed to be rooms of the house. Complete with interior areas where the old windows and front door use to reside. It's a pretty cool architectural thing. But 'front room' which seems to be the agreed upon term, isn't the best for basic descriptions, because it is not the livingroom/familyroom combo that was popular in the 70s in the suburbs. ...omg why do I know all of this. someone take me to trivia night and feed me fried foods.