I am wearing old jeans and a sweatshirt that technically belongs to an ex-boy. My hair is a mess and I’ve made no attempt to tame it. And right now, I don’t care.

There is part of me that is devastated. After all the awfulness of 2011, this job appeared in December (within walking distance of home, no less!) and suddenly everything made sense. I moved to DC in September 2010 for a job that didn’t work out, for a life that didn’t work out, and since everything happens for a reason, all that happened because this magical living opportunity was going to land on my lap, because this magical job situation was going to land on my lap.

There is a part of me, however delusional, that this happened for a reason too.

An answer to a clue of jeopardy reminded me of a song I haven’t listened to in forever (“I’m Movin On, by Rascall Flatts). I remember listening to that song over and over again in December of 2004, right before I finished college. This was after a fairly difficult year, when things were finally working out.

There’s a line “I’ve found you find strength in your moments of weakness.” and “I know there’s no guarentees, but I’m not alone.” If I know nothing else, I know this: I have the best friends and family that anyone could ask for. And that I have had moments in my life where I felt devastated, as if nothing would ever be okay ever again, and there were certainly times when I felt worse than this.

And as delusional as it sounds, something is going to come out of this. This.Is.Not.Over.

(and to those of you who have been putting up with me since Wednesday, I am so grateful to you. I know I say it all the time, but you are all amazing)

A tiny little voice inside of me said “don’t do it.”  I’m not sure why, but self-preservation is a powerful thing and it tried to shout in my ear, and I was stupid and ignored it.

I did it anyway. And then knew from Day One that the job was wrong.

That decision was a year and a half away and a million years ago. There were other paths I could have followed. I could have stayed in Jersey. I could have waited until February and moved to DC with no job. I chose.

And then after rehab, after it was all over, I could have run. It would have been so easy and sensible to curl up in Jersey. I’m still not sure why I didn’t, even though Brent was like ‘do that.’  Instead I stayed. Against rational.

So, here I sit, (typing on my roommates computer; mine is dead) with a different job, different apartment, and just a life that is so much different than the one I allegedly moved down here for. I live in Alexandria (not DC) and work in Alexandria too. My roommate is among the closest of friends I have in the DC area because proximity will do that to you. I have friends down the street.

I love, love, love Alexandria in the way I used to love Astoria, and that is saying a hell of a lot.

Alexandria, VA. Who the hell would have thought?

Then I moved to DC in September of 2010 and it fell apart very, very quickly.

2011 was awful. It was the worst year of my life, no doubt.

Things came together so quickly, and I didn’t realize it completely.

I was back in the hospital again and out of nowhere, got offered a spare room in Alexandria (right outside DC). I. Have. No. Idea. Luck? God? Fate? Mayans getting in their kicks before the world ends? I have no idea.

In September, I moved into my miraculous housing-find in Alexandria. In October I had some boy-drama for the first time in many years. It was dumb, and he was dumb, and I was dumb, but whatever I felt over the course of it was completely and totally human.

It has been years since I felt so completely and totally human over a boy. And so it was.

And then in early December, everything came together. And I have no idea how it happened, but I wound up with a job that is 7 minute walk from my apartment.

So I wonder. As is my nature. WHAT THE FUCK NOW.

This living situation was meant to be temporary, for one. This weekend finds me getting rid of my moving boxes because I am certainly not moving in February 2012 (that was in my head as a deadline) because I am sick of looking at them. When I move I’ll suck it up and just buy more boxes. Right now, I want them all to go away. I want to feel settled.

Here.

Be Here.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Well, I could list all those things like winding up in a psych ward, an inpatient rehab, and making a record number of trips to ER, but that’s just depressing, isn’t it?

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t think I made any New Year’s resolutions. This year my New Year’s resolution is no more trips to ER

3. What countries did you visit?
None

4. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Continuous sobriety and ego strength.

5. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory?
It’s kind of a blur – unemployment and too much drinking will do that to you. I will probably never forget March 6-7 though. And there are plenty of eventful things I’ll never forget either

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Not giving up on DC – I didn’t run back to Jersey, despite being tempted to do so many times (Getting offered my old job back, being angsty and a mess at the end of October). I stuck it out here, and I forced myself to go out and be social, and I found a job. Although the life I’m creating is in Alexandria, and not DC proper. Believe me, this is not what I planned, but this little corner is good for me.

7. What was your biggest failure?
Drinking too much and doing stupid/destructive things while drunk

8. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Lots of black and blues and hangovers/withdrawals.

9. What was the best thing you bought?
The best thing I did was hire movers to haul my stuff from DC to Alexandria, because they were awesomely efficent

10. Whose behavior merited celebration?
So many people.
Jill-IAN: For continuing to make me laugh hysterically at the craziest things, and, as she did 5 years ago, refusing to let me mope.

Joe: For always knowing the right thing to say and being on my side even when I’m wrong.

Ellie: For listening to me and encouraging me and sending me a plane ticket to visit her at the height of my drama and angst and weepiness. (Even though I didn’t get to use said plane ticket. Ellie should use it to come visit me instead. Hint. Hint. Hint.)

Charlotte: For being my twin from across the ocean.

Various Message Board of Note People, who I won’t list for fear of leaving someone out, who read my angsty-whiny posts and responded with support every single time.

Keithers: For being understanding, for taking care of things while I was away from DC, for looking after me even though it wasn’t his job and I sometimes resented it, and for being the best roommate ever, even when I was being the worst.

The Roommate: For giving me a place to stay when I had nowhere to go and removing 10,000 tons of stress, and for being the best roommate ever, even when I was being the worst.

Brent: No words necessary. He is my best friend.

Basically I have amazing people in my life. I am very lucky.

11. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
First and foremost – my own. Hundreds of times. More minor – occasionally co-workers at the Job-That-Wasn’t-2.0.

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about??

Moving to Alexandria. Finding a new job.

13. What song will always remind you of 2011??
The entire Taylor Swift album “Mine,’ particularly the song Long Live, several songs that the girls in rehab played incessently (Firework, Turn on the Lights, and One Step At A Time), White Horse, also Taylor Swift (“cause I’m not a princess, this ain’t a fairlytale”), Just The Way You Are, Bruno Mars, Until The Night, Billy Joel, Bend and Not Break, Dashboard Confessional, The Way You Loved Me, Taylor Swift, Songs Like These, Carrie Underwood, Spring Street, Dar Williams,

14. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Thanks to the last couple weeks, happier.

15. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I had socialized more and gotten out of the Glover Park place more.

16. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Drink

17. How will you be spending Christmas?
Jewishly

18. Did you fall in love in 2011?
No.

19. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No.

20. What was the best book you read?

Middlemarch, George Eliot. A classic I’d never read.

21. What was your greatest musical discovery?
N/A

22. What did you want and get?
I got myself fired from my job instead of having to quit (well not exactly), I got a new place to live that is way, way, way better than Glover Park, I wanted to be more social, and I am, and I wanted a new job, and I got that. I am crossing my fingers that this isn’t another case of getting what I want and then watching it all blow up in my face.

23. What did you want and not get?
Sigh. It was unwise to want what I thought I wanted in the first place.

24. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
My birthday was uneventful, but celebratory. It fell on the same day as my parents’ “supper club” with the psuedo family. I turned 28.  I’m going to be 30 before I know it – shoot me in the head.

25. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I can’t think of anything. Well, I can – but, anything to happen differently would mean I wouldn’t be exactly where I am right now, and I think I am finally, finally in a good place. So, for all the disappointments, I’m very grateful to having been dropped into Alexandria for living/job.

26. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
I was unemployed for months – so I wore a lot of whimsical pajama pants

27. What kept you sane?

This is a trick question since I went completely insane in 2011. What helped was my parents, Brent, Keithers, The Roommate, and MBON. Oh, and Xanax.

28. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most??
Other than the usual stand-bys (Christopher Meloni, as Elliot Stabler, Josh Lyman, Jon Stewart), I did develop a thing for the local weatherman, as well as a contestant on the Jeopardy tournament of champions.

29. Who was the best new person you met?

Technically, I met The Roommate in 2010, but that hardly counts. I am incredibly grateful for the amount of meeting, which led me to have a place to live. Some drama happened, but I think we’re okay

30. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011?
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

That when it comes to boys, I will never learn.

I am several degrees of crazy and I do really, really stupid things.

2011 has been a bitch of a year, and I’ve been a bitch of a person. I am difficult, at best. You have put up with me. I know this.

Please give me 2012 to prove myself. I am not hopeless. I hope.

Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck. You. You have been nothing short of awful.

In you, I have self-sabotaged, beaten myself down, and killed every good thing that could have come out of you. You are awful. You are almost a totally worthless waste of a year. You don’t even get to take credit for the amazing people in my life that helped me survive you, because guess what? Most of them hate you too.

I have watched you hurt people I love. I have watched incredibly good people wind up with bad circumstances, and that is your fault. You did this. Not them. So many people I care about are dealing with untenable situations. Sickness be it physical or mental, they are suffering. Fuck you for creating these problems in the first place, fuck you for giving these problems to people who don’t deserve to ever cry, and really just….fuck you; what kind of year brings cancer to all ages, hospitalizes a few for mental illness, and winds it up with domestic violence? Fuck you, 2011. I hate you. I hate you so much.

I should have known you were going to be a bad year. I wanted to be optimistic about you. You started fucking things up from day one. In two days you gave me a bad date, a bruised leg, and an ER visit. (That makes it sound like I had an abusive date. I didn’t; I went out with a very nice boy, but I resorted to my usual MO. Upon realizing I didn’t like-like nice boy, I proceeded to drink away my feelings in a wild night on the town with Keithers. We went to a really shady strip club because it was the only bar in proximity that was open. The ER part was because I got drunk enough to scare Keith into thinking I was going to die, and he called 911.)

From Day 1, 2011, I have just been trying to survive you. For all the times I said I wouldn’t (but did) buy vodka at the little store right across from my bus stop. For all the times that I had to close my office door and cry. For all the moments in rehab when I felt like I was back in middle school. For all those days in that horrible, horrible summer where I simply could not get out of bed. For the mornings I lay there with my eyes squeezed shut praying that somehow I would not have to wake up again.

For that day I called Brent and sobbed on the phone for almost 2 hours in a “Come to Jesus” type scenario. For that day Brent told me “I’m tired of caring about you.” Because really. I am too much to deal with and sometimes, people just get sick of worrying about you.

(Fuck you 2011, in case I haven’t said it enough)

I hate you, for all the vague fantasies you gave me of simply stepping in front of a bus.

And

And yes, I will grant you the points in which it got better. I found a place to live (thank you Roommate), I found a combo of meds that doesn’t suck when I remember to take them properly.

But, fuck you, 2011.

In you, I remembered what it was like to like-like a boy, and then in you remembered how to sabotage things with a boy. In you, I got to hear the words “I don’t want you.” and “I will never fall in love with you.” Thanks a lot 2011, because I hadn’t heard those words since 2004, and you know what, they don’t suck any less at 28 as they do at 21.

I hate you for the way I sunk into self-hatred and angst. I hate you for that panic attack in front of strangers. I hate you for still letting me feel like I would never be good enough. I hate you for the anxiety that keeps me from taking the escalator at Dupont, for the angst that made me utterly unattractive, for the nights where sleep alluded me until 5am, for the self-doubt, for the self-destruction, for the self-loathing. I hate you.

Some might say that I should give you credit for the good things in my life. Supportive family and friends for one. The new living situation that came out of nowhere when I needed it the most. The strangers who walked me home after the panic attack. The Message-Board-of-Note people who have responded to my angsty, whiny postings with nothing but support. The amazing people in my life who know I’m a head case and love me anyway.

Well, fuck you 2011, because you get no credit for that. That was all me. That was not you. And while you may say I’m a hypocrite for blaming you for the bad and taking credit for the good, I will say that is just proof of the one good thing to come out of you: This is not over, 2011. Your calendar may be closing, but This is Not Over. You didn’t win. I’m still here.

I’m still here.

Good riddance,

Rachel

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago what I wanted for Christmas, I’d have said “a job.”   Christmas came early. December 2011 is like an abusive boyfriend, bringing me flowers the morning after giving me a black eye.

So for Christmas, (and for the New Year) I still want Better Days. I want days of clear-headedness and focus and productivity. I want as many days possible free of angst and tears.

I just want to be happy. And I want 2012 to treat the people I care about better than 2011.

I’m watching Love, Actually on my laptop. I’ve started this movie twice in the past week or so, and just never finished it. This is the perfect Xmas movie. And a perfect movie for me to watch when I’m spending the last couple weeks of 2011 high on life.

And of course, I’ve been walking around humming “All I Want For Christmas Is You” under my breath. It was during my last days at Skidmore that I became obsessed with this movie, and I played the song in my car constantly. One night I picked up Sebastian and I had it playing and he laughed at me saying “All YOU want for Christmas is HWSNBN.”

He was right, but I was in such good spirits, I couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed.

This Christmas there is no one I am unrequitedly coveting. (though the “this is self preservation” scene, where Kiera Knightly realizes that Andrew Lincoln is totally, quietly, unrequitedly in love with her still gives me pause. And the “To me, you are perfect scene.” Because sometimes, in the throes of unrequitedness, the simple act of caring for someone has to be enough.)

Because for all the times in my life when I felt like my heart was breaking, I have never been sorry for caring about someone, even with my history of being misguided. I sign cards “With love” and say “love you muchly” before I get off the phone. It is, perish the phrase, a season of love.

So despite the cold, cynical parts of my heart, this year I will continue to embrace the warm fuzziness and use the season as an excuse to be a sap. I will forgive, and make amends, and love unapologetically.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2011/12/22/love-love-love-love-love-love/feed/ 7 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2011/12/17/standard-lines/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2011/12/17/standard-lines/#comments Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:49:22 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=8081 Him: Hey Rachel?

And so of course, I had to kiss him. Again.

On Tuesday evening I got the email: “We are prepared to make you the following offer.”

On Friday I had a job. Not only a job, but one that was a promotion from the one I’d originally applied for. The CEO was impressed, they said. (Please note: I now work for a very, very tiny company, one even smaller than The-Job-That-Wasn’t 2.0. But hey, it’s still a cool thing to impress a CEO enough to get you out of the assistant trap and get you into a job title that won’t make you self-conscious to hand out business cards.)

So Friday night I couldn’t stop smiling, and I made the first level of the pies for my impending dinner party, and when The Roommate got home, we just hung around, occasionally exchanging bits of commentary, and yeah, I know there’s been pseudo-drama with us that’s mostly my jack-asinine behavior that’s at fault, but it is nice that we can just “be” when we’re around each other. And then we made an amusing trip to Target Saturday morning.

Michael came over around noon on Saturday, and I had not seen him in months so it became a very fun session of cooking, reminising, catching up, babbling, and yes, lets talk about how Rachel loses her gaydar completely when a Libertarian is involved. Michael is one of the most gregarious people I know and he will engage anyone in just conversation or whatever. So while we were cooking and talking, The Roommate was putting together chairs (wins more Roommate points for engaging my dinner party that logistically was going to be a mess although a few expected people didn’t show, so it would have worked out) and I think Michael actually forced Roommate into having a good time. Which I did not know was possible. The Roommate does not have fun.

And then – successful party, I think. The food wasn’t as good as it could have been, I forgot to put out cheese with the chili, and the salad just never got made. But we all just hung around the table, and people laughed a lot, so is that a good sign of a successful gathering? I think so. Plus, it was also an impromptu celebration of my new job.

And then, I had a date, of sorts, on Sunday. This is a change from my usual mode of boy drama. This boy has told me straight out that he likes me, told me he thinks I am “beautiful and intelligent”, and held my hand in public. He made me feel adored, which made me realize – the recent boy I like-liked never made me feel like that. He was very good to me in many ways, from the pajama pants to the pancakes, (and one time, in the midst of the worst panic attack I have ever had he made sure I was safe and protected). And to him, I owe the roof over my head. I will always be incredibly grateful to whatever bizarre arrangement the roommate and I have. But I get his point now. It has been so long since I dated and I am so used to emotionally unavailable men, for whom you have to fight for an ounce of their attention. I forgot that sometimes you can just be yourself, and a boy will like you and pay attention to you.

This isn’t going anywhere yet. It hasn’t even started. But he held my hand in public, and he walked me to my doorstep and kissed me tonight, and he asked me if he could see me again soon.

And of course I said yes.

These are the moments in which I know I’ve found a friend.

Do you remember, back in the Summer of 2008, (08.08.08, to be exact) we were bemoaning our respective fates, and I, in one of my bouts of optimism said “Yeah, but by 09.09.09? Things are gonna be different.”

Since then, I feel we’ve had a bizarre bond. We had our Year of the Terrapin (a creature who lives in less than salubrious conditions) and while things did not exactly get better, there were some notable improvements. (I got my DUI, but then I got sober. You started Georgetown and made friends) 09.09.09 arrived, and then the official New Year, and we spoke of a shared apartment, on the outskirts of some city, hanging out watching Degrassi, with our cats.

2010 was Year of the Crocodile (because The crocodile survived ice ages & meteors, & he probably was like, the bronze age will be so much better, or the pleistocene will be my time to shine, & then it sucked! But you know what he did? he ate a wildebeest, wrote a sad poem in his journal, & kept on trucking, because thats what survivors do).

Things had brought us down, but Fuck That Noise.

I desperately hunted for jobs. You battled girl drama. We commiserated on gchat.

I remember when The-Job-That-Wasn’t-2.0 was up for review, we were impatiently waiting for an answer, because it would make your decision; would you look for a studio or a 2 bedroom?

I got the call at the zero hour.

The night we moved into that hellmouth in Glover Park, we sat on the floor in the living room, eating take-out, laughing in disbelief that we were finally Here, and you said “I think we’ll always remember this night.” Maybe because it was one of the few happy nights in that apartment.

We agree that nothing good happened between those walls.

(However, I still miss you, roomie)

11.11.11 approaches my friend. We’re both unemployed, we’re both trying so hard to get back on our feet and get back together. We’ve only got one more year of this. One more chance. What do you say? Want to make 2012 the year of the Panther? At this point, we have nothing to lose.

Love, your favorite roommate,

Rachel