Today's rambling: I sound like someone's mother...
Written on Wednesday, Jul. 16, 2003 at 5:55 a.m.
while feeling a bit

Wow, things went back to normal between Mom and I quicker than I expected! I'm not upset over this, of course, because I don't like to be in fights with her (though this wasn't even a fight, it was just her not talking to me). I remember the first time she ever did the no-talking thing to me, I was so upset that all I felt like doing was crying. And I was like 16 or so at the time, LOL! I feel like such a baby sometimes.

Speaking of babies, though...

Pam asked me tonight if I thought less of her because of something she did back toward the beginning of the summer. It got me to thinking, and the truth of it is...it's not so much that I think less of her as it is that I think the whole thing is so WEIRD.

At times, I still think of my contemporaries and I as babies. One night while riding in the car with Tiff, I suddenly thought, "Whoa, she DRIVES! This is so weird!" and yet I've driven around with her innumerable times before. When I heard that Gretchen was married already, my mind just reeled. My friends, doing adult things like getting married or having sex...or even just being able to drive? Weren't we all just little elementary schoolkids not too long ago?

I guess that probably happens to everyone, that weird realization that we're all growing up. Geoff once teasingly remarked, "Wait 'til they start getting divorced," which I suppose will be another weird experience, but...I don't know, it just seems a little surreal sometimes! In some ways, I feel as though I'm being left behind. I mean, I have no driver's license, no boyfriend...for all intents and purposes, I might as well still be a schoolkid. I haven't even gotten through college yet, and all my friends (who are my age) have graduated. Amber's got a job with some professional-sounding title, and even though I only knew her for a year I was still like, "Wow, a job that doesn't involve asking, 'Paper or plastic'!" Janette's a teacher now, and I haven't even met her in real life but I still get that feeling from time to time that it seems like only the other day she was still in her first or second year of uni!

We're all growing up too fast, that's all there is to it. :P

Mom told me that the other day at the bar, after Tim and I had left Kirsten was like, "It seems like just the other day she was just a little, timid thing!" I started at that grocery store when I was about 19 or so, so it's not as though THAT much time has passed...but I've done a lot of changing (personality-wise) in that time. I'm still mostly shy, but in so many ways I've opened up more and become a little more pleasant to be around, hehe...and yeah, as stupid and trite as it sounds, Geoff had a lot to do with that transformation. It's not that I transformed myself for him, because I'd never do that for anyone. He just sort of got me to be a little more outgoing and fun-loving.

Mother Dear also overheard part of a conversation that Geoff was having with Kirsten, hehehe...well, all she heard was something about 'sweet girl' and she said there was something else in there, but I dryly remarked, "Yeah, he was probably saying 'She's a sweet girl but I don't like her in that way.'" Mom disagreed, though, so I felt heartened. ;)

Y'know, after this weekend, you'd think I wouldn't really have any doubts about whether he likes me or not. Well, maybe you would. But that hug...one simple hug just felt so...meaningful, I guess you could say. I walked away from that car without a doubt in my mind that he cared for me, and while talking to him on the phone tonight I got this little smile on my face as if to say "He's finally mine." Yet I still can't help doubting! I guess until I push him up against a wall and kiss him (or the other way around, ha ha), I'll always have doubts.

And yeah, I know all this angst is probably getting reeeally annoying, hehe...

Melissa called me yesterday and today, asking if I wanted to hang out. Yesterday I said no partly because I was still really tired, and partly because I didn't want to hang out with her boyfriend and that other guy again. Not that I had any problems with them the first time, but I still don't really KNOW them and so I still have that awkward feeling. Today when she called, she said that her boyfriend was out playing with his band and Shawn was working, so she was all by herself. Yet I still didn't really feel like going out. And I feel terrible about it, because we've only just started talking again and I ought to be jumping at the chance to hang out with her, y'know? She's obviously making the effort to involve me in her life, which is wonderful. I just...don't feel like doing anything. X_X I need to get to know her again, because despite the major parts of her personality still being the same, in many ways she's like a completely different person. She has different interests now, a completely different life...

I've resigned myself to the fact that I will not have a job before I go back to college. This bugs me like you wouldn't believe. I can't believe I was so LAZY this summer! And now I'm not going to have enough money to pay off my credit card as I'd wanted to, or build up my bank accounts...I have less than $200 in my checking account, and I've got a 2-year contract with Sprint, which costs me around $60 a month! Now I'm going to have to get both an on-campus job and hopefully something off-campus during weekends or whatever, and I'm so scared that all of that will interfere greatly with my schoolwork. I'm going to have to give up the idea of starting on the TV crew this year, I know that much. And it's my fault that this is happening, I know, but...augh, it just makes me so anxious and unhappy! If only that waitressing thing had worked out! I could have made so much money doing that...but yeah, I'm jobless this summer, and I'll have to pay for that during the schoolyear. At least I've learned my lesson.

On a closing note (and yeah, it's more Geoff stuff, heh), I just thought of something the other day. People at work had, at one point, thought that Geoff didn't want to start a relationship with me because of the whole "dating employees" thing. I remember thinking at one point that if I quit, or if he did, that would be the end of any relationship because we didn't know each other well enough that he would want to come see me...I mean, we didn't even see each other outside of work 'til just before I went off to college, really! I'm so glad that his last day at that place happened now, after we've cemented our friendship, at least! *giggles*