An Extraordinary Life

Chapter 28 - Living alone and being myself

I enjoyed living alone very much as I was being myself a hundred percent. I loved my personality and would change nothing about it. I made a few friends from work. We would go out for lunch, dinner, and dancing. They even took me camping once, which was my first time and something I had always wanted to do.

The boyfriend of one of my girlfriends was a pothead and shared a joint with me when I was invited over for dinner. We also smoked and took shots at the camp where I threw up like a fountain out of control. I felt so embarrassed and went to sleep. I was half dead in the morning and felt as if I were dying from the hangover, which I'd never experienced before. I couldn't function and slept like a log in the car.

My girlfriends who didn't drink and smoke were getting annoyed waiting for me to go to the beach all morning, so I got off my butt unwillingly and pretended like I was okay. I threw up again while walking to the beach after about a ten minute car ride. I would have been hated by my friends if I threw up in the car. After that and plenty of water, I finally came out of the horrible hangover and wondered how drunks like my husband dealt with these all the time.

My girlfriend even matched me up with her friend once but I wasn't interested in him. He was an out-of-shape older white guy who wasn't my type at all but I thanked her for her thoughtfulness even though I wasn't looking.

I started to watch day-time talk shows like Oprah, Dr. Phil, Ellen, and later The Doctors, and Dr. Oz. I started out watching with captions as I couldn't hear clearly from people speaking too quickly or with heavy accents. I was inspired by Oprah and learned a lot from Dr. Phil and the other doctors. I so hoped that it was my husband receiving the heated talks from Dr. Phil with no excuses he could make up. I also read magazines of health, psychology, and fashion, as well as story books every day for hours. I was preparing myself during my daily routine to write a story without even knowing it.

I smoked weed on and off again for about two years. I asked my girlfriend's boyfriend to get me half an ounce when he was buying and smoked half a small joint almost every night to watch a movie before going to bed. I left the job for another full-time job with better pay and future about half a year later but still saw my friends for lunch or birthday dinners.

It was freezing cold and snowing on one of the first few days that I worked there. I slipped and fell when I stepped inside the front door on the mat and landed with my head on the marble floor. I had no sense of falling until after I fell. I got up with serious head pain and tears in my eyes. Our driver took me to a walk-in clinic to check it out, and the doctor said I was okay with just a bump on my head and no bleeding.

I drove home to rest but in the middle of the night, I felt dizzy with my head spinning. I didn't know if I had a concussion or not, but thought I'd be okay since I did not throw up. I just slept through it with no idea that I could die in my sleep. I had a decreasing concussion for the next two days and survived. Stupid but lucky me!

A few days later, another worker got injured, bled, and felt a strange feeling. We were working at a car dealership in a brand new building. We heard that weird accidents happened in new buildings quite often because it disturbed the spirits of the old place or something like that.

One day while having lunch with my ex-colleague, my close friend told me he saw a family of ghosts appearing in the basement of the building where he was washing cars every day and that they caused our injuries. That explained the strange feeling I had whenever I went down there. I found it a bit difficult to walk down a flight of stairs where I could get lost and felt uncomfortable being in there even though it was bright with lights. I could have gone to talk to him every day many times but I preferred to read a book. He was okay with it as he had gotten used to seeing ghosts and didn't tell me because he did not want to scare me. I was glad that I could only feel it and not see it.