I am determined!

I want to own this.  I feel like a terrible person for wanting to get a new car because the insane amount of debt I'm putting myself in scares the shit out of me, but at the same time I plan on keeping this car forever (or until it dies).  

The part that really makes me uneasy is the loan part and getting my credit checked out.  I don't believe I have bad credit, but I know that getting your credit checked isn't exactly good either because it's bad to do that more than once a year.  And I don't want to do any credit checks until I'm literally sitting down about to figure out where I stand for a loan.  I know the loan terms depend on how much I put down and stuff too, and that is still yet to be really determined, but it'll be at least 3 grand, most likely more.  Essentially what I'm thinking of looking at is putting down 5 grand and just getting a loan for the rest of the cost (which, after doing an entire day's worth of research, should be 10 grand and some change!).  I'd like to think that's reasonable, but I'm always worried that's the really naive side of me thinking "Yeah Pamela, you can TOTALLY do this!!" (and then have reality blow it up in my face and put me in a drastic financial situation).

But no matter, I'm still wanting to go through with this before Valentine's Day (no reason for that particular holiday, but I figured early February is a good time to be behind the wheel of the thing with my own title and all that mess).

newnewNEW!

I feel that during a person's 20s, they are driven to get everything new.  And let's face it, it's kind of true.  I mean, kids go off to college, starting their own lives, starting out-new.  But the more I think about it and look into it, new isn't cheap.  And starting out new isn't exactly spend-friendly, either.  Most 20 somethings I know are broke as anything and they starve themselves, sacrifice nutrition to afford concert tickets, new clothes, video games, computers, piercings and tattoos (being an adult let's you do ANYTHING!), cars, rent on a cheap apartment, and/or pets (usually dogs or cats, and the few who delve into fish and rodents).  The sad reality of all this is that no average person can afford all that.  Depending where you live, moving can cost about 2 grand or more if you pay 1st month's rent + security deposit + moving transportation/boxes + starting groceries + furnishings.  I realize many of these things can be crossed off of expenses by networking yourself or using friends and family to help out...but not everyone has that.  For example, people that are more independent or can't afford to depend on their parents or family to financially help them when they're starting out are really kind of fucked in today's economy.  Cost of living is so expensive nowadays that in order to afford anything new, you have to be making a pretty decent salary to afford all that.  And let's face it, that's not many people who are starting out new.

It's an unspoken part of life that you're just either going to have to be poor and rely on every hand out you can find in order to climb over the hill of debt every young American is accumulating while attending post-secondary education.  And the really cruel joke in all of this is that people trick you into thinking it's fun and enjoyable.  It's not.

Going into debt is not fun, it's a horrible thing if you can't dig yourself out, and the scary reality of all this is that people can't find jobs when they get their degree.  So then what do you do with your thousands upon thousands of dollars of debt you've accumulated?  That's an answer I'm still trying to figure out, since after today I've come to the reality that I may not even get approved for a car loan, much less the business loan I was hoping to get to start my own boutique.  This is because I don't have a stable income, a stable job, or solid collateral to get myself started.  And I can't get any of that without getting a stable job, but the stable job I want is where I need a loan to start it.  It's a twisted circle of "not happening."

So in the end, I really question how anyone is supposed to be successful at starting out new without going bankrupt or drown in debt.  I can't get a job without a degree, I can't exactly afford to stay in school (but I have no choice, since I am so close to finishing), the job I do have doesn't pay shit, nor offer health insurance if I do get a full time position, and my chance of getting a loan without a co-signer is slim to none.  My parents can't afford to help me anymore, mostly because only of them has a job at the moment, and that's barely enough to cover a family of 5.  But at my age you'd think by now I could afford to live entirely by myself, pay my own insurance, my own car, my own house, etc., but it's not financially possible.  The people I do see having new cars, new homes, elaborate weddings, tons of new material things like clothes, makeup, shoes, etc. all come from families that are financially sound and successful.  Plenty of people have mom and dad there still supporting them financially when they themselves can't afford to be supporting someone in their 20's.

And then it's no wonder the housing market has crashed, the dollar is about as weak as ever, and banks are needing constant help-it's because Americans are stupid when it comes to money.  I mean, good LORD, if you can't afford it, or can't afford more than the minimal payment, then that's a clear NO on what you want! It's really not that difficult to understand; our parents told us no when we were little and wanted that candy bar in the checkout aisle at the grocery store...unless some people can't stand to say no.  People are losing a grip on their morals, hence the fall of what we now know as American society.  It can be seen everywhere, in every type of situation, and it's really sad to see something so magnificent at one point completely die out as a result of weak morals.

And I definitely wasn't even going to this point in my blog about new.  I was originally trying to get advice on getting a new new car instead of getting a chop shop job of a piece from craigslist (to be honest, my local craigslist is full of cars older and in worse shape than the one I have now).  I've never purchased a car without my parents before, and the research is overwhelming.  I have a ball park idea of what I'd be paying on a brand spankin new car straight from the manufacturer, but I haven't looked at buying a used car from a dealer, mostly because I don't have enough knowledge in that area and I'm afraid of getting completely ripped off and screwed over with something that ends up costing more than I can afford.

(I want! I want! I WANT!!)

But aside from all that, all I can think of is, who can afford to pay $1200 a month to cover car payments, insurance, rent, gas, phone bills, utilities, and food?  And that's not including any discretionary income for concerts, clothes, movie tickets, restaurants/date nights, going out, and traveling.  It scares me to death because the answer is not taking out more loans.

I'm overwhelmed with trying to get a new job because I know the only job I could afford to get would be in the food industry; and that shit's so messed up and degrading.  Not only that, in order to live like that, school needs to remain my first priority and I know from experience that if I can't afford to pay anything each month (usually rent), my attention to my priorities slips and I start to falter, and it's usually a pretty drastic falter.  I like to think that I keep a tight grasp on my finances when it comes to spending money on myself.  Because I don't.  I don't remember the last time I bought a new wardrobe for myself (honestly it's been like 2 years), nor have I spent much time being a part of the nightlife.  The most partying I did was during 2009, and now I just don't really go out at all because I don't like spending $40-$50 at the bars just so some nasty creep can dance up on me like he's getting somewhere.  I haven't really gone out for much at all lately (like the past year or so) because I can't afford it.  And it's pretty heartbreaking to say no to traveling somewhere because it means missing work and losing wages for not working.  Plus having friends and family who live out of state, it's really hard to only communicate via skype, facebook, and texting/calling.  But it's better than being kicked out of where I live or risk having such shitty credit history.

I guess the whole starting out new ideal just is that: an ideal.  The reality of life continues to be one big depressing jerk-off that has nothing better to do than make our lives all a living hell.  Which is sad, because today's society shows no value in the simple things that tend to come for free.

Being overly ambitious is...overwhelming? Exciting? Pathetic.

It's a new year and while everyone has new year's resolutions...I don't.  I usually just think, hey, it's time to evaluate what I'm doing and make changes where I see fit...just like every other time of the year.

See I'm a very ambitious person, but I get excited about the big idea.  Once I look at the small steps and actual detail of what all that goes into said ideas...I kind of think, meh, whatever, I'll do something else then.  And I don't.  I don't really do anything except just think of crazy awesome ideas.  But that's not true every time.  Sometimes I'll have an idea and follow through with it, not worried about the amount of work I have to put into it.  It all depends what I see as worth doing or not I guess.  But I've noticed that most of these amazing ideas I get that never happen are due to the limited knowledge I have about making a dream a reality and successful one at that.

See, I was raised in a family that the only person really willing to let me explore my creativity and ambitions was my mom.  My dad has always been an oppressor in my life, mostly because he can never understand my frame of mind nor my ambitions with life.  Everything I enjoy he finds strange or unappealing.  My extended family is so large that to have any close relationship with them is next to impossible.  We all stay in touch for major holidays, weddings, graduations, baby showers, etc. but that's as far as it usually goes.  And of course being the oldest in my family, my younger siblings never really supported anything other than playtime or whatever.  They never exactly showed interest in my life goals other than what included them.  To each their own is more of the motto between the three of us.

Anyway, aside from analyzing the reasons behind my lack of proactivity towards my ambitious mind, I figured a list of my ambitions would suffice.  Lists usually make me feel better because then it's not so jumbled up in my brain anymore.  Lord knows my brain is a giant mess of thoughts, questions, desires, lists, ideas, opinions and enough intellect to send the average person running to the hills.

Things I want to do/change/acquire within the next 3 years (I'll be 26, yikes!!) :

• Get a dog (or two).  Pretty sure I'd name them Artax and Falcor.  Whoever gets this movie reference is cool.
• Buy a house.
• Get a BRAND NEW car.
• Graduate...hahaha sad
• Start my career (this includes a LOT of tiny little bullets below this about how to go about getting that started, but that's boring and I'm sure none of you really care to hear about researching manufacturing facilities and rates of hiring an accountant and lawyer).
• Become really good at networking

Also make sure to add a bunch of other dumb stuff about my personal life, but nothing worth blogging about.  Anywho, now that my shift at work is over (yes, this is something my coworkers and I think actually is a part of our job-updating blogs and facebook and youtubing for retail haha!), I best be off to talk about something else at another time.  Till then, deuces.

Hormones....suck

After what felt like taking a year's worth of birth control cocktails, I finally decided to go cold turkey and try natural birth control methods instead of messing up my body to the point of no return.  Well once I made this decision, I did research and found that going off hormonal birth control can make you 10x as messed up as when you were on it, but that it usually goes away after a few months of getting back to a regular menstrual cycle.  But I did it anyway thinking it was better than having a messed up complexion (that used to be basically flawless-even as a teenager!), exaggerated pms symptoms, and zero control over my emotions.

And after a month of being off all that mess....my body is even more f*cked up than it was before.  I didn't expect to have a drastic weight loss within the first WEEK of being off birth control.  I'm not a big person, I'm pretty petite and thin as it is, but losing weight just does not happen for me, along with gaining weight.  Along with that, I've never really had low self-esteem or poor self confidence when it comes to my body.  Everyone has their problem areas (mine mostly being my breasts and stomach-and not because I think I'm fat or anything, I just don't find my stomach to be my best asset or my breasts fully developed and healthy looking.  But that's MY opinion.  I'm sure others would disagree with me.), but after this major weight loss, I absolutely hate the way I look.  My curves are slipping away, my clothes are all too big, my bras are barely filled out, and I feel like I look more like a runway model than a curvy, healthy woman.  What's worse is that with my metabolism, I can't gain weight, so all that weight I lost is basically gone forever if I don't do something or be patient and let time catch up to me.  But I'm not a patient person.  But aside from this weight loss, my pms has become the worst thing to ever happen to me.  I'm experiencing cramps like never before (I couldn't drive, much less breathe one night it was so bad), my moods are through the roof (along with my emotions), and the depression I've been battling for the past 2 weeks is enough to make me want to punch myself in the face (Note: I haven't actually done that...yet).

My friends will all tell you I'm not a very emotionally unstable individual or that I have low self-esteem or body image issues.  I'm a fairly upbeat and outgoing person, strong and confident.  But not right now.  Right now I feel like the exact opposite of who I really am.  I don't know who this person is, but I don't like them and I want to return to normal.  I realize that after 5 years of being on birth control, going off was probably the worst idea because the side effects and symptoms of going back to a regular menstrual cycle are severe.  At least for me.  I know that when it comes to hormonal birth control it's different for every woman, but in my case, this was just a horrible decision with unknown consequences.

I've decided to stop seeing my normal doctor about birth control options because for the past year she has only offered to put me on a different pill, rather than offer me other options for dealing with the side effects of being on certain pills or whatever.  It's just, "try this, try this, try this, take some of this, take some of that, use this for a while, let me know if you start losing a limb or you get pregnant."  So now I will be going in to Planned Parenthood to get an examination done and see what my options are and what I can work with that will not only keep me from getting pregnant (that's a given), but will also help me gain my weight back, give me my boobs back (I swear, my body was not meant to look like a pre-pubescent 12 yr old boy), and help suppress my pms symptoms, along with making sure my complexion is clear.  These are all things hormonal birth control does, and I don't see why my whole life and self esteem should suffer.  I mostly just don't like being this thin, because I'm afraid it's making me anemic and malnourished.  It'd be different if I was 5'10" and this size, because I'd just have a modeling career going for me, but that's not the case.  I am who I am, and I was loving being as curvy and tiny as I once was...now I just want the old me back.

Back from a looong vacation....

I'm never happier as when the holidays are finally over and done with.  I feel like an entire butt load of stress and bullshit just falls off a cliff from my back.  No more family junk, no more shopping stress, no deadlines...just normal life.

Normal life is kind of crazy anyway though.  I now have to schedule dentist appointments (yuck!), school things, and re-evaluate my living situation as well as buy a new(er) car.  A lot of this stuff has to wait till my school loans come through though since I did miss a lot of work by visiting family for Christmas.  Just one of life's reality checks.

Lately I've been trying to figure out a way to get my real job started.  I feel like I have TONS to do and that it'll take years to get where I want.  Which is kind of sad because I want to be able to have income between now and then so I can at least get myself stabilized after school is done.  I'm not sure though.  I feel like I need more spending money for sewing projects and things because I feel like I'm losing touch.  I really need to get myself out there and market myself, but I'm so distracted with surviving and getting through school that I don't really have much time to enjoy going out and doing all that.  Just sucks.

Second-Guessing Myself

I really question what my role in my friendships is.  Most of the time I feel that if I don't consistently take the lead or initiative in them I wouldn't be friends with 90% of my friends.  Which is depressing to think about.  Friendships are very much like relationships in that it takes two.  For a while I thought my lack in social life was because I was in a relationship, but after being single for 9 months in between relationships, I realize that my relationship status really has nothing to do with the lack of social life I have with my friends.  In all reality, a lot of my friends are just flaky.  But I've also realized as time goes on that the most important friendships to me are not all that important to the other person.  And I can't understand it.  These are really great people that I would never wish to leave my life for whatever reason, yet they fall away and become harder and harder to get a hold of.  I know some people claim they grew apart, but I don't think that's really the case.  Every person I think on who suddenly just "disappears" from my life was a sudden shift.  It's like, one week things are the usual and the next week they're ignoring me.  And if it's conflict, I'm always someone who wants to resolve things and make up, but that's not possible if someone just decides to write me off with no rhyme or reason on my end.  I'm the kind of person who will let someone know if I have something personally against them one way or another.

But at this point it's really starting to upset me that so few of my friends are really reliable, and the ones that never fail are all long distant friendships now.  It's to the point that I don't even want to bother calling or texting people because of the inevitable disappointment I'll receive from making plans to hang out.  I've decided that hosting parties will never be something I do because no one shows up, and God forbid I plan a party.  Any social outing I've ever planned has always ended in disappointment because of the so few amount of friends who show up just makes me feel like I'm disappointing them for not having enough people to hang out with.  It's kind of hard to get people to show up to something when they last time they did they were the only guests.

So when all this stuff seems to fall apart in my lap, I ask myself, "What am I doing wrong?"  And of course the minute I let any of this get to me, I have the loyal friends all coming to me like, "Don't worry, I'd never disappoint you!!"  Which really isn't the response I'm looking for.  Those people should know that I'm not disappointed in them, in fact, their the ones that don't make me feel like a total loser.  Funny how the ones who always disappoint hide in the woodwork until they decide they want to see me.  But it's never when I want to see them.  And of course, the easy answer would be to write these people off, but I'm not that type of person.  I can't just write someone off unless they abuse my friendship (i.e. talk about me behind my back, insult me to my face, use me for money, transportation, etc.), and even then, it takes a lot for me to say, you know what? FUCK you.

It all comes down to two basic things: accountability and loyalty.  If you say you're going to do something with me, don't back out at the last minute.  No one likes that-in fact, it makes you look like a douche bag.

I think I just need to make new friends.

Moving too fast?

I keep thinking about relationships and what is considered acceptable in society and my family.  Lately I feel like everything has become really blurred and now I'm just making things up as I go along.  I think part of this has to do with my age, because I'm no longer going to my parents for everything anymore and my friends don't hold examples as to how I should live my life or do things in a relationship.  At this point I'm following my own moral compass trying to make the best of every situation I come across.  I've made a LOT of mistakes, but at the end of the day I'm keeping my head above water and maintaining a happy and healthy stable relationship.

Which makes me think, damn, that's saying A LOT for someone my age in my generation.  I don't see myself as one of the majority or in the mainstream when it comes to morals, relationships, social roles, etc.  So many people are shallow-minded or co-dependent.  People are brought up with the idea that they'll probably get divorced.  I feel like my family and how I was raised is a rarity.  I've never been personally touched by divorce, save for the couple of uncles on my dad's side.  But even then, all those divorces happened before I was born.  I realize that a lot of my friends are from divorced families, but I never was really exposed to anything.  I still have my parents, my family unit.  I was raised that divorce is just the easy way out.  And for most cases, I stand by that belief.  But I know that there are a lot of people out there who won't understand that because it's not how they were raised.  I don't hold anything against those people.  I'm not trying to change anyone, but I know that I will never get divorced and that when I marry someone it's for the rest of my life.  That's just how it is.

But aside from that, I always question what the right formula for a relationship to develop is.  I'm starting to realize that everyone recommends waiting years before getting married, settling down, but I've never really been one to follow the crowd.  I've always been one to follow my heart, my gut, trust my instincts.  And that's worked pretty well for me.  That said, I can see that my time being single is on a time limit at this point.  I don't know what the count down is, and I don't want to know at this point, but I've come to that realization in the past couple of months.  And by single I mean non-married.  I realize now that whole statement would have been really confusing had I not put that in there.  But in all honesty, my life is moving towards a partnership or couplehood of sorts.  And I'm happy with that.  I'm finally in the relationship I've always wanted with the person I've always wanted.  And I didn't know that until I met him.

I guess what it all comes down to is that I'm starting to second-guess my actions because I'm in new territory and I don't have someone holding my hand and guiding the way anymore.  At least not in the way they have before.  I'm making decisions on my own, and they're all towards a goal.  I'm pacing myself but at the same time the grown up aspect to all this scares me from time to time (and then I get over it in 5 seconds).