mingaling

I am 26 years old, single, private college-educated, possess a master’s degree, have a great job, witty, intelligent, attractive, emotionally mature, fun, kind, good, moral, and shave and bathe regularly. I have also never lived alone.

Not that it was meant to be such. I was supposed to go off to college and learn to live on my own, but my dad got sick so I stayed at home and went to school in town. After graduating and getting a good job I was supposed to go be the single girl in an apartment, but either financial issues rendered the need for a roommate or emotional needs were fulfilled with the presence of a live-in boyfriend. The last of the boyfriends up until that point then popped the question, turning the roommate/boyfriend/fiance situation into the solid husband/nuclear family/household partner status.

I’ve signed a couple leases in my day, but when I bought my first house I thought I was going to die. The numbers swirling around the inspection, mortgage, closing costs, broker’s fees, property taxes, and homestead exemption made my head spin. I literally suffered a panic attack during the closing. My x fulfilled his husbandly duties and pointed gracefully to the blank spots for me to sign, all the while fanning me with triplicate copies of who knows what to prevent me from fainting. Our modest $131,000 home would be paid for over 5 times at the end of that 30 yr. mortgage. No one should ever show you that number. Ever.

I now feel that fear again. Since leaving the x, I’ve been on standby at my mom’s. My original moving day of September has long passed by. Rent= free. Utilities= free. Food in the fridge= fair game. This would indicate a significant savings on my part, but who knows what I’ve been doing with that money (okay smartasses, I’ve been drinking it). My mental health has similarly declined. I am all of the things above, but why can I not be independent? I agonize over this confession, for that I know I really am scared to come home to an empty place, excluding furry beast. I am afraid that I will be the girl who accidentally died, but was only found weeks later due to a strange odor and after her dog had eaten her for survival. I am afraid of paying rent without equity. I am afraid that I won’t be able to get to fly out of town on a whim when I need to escape this dull city. I am afraid of budgeting and living within my means, as I pretty much have none.

That being said, I sucked it up and put down the deposit this morning on a cute 1/1 across from a dog park. I felt an instant need to have a drink, but there is no vodka in the office (damn it!). I have 72 hours to change my mind. What would you do?

The semester is now declared over. I gave my last final tonight. I planned it very carefully, with only two short answer questions and the rest multiple choice. There was no way I could stand to be in that room with them any longer than an hour… the last hour… the last sixty minutes from the end of this neverending semester.

After the exam, many of them came up to me and said they’d enjoyed taking the class. They validated that I actually was a good professor instead of just playing one on TV. A lot of them have signed up for my classes next semester, despite the fact that they’re the more difficult writing courses. They left smiling, happy, and content, not for the same reasons as I had been when I typed up the exam (relishing the thought of my brief but lovely holiday respite). I had waited for weeks for this evening to come and go, to be the beginning of my recharging period and to regain some idea of why I keep teaching. Instead, it was those happy, content students who taught me that very lesson this evening.

Once a week we have ‘Girls Night.’ This involves a core group of girls gathering for some estrogen driven free therapy and a lot of carbs and merlot. The girls are your garden variety of professionals, from corporate professionals to teachers to students, from singles to married to divorced, and moms and non-moms. I was introduced to the group by a friend I met through working at a school long ago, and the others are girls she’s known since junior high. They include the pretty, popular girls you could never fit in with in high school and even the nerdy, dorky girls that never fit in anywhere (guess which group I was in). But at Girls Night, we all become some sort of gelled entity in which we defy all differences and come together for some real time friendship. I’ve never been the ‘rah rah sisterhood’ sort, but there’s something refreshing about being candid and supportive of these girls that I would probably never meet in my daily routine.

Our weekly ritual also incorporates ‘highs and lows,’ in which we sit in a cirlce a la kumbaya and discuss our high and low points of the week. Silly to the outside observer, perhaps, but it is the only time in a span of 168 hours that I actually have a chance to discuss my reflections to real live human beings and garner a response in person (readers, you are simply not utilizing the comments option!). The weekly responses are as varied as getting divorced or maybe as simple as having a bad day at work, and the group’s reactions are similarly varied. There is C, an elementary school teacher whose zeal for life and personal interaction have made her the favorite cheerleader of the group. She swiftly moves us along in the circle, making sure everyone has a turn and opportunity to gain responses from the group. Other members, such as A, a home designer who provides snarky comments that incite laughter and often help lighten some of the more emotional discussions. K, a real estate agent, and her down-to-earth and no nonsense personality shine through in her discussions, often illuminating the right and wrong paths to some of our dilemmas.

It is those “you’re right – he was so wrong for you” or the “I understand how you feel” comments that we crave so often in our everyday lives. I admit that many of my friends are male, and there is no way in hell any of those things could ever come out of their mouths no matter how much they sympathize. This week I had many lows, but checking in with the girls has become the cheapest therapy I’ve ever come across. My girls rock.

I wanted a little nature. I wanted a little zen. I wanted to complete the feng shui environment I had created in my office. I wanted a fountain.

My first fountain was a hand-me-down from my sister. It was a multi-tiered monstrousity of a thing, with smooth river rocks on each level. The water emitted from an opening at the top of the first tier. It was great. Actually, it was great until the little hose that pumped water through the hole kept slipping out. I would fix this, then it would happen again, and again, and again. This went on for months. Not only would the hose always slip out, but the water itself developed some sort of slimy appearance after a while. So, my fountain sat there unplugged and unpleasant, collecting dust instead of enhancing my atmosphere.

My second fountain was a very intricate thing. It again had three tiers, but the tiers were suspended above one another by copper stems. Ideally, the water would trickle from tier one, get caught by tier two, then trickle down into the third tier followed by the fountain’s base. This, of course, did not happen. It worked for about a minute, but then the water decided that it needed to be freed from the constraints of this blasted contraption. Instead of flowing from tier to tier, it pour itself onto various spots on my desk. I played around with the tiers, the stems, but to no avail.

Lo and behold, J has gotten me a third fountain for xmas. She, being a coworker, knows the saga of the fountains and has offered to help with her gift. This is a fancy schmancy fountain with lights and stuff. Determined to have the relaxing sensation of flowing water in my office, I put that baby together and plugged her in. It works! Well, except for the ‘hiccup’ sound the pump is making. And the vibration on my desk. And why do I have to pee so much today?

I recently sat down with a good glass of wine to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the eight-millionth time. A box of tissues and many sighs from the dog later, I remembered why I love this movie.

I admit it: I’m the glass half-empty kind of girl on occasion to onlookers, but there is a minute little optimist dying to burst out inside. The stoic defense mechanism is there, for sure. This year hasn’t been the best out of 26. This “crummy little town” has gotten to me now and again. I’ve felt like George… perpetually getting the shaft, wondering when the world would realize that I have no more time, energy, money, or soul left to get the shit further kicked out of me.

I have yet to have the ultimate Clarence moment (don’t worry – there isn’t a bridge for at least a mile or two around), but what would the world really be like without me? There wouldn’t be another fabulous diva who dresses the dog up in feather boas. There wouldn’t be another professor who maneuvers around the question by only slightly snickering when explaining that Dada isn’t some form of infantile jargon. My students wouldn’t have someone to call at 2 a.m. to tell me they hate their parents. There wouldn’t be another kick-ass summer camp director who so swiftly lobs water balloons at unsuspecting students. My sister wouldn’t have that lovely scar where I decked her at age 11. Most importantly, there wouldn’t be another pisser like me to insert snarkisms every other comment.

Luckily, I have an ounce of soul left in me and the ridiculous heart of a romantic, but I don’t want a fairy tale. It’s probably a good thing to get grounded and reflect every once in a while. I will continue to use this forum to spew forth the reflections of xmas past (and any other embarrassing misfit behavior) and I will bust my ass to make things work for the small glimmer of hope that things will make sense in the end. So here’s a toast, Georgie, and auld lang syne!

Now if only the boy would lasso the moon for me…