Bonnie’s Beach 🏖

My Life. My Experiences. My Love. My Words.

Adulting Is Exhausting

So I have decided to grow up again, and my apartment hunt is on.  Although I was hoping to be back in the car in the winter, there has been this constant nagging in the back of my head to rejoin “normal” society.  Please shoot me.  Apartment hunting is just as bad as house hunting, and no, I am not going to buy a house.  I am sure that’s probably a stupid idea, but in my stupid mind I do NOT want to feel as though I am tied down. I don’t want the burden of owning my own home again.  I don’t want to be the one who has to replace the water heater when it goes out.  Lonely home ownership is not on my to-do list of uber responsibility.  That is far too much adulting for me!

If you’ve kept up with my random ramblings over the past few months, you know I am currently staying at my dad’s house over the summer so that my mini me has a place to stay while I am in limbo.  I figured it is time to make a choice. Like I said, it’s this nagging sensation.  Which is kinda funny to me in a way.  I believe I am decently normal.  I mean, the way that society sees me anyway.  I have an excellent job.  I go to the gym.  I pay my taxes.  I contribute to the economy.  I don’t have run-ins with the law.  I don’t do drugs (alcohol does not count).  All things a typical, run-of-the-mill citizen does right?  I am pretty frickin boring actually.  Wow!  I am totally boring!  

But boringness aside.  I have a pretty kick ass life.  To those who don’t know me at all, I am just another one of those people who blends in with all the others. Ok.  Maybe I don’t blend that well since I usually tower over most people I stand next to, but you get the point.   Since I began this weird, self-discovery journey thing, I have become more self aware of where I stand in the great chain of things. I know who I am.  I have a sarcastic sense of humor that not everyone understands. I know I can drive some people nuts with my weirdness.  I am driven to succeed in whatever path I choose.  I love to be outside.  As much as I enjoy being alone, it can also suck.  Sometimes I wish I had more friends, but that list just kind of shrinks more and more as I get older.  So that sort of sucks.  But anyway, enough about who I think I am.   Back to this whole stupid apartment hunt shit.  Ugh!  

So, searching for apartments has of course become “easier” since you can look online.  I did this for my last apartment.   Then you get a $200 gift card in the mail for using their locater and yadda yadda.   Well, I have come to find out just how picky one can be when it comes to apartment hunting.  I have a general idea of where I want to live, but it’s so expensive.  That is why the whole buying a house thing was mentioned earlier. It’s pretty much like making a house payment for something you don’t own.   But!  You get a pool and a balcony and landscaping and maintenance and noisy neighbors and maybe a gate and a basketball court and access to bike trails and convenience all rolled into it, so I think it’s worth it.  I just need to really decide how much I want to fork over every month for those amenities.  My safe price range puts me nearly into ghettoville.  Not that I couldn’t pay more, but it’s just ridiculous!  I would love to get a studio or efficiency, but those are just nonexistent outside of the downtown areas, or Irving.  Nope!  Not living in Irving.  I would just assume to avoid Dallas for the rest of my life, you know, except for the occasional kick ass concert or gathering with friends, maybe a Mavs or Stars game. Ok fine.  There’s a lot of cool stuff to do there.  I just refuse to live there.  I work in Fort Worth anyway, why would I want to live that far away?  So anyway, apartment hunting is becoming a nightmare.  I have dealt with Section 8 apartments.  They’re definitely in my price range!  But wait! What was that?  I make too much money as a single person.  Seriously?!?!  So nice to know that since I make more that I get to pay $200-300 more a month to live in a box.  Frustrating!  No wonder some people just give up on striving for more.  I mean, what’s the point?  The more you make the more you pay out the ass!  Sorry.  Thankfully I was brought up to work hard and be responsible for my own actions and their consequences.  It’s not easy, but oh well.  No one ever said life was going to be smooth sailing.  

But oh God this whole adulting thing is stressful.  I don’t want to act my age, but there are circumstances where it’s necessary to act like an adult.  I am a mom, and even that is difficult to be at times.  Maybe that came out wrong.  It’s not hard to be a mom, it’s hard to convey the image of being a mom around other moms.   Does that make sense? Most of my daughter’s friend’s mothers are about 10 years older than me.  Most have multiple children.  Some are super sweet, but the majority are seemingly materialistic and underlyingly catty.  Would I ever tell them I lived in my car for a few months?  Hell no!  Would I ever hang out with them voluntarily on a Friday night?  Probably not.  I may like nice shoes, but I don’t go out shopping, and I don’t care whose name is on a purse (which I don’t carry), and I don’t care about labels, and I don’t care that my car is dirty, and I just don’t care about that pointless crap.  It’s all just a façade.  It’s a projected image of status, and it is beyond me.  I know image is important.  That’s a given.  I’ll dress and act the part when needed, but I would prefer to just be myself.  It all comes down to perceptions.  How the hell did I get on this tangent?!  Holy crap I veered way off course.  I guess it’s been so long since my last post that I am just full of total randomness!!!!  It is spewing out like a really bad night out on the town that went south quickly!  Holy hell!

Anyway, I think I am just going to shut it down there!  I could probably blah blah blah for the rest of the day, and then you could just use this post as a sleep aid.  So with that, I am going to spend some time with my angel pie.  I hope you have a beautiful day!  Go make a memory, have an adventure, smile.  

Ciao for now!

-Bonnie

   
       

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Thoughts About Weddings…

Weddings.  Some people love them, others hate them.  Everyone has their own personal opinion about them.  Just today I was about to go on a hike, when a guy who just came back from doing it started talking to me.  When I told him I was in town from Texas for a friend’s wedding, his opinion came right on out!  He said they were depressing.  And I completely understood what he meant!  He was proud of being 35 and never getting married, and he never planned on it. To each his own.  

Being through two of them myself and attending others, I see weddings from many different angles now. When you’re young and the idea of getting married is bright and shiny and new, you are blinded quite a bit!  It’s like a polished, chrome bumper catching the sun just right and flashing pure white light into your eyes.  The longer you wait to get married, the more you begin seeing why weddings can be a sad affair. To attend one you feel love and support for the couple, but deep down there is almost a knowing fear of what the future most likely holds.  So many marriages fall apart, and it’s a rare blessing to be part of weddings where the couple truly works to keep it going until death.  

This weekend, one of my very close and dear friends/Army bud is getting married for the second time.  I have not yet met his fiancé, but we know each other via FB (Facebook).  I am so happy he has met his match, and I am so looking forward to meeting his better half tomorrow!  I don’t know her past, and I have no idea if she has been married before, but I have nothing but love for these two people!   Bare, my friend, is like family to me.  My friend list may be shorter than most people’s, but there are very few people I would drive over five hours for, let alone 10.  He’s one of them. Trust me.  Very short list. 

So tomorrow, when I am attending the wedding of a very special and wonderful friend I have know for years, and I hear him say his vows, and I watch him and his bride walk down the aisle together, and I see them dancing at their reception, I will be so filled with love and joy, that there won’t even be any room for the painful memories still gripping me from time to time. 

All hope. All love.  All happiness.  Eternally.  

Love you Bare and Jessica.  

-Bonnie

 Me and Bare 

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Fireflies and Summer Things…

It has been a few days without rain here in good old Texas!  I got to enjoy the sun a bit more Sunday than I did Saturday, that’s for sure!  Driving my daughter back home Sunday night we noticed the lightning bugs were out.  Fireflies, lightning bugs, same thing. Anyway, it just made me start thinking about summer things.  The activities that make summers memorable for adults and kids and how they differ and what is missed or still enjoyed.   There are so many memories of summers I have had the pleasure to enjoy since I was little.   Summers spent flying to Texas from California to see my dad.  Day trips to Six Flags and what is now known as Hurricane Harbor (back in the day it was Wet’n’Wild!), family reunions in Daytona Beach, FL, or trips to Georgia.  The list goes on and on.  Swimming in the pool, going to the lake, crawfish boils with neighbors, baseball games, Busch Gardens, Washington DC, Baltimore Harbor, a train ride between Cali and Texas or Florida and Georgia, seeing the Amish for the first time, museums.  Like I said before, the list could go on and on, but I won’t bore you with my lists of random summer memories.   🙂

So what makes things so memorable to kids as they/you grow up and reflect on them?  Maybe it’s the first time experience?  Like my first trip to Disney World/Land just seemed to be magical. It was like being in another world! Not like it isn’t its own world, but for someone who had never been there and hadn’t been beaten down by the universe at that point, the sheer wonder of seeing all that awesomeness at once blinded my childhood mind from seeing anything but!  Now, as an adult, you go to the theme parks or water parks and you can’t help but think about just how gross some things truly are.  Like the sweaty seats on the rollercoaster in July, or what the hell is floating around in that lazy river, or the sawdust covering up someone’s lunch nearby.  Ok.  So maybe as a kid you would have noticed the last one, but I think you catch my drift.  

So do our minds change so much as we get older that we lose that sense of wonderment, or are we allowing being forced by societal norms to “act like adults?”  It’s a bit disheartening.  I like to think that I am keeping my childish senses intact, but I do find from time to time that I allow my boring, adult self to take control.  As a kid it was all about exploration.  Now, as much as I want to go exploring (I really do!) it’s as if I just get all lazy and stubborn; I have no one to go with, it’s hot, it’s muddy, people will think I am weird.  Yeah.  I know.  The last one shouldn’t really bother me.  People already think I am weird.  But I feel at times I pull off “normal (adult) citizen” quite frickin well, thank you!  Although it’s really not that hard to do.  😉

So, summer.  The time of hot days, cool water, tan lines, snow cones, driving with the top down, cookouts, ice cream, coolers of beer, dropping anchor, floating rivers, hiking, biking, camping, baseball, natural springs, lilikoi margaritas, jumping into waterfalls, snorkeling, swimming, stand up paddling, reading on blankets at the park, hammocks and wine, bonfires, sweet breezes, suntan oils, glistening skin, jumping off cliffs, blurry romances, shooting stars, outdoor concerts, patio seating with friends, windows down, flip-flops, short shorts, bikinis…

Just a small handful of summer memories and daydreams for you.  Hopefully your imagination ran wild for a minute and you added your own thoughts of summertime in there.  Here’s to summer!  May the magic of all your childhood memories compel you to act like a kid again! 

   
                 

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