(This ended up being a lot longer than I'd intended... if you read it, great, if not, it's fine lol)
First Valentine's Day for me when I'm actually in a relationship... yet I'm still spending it alone. And I don't even know when I'll see my sweetie next :(
We had a lot of snow yesterday... about 14 inches, the bottom 4-6 inches of which was slush and heavy as frick. I basically shoveled from 8 AM-3 PM with a break between noon and 1. I also helped my neighbor shovel his driveway since he always does it himself. He has two autistic sons, so his wife pretty much needs to keep a constant eye on them.
Needless to say, I am sore today. And last night I started getting this weird welt-y rash on my arms, my stomach, and my back. Itchy as hell. I don't usually have reactions like that but I can't figure out what it was. The only thing I can figure is i have a down coat and maybe I'm allergic to down ? But I've worn that coat for several hours in a day before, and never had a problem.
I keep thinking about my future. I've never moved by myself before. I don't have experience or job qualifications that will guarantee me a job. I used to think I would move out when I had been able to find a "real" job. I very well may be moving before I'm ready to... not mentally ready, mind you (been mentally ready for 3 years) but ready in every other sense. I have retail experience but even retail isn't always a given. Plus it pays like s**t.
Mom and dad have offered to help me but they haven't given me numbers or a time frame. I don't expect them to help me, but dad says he will continue to pay my car insurance until I can take over it (I paid it the first year I had the car) and I can stay on their phone bill as long as I'd like. Aside from that, I think about this. I realize how lucky I am. Then I remember my sister-in-law Katie telling me that until she moved in with my brother when she was 29, the only reason she was able to live on her own at my age was because her parents were subsidizing 70% of her rent and a couple other things.
Katie's parents aren't rich, but they are not strapped for cash. They apparently had $200,000 already saved up from selling a house they bought in 1990 for 5 times as much in 2005 or something and having rented that house, aside from owning their own. So yeah, in 2 years they were able to spend $50,000 on both daughters' weddings ($25k each). Their house is paid off. Katie also gets $24,000 a year from her rich uncle as long as she promises to visit for a weekend every year.
My parents, I won't say we're poor because people would laugh at me derisively for saying such a thing if they ever saw our house. But our financial situation from 2001-2006 really messed everything up for us (paying two mortgages on our house in Ohio plus my dad's apartment in Alexandria, VA) and we used up all our savings on the down payment for this house. The mortgage each month is very high. They felt awful knowing that Katie's parents footed most of the wedding bill in 2008 and we could barely afford to provide the booze at the wedding because we knew we wanted to buy a house by the end of the year (we were renting at the time). I know my parents don't have a lot of money to throw around. Dad tells me he would give me enough to cover my car payment but sometimes he says things and then changes it. Granted, I can't be selfish and even $50 a month would be great. But I don't know... I feel like... I'll be 27 and my parents are still helping me out. So what if Katie was in a similar situation ? At least she had a master's degree by then and was working a real job, so her parents' help enabled her to save most of the money she was making.
Cori is basically cut off from his parents. His dad is an unreliable piece of work and his mother is the same. He's been on his own, struggling, for years. So while I believe both of us can "make it," it won't be easy. In a way, I don't need it to be easy but at the same time it upsets me because I just don't know what I did wrong. I don't know if it was waiting to start college or the fact it took me an extra year. I don't know if it was staying in retail thinking I could get out once I graduated. I don't know if it was the fact I couldn't live on campus because my home address was too close to the school and at the time, Mason didn't have enough on-campus housing. I just don't know.
I probably shouldn't have bought my car. I should have accepted my parents' offer of helping with the down payment as a graduation present but then put all that money into savings and chugged along with the Saturn. I should have not also used the money left from my great-aunt's death to add to that down payment. My grandfather just gave me money over the summer (he has given me money once before, when I went to Paris) and I used all of it to buy two plane tickets to see Cori, pay for a new laptop (well, pay my dad for his new laptop), pay off one credit card, and pay one car payment. I maybe put $200 of it into savings. Now I wish I'd put all of it into savings and just continued to pay down my debt.
All these choices I've made and I regret them. It makes me worried that I'm going to move and suddenly I'm going to not be able to make my car payment or help with rent. I mean, I expect Cori to take lead with the details because he has experience moving and renting, but he needs me, too, and I obviously intend to help where I can. He didn't exactly get a degree that would guarantee him a job, either. And he has to think about the reason he's moving--grad school.
But the last thing I want to hear is someone to say I have a good thing going, living at home, and I should stay. Staying here has run its course and I will waste my youth being depressed all the time. I haven't been able to save money living at home because for the past year I barely made enough money to cover my car payments and filling the gas tank. And again, someone may hear that and think, "And you're thinking of moving out if you just said that ?"
I'm severely depressed. I kept denying it, but I am. Cori convinced me to go to a therapist which I did a week ago. I made another appointment and will continue to try going on a regular basis. And it sucks because I'm the type of person that convinces herself that being depressed is stupid and I can't be depressed because I realize that I do have things other people would envy, and I have no right to feel this way. I used to think depression was selfish... but now I'm depressed. First time in my life. Amanda said it. Heather said it. Cori said it. Even my parents and my brother said it. Everyone said I'm depressed.
And it was only recently I realized I was. I'm scared to find another job after Benetton. I'm scared that I love my boyfriend with all my heart and soul and something is going to happen that will ensure we never live near each other and that we break up not because we want to, but because we have to. I'm scared of all the health problems I've been having lately. I'm feeling like crap about my body because I've been stuck at 160 pounds since August and I know I haven't been trying like I did the year before (in August 2012 I weighed 206 pounds... yeah, so I made progress).
A couple days ago I found a letter I wrote to Amanda in August of 2012 and I must not have sent it because then I took an impromptu trip to visit her between jobs right before Labor Day. I wrote something like "I'm just so unhappy with my body. Even if I weighed 160 I know my self-confidence would skyrocket and I'd look so much better and wear nicer clothes." And the thing is this... I'm now 160, which was little more than a dream to me in 2012, I did it on my own through hard work and exercise, and I still feel just as bad about myself. I know Cori accepts me as I am but I can't help but feel like he would still want me to be 25 pounds lighter so I actually look good in my pretty bras and all that...
I can realize how far I've come. I can look at photos of myself from 2012 and be incredibly happy I don't look like that anymore. But I still look at myself and I have big arms, big thighs, a big belly, a chubby face... and while all these parts have slimmed down significantly since August of 2012, I'm used to myself now and all I see again is fat Rachel. I don't see the "fattest' Rachel of 2012, but I see fat Rachel. And I need to find my focus again, which is really hard if I'm depressed.
That was part of the reason I think I gained weight anyway. I was so unhappy at Jacadi in 2011 and 2012. Half the reason I think I lost all that weight after quitting was that I was working with people like Chayla and Shamir and Farrell at 7 For All Mankind. Chayla is just the most perfect human being ever and the clothes were so awesome (because at Jacadi all we sold were baby/kids clothing and we could only wear black) and I could actually eventually wear them and now I have like 20 pairs of 7 jeans that I love. All my co-workers shared in my joy when I'd have fit sessions with new shipments and have to go get a smaller size. In the time I was there, I went from barely being able to fit into a size 32 Lexie A-Pocket (their standard petite and curvy flare) with 2% spandex and 24% nylon (which made it EXTREMELY stretchy), to a size 28 cropped skinny with 1% spandex and 99% cotton (so not a whole lot of stretch). And as much as my manager Wendy annoyed me (she was hired after I was), she also championed my efforts and actually became inspired by my success.
That's also why Benetton annoyed me. I liked knowing what I was selling. Benetton had so much crap it was hard to keep it all straight. We sold men's, women's, and kid's. We sold office wear, lounge wear, formal wear, and every day wear. I liked working at 7 being their product specialist because we had a variety to show every customer, but not so much that it was impossible to learn the details of every item. It was easy to keep a mental inventory and the sizing was standard depending on the fit and cut, while at Benetton, that crap ran the gamute of "We can't tell how it will fit on you unless you try it." I tried on all sorts of stuff at that store and, being knowledgeable about fit and materials myself, was SHOCKED at how differently everything fit.
Anyway, I've said too much. This entry wasn't supposed to be this long.
Oh, and get this... the area manager from Benetton (the one who gave a good first impression but later I found out he was nasty, distrustful, disingenuine, and just plain creepy and super-arrogant) was fired. And Shawn (a fellow supervisor) got into it a couple weeks ago with the new manager and the girl that technically replaced me (who is 38 and answered her cell phone on the floor when I was training her and CONTINUED to hold a conversation--which prompted me to NOT train her further) and he quit on the spot. Oh, the lady who replaced me also made outgoing calls while I was trying to show her how to do the end of day email. Literally said, "Excuse me one second" and just picked up the phone and made a call to I don't know who. I just DON'T understand how people can be so STUPID.
Anyway. So with the exception of Karen who told me all this, and Rosa who has been a sales associate there for 8 years and works twice a week (and told me that's the only reason she's been able to last that long), literally everyone I worked with from that company, including the VP who hired me, is gone. Even two associates they hired right before I quit are gone already (I worked with one for one morning shift and only saw the other in passing). Karen wants to leave badly, too. She told me the same thing Rosa did... it's not so bad for associates but she is sick of the useless manager they hired (I know I mentioned him before OD went down--he didn't even know how to fill out a bank deposit slip and he was texting on his phone the whole time I was trying to show him the labyrinth to the trash bin) and the lady who replaced me. Plus I know Karen is the least paid associate there, and she was always the most reliable while I worked there. Figure that one out.
I may not have made a good decision leaving that job without having something else first. But I definitely made a good decision leaving in general. The Pentagon City location closed right after I left. I think all the Benettons are going to close except for tourist destinations like the ones in New York, Miami, and DC. That company won't be able to survive in the US otherwise. They used to have something like 50 stores in the US and now it's more like 12, mostly in New York and Florida.
Anyway.
That rant turned into something I didn't mean it to. But yeah... I just want things to happen this year. At the risk of getting myself into trouble, I want to do this. I want to move to be with the man I love, even though I'm not in a stable situation myself. Do I have to be ? How do people do it ? How do people just pick up and move... hard work, obviously, but... would I be okay ? I don't know. I really don't.
Maybe it's time for me to really see what life is all about. And sometimes it's about being hungry and not being able to buy groceries, or being in a job you hate just to pay bills for a place you're probably paying too much for.
Funny how a college degree isn't worth crap anymore. They don't care about your education, they care about your work. And all the work I have is retail. And somehow that makes me unworthy of a different job.
~Rachel
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