365 days: (1) Katie’s New Best Friend

A lot is about to change.

In a little over a week I start a new job. I’ll be nannying three days a week for really awesome family. I never planned to nanny, but this is a blessing and answer to prayer. Having this three days a week will give me two days a week in retail, and weekends free. Thanks be to God, I will finally be able to give time and effort to things that are important to me.

As good as it is, I’m not the best at changes to my routine, but I’m hoping that I can balance out the panic with a new attitude. I’m going to stop planning.  I know. I know exactly how that sound, but fret not, hope is not lost!

I’ve been doing some realizing.

Realizing that I’ve spent a good portion of my life trying to be a person the people around me like/want/enjoy/agree with. It’s exhausting. It’s sucked some of the life right out of me. It’s my own fault. Without even really understanding that I was doing it, I would try to shove parts of myself back into corners because I was afraid if the people I care about knew those parts, they’d be disappointed or frustrated. I just wanted to be right and appropriate, and it sucked a whole, whole, lot.

Not that right and appropriate sucks, but that trying to fit into a mold when there isn’t one does. It’s ok to disagree with friends, they aren’t going to hate you for it. It’s ok to be a dog person when they are a cat person. It’s ok not to want to feel the same way about a book, listen to the same music, or vote for the same people. It’s not only ok, it’s fantastic.

It just suddenly dawned on me that I don’t have a single friend with whom I totally agree on anything, and it’s worried me to death forever and I keep trying to reshape and rework myself into something that will be pleasing to them, and it NEVER works. EVER. Not for a single relationship I’m in.  Period.

So. That’s that.

I am a dog person by the way and on Tuesday I welcomed Zeke to my little family. Zeke is a 10 month old lab I adopted from a shelter, he is simply the best dog you could ever hope to have plucked out of a kennel and I can’t believe people passed him by for so long. He’s a delight and is brining joy I didn’t imagine into my world. Bianca is taking her time making up her mind about how she feels about a boy in the house.