Safe Space

I have reached a new low in my life. I am tried of being the only one to be putting any work into my relationship with my roommate so I am trying to disappear. I have decided that when she is here I will be in my room and will remain there with the door shut until she leaves or goes to bed. If I don't want to be here in my room with door shut while she is here I will try to leave before she gets here so I can be gone the entire time she is here. Which is why I am in my room waiting for her to leave so I can go to the bathroom. Just walking past her makes me shake. I have never wished so hard before to be invisible. If I was invisible I wouldn't have any problems with her. She wouldn't know if I was ignoring her or not. She wouldn't be able to hurt my feelings. I could live my life here and she wouldn't even know I existed. I wish I could disappear right now. I wish she could disappear right now. I heard her scolding the cat for eating her plant. I love that cat so much today. Thank you kitten for being you. I should just move out. I keep telling myself it is just another 6 months. That I can do it. I keep telling myself that Thanksgiving is coming soon and that will be at least 5 days of not dealing with her. 5 days that I can relax. I feel more comfortable in the ed center or in the library surrounded by strangers than I feel in my own home with her in the next room.

I know you are all sick of hearing this. Of hearing how irritated, mad and frightened I am of this barely 100 pound girl. She makes me feel inferior and the only way I know to get my power back is to put her in the hospital. It is hard to repress the rage I have. I have let her make me feel this way for too long just because my friends respect her. It is my fault I am in this situation now. I should have told her no, told her she most certainly could not live with us.

I try really hard to not make every blog entry about her and about my feelings. I'm sorry that I keep coming back to it. Reexamining it. Reasserting it. I wish it would go away. I try really hard to not write about things here. I try to skirt around the subject a lot despite everything. I know I need to stop writing about this. I need to stop talking about this. I need to keep these things to myself. I have a hard time keeping it bottled up now. I have kept it bottled too long. I need to stop thinking about this. I need to accept the fact that this isn't going away and find someway to cope for the next 6 months. I need to find some safe space in my head or in my heart where I can live and where nothing she does or says can hurt me.

Maybe I can live in this room.

Coming Home

I worked all day today like I do every Sunday. I'm very tired. I'm kind of wishing I could do what my cat is doing right now and just spread out on the bed and go to sleep. I'm not sure I am ready for it to be tomorrow yet though. I like the quiet time with Garret. It is so nice for it to just be the two of us. I'd like to just block the whole world out. It is so time for a place that is just ours. I'm not sure what I was thinking before. Only about 6 more months now. Yay. I can do that. Halfway done.

Not much happened today so there isn't much to post. I got up, went to work, after work I saw my mom and brother and step-dad, then I picked up Garret, we got supper, went home, put stuff away and got unpacked. Now I am just hanging out and relaxing. Waiting to get in the shower. I'm not really sure I even care to take one. I'm cold and tired. I should though. I smell like sweat and Staples and probably a little like smoke from being at mom's. Mom's so warm compared to the car and to my apartment. I wonder if the heat has been turned down while I have been away.

I'm always nervous about returning to the apartment after being away. Not sure why. I want to be home but it isn't always very restful when I am home. I don't always feel at ease. I feel better when Garret is here or when I am alone. But that can't happen all the time. I have been keeping my door closed a lot. I like having my own space.

Ok, shower and bed. That is enough of this tonight.

Ahead for the First Time

It is Saturday night and I just finished writing an essay for Monday. Usually I am so far behind on homework that by the time Saturday roles around I am just starting the reading that I need to do in order to do the essay that is due on Monday. I was able to read so much yesterday that I actually finished the book. Meaning that I won't have any reading for my American texts English class due Wednesday. It feels pretty good to be a little bit ahead. Maybe I will try to stay that far ahead. It would be rather nice. It is back to work for me. I haven't been to work since last Sunday. It has been a much easier week than usual.

Garret just finished his paper too and we agreed to play Uno when we were both done. I'm going to go do that now. More later I am sure.

Hopeful for the Weekend

It's Friday and I know that I have been slacking technically since I didn't write a blog entry yesterday. But I am here today and I am writing. I have had a pretty good day thus far. The roommates are both gone for the weekend so it is just Garret and me again which is nice. I am also not working until Sunday which is nice too. It gives me time to get work done and to relax with my boy. The weekend I didn't get last weekend. Yay! We are making a pretty sweet meal tonight. We're having scallops, fish sticks, fries and he is having rice as well. I also had a very good class today. We did some role playing where we tried conferences with parents, teachers and students. I have to say I was very good at it. My professor even walked by and said that I had them wrapped right around my little finger and that I should be a psyche major or something. I felt pretty proud of myself. I think I am usually really good with people. Maybe that is why I do so well at the customer service desk at Staples. I think the one slightly disappointing spot of my day is I am missing one of my Anne of Green Gables movies. My grandmother and I love those movies and the third one, the only one I have on DVD is missing. I know it has to be around somewhere cause I watched it in my room one day but I still can't find it and I have no idea where it is. It is driving me crazy cause it means something to me. Garret came home to find me tearing the apartment apart trying to find it and getting more and more frustrated. Hopefully it will turn up soon.

I am excited for the weekend ahead it will be nice to have a couple of days to relax a little. It will be quiet too. It has been really quiet without Tim here this week. Probably because he is one of the few people everyone talks to and because he plays music or has a movie on all the time. I am kind of enjoying the quiet for a change. I'm sure I will need noise eventually and will put a movie in or something.

I'm going to go start supper now.

Heart Breaking News

I am so heartbroken right now by the amount of closed mindedness that exists in Maine. The results of the election are in and people across my home state have denied their fellow men and women their rights. I never would have guessed in a million years that the people living in my state could do that to someone, anyone. We entered the union a free state during the time of slavery. I can't believe that a state like mine, a historically free, accepting state could turn its back on the gay community. It isn't like they were asking for much. Just the right to marry. Just the right to love anyway they want to. Just the right to the pursuit of happiness, that right the founding father's gave us when they wrote our constitution. I must wonder if they knew we would be arguing over that right in the distant future. We ended slavery hundreds of years ago. We have been working to put an end to discrimination and injustice ever since then. There is nothing right about today. There is nothing right about ignorance and closed mindedness.

This One Is For You, Uncle Robin

Today was the big day here in Maine. Today is voting day. It wasn't a big election of course but the issues on the ballot are very important to many Mainer's and tensions have been high for a long time, especially around question 1. The question asked if voters wanted to appeal the recent law that allows same sex couples to marry in the state of Maine and allow religious groups to refuse to perform a marriage between a same-sex couples. My family and I of course voted No. We are strong proponents of the idea that marriage is about the pursuit of happiness, a right that our founding father's spelled out in the constitution as being unalienable to humans. Not to mention a close relative who was gay.

Growing up I had this wonderful uncle, Uncle Robin. He has been a big influence on my life. He grew up in a home that was very much against differences of any kind. My Grammy Johnson despite being a really good grandmother to me was not one to believe in tolerance. My mother says she used to wish she could date a black man and take him home with her just because she knew how much it would irritate my grandmother. Despite my grandmother though my Uncle knew from a very young age that he liked men. And despite everything else he found acceptance. My mom didn't care that he was gay, he was her brother and they were very close. They grew up together, played together, laughed together. His sexual preference meant nothing. Maybe that is why he fell so in love with me as a child.

My Uncle hated children, just hated them. He was never upset by the fact that he couldn't have kids cause he didn't like them. But then I was born. My mom describes a scene to me where my Uncle was out watering my grandmother's flowers and I wanted him to use my little tiny, tiny green watering can to do it. Now, most adults who hate children would have refused outright or they would have found some way to get around having to do that. Not my Uncle Robin. He took the little watering can and spent all day watering those flowers with it, with me trailing along behind him. He never complained about it either.

Unfortunately, I only got a short time with him. The beautiful, funny, comfortable with himself man that was my Uncle got AIDS and died. I was very young at the time. But I can still remember going to the hospital to see him and being frightened. I didn't understand what could possible have happened to the man I knew.

Today at the polls, as I stood in front of the ballot all those memories of tiny watering cans, of my Uncle's humor, the little fragments of his voice I remember and the image of him in the hospital came back to me. I filled the ballot out with tears starting in my eyes because all I could think about was how proud of me he would be and of how much he deserved the right to be married while he was alive.

I called my mom after I left. She agreed with me that he would be very proud of me and she said "You were the thing he loved best in the whole world." I hope that where ever he is now he got to see me voting. I hope he knows I was thinking of him. And that this one was done in his memory and out of love for him.

Busy Weekend and Stressful Homework

It is November. I am so happy I have made it this far in the year. Only a few months left to go and only a little over a month until the semester is over. I am determined to finish the semester strong. I am even more determined to have a good month and a half. There is nothing that should stop me from enjoying it. Nothing at all. I have been very stressed this weekend because what was originally supposed to be a relaxing weekend with Garret and my homework in an empty apartment turned into a very busy one. It all started Thursday when I went to mom's to hang out with Nick on his birthday. Then Friday I went to Bucksport to see Jamie's football game. Then I drove back Saturday to read two books and just about start from scratch on a project, all of which is due Monday. Exciting no? Luckily I was able to sort of read, sort of skim one book and I just finished the project. Now I have the rest of tonight and until 3:45 to do the rest of my reading for Monday. Whether or not I go to that class will probably depend on how much of the reading I get done. Lets hope a lot. I would rather skip on a Wednesday if I have to because those are busier especially since Lindsey and I have been taking turns cooking dinner every Wednesday. The good news is that despite the stress I have had a good weekend. Seeing my brothers was awesome despite being woken up so early. And I had an easier time with the project than I thought I might. College is like that. You tend to stress and stress but in the end it is easier than you thought it would be. But only if you really work at it. It can be hard to balance school, work, friends, boyfriend and family. I am never sure I am getting the right amount of any of it. I am glad I have been hanging out with Lindsey so much this semester. It has replaced a much needed friend time for me I think. It at least makes up for part of the whole of not having Mel and D&D in my life anymore. It isn't quite the same but it is good in its own way.