Proof!

This is my new favorite photo. It also serves as proof that I don't always fall down.

Things are still stressful here, but they're getting better.

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Bad Days

I should have known it was going to be a bad day when I woke up with a tick on my arm. I believe in signs and superstition and luck, and recently, my luck has been a bit on the bad side. I'm not exactly sure what it is in my karmic past that's causing all these disasters, but it must have been a doozy.

After getting dressed, I opened the door to leave for work (late), to find an eviction notice from the landlord (if rent isn't paid by Friday), and a disconnect notice from the gas company (if the gas wasn't paid before 8am, today.) As I drove to work, the road was littered with a slew of roadkill, including a gigantic snake. Another bad sign. Great. Work is kind of my safe haven, and I'm not used to dreading it, but with the bloody highway, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. The bad didn't disappoint. We had a terribly sad case last night (which I can't discuss here. HIPPA, you know). We were completely out of charts, on every unit, so I wasn't able to be as productive as I like to be. And there was a terrible, vinegar smell, coming from somewhere, which we couldn't find to get rid of. Also, my scrubs smelled like gasoline and something that I ate for dinner was so hot (spice, not temperature) that it left burns/blisters on the inside of my lips and under my tongue. I suppose I should count myself lucky that the heat didn't ignite my gasoliney scrubs.
 Justin called to tell me that his truck has stopped working and that he sold his Xbox to pay the gas bill and for gas/grocery money. That still leaves the rent (and potential car repairs). Tomorrow I have a meeting with the Covenant Compassion woman to fill out the paperwork for a loan to cover our rent. Everything -will be- ok, but right now, it feels very tense.

It's not all bad, despite appearances. Justin got a grant to cover his summer class, which was one of our biggest stresses. We have electricity and water and food, which are the important things. Justin's going to get a summer job at UMC, and hopefully that will help our situation.

Anyway, that's where we are now.

"How I Was Brought Up"

I was talking to a friend, a few weeks ago and I asked her why she felt a certain way about something (I can't remember what now) and she said "that's just the way I was brought up." I've been thinking about that answer for a a long time, and I still can't really wrap my head around it. Why would someone choose to think or feel or believe something just because that's what their parents believed? A couple of generations ago, children in Germany were brought up to believe that it was ok to kill Jews and blacks and Gypsies and homosexuals. That sentiment didn't stick around long (mostly). Generations before them were brought up to believe that the best way to cure an illness, any illness, was to cut the sick open and let them "bleed it out." Now we know that that almost never works!
There is new knowledge released into the world every day. To ignore that, and continue a belief system simply because it's the way it's always been done in your family or town or state or country is ludicrous. Not that there's anything wrong with her family. They are really great people, and I fully believe that they raised their children very well. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with whatever it was that she thought either.
It's just that I think people should come to decisions about who they are on their own, as opposed to blindly following tradition.
My friend isn't the only person I've heard say that particular phrase recently. "It's how I was brought up" seems to be the mantra for this area, and probably for most of the world (which, I suspect, is why we're in trouble all the time). Something else I heard recently was (basically) "I don't care what the truth is, I choose to believe this instead." What the hell is that? Why would you choose to continue to believe a fiction, even after you've been presented with the truth? Particularly when it's about something that's easy to prove (as opposed to the cloudy world of religion and politics)? It's very confusing to me, and it bothers me more than it probably should. I'm not entirely sure why I felt compelled to write about it, except that it's been poking me in the brain for weeks now, and perhaps this is a way to get it to stop.

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Twenty-nine

Today I'm 29 years old, and for the first time in my life, I think I know who I am, I think I know what I want, and I think I know where home is. This is going to be a good year.