Leftovers

– Yesterday I took down my sensitive door bell and put up another lock for my door. It all happened within a short time frame and without too much fuss.

– During the past couple of weeks while adjusting to my new place, I was getting quite tired of people telling me that I wouldn’t have a balcony in my new place. Let me break it down this way:

When choosing an apartment during that crazy time, there weren’t many vacancies left, and some had already been reserved for a later time. My options were to take one of the remaining places, or get moved to another one of their other apartment complexes in different towns. Hmm, let me think. Move further away, making things way more inconvenient for me, or simply move over to another building within that complex.

I chose the place that made more sense to me. My mom was with me and said, “But you won’t have a balcony!” The women in the leasing office said that there was one available with a balcony, but it wouldn’t be ready for a few more weeks. Which presented me with the thought of my mom and I living together for two more weeks with one bed, one couch and two cats who don’t get along. Hence my decision to choose the place on the first floor without a balcony that would be ready in a few days. Even the leasing office women looked at me like I had just kicked a puppy and said, “Won’t you miss the balcony?” I told them I would, but at the same time I didn’t really use my balcony that much anyway.

Let me tell you, I must’ve heard the “But you won’t have a balcony” five or six times after that day, and I was just inches away from flipping out like George Costanza shouting, “I am aware!!” I visited my old building during my “vacation” just to see if I had left anything else behind. I ran into one of the maintenance guys who recognized me. We cheerfully greeted each other and he asked where they had moved me. I told him which building and the number and he said, “Aw, you won’t have a balcony!”….I was actually able to laugh about it, rather than scream and told him, “Everyone keeps telling me about the balcony!” He laughed and said, “Well did they lower your rent? They had better!” I told him they had, so we both figured it was a fair trade. During my week of unpacking, I talked to my mom over the phone a lot, and she said she told my brothers that I wouldn’t have a balcony. I finally told her without getting all mad, that I was so tired of hearing about how I don’t have a balcony. I told her it would be one more place for me to store clutter, and we finally saw eye-to-eye on it.

– Today I had what Dane Cook calls a weep-a-thon. It was unexpected, though. Thoughts were running through my head while I was still trying to make sense out of my bedroom which still had frames that needed to be hung up, and a closet that needed to get organized. The moving crew just put boxes wherever they could, but I wasn’t able to close my closet, and looking at my messy closet day after day was making me even more frustrated.

I tend to blame myself for lots of things. LOTS of things. Stupid stuff. I blame myself before I blame people responsible for hurting me. So that was another thought going through my head, and I just had had enough and the tears started coming hard. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t in the middle of eating and trying to get ready for work. This was the kind of cry where I’d have to take in a few deep breaths. I almost choked once, inhaling a bite of chili. I finally had to put the bowl down and just wait for the weep-a-thon to take its course instead of try to multi-task.

My mom found an article the other day that talked about the healthy benefits of crying. We all know that a good cry or laugh is healthy, but they listed different types of tears, especially the emotional tears which help flush out stress hormones. I was able to think of this article during my little episode today and knew it was a good thing to get this all out.