Paint a black hole, blacker…

What are the ingredients for a bad day? It could be a multitude of things. Time constraints. Children. Money. A nagging spouse. A demanding boss. A professor who sucks at teaching. The list goes on. As humans, were genetically predisposed to feeling the emotional backlash brought on by good days and bad days. That’s life. Not everyday will be peachy, and that’s okay. It teaches us how to adapt to the unpredictable nature of life. It teaches us to tap into our inner strength and exercise more patience, while humbling us all the the while . Whenever a friend calls me complaining of their bad day and what caused it, I lend an ear, offering up some advice. But I never forget to tell them, “It’s in your hands, you can choose to continue wallowing in that black hole or you can look around, remind yourself of all the good surrounding you.” Sometimes this statement is much easier said than done.  But I know it best because it’s something I had to teach myself, working through the tarnish and then though a lot of polishing, learning to practice a more beautiful outlook. To wake the deepest layer of the subconscious and realize that you always had the power to control your emotions better than you thought you did is a most pleasant surprise.

I used to think that if I had a bad day, it was bad because of things that happened that day. Example bad day:

• Late for class
• Professor prohibits me from taking quiz because I’m late. Lose points. Great.
• Lunchtime: they screw up my order. Wow.
• Someone opens their car door and hits my car in the process. Double wow.
• Traffic jam on way back to class. Am I really gonna be late again? Damn…
• Trip on uneven concrete and snap sandal. Win.
• Go home to find my window is leaking, carpet wet. Sigh…

And while unlucky circumstances are definitely ingredients to a bad day, I soon realized that it was indeed me who made it seem that much worse, starting with my despondent attitude.

So I changed it. Testing myself with regard to controlling my own attitude.

Life’s got plenty of tests waiting for you; self-actualization at its best. Testing your strength.  Testing your patience. Testing your morality. Testing your confidence. Testing your humility. Testing your love. Testing your disposition. Testing, testing, testing. Always seeing just how much we can give of ourselves mentally and physically to trudge on day by day. But the thing I realized through growth, is just how much control we have over the outcome of our day. We can decide for ourselves what kind of day it will be despite those inconvenient curveballs.

Look around, you’ve got your health, your family, your friends, even your loyal pet lab who’s always ecstatic to see you walk through the door. These are small tokens of gratitude that are so often overlooked by many.

We possess more control over the context of our day that we let on. Many people fail to make this connection. They get lost in the negativity that transpired that day and unknowingly sulk in that black hole of unhappiness. Some at their worst do it for days. They become melancholic sloths of listless, emotional apathy. But there’s so much they could do to better their mood. They can choose to let these things envelop them, taken for hostage within that black hole, or they can choose the latter.

I think I’ll choose the latter.

The beauty of living is that each day holds new opportunity, another chance waiting for you to take life by the hand and assess things. So will you continue to wander aimlessly through that black hole and paint it blacker, or will you take control with how you’re feeling? When a slew of negative thoughts comes on, I remind myself of how much beauty there is to life. And there’s beauty even in the negative. It gives us lessons, and without these lessons we would be more inclined to take things for granted, forget an otherwise humble existence and forget about modesty, leading us astray into the self-destruction of our own temperament.

In extreme cases of melancholy, I look to nature for solace. Never underestimate what a quiet walk on a forest trail can do for your thoughts, assisting you in the rationalization of things. Or a solo trip to the beach in the evening, getting lost in the receding tide, filling your lungs with the salty air and defragmenting the day.

And while some would prefer to confide in their friends about whatever went wrong that day, there’s something so welcoming about the environment, having a seemingly open door policy to our emotions. Offering a plethora of wide open spaces where one can vent, daydream, hibernate;  maybe for hours or just a little while.

Next time you feel that black hole coming on, don’t paint it blacker. The beauty to life is that it’s ever changing, evolving and with each new day, commencing some new idea or inviting you to embark on a new task. So take life in stride, take the good with the bad, the ups and downs. It’s all about adaptation.

What I learned from having roommates

Ah, roommates…

So I feel like that dreary nine month period in which I shared my life with roommates deserves a proper blog post. Mainly because of the strange going-ons that I experienced on a daily basis. I moved in with people who I didn’t know  in an effort to save money and pay down debt. Happy to report that the debts are now alleviated but during that time, it was one hell of a ride. Living with other people taught me many things but above all, the big one that stood out was, you really learn about a person from how they keep their living space. It wasn’t before long where I came off as the OCD neat freak of the house. I’ve always been one who with age, kind of fell into an AM routine and had an ingrained need for order and cleanliness. See below:

• Wake, wash face
• Brew coffee
• Make bed
• Pick up anything strewn on the floor
• Check laundry; throw in a load if needed
• Unload dishwasher if needed, etc. etc…

Apparently my roommates didn’t share the same ideology as I. Our respective rooms, without any effort, were like night and day. Mine, neat and orderly, art on the walls and photos of friends and family. I even had flowerpots adorning my side of the deck. And the roommates? Many times their rooms looked like a tornado hit, littered with cups, dishes and leftover Chinese takeout. Piles of laundry beckoned to get done. There was seemingly no order, no structure. Laziness seemed to be the name of their game.

Without trying to sound like a complete bitch, I just didn’t quite grasp how people couldn’t take their butt from the couch and pick up after themselves. We’ve all seen them: you know, the kind that leave little trails around the house. Trails of half full cups, crumbs scattered about, a skillet from like, two days ago. Yea those were my roommates. It’s not that I’m allergic to roommates, I’m allergic to slob roommates. Yea. That’s it.

So, partly to recount my time there and partly for your comic relief, below I’ve highlighted some memorable weird and head scratching moments from my nine month stint with those people. The roommates.

• L. was blatantly unaware of her menacing hairball left in the bottom of the shower every time she exited. Initially,I would grab it and stash it in the trash. Then, it got old. One day I finally spoke up, reminded her to be considerate since we both shared that bathroom. It seemed to work for a bit, then she fell into her old slob habits once again. I took her hairball and slathered it on the side of the tub for her to see the following morning, 6:00 am sharp. 🙂 It never happened again.
• The spice cabinet in the kitchen was always stocked. I tend to cook many things with olive oil. The roommates followed that trend. Only thing was, when they used the olive oil they never replaced it. Never offered to buy new. Just take, take, take. So like a parent does with a child, I took the toy away. Yes, I hid olive oil in my room. I was an olive oil sleuth. And guess what, it worked after like two months of no olive oil.
• Toilet paper; paper towels. Necessities of a household right? The roommates and I took turns with these purchases. Then, chronic laziness set in. It took like, forever to restock. Seriously. We were out of paper towels for a straight month one time. Many trips to the grocery store, I was tempted to pick some up but then thought, what’s the point? Toilet paper also took forever. I bought my own but eventually burrowed that in my room too, curious to see how long it took before they realized they had nothing to wipe their behinds with.
• If I dirtied a dish, I took it down and washed it. It didn’t get the opportunity to stand idle in my room for hours let alone days. My roommate J. apparently found it too difficult to walk his dishes down to the sink and wash them. One day while emptying the dishwasher, I noticed there was next to nothing left. No cups, very few dishes and one bowl. Pffft. He didn’t start taking his dishes down promptly until someone pointed out there was no dishes left. Really?
• To make matters worse with the dishes, many times they weren’t even washed thoroughly. I would grab a spoon and it was greasy. Or there would be cemented food  on a bowl because someone was too lazy to exert some elbow grease in there. It was maddening. One day, while unloading the dishwasher and putting the washed items away, I threw all the dirty, greasy dishes in the sink, and left them there out of frustration. I wasn’t about to wash someone else’s dishes; these were people in their twenties, fully capable of washing dishes. Or so I thought…
• When it came to laundry, B. didn’t understand why her whites had a bland pink cast to them. I told her “Separate whites, reds and darks and that won’t happen.”  B. always threw everything in there like a jumbled colorful soiled mess. She nodded and said, “Ohhhhh…” Yea; you gotta be smarter than the washing machine darling.
• The refrigerator was separated into respective sections for our own food. My groceries were on the bottom, L.’s in the middle, and so on. I began to notice my milk would be opened, or my three pack of New York strips were down to one; a stick of butter missing…I didn’t say anything but started to label my food. This seemed to ease the confusion. As if people can’t differentiate between the bottom shelf and the top? I guess that was too hard.
• On occasion, L. would dog-sit a tiny, yapping Chihuahua. The most useless dog I’ve ever seen. Anyway, the dog wasn’t potty trained and emptied out his bowels or bladder wherever he so pleased. Problem was, when L. went to clean up after the dog, she would simply wet a washcloth and that was all. No Lysol, no Resolve, no actual cleaning agents. Hello! Poop carries bacteria! Ewwwww!
• B. didn’t have a nightstand. Out of the kindness of my heart, I let her borrow my pastel green wooden table for a stand-in. Key word: borrow. One day while distributing mail, I see a nice sticker placed on my table. I get pissed. It would’ve been different if I had actually given her the table but that wasn’t the case. I ask her about the sticker, she plays dumb, doesn’t even apologize about defacing the table. Her boyfriend later peeled it off, throwing his hands up in the air exclaiming how it wasn’t the end of the world and how I shouldn’t have made such a big deal about it. But I honestly didn’t feel like I did. I felt it just had to do with common sense, it’s not your property so don’t deface it. But then I realized I was dealing with some truly immature individuals and this is why they could never understand my frustration. A few months after that last episode, I promptly gathered my things and moved out, never looking back.

So was there any contact following my much anticipated move? You can bet your ass not. I can now look back on the time with the roommates and laugh, but it was anything but a laughing matter the whole time I lived there. Frustration, anger, disbelief. I was otherwise living with people who had no clue what cleanliness, respect or consideration meant. I often times felt like I was too mature to even live there. If anything good came of it, it was definitely a learning experience. Without suggesting people have to do as Camille does, it just showed me that I just don’t mesh well with slobs. Point blank. If you’re a slob, stay away from Camille. Far, far away. Thanks.