Ten Years: A Reflection

April 27, 2022 — Kaye

I debated between making this a birthday post or a blog anniversary one. I chose birthday since it’s not about the blog.

Today is my 28th birthday. A decade since what was supposed to be my HS graduation year (was forced to take an extra year due to transferring districts). It feels rather surreal. I don’t know how to feel about it.

I know 18-year-old me would be surprised I’m still here, and at the things I do. I dealt with bullying throughout all of my school years. Always had a few friends, but was overall extremely shy, didn’t do extracurriculars, and struggled with schoolwork. Didn’t date at all (because any guy who asked me out did it only as a joke), and I was heavily sheltered, so outside of the occasional afternoon with a friend, my time out of school was spent at home. Wanted to work, but they didn’t want me to do even that. Yet, complained I never went out. Huh.

If you told me at the age of 18 that in ten years, I’d:

  • Almost never spend a full day at home
  • Have a relationship of now 7 years with someone who cannot take his eyes off of my undressed body
  • DRIVE (I failed the class my high school provided us and never tried again)
  • Regularly travel between NJ and NY, and travel all over NJ (I used to do Uber/Lyft)
  • Meet men who deem me attractive, and who flirt with me (I hate this, but it still shocks me)
  • Be in college again, do well, and not hate it (dropped out of college when I was 19)
  • Have money, have credit, get into investing (Budget? In my family? What is that?)
  • Wouldn’t be pregnant (never wanted kids, but family always talked about pregnancy as something inevitable; everyone is a single parent or in a toxic marriage, no in between)

And, finally, the biggest one of all:

  • Be capable of holding down a full-time job and financially supporting myself, even if I struggle for a while. (Everyone from my family to my teachers told me I wouldn’t make it in adulthood if my grades didn’t get better, and my high school pushed college as a life or death thing)

If you told me at 18 this is what I could reflect on in ten years, I’d call you a liar and glare at you like you sprouted a second head. If 2020 hadn’t been the year it was, my boyfriend and I would’ve moved in together, but it’s now in the cards for 2023.

I say often I don’t feel my life differs much from when I was a teenager, but what I listed above is very different. None of that describes me at 18 at all.

But I still want someone to hug me, rub my back, and tell me I’m okay. I still need that.

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Nine Years Ago

May 22, 2021 — Kaye

No words. Only acknowledgement. My blog started nine years ago and still exists. Yes, I’m surprised. But happy.

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Eight Years Running

May 22, 2020 — Kaye

When I first created this blog in 2012, I didn’t think it would last long. Most blogs I’ve had die within a year. This blog has unarguably had its ups and downs of activity, but I’ve somehow managed to keep it going.

A “blog-iversary” isn’t exciting, but I am a little surprised each year this blog stays alive. I always expect to make a goodbye post somewhere down the line, yet somehow, I find the motivation (and content) to continue posting. Part of me wishes I started this blog in 2010 so I could already say it’s been ten years. I suppose I’ll have to keep waiting.

The most unexpected thing is this blog has, in a way, turned into a record of my life. I created it with the intention of ranting and talking about random things on my mind. I’ve done that, but so many of these posts speak of my regular life and not-so-random nuisances too. Maybe I should’ve expected that, but since I didn’t expect this blog to last so long to begin with, I can’t help being a little shocked by the unintentional record I created. I have no regrets, however.

Some of my earlier posts embarrass me and I don’t want to remember I wrote those. Not necessarily because my feelings are different, but simply because of how I wrote them. Then again, there’s a reason I say I’d hit my younger self over the head.

Knowing this blog has survived so long, I now want to keep it going until I can’t anymore. I can’t picture how long it will last, and I will probably be surprised by any length of time, but I do hope the inevitable end is very far down the road.

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2020 Resolutions

January 4, 2020 — Kaye

I stopped making resolutions long ago. Mostly because I don’t keep them, or I do keep them and regret it. My only resolution this year is to have a good year, and that’s probably too much to ask.

That said, some good things have already happened within the first four days of the new year. My job transfer request was approved, so I will have a full-time job again. My boyfriend and I were able to leave all the fighting in 2019, and I mean that almost literally since we made up on New Year’s Eve. I now have a counter for the number of days we go without fighting. Finally, I paid off one of my credit cards in full. I got hit with interest charges on the day of the last payment, but I had enough to cover that, so the balance will be zero. I plan to work on my debt this year, going from smallest balance to highest. Apparently, there’s a name for that. It’s called the snowball technique. I don’t care what it’s called. It’s simply how I want to do it.

It is hard to believe a whole decade is over. The start of the decade and the end of it were the worst years of my life. The new 20s are off to a good start for me, so perhaps they’ll have a good end. Of course, I can’t imagine that far ahead.

I considered doing a “one post a day” challenge, similar to “post a week” I did years ago, but quality matters more than quantity. Of course, the jury is out on whether this blog has any quality since it’s ultimately a journal of my life.

2019 really was a wild year, and I hope 2020 proves to be much calmer. I’m not a “wild child”. I want to relax. No school and no customers to deal with should make that less difficult.

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Ninety Days Working

October 24, 2019 — Kaye

Today is my 90th of employment at my warehouse job. Woohoo!

I also finally turned in my resignation notice to my retail job. I am no longer on call. I am not their employee anymore. One of my former managers recently posted how much the store looks like trash after she visited, and while the unexpected validation was unnecessary, I consider it reassuring of my choice. Ironically, and funny, the store finally got a new store manager one day after I quit.

What is so special about ninety days? First, and most importantly to me, I think it’s safe to say I’m… safe. If I haven’t been fired by now, I don’t have much reason to expect it. Second, it means I’ve finally managed to hold on to a job that’s not retail. Granted, at three months, I was proclaiming I love my retail job too, but that was before the store fell into the deepest pit of hell. Even back then, the store had some problems I simply didn’t have enough experience to see yet, but no workplace is perfect.

The most significant difference to me is the pay rate. I know there’s more a job than money, but let’s face it: we all have bills to pay. But I’m not talking solely about base pay. I’m talking about where it goes.

In retail, I started at $9/hr. Three years later, I left at $10.41. That would be a big deal if not for two facts: the extra dollar came from a temporary promotion (company policy forbids withdrawing a raise), and new employees with zero experience (like I started with) for the same position would be hired at $11/hr. Unsurprisingly, that contributed to some of the employees who had experience jumping ship (not that most of the new ones stayed for long). The other matter is you get a twenty cent raise once a year. In other words, if my state’s minimum wage hadn’t risen this past summer, I would’ve gotten a 41 cent raise in three years.

Meanwhile, at my warehouse job, I got a 75 cent raise. Please refer back to the title of this post.

Three years to get a raise of less than half a dollar or three months to get a raise of 3/4ths of a dollar? Tough choice.

Yes, I realize that depends on the workplace itself rather than the industry, but that doesn’t invalidate my point. I’ve been told there’s often a better chance of making more money by switching jobs than switching positions in a job. Which means I likely will have to leave my warehouse job someday if I want more money. For now, it works for me, so not someday soon.

180 days – six months – will be in January. Let’s see if I can leave this year with this job.

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