The only Christmas decoration we put up

Santa is flying through the galaxy! Look how his beard is smooshed back against his neck. this santa is swedish and in sweden he has wings instead of a sleigh. I mean, if you're going to teach your kids to believe holiday delusions, why Not keep it simple? That's probably why there are 8 reindeer now. They kept forgetting what the names were. "Oh i said comet last year? Well there is a comet. AND a cupid."
-k-

Let the halloweening begin. Says medusa.
-k-

I never tire of this scean

this hurts.

i have spent the past month torturing myself with my new job and my new home. in one case, it's too similar, and in the other, it's too different.
working at tim hortons always left a bitter taste in my mouth. for months, my friends told me i needed to quit and even tried to find me new jobs, which i know they meant to be helpful and supportive, but really just cemented in my own personal inadequacies. this is all i'm meant to do. everyone else has their college degrees and glowing resumes. i have 6 years of food service management and a few useless years at college. i have never, ever felt like i have "made it," especially in comparison to my gorgeous, successful friends.
so i finally got up the guts to find something different, following the criteria that it would support me, it wouldn't overwhelm me, and i'd work fewer hours.
somehow, this new job hasn't really fit any of that. i may not work the absurd hours that i put in before, but an 8 hour shift is interminable because i don't know what i'm doing. i'm constantly under the pressure of trying to lead a team, which already knows the way, to do something that i don't know how to do, and they do.
and to top it all off, i'm paid about $5000 less. i hate that money is such an issue, but it has to be. i have bills and they have to be paid. there is no way around it.
so i guess the problem now is not how different my job is now, but how similar to the one i was trying to escape.
i left a house that was beautiful and perfect for me, but no longer home. in fact, i'm not sure i was ever trully home there. for the first few months that i lived there, it was still gram's house. her old avon perfume still lingered in the closets and hallways, and it was filled entirely with her things. i lived among relics of a previous generation. a dead generation.
3 months in maine made a hotel feel more like home than my library, and then when i got back, i spent 8 months with no hot water, no cooking, spotty electricity, a completely unreliable roommate, a dying dog and still all of the belongings of someone who had died nearly a year before. it was never mine. i could have painted every surface of the house green, and it wouldn't have felt like home.
but i had my friends and my mom within 20 minutes. i could always hop in the car and spend the night somewhere else when i needed a break from my ugly reality.
when i came here, i had such high hopes. i didn't kid myself with the thought that everything would be easy once i started fresh. i know better than that. i have closed so many chapters and opened so many new ones in the past few years that there has never really been an easily made decision, and leaving tim hortons was one of them.
i have never cried so hard or so long as the day i submitted my resignation, and the last day i worked.
but being here makes me feel strangely unstable. at least during the shittiest, longest, most difficult and unending day at tim hortons, i knew i could handle it. i knew what was coming next, and didn't have to worry that it would ever be something i hadn't faced before, or couldn't devise a solution for. i just don't do well with panic and instability. i am fiercely independent and need to feel like i have my feet on solid ground, and though i knew everything would be different, i never expected to be free-falling. this company is supposed to be about "treating partners with respect and dignity." it's the first guiding principle of the mission statement. amazingly, i felt more respected and dignified at tim hortons because they believed me when i said i wasn't ready for a task. they trusted my instincts. i trusted my instincts. and i don't anymore, because i feel like they have led me astray.
to make matters worse, the people that might make me feel better about myself, namely my mom, mel, and my cousins, are all more than an hour's drive away, and moving on without me. as much as i don't like needing people, i have to feel like they need me, and that is not the case.
this is chery's home. her entire life is set up here, with family and friends. she has invited me into her life, which is a lovely thing, but it's HER life. i'm not comfortable with the thought of erupting into tears over a bad day at work in front of these people. i hate crying, but more than anything else, i hate crying in public. i fight it until it hurts, and then i hide in my bed.
and everyone's lives go on without me. the only people i communicate on a daily basis are the people whose coffees i make. the people telling me that i'm ready to do the job that i know that i'm not ready to do. hiding out in this room is the only safe action for me, that fits into this new criteria of "just survive."
that's it. just make this work. figure it out. find a balance. find stability.
but do it all in a way that doesn't involve the job, or the friends at home who are unavailable to talk, or my roommate who i see once every 8 days. it is not their fault. it's just that they have lives and i don't.
when i need to communicate, this is what i do. this is what i've always done. i have to get it out and put it in a place that isn't going to lose my thoughts, that i can go back to and read when i feel more secure, wherever i am. i have to put it somewhere that isn't necessarily read, but that could be, should i need to share these emotions with someone else.
i have to express. there was a time when all i had to do was pick up my brushes and get moving, but as i get older, i am less inspired. i see paintings through jaded eyes. my liaison to my painted past jumped in front of a train, and i have never fully recovered from that shattering sensation that i'm the sole owner of any of our shared memories. i am the only "most artistic" left. that seems so silly, but it meant so much in the moment, before there were things like new jobs and new homes. and in a year, when i go for a 10 year reunion, i will carry that title alone.

this is my outlet. as much as people think i do things "against" them, it's more that my mind works despite them, and when i feel volatile, this is how i release the pressure.

what!?