My cough has come back AGAIN and I'm feeling miserable. Hopefully writing this will help me get my thoughts in order so I can get things done today.
1. Moving Out:
I've started inquiring into apartment for rent ads on craigslists. I've written to two! No answer yet. Both were for rooms in shared houses of people in their late twenties. Both sounded really good. Maybe I should phone? Write again? Don't want to be rejected based on two sentences in an email!
I've been looking into collective houses. A group of maybe 6 adults buy or rent a house together, share groceries and meals, and often grow their own vegetables in an organic garden. It's a very environmentally friendly way to live. It's also very cheap: rent, utilities, and food for under $500 a month. I think living alone will not be good for me, and random roomates with their own lives and friends might make me feel left out or jealous....
Collective living sounds perfect for me, and yet the idea of it brings out my insecurities. Will I fit in? Am I easy to live with? Can I really live the lifestyle I say I admire? You don't have to be vegetarian but shared meals are generally vegan/vegetarian, in the houses I know of. My friend lives in one, and she and her roomates often bring home food from the dumpsters outside the grocery store. I'm sure it's safe to eat and shouldn't be wasted, but the middle-class part of me still thinks it's yucky. At her house they put on music and everybody cleans together for an hour. I am a bit messy when working on my art projects, and I'm fine with letting things build up and then doing a big clean up when the project's finished. I'm sure I could learn new habits, but there would be a lot of struggle as I learn the ropes. I'm also not a good cook. Pity the roomates on my night to prep dinner!
Do other people feel this anxious about being good enough, about being liked?
However, I need to push myself or I'll never leave the nest. I need to talk to my mother, tell my friends I'm looking for a place, and be ready to jump at any opportunity.
2. Online Dating:
I set up an OK Cupid profile maybe two weeks ago to check it out, and have been slowly filling out the profile. Two days ago I added a photo. I've gotten no messages yet except a 'wanna chat?' from a 22-year old, which I ignored.
I had found a profile that I really liked; I've mentioned it before- a bearded fellow who recently had a medical emergency. After thinking about him for a few days, I finally went back and read it again. This time all the negative stuff jumped out at me: He drinks quite a lot, and smokes when he's drinking. His fiancee left him only last April. The imaginary picture I had in my head totally changed and a new picture emerged. My imaginary crush was somewhat cooled.
And yet, none of the other profiles I've read have caught my imaginaton in any way. My friend says I should just write to him. He's online almost every day and 'replies often'. I'm working up the courage. It's silly, but I'm kinda glad to know smart, idealistic, quirky people like that exist in my city. I never seem to meet them!
Out of curiosity, I looked at some of the women's profiles as well. Why are there so many pretty and smart women in their thirties on an online dating site?
3. Self-esteem/ Miscellaneous
Self esteem, and general energy levels are all over the place the last few weeks. I've been really excited about the future and I've been really feeling hopeless. I am looking for a place to live, and trying online dating, and then panicking that I'm not ready, that I don't have whatever it is people are looking for in an employee/roomate/girlfriend. The long and short of it is I don't really like myself right now and I don't know what to do about it.
If I can just make progress in one area, achieve one little step forward...
Showing posts with label moving out. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving out. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Numbers, Decisions and Support
I think writing this blog is helpful, even though I've been pretty negative lately...
Feeling slightly better today, since summer school is almost over, and I'm looking forward to a month of feeling healthier, enjoying summer and getting my ducks in a row.
Last night I started an 'official' Moving Out Budget excel spreadsheet. I realized I was trying to make a budget for a year of not working, when in fact it's only 8 months! I will graduate in May 2012, and can start working that summer! I'm going to get a nice city job right after graduating, right? Even estimating next summer's income using the wage I'm getting this summer, moving out is not completely unattainable. If I can make $150 a week while at school I wouldn't even have to touch my savings at all...
It's still going to be a penny-pinching life, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled and if anybody I know needs a roommate I think I'll go for it.
In other news, my pregnant sister-in-law had false labour last weekend so she could pop any day now, although her due date's next week.
I am still coughing a little and short of breath, especially when I wake up. I have to use a puffer twice a day!
I am still watching as much Big Bang Theory as I can, and my favourite classic movie dvd 'I Know Where I'm Going' had to go back to the library but I watched it daily for two weeks.
My best friend in another city is getting ready to move back to town, just a 10 minute walk from me! I can't wait, but right now she is very very very stressed and busy. We usually talk to each other several times a week, hour long phone calls, but right now our schedules aren't allowing that, and when we do talk she is very distracted. She talks a lot about all the things she has to get done and it's very boring for me, but I'm trying to be supportive since she's supported me through a lot of distraught phone calls! In the meantime, this blog is my release for those sorts of feelings- maybe a way for me to be more independent?
I also check this forum, Incel Support almost daily, although I'm not a member. I believe that is called 'creeping'! I find the success stories and the solutions page very helpful, although I warn you that there is a few people who use the forum as a cry for help, and their posts are very negative and even suicidal. Suicidal posts are deleted and their posters banned. It is sad that people are driven to that, and that the forum can't help, but they really can't... Also it seems that male incels react sometimes by hating women, all women....
I'm not doing a real good job of selling it, am I? There are really positive and helpful discussions, most of the time, I promise. A few days ago I read a post that I'm still thinking over. A guy posted he'd went on his first internet date and had a good time, but realized he had no business dating until he got a better job, moved out and lost weight.... Sounds exactly like what I'm telling myself now. Everyone told him that he shouldn't wait, shouldn't put off working on finding a relationship until some undefined date, that if he had a good time he should run with it, that he should work on everything all at once... I don't know. If he doesn't like himself, if he isn't happy with his life, how well he do in a relationship?
It seems that older virgins aren't in general very successful in other areas of their lives...is it low self esteem creating failure or failure creating low self esteem? This study paints a picture of the typical older virgin- I don't quite fit the mold except that I'm white and I don't drink much....
Note- Watching Big Bang Theory as I write- it's my favourite episode, when Leonard and Penny first go out.
Feeling slightly better today, since summer school is almost over, and I'm looking forward to a month of feeling healthier, enjoying summer and getting my ducks in a row.
Last night I started an 'official' Moving Out Budget excel spreadsheet. I realized I was trying to make a budget for a year of not working, when in fact it's only 8 months! I will graduate in May 2012, and can start working that summer! I'm going to get a nice city job right after graduating, right? Even estimating next summer's income using the wage I'm getting this summer, moving out is not completely unattainable. If I can make $150 a week while at school I wouldn't even have to touch my savings at all...
It's still going to be a penny-pinching life, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled and if anybody I know needs a roommate I think I'll go for it.
In other news, my pregnant sister-in-law had false labour last weekend so she could pop any day now, although her due date's next week.
I am still coughing a little and short of breath, especially when I wake up. I have to use a puffer twice a day!
I am still watching as much Big Bang Theory as I can, and my favourite classic movie dvd 'I Know Where I'm Going' had to go back to the library but I watched it daily for two weeks.
My best friend in another city is getting ready to move back to town, just a 10 minute walk from me! I can't wait, but right now she is very very very stressed and busy. We usually talk to each other several times a week, hour long phone calls, but right now our schedules aren't allowing that, and when we do talk she is very distracted. She talks a lot about all the things she has to get done and it's very boring for me, but I'm trying to be supportive since she's supported me through a lot of distraught phone calls! In the meantime, this blog is my release for those sorts of feelings- maybe a way for me to be more independent?
I also check this forum, Incel Support almost daily, although I'm not a member. I believe that is called 'creeping'! I find the success stories and the solutions page very helpful, although I warn you that there is a few people who use the forum as a cry for help, and their posts are very negative and even suicidal. Suicidal posts are deleted and their posters banned. It is sad that people are driven to that, and that the forum can't help, but they really can't... Also it seems that male incels react sometimes by hating women, all women....
I'm not doing a real good job of selling it, am I? There are really positive and helpful discussions, most of the time, I promise. A few days ago I read a post that I'm still thinking over. A guy posted he'd went on his first internet date and had a good time, but realized he had no business dating until he got a better job, moved out and lost weight.... Sounds exactly like what I'm telling myself now. Everyone told him that he shouldn't wait, shouldn't put off working on finding a relationship until some undefined date, that if he had a good time he should run with it, that he should work on everything all at once... I don't know. If he doesn't like himself, if he isn't happy with his life, how well he do in a relationship?
It seems that older virgins aren't in general very successful in other areas of their lives...is it low self esteem creating failure or failure creating low self esteem? This study paints a picture of the typical older virgin- I don't quite fit the mold except that I'm white and I don't drink much....
Note- Watching Big Bang Theory as I write- it's my favourite episode, when Leonard and Penny first go out.
Monday, 25 July 2011
At This Moment...
At this moment the light at the end of the tunnel is flickering and growing dim. At the beginning of the summer I was excited about all the job offers I was getting. I was telling myself I wasn't going back to school in the fall, but signed up for two summer school courses anyways...I was going to eat healthy and get back on track with exercise and with my own creative work. And most importantly, I've been carrying around in my head for months the idea/half baked plan that I would move out at the end of the summer, just before I turn thirty.
Today it feels like nothing's going to change.
I live in the suburbs, away from all the arts organizations I work for, away from the nightlife (whatever that is), away from the young (single) people...It takes me an hour on transit each way. I've probably spent years of my life on transit. My little dream is to rent an apartment in this funky neighbourhood. I'd settle for a basement suite. (The catch is I want to keep my dog or at least be able to take him when my mother goes away, and the city is so expensive.)
I'm bummed because instead of listening in class tonight, I started making a budget on a piece of scrap paper...Of course I'm making up numbers out of my head; I don't really know how much I'd spend a week on food for example...If I was generous in some areas I skimped in others. The number I came up with was still $4000 more than my savings and summer wages combined, when I include next year's tuition costs. Is it really worth blowing my savings to do this? If I live at home one year longer....finish school, get a good job, all without student loans? Financially smarter, but can my pride stand it?
Of course I could work and go to school at the same time. I didn't work last year and I could barely keep up with the homework. There was a lot of group projects and I ended up doing the work of slackers...slackers who had nice cushy city jobs and will have nice cushy city jobs after they graduate regardless of their marks. If I'm working and going to school and learning how to live on my own, I won't have much time for art or fun. Would I be happier than I am now?
Oh I hate school so so SO much and dread going back....Is that piece of paper really going to guarantee me the job, or am I just wasting two years?
The thing is, there are two things I avoid telling people- that I live at home and that I've never had a boyfriend. I worry I won't be able to feel good about myself until I move out. That is, I won't actively try the dating scene until I'm independent. I know moving out is going to be a real shock for me and I'm going to learn so much about the real world. It's going to be extremely unpleasant and yet I want to make myself do it because I think it will make a new life start for me. It's the only way to break old habits.
I don't know how people fit so much into their lives- work school social time and just taking care of the daily chores. I'm exhausted all the time doing just a fraction of that. It doesn't help that I've had this cough for a month now, and all the work and volunteering I'm doing should be fun, but are a bit stressful because I'm feeling behind and overwhelmed.
So much work to do in all areas... I have this chart on Joe's Goals where I keep track of all the daily habits I'm trying to build up: Draw every day, exercise, clean, talk to a new person, walk my dog...The only problem is if I really did them all it would take me 6 hours a day! If I want to be an artist, I need time to make art and experiment and develop....economically impossible...oh, and I've had years to do that and it's been fits and spurts....
The other complication in all this is that my mother, whom I live with, hasn't decided what she's doing about school next year and my father has recently sold his business, stopped paying her alimony and is trying to negotiate a final settlement with her. She expects she could get more money if she started going for her Master's....another two years at the university. We don't live near to the U, would she be better off in an apartment on campus, will she have to sell the house anyways?
On another topic:
I mentioned that I had read a profile that intrigued me on OKC. I haven't done anything about it; I haven't even logged into OKC to read it again, but I've spent the day making up silly daydreams about seeing him on the bus, recognizing him, and boldly starting a conversation. I would know all these things about him and he wouldn't know anything about me. I would be witty, mysterious, intriguing and he would just have to see me again...
I should explain that the guy seems quite brilliant and quirky and he's got this sad story of having a major medical emergency some time ago and his fiancee not being able to handle it and dumping him. He is still recovering physically, and I imagine emotionally. I wonder if he's bitter about it. Maybe I should be seeing red flags but instead I think it's tragic and romantic. I wonder if it says something about my own opinion of myself that I pick the invalid- do I think he's the least likely to reject me? I will say again that I was very impressed by his writing and his passion for making a difference in the world...I even worry I'm not smart enough for him.
Listen to me talking like I know him...I saw a picture and 500 words and made up this ideal person all without even messaging the fellow. It is fascinating to me to analyze what it is I think I want. I think I don't really know what men are like at all. I don't think I'm planning to do anything about it at all; I think I've told myself I have to move out first. In the meantime it's fun to make up these little scenarios but oh! eventually I think I will drive myself mad....
Today it feels like nothing's going to change.
I live in the suburbs, away from all the arts organizations I work for, away from the nightlife (whatever that is), away from the young (single) people...It takes me an hour on transit each way. I've probably spent years of my life on transit. My little dream is to rent an apartment in this funky neighbourhood. I'd settle for a basement suite. (The catch is I want to keep my dog or at least be able to take him when my mother goes away, and the city is so expensive.)
I'm bummed because instead of listening in class tonight, I started making a budget on a piece of scrap paper...Of course I'm making up numbers out of my head; I don't really know how much I'd spend a week on food for example...If I was generous in some areas I skimped in others. The number I came up with was still $4000 more than my savings and summer wages combined, when I include next year's tuition costs. Is it really worth blowing my savings to do this? If I live at home one year longer....finish school, get a good job, all without student loans? Financially smarter, but can my pride stand it?
Of course I could work and go to school at the same time. I didn't work last year and I could barely keep up with the homework. There was a lot of group projects and I ended up doing the work of slackers...slackers who had nice cushy city jobs and will have nice cushy city jobs after they graduate regardless of their marks. If I'm working and going to school and learning how to live on my own, I won't have much time for art or fun. Would I be happier than I am now?
Oh I hate school so so SO much and dread going back....Is that piece of paper really going to guarantee me the job, or am I just wasting two years?
The thing is, there are two things I avoid telling people- that I live at home and that I've never had a boyfriend. I worry I won't be able to feel good about myself until I move out. That is, I won't actively try the dating scene until I'm independent. I know moving out is going to be a real shock for me and I'm going to learn so much about the real world. It's going to be extremely unpleasant and yet I want to make myself do it because I think it will make a new life start for me. It's the only way to break old habits.
I don't know how people fit so much into their lives- work school social time and just taking care of the daily chores. I'm exhausted all the time doing just a fraction of that. It doesn't help that I've had this cough for a month now, and all the work and volunteering I'm doing should be fun, but are a bit stressful because I'm feeling behind and overwhelmed.
So much work to do in all areas... I have this chart on Joe's Goals where I keep track of all the daily habits I'm trying to build up: Draw every day, exercise, clean, talk to a new person, walk my dog...The only problem is if I really did them all it would take me 6 hours a day! If I want to be an artist, I need time to make art and experiment and develop....economically impossible...oh, and I've had years to do that and it's been fits and spurts....
The other complication in all this is that my mother, whom I live with, hasn't decided what she's doing about school next year and my father has recently sold his business, stopped paying her alimony and is trying to negotiate a final settlement with her. She expects she could get more money if she started going for her Master's....another two years at the university. We don't live near to the U, would she be better off in an apartment on campus, will she have to sell the house anyways?
On another topic:
I mentioned that I had read a profile that intrigued me on OKC. I haven't done anything about it; I haven't even logged into OKC to read it again, but I've spent the day making up silly daydreams about seeing him on the bus, recognizing him, and boldly starting a conversation. I would know all these things about him and he wouldn't know anything about me. I would be witty, mysterious, intriguing and he would just have to see me again...
I should explain that the guy seems quite brilliant and quirky and he's got this sad story of having a major medical emergency some time ago and his fiancee not being able to handle it and dumping him. He is still recovering physically, and I imagine emotionally. I wonder if he's bitter about it. Maybe I should be seeing red flags but instead I think it's tragic and romantic. I wonder if it says something about my own opinion of myself that I pick the invalid- do I think he's the least likely to reject me? I will say again that I was very impressed by his writing and his passion for making a difference in the world...I even worry I'm not smart enough for him.
Listen to me talking like I know him...I saw a picture and 500 words and made up this ideal person all without even messaging the fellow. It is fascinating to me to analyze what it is I think I want. I think I don't really know what men are like at all. I don't think I'm planning to do anything about it at all; I think I've told myself I have to move out first. In the meantime it's fun to make up these little scenarios but oh! eventually I think I will drive myself mad....
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