Thursday Thirteen #5

 Thirteen Reasons I Did Not Pursue The Arizona Thing

1. Stability:  I like it. Sometimes I get all caught up in the wistful thinking that I can be the kind of person that doesn’t need it, but I actually do.

2. My Home:  Since I officially moved out of my house I have lived in this apartment the longest. Which is odd, I know. I used to move on average 1.5 times per year (I know this because I did the math once). I like my home right now and I feel comfortable here. Had I left for a few months there would have been no guarantee that I would have a place here.

3. My Job:  I am just now beginning to build up time with THS again. They took me back after I did my internship with them and made the mistake of following my old supervisor to somewhere new. Also, I really love my job and I just wasn’t ready to leave it; it just wasn’t the right time.

4. My Family:  Put simply, they need me right now. My mom needs me; she has been there every time that I needed her and I just wasn’t about to leave at a time that she needed me for once. Plus, I’m really attached to them; it just would have been too hard to leave them, even for a few months.

5. My Dogs:  I’m terribly attached to them too, as I should be. Truth be told it was a lie to myself to say that it would have worked out to bring Sadie along. I would have had to leave them both and that just would have been too difficult.

6. Therapy:  I just started a therapy relationship with someone that I feel will be extremely helpful to me. It would have been anti-productive to leave at that time.

7. Money:  Had I a good amount of money saved up it would have been more realistic for it all to have worked out. As it stands I’m just now trying to get into a position of no debt so that I can actually have money saved. Leaving stable employment would clearly have been counterproductive to that goal.

8. School:  Yah, I could have switched to all online classes which can be completed anywhere. But would I really have done all that well in them surrounded by a party/do nothing responsible environment? No.

9. Holidays: As much as I’m stressed out about the state of my family currently it would have hurt to miss the holidays with them. They probably would have felt sad too. Which is lame to do to people.

10. Location:  I have never in my life said to myself, “gee, it would be really neat to live in Arizona for a while”. Not once. San Fran maybe…in another country maybe. Arizona? Not so much.

11. My Neighbors:  I suppose this really belongs with reason #2 but I gave it its own reason. I love them. I have never lived somewhere (with exception of my mom’s house) that I knew most of my neighbors and was actually close friends with them. I have never lived somewhere that I felt so safe simply because of that fact. If someone tried to break into my apt. and got past Sadie’s vicious protective side, one serious ‘I’m in danger’ scream would have at least three of them at my door. Plus, my neighbor’s son calls me Kelifers…no one in AZ would call me Kelifers. :)

12. Chaos:  As my P gently pointed out when I asked her what she honestly thought about the whole idea it would only have added more chaos and ‘drama’ to my life at a time that I’m trying to reduce the chaos. Sure, it would have been a whole lot of fun with a best friend that I dearly adore…but it would have just added more to deal with in the end.

13. Bay:  He has been the best cat ever. It took me almost a year to be comfortable with letting him outside here in a downtown area (and he’s done wonderfully…like I said, he’s a good cat-he always comes back). My neighbor said that he would be happy to watch over Bay so that he could still live here and know where home is, but the thing is, home is where I’m at for him.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Paraphernalia & Trappings

• This guy blows. Needless to say he is also horribly retarded.
• Could it please be December already…so I can go?
• My online assignment was a day late again because I can’t seem to get completely organized. How does that happen when I am at school like every single day of the week???
• I’m planting my indoor herb/spice garden today in betweenst homework and finishing the rearranging of my apt. It excites me.
• The half hour conversation I had with a mutual friend of Jen’s yesterday left me with a ton of stuff to process. I wasn’t ready until now to know how exactly she passed and I suppose in a way it’s good that I know now.
• I know that the title of this is peculiar…I wanted to use more exciting words for a post of random information than ‘stuff’ or ‘things’.

Arizona

Historically I’ve rarely put myself in a position to make a lot of very significant decisions. I don’t feel like I’m very good at significant decisions. My perception is that I’ve mostly been fairly passive in my own life.

The furthest I have lived from the house that I grew up in was North Bend, WA; and that was only for a couple of months because it didn’t work out and I had to go home. I’ve traveled to tons of places but I have always been stationary in Seattle. I made an active choice when I was 18 to turn down four years of free school since it would have meant moving to Michigan for those four years. My thinking has always been that this is my home and that’s all there is to it and that thinking has made me happy; I’m satisfied with my stationary-ness.

However, am I so stationary that when a friend asks me to move out of state for the winter rent free I say no?

If I completely committed to it at this point there would be two main reasons for it.

1. I want to run away for a while. Most everything just seems like way too much to handle. I started crying during my statistics class the other day when we were reviewing what our exam was going to be on; small things overwhelm me and sort of knock me over. Were I gone for just a few months I could satisfy the desire to run away for a bit without leaving for good. I do love it here and I don’t really desire to be stationed anywhere else.
2. I do not want to say no to an opportunity to do something like this and then regret it later. I feel that I would strongly regret it.

The logistics:

1. I would have to leave my job and although I haven’t broached the subject with my supervisor, I highly doubt that they would be able to guarantee me a position when I returned. I’m sure they would rehire me if they needed someone still when I got back, but three or more months is a long time for them to cover my duties without hiring someone else. Worst case scenario (because I always prepare myself for the worst in a situation): I get a different job upon returning.
2. I would have to give up my apt. because I wouldn’t really be working down there. Worst case scenario: If there are no roommate opportunities upon returning (i.e. if Colin does not return to Seattle, does not want a roommate, or does not want me staying with him for a while) I would always be welcome at my Dad’s for a while. I know this without even having to ask. Kait has also said that if I do go and need to look for an apt. upon return that I would be the first to be called when one was open, prior to it even being advertised.
3. Pets. My dogs are welcome but I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to take Lola and Sadie. Sadie I just couldn’t leave behind for any length of time; even if it was just a month or so. Kait might be willing to take care of Lola while I would be gone. I also obviously wouldn’t be able to take Bay…my next door neighbor has so incredibly generously offered to take care of him since he is already familiar with those apartments and thinks of them as home. I haven’t thought of a worst case scenario regarding pets.
4. Money. Rent free, yes. Spending dough and necessary bills that I have to pay unrelated to apartment, not free. Things such as storage fee, monthly bill to school, car insurance, food, etc. I have thought that it would actually be a doable thing to give up my apt. as of the 1st of Dec. so that the $ from my last two weeks of working would be completely mine. Also, there’s nothing stopping me from working part time down there for extra money.
5. School. I cannot take a leave from school; more accurately I’m not willing to because it would put me behind. All my classes can be switched to online for the Spring quarter. The two other classes besides statistics that I’m taking are already online, so I would be able to continue and finish them without interruption. Statistics is over on 12/13 and I would be able to leave after that.
6. I do not have much that ties me down at the moment. I am not married, I have no kids, I’m not in a relationship at the moment where I would have to consider someone else’s feelings about it, I’m not even in a lease for the first time in almost ten years. The one thing that I absolutely cannot let go of for a while is school, and I can do that online so it can come with me.

It’s the above types of things that are easy to figure out and in fact it just seems like it’s too perfect the way everything would work out just fine. It’s perfect timing. The difficult things to figure out would include making my family okay with this plan, and being away from the majority of the people I know and love for an extended amount of time. The people that I have in my life are more important than most anything; they are what has kept me from really losing it during the past few months of dealing with the emotions of ending a very long relationship and abruptly losing someone that I loved and adored. Even for just a few months, as dependent as it makes me sound, it would be really hard to not be around them.

The easy part of it all is thinking of how refreshing it would be to just be away for a bit. To road trip to AZ with one of my best friends, stopping on the way to see things (including my old friend Las Vegas) and feeling free. To be somewhere new for a while and spend some time with not so much piled on my head. To have unlimited amounts of time to process the loss of a best friend.

As I continue to think about it and think about it though it seems to become a bit more clear every moment that it may not be an issue of wanting to go away for a while; it may actually be that I need to go away for a while.