A Good Crazy

Since, my first few posts were kind of filled with angst and depression, I thought I switch and focus on some of the good parts of this big move. When I went in January, I left my pets (yes plural) with my dad and that was the expected disaster. He complained before I left. He wouldn't answer the phone while I was gone and they were visibly skinnier when I got back. Yeah...

So I decided they'd be coming back to Finland with me. It's been a world wind of microchipping, rabies shops and I have to get a health certificate within 10 days or leaving. All of this is fine and not nearly as expensive as I suspected and it's a welcome distraction from work. So here are my critters. The big ginger is Matty, named after my childhood cat Matthew, the grey is Bruce and the black cat is Francesca or Frankie for short.

Yes, I'm a proud crazy cat lady. I like all animals as I grew up with cats and dogs, but randomly ended up with three cats and here's how. In 2011, right after I moved to Lake Charles, a co-worker had a stray who gave birth under her carport. I asked for one and my mom said she wanted a ginger cat because it reminded her of our childhood cat. I got Bruce, the Maine Coon. Only a week after, my apartment announced animals weren't allowed anymore and no one was grandfathered in. I took both to my mom's where they stayed for two years. I got laid off and had to move back home. While home, I worked out at a nearby YMCA and Frankie was there. A few staff members had bought food and started feeding her, but one guy kept talking about how he'd trap her in a plastic bag and throw her in the pool. I told him that serial killers and the like hurt animals before they escalated to people. He said he was joking, but his co-workers thankfully started watching him closer. A few weeks later, I come to the gym and they tell me, he had kicked Frankie twice just this morning. Instead of choke-slamming him (and ending up in jail), I told the employees I'd be right back. I went home, got my pet taxi and took her home. I got her fixed, and got her shots. Of course, when I moved out, my mom didn't want to be stuck with three cats and I honestly didn't want to leave them. 

I am one of those people who love that cats do their own thing despite what others, even their owners think. In the case of my cats, they just knock a lot of shit over. Most of the things I want to knock over are metaphorical: patriarchy, racism, colorism. we'll see how this goes.

Spaceships don't come equipped with rear view mirrors

Preparing for the move has been more  mentally draining than I expected. With the exception of this weekend, I'm working 50-60 hrs a week to have the money required to get a student visa. Seriously,  Finland says you can't come here without money in the bank to the tune of $7,500. As I've said, I don't like my job and being there so much is rough, but it's what has to be done. The sad part is, I know I'm already burned out. I'm two months into these 50-60 hour weeks and I have to do it for three more months to make the money I need. That's why I went ahead and took today off. I'll be back to the grind tomorrow. I have a GoFundMe campaign that is going slower than I'd like. My family doesn't really have any money to contribute. Dad will sell my car, but it has to happen right before I leave. Living with him has saved me rent, but it's a rural area with no public transport, so I'll need my car right up until I stop working.

Then there are my parents. I had lunch with my mom as a early Mother's Day get together. To say our relationship has been strained throughout our lives is a bit of an understatement. We never really talked about much. I personally find it quite absurd to confide in your mother or parent about things. Don't ask me why. Oh yeah, because their life experiences are completely different from ours and they mostly refuse to accept that. She's proud of me and she says it. But our personalities are so different. My parents have also always been quite blatant with their uneven parenting among their kids. But calling them out about it, well you get the same reaction as say, kicking a puppy. It also doesn't help that I'm a bit of a stubborn asshole, a trait I share with my father. Of course then there's my father. The heavy drinking, heavy smoking man from a small town in Louisiana. I took after him in the heavy drinking category for a long time too. Our similar personalities lead to just as many clashes. I'm prone to brutal honesty, sometimes to my own detriment. Most attempts to filter myself fail miserably. My dad has clearly suffered from some type of depression for a long time, but he prefers to self-medicate with alcohol. His memory is not good and hasn't been for a few years. Mentioning his diabetes and Crohns disease are not valid arguments apparently. I've been back home for a year and the two years before that when I didn't live at home, I always came over on an off-day to help with one errand. It always turned into a full day of work. Checking to make sure his bills were paid, not because he didn't have the money, but because he forgot something was due. The sink full of dishes that are started to smell funny. He hasn't checked his email, which is how most of his bills come now that he's retired. He asks if I spoke to my sisters. Yes, I did. He hasn't heard from them in a week and a half. It's 3 p.m. and he's drunk to the point where his speech is slurring. I tell him he's has to drink less. He says he's not drunk.

I leave in three months. Not two hours away at my newspaper in Lake Charles or 40 minutes away at my apartment. Another continent. An eight time zone difference. I've been trying to make him do more of these tasks himself. A short workday for me is 10 hours, so I can't do it even I wanted to. I never wanted to. I wanted my off days. I wanted to wake up to watch a soccer match and be able to go back to sleep. I wanted help from sisters. Help that hasn't and will probably never come. The sink filled with his dishes, but he cleared them before they started to smell. He's going to physical therapy. A year late. The bills are mostly on time because I'm still checking behind him. Two straight 70 hour work weeks put me out of commission, so I don't know where it is now. There have been more arguments than talks lately.

When I went to Finland in January and February we had an argument two days before I left. I only talked to him three times while I was gone. He wouldn't answer the phone most of the time. I don't know how long it takes for animals to start losing weight, but the cats were visibly skinner. The litter boxes overflowing. This is a parent child relationship to him. It's the one he grew up in and what he expects from us. You don't talk back or disagree. You don't question unhealthy choices. You pick up all the pieces falling apart. And after doing that for well over a decade, you surely shouldn't expect your parent to watch your pets for two months while you abandon them! I mean, start working on a master's degree in a program you love. Nope, not even a little bit. But those were his exact words. I've heard many people make jokes of their parents acting like this. That's fine for them, but this is my life. This is a cycle, one of many I'm trying to break. It's not a joke. I can't do it. My determination, my anger, won't let me. I don't like the anger.  Unless it's something they can brag about. Between the arguments, everyone knows that their child is getting her master's overseas. The master's they are not and can not contribute to. It's all about when it's convenient. But can I blame them? It took 34 years to accept that's where it goes. To ignore that they graduated from segregated schools and a government job was the measure of success. I'm over it all. Mostly exhausted from it all. I leave in three months. And I'm praying that it's not on these terms. I want things on better terms. I want to stop worrying about my dad. I just want things easy, even it's just for a little while.

*PS: title is a lyric from Outkast's International Players Anthem

Officially official

Last week I learned I was accepted as a full-time student at the University of Turku School of Economics. I will be getting my master's degree in Futures Studies with a minor in Entrepreneurship. I plan to focus on environmental justice and sustainability. When I say this has been a rollercoaster ride that hasn't ended, I mean it! It's been filled with many trials, most still ongoing, and with three months until I leave, it'll continue to be a bumpy road. To take you back to the beginning of all this, it started a year a half ago thanks to some crazy men in my life pushing me out of my comfort zone.

It was the the end of 2014, and I was working a job that I really hated and I had been in touch with one of my favorite college professors via social media. He would always ask what I was doing and I would pretty much ignore the question because it really was a whole lot of nothing. In the middle of 2011, I had been laid off from my job as a journalist and in those three years, I had been applying like crazy, getting no response and going from one terrible job to the next. In my current position, I worked for a major telecommunications company. The money was good. The job was soul draining. A year in, I had resigned myself to making a career here. I'd use my funds for things I loved away from work: Running, I had enough money and off time for more destination races. Homebrewing: something I had written about extensively and I loved the home brewing community in my city and state.

I felt that was a shitty compromise, but I took it. I felt quite broken at the time. Until then, I had had a job since I was 15, either part-time or full-time. Even though other people were also laid off, I was sure I had fallen short somewhere and could have saved MY job. All these years later, some evil voice in the back of my head tries to creep in with those thoughts, but I've done better at quickly declaring that the devil is a lie!! I've come too far to believe such foolishness. I do still occasionally think it and have to check myself to stop the falsehoods. Hey, I never said I wasn't human. I try not to be though. I usually fail.

Back to the story. I had thrown myself into training for a triathlon only to run into my professor at the gym with his kids. As per his usual self, he declared we'd be talking soon. A few days later, an hour long call revealed all of the nothing that was going on with me. I was "thinking" about getting an MBA. I actually had been thinking about it in the run up to and actualization of the layoff. He mentioned a former classmate who was living overseas and doing quite well. I didn't necessarily have to move overseas, but I needed to "get the hell out of here." I remembered Classmate, who I considered a friend at the time, but I wasn't sure if he remembered me and asked professor to send a group email. He remembered me and the classes we took together. I was surprised.

We caught up and I learned about his awesome wife and baby daughter, then he got down to business. If I was looking for something business related that would translate well to the real world, I did need to consider coming to Finland for school. By "consider," he meant, "I'm going to bombard you with emails about different schools in Finland." And when I say "bombard," I mean seven to twenty emails a day. The first couple of weeks, I just clicked through most of his emails or responded to humor him. Classmate was always a bit of an odd duck anyway. Also, Finland??? Who and why? I barely knew the where. Thank you History degree. At least, I know where it is on the map. But of course,  I was already a year into a job I hated, still trying to accept the choice I made to settle. It couldn't hurt to read a few program descriptions right?