Learning to Be "Broke"

thursdayblogdayyay. Don’t ask me why that’s all one word, and a full sentence, because I don’t know. If you enjoy reading my blog, I bet your friends will too! Share it with them! Ideas: the most meaningful Facebook status you will make in months, my blog. That hilarious, witty tweet you’ve been holding out for, #myblog. The screenshot on your iPhone that everyone is just dying to see on Instagram… My blog. Anyways,

I’m in love…

With my car. In two weeks I will have officially owned my little $650 Toyota Celica for two whole years. I just gave her a bath for the first time in 10 months and unfortunately the dirt is baked on. She’ll never be pearly white again; her age lines are starting to show. As the name of my blog gives away, I am a slightly unfortunate person. In almost any situation where the outcome could go either great or quite poorly, I am that person that the worst almost always happens to. I see yellow lights a hundred times more than my boyfriend right now (he’s in California, I’m in Seattle, that’s about a hundred yellow lights a day, that’s not normal). However every once in a while, extremely once in a while, lady luck is on my side.

When I bought my sassy little Celica, now named Celicia, (see previous posts, as you should anyways if you’ve never read them), I had just totaled my car that was eleven years newer than the Celica, tried and failed to end a really long relationship, and was about to graduate high school. The car I totaled was a 2001, with hardly 70,000 miles on it, and destined to run for many more years. I had spent all my money from my 16^th birthday on it and treated it like my baby. Apparently I didn’t baby it enough because I totaled it in a preventable accident. What I realized about a year after my accident, when I went truly broke for the first time in years, was that I had just enough money at that time saved up to cover my tow bill, pay the ticket from “Failure to Yield with Causal of Accident”, buy a new car, and license the new car, all out of pocket.

When I turned 16 I started working at a little Italian restaurant as a hostess. Becoming a hostess at 16 is like a gateway drug into the high of restaurant cash flow. After about 8 months of working at this little Italian restaurant, I showed up to work one day to see them emptying out the place and the doors locked for good. The last time I spoke to the manager there was the shift I worked two days before that. In a frantic mess, I landed myself a new hostess job at a Greek restaurant down the street three days later. Once again, so strangely lucky but so strangely unlucky. I started waiting tables for brunch shifts at the Greek restaurant at 17, and watched eight general managers and 40+ employees come and go under a terrible Spanish head chef who should not be named. In the midst of employee turnover hell, I started supervising before I even turned the legal age of 18. Every penny the restaurant had in cash including bank deposits, tills, and tips came through my hands. I clocked 40 or more hours while going to high school, and was making much more money than any 17 year old should. Because I had so much free flowing money with hardly anything to pay for other than a cell phone bill, car insurance, and gas, I fell in love with Nordstrom and designer jeans, and learned nothing about self control in handling personal finances.

After the madness at the poorly managed Greek restaurant finally drove me out the door, I started working at the restaurant I still work at during the summers here in Seattle. When the sun shines on Lake Washington, people drop dough. I walked out of the first summer at the new restaurant with $12,000 in four months. At 18, I could buy anything I wanted. I headed off to college in the fall to have no income for 9 months, at blew through $4,000 without blinking. My dad picked me up after freshman year and I had $3.54 to my name. This was so new to me, and I couldn’t wait to get "back on my feet" financially as I returned to the restaurant in Seattle.

The weather had another plan for me. We had no sun for almost an entire summer. I saw clouds for 6 weeks straight from May-mid June and walked out of my second summer at the restaurant with $5,000. Do the math, that’s $7,000 less than I expected to make. That’s a good chunk of money, but I had yet to learn how to be broke. I spent almost everything I made that summer, hoping the weather would get better, saving almost nothing. I started off the school year still broke, and in November of my sophomore year, in a financial heartbreak of a moment that I know I blogged about in November, dropped $600 on my car and $300 days later to be able to register for classes dropping me down to $30 and no expected income. I couldn’t work because finals weeks was right around the corner, and somehow could not get ahead financially for the rest of the year. Running very close to nothing for the following 6 months taught me something I needed to learn, fast. Hold onto what you make because there’s no telling what’s around the corner. I couldn’t shop, I could only buy what I needed at the store (meaning coffee and bottled water, the bare necessities obviously), and that did not change for those last 6 months of the school year.

Now that I am back at the restaurant for at least this month, and the sun is shining, I am definitely making enough money to spend a little. I could even shop if I wanted to, but I can’t seem to force myself to do it. The habit of spending money has been broken for me and I appreciate so much more every penny I have, and every penny I can make. Being relatively broke, and I say relatively because most of the world would love to have all I have being as broke as I am, is strangely okay. I might not know when I’ll make enough again to feel like I can relax about income, but that no longer stresses me out.

There are so many things I would not sacrifice now to work that I would have years ago. A balance is brought from being penniless. Life is peculiarly more fulfilling when stripped of the chance to pursue things like money, clothes, and high-end objects. My car has character, and is a piece of my hard work. Celicia may be embarrassing at times, but she gets me where I need to go, and wouldn’t trade the experiences I have had working hard for my money to have a nicer car bought for me. Talk to me in 6 months and that might be different, just kidding. 

Life tastes sweeter when there’s no overload of sweets. Load yourself with sweets, and it suddenly tastes gross.

Growing Pains

Thursday=summer blog day! A life lesson a week keeps the doctor away, or something like that. (11:41pm is still Thursday, step 1 to completing blog once a week on Thursdays goal-complete). 

  

With ending my sophomore year of pre-med/Biochem classes, the hardest year of my undergraduate degree, I think I should feel much more accomplished than I do. Instead of feeling empowered, I feel like a run-down disgrace of a student. I’m sick and taking antibiotics, exhausted, confused, and headed back to work here in Seattle in five hours. I drove my car back from California yesterday. Celicia made it! Her second successful trip between California and Washington was just as smooth as the first. By smooth I do not mean floating in an Escalade smooth, I mean smooth as in no problems like a truly unfortunate member of my family would have had. Celicia is anything but smooth, she bumps with the road and buzzes along like a little race car, but not as cool. I love summer. Celicia must know that because it felt like summer the whole trip, with the heater stuck on. Who doesn’t love a constant stream of warm air right in their face?

Yesterday was my 20^th birthday and I had such an amazing day. Any day that includes accidental Asian jokes in places like nail salons and sushi restaurants, misunderstandings about how similar “I just ripped ass” and “Man that guy ate fast” sound, and quality friend time is a day I feel blessed to be a part of.

On a completely related note to ass and birthdays, I am coming to realize I don’t like to instigate conflict. However once in the midst of conflict, bring it on, I just don’t want to start it. Thank you Momma Annabelle for the very obvious comment of “Uh, Chelsea, who does?” Good point Annabelle, good point. Annabelle 1, Chelsea 0.

When I started writing this post, I was, and still am, in the process of deciding where to spend my summer. When my mom heard I was blogging she said, “Oh gosh is it a rant? Great”. No this is not a rant, its more of a discussion, or a disagreement, with myself. On one hand, I have Seattle with a great but gamble of a job and I have family. However Santa Barbara holds the key to my heart where I have been offered a job and a great (cheap) place to live. My hopes in writing about this, which happens often when I write, is that I will walk away from this knowing more of where my heart truly lies on one side of the decision. In making this decision, I have been consulting a lot of people. I love talking through things and listening to perspectives in decision-making and have done quite the amount of talking and listening. The other thing I would love is input from my readers, if you have a thought on this please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email on the email above!

In Santa Barbara I have a job offer that should make me enough money to live, and save about $3000 for living during the school year. I would also get to be in sunny California near most of my friends, a boyfriend, and a beach. A summer of surf and work would be in future. On the other side of the spectrum I have Seattle, with family, a few friends, a chance to put away more money but only a gamble. The first summer at the restaurant I usually return to I made around $10,000. The second summer I walked away with $5,000. This summer the weather is supposed to be good, meaning more money than last, however the restaurant business is risky and so is the weather in Seattle.

As the days to make a decision about draw to a close and I start the process of accepting my nanny position to lock in moving, my last prayer is that my parents begin to respect the decision I will end up making about this. Unfortunately for me, I am bull headed enough to stand firm on decisions even against my parents. As they said today in our discussion, “That trait alone will get you far in life, but it will also cause you to make a lot of mistakes”. I’m good at making mistakes. It’s a terrible thing to be good at.

It saddens me to think of what I will miss out on over the summer here in Seattle. I will miss my dad’s 40^th birthday (young, right?), time with my siblings, and soccer games. Despite all of that, my heart is in California. If I could pick up my family (figuratively) and take them with me to California my heart would be complete. But as I know I have discussed before, I have two lives, one here in Seattle and one in California. The gap is growing wider and after spending a total of 18 months in California, I don’t know that I could live here for 4 months. I wish the chance of more money and family was enough to keep me for that amount of time. Seattle is where I grew up, not where I currently reside, and not where I feel at home anymore.

One of the biggest ideas swaying me into leaving early is that money is no longer of the highest value in my life. At one point I was working an insane amount, supervising a restaurant at 17 years old, and in search of money to spend; also successfully making money to spend. These are growing pains because my priorities are changing, I’m changing, and I’m doing it from two states away from my family. I also call this time in my life a time of growing pains because it hurts. It is painful to leave where you grew up for good, and painful to hurt your family in the process. It breaks my heart to break my parents’ hearts, but yet another thing I am unfortunately good at.

If I could redo this whole process of living in California for the summer I would have told my family months ago I was thinking about not being in Seattle for the summer. I made the mistake of saying nothing until heading back up to Seattle. I have never regretted going to school two states away, and would not trade the two years I’ve had in California for anything, but I am so jealous of the people that have family within hours of driving. It takes me hundreds of dollars and a plane trip, or two days of a road trip, to get to my family. Because of that, I made a home away from home, which is now winning out over my home.

I am not only learning lessons in honesty but also on bringing up the difficult things in life. I want to keep the peace, as does anyone, but that is a downfall in most situations. Sometimes hard, lose-lose decisions must be made and uncomfortable topics must be talked about, but this is part of a life worth living. 

Procrastination, Surprises, and Waves

Somehow finals week is right around the corner, and here I am writing instead of pretending to do the horrifying homework in front of me. The amount of work I have to do in the next nine days is so daunting I can do nothing other than think about all things apart from school. The ever-feared Organic Chemistry is almost over, terribly unnecessary Physics is almost complete, and I am about halfway done with my undergraduate degree. Life is flashing before my eyes, and contrary to what you would think, I am fully aware of it. Weeks feel like days, and months feel like weeks. How disproportionate, right? 

It seems the more work I have to do, my brain gets exponentially more unorganized. My writing however gets more organized. Just kidding, good luck following my train of thought. 

Usually I procrastinate like a boss and then right at the end I pull it together. I strangely pride myself in sliding by with impressive grades for the situation I got myself into, and swearing I’ll do it different next semester. However after the year of academic hell I’ve been running through, I’m beginning to doubt I have it in me to pull it all together. That takes such a push of effort, and I’m running out of steam, fast. Part of me is so used to having tremendous piles of homework looming over my head that it no longer instills the drive it once did. There is no test, no paper, and no part of an undergraduate degree that could scare me into working hard earlier than I have to. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What doesn’t make you drop out makes you smarter? I wish.

In the midst of the craziness of ending the school year, I have done the unthinkable, and gotten myself into a relationship. That word made me cringe for a long time. A few of the texts that have been lighting up my phone since this said relationship went on Facebook include little gems like, “The girl who could not be tied down is now Facebook official?? I guess he really is special”. I laughed over text and told the sender of that he couldn’t be that surprised; he was really that shocked.

Hopefully that successfully conveys how most of my friends reacted to my new relationship. I have run from commitment for months, enjoying being carefree and reporting to no one. Underneath my genuine carefree attitude that carried on for months, an internal wrestle match started, in which I began to desire normal and stable, but enjoyed the strength of being a woman in a man’s game of not wanting commitment.

Ever so quickly, this one snuck up on me. Before I could even surprise myself, I surprised everyone else with a real relationship. This one I want to do right, hopefully with more success than doing my homework next semester. I’m taking my lessons in honesty and in breaking hearts, and attempting some wisdom ahead of time. But let’s be real, I attempt a lot of things. Lady luck hates me.

A while ago I hinted at a post about about learning to surf. It has also been six weeks since my last post. In other words, life has been out of hand and I haven’t been writing. What I’m coming to realize is that that also means I’m not processing as much. The past six weeks have been a lull in schoolwork and a surge of life. I have embraced this few week break from the hammer of homework open heartedly, living it up with the most free time I’ve had since freshman year. Life comes in waves like this. Unfortunately, one can never be prepared for the worst ones.

As with life, one can only be so prepared for something as big and unpredictable as the ocean. Surfing puts you right out in the middle of that unfamiliarity, with sets of waves often large enough to knock you under water for what seems like hours. The biggest obstacle in learning to surf for me was the waves themselves. The first time I went in the water, I was absolutely terrified of these four-foot waves that I couldn’t read at all. Four feet doesn’t sound too bad, right? Wrong. When you’re lying down on a board, four-feet looms over your head like a manager on a power trip. I couldn’t paddle away from them, I couldn’t stop them, and for that first hour, nowhere felt safe. I spent at least the first two weeks out in the water just letting the waves roll under me, figuring out when they were about to crash on my head, and when I was relatively safe. Surfing scared me more than anything I’d ever done, so I had to keep doing it. I was strangely fearful of looking back and knowing I was too scared to do something well.

I still can’t really surf, but I try to surf a few times a week. The waves are no longer terrifying, and instead relaxing and humbling. They are out of my control and I can only know so much about them. Learning to surf has taught me two important lessons:

1.     Face your fears. There is no feeling better than conquering something that had the potential to limit you forever.

2.     Life is like waves; you can only prepare yourself to an extent. Learn what you can, let them roll under you when they’re too big, and don’t take your eyes off of what is to come.

All in all: Procrastination leads to revelation, surprises are fun (never let predictable be in your self-description), and waves are incredible. 

Oversimplification

It feels a little bit like getting multiple piercings, with a thick needle on a thick piece of skin, and right on top your bones. The body responds to pain with a flood of endorphins, a chemical that is involved in excitement. In search for this flood of endorphins underlies some really crazy actions. For some however, it leads to tattoos. The pain of getting my first tattoo on my ribs yesterday was strangely bearable. It was indeed quite painful, but I felt like I could endure it for quite a long time. Tattoos are permanent; I will forever have Greek lettering on my ribs. I chose the word agape, meaning perfect, unconditional love. Not only is love the most important aspect of life, but unconditional love is the highest meaning, and the only truly permanent aspect of an identity. I know I hinted at a post about surfing, but I haven’t stood up yet, so as soon as I accomplish that goal some time after my fresh tattoo heals, that post will come and rock. Oversimplification is not a simple word at all, ironic.

Although everything in life, apart from unconditional love, is at risk of changing, I am a firm believer that life goes on and one should never dwell, however actions have consequences. In the process of simplifying life, I have forgotten this fact. Life is as simple as you let it be but I have let it be too simple. In the midst of this care-free lifestyle, I left out a very important side of friendships and relations; put yourself in others’ shoes. It is so important to live day by day, however that does not mean without regard for those you are blessed to spend time with.  

Honesty is the biggest form of respect you can give. When being honest with anyone, it demonstrates the magnitude of the value you have for him or her. It also demonstrates how much you are willing to put him or her first. This lesson is drilled into your mind all growing up, yet somehow it never ceases to escape me in a shortage for words. With my “who cares?” attitude in full swing, I also let this slip my mind recently. In a nutshell I have managed to live selfishly and dishonestly in a friendship, all at the expense of another person. I’m a winner if you haven’t picked that up yet.

As I mentioned before, no event should ever be regretted because if you have taken a lesson from it, it was worth it. However sometimes, especially for me, shit hits the fan and that’s easier said than done. Taking your own advice seems to be marginally harder than I thought as well, but here I am biting the crap out of my nails (figuratively), trying to smile sweetly at the bitter lessons I’m learning as I fumble through these college years.

Carpe Diem, carefully. The saying should really go like this, “Carpe Diem, with others in mind, always being honest”. 

"Don't look back in anger, I heard you say"

Yes, the title of this is from a Rock Band song. I am a die-hard Rock Band fan. The drums are my forte, but at the expense of tooting my own horn, I am above average at guitar and singing. Rock Band was even on my top five things I missed my freshman year of college, preceded only by siblings, home-cooked food, and Celicia (see earlier posts for an introduction to my charming car). At least I am skilled at something in life, a video game.

I haven’t written a post on here in while, however I’ve started several that never got finished and probably never will. I’m discovering I write best when I have something to sort out in my head. Sitting here trying to communicate, organize, and put words to everything in my obscure, fast mind is oddly therapeutic. I should be studying for my two exams next week, Organic Chemistry (O-Chem) and Genetics on back-to-back class days, however instead there’s a lot on my mind about nothing academic. Another few lessons are in the making, from determination and facing fears in learning to surf (next post preview!) to boys it has been an interesting month. Good update from last post: as I was hoping, the big man upstairs provided. My tax return is more than enough to live off of for the rest of the semester. I can take money out of my worries with a paid off credit card and a cushion to leave out of my thoughts.

True confession: I make up words to songs and rarely get caught. I got caught Tuesday. It was awkward.

No one can truly prepare you for how much you will change in your late teens to early twenties. Everyone says that, so I accept how cliché I’m sure I just sounded and let’s move forwards. The decisions we make daily, the people we surround ourselves with, and the fortunate (or unfortunate) happenings of life, make up an identity. Psychology has spent countless studies on identity and confidence; for example Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states that one can become “self-actualized” when they have met all the needs of an identity. Although each of the ideas listed for this self-actualization are very important, and some I do consider vital, I’m realizing people simply grow. I grow. God gave us an incredible ability to think, reason, and decide for a purpose and a big part of that reasoning is maturity.  

I have never met a mature person that had yet to crash and burn. In fact, the people I look up to most for wisdom and maturity fought, often fighting themselves. What most people call mistakes are the most important learning incidents. We all have that forehead slapping moment where we made a hasty decision, didn’t make a decision at all, or simply evaluated wrong. However it is at that moment that we slap our foreheads, that we will then evaluate differently next time. This is all we can be thankful for and expect from ourselves.  

I don’t believe in regrets, but this is no excuse to make all the intentional “mistakes” your heart (or head) desires. In making decisions, approach with your best judgment, be honest with yourself, and prayerfully consider all options. If at one time, you considered a decision to be the best one, you cannot disrespect that later. Take the lessons and move forwards.