There's no place like home

I miss River Falls, more now than ever. Living at home is the most stressful situation I can find myself in. I miss the feeling of belonging somewhere. My family doesn't make me feel welcome. I feel like a burden, like it's bad that I am here. I have no other choice. Financially, it's the only option for me. I can't afford to move out right now and it's killing me. I am so scared that I am going to end up living here my entire life. Really scared.

My mom and step-dad are playing Yahtzee right now; I am about 10 feet from them. My mom hasn't said more than 15 words to me since she got home at 3 and my step-dad hasn't said anything to me since he's been home. We don't talk, mostly it's because I get annoyed when they talk too much, so I guess it's my fault, but I've never felt comfortable talking to either of them about anything serious. I don't trust them first of all. If I say don't tell anyone, half the family knows by the next day.

I don't know if I am feeling like this because RA move-in is coming up and I feel like I should be there or if it's for some other reason, all I know is that I am missing home and my family more than I ever have this summer.

Not a clue what to call this...

I pride myself in having a good judge of character. I can usually get a good read of people fairly quickly. Of course, spending more time with them, I get a better idea of who they are.

Most of you know I started a new job a few months ago. I generally work with the same people and I have developed friendships with quite a few of them. They understand how I feel when I have had a long day at work and some of them are very caring people. For the most part, we have each other's backs and when someone needs help with something, we help them out, whether it be work or otherwise. 

I have one co-worker who has always been nice to me and she is always willing to help me out when I need it. One time I got a really bad headache at work from not eating all day and she told me to leave and go get food and medicine to feel better. She didn't care how long I took as long as I felt better. She said if I didn't feel better by the time I got back, she would cover my shift. I ended up feeling better, so she didn't have to, but she didn't have to let me take my time on my break, but she cared enough about me to make sure I was okay. 

Today at work, this co-worker came to me and said that she didn't have any money and was super hungry and she didn't have a chance to eat all day. I told her I would buy her lunch, just let me know. Since I was the only one on my department (she was covering someone else's shift in another department), we couldn't take our break at the same time. She came down to see me and I told her to just take my card, take $20 out, and get something to eat.  

A co-worker in a nearby department was in my area when she got back. She gave me my change and card back. The look on the other associate's face was one of pure shock. She asked me if I owed her lunch and I told her that I didn't, but she needed food and I know she would do the same thing for me if the roles were switched. She ended up calling me stupid for giving her my card and acted like I had committed a crime. I trust my co-worker enough to give her my card. If I didn't trust her, I wouldn't have given it to her. 

Later I was talking to the other associate and another worker and as soon as I walked up, the first thing she told the other worker was about the debit card incident. They both seemed in shock that I would do that. The other associate was describing my co-worker and she used the term "ghetto". Now, what that term means, I have NO idea. I only know ghetto in reference to neighborhoods, not people. They were both talking about how they would loan the card to each other (both white, I might add), but not to my co-worker (who is black). I know some people think the race card is overused (I respectively disagree), but I really think that the reason they wouldn't have done the same thing for her is because she's black. The other associate also thinks that my co-worker is weird. She is a little different, but we get along and I like working with her. She keeps me good company and she works really hard. They kept saying things like she could have taken money from me or she could have taken my card and ran. I don't think she would have done that. You could give me your card and I could just as easily have done the same thing. 

This whole thing got me even more pumped for my time at Hamline. I am going to study social justice and it's for reasons like this that I want to do it. Where it's going to take me, I have no idea, but I am excited. I so badly want to set up an experiment at work involving race, but I feel like I don't even need to set it up because we have such a diverse population of shoppers. 

I know I am not innocent. I have caught myself thinking things that I know are wrong and sometimes I even say things. I feel extremely guilty about it, but I am becoming better at controlling my thoughts. I don't want to live in a colorblind world, but I want to live in a world where we can all just exist and not worry about things like race, gender, religion, etc. Wishful thinking, I know, but if people would chose their words more carefully and think about things before they say them, we'll be that much closer to that goal.