Almost-Weekend Update

For those of you who are unaware, after much thought, I finally decided to stay at Disneyland.  The college program ended on January 5th, on which day I was also kicked out of college program housing.  I am now living in the spare bedroom of my friend and coworker Elena's parents' house in Yorba Linda while we look for our own apartment in the Anaheim/Fullerton area.  I am also on the hunt for a second job, seeing as my seniority dropped from three years to four days overnight and I am working a grand total of twelve hours next week.

TWELVE.

Exhausted would be a complete abortion of an understatement of how I am feeling.  Even though next week is dead, I picked up two extra shifts this week for a total of five days working.  Three of those were cross-training at Autopia (where I signed off and can now work in addition to Star Tours!), which were both mentally and physically draining, not to mention stressful.  I'm not used to having to worry about getting my feet run over.  And besides Disneyland, I get to worry about how I'll pay rent when Elena and I move, where and how I can find another job, how to keep my relationship alive and healthy, when to buy a new car and what to buy, and when to go back to school and what to study and where.

So basically,

EVERYTHING.

I've found that the only way I can stay afloat is to focus on all the things that have been going well for me.  I've been incredibly blessed.  I'm living with a good, financially secure, morally upstanding, unbelievably hospitable family who lets me eat all of their food and invites me out of my room when I'm a hermit for more than two hours.  I have another loving family back in Modesto who also checks in on me regularly and helps me search for apartments, schools and jobs.  I have one of the best jobs IN THE WORLD at the literal happiest place ON EARTH, where I am always safe and always welcome and don't have to work too hard.  I can go to Disneyland 365 days a year.  WHENEVER I WANT.  FOR FREE.  I have amazing friends, some of whom are spread across the state and the country but who still send me videos on Twitter and call just to say hi, and others who I can go to Dennys with at 1 AM or paint in nonawkward silence with at Color Me Mine.  Right now I don't have to worry about making rent plus a car payment or getting robbed or being lonely or not giving my eyelashes the love they deserve from Sephora.

I'm really lucky.

So I'm going to stay here, for at least a little while longer.  I tried fighting it, but when you're driving home on the 5 from Newport Beach on a summer night with the window down and you're listening to Coldplay's Fix You and the Disneyland fireworks begin to light up the entire sky, you know you're home.