First I'd just like to say that I'm feeling way better than I was yesterday. I slept more than four hours for the first time on a school night in weeks, and I had time to run before work, and, well, what problem does a run, maybe if not fix, lessen at least?
Some of the things I mentioned in my diatribe against everything going on in my life had to do with my house. If I remember correctly (I'm not actually going to check), I think among the things I said I couldn't stand were honey covered walls, doors, and condo rules or something along those lines. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you know a little about my door, or at least the man who just decided to leave in the middle of fixing it, and if you have a really good memory you maybe remember the beehive in the wall that led to the (still) honey covered wall, but either way you probably don't know this: I absolutely, positively hate the place I live.
A few days ago when I was talking to a friend, we talked about someone we both know who has a terrible life. The phrase terrible life is thrown around a lot, I know, but when I tell you this woman's life is crappy with a capital C, maybe even the crappiest, I'm not overstating. In my conversation with my friend, though, the thing we kept coming back to is that it's all her fault. She's not happy with her life--her insanely horrific, miserable life--for various reasons, but for the most part, everything that's wrong is something she can fix. Maybe she can't change every bad thing so that it's perfect, but she can certainly change each thing so that it's good or if not good, say a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 instead of a negative 46. Would it be easy? Not at all. Would it take time? I mean, duh. But would it be worth it? Eventually, yes.
All of this discussion where this woman is concerned was a moot point because she'll never change her life, not even the littlest bit, but in my conversation with my friend, we came to realize that while maybe not to the extreme of the woman in question, we're both in the same sitch. We both have things about our lives that make us super upset yet do nothing but kvetch. We talked about the similarities, we talked about our judgment of the woman's life, we talked about how neither of us is powerless to change that which we don't like, and we swore we would change our respective plights.
I can't talk about the plight of my friend because it's not a story I can tell--yet--so I'll talk about my plight instead.
I hate my house. Well, that's not actually right. I don't hate my house at all. I just hate the place I live. My house is actually really cute and, for me, absolutely perfect. A friend once said walking into my house is like walking into a myspace profile, and he really is right. Sadly, though, after a little over sixteen years, I think it's time to leave.
Last summer, the condo association at my development decided to make some new rules. Each unit, according to our bylaws, is assigned two parking spaces, which means they're only allowed two cars. Too many people, according to the association, had three, four, or five cars--because most of these houses are three bedrooms and kids grow up and need a way to get around--so they were hogging the guest parking, and by golly, it had to stop. People's guests had to--gasp!--walk great distances, sometimes a block or so, to get to their houses, and, well, this just couldn't be. In the quest to make parking fair for one and all, a new parking program was implemented. Unit owners had to show up to a specified place at a specified time with their car registration and driver's license to register their car(s) at which time they got a sticker to be placed on the lower lefthand side of the windshield. Once a car was registered--and owners' cars HAD to be registered--parking in guest parking was forbidden. Any resident who parks in guest parking will immediately be towed.
Additionally, and this is part of the part that makes me outraged and sick, guests' cars have to be registered at night. Well, they're supposed to be registered at all times, but lot monitoring, which means roving tow trucks that take people's cars in about one minute flat, only pop up between 10 and 6. The other part of this part that makes me sick is that guests are only allowed to be registered 14 times in a month. At first, there was a by-the-hour option on the app which allowed us to register guests' cars for a certain number of hours and the 14-day rule was according to hours, not days, but when I was registering BTJ's car last week, I saw that option was gone and replaced with only days, which means if somebody wants to come over after 10:00 at night, they can only do it 14 times in a month.
Idk if I'm explaining this well because the collective gasp I should have heard from every person reading this post hasn't hit my ears, but basically what this means is Valencia Village is telling me how I could live. Valencia Village is telling me that Keifer's girlfriend, whose curfew is twelve and comes over whenever she can, can't be here past 10:00 more than 14 times. Valencia Village is telling me that if friends want to be here until 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, which for a night person off during the summer is completely feasible, they can't do it more than 14 times. Valencia Village is telling me if I'm dating a guy and he wants to come over to fuck me every night from 1 to 3, he's not allowed to do it for more than two weeks' time.
And holy motherfucking fracking fricking Christ, that is not all right.
The idea that I'm 43 and own my own house yet the people in power at the association can tell me how I'm allowed to live my life, well, I don't even know what to say. The fact that I only have one car and an empty parking space and I'm not allowed to use it how I want, well, I don't know if that's worse because almost nothing tops being told how I'm allowed to live, but it's pretty damn bad. It's --just like this whole thing--abhorrent. And I can no longer allow it to happen.
For the past year since the parking program inception, I've wanted to move. Of course, instead of moving, I found all sorts of excuses, the main one being that there are things I have to fix before I can sell my house. I fixed some, yes, and tried to fix others, but things just keep going wrong--Snapchat friends will remember the Jesus toilet man--and it's so overwhelming, so much easier just to stay put. But I'm miserable. I feel like I'm in a police state, I have no autonomy, I may as well be a child living under a parent's rule. I couldn't stand my life being dictated when I lived in my parents' house, and I certainly can't stand it now that I live on my own.
And so I have no choice but to move.
To stop making excuses.
To stop being the woman my friend and I don't want to be.
Sunday I went to Home Depot because I need a new door and was told it would be seven to eight weeks because I need someone to measure, I need a permit, an engineer needs to be involved, children have to be sacrificed... So I thought to myself, omg, that's so long and why do kids have to die? and I decided I'd just use a handyman and I left.
Monday I had my discussion with my friend.
Yesterday I went back to Home Depot and put the deposit down for a new door.
Some of the things I mentioned in my diatribe against everything going on in my life had to do with my house. If I remember correctly (I'm not actually going to check), I think among the things I said I couldn't stand were honey covered walls, doors, and condo rules or something along those lines. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you know a little about my door, or at least the man who just decided to leave in the middle of fixing it, and if you have a really good memory you maybe remember the beehive in the wall that led to the (still) honey covered wall, but either way you probably don't know this: I absolutely, positively hate the place I live.
A few days ago when I was talking to a friend, we talked about someone we both know who has a terrible life. The phrase terrible life is thrown around a lot, I know, but when I tell you this woman's life is crappy with a capital C, maybe even the crappiest, I'm not overstating. In my conversation with my friend, though, the thing we kept coming back to is that it's all her fault. She's not happy with her life--her insanely horrific, miserable life--for various reasons, but for the most part, everything that's wrong is something she can fix. Maybe she can't change every bad thing so that it's perfect, but she can certainly change each thing so that it's good or if not good, say a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 instead of a negative 46. Would it be easy? Not at all. Would it take time? I mean, duh. But would it be worth it? Eventually, yes.
All of this discussion where this woman is concerned was a moot point because she'll never change her life, not even the littlest bit, but in my conversation with my friend, we came to realize that while maybe not to the extreme of the woman in question, we're both in the same sitch. We both have things about our lives that make us super upset yet do nothing but kvetch. We talked about the similarities, we talked about our judgment of the woman's life, we talked about how neither of us is powerless to change that which we don't like, and we swore we would change our respective plights.
I can't talk about the plight of my friend because it's not a story I can tell--yet--so I'll talk about my plight instead.
I hate my house. Well, that's not actually right. I don't hate my house at all. I just hate the place I live. My house is actually really cute and, for me, absolutely perfect. A friend once said walking into my house is like walking into a myspace profile, and he really is right. Sadly, though, after a little over sixteen years, I think it's time to leave.
Last summer, the condo association at my development decided to make some new rules. Each unit, according to our bylaws, is assigned two parking spaces, which means they're only allowed two cars. Too many people, according to the association, had three, four, or five cars--because most of these houses are three bedrooms and kids grow up and need a way to get around--so they were hogging the guest parking, and by golly, it had to stop. People's guests had to--gasp!--walk great distances, sometimes a block or so, to get to their houses, and, well, this just couldn't be. In the quest to make parking fair for one and all, a new parking program was implemented. Unit owners had to show up to a specified place at a specified time with their car registration and driver's license to register their car(s) at which time they got a sticker to be placed on the lower lefthand side of the windshield. Once a car was registered--and owners' cars HAD to be registered--parking in guest parking was forbidden. Any resident who parks in guest parking will immediately be towed.
Additionally, and this is part of the part that makes me outraged and sick, guests' cars have to be registered at night. Well, they're supposed to be registered at all times, but lot monitoring, which means roving tow trucks that take people's cars in about one minute flat, only pop up between 10 and 6. The other part of this part that makes me sick is that guests are only allowed to be registered 14 times in a month. At first, there was a by-the-hour option on the app which allowed us to register guests' cars for a certain number of hours and the 14-day rule was according to hours, not days, but when I was registering BTJ's car last week, I saw that option was gone and replaced with only days, which means if somebody wants to come over after 10:00 at night, they can only do it 14 times in a month.
Idk if I'm explaining this well because the collective gasp I should have heard from every person reading this post hasn't hit my ears, but basically what this means is Valencia Village is telling me how I could live. Valencia Village is telling me that Keifer's girlfriend, whose curfew is twelve and comes over whenever she can, can't be here past 10:00 more than 14 times. Valencia Village is telling me that if friends want to be here until 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, which for a night person off during the summer is completely feasible, they can't do it more than 14 times. Valencia Village is telling me if I'm dating a guy and he wants to come over to fuck me every night from 1 to 3, he's not allowed to do it for more than two weeks' time.
And holy motherfucking fracking fricking Christ, that is not all right.
The idea that I'm 43 and own my own house yet the people in power at the association can tell me how I'm allowed to live my life, well, I don't even know what to say. The fact that I only have one car and an empty parking space and I'm not allowed to use it how I want, well, I don't know if that's worse because almost nothing tops being told how I'm allowed to live, but it's pretty damn bad. It's --just like this whole thing--abhorrent. And I can no longer allow it to happen.
For the past year since the parking program inception, I've wanted to move. Of course, instead of moving, I found all sorts of excuses, the main one being that there are things I have to fix before I can sell my house. I fixed some, yes, and tried to fix others, but things just keep going wrong--Snapchat friends will remember the Jesus toilet man--and it's so overwhelming, so much easier just to stay put. But I'm miserable. I feel like I'm in a police state, I have no autonomy, I may as well be a child living under a parent's rule. I couldn't stand my life being dictated when I lived in my parents' house, and I certainly can't stand it now that I live on my own.
And so I have no choice but to move.
To stop making excuses.
To stop being the woman my friend and I don't want to be.
Sunday I went to Home Depot because I need a new door and was told it would be seven to eight weeks because I need someone to measure, I need a permit, an engineer needs to be involved, children have to be sacrificed... So I thought to myself, omg, that's so long and why do kids have to die? and I decided I'd just use a handyman and I left.
Monday I had my discussion with my friend.
Yesterday I went back to Home Depot and put the deposit down for a new door.
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