Still alive.

Well, taxes today weren't so bad. Since it's still January, and this is our first day open, we weren't too busy. I was stuck in Quality Review - which was basically just going over the basics on someone's return to make sure everything was right.

I was....flustered, to say the least. I only had to do QR for 5 clients. I don't know. I survived lol.

Next week I have yet to find out what position I'll be in. Could be intake/interview or tax prep. Oh boy.

Thank goodness Brock will be home next Saturday, so Zulu doesn't have to be home alone from 8:30 to 6 pm. Poor thing.

Anyway, all I feel like doing is sleeping, so that's prolly what I'm gonna do....*checks time* .... or not. It's only 5?!? Definitely doesn't feel like it.

Lol.

Well, reading then. And no songs - haven't had time today lol.

Have a fabulous weekend.

Tax Law......*flops over dead*

I am ready to explode.

Tax certifications are so unbelievable frustrating.

It probably didn't help that I've been doing homework all day. Cost Accounting this morning, then Government and Not-for-Profit Accounting this afternoon, and all evening....taxes.

Yep. Accounting overload.

Oy. Why must it be necessary for me to take all three of those (along with three other classes) in order to graduate this semester?!? Ugh. It's enough to make me want to not graduate lol. BUT, it has taken me absolutely forever (after wasting a year and a half at a liberal arts college) just to get my Associates. So soldier on, eh? Or something like that...

Well anyway. I've done my complaining. I'm tired, and I have an early day tomorrow. I'll probably be posting here again tomorrow night - once I've come home from doing peoples' taxes for five and a half hours.

I shall wish for sweet dreams and a fast day.

Oh, and besides a bunch of classical, nature-y calming music, song for the day is.....*drum roll*

Love and Memories by OAR.

Yay for talking to myself! Night night. :)

Medicine? Ha.

I just heard from Brock today. He's been in the field for a couple of days, and has another week to go, but the new promotion points came out for February. He made points for sergeant. I'm very proud of him. He has a leadership mentality, once you get past his attitude at least lol.

This also means that we will definitely be moving after this semester finishes, possibly sooner or later. He hasn't been able to get information on the MOS he will be re-classing to, since he's in the field.

On other news, today sucks. And for no reason either. I just have no motivation for any of my homework. I went through a year without Brock, but a couple days still makes me sad. Retarded. Though my forgetting to take my medicine might have something to do with it.

I hate my brain.

Some songs?

Hm.

It's Time by Imagine Dragons
Trouble by Taylor Swift (despite my dislike of her, some of her songs get to me, yippee.)
White Dress by Parachute
I Will Wait by Mumford and Sons

Damn emotions, and fuck caring. I don't want to today. I just keep letting myself get hurt by my own thoughts.

But Brock is in the field, so I have no one to talk to right now. Unless you count my dog, or my cat. They're not very conversational. So I talk on here, to myself.

Chocolate and alcohol sound great right now. But then there is the homework I have. Or perhaps I can just immerse myself in reading, or writing, or music. Which is what I'm doing now.

*rolls eyes* Screw this shit. I'm out.

Speak first.

So I was listening to music as I took a shower and a song came up that got me to thinking.

"The Story of Us" by Taylor Swift (I know right?)

But I think it addresses something that happens to everyone all the time.

"This is looking like a contest,
Of who can act like they care less
. . .
So many things that you wished I knew,
But the story of us might be ending soon."
Sound familiar?

Always stuck with a million things you want to say to someone, but you're afraid to tell them. Someone has to start the conversation. It can't always be the other person. The secret to communication in relationships: never wait for the other person to say something first. If you have something to say, say it.

It's a philosophy that I am trying to adopt in my life. It works very well in my marriage - my husband and I are very close because of it. But the other side of it, friendship, tends to be more difficult. Mostly because this new philosophy came to me years too late.

I feel a long way from the teenager I was. It took marriage to make me grow up, marriage and deployment and all of the other crazy shit that happens in between. Independence, true and actual independence, is what helped me grow up.

But this 'maturity' comes with so much regret that I wonder if it's worth it.

I suppose, one day, I'll know.

Not a clue for a title..

So if I haven't mentioned it before, I'm an Accounting major. Which means that this coming tax season, starting this coming Saturday, I will be helping to do peoples' taxes.

Pause for shock.

One 'crash course' on taxes and tax returns (well, a one semester class really), and apparently I'm now a qualified volunteer.

Yikes.

It also means that this week I shall be doing a lot of studying and practice returns in order to not feel like an idiot. People will be trusting me with their taxes. Yikes. ... I may have said that already huh?

Well, nevertheless. My "chosen profession" is now becoming slightly more real to me.

Two Kinds of Friends.

I finally figured it out.

I've long bemoaned (usually just to myself, frequently to my husband) that I have no really true, good friends. But the other night, as I was in bed trying to fall asleep (trying being the key word, I've had insomnia a lot lately), the answer finally came to me.

To me, there are two different definitions of a friend. You have the acquaintance-friend and the friend-friend. The acquaintance-friend is someone you don't go out of your way to talk to or hang out with, a person you consider a friend and get along with when you're around each other. But you don't share everything. Whereas the friend-friend is a person who is like family to you, you see them all the time, talk to them about anything, and are completely comfortable with them.

In my life, I am the acquaintance-friend. To everyone. Every friend I've had, except for a very very small number, have not been what I personally consider a friend-friend.

I've always thought I'm a loner, I'm a weirdo, I'm too shy, I'm a bitch (at least, that's what I've been called (quite seriously) by those I had considered friends), and so on. I've never really been in on things, I suppose.

It's a funny kind of thing, in a way.

In all the phases of my life, I have had only three penultimate friend-friends. A few almost ones in between, and somewhat more than a few acquaintance-friends. Now that I am in another phase of my life, I am waiting for my next friend-friend. But I'm starting to think I will never find them. Life has created in me a hermit.

I have my animals, Zulu and Othello. I have my husband, Brock. But beyond that, I am and will always be distanced from everyone else, disjointed in a way that makes close relationships all but impossible without some change from me.

Extremely uplifting post, after all the empty space in between. But then, my mind has not been geared toward spilling out into a blog. All of my thoughts have been stuffed inside my head, slowly composting.

I have started writing again, slightly. But I think that it's a small start. And as I finally start to try reaching out, I find it bittersweet. We will probably be moving within the next six months, and any new connections I make out here will disappear. Well, except for those made online. But even those are scarce.

I will (FINALLY) have my Associate's in Accounting after this semester, with enough credits to match someone with a Bachelor's.

Life is a puzzle, and the pieces are constantly changing.

I'm not even going to say what I'm thinking right now....

....well, other than that some people are so incredibly fake, and that I'm still amazed at how long it takes me to figure it out.

Now that I've finally gotten that tidbit out there - I'll write what I wrote earlier.

I have long thought that I was forgettable. Well, maybe not to that extent, not quite. But, certainly, replaceable. Oh, I hear things to the contrary all the time, but when it comes down to it - they're simply words. Strip everything bare, right down to the nuts and bolts, and you'll find me so unbelievably ordinary that you won't even have to wonder why I say such things.

Some insist on continuing to argue the opposite - family usually. Or those who claim friendship (you'll understand my word usage in a paragraph or two). But I've seen it happen time and again. When something (or more appropriately, someone) better comes along, I'm dropped and forgotten.

People wonder why I'm bitter or a hermit. I certainly don't, not when I stop to think about why. Hell, I don't even like me sometimes.

But even considering that, I still feel like they owe me more than that. You don't tell me I'm awesome, or of the best friends you've ever had - and then ignore me when you find someone else. Don't come to me only when there isn't anyone else around. I'm not a fucking back-up plan, thank you very much. Don't call me your best friend and then turn around and betray me - and accuse me of things I wouldn't do, and call me names that couldn't possibly describe me. If you were my friend, you would know all of that. When you do that, you only show me just how little you really know about being a true friend.

Maybe that's why I love books so much - that's the only place I've ever found people who weren't too selfish to care about a friend. I know I would do anything to help a friend out (and in fact, have on several accounts) - but I've yet to find someone who'll do the same for me.

What is so infinitely wrong with me that no one feels I'm worthy? Perhaps it's the reason I think so little of myself - why does no one want to be there for me?

I'm beginning to believe I will never find a true friend. Maybe I don't even deserve one.

It makes me want to cry when I hear songs like "You've Got A Friend" by James Taylor.

It makes me want to give up.