These Last Two Years, Part 1

As 2010 comes to a close, I'd like to take time to reflect on how far I've come on life's journey, starting with the end of the last two years.

Two years ago today, I was visiting my aunt in Arkansas shortly after having moved in with my dad in St. Louis. (The next time would be sometime around Valentine's Day.) After I had returned to my dad, I began my one month grace period before I would need to starting taking steps towards looking for a job. Besides settling in to mine and my dad's apartment, I assisted in some building projects, such as a couple of desks and a desk chair. Later on in 2009, I'd help with putting together a kitchen isle and a microwave stand.

I hadn't been to church for a long time. However, as it was something that he and I had both missed doing, we discussed checking out various churches and eventually establishing one as our church home. We started off attending a Disciples of Christ church. The original plan was that we would attend that one for a couple of weeks and then find another church to check out. However, said church had practically grown on us, so we eventually joined it.

In February, per my dad's idea, I started checking out books pertaining to job hunting, resume writing, etc. In late February/early March, he came up with the idea of us having schedules consisting of busywork Monday through Friday. Among this included but was not always limited to, learning programs like Microsoft Word and Excel, anything pertaining to writing, and in my case, looking for a job. However, the way I'd be going about the job search involved assessments of my skills, researching different types of jobs, and writing resumes.

In April, we both did a "practice run" of the writing challenge known as National Novel Writing Month, or Nano Wrimo (which officially takes place in November). I don't know about my dad, but I wasn't able to finish my novel until July. There was a part starting in June when the novel was the only thing I'd devote my day to. However, after that, my job search was to resume.

I think it was in August when my dad had come up with the idea of managing the church library as there was nobody to do so. It was up to me as to whether or not I wanted to do that with him. I agreed to do so. I think there were only one or two days we were able to do so, partly because of my dad's health and partly because of things he and I had to do at home.

Then came late September/early October. I was maybe in the resume phase of my job search. (My dad insisted that I do resumes for every single company I was going to apply for whether or not they necessarily required one.) Another thing I was looking into at the time was writing greeting cards, but that was coming along slowly as well. Around that time, money was getting tight on us, so we would've needed to pay extra attention to getting some income going.

My dad's health wasn't doing much better either. He had the flu around late September, which turned out to be the prelude to some diabetes related infections in at least one leg and foot. He ended up having to go see a doctor. However, since neither he nor I drive and my grandma was out of town at the time, he called Grandpa to come take him. On the day that my dad had to go to the doctor, I had to shut down both of my bank accounts, something I took care of prior to time to go.

When my grandpa came and took Dad to the doctor, I came along. It turned out that the infections my dad had were bad enough that he would have to go to the emergency room that night. It was up to me as to whether I would stay at our then apartment and let it go at that or stay at my grandparents. I opted for the former. My decision went against my grandpa's better wishes, but the way I saw it at the time, I didn't have time to be hanging out at a relative's house. I needed to take care of life within my regular surroundings. The next day though, when it turned out that my dad would be going into surgery, my grandpa overruled my decision to try to fend for myself in the big city apartment, and he came and got me. (At least I got enough of a heads up that I was able to pack a bag.)

My dad ended up have part of his left leg removed (almost to the knee) that night, followed a week later my the big toe on his right foot. (And would you believe that his birthday was during that time frame?) As it turned out, he would have to go somewhere else to recover, and I would have to return to Kansas. I found out about that last part from my sister who had come to visit the weekend after my dad's operation. She told me that my choices were to either move in with her or return to our mom. I opted to return to our Mom. After all, I knew more people in my mom's hometown. I also had a lot furniture to my name. Where was I going to put it if I had moved in with my sister?

I, along with various relatives, got the apartment cleared out and shut down. As it would not have been in the best interest of Dad's cat Gabby take her with me when I moved (at least not in my opinion anyway), my grandma was able to arrange it so that someone my dad and I knew from church could take care of her until my dad was out of recovery.

The day I moved, my grandma, both of my aunts (one of which married into the family), and one of my uncles on my dad's side of the family helped me move. My sister and her boyfriend were at my mom and stepdad's house to help get my stuff in as well. I think after we did that, we all had lunch together there, and then the relatives left sometime after that.

During the first week after I had moved in, I began going out requesting/submitting/checking on job applications. Unfortunately, the places I put in for either were not hiring or they never got back to me.  I took a break from the job search during the window between Christmas and New Year's. (And I think part of it was because of the weather at the time.)

In November, I took part in Nano Wrimo for the first time and met the 50k word requirement to "win" the challenge.. There was a chat room that corresponded to the forums for my home region, where I met a guy who would eventually be one of my Facebook friends. He and I would chat almost every night. (He and I have both admitted to having feelings for one another, but what happens with the two of us in the long run remains to be seen.)

Closer to the end of the year, my mom and stepdad and I went to Wichita to visit my grandparents on that side of the family for a belated Christmas celebration. We stopped by a flea market on the way there, and I was the only one out of us that bought anything. (I bought some books.) We went there the day before New Year's Eve and came back the next day. Needless to say, we didn't go out for New Year's Eve that year.

That was 2009. In the next post, I'll be discussing this year.