I moved into an apartment complex that I could have afforded LAST YEAR.
THIS YEAR, however, I am making the same amount of money in a very much higher cost of living area.
SO it has proven to be a challenge. I welcome the challenge though. I love an obstacle. If you don't have any obstacles to rise above then how will you ever grow?
Whether or not I have actually grown that much is another story but the truth of the matter is that I have learned a lot. I have learned what it is like to pay EVERY SINGLE BILL LATE!
I have learned what it feels like to have a threat of eviction.
I have learned about what happens when you let someone with bad credit be your roommate.
I have learned what it feels like to be in over your head.
I have learned what it feels like to have a family that loves you.
I have learned what it feels like to be dearly missed.
I can tell that I am missed by how many people have asked when I will be home for Thanksgiving. A time when you give thanks and honor the things you are grateful for. People have asked me not realizing that I work in retail and that if I was to take the energy to travel home for Thanksgiving then I would not have the energy needed to come back and deal with Black Friday. The secret holiday of the retail world. What will hopefully NOT formally be known as, "The biggest shopping day of the year". With the way the economy has been I am scared to see what Black Friday will look like this year. I feel as though it will set the tone for the entire shopping season and if it does not go well then I feel utter depression setting in. Hard. Cold. and Fast.
I feel like the kids will be home from college and they will whine and complain and force their parents out into the malls to shop for Christmas wishes. Don't let me down you godawful brats!
I just emailed my leasing office in order to "leave a paper trail". Its a life lesson I picked up somewhere along the way. Something I had heard before but never listened to because it never applied to me. It is weird how you spend your life "hearing" things and then one day out of nowhere you begin to "listen". They begin to register and really make a lot of sense. Luckily you remembered them because they seem to be in place to save your ass from harm.
This Thanksgiving will be my first away from home. Away from my family. The past few years Thanksgiving has become so cliched for me that I had really begun to take it for granted. Do I really have to wake up early on my day off? Do I really have to spend the ENTIRE day with my family? Last year I had no clue that it would be my last one with the gang. At this time last year I had told my previous store manager that I did NOT plan on moving. I told her that I had too much going on in Charlotte and that I wanted to stay and figure some things out first.
Who knew that I had NOTHING going on? NOTHING compared to my life this year in Boston.
Last year there was Thanksgiving, followed by the week when I first spoke with my new store manager. It was a Wednesday morning. I can remember. I had just gone to Yoga. It was warm in Charlotte. I had on shorts and short sleeves as I left the gym. That could never happen in Boston right now.
So for my first Thanksgiving in my home away from home I will be serving food to those in need at one of my favorite bars in town. Located in Cambridge. We will make a quick stop over to my apartment to pick up my Sweet Potato Balls (a Paula Dean recipe) and my Broccoli Casserole (from my father's Wadesboro, NC Cookbook) then head over to our store managers house for a manager's Thanksgiving spread. Then we will head to my new found "kindred spirit" friend's place for a southern Thanksgiving with my new Bostonian family.
It will be a full day. It will start at 9am. and it will be the first time that I have ever been so excited to wake up early and start giving Thanks.
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