down the main drag

i miss summer. i wish to be in the ocean right now. i don't think i went swimming at all last year but this summer i am going to try and go as much as i can. out of all of my friends i think alan is the only other person who likes to go to the beach as much as me. but he is always up for anything anyhow.
i almost have a complete year plan now. which makes me really want to go on a vacation. silly? yes. whenever i have to actually save money or think about saving money i always go to the opposite end of things and want to do something which involves spending a lot of money. besides sacrificing the majority of my paycheck every pay day, i think my plan will help me to get on the right track.
in other news, my brother is getting married in august. my entire life he has always had a girlfriend, has always had many many many different women in his life. i don't know if this stems from some kind of issues he may have or just not knowing how to be alone. or maybe he just really loves women. but i digress. he is getting married to some woman no one has ever met except for my mom this past christmas when she went to visit him in cali. it should all be very interesting to say the least. it feels weird to be attending my brothers wedding and i dont know his fiance at all. i mean, the same sort of thing happened with kelly but gerald pretty much lived at our house for a week before the wedding and i got to know him pretty well then. idk. but i have never really known much about my older siblings anyhow so i suppose this is just following the usual course of our lives.

claudia still hasn't talked to me. i mean, i'm not surprised or anything, just stating a fact. i know it's over, it just also feels kind of weird. i know our lives have drifted into different places, and despite my efforts, there isn't anything else i could do. i think the last time we were together was over some drinks at starbucks early last year and then that was it. it's strange to feel that we used to be such best friends, but after awhile you realize that your best friends, also have best friends and maybe those people are just a better fit than you.

i've started going to bed really late again. i talk about this a lot, this whole depression thing, i guess for two reasons, one is bc it was such a big player in my life and two probably bc i'm not completely over the expriences i had with it. i almost feel like i'm having a relapse bc i can tell you almost exactly how i was feeling a year ago today. a year ago this month, a year ago the next couple of months. luckily for me the last couple months of 2008 i have learned to recognize most of the warning signs and have made some effort to try and better myself and my life so that i don't slip into the old feelings i used to have about myself and my life. and last night i even started reading that dumb book again. despite how cheesy it is i guess it helped. i think it helped bc the author assesses things from all angles, the same way i assess everyone and everything.
it's so easy to want to fall right back into those old feelings. it is so comfortable and familiar. it is surprising and painful and horrifying. there is false clarity, there is always the question of why. you feel things stronger than you ever have. in the end i always still feel so fucking confused. so why is it that i still feel like i want it sometimes?
i know i need to let go of all of that one day.

here right now

i don't really feel like i am one step closer to anything. i'm probably not trying hard enough. i owe a lot more to my mom than i ever thought about before. she has been paying for me and my mistakes and everything i ever wanted for my entire life. it's the least i could do to not be so fucking lazy about everything. in a perfect world i would make it so my parents wouldnt have to work anymore for the rest of their lives but since it's not a perfect world, i hope at least one day in the future i can make something of myself to show them that all of their hard work has payed off and i can give back to them somehow.

in other news, alan got mugged saturday night walking home from his subway stop to his apartment. well, i guess the guys tried to mug him but alan wouldn't give them his wallet so they beat him up instead. so he told me he got a few swings in and they had knives. i told him at least he didn't get stabbed. he got his nose broken and 14 stitches inside of his mouth. his face looks like someone dragged him across my gravel driveway. scary fucking shit man.
i really don't know what i would have done in that situation. i hope to never get mugged. i mean, i would have just given them my shit and hoped to god that they didn't want to stab me for shits and giggles. or worse. honestly if that ever happened to me i would probably be scarred emotionally for the rest of the year. the good part is that alan is ok and he's coming home soon anyhow. scary though.

moving forward

so i haven't exactly gotten to that part where i was supposed to do one important thing per day buuut the week isn't over yet so i guess i still have some time to get my act together.
so remember a couple of months ago when i was dead set on going to australia in '09? yeahhhhh.. i'm not so excited about that anymore. not that it is not a feasible thing in my life, it just seems as if ever since i mentioned it, it's like everyone and their mom is going and i just see everything about it EVERYWHERE. it has seriously lost its magic for me. im not saying that it wouldnt be totally friggin awesome to go snorkling in the great barrier, see the sydney opera house and hang out on the beach with hott aussies, but i just dont feel that awesomeness i had for it. technically it is the norm for me to change my mind about things a million years later but i guess it also has to do with lizzie being accepted to go to school there as well. and i am really excited for her and anyone else who wants to go as well but i dont want to hear from her all of the fab things she got to do bc she lived there for 5 months and then go there myself.
i feel like when i try to explain it it just sounds like a big jealousy thing, but i personally i feel it stems more from me feeling stuck. i just want to be the one to do something special no one has done and something exciting and not have have anyone beat me to the punchline. i feel like when i finally move onto the next chapter in my life, i want it to be for something great in my eyes and feel like i am not following in someone else's footsteps.

bring back cardigan weather

for some reason i can't bring myself to save money. when i actually did the last time i used it to go on that last trip across country again. whoops. my mom came home today to mildly lecture me and give me a million face kisses and squeezes like i am 3 years old. i told her i was using my next paycheck to buy art supplies and then she cocked her head to the side and gave me that patronizing "zanida, what did we talk about doing with your next paycheck?" so i was like " i don't know" and then she says " you promised you would put money away. blah blah blah. etc etc"
it's like really, zanida? you can't save money?
GROW UP.
yeah, i think i am going to be doing a lot of that this year. i mean seriously. i can't really expect to move forward, if i keep acting the way i do. it's sadly as simple as that.

today some guy called in and he told me some sob story over the phone. him and his wife registered at my store and then they had the room all ready to go and they were having twins and then the twins DIED. so they wanted to know if they could return all the stuff they bought. sooo i didnt really make much of it bc it was a random call and in retail you have to look out for certain things like that, plus i mean, i didnt really know what to say to that anyhow. i dont have any personal connection to you and i have never seen you face to face.
so i put him on with my manager and then when he came in he just looked AWFUL. naturally of course and then it all started to sink in how TERRIBLE it would be to lose BOTH children and then on top of that have to drive around all day and to a million different stores returning all of the stuff for your dead babies. DAMN. i honestly would not be able to do that. i would have to have someone else do that for me. he looked like he was about to burst into a million tears the entire time. wow. big hugs to that guy.

i'd like to be the new girl in town

i have decided that next week i will do one responsible thing per day to get my life rolling. in the right direction that is. it basically means i have to call all of the people i owe money to. but it also means getting serious about looking for apartments and schools to go to. the way i look at it, i have pretty much fucked over my life for myself. i know there is always room for improvement. but it always seems so overwhelming bc of the hole i continue to dig myself into.
i would really like to move out and have a better job. it seems easy for a lot of people my age, for them to pursue the things they want and to get a non shitty job. for me on the other hand, it is like i have always just settled for some shitty retail bullshit. i know i am more capable than that. and as far as school goes, that's another complicated issue.
as shitty and selfish as it sounds, i feel that when i finally do move out, my dad is still going to call me to ask me to do things for him or come down to do stupid shit. i don't know this for sure but i feel like there is going to be that strange dependency that this family has a habit of. that is the part of me that wants to move far enough away so that i cannot be readily available to just hop on over and have to do things i don't want to do for my family. it's more comlicated than i'm making it sound.
i really need to make a life for myself. i'll be 23 in 6 months and i feel like i have a whole lot of ..nothing. it is hard not to compare myself to all of the people who i feel are successful in all of the things i have always wanted to do.
in another thought, i know i haven't spoken about josh to anyone in months and i know that i probably shouldn't either. i don't know if it is normal that i have involuntary thoughts about him all of the time. but i do know that i am sincerely and actively trying to forget and erase the fact that he was ever a part of my life in the first place. i was thinking about it the other day and i figured out that i have spent too many years of my life having him around. i survived him through a year and half of high school. i spent two more years mourning the loss of the friendship to the point where i finally had clarity and personally forgave him. and then i spent almost a year and half trying to figure out a new friendship with him, only to finally figure out that i really feel like he was using me since the very start. in high school he was just fucking crazy and i was his safety net. and for that new year long friendship, i just feel used because of the outcome of it. i didn't feel like we were progressing and everytime we met up it was boring and serious. it was like being in a therapy session every single time. i was just there to relieve whatever serious issues were going on at the time for things he should have let go eons ago. and he was trying too hard to be my therapist, but in the end we always just ended up talking about his life issues again. and in the end if he had just told me he was using me and he didnt think our friendship would work out,then i could have accepted that. but to try and tell me that it was so much more, and then forgetting i exist, just shoves the knife in deeper.
i think about how he was the first one to really break me as a person. i have had many ups and downs just being in this family. being in this house and having to live with my parents, who obviously were not right for each other at all. but when my friendship ended with him, i always remember our last conversation. i was crying my eyes out. i told him i felt like i was losing an arm or something; a part of myself. my whole world fell apart. it was the first time i was ever truly depressed. deep, black hole despair. i didn't know what to do with myself. it was hard being 17 and not being able to understand that or being able to explain why i was so hideously upset. i was too stupid, for years and years of my life even up to now to recognize the warning signals and try and steer myself clear of all of this failure and dissappointment and depression. it's like, how many times do you have to fall in before you finally drag yourself out and stay out once and for all? it has taken me too many years to learn.