Mindscape

2017

Ah, a new year has begun. Here's to hoping it's a good one. So I guess this'll just be a review of the year.
• New Years was spent how it usually is, at my grandparent's house with my family. We play card games and blast music and all the adults get drunk and we try to stay up until midnight to do the count down. My dad actually stayed up that time, which he usually doesn't. And then some of us (including me) go to bed. If I recall correctly, I was the only one that went to be after midnight that time, everyone else stayed up until around 2.
• The remainder of winter break was going back and forth between my grandparent's house and mine, I don't recall anything happening worth mentioning.
• The spring semester started mid-January. I took Beginning ceramics (which I loved), sociology (so-so), world history II (the Professor was kind of a weirdo, and made me get up during the final and go to his office to finish because he didn't want to have to stay the full two hours that was our allotted test time), honors forum (useless, didn't learn anything, didn't count toward my degree), and academic/professional writing (also loved, good/educational experience).
• I didn't have a roommate that semester. My previous one moved out the day before I moved back in after break and didn't tell me, so I had to go buy a microwave. Honestly I was totally okay with her moving out because she was obnoxious as a roommate. Between coming back late, drunk, and waking me up, telling me that I needed to rearrange the furniture because feng shui, worrying herself over my study habits when she was the one barely passing her classes, and snoozing her alarm for three hours every morning, I was glad she was gone.
• I made some friends in ceramics! First was Laura, who sat at the same table as me. Then Kylie, who was at the table next to mine. They were more acquaintances than anything that semester, but we became actual friends the next semester. Adrian was in a more advanced class than me since he was a ceramics major, but he would come into our class to do wheel throwing, and I would see him working on stuff in the afternoons when I would go make clay or whatever. We hit it off and would hang out, working on stuff in the ceramics lab or going for dinner. But about half way through the semester he got into a misunderstanding with campus police, and ended up having to check into a psychiatric hospital. We texted a bit, but fell out of touch for the most part.
• Though I did have a few acquaintances and a sort of friend, the spring semester was pretty terrible in terms of my mental health. I was very lonely. If I wasn't in class, the cafeteria, or the ceramics lab working on stuff, I was in my room. I spent the vast majority of the semester by myself. And being by myself led to a lot of negative thinking, which is never good. I had a few breakdowns where I would just cry and feel miserable for hours. In my writing class, I wrote about the injury I sustained during high school soccer, and that brought up an onslaught of despair and bitterness. I finally mourned the loss of the one thing that really mattered to me, and cried nonstop for two whole hours one weekend. It was not a good semester for me emotionally.
• Summer was a bit busy. My dad got into the inflatables business, where we rent out bounce houses and slides. It's harder than it looks. And there's a lot more competition than we anticipated. We work as a branch for an established company, but compete for customers against freelance dealers. The only problem is that people would rather rent a cheap, unkept unit than a clean one for a few dollars more. We put a lot of effort into maintaining the quality of our units, but people go for price before quality in our area. We've barely made any money back in almost a year of having this business. We can't afford to hire people to help, so it's just me and my dad, and sometimes my mom, cleaning and rolling up the units. My mom and I are getting worried though, because my dad has been having back problems, and with no one to help they're only getting worse. At this point we're trying to convince him to give up the business for the sake of his health, but he feels like if he does then he's failed.
• My bro got married! We were in charge of the rehearsal dinner as the family of the groom, and it turned out great. The decorations were on point, and they were really happy with it. It was a lovely wedding, and our whole family cried, including my bro. The reception was pretty good as well. The food for both the rehearsal and reception was great. My bro picked out for the rehearsal without the approval of his fiancée, which my mom fussed him for because he was supposed to ask but forgot, but it turned out good anyway.
• About a month after my bro's wedding, our grandmother passed away. She had been battling multiple myeloma (a type of blood cancer) since August of 2016, and just finished stem cell treatment three months prior. We all thought that she would be able to ring the bell symbolizing that she was in remission, but it didn't happen. She started chemo again, and was doing well enough to participate in my brother's wedding, but then she got pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. She eventually had to be put on life support, and that's not really something you can recover from. She had been able to tell my mom and aunts what she wanted before everything happened, so in compliance with her wishes, the doctors were under orders to not resuscitate her. She was taken off of life support and died three days later, on July 3rd. We all got to say goodbye to her, and her siblings, who had not been on speaking terms for years, finally made up, and we think that that is what finally allowed her to stop fighting to hold on and pass in peace. My dad and I had to go back home to do the business, so we weren't at the hospital when she passed, but I cried for a solid hour when mom called to tell us. I try not to think about it to much, but the holidays were especially hard last year without her. I tried to go visit my grandpa as many weekends as possible during the fall semester. It's still pretty hard for him, but my aunt and uncle moved in next door to him, so I think that's helping a lot. She wanted to be cremated, so we had a memorial service for her instead of a funeral, and everybody cried but shared good memories of her.
• We got kittens! The cat that lives at my grandpa's house had kittens and when they were old enough we took two. They're both black, and they're names are Smokey