Unemployment

For a month now, I've been unemployed. (Between you and me, thank god.) The job that practically consumed my life also brought out a dark side of me; not the dark side that I displayed in high school when I went through the (seemingly) obligatory depression of Junior Year. No, this dark side was much scarier because I had thoughts I had previously believed belonged to psychopaths. I don't want to post the details of those thoughts on here because I don't want anyone in the NSA or other government organizations to get the wrong idea, (Hey guys, happy reading!) I will say this however, I now believe everyone is capable of unspeakable horrors if pushed to the individual's breaking point. Everyone has one. And if pushed beyond that breaking point, it is only the individual's willpower and decisions that prevent or allow them to commit those unspeakable horrors. Yes, sometimes a person is put into a bad place surrounded by people who are indeed out to hurt others and getting out of said situation is difficult, however a person still has the ability to choose their actions. Let me tell you though, it's not easy to simply smile and let it slide off you. Sometimes people act out because of oppression and frustration. Imagine the frustration you feel after someone cuts you off. Now make that a constant in your life. Every minute of the day for 8+ hours. Never being good enough because no matter what you do, someone finds fault with your decisions and instead of being told how to complete a task you are told to "be proactive" and ask. But when you do ask, you are brushed aside. Add to that, the person you thought was your friend betrays you, talks shit about you behind your back, and when you tell her "Hey, I'm having issues with your promotion. I feel like I can't talk to you anymore" she just brushes you off with "Yeah they told me in my management classes that some people would have issues." Not offering any real solutions, any thoughts of her own, not even caring about someone's feelings enough to discuss it. Fuck her, right? Easy to say, not so easy to dismiss the hurt. The worst part is, I told her about the job and encouraged her to apply. That came back to bite me in the ass. Fuck me.
Even now, I'm still angry. I'm still hurt. I spend most of my days looking for jobs and applying. I know something will turn up eventually; I'm not worried about that. My biggest concern is to find a  job where I won't dread coming in to work every day, or dreaming of calling in. I love costuming, I love working long hours, and I love being part of a group that makes magic happen. I wouldn't even mind lower pay if the people around me and the job itself were enjoyable. But a shitty work environment can quickly make you feel like you're not getting paid enough. $8.40/hour is not enough compensation to deal with a she-devil boss, not enough to get thrown under the bus by the she-devil, not enough to pick up the slack of the she-devil, certainly NOT enough to have yourself and your co-workers constantly made to feel as if their work is not good enough, that their help is not wanted or needed.
I can't go back to a hostile work environment. I want to find a job that values me, my contributions, lets me grow,  gives me responsibilities, and encourages a development of camaraderie. I want encouragement when something is done well and guidance when it is not, not to be berated or condescended. I want just compensation for my time. It sucks to work overtime and not getting paid extra, especially when you could fuck everyone over and say "No, I'm not staying for another shift because someone called in." I know I could have left. I know I probably should have quit. But I felt a sense of duty and responsibility. I couldn't just walk out. Besides, I moved half way across the country for this very job. This was the beginning of my career. This wasn't just some job for me; it was my life. Maybe I cared too much....hell I probably cared too much for eight fucking forty an hour. With a college degree!
What the hell am I thinking? Mom, if this isn't passion for costuming, I don't know what is. To endure all of this because I love my job and still want to do it after all this. Fuck. This is fucking passion. I want to find a job that fuels my passion without tearing me down.

Oh and here's the very nice, very just ending to the story. The bitch she-devil got fired. Before I got laid off so I got to see karma in action. It took a lot of restraint on my part not to keep from jumping out of my chair yelling "WOOOOHOOOO!" I beat her.    

Come to your senses....

Thursday night my life came and circled back 360 degrees to almost exactly 10 years ago. In November of 2003, I had my first kiss and my first date. Mind you, I was in middle school so as far as I and everyone else was concerned, he was my first boyfriend. Two weeks later, we break up and soon after that he comes out as gay. (Cue Gay Boyfriend by Hazzard). It took a while, but I learned to laugh and make jokes about this non-straightforward start to dating. "I was so good looking I turned him straight but then a hot guy walked by us" etc. Oh and if I had to identify with a fairy tale, it would be "The Ugly Duckling" because in high school I became the swan.
In high school, I had guys interested in me. Guys thought I was pretty and I made friends. I thought those dark, lonely middle school days were behind me. Then I fell madly in love with J. If you go back to the early days of this blog, back when it was still called "Living Under A Rock" you'll find various posts about him. I thought I had found the love of my life. A large part of me believes he still is the love of my life, the one that got away, because it's hard to believe that I would willingly give up so much of my life again. I could go on and on about him to try and give you a glimpse of how I felt but maybe I'll just publish some of the poems I wrote then.
Then there was MadDogBV and I think that relationship is fairly well chronicled here as well. It'll suffice to say that J and MadDog were as far away from my first relationship as I ever got. They were based on common interests, genuine affection and concern, and sexual attraction. Let's face it, I was 16 when I first became interested in J, 18 when we got together and put serious effort into making the relationship work despite the war in Iraq, 19 when I lost my virginity to him and I was 20 and in my 3rd year of college when I got together with MadDog, sex was going to enter into the relationship at some point. Sex was something that played into my previous relationships but took the back seat because I wasn't ready for it.
Lastly, there was Frank Sinatra. Not a real relationship because it was based pretty much solely on sex but I fell for him. To this day, I'm not sure why since he's spinning his wheels in a small town, he can't get a job, he was a borderline alcoholic, not very good looking, very weird, and he only paid attention to me when I was in his bed. No, I'll tell you what it was: he could sing Frank Sinatra extraordinarily well, he's a talented artist (acting, directing, singing, and lighting design) and he's truly creative. Everything he works on he wants it to be perfect and show his effort. He doesn't want to half ass anything but does when someone else is in control and( in his mind) doesn't want anything changed. I loved his fire and passion and talent. Eventually, he did start taking me out on something that resembled dates and then he'd do something or say something that would send whatever progress we had made in making the relationship grow back to square one. He knew I loved him; I would tell him and when I would try to help him as a professional friend (telling him about a job) he'd wipe his ass with it and not listen to me. (Cue We Found Love by Rhianna/ Come to Your Senses from Tick Tick Boom). It was tumultuous to say the least, but I got some kind of sick pleasure from it because every time I'd say that I was ending it, he would, with random precision, say or do just the right thing that would compel me to forgive him. I graduated and got a job and moved away, but I still loved him. In February I decided to end it and didn't talk to him for almost 2 months (go me). He did text me for Valentine's Day but I couldn't brush it off as a mass text because it had my name in it and I tersely replied "Same to you." Just as it was finally getting easier, he texts me saying that he's been an asshole. I ask him if that's supposed to be some of apology and he replies that it's the best he could do and I told him not to waste my time.  I was talking to a mutual friend, A and she told me that she had been talking to Frank Sinatra on Facebook the day he texted me and she told me that he wanted to reconcile with me and he tied it to the rock musical "Rooms A Rock Romance" because the male lead was basically him and his life and the icing is the lead female and I have the same name. So, April 1st we had a long conversation where I got to grill his ass and he admitted to using me for sex and attention but it wasn't just my attention for himself, it was the attention our relationship got from other people. He wasn't making out with me in front of half of the people in our college because he was proclaiming his love for me, it was to start gossip and make himself look good. The ugly, weird outcast guy making out with this really pretty girl and leaving with her. We decided to be friends.
Now, this is the climax. I texted him the other night to find out how "Rooms" went, since it was opening up last weekend. He told me that it was interesting but didn't want to go into details because he had a "snuggle date". Ok, fine. The next day I text him asking if he was going to tell me about this date so that I could live vicariously through him or if I was going to have to use my imagination. When he finally does text back he asks me if I remember the dancer from the night we went to this bar to watch his movie. No, I reply but then I remember the gay guy in the corset. Turns out this gay guy was actually a girl who wants to transition to a guy, goes by "Charles" was in Frank's production of "Death of a Salesman" as "Bernard" but she/he is bi! And Frank is "intrigued" by Charles and they've been taking turns staying at each other's place for the past week and a half. And Charles has a girlfriend who lives in Canada (Cue My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada from Avenue Q) so Frank, Charles, and Miss Canada are in a poly-amorous relationship. First of all, all that identity just fucks with my mind, it took me a little while to get it straight. It's not that he's found someone else that hurts, it's.... who it is. If I look at is as "He's scraping the bottom of the barrel" it begs the question "What am I?" Clearly, I'm not his type because he likes tall women with big boobs and Charles has bigger tits than A and she's like a 34 D. Yes, it makes me feel worthless, like I'm not good enough for him but who gives him moral support? Me. Who encourages him? Me. Who tries to help him find a job? Me. Who believes in him? Me. Who sees beyond his antics and strangeness and sees the talent and potential? Me. It's me, always has been, since the day I met him, I've had faith in him.
So now, ten years later I have come back full circle. But not in the kind of full circle where everything plays itself out exactly the same way as if nothing happened in between the first time and the second time, but the kind that is merely uncanny. This second time around bears the marks of the strange, the absurd, the so impossible it must be true that comes with having a past. It's not a stand alone event, it's a culmination of the past ten years of my dating life events that ended in this. (Cue Don't Bother by Shakira)
Eventually I'll laugh about this. It's so outrageous one can't help but laugh, right? Maybe now that I've finished this cycle of my life, I'll move onto the next one and that one will be more awesome and not nearly as dramatic.

Alternate Universe

This past summer I worked at a large retail store. I was ususally the fitting room attendant; however this post is not to bitch about the experience because overall it was a very good experience.

This past Saturday was my last day and I was in the fitting room. This young couple walked in with a number of items each. The girl had a Gators hoodie and I asked her if she was attending UF. She said that she had already graduated. The guy had a Gators T-shirt and I asked him if he also graduated from UF. He replied that no, he had been in the Army.

I really couldn't say much else. How do you tell someone that they are living your life in an alternate universe without sounding as if you are on drugs? Sure, I could tell them my whole story, but the store is paying me to attend to people, not to tell them my life story and end up in tears by the end of it. If things had gone the way I had hoped they would go, I'd probably be living with him by now. We had been talking about getting an apartment together- I had even started looking around for a +/- $500 a month, one room place close to campus back almost 2 years ago.

One thing has changed though. Last year on my last day at KFC a guy dressed in ACUs came in and I broke down. I'm glad I've healed enough that I didn't break down this time. I did have a slight out-of-body experience and a melancholic nostalgia. Throughout the day I wondered how he was doing, where he was, and...admittingly if he still thought about me every once in a while. Some days, like today, it hurts a little more and it's easier to move me to tears.

I hope in the alternate universe that young couple is happy. I never learned their names, how long they've been together, how they met, etc. but I do wish them happiness and a life filled with love and understanding. As for me in this universe all I can do is continue moving forward with my life. Maybe someday it won't hurt as much to look back on those times...

Diamond Bullet

After three and a half years of being in some state of togetherness, my boyfriend and I have decided to call it quits. But this post isn't about the details; it's not about the story of our love, so if you're looking for a tragic love story or a romantic comedy then this post is not for you. This post is about the lessons I've learned and the wisdom I've gained from this relationship.
The first and probably most important thing I learned was that it really is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. A cliche, I know, that's why I never believed it; but now I realize that if you don't feel this way, it's because you haven't really loved. Not every relationship is going to end with this sentiment. Some relationships are going to end with you thinking "Thank God I'm finally out of that shitty relationship!" Others are going to leave you crying for months. But there are some that as much as it hurts you you're still happy that it happened. You wouldn't regret anything that you did or did not do. You and your partner would have shared such a profound and powerful love and connection that by the time it ends there's nothing left. If you get out of a relationship and you feel like there's still something left, then chances are someone held back. If you leave it all on the dance floor of love, then you come away thinking "I've given it my all. There was nothing else for me to give. It just wasn't meant to be."
The second thing was actually discussed in my Shakespeare class when we were studying Romeo and Juliet. (For the record I hate this play.) None of us could believe that people could fall in love in a week's time. It didn't ring true to us, and a great majority (if not the entire class) felt that it was ridiculous. But the professor said something that stuck with me; that it's not the length of time that the relationship lasts, but how deep the love was. Most of us by this time (early to late twenties) had already been jaded by love. Maybe even more than once. But Juliet had never been jaded. Romeo had, but it was immediately forgotten when he fell in love with Juliet. This brings me to the next thing I've come to realize which is, you've never been in love until you really fall in love. Stay with me here. When you really and truly fall in love with someone, it simply blows every other experience you may have had out of the water. I thought I loved my other boyfriends. What did I know at 14, 15, 16? It was only when I fell for John*, and I couldn't get over him, and I felt like there was still something there that I realized that this was love. I was willing to wait for him to come around and realize that there was still something greater, something more. I loved him so much that when he came back from Iraq, I would have done anything for him. It killed me that I couldn't take his pain upon myself. If I had the chance to take his PTSD upon myself, I would have done it willingly and happily. I would have done that just to see him smile again. To hear him laugh. To have him be the person I loved so much again. But I couldn't do that, so I stayed by him and supported him to the best of my abilities. If this sounds a little one-sided let me balance it. He trusted me. He trusted me with his life, with his emotions, and with intimate knowledge of himself. He opened up his heart, his mind, his soul, and his life to me. He never held anything back. Not a big deal? It takes a lot for him to do that. It has to be a very special person for him to do that. I consider myself a very lucky person that I was able to see the side of him that I did see.
I am so happy this relationship happened. It was very difficult at times and I know that many of my friends and family will be very happy when they find out the relationship has ended. None of that matters. What matters is it happened. I experienced the kind of love that some people spend their whole lives searching for. Sadly, some people never find it. But I was able to love someone with all my heart and have that love reciprocated. The course of true love never did run smooth but in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. I won't forget, can't regret what I did for love.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.
The title of this post comes from Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz from the movie "Apocalypse Now". It is meant as a moment of clear insight. An epiphany. Any other interpretation is not intended.
Please see the song "What I did for love" from A Chorus Line.