Sometimes you have to walk in the rain

I have been really depressed lately. I think I'm finally starting to come to grips with "officially" being an adult. 

This shopping list drained the last of my money from my bank account last week and it reminded me of when my mom was my age raising me. She used to always say "I can't afford that" when I would ask for something that we didn't need like a toy or a candy bar or something like that. I remember the cartoon Dino Riders had it's own line of toys that were very popular when I was young. It was about some good guys and some bad guys  from the future who accidentally get sent back into prehistoric times and put GI JOE style battle armor on dinosaurs and battle. I remember asking my mom to buy me the T-Rex with the eye-laser helmet and hearing her say "I can't afford that". I told her "but it's only this big" as I raised my four-year old hand to the middle of my stomach because to me size was relative to the cost of something. As much as I get depressed about how broke I am, I like to think that those times when it was just me and my mom were some of the best.

I've been trying my hand at dating now that Kate and I are just friends on hiatus and it hasn't been working out so well. I called up a girl I sort of had a crush on from one of my classes and asked if she was single. She told me she was and we arranged to go out and have drinks one night when she got off of work. We listened to a three person band doing (badly) an instrumental cover of In the Garage by Weezer and played a card game called Demon which was just a slower version of a game I used to play in high school called California Speed. After that we drove up to Indian Rock in Berkeley so I could show her the view from this part of the bay area then we called it a night. I called her (probably too many times, which I have a terrible habit of doing) to try and get a second date but after several attempts she replied back telling me that she wasn't interested in dating and she was still in love with her ex. Bummer. But I dealt with it in stride.

In the same month, this beautiful girl who I work with who works a seasonal position stopped in one night while I was working. We arranged to hang out THAT WEEK which was exciting. I get really intimidated by beautiful women so having one so eager to hang out made me really happy. That Wednesday, we went out to Stinson Beach. We had Safeway deli sandwiches, we skimboarded (or at least tried to skimboard), we tossed a frisbee around, and went on a nice long walk up and down the beach and talked about how life deals you shitty cards sometimes; I don't like that analogy because I don't play cards. Let's say life gave us shitty light conditions (photography). Anyways, We connected because we both have ne'er-do-well younger brothers who are the same age. After the beach we went out to Beckett's for dinner and then went back to my apartment for drinks and a movie. She held my arm on the way back to the car. We watched Superbad and drank Guinness while curling up on the couch together. There was a lot of mutual flirting going on and I was really happy with how the day turned out. While I drove her home I asked if she wanted to hang out the next morning before I went to work. So we went out for breakfast at Fatapples and went for a walk through the botanical gardens in Tilden Park. More flirting ensued and as I said my goodbyes, we kissed on her porch; Let me emphasize the WE in WE KISSED. I called her that day (once again, probably too many times like an idiot [also probably mentioning too many times how great those two days were]) to see if she wanted to go catch a movie the next day. I didn't hear from her at all the rest of the day but when I checked my facebook messages the next morning i was stunned to see this: 

OK Breandan, i can't do this. i don't feel whatever it is that you feel about us. when you invited me to the beach and stuff i though it was just as friends and that's all i wanted us to be and then all of a sudden it was a date and i was not expecting or really into that idea. i', sorry for not being clear on that point at the time, it's just that all this has really caught me off guard (caught YOU off guard?). you're really sweet (really?) but i'm just not into you that way (i'm so sick of that cliche). i'm sorry for leading you on.

p.s. please don't call anymore. thanks. (tell me if I'm wrong but was the P.S. necessary?)

I don't handle rejection well so, naturally, I was incredibly depressed for the next couple of days and slightly depressed the rest of the week. I know it's lame to be depressed because of a girl but when it comes at you like that, the only thing you can do is cry real hard and then get over it. Of course, in my depressed state, I thought that Kate would be able to make me happy but she has become more detached from this relationship than I have because she has found friends (which is great and I'm incredibly happy for her) but trying to get sympathy from her didn't work and we just ended up having a big fight in the pouring

 rain. It hadn't occurred to me as I walked back to my apartment in the 

rain from Kate's truck that this was a metaphor for my life.

I was playing my guitar the other day trying to learn some Chuck Ragan

songs (because they're easy and I'm not that great) and I looked at the 

lyrics to the song Don't Cry. The last lyrics of the song are: 

We're pushing change and we all need to walk in the rain.

It still didn't hit me then but later that night, my friend Randy and I went for a 

couple drinks after work and after a White Russian, it hit me.

The Running Free

Friday 11:30 pm-Interstate 80

You're going Home 

You're Running Free

As if you would be 

if  you never owed them anything

And now you're on your way out

In the trust you've seen 

your path on home.

I didn't feel like I was going home. I was driving to the new place but it didn't feel like home. It still doesn't. I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. I know this place is just temporary and it's unsettling. I feel unrelaxed. However, when this song came on, the words that stuck in my mind were running free. I don't feel like I have a home but I feel free. I have officially fled the coop.

Andy, Adam, and I recently got moved in to our new place. It's a small two bedroom apartment in upper North Berkeley. It's a beautiful and relatively quiet area. We live right near the Cal Berkeley campus so we have many grad students for neighbors. This is the view from my bed. I picked up a loft bed from IKEA and set it up in the living room because I don't have my own room. I only have about a foot and a half of clearance between myself and the rough painted stucco ceiling but at least we have a decent living area that we don't have to be embarrassed about when we have company. $300 to not look stupid in front of people. Was it worth it? You be the judge. 

It took about three days for me to finally get settled. two of those days were spent putting my rather large 

bed together by myself. Underneath my bed I have a large comfy egg chair and a shelf with my DVDs and CDs. I put up some framed pictures along the wall underneath just so I could claim that small space for myself and leave the rest of the living space up for communal decoration. 

The nights are quiet. When Andy's not at his girlfriend Estrella's house, he's usually in bed by 10pm and Adam shortly after. The neighbors are all pretty much quiet with the exception of one. He woke me up this morning with the sound of really loud crooning echoing through the bathroom vents. This went on for about 30 minutes before he started to add a little percussion to his dreadful singing. This included banging on the sink and what maybe sounded like a towel rack. All I wanted to do was sleep in a bit but for the next hour all I heard was my loud, obnoxious upstairs neighbor.

At this point I feel neutral about the whole living situation. I'm not incredibly happy about it but I'm not incredibly upset either. I'm unhappy in the sense that I have to scrape whatever remnants of a paycheck I have to throw towards rent, utilities, and parking (yes I have to pay for parking and yes I agree that it's totally stupid) on top of having to pay my other bills. I'm also unhappy that I had to leave my old home under the circumstances that I did; I don't want to not live at home but I can't live there if I want to maintain any sort of healthy mental state. Ironically enough, my brother and I finally started to get along after years of us hating each other. Overall I think the amount of money I'm spending and the amount of stress I'm incurring are all a small price to pay for my independence.