Lonely

I'm supremely social, but in a very limited way.
I love to observe and feed off the energy of happy, healthy, and exuberant people. I love making people laugh, and sharing in their joys. Unfortunately, it's not something I can simply shut off. There is no master switch. That means, I also feed off the energy of those who are sullen, sad, unhealthy, and lack the luster of life. Don't get me wrong, I fight the good fight, but it wears on me and a lot of the time I eventually internalize it... I lose. Today, I worked promo. What is promo, you ask? Promo (promotional modeling) is a job where you stand on your feet all day, with an excited gleam in your eyes and a plastered smile on your face. It's a position that requires you to be polished, polite and excited toward people who look at you like your an idiot, ask stupid questions (sometimes on purpose), sleazily and unapologetic-ally hit on you (and gross you out), smell bad, steal from you (yes, it's happened), and waste your time, while you try to get their information for the company that is sponsoring you. There is always the occasional cool person that makes the time go by just a little quicker, but the majority of the people you come across, treat you like a robot and often cut you off mid-sentence, or simply ignore you entirely. This is how I spent my day today. I left my booth once for a bathroom break, and in the lull of the crowd, crammed a yogurt and a granola bar down my throat for sustenance. I had a coffee for breakfast. By quitting time I had consumed MAYBE 800 calories and burned at least twice that amount. My feet and lower back were throbbing painfully and my stomach was cramping from the lining rubbing against itself. Once I got to my car, my left quad started to spasm. I was done. I called my husband who's 3000+ miles away for school and he was too busy to chit chat. I ate crappy food and drank 3 day old wine while attempting to do homework. And even though I know it's nothing personal, I can't help but feel like it's an intentional jab that I am alone, eating shitty food, drinking old wine, grouchy, tired, stressed out, cold, and reading a math textbook (please, rip my eyes out now and scratch out my brain piece by piece). My dog wouldn't even snuggle. What the hell? Is this my life? I know there are FAR worse things, I do. But for whatever reason, the combination of all of this got me to feeling very sorry for myself. I'm dramatic so I also get mad at those closest to me for not wanting to make me feel better. Those people I love the most that aren't reading my mind and emotions and subtle hints that I crave their reassurance. That all I really need is someone to tell me I can do this- even when they know I can. They know that I know I can. Reminders aren't always derogatory, and they can't really know, can they? It's not like I could come out and say it. Admit defeat? I already feel weak that I need anyone. I'm supposed to be independent. I'm supposed to be self-sufficient. I'm SUPPOSED to make this look easy, I work 4 jobs for goodness sake! I don't have time to need anyone anyway. Something has got to give. Right now, my school work and emotional wellness is taking a direct hit. I'm not okay with either but I feel more in control of my school work so I'll focus on that and continue to feel sorry for myself in the hopes that my negativity will eventually spark recognition in my husband and he'll do something wonderfully romantic to make me feel loved. Great. Now I'm pissy that he doesn't send me flowers for no reason anymore. Ugh, I'm not even hormonal! I should really be mad at myself for internalizing everything from my day and projecting it on him, but that would mean that I have control over the remedy. That I can fix this and I simply don't have enough energy for all of that. Instead, I think I will finish this glass of crappy old wine, brush my teeth, wash my face, cake on extra thick moisturizer and hope that when I wake up tomorrow, I'll be of a fresh mind. Monday, please be kind.

2016 The Year of Change

It's not even February yet and my head is already spinning from everything that has happened this year. It's still January! Gary is settled in down in Georgia and plugging away at his studies, although I'm pretty sure he's bored out of his mind. That being said, I am on my own again. I got back to work the first work week in January and started the year off by playing catch up on 2 weeks worth of missed work from our drive to GA, training my replacement (you know, 8 months before I actually leave), end of the year tasks, beginning of the year tasks, beginning of the month tasks, and end of the month tasks... all while trying to keep up on my current work which was streaming in each time I pressed refresh on my email. After a week and a half, my boss decided she didn't want to pay two people to essentially do the same job and that training was no longer necessary. This meant that I was cut out of getting paid for 3 weeks of hourly pay. No worries, I still have a job, I'm just working from home sooner than I thought. Bad idea. First day from home and I panicked. I can't do this! I needed structure and I felt like nothing I did mattered. I was basically full-time on-call and THAT was not okay. I moved to being paid per-transaction so this was going to work out to being less than minimum wage at the rate in which I was working. In my panic, I got myself a 4th job (with the assistance of an amazing friend- you know who you are). Yep. 4. Because I'm crazy. Of course as soon as I accepted this job, I ended up getting requests from my agent for acting and then booked the next weekend with promo work. What am I doing with my life? I will say the new job, although not even close to glamorous, fulfilled my deep need for structure and is perfect in the sense that once I clock out- I can completely forget about everything work-related. It is kind of sad that I actually WANT someone to hold me accountable to when I show up and what I do while I'm there, but it's the truth. The following weekend, I'm exhausted and feeling ridiculously (and rightfully) overwhelmed with my schedule, and underwhelmed with my life, and I receive 2 emails from my college professors for the upcoming quarter. Guess what? Classes started in 2 days! Where did my January go? I called Gary to see what his opinion on my insanity was and basically just word vomited all over him. The next morning I called my boss of 3 years and told her I couldn't do it. There was just too much adjustment involved with too little pay for the amount of work- and I now had a job that had a guaranteed paycheck. She completely understood (she'd witnessed my insanity first-hand). I'm still transitioning out of that job (it's not a rip-the-Bandaid type situation), working the new (warehouse) job 3 days a week, in school full time, and helping wherever I can on the kitchen remodel. Tuesday and today, I got up at 4:30 to run with Rylee, we did 5 miles each day. It was dumping rain today so I gave her a shower, showered myself, snuggled, hung the blinds in the front windows (sorry creepers!), primered every wall in the kitchen, ordered a pizza and stalled on the phone to Gary before writing my first paper for English 102. *fingers crossed that I did what I was supposed to.