Life Explosion

Well, life is settling back down again finally. We were able to borrow J's family's RV for this last month he's working at the high school here, and finally got moved into it and out of the hotel. The entire saga had us moving us and our pets no less than seven times in and out of hotels, our broken rental house (which our landlord kept trying to get fixed) and finally into the RV just a few days ago. Our stuff from the house is packed in boxes ready to be moved back to Wisconsin, where we're going to flee as soon as school ends and J is done teaching.

The RV, while crammed full of stuff and animals, at least doesn't smell like sewage and affect my sensitive immune system. It is also less area to keep clean than the house, though the one thing that was nice about the hotel was the fact that I didn't need to clean anything. This was a good thing because I've been completely flattened from exhaustion. Between the stress, parents poking us constantly and needing to keep everyone updated, the lack of fresh food (thank God for GF frozen dinners or I would have been even more screwed), long hours in the car and keeping everyone healthy and safe through the upheaval, it must have been the longest three weeks in existence. Various things forced me to do too much (like my fiance getting really sick for two days, during which I had to take care of him and even drive to Walmart once) and then it would take even longer than it normally would for me to recover.

In the middle of all of this, we had planned months earlier to go visit J's parents over Easter weekend seven hours away in Wisconsin. My parents were even flying up from Texas, as we wanted our parents to get to know each other better (they had only met once at graduation). The afternoon we were going to leave, we found out that the sewage situation was still not fixed when someone came to disinfect the drained basement and discovered new flooding. So we left, hoping to bring the RV back with us after the weekend was over.

Despite us being exhausted and feeling down on life, the visit with our parents went well and I was relieved at how relaxed my parents were. We had good long talks and caught up, my parents got to meet the horses and our big dog, who they had only seen pictures of before, and reunite with my dachshund, who they adore. We drove them around to show them the area and had dinner a couple of times. It was really good.

I don't know if I mentioned it yet, but my fiance got called in to talk to his boss, the principal, a couple of weeks ago in the middle of all this mess, to find out that he's not getting hired back next year. The principal said a few pretty critical things that had my fiance's confidence in his teaching pretty well shot through for awhile. The most aggravating part is that most of the man's argument is based on something one of the administrators messed up and blamed on J. What really got my fiance, though, was the word "unprofessional". He has to be female for work, but gets paralyzed by anxiety and depression if he dresses too female, so he has to go pretty androgynous and we suspect that's part of the principal's problem. The only thing is that J hasn't come out at work and doesn't plan to, and we have no proof of actual discrimination based on J not looking "female enough". It's just a vague suspicion that I have. At any rate, we just want to get out of that town. After the house problems, all the drama at the school and feeling like we can't go out without seeing lots of people who know J as female, we really just wanted to leave anyway.

For the summer we already had plans to return to J's parents' house to help his mom with taking care of the horses and to allow his parents to go on vacation. We've applied all over the country for English teacher positions, but we know we may not get anything for this next year. If we don't, it'll be a long stay with my in-laws again. I would love that except that the stairs there make my life extremely difficult. Honestly, we aren't sure what to do in J's career next. I hear a lot of transpeople have to switch careers in order to get free of their past life as the wrong gender, and in a career as conservative as public school teaching we aren't sure transitioning would be well-accepted. My man is very sensitive about how people think of him and I worry for him. We've been thinking about how to get his birth certificate changed, but that won't fix his reference letters (which refer to him as female), his social security number, or his college transcripts, which are all things schools look at when considering you. Also, the fact that we don't know what state we're going to be in doesn't help us come up with a clear plan of action as every state seems to have a different process for something as seemingly simple as changing your name. It's very bewildering and we aren't sure where to go from here.

Another thing that has us wondering is whether or not I'm going to have health insurance next year after my 26th birthday, when my dad's company stops being willing to cover me. We had thought, as we are getting married in July and assumed we would be in Iowa next year, that I could be on J's insurance which would at least help. But, if we move to any state where gay marriage isn't recognized or at least converted to a civil union (like Illinois), we aren't married anymore and I potentially lose the ability to have health insurance through my spouse. I've finally decided to try to get on disability because we need the income (my parents are still buying all of our food) as well as insurance, but that can take years and multiple rejections. Transitioning to a straight couple might turn out to be faster.

The good news is that (I think) I should have a pretty strong case. I've never been able to work even part-time, and my mom found a form that allows me to really go into detail about what is difficult for me. As soon as I finish it, I'm going to post it here, as I think it's useful for anyone researching narcolepsy, looking for something to relate to, or for anyone to fill out to use with their application. I started it wondering if I'm really "disabled", but by halfway through I realized that was silly. Hopefully, I can convince the government of this fact.

It's too gorgeous a day to not live in an RV. The first truly warm day we've had in awhile, with the sun shining, and despite everything I'm thankful to be here. I'm thankful to be anywhere.

RV Living

Want a new way to save energy? Try downsizing your floor space. :D

Before we relocated for my girlfriend's job in August, we were living at her parents' place, a lovely two story house with a pretty large upstairs that we had completely to ourselves. When I moved in, I put myself in charge of keeping the two large bedrooms, connecting bathroom, two walk-in closets, stairs and loft area clean. Being a genetic neat-freak who actually enjoys things like sweeping and dusting made this part of my life fun rather than a chore, so most of the time I didn't actually mind. That doesn't mean it wasn't a challenge however- we had two dogs and two cats upstairs with us, constantly shedding hair, plus my girlfriend who is like a tornado on the weekends. She likes to collect her things in what we refer to as "chaos piles", and anything within ten feet of one is in danger of getting sucked into the vortex, to disappear for days or weeks until I have time to go in and put things away. So while cleaning that place was fun, it wasn't easy, and sometimes it would get nasty if I was sick or busy or just plain tired for a couple of days in a row.

Then, in the span of a week, the whole situation changed. She interviewed and got an offer a week before the school year was going to start and we found ourselves scrambling, trying to find someplace to live in a state neither of us had ever even directly visited, in a small town with nothing posted online. We ended up borrowing the family RV and living at a campground for the first month while we looked for a place to rent via word of mouth. We took the dogs with us but had to leave the cats in the care of the in-laws for lack of space.

I have to admit I was skeptical of the whole RV thing at first. After all, the last experience I had had with an RV was camping on the beach with grandparents when I was little in a very cramped, old and only partially functional one (if I remember correctly, the shower didn't work at all). But this thing was pretty fancy, with a separate bedroom, a pretty nice little kitchen and comfortable furniture. And I came to appreciate the lack of space- I got so much more art and relaxing done, simply because I had hardly anything I was supposed to keep clean. Because of the close quarters I got to know my girlfriend's dog a lot better and we really developed a bond. The dogs also liked the campground because there was always so much to smell, and walks were positive challenges for both of them because of other dogs and children. I gained so much confidence walking them there. It was so easy to just go outside with only three stairs instead of a whole flight in my way.

It was pretty interesting to watch our neighbors come and go, even after just a night sometimes. I thought having so many people parked so close would be harrowing, but instead it was just fun to watch their interactions. Everyone was really relaxed for the most part- after all, they were on vacation- and just having a good time. There were a couple of boisterous weekends around Labor Day that were a bit much, but expected. Once I even saw an RV hotel. o.O I didn't even know those existed. It was like a bus and had a bus full of people inside it.

I also really liked having a ridiculously tiny kitchen. I didn't have to walk to get to anything, lol- you just reach up and there it is. And I loved the fact that we could easily open the place up- it was mostly windows- and we were practically outside. In August the weather was right up my alley, even though in September it got a tad chilly sometimes, but the RV's air conitioning and heating worked really well and quickly. Another advantage to small living spaces.

Even so, we were all getting ready for a change when the time came to move out. The weather was turning chilly and the campground was going to close for the year by the time we had arranged to rent our house. The dogs played victory fetch in our new large living room and celebrated having a yard all their own to claim. We humans were excited by the prospect of having the ability to actually fit a whole meal's worth of pots on the stove at once. A couple of months after we moved in, my in-laws came to visit and brought the cats with them, so our family was reunited. And I do like our house. Sometimes, though, I miss the RV (like when the entire house needs vacuuming XD), and I would live in one again without hesitation.