'Summering'

Summers been keeping me busy (and away from journaling) and I am sort of ready for the cliche of Fall and the slowness of the season to return.

 I have always had this sort of love/hate relationship with summer. Obviously when I was in school, summer represented freedom and the opportunity to read and write as much as I wanted too. I liked learning and being in school but I loved having 3 months away to do my own thing which often consisted of binge watching tv. I loved waking up later and staying up even later. I loved bike rides and summer foods. But that was/is sort of where the love began and end for me. I have never enjoyed summer heat and worse summer crowds. I am not someone who is always comfortable in my skin and dressing for summer weather is a struggle. Not only that but the things that to tend to epitomize summer exhaust and overwhelm me.

Generally, I am not a person who 'summers' well. I'd rather spend a hot summer day at home, under blankets, reading a book than outside interacting with the world. Generally... This summer however, I seem to have found the balance between my introverted ways with the enjoyment of summer activities. There has been an abundance of bike riding, movie watching, summer food eating, and exploration in between hibernating, book reading, Netflix watching and naps. lots of naps. I also discovered that I love sitting in the sun. Just sitting: nothing less nothing more. On my lunch breaks especially now since my work friend Lyle put in his two weeks a month ago ( a long hilarious story, i'll have to write about), I spend lunch breaks by myself, because I am still quite the pariah in my office, just sitting in the sun. The weather has been so nice the last few days that for 45 minutes a day I sit outside on the patio, eyes closed, face turned upwards while the sun hits my skin. It's a nice and comforting feeling that I will miss once summer comes to a close. I will miss the warmth despite the fact that I am very eager about fall and autumn happenings.

 I was so convinced that summer would be ruined because of memories of ashat that I was hesitant and almost reluctant to participate or enjoy any part of it. My logic does not always make sense as I am always thinking and over analyzing and wanting to be two steps ahead of disaster. But on ashats birthday, after weeks of convincing myself that I would not be able to handle the day or memory of him, I was struck by how normal the day was. Outside of the emergency 'are you going to be okay' text from Kat, the actual day was not too bad and my thoughts were so far removed from him that i feel like I am finally moving past him, us and whatever we had (though he does and will creep up in my writing a lot) It's not as soul crushing and heart breaking as I expected.

I was so convinced that no not knowing him would be almost as painful as being in love with him when he was so easily not interested or capable of loving me. I found out recently that he may have actual gotten married to eggplant head before her birthday (you know, because she had a eye tumor and he wanted her to have insurance because she was near death and all...le sigh, how and why did I fall for this boy) and while the news was shocking, it wasn't crushing. Nothing about my life after ashat has been crushing. Instead it is the opposite. I am comforted and relieved that he's just not a part of the life I am creating for myself and there is something liberating and enjoyable about this. 

Nothing has been more evident of this than the ease and enjoyment of summer this year. I've gone to ballets, Broadway shows, parks and seen a lot of bad movies in theaters. Kat introduced the wonderful world of podcasts and I am toying with the idea of starting my own, just for the hell of it. I went to a theme park this summer and several bbq's and of course I sat in the sun a lot, during the week and especially on the weekends.

The pinnacle of summer was my mom coming into town for 9 days to help me decorate my apartment. While the move has turned out to be one of the best forced decisions of my life, the stress of the predicament made adjusting a little difficult.I have done a pretty good, and quick, job decorating and making the place feel like home but I think my mom wanted to give my home her blessing and seal of approval. And while her last visit to New York was not that great this one was pretty successful. She bought me a crap load of decorative things and we even went to D.C for two days, because why not. For once I could finally afford to a mini vacation and my mom has always wanted to go to Washington D.C.

 It's sort of weird being in a position both financially and personally to take care of my mother a little bit. I mean, I am still pretty broke as hell but for the most part I was able to plan this trip to D.C and cover half of the expenses. I planned everything from the train ride down to the hotel we ended up staying in and my mom was relieved that she did not have to be the adult for once and make decisions because all of a sudden I was capable of taking charge of things.

 The trip to D.C was pretty good, save for the mistake I made of inviting my freeloading aunt (my mom's younger sister) along with us. This is the same aunt who i lived with when I first moved to New York before she kicked me out of her apartment because...I don't really know. After a year of living with her, she phoned my mom one afternoon and asked her when I was moving out of her place because I was taking up too much space or what not, despite the fact that i was never really home. Our relationship has always been a little weird. Growing up she was the fun cool aunt who loved to go shopping and do other girly things that I had no interest in. So when she was stuck babysitting me or forced to interact with me, she would criticize my un-girly ways. Our adult relationship is very similar.

  Living with her was a completed and utter nightmare and moving out probably saved me from despising her. Outside of my dad, who i don't see that often, she is the only relative I have in New York and for the sake of my baby cousin, I put the terror of living with her behind me because she's family. But during the planning of this trip to D.C she never once mentioned paying for anything: hotel, transportation, food. My mom and I joked, based on knowing her, that she wouldn't chip in one bit and that we were essentially giving her and my baby cousin a free all expenses paid trip to D.C. And of course this is exactly what ended up happening. She did not offer to help pay for the hotel, transportation, food or any other miscellaneous expense. But that wasn't the worst part. For someone who did not chip in at all she was very adamant that she did not want to see any of the historical sights and instead wanted to hit up Walmart and Target.

To say i was livid would be an understatement. I spent all this money and time planning a trip for me and mom, asked her and my cousin to come along as an afterthought and she had the nerve to complain about everything. I keep my composure up until the moment I said I wanted to visit the Library of Congress (because I've heard it's beautiful, and there are so many books and snerk gerks it's a LIBRARY) and my aunt replied "i am not going to a library while we were in D.C. Who wants to spend a place that stocks books".

 There were no words. Absolutely no words. I was so mad, the only thing I could do was walk away. I ended up spending the afternoon by myself in D.C. for fear that I would punch my aunt in the throat if she said anything else. I have never throat punched anyone but she was a prime contender that afternoon.

 The rest of my moms trip ended up being really fun and eventful. We returned to my apartment on Saturday and spent the rest of the weekend (and her stay) decorating and drinking wine (I am not sure when my mom became such a heavy wine drinker but she hooked me up with a shit load of wine!). It was fun having her in town. She was lively and well spirited. I was relaxed and even tempered. I like living alone. I like my space and escape from the world. But having my mom here made me miss the simple everyday of companionship. I liked having someone at home waiting for me. I miss telling someone about my day. It is something I miss far more than I would like to admit. And while I am sure adopting a cat would cure some of my loneliness and desire for companionship, I am wise enough to realize that too may not be enough (even though, I would really really like a pet. I am just not sure if my landlord allows pets though).

 It makes me anxious that I am going to have to put myself out there soon if I want any shot at a real relationship. I am not one who likes to put much of an effort into anything when it comes to socialization. I want to just skip this middle part of yearning and just get to the part where I have a handful of good friends and a cute boy to come home too every night. A cute nice boy, in my cute nice apartment with our adorable cats. I can dream can't I and Fall is such a magical season, I am hopeful that these things are on the horizon. Anyway, back to work. I seriously spend more time trying to look busy than actually being busy. I don't know how much more of this "9-5" life I can tolerate. More on that later.