Being @ MindSay

I'm flying to Iraq tomorrow evening. I feel unprepared. As though I should I have run around the stores today and stocked up on spf-100, plug converters, sandal straps, nail files, etc.... Instead, I loafed around the streets of Ottawa.

 

Ah...Iraq.

 

 This venture still seems like a big flat joke:

"Where did Val chose to spend the next few months?"

"Where?"

"The safe part of Iraq"

(polite chuckle)

 

Hopefully, I'll be better equipped than I think I am. Which I'll probably be. People seem to be generally physically ready for anything. With the exception of the wild innovation that is floss on a stick, we can survive without most of the junk we buy. Bla bla...the antithesis of consumerism.          

It's the mental aspect that actually worries me. I've been coasting through life for a while. Always operating at the same speed. Example: Every wednesday of the past year, I've browsed MSN's "Style Winners and Losers" gallery and have enjoyed it immensely. Christopher and Melissa are very style savvy. However, I've never bothered to apply their wisdom to my life. I've paired tights with  short tops, clunky winter boots with skirts, jeans with  dresses. Someday, this type of behaviour will culminate in life lessons learned the hard way.

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.

Being poor is living next to the freeway.

Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.

Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.

Being poor is off-brand toys.

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.

Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.

Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear.

Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.

Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.

Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.

Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.

Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.

Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.

Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.

Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.

Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.

Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.

Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.

Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.

Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.

Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.

Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.

Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.

Being poor is knowing you're being judged.

Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.

Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.

Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.

Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.

Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.

Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave. 

So yesterday, May 5, I celebrated being 6 months single. Although, by my own admission, I have not had great success with relationships in general, there has not been a period like this where I have been without one. So I celebrated accordingly, I think. That is, over the weekend I had some 'no strings attached' sex and then, because it fell on cinco de mayo, yesterday I got snookered and slept like a baby. (side note- it was very weird to get drunk on only 3 or 4 beers but, at the same time, good in a way)

 

I don't know exactly what to think about it though. Although in some ways I am torn, for the most part I am happy that for the first time in my life I have no one to worry about but me. Some of my friends say that this is a by-product of not yet being over Laura. That I can't move on so instead I stay single. I don't see it that way though. I don't want to be with Laura, for sure, but I don't want to be with anyone else either. I want to worry about me and just me.

 

Now, I have also used it as an excuse, to be sure. Since my weight loss and attitude change, I know that I am more attractive. Some women/girls who I know or who I've been friends with a long time have suddenly become interested in me. My policy is, if I wasn't good enough to date then, then I am not good enough to date now; and I have used the excuse of wanting to be single to keep them at bay. But, truthfully, I am not closed off to a relationship. If I were to meet someone that was worth giving up the single life for, I would. But I haven't yet. And I am not sure I will in the near future.

 

Is there something wrong with thinking this way? Should every person be looking out for Mr./Miss Right all the time, even if you don't believe in that? Am I just compensating because I am not over Laura?

 

Laura took the route of becoming involved with someone immediately after we broke up. Of course, she had been lining someone up for that position for sometime before hand and I had not. But I think after a year and a half together- I needed time for me and to get over her and to move on. And I took that time. But I found that I liked who I was and how I was during that time, so why not just continue it on. Not because its getting over her or moving on, i.e. because it is necesary, but rather because it is fun and its what I want right now.

 

Makes sense to me.

       I had to do the hardest thing Sunday. I had to leave her at the train station knowing that it would be a while before I could get to see her again… I know that we’ve been dating for only a short amount of time and I shouldn’t be this attached but I am. So sue me. We’re only going to be separated for about two and a half weeks which is nothing unless you consider the length of time we’ve been dating then it’s a huge break. But, that is not the worst part.

       The worst part is that I have grown so accustom to her. At night when I lye in bed with her asleep on my chest or her smile when I look. I miss how every meal was special and how every little road trip is an adventure! I don’t get to wake up next to someone anymore and life just doesn’t seem as exciting. These are just my feeling not a life choice so all you “so childish” people go fuck yourselves. I’m being realistic.

       I can’t wait till she is here and we can spend time together again. I know she worries about her future and me in it or whether she’ll change. I mean, hey its life and shit happens, people change. Come on, no one knows who they are, and those who think they do are stuck up pricks. You can not make decisions on things in life if you haven’t experienced. Make choice when you have to and don’t shut any doors you don’t want to open. I’ve got a big door open in front of me and as life takes me through I’m going to enjoy every moment. Even the moments where all I can do is wait…