You can’t choose the family you are born into, but you can choose the people around you that you consider to be your real family. Throughout one’s life, people from both families come and go either for a brief while or forever. No one knows exactly when someone will walk into your life who will change your life forever or walk out of your life and turn everything you have ever known to be true completely upside down.

This year has been riddled with what feels like complete upheval. My mom bought a new property near her hometown the day after Christmas last year. The house started being built at the beginning of March. It is a few minutes away from my aunt’s house and less than an hour from my uncle’s house, my biological family.  My aunt on my dad’s sister is about an hour away, too, in the other direction. Because I can’t dig myself out of the financial hole I live in with the jobs I have been able to attain in my adult life, as I said in my last post I have no choice but to follow. To leave the only home I have ever really known and the family I chose to surround me with love and support and taught me how to make conscious decisions and meaningful connections.

The last month, the struggle has been truly deeply real. I already had come to terms with losing some connection with most people in my chosen family. Then something happened that I never saw coming from a person I would have never expected anything the like to say or do. I have put a lot of thought into this over the last month. The thoughts took me back two years ago to dad’s death. The stages of grief are a simple concept with a complex construct.

Denying the lying didn’t happen. it is just foolish. The lies were perpetrated, and they grew, and they multiplied. Even I was made to be a part of the excuses and copouts told to others to make it seem like everything was as it should be. Denial was never part of the stages of grief as this web of lies became unraveled. The person was just denying it to themselves that anything in their life and about their actions and words was wrong.

Anger, it’s the one emotion I feel like I have been in a constant state of for the longest time. The anger I hold is usually aimed at myself for the circumstances that I haven’t figured out how to break myself from. Knowing that I have a lot of growing up to do was also the excuse that this long-time loved and trusted person in my life gave when she began to finally speak her truth. Looking back, I see that’s what we had most in common. We were both children who had others do for us what we felt we were unable to do for ourselves.

Our other friend is the only one who truly tried the whole bargaining thing. The whole come back to us because we need you clearly more than you need us thing. Posts, texts, and letters to try and plead our way back to what once was and will probably never be again.

Depression! Here is the one we all know and love. The one that makes this whole blog tick. The state of being that is  also constantly sitting in my head saying “today I think I’ll cry because of anxiety” or “today I might cry because the thought of my dad on my parent’s anniversary is just what we’re doing.” Hopelessness is another part that likes to seep its way deep down in there, too, with thoughts of never making any new friends in my new home.

Having hit this last button of acceptance on the relationships inevitable end wasn’t easy. The only thing that made it easy enough was that they left and have barely been in contact since. They chose to leave the people who told them that the lies weren’t really the problem. That is what set me on the road to acceptance. She just left. Here I am, waiting for nothing.

The stages of grief like the stages of friendships come and go, ebb and flow. Sometimes, one just jumps from one stage to another, never really landing on any of the stages for too long. Each stage hurts in more ways than one lasting as long or as short a time as it wants to be there. You don’t have control of any of them as much as you think you do.

Home is where the heart is and my heart isn’t in it anymore. Living in the same house for the last 29 years is all I remember and all I have known. Looking around at the things that surround me in this house I feel nothing anymore. Numb.

Mom is planning on moving sooner rather than later and I feel like a small child who has no choice but to move because she says so. Being unable to afford anything for myself because as I have said before on this blog I have a dead-end job and no prospects to do anything else with my life.

We lost dad eleven months ago today. This house is too big, she says. Also, the drive to where she calls home is too long for her anymore. Never has that been my home no matter how many times we have been there in my lifetime. Seeing as I hate driving in general, but especially on the highway and turnpike, I won’t be able to go to and from on my own anytime soon. Seeing as it would be just me sure yeah this house is big, I guess. Trying to take up as little space as possible is where my head is at. At work and at home, I am constantly in the way of everyone and everything around me. Having no possessions that are actually mine it’s not exactly that hard. But being as small as I can be is still not enough for most people.

Lately, my focus has been on how behind I am on the books I want to read and the shows and movies I have wanted to watch. Sitting in one spot on the catch reading one of my dad’s books that has been on my list while watching a movie that I questioned if I had seen before is where I am while writing this post. Concentration is something I don’t possess anymore. Three books, several TV shows, and movies, and I have no idea what’s going on with anything I’m doing.

When I started this blog, I had a hobby that, as of right now, I have not partook in in years now. Duct tape is still silver and all the colors of the rainbow. The events of the last year have rendered me silent from now on.

Alrighty folks, true crime confession time…I am obsessed with the self-help craze that has been sweeping through the world for the last few years. Face it, people, the plague really made us look at ourselves in more ways than any of us were comfortable with at all. Books and podcasts and blogs oh my!

Recently, I went to Target with my friends and Target, as it always does, told me what I needed… a new self-help book on the shelf by the registers. There are very few times in the last handful of years that I haven’t left Target without a book. Also, there is not often a time in the last few years that I haven’t been reading at least one book. Right now, I am currently listening to a self-help book, reading a fiction novel (hardback), and I just started the self-help book that Target said I needed because as my best friend so aptly put, “it has all the buzz words.”

The audio self-help books that have been on my Libby list a lot lately lean more towards that anti guru side of helpfulness. All the things that didn’t help the author stream slowly into what helped them, but then them telling you that help is not one size fits all and everyone has to figure it out for themselves. Right! I get it, people. There isn’t a magical way to just wake up one day with all optimism and answers in the world.

It’s time for another confession. One that anyone who has ever read any of my rants, I mean blog posts, could pinpoint if they look at all. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up, and I’m in my mid thirties. Hence, I have been reading in on everyone who has opinions on how to help myself figure out how to help myself. As I am just starting to read this new book, my first thought really was, “Why am I reading about making goals when I have no idea what I want. All I know is that this life is not what I want or thought it would be.”

Getting out of my own way is harder than it seems. Every second of every day I think about everything that I want to get done and approximately how much time it will take to do them versus the amountof time in the day I actually have to get anything done. All the time I spend thinking about time, I feel like I accomplish nothing. It has now taken me a week to put this whole thing into words. Now that I finally finished it, it’s time to get back to the “bzz words” book that I am barely a third of the way through.

You know that meme on social media where that guy writes a beautiful post about how much time in a day we spend at work and sleeping and it ends with a beautiful affirmation about how we have so much time between all that to do whatever they want to accomplish. In the end his math is a little off but the point is still there.                                                                                                                                                                      

Last night while on the way home from a bus trip I had a whole bunch of thoughts running through my head. It was an almost complete breakdown of time and what it means to me. This morning I thought about how I was going to write it all down and got stuck with writers block. So now this is what I am starting this post with to see if it will get me strted. So here it goes putting in the time talking about time…

Monday thru Friday I wake up at the same time to get ready for work. This is about three hours from when I leave for work. Depending on how I feel when I get up I usually do one of two things for the first hour I am awake. Either I watch GMA with my mom or I go downstairs and catch up on shows. Also I always have a book on me. Right now I have three books started, a paperback, a hardback, and an audiobook. Its always good to have a book on you and not have time to read it than it is to have all the time in the world and nothing to read. The second hour I spend mostly making and eating breakfast. The third hour I feel like is just time well wasted when I could be accomplishing so much and barely do anyting before getting ready for work.

Generally, I believe that ten to fifteen minutes early is on time, and if one is just on time, they are late. Going into work every single day this is what I deal with. Cleaning up after everything that occuered the night before so I can do what I need to do to get my opening routine in before customers start coming in. Setting up the iPad to be the correct section chart is my first chore having to do with numbers. Depending on who was on the nught before or worse during the weekend when I don’t work at all, some of the charts can look worse than others. Curretly there are charts from three servers all the way up to ten servers. When looking at the charts for the day I should never see four sections on an eight chart, but I digress. Part of my sidework is to fold kids menus. This also where numbers come into play in  my job. The baskets that are put out fit 48 folded menus relatively comfortably. On a day that I am not that strapped for time because of being busy I keep myself busy by making 144 which fills up three baskets. Yes I did that math all in my head and figured out how spacially it fits where I havee room for them and extras. So amid all of my tasks there are to accomplish in my positon I have an average of five and a half hours at work. So here I am once again telling you, my tens of readers, that I have a crappy part time   job that will never take me anywhere. As for applying to new jobs that continues to be a struggle. But then again moving on to the point of this post.

After work most days I enjoy going to my local Starbucks. I have a couple of drinks I usually choose from, yes I am that basic. There are baristas there that I have become very friendly with. We talk about our work days and lives in general since we are both in food service we feel each other. Sometimes I sit there and read for a while before I go home for dinner.

Dinner with my mom is usually around 6pm. We watch the news of the day together, both the local and the national. After that, I go upstairs and get ready for bed. Confession time: I take too long and hot showers for anyones own good. Wasting over twenty minutes of my night conemplating all of my life choices as far back as I can recall. Then most night there are shows I like to watch, some by myself and some with mom, and depending on the night there are shows from 8pm to 11pm. Some nights I have none or one and others there are multiple shows on at the same time which are preset to DVR because over the years they have changed days and times. This all leading to most nights going to bed between 10pm and 11pm. It takes forever, it feels like, to fall asleep though.

In summary, while I feel like every second of every day is completely filled, I feel completely and utterly unfullfilled. There are times when I mulitask and seemingly get more done than other times when I am just sitting in my room playing on my phone and listening to music until the very last second. I would love to get back to posting on here more frequently. I really want to get back to working my duct tape crafts again, the whole, original point of this etire blog. So here I am finally  finishing this post that I have been thinking about for almost 24 hours while watching hockey and finishing laundry, semiproductive Sunday. What are your plans for your next 24 hours, 7 days, 365 days, 525,600 minutes?

A place for everything and everything in its place. A pocket for easy access to ones phone, keys and wallet. Chapstick, gum, tissues, and lotion in another pocket so you have them if and when you need them. This is the basic function of a purse.

Finally decided to take a really good hard look at my purse situation last night and this morning. There were eleven purses hanging on a purse hanger on the door of the closet in my room. After going through them and discerning their usefulness and if they still spark joy in my life, finding others in my closet that I forgot even existed, I now have six on the door and eight are in a bag to go to Goodwill. Also mom bought me a new Spring purse that fits my life right now.

There in lies another question though. Why are purses built like bottomless pits anymore? I don’t know about other people but I just like to be able to reach in where I know something is and grab it. This purse among others I have looked at (while this was isn’t as bad) have one to three deep pockets where its just a catch all. Sanitizer, lotion and tissues all have their own pockets. The phone too. Keys live with a flashlight and a screwdriver set for personal easy access. Gift cards and membership cards have been dropped on the one side bottomless pit. Pens and a calendar/planner have been dropped on the other side. The middle is for the wallet next to the pocket that holds my phone and a twin pocket that have sunglasses and my name tag for work. So while I’m not a fan of the pits they technically have their purpose.

Tote bags a pits but they are like that for a reason. We have a lot of tote bags in the house, mostly used for when mom goes shopping but I have quite a few in my room that I put in a bigger tote for if and when I need them.

As I sit here at my desk thinking about all the bags I have in my room I am right next to all of the duct tape bags and wallets that I have created throughout the years that that was my hobby I thought one day I could make into a side hustle. What a waste! Now I have two baskets of tape mostly untouched, three tote bags, a messenger bag and a beach bag that might never be used by anyone including myself. I lost count as too how many wallets and phone cases I have made and still have here in a basket below me. Then there is the large tote that has my materials I used to measure and cut and line the bags.

Oy vey this is just getting me depressed all over again. Just want to crawl into my new bag with my book which I am realizing now I forgot to see how it fits in there and never come out.