I’m parked for the night, and though the sun hasn’t set completely and there was still some orange fire in the sky, I closed up my blackout curtains for the evening and decided to blog instead of journal. I journal daily, multiple times a day, actually. It’s something I started doing regularly at 11 years old, and I still have some of those journals in my storage unit. My family has been clearing out the junk in my mother’s house. A lot of stuff is being put aside and taken home for memories. I have a bag of photos that I went through and looked at. I’ll probably put them in my storage unit with the other photos I have from back when we actually printed our pictures out. I don’t need anything else. I don’t have the room for it anyway, living in my van and only having a 5’x5′ storage unit. I was talking with my brother, one night, about everyone wanting this or that. There’s a Kewpie Doll that my mother absolutely loved. One sister found it, and we both immediately agreed it should go to another sister, who wasn’t there at the moment. It made me really think, though. You know the saying, “You can’t take it with you when you go.” Well, here is everyone going through the things my mother couldn’t take with her, so that THEIR children can go through their things when THEY go, and so on. Vicious cycle.

I sneezed on Wednesday, and if you’re over 40, you know that’s a dangerous exercise. Well, it got me. I blew out my back, saw stars, broke out into a sweat, and had to sit down! I had just taken a shower at the gym and was all finished getting ready. I was getting my stuff together to leave and turned into my elbow to sneeze. Wowzer! I couldn’t move! I had a big heavy gym bag to carry back out to the car. I did go into the office but ended up in tears because it hurt so badly. A co-worker offered to drive me to her chiropractor, who was nearby, and I went. He wasn’t able to adjust me, so I just went back to the office and pushed through. That night, the night before last, was Really Rough. Any position I got into, no matter what position it was, hurt my back. Even if I found something that seemed to work, in 5 or 10 minutes, it became unbearable, and I needed to turn. I probably got a total of 3 or 4 hours of sleep. I also had my sleeping bag, a sleeping bag liner (which is basically a sleeping bag sheet), and a blanket. Then I brought another blanket in, folded up so that i could place it between my knees because that was more comfortable. Imagine tossing and turning in all that with a bad back!! Not fun. I needed an adjustment badly, so after calling my chiropractor and leaving a message, I just drove straight there and waited in the parking lot. I did get a call from them around 10:30am to tell me that he wasn’t taking appointments that day! He was at a seminar. She invited me in for stim and massage, and I made an appointment for 9 this morning. I spent the rest of yesterday alternating between laying down and taking mini walks.

Last night, I pulled the sleeping bag out and away and made the bed up with the sheet and 3 blankets instead, and had a good night sleep despite my sore back. I woke up in a much better place this morning, back feeling a little better having rested, and looking forward to seeing my trusted doctor. I went into my office late, worked through lunch, and left an hour later, going to the laundromat after – my Friday afternoon chore. My back definitely feels better, and tomorrow is my monthly massage (something I could never have afforded when I was apartment dwelling).

I called the lawyer that the funeral home referred me to regarding the handling of my mother’s house. That was yesterday morning, and they haven’t called me back yet. Is that normal? I was thinking that lawyers would jump at the chance to get a retainer fee out of someone, but I guess that’s not always the case? The voicemail was of an older gentleman, slowly telling me that my call is important to them and to leave my information, that they would surely get back to me. I felt good leaving my message, though I wasn’t sure if the Older Uncle vibe was a tried and true lawyer schtick. After hearing so much about lawyers and then dealing with my own lawyer through a divorce, I can testify that I don’t like lawyers. My experience was that if you emailed a question, they wouldn’t answer for a couple of days, forcing you to ask again. Then, when they do answer the email, they don’t answer your question but ask you a question. You answer and ask them your question again. That was just $400 spent. Seriously. They charge $400 an hour, and each email is treated as 15 minutes – they “charge on the quarter.” Do you know how angry she was when I settled with my ex rather than go through the courts!! Hahahaha! Nah, you got enough out of me. If anyone reading this is going through a divorce, I will give this advice to you: Listen to the mediator, NOT your lawyer. The mediator can actually see the best way out of the case. Your lawyer is just looking for payment and WILL drag it out if they can. I repeat: Listen to the mediator, not your lawyer.

So, while I’m on the hunt for a lawyer who won’t rip me off too much, I also would like to think about what I want to do for income. I have a job that you would think pays decent. On paper, it pays decent. However, with the way home and rent prices are, you need a second income to rent a studio and still save money! Living in my van eliminated the biggest item in my budget, rent. I am able to save what I was paying before while realizing that I really don’t need much to get by now. Once my mother’s house is sold, I will be able to move wherever I want to. I just don’t know where I want to move, because I have never lived outside of this area before. I don’t know why I stayed so close to her, I moved into my own apartment at 19 years old. All of my other siblings either stayed there a long time or at least went back to live for a period. Yet, they have all lived out of state. I’ve never left the county! I have relatives that I have never met, and I think it’s time that I met them. I would like to take a road trip, spend a week at a time visiting with my different family members and friends who are all over the country. I would like to let a “job” find me as I travel. I was talking with my best friend today, and I realized that almost all of the jobs I’ve had have come to me. I did go through a period of job searching and interviewing and never got the jobs I was looking for. Yet all of the jobs I’d had gotten, including the one I’m in now (since 2016), came to me. I’m ready for a new opportunity to find me, but I feel as though I need to hit the road so it can.

You could say my passion is helping people. I like to be helpful and really love to feel the true gratitude from someone that you just did something for. It started when I was 14, and my sister’s co-worker had a daughter around my age. I was invited to hang out with her on a couple of Saturdays when her mother wanted to keep an eye on her. Well, she was one of those daughters who NEEDED to have an eye on her at all times. She was too wild for me, and I ended up spending more time in the salon than hanging out with her. They asked me if I wanted to work, sweeping and shampooing when their shampoo girl didn’t show up, and that was how I got my foot into the salon world. I did go to Walgreens and seek employment when I was 16 and got my working papers. I had another older sister who was working in a retail sock store and told me they needed help. I applied and got the job. I was there for a while and not enjoying it anymore when the chiropractor office I was a patient of asked me if I was interested in taking their front-end receptionist position that was opening up. While I can honestly say that he was probably the best chiropractor ever, I absolutely hated working there. A woman who worked at the hair salon with me was also a patient there. She saw me in the office and called me at home later. She could see how miserable I was and presented me with an opportunity. She was pregnant and working as an accounts tecieveable bookkeeper for a camera store and doing hair part-time. She was planning on leaving the camera store and only continuing as a hairdresser after the baby was born due to the more flexible schedule. The camera store was going to need someone, and she asked if I was interested. I ended up working there for 11 years. I had still been shampooing on Saturdays all this time, and the other hairdressers convinced me to go to beauty school and get my license. As time went on, it became that I was working at the camera store, both in the office and working retail some days. I was working some nights and Saturdays as a hairdresser. Working once a week as a bookkeeper for a professional photographer, who was a customer of the camera store I worked in, messed up his bookkeeping program badly and needed help. And one of my elderly clients became a good friend, placed me as her power of attorney, and I would do her food shopping, help her to doctor appointments, and eventually, she lived with me. All of that was at the same time, and for years.

Eventually, the son took over the camera store, and I felt the ship sinking. I quit and took more hours at the hair salon and realized how hard it was going to be to break back into the office world now that everything was online, and I didn’t have a degree that put letters after my name. I was a successful hairdresser, but the bookkeeper in me wanted to budget. When you work as a hairdresser, you don’t really know what your paycheck is going to be at the end of the week. There are busy weeks and slow weeks. There are also no sick days or holiday pay. I wanted a desk job, a computer job. Hairdressing is more physical than you think. I looked for bookkeeping jobs, but without a degree, I was lost in the algorithm. Though the income fluctuated, it was coming in. I did hair for a while, bookkeeping for the photographer and helping my elderly friend, until a friend who worked for a CPA firm asked me if I wanted to join the team as a bookkeeper. I did join the team, but I didn’t like it at all. While I suffered through that job, I was approached with a chance to interview for the company I work for now. They needed an assistant around the office, assisting different departments with various tasks. I was hired and quickly moved up into the accounting department. My friend passed away, and I stopped working part-time for the photographer years ago.

There are things that are weighing on me now. I am no longer happy at my job for various reasons. I am ready to move on, and I am ready for the next opportunity to find me. I know there’s a huge planetary shift happening now, planets moving into signs they haven’t been in for 164 years, but I don’t know enough to give details. I have apps that tell me these things, and my best friend is super into astrology. You know, he can predict the past with 100% accuracy when he looks at the stars!? Hahaha! This period is about cleansing out the old and ushering in the new. I am ready for the universe to land me where I am needed. Well, once I get everything here cleaned up.