Kitty says hello.



I've gotten over my freaking out, and she's scheduled to see the vet in just under a week. It's definitely worms, but it's nothing we can't handle. I think I was definitely overreacting because Joe says her fur really wasn't thinning out, I was just being paranoid. I can't help it...I guess I'm a hypochondriac in regards to my kiddies, too. Not a good sign for my future with children!! Har.

  Well, it's my last full day of being twenty-one. I feel like I should commemorate this somehow, like getting totally shitfaced or something to that effect in order to make up for the fact that I spent the last quarter of the year stone sober. Not really my style, though, and never has been.
  Mostly, I'm just glad to be able to put this year behind me and be a different age. Tomorrow, I'm not the age I was when I screwed up my marriage. I'm not the age I was when I made mistake after mistake, selfishly and recklessly. I'm not the age I was when I broke not just one but two hearts, one of them twice (as if the first time wasn't bad enough). I know age is just a number, but I feel like with the flipping over from twenty-one to twenty-two I can look at myself and say, "It's okay. Now I can stop screwing up. Now I'm older."

  I try so hard not to regret the two months that I spent separated from him. I want to look at those two months as a period of growth, where I went through dramatic emotional and mental changes and realized that I do not want to live my life without Joe in it. But when I look over those two months, all I see are the dumb choices I made in my desperation to try and force myself into a life that I believed for four years was the life that I wanted. I spent all those years ignoring the beauty of what I had, blindly staring at what I had left behind. And when I finally did get the chance to have most of it back, I couldn't understand that the person I was no longer needed those things.
  Up until a few months ago, I would say so often, "God, I feel like I'm still seventeen!" because I couldn't see how I had changed. I still felt like the awkward, grasping girl who would stand by while people she thought she could trust betrayed her again and again. I still felt like I was the immature, self-centered person that I was when I moved away from Philadelphia, that nothing had or would ever change in me to make me feel like I was finally entering the realm of adulthood.
  I don't feel like that anymore. I guess it took being ripped away from myself and my life yet again for me to finally take a good, hard look at myself from outside of myself. And that changed everything. And now, all I can do is look out over the past four years and want to kick myself hard in the rear end for wasting it.

  But the future still waits, and I am so thankful that I realized all of this now, while I still have so much ahead than there is behind.

Well, now that I've told my parents about it, I can make the official announcement.

Joe and I are moving back to Corpus Christi on July 15.

YIKES!

Ironically, we'll be moving into our new apartment on July 19, 2009 - exactly four years TO THE DAY that my flight landed in Corpus from Philadelphia when I was eighteen years old.

Before anyone asks, yes I am fine with this decision. I wouldn't be doing it if I weren't sure. I know that I have bitched and moaned about Corpus until the cows came home, but I am giving it a second chance and this time I'm actually going to give it a real chance, which I never did before.

So don't waste any time worrying about me! I'm excited to find out what the future has in store for me.

PS: I turn 22 on Friday!  WOO!!

  So yesterday was Joe and my third year anniversary. I woke up kind of wanting to do something really special for it, especially after the mess that we've come through over the past six months. It ended up being perfect, though, in just its simplicity. We spent a lot of time together, and then we had a really nice candlelit dinner at home, which was chicken parmesan (the meal that was served at our reception) and french bread with honey butter (which our diets pretty much consisted of back when we were flat broke). I've decided that particular meal will become a tradition for our anniversary, as a result of its meaning.


  I'm at work and really should be working, but I've perfected the art of slacking off. Tomorrow, my boss and his wife are driving their son back to school so I get the day alone in the office. Normally this would have my anxiety through the roof, but I'm comfortable with this job now. Figures that I'll have to leave in a few months. But I'm still immensely excited about Harrisburg and hoping that I can become a barista again somewhere that isn't Starbucks. Not that I'm going to be particularly picky about finding a new job, but...at the same time, I probably will be. It'll be hard to go from my job now to anything else.

  Other than that, though, there's not much going on. The filling that I had the other week is becoming a pain in my ass and might have to be a root canal, but I'm hoping beyond hope that I can ignore it and it will go away or stop hurting. No such luck, I suppose.

  Up for work. Can't remember having ever been this tired after waking up for work, and I got a decent amount of sleep. Maybe that's the problem - usually I either sleep too much or too little. Guess I'll just have to stockpile coffee like a squirrel.

  A number of things have been going on lately. I'm making a lot of progress in my life and this makes me relatively proud of myself. I might have already mentioned one or two of these things.
-I got my drivers license. It's shiny. I overuse it now. Strange how I can go from being terrified to drive, to wanting to drive everywhere we go.
-I finally overcame my horrendous fear of dentists and went. Good news: it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Bad news: it still sucked, and I have to get all four of my wisdom teeth removed.
-Joe and I are possibly moving to PA, and soon. If it does happen (nothing is final yet), we'll be moving at the end of July. We will also be moving to mid-PA, not eastern as most people probably expect.
-We started marriage counseling and are actually thinking of arranging to have it not quite so often. I'm not going to be so foolish as to assume we don't need it, but we're doing a really good job of working things out on our own so far. We want to have it sort of as something we need when we've hit a wall (and also to pick up those communication skills we so sorely lack).
-The attorney that I work for is picking up the name change paperwork for my county today and is only going to charge me the filing fees to get the bad boy processed. This means that finally, FINALLY my first name will really be Claire.
-I feel like I've grown up even more over the past year, and that I have finally arrived. When I think of one word to describe my life currently, I keep hitting on the word 'content'. I am CONTENT. I have stopped freaking out over the things that I don't have, and I have finally understood the beauty of the things that I do have. Joe and I are doing better and we're closer than we've ever been before. We go to bed at the same time, we respect each other more, we make it a point to spend time together. I know that there will come a point when things get shaky again, but I finally believe, for the first time in a very long time, that we're going to make it. No matter what.

I would say more but I really have to get dressed for work. I had been considering paralegal school for a bit but I'm still not sure about that yet. I'll need to figure something out eventually, though...going through life on a high school diploma makes me nervous. I know it's not impossible, but it would just be easier if I had SOME kind of higher education.

Dentist appointment in two hours.

I decided to finally have the GAPING HOLE in my back molar looked at.

I am terrified beyond imagining. I haven't been to the dentist in 7-8 years and I'm probably going to just cry all morning. I hate dentists.

HATE HATE HATE.

Got my drivers license.

Am still alive. Promise.

Please to be filling this out for me :)

1. Name:
2. Birthday:
3. Where do you live:
4: What are you studying/What are you working as:
5. What makes you happy:
6. What are you listening to now/have listened to last:
7. What is particularly good/bad about my LJ:
8. An interesting fact about you:
9. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
10. Favorite place to be:
11. Favorite lyric:
12. Best time of the year:
13. Weirdest food you like:

RECOMMEND
1. A film:
2. A book:
3. A song:
4: A band:

PLUS
1. One thing you like about me:
2. Two things you like about yourself:
3. Put this in your lj so I can tell you what I think of you?
4. Add a picture so I can put a face to a name?</font></span>

  Still working on trying to find a job. That's become my main concern at the present moment, mostly because I am not fond of having to rely on my parents to get by. I've enjoyed living with them again - my fears of them dying at any moment have been allayed, most likely because I'm able to actually see them every day - but has been replaced with the beginning acceptance that both of my grandmothers might be dying soon. This is not an unrealistic fear, however, and thus a bit easier to deal with. My paternal grandmother is at this moment receiving chemo for her rheumatoid arthritis, and my maternal grandmother is at this moment being admitted to a hospital for a urinary tract infection which caused her to be paranoid to the point of carrying a knife in her purse so "they" couldn't get at her ("they" being a whole other story).

  Life here has been quiet. I did watch the inauguration yesterday, though I didn't pay as much attention to it as I should have. To be honest, I did get a bit weepy when President Obama took his oath. He has made 2009 the year of hope, and I have to admit that so far, the year has proven to be quite hopeful for me.

  I'm doing better. Really, I am. I still struggle with things every day, but I'm no longer just treading water to keep my head above the surface. I feel like I finally have ground under my feet.

Edit: And I have rainbow colored toe socks. Which makes everything sunshiney.

Too many shadows in my room
Too many hours in this midnight
Too many corners in my mind
So much to do to set my heart right
Oh it's taking so long i could be wrong, i could be ready
Oh but if i take my heart's advice
I should assume it's still unsteady
I am in repair, i am in repair

Stood on the corner for a while
To wait for the wind to blow down on me
Hoping it takes with it my old ways
And brings some brand new luck upon me
Oh it's taking so long i could be wrong, I could be ready
Oh but if i take my heart's advice
I should assume it's still unsteady
I am in repair, I am in repair

And now I'm walking in the park
All of the birds they dance below me
Maybe when things turn green again
It will be good to say you know me

Oh it's taking so long i could be wrong, I could be ready
Oh but if I take my heart's advice
I should assume it's still unsteady
Oh I'm never really ready
I'm never really ready
I'm in repair, I'm not together but I'm getting there
I'm in repair, I'm not together but I'm getting there

  So I'm not quite sure what to say.

  Yesterday, I voted for the first time in my life and the person I voted for won. This makes me extremely happy. Of course, with this happiness comes wariness and hesitation, but I suppose only time will tell if this really will be the change this country needs. Or at least a step in the right direction.

  School has been...alright, I guess. I've pretty much given up on biology (meaning I'm not going anymore at all). My Spanish grade dropped a letter because I failed the last test, but I have hope that I can bring it back up again. I feel like I'm really starting to get it, at least to a point. I've been enjoying the grammar, but I don't study as much as I should so my vocabulary is iffy, which has presented quite a few problems.

  Friday morning I'm getting on a plane to Boston for the weekend. I'm ambivalent about this weekend, because as excited as I am about it I have a feeling that it will be a turning point of sorts in my life. I've been balancing on a very thin wire for a long time now, and I'm about to fall one way or the other. Perhaps I already have fallen but I don't realize it yet, it's hard to tell. What I can say is that things will be changing, and I have no idea if it will be for the better or for the worse.
  But ignoring all of that, it will feel good to relax and spend the weekend getting drunk with people I feel comfortable around, people who understand me and vice versa. I don't get that very often. Seems like Joe is one of the very few amount of people who understand me anymore. Hell, I barely understand myself, which makes it a challenge for other people to even try.
 
  After than vague nonsense, onto something a bit lighter. I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, and I'm up to 11,500 words. I'm hoping to reach 15k by the time I go to bed, but it's already almost nine so I don't see that quite happening. It makes me laugh, though, because I'm writing it about the character I used to LARP so many years ago. I'm sure some of you probably still remember her, and all the pages and pages of stories I used to write about her. I decided to finally sit down and turn it into a novel, and if it ends up being trash then that's okay. But I just want to get it out there, I've had the story in my head for almost ten years.

  So anyways. If you see me around, yell at me to either study Spanish or write my novel. I'll probably be doing neither.

  So I'm sitting in the library between classes...I think my Spanish class is getting a bit better, which is a relief. Math is excellent...I get my test back today so I'll throw an edit up in a few hours with my score, but I'm 95% sure it'll be 85-95 range.

  Which leaves Biology. I really hate it. I guess if I fail, it's not the end of the world. I do this thing, though, where the second I start having trouble I want to just throw the towel in. I need to not do that. I need to stick it through to the end, all of it, even if I end up failing a class. I can't just walk out and give up like last time.

  My weekend in Philly was excellent, but bittersweet. I spent Saturday with the two girls I consider my sisters, Lacey and Dorian, and Lacey's fiance. It felt so good to see them again...plus I can't believe Lacey is getting married, it's so damn weird to think about. But in a good way. Then Sunday mom took Joe and me to a mill tour in Lower Merion which was pretty but also kind of boring. The walking was good, though, but my legs are still sore.

  It was rough for me, though. I left with two boxes filled with the rest of my stuff that they had lying around. It's still in the car because part of me doesn't want to bring it into our apartment. My parents are starting to move on Friday, and by the third that's it...they'll be out. Trust me, I've heard enough times that I need to just deal with it, since they're moving into a better place and it'll be good for them. But that doesn't change the fact that I lived in that room my entire life while I was in Philly and I'm devastated that it's gone now. I'm sentimental. I put a lot of value in the little things - places, people. I liked that I could go sit in the room where I grew up. I liked that I could stand in the kitchen and look around and remember so many memories...I liked that when I woke up on Sunday morning, I kept my eyes closed for a bit and could completely pretend that I was still fifteen, still living in that apartment, that everything was simple and easy again. It felt more real in that moment than anything I can recall in my memories.

  But I won't have that anymore. My memory will grow patchier and patchier, and my triggers are disappearing before my eyes. I'm terrified of forgetting everything.
 

Post a photo of yourself, no changing, no makeup added, just you.

Edit: So I realized maaaaaybe I should make a post since I'm throwing up a meme.

Life's been good. School has been hard, but I'm roughing it somehow. I'm kicking ass in math and English, but bio and Spanish are turning out to be huge pains in my rear...it's so tempting to give up again, but I can't let myself.

Tomorrow, Joe and I are going to be in Philly for the weekend. My parents are moving out of the apartment that I lived in my entire life until I left Philly...this upsets me. But I'll get over it.

so there! I updated. Wheeee.

  I haven't decided yet whether I made a mistake tonight. I had fully intended to go into the second bedroom and begin cleaning it out - I want to use it as my 'study room' of sorts for when school starts next week - but I got distracted when I pulled a three-ring binder out of a box. Turns out I had printed out all the entries from my previous LJ and put them in this book...and somehow removed it from my parents' house and it ended up in that box.
  So I began reading it. It was funny at first...nostalgic, kind of embarrassing. But the more I read, the more I thought to myself, oh my God, was that really how I acted? Did I really write these things?  And then I thought to myself, this was only three or four years ago for Christ's sake.  Four years. Not that long at all.
  So I had to put it down. All in all it was a difficult thing for me to deal with, partially because I feel so detached from the person I was so recently ago. Partially because I'm glad that I've grown out of what I was. And partially because I miss the way my life was then. I hate the feeling that I've stepped so far away from everything that I believed in and cared about. The decisions that I've made in the past three years are not decisions that I wish I hadn't made, but they are decisions that have pushed me down a path so different from the one I expected myself to go down. I intentionally shy away from regret, fearing that I'll only think of the things I've made more recently. But instead, I find myself looking at the things I'd written and regretting the way I spent most of my teenage years.
  Maybe everyone goes through this, this sudden shame of the way they acted when they were younger. I want to go back and slap myself for being such an idiot most of the time. An ungrateful, spoiled idiot. My head was filled with these ideas and beliefs about myself and the people around me that were so far from the truth it scares me to think I actually believed them.
  I suppose the only thing I can really do is move forward, and accept the fact that yes, that was the person I was back then - but I had people who loved me and cared about me who still love and care about me to this day, despite my sudden feeling that I don't deserve it. I like to think that I deserve it now, but I no longer believe that I deserved it then.
  I feel like I should clarify this a bit more...I don't look at myself back then as being a bad person. I wasn't mean-spirited or cruel. I was just...unbearable stupid, spoiled, naive, and selfish. It makes me wonder if other people saw me the way I see it now.
  I'm just glad I can look at that and say, yes I have grown. That's not me anymore. And I'm proud of that fact.

My birthday was nice. Joe and I went to Joe's Crab Shack after he got off work. I had my first drink, and I got to keep the plastic shark!

Plus today I got a new tattoo, but it was on my hip bone and it hurt sooo bad.
And now I'm 21!
Yay.

Today feels like a good day.

It could be the fact that today is the day I finally turn 21.

But it's not just that. There's something in the air, almost. It's just...definitely going to be a good day.

  So I've become addicted to caffeine, ha. It's about the only drawback to my job, really, and I'm not complaining either. Coffee is so good. My first day of work was a bit overwhelming - I wasn't quite sure I'd be able to learn all I needed to learn, but I like to think that I've come a long way in just a few weeks. I close by myself for the first time on Monday, and I'm stressing about that, but I'm not too worried. The customers so far have been extremely understanding and I'm so grateful for the fact that they don't rush me. Which is a good thing, because I'm a lot slower than I should be in making drinks. It'll come with time, though.

  Things at home have been good, too. Joe and I aren't getting in as many fights, and the ones we do have concern money since right now we're unbelievably tight. Ironic that we both have jobs, yet we're broke as hell. Neither one of us have gotten a paycheck yet, so we're tight on cash...I've been living off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Not that I mind. I love PB&J.

  So I don't really have much else to talk about...funny how quickly we fell into a routine already.

  So, yes I'm fine, just letting you know. I survived the drive, though it sucked being stuck between two guys in a cramped truck for 30 hours. But it was rather uneventful (except for when our parakeets escaped into our car), and we're now living in Manassas, Virginia.

  It's really lovely here, and our apartment is simply amazing. Two bedrooms, two baths. The complex so far seems to be very quiet and the place just looks great. I haven't really seen any of our neighbors, which I guess is a good thing. It's just so odd having so much damn room. In our apartment back in Corpus, our bedroom had room for the bed and that was about it. Our new bedroom has room for the bed and a lot more room....plus a NICE sized private bathroom. The whole damn place is just gorgeous, I couldn't be happier with it.  I just hope I like Manassas...
 
  Joe, Arthur and I went into D.C. last night...it didn't help that I was already exhausted. The whole thing just wore me out. I loved being back in a big city, but it was just a bit much for me. I guess Corpus wore off on me more than I thought.

  But anyways...Comcast screwed up our cable so now we're sitting at a Panera on their wireless. I miss the internet :(

THIS ENTRY IS ABOUT DEATHLY HALLOWS, BUT DOES NOT INCLUDE SPOILERS OR ANY DISCUSSION OF THE BOOK - MERELY AN OBSERVATION JOE AND I REACHED ABOUT THE LEAK ITSELF.