I rechoose these choices every morning. With my coffee and small wicker chair, a brush of this blush to fake the rush of blood I used to feel with you.

And for the most part, I am very happy.

I stopped finding new music, because all I want to hear are sad songs, and they ruin me. So I listen to Hot 97.

If ever I were to hear a melody as soft and slow as my truth, I would lose the ability to forget again.

I don’t have knickknacks, or heart tapping playlists, I don’t go thrifting, I haven’t many friends…
I’ve ransacked my life and thrown everything out.

Because I was changed by you.

Because I had to relearn to live without.

Because my heart couldn’t take it anymore.

If I am a post-war survivor, then my work and my comfort are my bunker and I’ve seen too much to come back out.

I have a new love now. A different love. A stable and constant love. I don’t have songs written for me and I never cry. There’s a trade-off.

I laugh a lot though.

There aren’t highs and lows. There are highs and middle ground, and there is security. I don’t think there’s enough weight on security. Without it, the lows are too terrifying, and the highs too unstable.

And if he leaves, if this ends, then I will be lost, in Western Jersey, and I will be single for a long time.

And I’ll go thrifting.

And refind pieces of me that were once you, and him, and everyone else.

And I’ll remember when you knew me, when I was that person, when I knew me…
and I’ll wonder where she went.

And I’ll remember the warm room with the good energy, and the space next to the bed, and the day I didn’t take it.

And how much better off we both are for it.

Post 1,607

Nothing in here should ever be read, by anyone. A long time ago I started writing in here when I was overly emotional, and apparently I still do. Like most emotions, all of the exclamation points in here follow things I don’t feel anymore.

What’s left are the things that are too good to be brought up in this dirty space.

Living in Belmar, my job, Mark, my family (NO PARTICULAR ORDER). These are the frames of my happiness, they are stable pieces of my life.

But all the bullshit about feeling sad or crazy or however I worded it- that’s just the repurcussions of making bad decisions for a long time. I really think I write those things in here because I’ve been writing like that in here for so long. Coming in here is like visiting an old crack den, you instantly get the urge to hurt yourself again.

Anyway, I don’t want to sit around talking about sad feelings. I don’t mean those things. I don’t listen to sad music, I’m not trying to watch sad movies, and I’m not journaling like a tween anymore. This blog is an embarassment to me. It’s riddled with immaturity, spelling mistakes and shitty metaphors. This is nothing.

So I’m leaving this space for good. That’s not some huge proclamation, it’s just time to leave this place alone.
This journal chronicles highschool, Lee, and everything else until now. And that’s fine for memory’s sake, but…

I have not written a single thing I am proud about in here, ever. I do not know how to. I am happy everywhere in life, except for when I am in here.

So I am not going to be in here.

And that’s as much of a burial as this place deserves.

Plus, how un-mid-20-something is it to have a secret WordPress?

I am a little tense at the moment.

So, I am on a new budget. It basically consists of me watching my bank account dwindle as I try to save money for June’s moving expenses. I was getting anxious over the idea of needing at least 5 grand to move out, considering my expenses will probably go up and I am going to need to buy everything for my next place. This is coming from me being under the impression that my next apartment will be a bit nicer, and it will be more grown up. Whether I am living with Brittany or Mark, but especially if I am living with Brittany, I expect to be paying more than I am now, and so I need to prepare for that. Plus, I can not stomach the idea of not cushioning myself for the upcoming day, and with such advanced knowledge of this impending expense, it felt too irresponsible not to prepare. All of that is umbrella’d under the fact that moving home is not an option for me (in my mind) ever again.

So suddenly the extra cash I did have is in savings, and I’m getting nervous.

Then today, I followed through with a quick idea I had had concerning Mark and Christmas. I wanted to buy tickets to The Book of Mormon. I mean, obviously that would be an amazing gift. It seemed implausible though. I assumed it would be really expensive, and it was. But the show is six months away and I will have paid it off by then. It’s just that with my current situation, those tickets were scary to buy, and I surprised myself because I didn’t allow my brain to think it over too much. I just pressed buy, buy again, yes I confirm, yes please take my money, okay.

And then I received an e-mail from my landlord saying that we haven’t paid our waterbill in six months. We have never received a waterbill. In fact, we thought it came quarterly. So imagine my surprise, thirty seconds after spending the most money I’ve spent on one thing in what seems like forever, getting an e-mail saying we owe an unexpected $450. That’s an extra $120 I wasn’t expecting, and I just paid my rent this week. I try to keep my bills staggered, and I’ve already spent too much recently ($200 on Christmas decorations and P90X equipment). I’m already broker than usual and on a tight budget.

But, as anxious as this makes me, I know I will be okay. And I am glad that I get to present Mark with those tickets, because that is going to be such a fun day I can’t even FATHOM it.

I’m really happy in my life.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I have no one to hang out with tonight. When you stay home because you don’t have another option, it’s kind of scary. It makes you think, like this:

What if I can’t be alone so I move in with Brittany in June for a year and then I move in with Mark afterward, and we get married, and then we get divorced, and I have to get my own place, and I’m alone for the first time in 25 years, and I lose it. That’s the road I’m on.

But in reality, it’s one Friday and I don’t want to hang out with the two people who texted me, and I have freelancing to edit tonight, and I can paint my nails and order in and drink some beer and go to bed because tomorrow I have to buy new tires and work the bar and then afterward, Mark will come over, because he’ll be back in town.

A Place of My Own

All I can think about is having my own place. How nice it’s going to be to only worry about my mess. How special it’ll be that the fridge will only have my food. How I’m going to decorate it with a mix of Ikea and Goodwill. I’m excited about making my own space mine. Now, my room is mine, but it’s only half decorated, and as badly as I want to finish decorating it, I haven’t yet. I need to take a trip to the Salvation Army or something. I need a better vanity and TV stand that can double as a dresser like the one I have now. But my very own place to come home to? That’s the thing dreams are made of. Living on my own = something to be proud of.

I’m looking to see what I can afford on my own, and it’s rough. I want to stay near the shore but with my commute and the added cost of not splitting the bills 3 ways, I’d be wise to move somewhere between Old Bridge (at the most southern) and New Providence (where my office is being relocated). I don’t want to give up on my dreams of beauty and what not, and I do want to live in a downtown area… There are nice downtowns up north closer to my office, but they are also more expensive and I also don’t want to move too far away from Mark, my family and my friends (in that order?). I think I can be happy in my own apartment just about anywhere at this point.

The house we have now is nice, and could be great, but my roommates are too messy. They don’t help me out at all. They only just started doing their own dishes regularly. They have maybe once cleaned the bathroom, never vacuum, maybe once mopped, etc. They just got lazy and I don’t like living like that. Their clutter is all over the house. J’s girlfriend, who moved in for a month…, cleans and he acts like she’s doing me a favor. I always clean after myself and before I had this job I cleaned up after them as well. Her cleaning isn’t doing me a favor- she’s doing what they should have been doing all along.

I’m glad I moved in with roommates. It was a good transition from living at home and an opportunity to learn how to live on my own. But it is difficult living with others, maybe the male/female aspect has something to do with it, but I know clean men as well… it’s more of a lazy person thing. The older I get, the less tolerant I am of laziness.

So, my own apartment. That is what I’m dreaming of. I am hopefully up for a raise in April, and God willing it will be enough to help me afford living in an overpriced, one bedroom apartment that is perfect for me, in size and location to those that are most important.

I want to bring those beautiful Tennessee nights to NJ. That’s my only option right now. Though know, I still dream of moving to Tennessee. I bet with this experience I could get a good job down there, with affordable rent, in an apartment I’d love. Those are my rose colored glasses. The last piece of fantasy in my all-too adult life. My roots are growing, and I don’t know if I’ll ever want to uproot again.

I think that the notion that you can only have an extremely perfect, blissful life in one spot and not at the spot your in is misguided and naive. For now I am where I am supposed to be, and I pray that God will one day have in place for me the chance to move somewhere else wonderful. But regardless of where I live, if I don’t know how to live well anywhere, I won’t live well anywhere.

I just watched the new Katie Perry video and started sobbing uncontrollably at the end. I had to take myself into the bathroom. I haven’t cried that hard in who knows how long. Maybe since we broke up last.

I don’t know what’s really in my head, where I am really am or what I actually think. But when I was crying I didn’t feel hungry and I didn’t care about any of the stresses I have. I was just terribly terribly sad, and that made me feel like myself finally. I was caring about something I actually care about.

I don’t care about so much. I don’t really care about anything. I feel like I lost parts of myself. But anyway, it felt really good to cry that hard. And now I’m done crying, and I need to fix myself, before he gets here.

So, you just got your first real writing job. You don’t get paid for it, because the day you get paid for writing will be anything but commonplace. That post will have a lot of exclamation marks in it. But, it’s for a reputable gossip/dating blog for women and you are writing four “Weekend Dating Ideas” articles a week. For now. Once you show your worth, you’ll begin writing byline features, which means you’ll be writing articles that include your byline. Articles that will be cross-posted on sites like Match.com, Chemistry.com and some other sites you haven’t heard of. It’s weird, btw, that you are writing to your past self in third person.

I guess I can’t call this my first real writing job, since I don’t get paid for it. I don’t get paid because I contacted them during a time when they didn’t have any open, paid spots left. I was given this opportunity through a contact. I networked. For the first time ever. And its more like, I was contacted by a coworker out of nowhere on her first day at work about a possible author interviewing position at this website. I didn’t contact her contact for a month, but then knew I had to, even just to be polite. Turned out well.

Anyway, if I could go back and talk to college-aged Che, who could be anywhere between 18-24, I would tell her this: You will end up finding a job 8 months after graduation. It will be an assistant editing job for a really successful website. You will learn a lot about a lot, you work for a publishing company and for a human resources website and you have an amazing and laidback boss. It’s good. You also, from this job, are connected to a website that will help you build your writing samples and resume. You should save a lot of money while you can, because while you are learning and in a place that strangely aligns with a lot of your interests, you will also be commuting 140 miles a day. And you will be kind of broke. And you will still have to work at Chili’s.

But, I am so faithful that this is all for something great. Really.

Okay.

Last night I spoke with Eric a bit. I was feeling really confused and unhappy. But verbalizing it just a bit, and listening to what he felt in his own situation, made me feel better. I feel way more level headed today, and like I’m seeing things normally again. In a way that says, yeah everything that is should be. So, that’s good, and I hope that these episodes don’t continue. I really don’t want to do anything I’ll regret.

Also my headache is gone.

I am so happy with him

Im sorry.