Day 9: Fewer Pictures, More Words

That's a can opener on the couch. I swear.

I have come to realize that I should be a therapist. There must be some sort of aura about me that screams: "TELL ME YOUR LIFE STORY. I'M A GREAT LISTENER!"

With friends, I've been a good shoulder to cry on, but this comes with the territory of having friends, right? I mean, if I don't let sog up my shoulder, who the hell am I gonna turn to if I'm the weepy one??

Recently, I've been meeting new people at this semester's intern site, and I must have some secret key that makes people want to open their floodgates of baggage. The guy who comes in to empty the trash stopped in the breakroom, where I was munching my dinner in peace, to tell me his life story. Granted, he did travel lots when he was young and worked in many different countries, I didn't ask for this unloading of information! Maybe one day, I'll be grateful to all the random people who tell me their life lessons and shit, but right now, I'm simply bewildered! Another woman was telling me about the joys (or NOT) of working while trying to raise a baby. It was super cute, and I'm more inclined to gush about babies than chat about world travels (cuz I am SO well versed in the ways of the world…not). But honestly, the way we were blabbing on and on about the wonders of raising a babe, you would've thought I was a new mom, too. YEESH.

I did discover from conversations with a different coworker that she's the cousin of someone who graduated from high school with me. That was a frickin' "SMALL WORLD" moment for me. It was someone I didn't know very well, so the conversation definitely died after the discovery, but STILL! What a small world! And yet ANOTHER gentleman whom I met on the first day of interning told me about his growing-up adult kids who are all away from home, either at college or somewhere else finding themselves. He expressed to me his frustration that his daughter had majored in communications, but is now doing something completely different at her current workplace. Blah blah blah... It was fascinating and all, to hear other people's wishes and worries, to see how they view life and respond to challenges, but seriously, I feel like an EMOTIONAL LANDFILL. That term is amazingly self-explanatory; I'm so proud that I made it up myself!

And I do feel heavy and burdened with everyone else's problems. HOWEVER, I am sometimes to blame for bringing it upon myself. I take such great satisfaction in letting people unload their hopes and fears because I know that people like to bottle things up and not let on that everything isn't hunky-dory. I don't know if it's because I think so highly of myself in my knowledge and ability to calm people, or if it's from all my experience of "counseling" friends, but I seem to think that I am someone who can advise people objectively (most of the time…), make them see things from a different perspective, and help them realize that it's all going to be okay. That reminds me of a quotation:

"Everything will be okay in the end; if it's not okay, it's not the end."

It just makes me smile to know that most of trivial things we fret about is not going to end the world; we're all going to be okay! [But now that I think of it, if things ARE going okay, should we be thinking, "OH SHIT, THIS IS IT. It's the end of everything as we know it!" Nah. I'll keep on being sunshiney.

Okay, on to lighter things.

Short list of things I've done in the last couple weeks:

1. Small dinner party (crockpot merlot chicken FTW! I amaze myself sometimes.)
2. ROOMIE'S frickin' graduation (seriously, she's leaving me for SoCal, and I hafta fend for myself all by my lonesome!)
3. So much shopping (this needs to stop, since I have no income to speak of)
4. Lotsa cooking for the Seester, who has just moved into an apartment (and she has no kitchenware/cooking skills/sense of responsibility/etc)
5. No studying (oh, right…that's normal)
6. Cleaned up my room partially and rearranged the living room
7. Decided to refurbish a clock and a canister for the bathroom to make it matchy-matchy with what the new apt-mate wants (it's okay cuz I love being artsy and craftsy!)
8. Successfully uncorked a bottle of wine with a regular corkscrew (it took SO MUCH arm strength; definitely need to work out ASAP)
9. Helped Metro move back in town (he's doing research for the summer; thank god I have someone to suffer with)
10. Installed Windows 7 on my laptop! Finally! (okay, I lie; my cousin did it, but it's amazing!)

Although the days are dragging by, it's nearly June. WTF, where is all the time going?? It's almost midterms, and I'm totally screwed.

On the bright side, the BF is home from the wrong coast! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :]