Yeah, yeah, long time, no write, I know. You would think that since my life is very much wake up, go to work, work, go home, do something that resembles productivity (jury is still out), go to bed and do it all over again, I would have time to blog. I do but I don't. Days crawl by and other days go by so fast I wake up on Monday and by the time I get home it's Friday and I don't know what happened.
Guess what though? In about 15 days I will have finished my first semester at UAlbany as an Assistant Director! CRAZY
Like whoa, no way, how the heck is that even possible? In a week, I will have officially been a New Yorker for 5 months. 5! I know, it's kinda insane.
In those 5 months I became a resident of New York, learned that I definitely picked up a midwestern accent and that the locals say "coffee" like "kwa-fee" and that I pronounce it incorrectly, that yoga and church are probably the only things keeping me from pulling my hair out from both work and lack of a social life, and that I'm going to pick up wine-drinking as a hobby. No really, I want to try all the wines and just become a total wine snob but in an "I'm an adult and classy" way. I even have real glasses and I bought a bottle of wine that was OVER $20 (it was $22 and on sale) but yeah it's going to be a thing. I also learned that people will totally take advantage of you and that even when you try to be nice they'll run you over (or write letters to the president, or make a claim on your car insurance when you should have just gone to the body shop on your own) and I've also learned that I, contrary to popular belief that I held for a very, very, long time, that I cannot make friends with everyone AND many people will not want to be my friend (shocking, I know). I fired staff, I hired more, we ran events, we canceled them, and I compared myself to every single boss I have had, every other recreation professional I knew and I come up short every time. But my new boss man says things are looking up and has commended me. And I was dumb enough to sit there and ask if he was sure. LOL. I asked my boss who was giving me praise if he was sure he wanted to give me an Atta Girl. Blame it on the blonde hair. I'm terrible at accepting praise. I should say thank you and let it build me up but instead I'm all awkward and like "Oh gee, thanks, but what criteria are you basing that off of? Do you have data to back up that statement? How actually do you know for certain that I am doing well?" I can literally hear my aunt scream at her computer screen "For goodness' sake, Marissa, SHUT UP!"
So yeah. It's been a fun 4 months and 22 days. Not that I'm counting or anything.
Anyway, that's the not-so-brief update on my life.
What I really wanted to blog about was my Thanksgiving vacation. I took the whole week (eek, a whole week from work?!?) and it was pretty freaking awesome. I spent the first half of the week visiting Salukiville before I headed to Dallas to spend it with my aunt and uncle (dad's side) with their family and extended families.
But first my terrible, almost didn't make my connecting flight trip, to St. Louis...ugh. United strikes again, with a 2 hour delay that had me waiting for my carry-on luggage (they ran out of overhead space so had to go underneath but 'missed' it when they brought them all out...) and I was sprinting, not jogging SPRINTING through the airport in Newark as I heard "Marissa Allen to gate A24, the plane is about to depart." and I'm just about to cry when I see A freaking 24. Hallelujah.
Run onto the plane and then we proceeded to sit on the runway for another hour. Gee that would have really sucked to not make it and just see it sitting there on the runway not going anywhere.
But I made it and my friend Sophie was waiting for me in St. Louis to take me back to my beloved Salukiville.
And while I want to tell you all about how I sat and chatted with so many friends and went out to my favorite bar (well more like the one I most frequented back in my glory days) and couldn't stay up past 1am (I'm a total grandma) and how I went to lunch with my coworkers and boss and it felt like I had never left, I can't. It's not the same and I definitely left. I'm not a GA anymore and a lot has changed. I'm totally going to blame the wine but I tear up thinking about it now.
I saw my Associate Director and Director and it was so hard to not beg for a job. As much as I am happy to have a chance in New York, the familiarity of their faces, my old desk, and being around the other GA's make that trip down nostalgia lane downright unbearable. But as much as I invested my heart and soul into that place, I had to remember I was a tourist, a visitor. I was able to answer a few patron questions while there, it hasn't changed so so much but it was a weird feeling. Little things like signage and wall color make a big difference. And the not so little things like moving of offices, new faces that don't recognize me, and seeing my old friends with new friends was, well odd. I came back and my roommate got a girlfriend. I came back and one of the GA's moved his office downstairs and changed his title completely. Another student staff member got a promotion and I remembered her working underneath me and was really proud to see her succeed. And another good friend and I talked to the wee hours of the morning about our lives and even though she thinks it's in shambles, she's goign to go places. Even if it's in the back of her car as she camps out in the wilderness or hikes the pacific crest trail, but she's going to be just fine. But it was a lot to take in all together. And I wasn't even a little bit prepared.
I was feeling down and I guess I thought that seeing it changed would make me feel like I helped, that seeing them succeed without me was the ultimate goal. And I am proud and for as much bad they've been handed with budget cuts and hard times, they're still grinding away and making it work. It's not the same but in a lot of ways it's better. And that's great. I just wish I didn't feel like I had been gone a decade. So I took a walk on campus and retraced my old path to class. I'm such an emotional cutter- nostalgia, listening to the new Adele album (bad choice) and then I met up with a student who was there the first day I started working. J was the first student staff member I met, our boss Lane introduced us as we walked into the meeting with all the other student staff members to meet me and get started in the Fall of 2013. And it was such an awkward encounter because we were both new and not really sure of what was going on and Lane goes "Hey, J! Meet Marissa, the new GA, she's from California and J, well his brother and I are real close, and he's a new uncle! Isn't that right, J?" He went on but I was so embarrassed I stopped listening. I think J did too.
We ended up being pretty good friends though as J and I got paired up together by the old GA, Bridget, (remember her? Blast from the past!) in Flag Football clinics and I leaned over to J and told him that I kinda fibbed and actually didn't know that much about how to be a field judge because we only ran 3-man crews for officials at Davis, not 4-man. He laughed and goes well, guess I'm running the show, and we got by BS-ing our way through teaching the baby officials. And that's how we became friends and not just work acquaintences.
So J is graduating in December and I got the chance to see him again and it was like nothing skipped a beat, just talking and shooting the breeze like old times I would go out to the fields with J and watch mediocre flag football or Lacorsse practice. As we walked back to the Rec we both realized that we didn't know when we would see eachother again. I wish that was the only time I cried. But it wasn't. I had dinner with my friends and we shared lots of laughs and teased a lot but it felt good to laugh and be around them again. So leaving was realy difficult. I said bye to my old co-worker, PJ and definitely got his jacket wet with my tears. I said bye to my old boss and couldn't handle it. He tried to be all hard-ass on me, but I know he misses me too. I'm a cryer. Always have been but this time it was like the flood gates opened up. It's a little more real that I'm not there anymore. It's a lot more apparent that I live so incredibly far away. And it's blantantly clear that I am a grown up now and I can't keep trying to be a kid anymore. I had a good time but I can't recreate it, they moved on, so should I. My director did tell me that I always had a home there, and that he was proud of me. And yes, I do consider SIU a home, but Albany is my new home.
And I'm getting there. It's only been 5 months since I have moved but I have made friends, and I am getting a routine. And my current boss, is pretty good. He's very understanding that I am painfully young and naive, and that it's going to take a bit to go from GA to professional. And by a bit, we mean like 100 to 200 mistakes and oops and yeah...that was probably dumb but hey, it's ok. And already he's given me a lot of confidence that he has my back and that we can succeed. I got pretty lucky to already have had 2 darn good bosses. But let's not jinx it.
Anyway, my trip to Salukiville was pretty nice and it was the most social I had been in about 4 months. I saw and reminisced and the whole time I came back to Soph's from saying good bye to someone, she let me cry. Sophie let me be my crying self and then she would get really real with me and we even had a heart to heart about how I finally had to move on from that one dumbdumb who I was still pining for. Ugh. The dating world is so lame. Nothing liike moving away from someone who apparently wasn't "just trying to be single" as I saw him with the new gf. Ouch. Guess "being single" meant "not with you". Classic. Wellllll I'm just about on a first name basis with the cashier at the wine store (they don't sell wine in grocery stores here, worst idea ever) so I think if I'm invited to a holiday party I'll just ask him. So yeah. There's that. Hope his wiffe's ok with it. (I'm totally joking, Mom.)
Then we packed up and headed north to Chicago to catch a flight and for Soph to spend Thanksgiving with her loved ones. We got stuck in typical Chicago traffic madness and I owe her more than just a christmas card for her putting up with me (love you mean it, Soph!) but it was so good to road trip with her again. Long talks and yes, more tears, but lots of laughs too.
I spent a quick 20 hours with my oldest friend, Madge, in her home in Chicago before she took me to the airport the next day. We have always had a long distance relationship, so it was nice to see her even if just for a quick stay. We went to dinner with her parents and we watched tv and again I was reminded that with the true friends, it's easy, and it's like there is no span of time or space between that can make it awkward. We fall right back into place. So to my Illinois Family, thank you for a great trip back. Please know how much you all, and I mean you all, truly mean to me.
My next blog will be about my trip to Dallas for An Allen/Marois/Porter Family Thanksgiving, aka the one dozen people, 6 dogs and a baby in one house for Thanksgiving sleeping arrangement nightmare of 2015. Not joking or exaggerating. not even a little bit.
Til then, I'm just going to drink my wine and totally avoid my email.
To be continued!
