Guest in My Own Life

I texted him. Drat. This is the problem with being on the New Zealand schedule. There's no live phone support. Everyone is sleeping when I have my crazy moments, and there's no one to talk me down.

I feel better. I always felt better after contacting him back in the early days of the breakup, when I still thought there was hope. Then of course nothing would happen--or something unpleasant would happen--and I'd feel terrible again. Until I reached that desperate peak and reached out again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So I know this feeling, and I know it's crap. Also, it's not like I can start the cycle up again. He already threatened me with a restraining order back in June when I was harrassing him regularly. Not that I feel the LITTLEST BIT bad about it, mind you. What has always amazed me is that there is NO legal recourse to be had for the fact that he murdered my soul without so much as a second thought... but REMINDING him of it... well, THAT'S a punishable offense. Whatever.

Of course, it was 1:00 in the morning or something when I let the text fly. I'd finished my blog entry, threw myself across my desk at work and sobbed like the pathetic wretch I am, and in the midst of all that frenzy I texted him: "I hope it was worth it. Whatever you got for destroying me... I hope someone takes it away so you can know what it's like to have your life ripped apart by someone on a whim."

Such a waste of time. But now I have to wait and see if sometime TOMORROW (well, later today) he responds with some evil retort. Hopefully he'll just ignore it and I can just try to be stronger. There's nothing he can say to make it better. Well, there's one thing, but he's not going to say THAT.

Anyway... the rest of my night unfolded much like yours, I'm sure. At 12:30 a.m. I left work, hit the late-night McDonald's drive-thru because I was feeling FAINT from hunger and misery, and drove to the church where I work so I could copy songs from the hymnal. I agreed to sing at the Christmas Eve service, and I have my choice between two songs I've never heard before, so I need to learn them. The only place they exist (reliably) is in the hymnal, and naturally I didn't have one of those just kicking about (I do now).

I went in and copied the two songs on the copier, and then decided since I'd have no other piano at my disposal, I might as well duck into the sanctuary and try and learn them real quick. So there's me, all alone in this big empty church, playing the piano at 2:30 in the morning.

After I felt secure enough to take the show on the road, I locked up and left. When I got home I had no place to park. My parking situation is like a metaphor for my life.

Because I was the last person in my family to own a car, I was left out of the parking spot lottery. Everyone else in my family has a designated spot either directly in front of our house, or in the driveway. I came late to the party and had to fend for myself. For many years I had a regular spot across the street from our house, but there were many times where I came home to find that spot taken by any number of neighbors, guests, etc. It's been very irksome, to say the least.

For the past couple years my aunt (who lives next door) has let me park either in front of her house, or in her driveway, depending on where she has parked. This is nice of her, and a smidge more convenient, but imperfect nonetheless. She has a daughter of driving age, and between the two of them, neither knows how to park so that there is room for a second car on the strip of sidewalk in front of their house. So oftentimes I'd come home and find one car in the driveway, the other car in front of the house directly in the middle of the two spots that potentially exist, and no room for me.

Luckily right now my cousin is living elsewhere, so you'd think I had it made, right? Well, I would if it was "our" year for parking. But it's not. We live on the odd-numbered side, and this year the parking is happening on the even-numbered side. Which means we are S.O.L. And if we DO park on our side, we will certainly be ticketed. It happens every other year and it's miserable. And right now there's 9000 feet of snow on the ground, so there literally isn't any room to park on both sides of the street even if I wanted to risk getting a ticket.

But here's where either stupidity, or passive-aggression comes into play: I gave my aunt a key to my car two years ago when we first made the arrangement. She has yet to give me a key to hers. I've asked her repeatedly, mind you, and there's always some story about how the key is warped and she needs to do something special to get a new one... I don't know what the hell the deal is, all I know is I'm the one in the weaker position, and I feel like I'd like to make it as easy as possible on her, but she won't allow me to do that. NOR will she take responsibility for that. Like, I feel that if she won't get me a key for her car so I can do all the swapping for her, then she should have to deal with it when I have no choice but to block her in. I mean, she's the one who refuses to give me the tools necessary to help her out, right?

So all weekend I helped her shovel the driveway, and we were swapping cars every couple hours depending on who had to go out next, etc. It's a pain in the ass, but par for the course.

The real problem is now. When I get home at 3:00 in the morning, I can't exactly get her up out of bed and say, "Hey, can you move your car out so I don't block you in?" At the same time, I would really like to go to bed right now... and I can't because if I do I'll have to be back up at like 6:30 anyway when she has to go to work, and I'm blocking her in.

Actually--and this is just the cherry on top--at this particular moment I'm NOT blocking her in. Why? Because instead of pulling her car all the way up so I COULD park behind her, she left it parked at the edge of the driveway, so that if I pull in behind her I'll be more than half out in the street.

Leaving me LITERALLY with no place to park. After driving around the block and determining that there was literally no place else to go, I parked sideways in MY driveway (which is wider than hers), blocking both my mother and my sister, hanging somewhat out in the street, and totally leaving myself open for getting a potential ticket.

I'm so totally annoyed. And this is just one more example of how little control I have over even the most basic things in my life.