I bought two new plants on Monday, before I realized my bank account was entering the lower double-digits. I have them resting on the high, faux-granite breakfast bar in the kitchen of my new apartment in the Juanita neighborhood of Kirkland. I'm going to let them sit there for a week or two, in the company of more seasoned and hearty house plants, in hopes they will survive the eventual transplant from their tiny, crowded, grocery store pots.
I'm not yet sure if I've survived my transplant. I had outgrown Olympia in many ways, but like any rootbound greenery, breaking me out, busting up my roots and putting me in unfamiliar soil has shaken me to...well, my very roots. I'm wilting, I'm malnourished, I'm starved for the familiar.
That's about where the plant metaphor ends. I'm still working in a salon; the same product line, the same sales representative (bless you, Amy) and similar chat in the back room made it an easy transition. But the salon is in Fremont, an exhausting 10+ mile commute every morning and night. The salon is also owned by a frequently over-doped, psycho visionary who seems more possessed by entrepenurial spirits than driven by one of her own making. And I'm kind of in management again. *cringe* This means more hours, getting dressed-down for things beyond my control (Q: "Why aren't the stylists selling more retail!?" A: "Because their services are artificially over-priced and clients can't afford it???"), and generally inconvenienced in the name of a "collective goal" I haven't bought in to and am not paid enough to care about.
Just love it here...
It's like most of my thoughts during the day are first sifted through gritted teeth. I have no outlets, no drinky-weeknights with F & D (girlfriends of an incredible caliber) and walking home after too much at the BroHo. My parents have moved back to Spokane and are in the midst of their own financial crisis. My boyfriend is... Oh my.
Everyone says that moving in with someone is the biggest step you can take next to marriage and/or children, that it will make or break your relationship, that it brings up issues, desires and fears that you could never even have imagined. Well, I have a really active imagination. I couldn't (ha!) imagine that I'd left some concern un-turned, that I hadn't worried every rocking piece of my precariously balanced psyche and imagined every horrible fight, every possible malfeasance. I, of course, hadn't.
So far it's been, probably, farcical. If only I were viewing my life from row G, looking into 3/4 of my expensive apartment (3/4 would be easier to afford...) and scoffing at the obvious miscommunications, chuckling in sympathy for the oblivious and oversensitive characters. But, alas, I am on the stage, the 4th wall is up, and I am quite frequently at a loss for what to do.
I try testing myself--could I leave him? Do I want someone else? Something different? The answers, the truthful answers, have settled out to be Maybe, No, and Maybe. The attendant caveats being But I Don't Want To Have To, Absolutely No, and But Not That Different.
As with so much in this life, it all comes down to communication. Here's where I also wish I'd dated in high school. Boys, that is. Women may try to play silent and hurting, but eventually someone's gonna spill the beans, fights will be had, feelings trampled, tears shed; eventually everything is better after or it's not. Ta-da! With men, with My Man, it's like his retisence is contagious, tying my already knotted tongue in the sort of Boy Scout rope-trick I was never, as a girl, trained to unravel. I say something in a way I would to another female...and it just seems to make everything worse. He does not deal well with emotional dualities ("Well, I'm happy and sad about it..." "It's okay, but it's not.").
It doesn't help that I can't develop any sort of sense of self-righteousness, that I can't claim to know what is better or to appeal to him for his superior knowledge. We are, as they say, babes in the woods. Or more like babies in the dumpster. I seem to thwart his good intentions at every turn. The signs of happiness, productivity, he would like to see from me are impossible. I can't be creative right now. It's the transplant. I'm struggling just to stay green and healthy. The one thing I have drawn is a mug shot of Satan himself after a particularly vivid dream about being Wonderwoman.
*****
I think that's quite enough personal whining. But I suppose it's slightly more palatable than yet another blogger weighing in on the election? Wait and see and have a gun handy. That's my motto.
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