Today I did not know what I wanted to write about and I decided to take a request. So I went up to my Dad, who was sitting on his computer in our kitchen, and I just asked him what I should write a blog about. He said, "How about how you are driving you father nuts!" I thought about it for a minute, chuckling at the idea, and decided that it sounds like a great idea. I mean, sure, why not talk about how he is going crazy with me being home.
Chapter 1 - School Time
So anyway, back in May of this year I was searching all over Colorado for a job in my field. Graduation was just around the corner and I wanted a head start on the competition. Looking back, a head start might have been something more closely related to maybe January or February, but I had a life to live and a lot of stuff to do. Which leads back to the point that I was getting as best a head start as was possible. I applied all over Boulder, then all over Colorado, and then I started looking in California where my best friends were (at the time). To say the least, there was no return on my time and I probably could have spent it better goofing off.
Then graduation came, I remember being in the car with my parents and my little brother as we were trying to cross 28th Street during rush hour and about three graduation ceremonies. It was not going well. So my Dad is frustrated that we left so late because I had to get back from a graduation party hosted by my department and there are police officers not directing traffic. And that's when I drove him insane, when I hopped out of the car and said, "See you at the ceremony," as I ran off up the street. To be fair (to myself), I was going to be late and that was the worst thing that could happen because they would just kick me out of the ceremony and move on. So I high-tailed it up the hill with my cap and gown in hand to make it to my own graduation.
Chapter 2 - The Progressive Progress of Anti-Progressive Nature
Now let me push forward about two weeks. School is out, my apartment is kicking me out, and I still do not have a career in my desired field. Looks like I'm going home to live with my parents for a while, oh joy! With the help of my little brother, we packed my car up to the top with all my stuff (and even left some stuff in his apartment and in the hallway). After that, we hugged and all that good stuff, and then I was on the short road home to a house full of people that truly just wanted me to live there.
I get home about an hour later (seriously, I do not live that far from where I went to school) and I started unloading almost all my stuff from my car. Most of it gets hauled up to my room, by myself mind you, and the rest I left in my car to be trucked somewhere else. What an exciting day! Needless to say, after moving so much stuff by myself I decided to go to sleep, but thus began the first day that I was home.
For the next two months or so, I spend every weekday scrounging the internet and looking for careers in my field of choice. I do not sleep, I do not just play video games, but instead I am searching constantly for some work to do. I did manage to score a few interviews, but those obviously did not get me anywhere. And besides looking on the internet for careers and jobs and just about anything that will get me started down my respective field, I spent the rest of the time with friends. We would go out for coffee, ball games, talk on the phone, or whatever I could get in my secluded lifestyle. That is what sucks about living at home, you have to live somewhere that no one else ever really wanted to live and that is why they moved out. Which by the way, let me just put my perspective down on what a household, an apartment, and a back alley way are.
- Household - A wonderful place to cut your ties from the rest of the world and settle down. It has more responsibilities but comes with the open mind that you can actually own stuff and take care of your stuff. Most people do not, but whatever. This is also a wonderful environment to raise children under the age of sixteen in, but after that point becomes a living hell-hole for them. Honestly, there's got to be something smarter than this for people to settle in when they are ready to stop talking to the rest of the world.
- Apartment - Either a degrading or wonderful experience that gives you the ability to live on your own while not really managing your house's main fixtures very often. You get to live in a community that supports a wide range of individuals and can lead to many new friends. The cost for having such an amazing place to live, a social environment, and the ability to not feel cut-off from the rest of the world is that you do not always get to select what you want and where you want it. Still, because you do not own it you can at any point in time just cut ties and move on.
- Back Alley - Probably the most freedom based option over all the above, this non-secluded living space offers a vast variety of non-commitment related life options. For one, you can choose any spot you like to plot down and live in, given that the spot is not taken by someone else, and you can be next to the dumpster or that stain that looks very much like someone vomited there. Not to mention that there are no restrictions on what you can have, be it pets, personal hair-care products, or unfathomable diseases not normally seen in first world culture. And since there are no commitments, you may take your personal belongings with you at any time and just leave.
As a side note, this was also the period in time when I thought I was going to a wedding, then it turned out the wedding was cancelled, then Colorado was on fire, then there was a shooting, and so on and so forth of all the bad things that could happen in a single time period. I've written blogs about those, I do not think I want to saturate this blog post with them anymore than a mention. Anyway, I am just trying to point out that for the most part I really did not have much time with my Dad for him to get annoyed. In fact, the only time we actually did spend together was when he was in the kitchen playing around on his computer and I would come in for my cup of coffee. I am not sure how exactly getting a cup of coffee could annoy anyone.
What I think annoys him about me being home is that my Mom and I were starting to spend more and more time together. He used to say, "I'll get out of the room so you two can jibber jabber," which I think left him feeling left out of our fantastic conversations. The fact of the matter is, my Mom and I have real world problems going on in our heads and we talk to each other to relieve the stress that those problems bring us. And because we are both trying to talk about our problems, we tend to have complex and confusing conversations where multiple topics have to be tracked at once. Sad to say, my father (along with a lot of people) cannot follow our level of conversation. Which leads to the point that he must have felt left out because we would prefer to keep our conversations at a fast and quick pace.
And I think that whole leaving him out while we talk for maybe an hour a day has left him feeling like I am the problem. Like maybe he would be able to get more in-depth conversations with my Mom if I was out of the picture and they could talk about things that relate to his life and less about things that relate to mine. He does not think my problems are very big ones and as such does not tend to understand the level of stress I undergo.
Chapter 3 - The Puppy Predicament
Well life in our household was sort of floating by on a small string, a thread that could be easily cut should one of us fall out of place. Still, we all managed to live together and work around each-other like families in a household tend to have to. But there was one thing that we all really desired and wanted in our lives, something we thought would fulfill each of us and actually create a bigger bond between us, a new dog. It had been approximately six months since our family had a dog in the house and the whole place was starting to feel a bit lonely with our golden gone. And being the clever people that my Mom and I were, we had begun searching for a new puppy to fill our hearts and spare time.
One day Jodi was over, supposedly working on her résumé or a cover letter, when she found a dog that looked perfect. It was exactly what we had been looking for, an Australian shepherd with bright-baby-blue eyes and a beautiful trifecta of coloring. So the three of us hopped in the car, leaving my Dad out of the whole thing because he was taking to long, and dashed over to Bennet, Colorado to pick up a new puppy. We bought one.
What was supposed to be the big uniter of our family actually tore us apart for a while, because none of us could agree on the name. I think this really annoyed my Dad, because he kept coming up with names that both my Mom and me shot down instantly on the spot. And beyond that, this was supposed to be a family dog but we could all already tell that this dog was really bonding with my Mom and me more than the whole family. So I think that also annoyed my Dad since he has been the technical owner of all our previous canine pets (pcp for short?). And I thin the fact that we keep yelling at him and tell him he is teaching her all the wrong habits is also getting on his nerves. In fairness, I do speak English and I do tend to be upfront and tell people things. When I say to act like such around the dog and to not let the dog do such, I am being very serious because I have something bigger planned. My Dad does not like this, he thinks I am disrespecting him when really I am trying to do what is best for the puppy. And I think the fact that I have been winning every battle has been annoying him too.
But on a similar front, I am not the only one taking care of this dog and he does have the time and opportunity to make this his valuable pet as well. The problem is he would much rather watch the news with the dog at his feet than watch the dog with no news on the damn television screen. (Television News broadcasts really annoy me because it is all that plays in our house now).
Chapter 4 - The Conclusions
Am I annoying my Father? I think that is dependable upon how you see our interactions. However, in my own mind I do think that I am not an annoying son but rather a complimenting person to a better, more rich and fulfilling lifestyle. So I do not know why he really wanted me to write a blog about this. What I do know is that I am trying to search for a job to get out of my parents house and I am trying to find something that I love to do so that I can continue doing that for the rest of my life. I do not want to live with my family forever, I do not want to drive my Father insane, and I do not know why he keeps acting like it is my goal every day.
And I think my Dad needs to remember that for every instance I annoy him, he touches my nerves the exact same way back. It's mutual and maybe that is how it should be. Anyway, I thought I would show him enough respect that I write a blog to his request.
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