Who Do I Think I Am??

This one's about findin' a place.

THE PROMPT: "Share the most extreme case of culture shock you've ever experienced."

Ohhh boy. Good evening everybody...what a prompt we have here. One could say I'm having a minor case of "culture shock" just as I sit here nearly speechless, reading and rereading the prompt.

See, I'm a fairly easy-going person, and I think one of my better traits is my ability to adapt to different situations. Let's see if one of my other fine traits, the ability to improvise, can bail me outta this one.

Besides maybe spending more than a few days in a hospital (which I really don't feel like going into details here about it), I think (and I know it's not that big a deal to maybe 90-96% of people, but it kinda was to me) my biggest experience with culture shock may have been being on my own for the first time.

I believe I was 22 at the time, and my dad and stepmom were ready for me to no longer take up residency in their house. It wasn't a big deal for me. I had a sweet car and a steady job as an assistant manager for a sporting goods store. I may have stayed out late, but I wasn't into parties. I had a few credit cards and a cell phone, so I was used to that part of being a responsible adult.

I secured a nice little one bedroom apartment in a sprawling, one-level apartment complex (because I wasn't willing to wager on whether my folks were bluffing or not when they told me it was time to go). It was the perfect size for me. I had a few friends help me move, and after not speaking to my parents for a few weeks after I'd found the place, they made amends with more than a few bags of food and other necessities . I was excited! My own place! I could have friends over and not be worried that my dad would be sitting on the couch in his underwear. If I didn't want to do the dishes for a few days, my sister would come over and do them. I didn't have to wait for four other people to shower just so I could take a cold one. The food that I bought with my money would still be there for me in the cabinets when I got home from work in the evening. And if I wanted to bring a girl over, we weren't restricted to watching tv in the living room while coloring pictures with my little brother. That in itself was a huge plus.

Everything was going great as I was unpacking and getting settled. And that's when it hit me. This was it..."now kid, you're on your own". I panicked a little. I started realizing that there were so many things I didn't have. I started realizing that bills were going to add up, every month, even if I did have two jobs at the time. And my friends? There's no way they'd be here every night, even if I wanted them to be. I was the first of my friends to be on their own. And what if I didn't get along with my neighbors? What if I was too loud? What if they were too loud? (Let the scorecard indicate that I only had the cops called on me once in two years for noise. Maybe twice.) Those first few nights by myself, coming home to an empty house instead of a home bustling with four other people, was like a total shock to my system. I had a hard time adjusting to total silence. I couldn't always figure out how to keep myself occupied. My mind's not wired for down-time. I had a hard time relaxing.

The coolest little feature about that place (besides the open-shelved bookcase that went from the floor to the ceiling and separated the kitchen and the living room) was the little laundry room. It was seriously long enough for a washer, dryer and a shelf, and just wide enough that if you had those appliances you could operate them by standing in front of them, but that was it. As luck would have it, I could still do laundry at my aunt's and eventually my parents', so I had no need for a washer and a dryer. I converted that little space into a den of sorts. I had an old desk like the ones second graders had, wooden with a lid that opened as a writing surface. I had an old typewriter (the internet was just coming into fashion; my parents were just getting into dial-up) and made creative use of it. I began to write a lot more when I was there. I was an adult on his own, finding his place in the world, and documenting my journey. Life was smoothing out, and I was getting settled.

Good story, right? Call it a night there? Nope.

I lost my job about two months later when the company I was working for went bankrupt and was bought out by another company that already had their stores in the local malls. I'd been playing phone tag with the Human Resources director for a company I was trying to get into, but we could never get in touch. And while I was still kinda hangin' out with my ex-girlfriend, I was chasing after another girl I fell really hard for. And it was the week of Christmas. Neither of those girls wanted to come to my family's Christmas Eve gathering. That was the worst feeling of lonliness I think I may have ever felt.

But, I survived. It was a great learning experience. I had some failures along the way, but I had a lot of fun at that first apartment as well. From there I moved into a little place with DMFM, while two other buddies of ours moved a block over. When DMFM and his lady at the time were ready to do their thing, and my other buddy was moving across the state, I moved a block over. And when he wanted his own place, I stayed there on my own. I lived at 542 for almost 10 years I think, primarily as the singular resident. I did it because that's where I was comfortable...and I had to go through the experience in order to learn to enjoy it. Sometimes, I think I've enjoyed it a little too much.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

If ever someone decides to soundtrack my life, this doesn't have to be the first song on it, but I wouldn't mind if it's the first single to hit the radio from it. I love going back to this track from time to time. Lyrically it has almost nothing to do with this entry, yet it still fits as a whole.

VITAL STATS:

UNNECESSARY WEATHER POST: Hell, I'll take a 80+ degree day in the middle of April! Maybe then I won't complain as much when we settle back into a 50 degree reality the rest of the week.

Felt accomplished at work today. But there's something about nice weather that makes people dress in ways that, well, for lack of a better way of putting it, they really shouldn't. Ladies, stretch pants and an ill-fitting sweater over the twenty pounds you should've lost twenty years ago will not hide the fact that you don't know how to walk in high heels, nor will your teased up, poofy 80's rocker-chick hair. Does nobody in this town own a mirror??

Ugh. Sorry to leave you all with that visual. But it's time for me to move on tonight and see what you guys are up to. Peace, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!