Autumn is quickly becoming my favorite season. It has the pretty colors as the leaves change, and the weather is just starting to cool off. I’m not a fan of winter or overly cold weather, but autumn is right before that (unless you’re in Colorado, because I’ve found it lasts for about a week and then winter sets in). It used to be spring was my favorite season because flowers were blooming, but I think now it’s safe to say that Autumn comes first — pumpkins, orange and brown colors, apple cider drinks, hot drinks from Starbucks. Yes, much of this has to do with delicious hot drinks, but overall, there’s just something magical about autumn.
I find that the closer I get to graduation, the more doubts I have about myself. A lot of it is stressed. I’m exhausted from being in school, annoyed by the fact that the person in charge of the practicum program has been more scatterbrained than a grad student, and just extremely stressed. Having my hard drive crash, and then finding out the school won’t hold my final class over the summer like they had assured me they would, probably hasn’t helped. This semester alone, I’ve broken down in tears more than I’m used to. I don’t normally cry very often, and now I seem to be crying all the time. This has been the most stressful semester of my life, and I just want it to be done.
Mostly, I want the stress to be done.
I’m tired of sitting here, worrying about whether or not I have what it takes to graduate whenever the hell the school lets me get my degree. I’m worrying that everything I’ve learned, hasn’t been retained by my brain. I’m worrying that I won’t be able to finish at all, that I’ll fail a class and be deemed a failure, and worrying that I’ll never find a job and start the next phase of my life.
Whoever said to enjoy your twenties was a damn liar. How can you enjoy them if you’re trying to find a way to survive for the rest of your life? Without ending up in a low-paying, minimum wage job? I’m starting to think my twenties are the most stressful time of my life, and that I’ll be more than glad to see them go. I just have several more years to go… and god, I hope I get past this lack of self-confidence I’ve developed this year. I don’t like who I’m becoming, and the toll it’s taking on my life.
I love crossword puzzles. I used to like word searches, and I still do, but not like I love completing a crossword puzzle. I think I just like reassuring myself that when I’m in school, I haven’t completely lost my mind and forgotten everything I once knew. Plus, it does help relax me when I’m really stressed. I always have to complete at least one crossword puzzle before I move on to something else, or return to whatever task I decided to take a break from in the first place.
When I catch a cold, I catch a cold. I will literally find myself sick for weeks on end. Usually just a cough hangs on for a month or more, and the first few days of the cold are spent in bed unable to move. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. I’ve never just caught a simple cold and been able to function. It’s almost the same as when I first started getting my period — I would be out of commission for the first couple of days because of cramps. I found a solution for the cramps after several years, but the cold thing is still a problem. That’s why I get the flu shot every year, and why I try to avoid people with germs, and take my vitamins… I just can’t afford to be laid up in bed for days at a time.
But despite all those things, I always get one cold a year that makes me feel dead to the world for a few days. And makes me wish sick people would learn to stay home so I wouldn’t catch their damn germs.
I am addicted to House Hunters on TV. It can be the regular U.S. version, or the international version — I am literally addicted to that show. I’ve been known to stay up until three in the morning watching a marathon of the show, even if I had said I was going to bed earlier. I can’t help it. I get caught up in the pretty looking places, and then guessing which one of the three will be chosen.
I can’t eat anything without salsa, or some kind of chile spice. Seriously, food without a spicy factor isn’t food at all; nor is it worth eating. I blame my dad. We grew up eating chips and salsa every Sunday, and by fourteen, I had learned how to make salsa as well. My youngest brother and I even used to have contests to see who could make it the hottest. I’m pretty sure he won the last round.
My mom likes to say I have no taste buds left. When we go out to eat at Thai or Indian restaurants, and they ask what number for the spice, I always go with the hottest — a five. It just can’t be helped. I love spicy food.
I collect coffee cups. it’s sort of a new thing of mine, but I’ve found that I go straight to the cups at whatever store I’m in, and if one catches my eye, I buy it. It helps that I drink a lot of tea and hot cocoa, and living alone, it’s easier to have a lot of coffee cups than to keep washing the same ones over and over again since the dishwasher takes awhile to fill up to run.
I’m not very good at cultivating friendships with people. I try, but I can never seem to understand what it is other people want from me. I’m awkward about comforting people, so when something happens to them, I’m not sure what to say. If they’re upset about something else, or happy, I’m equally as awkward. I’m not a very emotional person. It’s actually hard to tell if I’m happy or not, and that’s just something I get from my dad, who is even worse about expressing his emotions to people.
So with friendships, I feel like I’m doing fine, until something happens, and then people start pushing me away. Is it because I’m not offering enough support? Is it because I don’t offer much to a conversation? I’m not a talker, so I don’t always feel the need to say a great deal, and people often mistake that as indifference. I just don’t always have anything to say. I’m a quiet person, and I’m sorry if they want otherwise, but I can’t change who I am. I’ve been this way for a long time now.
And when people start pushing me away, or pulling away, I feel bad, because figuring out how to fix things to be normal again — I just don’t know how to do that either. So I leave things alone, and they often get worse.
But really, I feel like I attract people that want me to be able to read their minds. If something is wrong, just tell me. If you don’t tell me, how can I try and find something to say? Or try and comfort you? I just need people to be blunt with me, otherwise I’ll draw the wrong conclusions, worry over everything, and more or less destroy our friendship without even lifting a hand.
Sometimes I think it’s easier not to have friends. Yeah, I get lonely, but friendships are difficult to figure out. I don’t know how. I don’t know where to begin. Being independent of all that keeps me sane, because trying to read between the lines is stressful. A real friendship shouldn’t be stressful. It should be honest, and open. I’m not good at being open, I know, but I’d be willing to try a bit harder if other people would, too.
I have extremely thick hair. It’s generally pretty wavey — not curly, but certainly not straight either. As a result, I tend to keep it long, because that makes it easier for me to manage it. When it’s short (and I’ve cut it pretty short before), it gets really frizzy.
I have a love-hate relationship with my hair. I’m so low-maintenance, that I really dislike having to put an effort into brushing my hair in the first place. And if I do, that’s about it. I can’t be bothered to try and do anything like blow-dry it straight, or add curling iron curls.
The first time I read The Nancy Drew Files book, Two Points to Murder, and Ned broke up with Nancy, I honestly sobbed for an hour afterward. I had gotten to The Nancy Drew Files series during my middle school years, so naturally my hormones were all over the place, but at the same time, Nancy and Ned were a couple I thought were meant to be together. And I will forever root for them until the very end — even if I did like her with Frank Hardy during the crossover books. There’s just something about Ned and Nancy that makes me extremely happy.
