Things always change in August, and this year is no exception

For some reason, big changes in my life always happen in August. Late August or early September is the traditional start of school years. August was when I quit the first job I ever had to take on a better job as part of a team reopening a luxury resort. August was when my ex-husband left me. A year ago, August was when I got a job offer, moved across the state, and had my car break down 500 feet from the top of Snoqualmie Pass during my move.

This August facilitated more change. I left my first serious boyfriend since my ex-husband. It was hard and heartbreaking. I didn't want to hurt him. But our relationship had run its course. Our life plans have different directions. I want something, and he wants something different, and it was inevitable for things to finally end.

I'd left other guys before, but never like this. Either they were losers who I had no issues with leaving, or I physically moved from the area and left them behind, staying friends with them. This was different. This was a serious relationship; our one-year anniversary would've been early September.

I spent weeks wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to let him down nicely. Being still fairly new to town and having met him shortly after I arrived, most of my friends I had locally were through him. I was terrified of losing him as a friend as well as all the other friends I had made.

Then I realized that I was selfish. It was not fair to him to stay just for the benefits, without my heart in it. I had to accept the consequences. I could hope all I wanted, but ultimately it would be his choice. It was terrifying, the idea of not being in control, but it was the right thing to do.

He took it well. I'm not sure exactly what sort of future friendship could look like at this point, as he is taking much-needed space to process, whether he shows it or not. I'm giving myself some time and space as well. Surely it hurt him more, but I still feel pretty awful about it, even if I know I made the right choice.

Why do these things always happen in August?

Fighting fire (plus the best secret-shop ever)

Have you ever had to fight a fire? I have. In fact, when I worked at the motel, I had to fight two fires.

The first one happened when someone flicked a cigarette into our flowerbeds and caught a hedge on fire. I ran out there with a fire extinguisher, used up the fire extinguisher, but didn't get the flames out. A guest was like, "There! There's another one!". So I ran over and used the empty fire extinguisher I was holding to bust the glass to get the other extinguisher out, which was one of the most bad-ass moves I feel I ever did (it was very satisfying to do, trust me), and then ran back and got the rest of the fire out.

The second fire was indoors. I was in the back office doing paperwork things and heard popping and burning smell from the breakroom, and I assumed it was my coworker burning popcorn again and ignored it...until I realized that the microwave wasn't actually running.

Went back to check while my coworker was on the phone, and where our a/c was plugged into the wall there were sparks. I pulled the cord out of the wall...and flames shot out of the electrical outlet. Welllllllll shit.

"Fire!" I screamed as I grabbed a cleaning rag and tried to shove it against the outlet to smother the flames. "Get me an extinguisher and call 911!"

Coworker: "Just a minute..."
Me: "No just a minute I need an extinguisher right now!"

She came back with an extinguisher and I put out the fire. Unsure of what was still possibly burning in the wall, we evacuated the building, or at least attempted to since the guests didn't seem to really believe there was a fire. The fire department came and determined that the fire was put out. The breaker never tripped, and when an electrician came out he swore at how poorly-labelled our circuit-breaker was (something I had complained to the higher-ups about multiple times to no avail).

Now, to provide some background, my company at the time was having us do "quality control" checks on other random properties. Some genius at corporate thought we should waste time calling other properties to make fake reservations and then fill out a form and grade the other property and fax it to them. I say "genius" sarcastically since it's looks terrible if you're a guest who walks up to to check-in and see the front desk person is on the phone booking a room somewhere, but I digress.

Anyway, the phone call my coworker was taking when the fire broke out? It was another property secret-shopping us. My coworker basically asked to call the other person back and hung up. She never said why, but the person on the other end of the line must have heard me screaming in the background, because after the fire department left our secret-shop "grade" was faxed to us.

(Can't believe I still have this photo from 2013)

The comments read:
"She was doing great 'till you guys had a fire at the property. Hope everything is OK!"

And then I laughed. And laughed. And laughed...

Best secret shop we ever had!

Death and rebirth

When I was hiking Round Mountain a month or so ago, it was very apparent that at some point in the not-too-distant past, a wildfire had gone through and ravaged the hillside. There are long, tall stalks of dead trees, but the forest is also rich with new growth that is filling in. The scars of the past are visible, but the forest is very much alive.

Two years ago I was in hell as a fire burned down the forest of my soul. I was in a very dark place. Around the time I found myself Googling what, exactly, would physically happen to my body if I downed a gallon of bleach (hint: it's stuff that's probably not actually fatal but really, really painful and expensive to treat), I decided to seek out help. It took two support groups and therapy, as well as the support of tons of friends, to pull me through, but I made it.

A year later, I had graduated and had a job offer and was preparing to move across the country. I've almost been in the Yakima area a full year now! I feel like that picture represents me a lot. The scars are still there, still visible, and they still hurt, but the new growth is filling in, progress is being made, and there's some beauty to be found in it.

Time heals all wounds. Two years ago I wanted to punch anyone that said that, but it's true. If you're in a dark spot, hang in there. It will pass. It might pass like a kidney stone, but it's gonna pass.

Turning the page

I had a better post than this outlined but then I did a thing and now I'm just sad and depressed going into my vacation and it sucks and I really don't want to talk about it I'll probably just talk more about it later.

You know when Lot and his family leave the city and they were told not to look back but then Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt? I think the salt was from tears because right now if I look back I can't stop crying. I was thinking about the future when I did the thing and everything I did was right if I look to the future, but it's all different if I look back.

Anyway this is vague and depressing and I'll write more about it later but right now I gotta kill a bottle of wine and bawl my eyes out.

I am an awesome procrastinator

It's amazing that, for how good it feels to knock something off my to-do list, I suck at doing it.

But hey, this counts as a blog update, right?

My house is probably most definitely haunted

So the other day I woke up and heard one of the chairs in my kitchen sliding across the floor.

I laid in bed for a while, pondering if it was something I just imagined or if there was actually someone in my house moving chairs around. I couldn't hear any footsteps. I really didn't want to get up. If it was nothing, then I was disturbing my slumber for nothing. If it was something, well I was naked and that was going to be really awkward to confront a stranger while naked.

Finally I decided to get up, find my glasses, and peek around the corner.

The room was empty.

So my house is probably haunted. Or it was just the dog chasing that same damn fly he's been chasing all week and he collided with one of the chairs at some point. But most likely it's a haunted house.