Expectations

What is it with expectations in this society?
As a student of anthropology, I am convinced it's a part of our culture.
That being said, some of our expectations are messed up.

We hold that certain life events should happen at certain times, E.G.: start kindergarten at age 5, start driving at age 16, graduate college at age 21, be married and start to have children by 30, retire at 65, etc.

What about those who didn't start driving until later in life, like in their 20's? Or those who want a college degree, and have started taking credits, but still haven't graduated by the time they are 35?
Or those like me, who haven't had children by 30 and got married after 30?

I think that having expectations to live a certain way and have boxes that they are always working to check off causes a lot of undue and unnecessary pressure for people in modern American society. The interconnectedness of our social-media-driven world certainly doesn't help -- we can always see what the Joneses (or, to my younger millennials, the Kardashians) are up to, and we feel inadequate in some way if we are not as successful as those that we see elsewhere.

Worst of all, there aren't many messages out there that say that we are perfectly fine NOT fitting into those molds and following those recommended ages for things. The number of messages is growing, but the prevalence and persistence of the opposition are so deeply ingrained that many of us keep hearing a voice inside our heads criticizing ourselves for not getting x, y, and/or z crossed off by a certain age.

Articles that say things like "31 things women over 30 shouldn't wear" or "If you're a woman over 30, you need to stop saying these things" are being churned out so fast and popping up all over social media automatically as they are published (including Pinterest!) and then summarily consumed by people who are accustomed to being told "this is what you're doing by this age" so it's not questioned.

My life hasn't followed any sort of expected path.
Well, lately it hasn't.
I went to kindergarten when I was 5. I finished high school in four years, during which I learned to drive, held my first job, and had my first romantic relationship. (Lettering in academics was not something "expected" of most youths, though it was in my house, and, of course, "good little Becca" didn't let her parents down in that respect.) Right after graduating high school, I went to a four-year institution.
It was then that things got messed up. :)

I didn't get a degree from that institution. In fact, 14 years later I still don't have more than an Associate's Degree, and that I earned five years ago. I dated my now-husband ten years before we got married, and our nuptials were exchanged last November when I was 31 and he was 33. The only child we have is a furbaby. I've had a car repossessed. We live paycheck to paycheck. We rent an apartment and have zero savings.
We are not the poster-children of the ideal American life.

My husband didn't even get his driver's license until he was 23 -- after I taught him how to drive.

But here's something that we have going for us: we are learning to say "fuck 'em" in regards to the people who are apt to speak up and say, "You're over thirty! You should/shouldn't be..."

I have done a lot of self-work on learning to accept that I'm okay and my life isn't a complete even though I'm not living according to what society wants or expects of us.

I've also done a lot of work with learning to not throw in the towel when things aren't perfect, or to accept that I don't have to stress myself out to ensure that everything is perfect.

I'd like to say that I broke free of all this nonsense.

I haven't.
I still have anxiety over worrying that people expect me to always get everything perfect or if they will perceive me negatively. (Some of that has to do with their implicit bias toward overweight, white-perceived women, or my perceptions of what their implicit biases probably are.)

So if you are one of the people who are affected by the stupid, inane expectations that our culture holds, please know that you ARE NOT held to them -- you are doing the best you can. I promise.
If you aren't happy with what/how you're doing, then seek help on changing things up -- but only if it's what YOU want. Don't do it for your mom/husband/neighbor/boss. Change for you and only for you. All that said, you should change only if you want to. If the expectations held FOR you are the same ones that you hold for yourself, then you're good.

There's more I could say on this.
Like how it's women that are mostly affected by this. (Or at least that it's more socially acceptable for women to be held to these expectations. We have expectations about our expectations.)
And how these expectations spill over into what we eat and how we dress.

I'll save those for a later post. This one's already long enough.

Suffer the Clutter -- Enjoy the Silence

Happy Memorial Day!

To any military members or family members of military folks who may be reading this, thank you for every sacrifice you've made for the good of the American people.

Since it's Memorial Day, I'm finally able to catch my breath for a second and share some observations and thoughts about my new apartment.

Bailey and I have been living here for over a week now. She has a dedicated food & water spot, but her bed still travels between inside and outside. There are still boxes in the living room. I haven't reupholstered the second dining chair. The dining table is being utilized as a makeshift desk for the time being, as the desk is housing clothes on top and linens underneath until I can acquire the closet organizing system that I want to so I can get everything in its proper place. There is more stuff in my storage unit than I planned on, but some of the stuff I have in there is for my grandmother, when she finally gets to go back into her house. (She's still displaced from the flooding last September.)

The layout of the apartment was a bit different than I expected. The closet that looked like a pantry on the diagram I was given is actually a coat closet. (I'm sure if necessary, I could turn it into a pantry, but for now it's working good as a coat closet, because it's also housing my vacuum and my Swiffer.) My kitchen is also smaller than I was expecting -- I've only got about 3' of counter space, and I have to use my stove top as the place where my dishes dry. The bedroom is a bit bigger than I was expecting -- a queen-sized bed fits just fine in there leaving plenty of room to walk around it, too. The closet in the bedroom is also bigger than I was expecting -- it's got storage space up to the ceiling and the workable space is bigger than the closet I had at home. There are lilacs off my patio, and when the wind blows just right I can smell them. The view from my patio is a house with a huge, country-like backyard, so it feels very familiar. I like to eat breakfast out there on mornings I don't have to rush to the office.

The most immediate and pressing concern is Bailey. At my parents' house, I would leave for work and she'd go into my parents' room and go to bed. They'd be there all day, or most of the day, and when they'd leave she'd be familiar with the place and / or have Pacer there to keep her company. Here, in our apartment, she's faced with different circumstances. I am her only company, and the place is still so unknown to her that when I leave she freaks out. My boss gifted to me a Thundershirt to put on Bailey for when I leave, but it doesn't seem to help. Even the Thunderspray doesn't seem to help -- she whines, then yips, then barks, every time I leave. We go for a 15-20 minute walk around a park every morning and every evening, but it doesn't seem to be helping. (She even defecates between my morning departure and my lunchtime return, and I've started leaving newspapers and waterproof pads down.) I'm going to try to find a television station that plays Westerns because Bailey used to watch them with my parents. Thankfully, I have not received a phone call from the apartment managers, so my neighbors haven't complained to them, but that doesn't mean they aren't complaining. Yesterday, one of my neighbors -- the only one, in fact, who has thus far introduced herself --  told me that Bailey was barking the night before, when I stepped out for dinner with Jake and his mother. She'll yip and whine when I leave, and if she gets quiet at all, she'll bark when she hears one of my neighbors open / close their door, or when she hears a motor out front of the building, so it's hard to pinpoint the motive of her barking if it happens after I leave. I'm considering getting her a bark collar, but I don't know if it would help or not. I definitely don't want it deterring her from barking at all -- if someone knocks on the door, or someone comes in uninvited, I want her to bark. She sometimes barks at me or other dogs during playtime -- Berners are very vocal -- but I don't want her barking without a reason.
I'm sure that Bailey will eventually get over her separation anxiety. She had it pretty bad at home, too, before she got used to the place. It's just going to require patience on my part and the parts of my neighbors. (We've only been here a week. I've only left her four times in that week: once to do laundry, twice for work, and once for dinner.) I know that it's just going to take time, but there are a lot of people who could be missing out on sleep or peace before that time comes. The Thundershirt does help with her social anxiety and general anxiety -- I put it on her a few times when we'd go for walks or to check the mail, and now she doesn't bark at every person she sees. (Just when they're in the vicinity of the building.) I'd also put her Thundershirt on her when the neighbors would get kind of loud -- like coming-home times, or cleaning times. I'd accompany those with a "no" when she'd start to bark at them. I wish I could do the same for her when she yips / barks when I'm not home, but that's not possible. I just don't think there's much more that I can do than I've already done -- the work is now hers. Like a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, I can provide tools and go through exemplary motions to help someone out of a stressful situation, but I cannot actually do the work for that person -- they have to do it themselves.

I've also been struggling with my perfectionism -- I wanted the boxes unpacked and everything in its place before I went back to work. (HA!)
Yes, logically, it would have made my life so much easier if everything was out of the boxes and in its permanent living space before the craziness of my work schedule kicked back in, but that didn't happen. And it still hasn't happened. And it's frustrating. And it's hard to find motivation to fix it -- after all, I am the only one seeing it, so who cares? If it doesn't get done, I'm the only one who has to suffer the clutter. My fireplace is still besmirched with boxes. The little enclave where I was going to put Bailey's bed still has boxes in it. But, I need some shelves in my living room. Perhaps I can fix that this weekend.

Anyway, I need to take Bae out again and get back to Wedditing.
I'll share photos of the apartment once it gets closer to being finished.

Second Start

Before February has a real chance to prove or disprove my good vibe, there are a few things that need done.

First, I am going to get my taxes done. My community college has some accounting students doing taxes for free this year (again) so I am going to stop by there after work. Then, it's on to editing at a friend's house.

Saturday brings my dad's birthday dinner at his favorite restaurant. My love may join us. As will, undoubtedly, my cousins, my male cousin's girlfriend, and my grandma. This could get tricky.
This is a splurge that we really cannot afford at the moment, but, it's a birthday, and we make concessions for those.

Sunday is my dad's actual birthday. I don't know what's going to happen that day. He wants to drive to church, but he goes to church a long way away, and that would use 50% of the remaining gas in the tank, which needs to last another week until I get paid again, so I vote no on that. I may get overruled. I just don't want to deal with the "how am I going to get somewhere" thing that will undoubtedly happen.

Then comes the week.
I hope I am able to be productive and start spring cleaning. I was going to do that last week, but it didn't happen for multiple reasons.
I also need to take Bailey to the dog park and play some Frisbee with her. She's a good girl and needs to be rewarded for it.
And I need to get on preparing the pasture for goats: moving bits of fence about, checking for places that they could get out, etc. They're a lot more likely to be escape artists than the pony!

Bailey Bug

How does someone really write a post to follow those last two? I could have written others -- most of them along the same lines, full of self-dissatisfaction and confusion. But, while those things constantly exist in my life, they are not the only things that constitute my life, so I have chosen to write a much-needed update about my little fuzzy.
She has grown so much. I can't believe it's been two months since I updated on her. A lot has happened since then.
In early May we spent a week at my boyfriend's aunt's house in Denver. She learned about using doggie door and that it's okay to go outside and go potty without mommy there. It wasn't all peachy keen; she had some accidents while there. And she showed that she has separation anxiety. (Avid readers of this blog will remember that I mentioned these things in a non-Bailey-specific post.) She wasn't too sure about Andy, my boyfriend's uncle, but eventually warmed up to him. (Which is good, because he's got a dog spot in his heart.) There were two dogs in my boyfriend's aunt's house, Buella the pug and Angus the mutt. Buella didn't want to play --she's blind-- but didn't react aggressively when Bailey made motions to interact. Angus didn't want to play, either, at first, but they finally did get their play on. It was heartwarming to me to see her try to get him to play: she'd walk up to him with a toy in her mouth and put her paw up. Once he gave in and decided that she was okay, everyone was in a little more relaxed mood. (He doesn't get much play with other dogs, either, since Buella shows no more interest in him that she did in Bailey, and since his dog-friend, Millie, passed a few years ago.)
Nothing too exciting has happened so far in June. Her daddy --my boyfriend-- was here for a few days during the first week, so she got to spend some more time with him. It's been super hot here (with several 100+ degree days already) and she doesn't understand why we can't be outside more. She is getting spayed next week, though, when I will finally have the money to do so. One worry will be off my mind. Now I just need to worry about getting her the last of her booster shots, her rabies vaccination, and a microchip. 
I leave you with some photos and random stuffs, as usual:

Asleep after playing with, and then falling asleep on, her stick.

I love it when she lays like that. So cute and yet so heartbreaking.

She piles up her toys. She'll usually lay on one and play with another. What a dork.

She loves rawhides. It's hard to get a good snap of her while she's eating one: she's constantly in motion.

Yep, taking up more room in the kitchen. Growing like a weed.

Now that she knows what Frisbee is, she's all about it!

She is still fascinated by the goats next door. Every time we go out she still has to stare at them in [what I think is] awe. I'm sure her thinking is along the lines of, "Those are some funny looking dogs." (But, then again, she thought that about Buella the pug last month in Denver, too.) 

Bailey still does really well in the car.
I have seen more and more evidence of what she's learned from the dogs she's been around. (Some of it has me worried, I'm not going to lie.) 

Her nicknames haven't changed, though I think I have called her stink rat a few times. 

She still loves tearing up my memory foam mattress pad (!) when we go back to bed after our morning walks. (I did recently put a new sheet on to foil her efforts, though. A-ha!)

We often go to the Hen House, and she loves that she can go outside and run around without a leash on because the yard is fenced in. Sometimes, I even leave the door open so she can go in and out as she pleases. She does insist at least once a day while we're over there that I drop everything I'm doing and go out and play with her. (That is where we can safely play Frisbee, by the way.)