I am sick of having to write to ya’ll that I have been MIA yet again. Not that I have to explain my self or lack of writing to anyone because I don’t, but I feel like some of y’all might care where I have been and why I haven’t been writing and so if you frankly don’t care, you don’t have to read any further! But if you are mildly intrigued, keep following the train wreck ahead.

The past four days I have been sick with an upper respiratory virus and so my throat glands are very swollen, I am experiencing Eustachian tube dysfunction in both of my ears so I can’t hear very well and everything sounds distorted. My sinuses are bad, but mainly it feels like I have strep throat which I don’t have says the strep test at urgent care. I was prescribed Sudafed and Flonase which helps slightly but I have been off yesterday and today from work. Tuesday I just laid low and did nothing but today my room was trashed and I was running out of clean clothes to wear so I mass cleaned my room, made my bed, did four or five loads of laundry, put clean sheets on my bed, did some of my tax paperwork. It is 11pm and I have my last load in the washer. I have yet to put all these clean clothes away but after I write this I am most likely going to bed.

I had Steven come visit me at my house and we just cuddled and napped and had some dinner once he was off of work. We are trying to plan out this weekend because my 25th birthday is Monday, February 6th. I work graveyard 7pm-7am from Sunday into my birthday, but I think I will nap for a bit and then spend the afternoon with him. We are having a family lunch on Saturday the whole immediate family plus spouses. But I am unsure what we are going to do after and before that. I am attending his church in Tacoma on Sunday morning so my guess is we won’t do anything too crazy on Saturday night or Sunday day because after church I will have to sleep before work.

I am just hoping I feel better come the weekend. I go back to work tomorrow and work 20 hours in two days which will probably aggravate symptoms. I know on Friday I am working nearly twelve hours so that I can take the girls I work with to a special needs dance where they serve dinner, have bingo, karaoke, dancing, a movie room, some pool tables; essentially it is a rec hall for special needs folks. I went last weekend with the girls and it was a lot of fun because the caregivers get to chat while they monitor clients and it’s better than staying at home all the time. But with that being said, it can be exhausting because there is so much more responsibility and needing to be aware of surroundings since we’re dealing with extremely vulnerable adults here.

I do have the bad news that I had to withdraw from classes this quarter at school. I feel so bad for doing that but it’s better for my transcripts and I found out if I don’t pursue the social work program for my associate’s degree in addition to the drug and alcohol counseling certification, I can graduate in two quarters of school versus the 6 quarters including this one. I would be graduating with a general associate’s degree that I can transfer anywhere in the state of Washington and almost anywhere else in neighboring states. I still want to pursue social work as a whole, but why am I wasting grant money for a degree that only might help me get into a good social work school. Because if it comes down to an application essay, I am pretty sure I can get in to a good school.

I applied to Portland State University which is ironically the school my dad graduated from back in the day. They have, I believe the fourth best online bachelor’s of social work programs in the country and I think it behooves me that my dad went there as well. I will be paying out of state tuition costs, however scholarships and grants are my best friend so I will see what happens. If I don’t get it, I will just wait until official graduation come for my general associate’s and then apply for a bachelor’s program.

I have been internalizing a lot of my feelings lately rather than blogging about them. Which is good in some ways and negative in others. I think I personally do better when I record keep on my blog just for my personal benefit to have like a diary to reference but then again I have been valuing privacy a lot more lately. And what I mean by that is, I kind of like to genuinely experience my feelings and if I run to my blog for every little thing, it takes away on what and how I share with my family and friends in person. I think it was important for me to experience my sense of grief behind closed doors because I couldn’t articulate how I felt. And I still don’t to be quite honest with you, but I can say that now. I felt like a wallflower in that I watched the people of the internet post and like and share and comment on everyone’s blogs, or other social media accounts and here I am… watching. Absorbing content and information.

It feels, being a wallflower, like emotional detachment from the world all while being intwined in connection at the same time. Maybe I am just stoned but that is quite poetic in my opinion.

Also this is the first time I have smoked weed since December of last year. I did it for the sake of my throat being in pain, but I am happy I did because it helps with pain and the ease of writing.

I planned on this post being very short but look at me go. I might read my new book now just to let my imagination run wild.

much love,

Dani