I admit, a good amount of the stress i've been under lately could have been avoidable, so it's partially my own fault. However there are some thing i need to get out before i explode.

mom and don just had their 9th anniversary last thursday, and to be completely honest, i doubt they'll make it to their 10th. this morning when i was getting ready for class, i hear mom tell don she wants his wedding rings back and him to buy an apartment and move out of the house by the end of the week. see, she's threatened him with divorce before, but this is the first time i've heard her demand the rings back. they've been arguing since last week. aparently on their anniversary, mom wanted don to leave our new van alone and he wanted to do something to it. she told him that she wants the van to remain clean unlike the saturn and our last van and that she bought it that way for a reason. so he got pissed and called her a spoiled brat and some other stuff. on their anniversary. and he didn't even get flowers for her. yes, he was working, but he stops by ukrops on his way to and from work all the time and just couldn't be bothered with it on their anniversary. so yeah.

the only thing i'm really concerned about is how alyssa with take it. i know mom and i can handle it. it'll be rough, but we've been through this shit before. but alyssa is only 8 and feels rather attached to don because she spends less time with him in general compared to mom. I don't want her to have to go through the same bullshit i've been going through for 19 years. but to be honest, i think it would be best for mom if they did split. for me too, cause this back and forth between the two of them having a bitchfest and then being all lovey dovey....it's already taken its toll mentally on mom and i. she needs to make up her mind as to what she's gonna do and stick with it. if she's gonna divorce him, do it. if she's gonna stay with him, get some marriage consiling. seriously.

that being said, i don't mean to make don sound like an evil guy. this marriage isn't working cause BOTH sides are not working together. mom certainly has plenty of faults herself. like for one, she takes things too personally and doesn't let an arguement die. its easy to see why don can get so frustrated with her. hell, i got frustrated with her yesterday. but still. they both have serious issues. andnow all this arguing and stress and tension at home is seriously start to affect the way i function. i'm feeling more and more exaughsted every day, regardless of how much sleep i get and/or how well i sleep. that, and going to college and working all week long and only have a small amount of downtime doesn't help. and you can damn well bet i take advantage of every last second of downtime i get.

and that leads me to sundays. steven talked to me this morning with a dilemma. he wants to join his local volleyball leauge. he's been looking forward to it for quite a while now, so i certainly can't say no. but they only meet on the weekends, in particular, sundays. and sundays are the only days i get to see him. because i'm busy most of the day monday thru saturday. so yeah. the one day that seems to make all the work and stress during the week all worth it won't be there anymore. unless i go down saturday night after work and spend the night, which you damn well can bet i'll be doing that. but still, all i think about all week is seeing him and getting to spend a day with him and now i'll have even fewer chances. that being said, i feel like a greedy girlfriend. i mean, i get to see him more often than afton gets to see robert and he lives on campus at RMC and afton walks there every day. so i'm very lucky i get to see steven so often. and it's not like volleyball season is a year long, so its really not that big of a deal. that and as i said before, he's been looking forward to this for a while now. so i have no right to say that he can't. i just....yeah.

i think it's the realization that's finally hitting me that the 2 people closest to me and really the two i'd be willing to give my life for will be going far away from me within the next year. ((i love all my other friends so much too, but these two are /the/ most important people to me)) steven will be joining the coastguard and for at least 3 months, he isn't allowed to have any contact whatsoever with any family or friends. after that he can go out on weekends, though he has to stay with them for 4 years at least. but still the thought of him being deployed to dangerous places and have some serious missions tends to scare me a little. then there's afton who perhaps next semester, if i remember crrectly, will be staying in japan for a month or so to study. and then in a few years she'll be living there permanently. overall i think it's just realizing how little time i'm gonna be spending with either of them in the upcoming years. those two are pretty much my life-line. and yes, i do consider them closer that pretty much all ym family. they /are/ family in my mind.

there are a couple of other things bothering me too, but i'm done for now. i can talk....er type, for only so long. so yeah. i need tylenol.

so as of right now, i am sitting in chemistry 111. my first class in my 3rd year at a community college. yeah, i know i'm taking longer than most, but i don't like to rush if i don't see a point. anyways, recently a friend of mine wrote a blog on how he was getting sick and tired of how people were assuming he was stupid cause he had a GPA of 3.1 in high school. so this past year in college he got a 4.0 and explained in high school he just didn't have a reason to do well and never really put forth any effort. that got me thinking....

i was the same in high school. and still am. unless i have a definite reason to do something, i'll put hardly any effort into it. even then i graduated in the top 30% of my class. or so i was told by my guidance counsele. ((sp?)) but within the last two months i've come to find a reason to really try hard in almost everything i do. that of course, would be my boyfriend, whom for "internet security" reasons will call ichigo. i gave him that nickname cause he reminds me of ichigo kurosaki from Bleach. ^^

anyways. ichigo and i were talking recently about moving out of our homes cause our families are beginning to get on our nerves. and we began talking about getting an apartment together and have him move up here to richmond since i will be going to VCU next fall. ((he lives a tad over 2 hours away)) we also started talking about life a few years down the line. he's thinking about going into the coastguard for a few years while i finish up school. and then we'd move down to NC and so on. but...i tend to feel guilty when he pays for stuff even though we each pay for a meal or whatever. i still tend to feel bad about it sometimes cause i feel like i'm mooching off people even though i'm not. back to what i was saying...

i want to be able to live in a nice house and live comfortably. i can get by with little money, but i'd rather have enough to get by without having to worry too much about being really careful on what i spend money on. that and there are a few big things i would like...xD but that being said, if ichigo and i do end up together, i don't want to depend on him all the time for money. i can't be a stay-at-home mom, i need to be out and about. in order to make a good amount of money, i need to do well in college so i can get a good job. and while i've always known that, it wasn't until i started dating ichigo that i really started thinking hard about it. he has essentially become the reason behind what i'm doing. because i want to make him happy and enjoy life with him. he works so hard now while i complain about being tired after work and not wanting to go to class. so i'm stopping that and starting this semester i'm gonna be bustin' my ass to do well. because i want to work just as hard has he does so he doesn't feel like he's doing everything.

so yeah. there's my two cents worth. gotta actually focus in class now, even though we're just going through the basics. but yeah.

ichigo, if you're reading this, thank you for everything, my love. for without you, i wouldn't have a reaso for anything. love you! MUAH! <333 ^^

~rika~