High Hopes

It's past midnight and I'm not quite sleepy enough to head off to bed just yet. I find that the best way to sort my thoughts and make myself tired is to sort the chaos in my mind and incessantly write everything that's going on in my mind.

There's only a few more days left until the move, and I've been working diligently on job stuffs. My resume is formatted, spell-checked and proofread. My cover letter is also all those things. I just need to head off to the library tomorrow to print and photocopy those bad boys.

I've been thinking a lot about this whole transition... I've got a rare opportunity presenting itself here - I've got a fresh start. I can right the wrongs I see in my life now. I can be the person I want to be. I realize that I could have always done these things in my life now, but what better chance than when everything else is going to be new as well? There's a few goals I want to see accomplished:

• Get a job. This is the most important thing that needs to get done ASAP. Mandy makes just enough money to help support us without getting us into any debt. For the sake of some peace of mind, I'd like to at least provide money for groceries and entertainment for the month.
  
• Go to school. Also very important. I don't want to just provide groceries and entertainment for the rest of my life. I want to take care of her so she doesn't have to work her ass off all the time. I want to make enough to take good care of my family and provide the advantages in life that I wasn't fortunate enough to have.
• Get over my fear of cities. I'm a country boy. I've lived in a small town for my entire life. The closest city to me has a population of barely over 200k people. I'm not scared of cities, per se. I just become uneasy when I'm there. I'm out of my element and it's just very different for me. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. Nothing like a little exposure therapy to do the trick.
• Make new friends. Not saying I'm abandoning my best friends from around here, but making new friends won't hurt. I can't see my best friends every weekend like I do now, so this will be good for me.
• Become more independent. As if moving out from my parents' house wasn't enough, right? I want to be able to take care of myself. Do things for myself. In the long run, this will be good for me and my family in the future.
  

That's pretty much it, I guess. I'm sure there are more things I could think of, if I really thought hard, but it's past midnight. Give me a break.

Nobody Home

Earlier today, in an attempt to impress potential employers, I spent a couple of hours polishing my resume. I'm pretty confident in my writing abilities, but when it comes to writing resumes or anything of that nature... be it cover letters or whatever, I'm completely hopeless, I think. But today was kind of different. When I was finished, I actually felt as though I had accomplished something and that I wasn't just spinning my tires.

I don't know what it was today, but I seriously had a fire lit under my ass because I just felt so motivated to get things done. I think it may have been the two coffees I chugged, but I'm not entirely sure...

Mandy and I spent the evening at the riverfront sitting on a blanket listening to a quintet band play a few songs. It was pretty enjoyable and definitely a nice way to spend an evening and relax. With the amount of work we've been doing in regards to the move, it was nice to sit back and just take in the sounds and scenery. She definitely deserves it. Aside from the crazy old man sitting twenty feet from us, talking and laughing to himself every ten seconds, it was a great evening.

With less than a week to go until the big move, I can honestly say I'm very confident in the change that's coming. I hope the motivation I felt today continues and carries on into the weeks and months to come and that it's not smothered by even more rejection from potential employers.

The picture to the left is the mound of stuff in our room that we've bought over the course of the last week. We're pretty much finished, we just need to get the big stuff, but we're going to wait til we actually get up there to get that stuff. Our bed is being delivered on Thursday.

Tomorrow will be spent at my best friend's house, having a barbecue with some of my closest friends. It will be hard to say goodbye to them, knowing it could be months until I see them again, but it will still be a great day, I'm sure.

The tough part comes later this week when I say goodbye to my mom and dad and my two cats. I can't take my cats to the new apartment because they are destructive offspring of Satan. It's going to be tough saying goodbye, again, knowing it could be a while before I see any of them again, but at the same time, I'm happy. And they're happy for me.