Out of the blue, my sister's husband, texts me. "You should apply to the Montana Gear Up Coordinator, I was thinking you have a lot of the qualifying points." I said I would check it out and after briefly googling it and finding nothing, I suggested he send me the link, which he couldn't find. But I got the job number and the site it's on.
3 hours later, he texts again, "New plan, you apply to Hastings, move into our basement and pay me rent in free Hastings stuff" I had to laugh. If you are not familiar with Hastings, you should be, it's amazing and my favorite store second only to Target, then hardware stores. Hastings is a bookstore/movie store/music mecca/rental store, with a coffee shop. Since moving to Seattle/Tacoma I have had withdrawals from a store I have gone to forever. That being said, I am in no hurry to return to retail or work at my favorite store for fear it would cease to be that.
Also at almost 28, I did not envision living in my sister's basement, but things in my life has gone far from how I've envisioned a long time ago. As will happen, to almost everyone. Even though I cannot see myself making this decision from the logical, let's be rational and an adult position, it tickles my fancy, a little. It has been over 10 years since I have lived in the same state as anyone in my family, I miss them. I have spent most of my adult life spending time with other people's family because I have chosen to be away from my own, and every man I have been with has not made that choice.
I find families exhausting, tedious, especially others with different politic and religious views. I am silenced and stifled to sit quietly listen to pollution of ignorance and hate. I miss my family not because they are not exhausting and tedious but because they are and I can still be myself and argue and speak my opinion without offense as how a lot of people feel when visiting family a sense of home.
I am not applying to Hastings and moving to Great Falls, MT to live in my sister's basement. This is said as a reassurance to my boyfriend and myself. I recount the text messages I received from the brother in law, and a Moscow friend both requesting a new address change for me. I share, because there is no harm in telling and it makes me smile to know I am missed by the people I miss. I share, because I want to move to either location for the right reason. I share, because in not sharing it seems deceitful.
I tell it with a laugh, so he knows I am not taking either requests or life plans seriously and would not leave him for a minimum wage job and basement life. Maybe I was saying it wrong, I get that a lot.
What I said was, "So Matt apparently is going to have Hastings fax me an application, because they probably can't email as I believe they still function in dos, and I'm going to move into their basement and my sister is going to stoked and Matt is getting a drinking buddy. Oh and all I have to pay for rent is Hastings stuff for Matt."
What he heard was, "Matt doesn't like you. Matt and my sister want me to move back to Montana in any shape or form as soon as possible and they don't want us to be together."
I probably said it wrong, maybe it was in my tone. He explained that he gets frustrated that my friends and family keep finding me opportunities to move away and they never include him in these plans. I understand that angle, I do, I'm not ignoring his feelings. However, I hate it here and he will not move. It has been established, confirmed, and unwavering, he is not moving from Tacoma and I get it, his parents are here, soon his son, daughter in law, and grandchild will be here and he owns a house. He is rooted here, and I am not. He has never lived farther than an hour away from his parents, I haven't lived closer than 10 hours from either parent since I left for college.
A conversation in jest became an argument about me leaving him and my family not liking him. I cannot win, and I want to leave more when he does this. But someone who has never missed their family and friends so completely could not, someone who has not spent Thanksgiving with their family in over 5 years cannot understand that weight that weighs on my heart spending it with another family that do not understand me. The pain of buying a plane ticket every Christmas for 4 days and juggling two parents in different towns and a sister, and making the decision that it is too hard to bring a significant other into that situation.
I try not to cry, when all I want him to do is say, you should go, I will go with you; though now I don't know if I want him to.
But maybe I am saying it wrong.
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