New Mexico: Week Twenty Three

I’m ready for this weekend.

Everything has been planned up to it: Staffing is above what we had last year because our sales have been through the roof – on that note: I made my bonus AGAIN, I’m on fire! My boss leaves in the morning for Hawaii because her son is getting married and myself and the Guest Services Manager are running the place till she gets back – I’m more than prepared for it.

Was looking at my finances, mainly my student loans, FAFSA’s and my tax returns and noticed one BIG discrepancy: My 2008 tax return was never filed – spent an hour on the phone with the IRS tonight and I got the paperwork to file them tonight, I have to get some more paperwork from Kansas City tomorrow but it looks like I’m owed $700 from that year- which is going to pay off the last of my student loans from before… now I’m in the clear for the Spring without having to dip into my savings to pay it off, I feel so good about it. On that note, the backdated withdrawal for my Fall 2005 classes went through and I have a zero balance towards K State going into the Spring. Very happy about that, I just have to file some paperwork with Financial Aid and I’m set to go… the downside: no Pell Grants this year (and probably next year) because I earned too much money, which is okay. The year after that I should be okay.

I was closing down at work tonight jamming out to Rilo Kiley and the song Spectacular Views came on… it always makes me think about Nicole, and then I realized that this year the dates are almost lined up, 5 years ago for my 23rd birthday I was in Lawrence celebrating with Nicole, and this week we were planning on her swinging through Manhattan to pick me up when she headed home for her Fall Break – which never happened. This week will mark the 5th year of her passing… I thought long and hard about what might have been now: what she would be doing, the music she would be listening to, the life she would be living, and the rage came back: that she can’t have that because of some asshole with a penchant for setting fires.

"You never knew why you felt so good
in the strangest of places
Like in waiting rooms
and long lines that made you late
and mall parking lots on holidays"

I never really thought about how badly my life practically fell apart after that, I moved back to Wichita for 4 months: I hated it, mainly because it was not the same anymore. I came back to Manhattan without a dime in my pocket and nothing to look forward to. Now I’m back in the drivers’ seat about to make some big changes to my life and I wish so badly that Nicole was here to see how things have turned around, because she was a big influence in my life, especially after we moved away from Wichita.

Another Rilo Kiley song came on during my train of thought at work tonight: Give a Little Love – and I’ve decided that this is my new Nicole song for the times to come:

"I keep you close
In my wildest dreams
My rear-view mirror
And you’re waving to me
Our last goodbye"

I remember calling Luke that Saturday night after she went missing, crying with Daniel there with me too – he had seen her Thursday night when she went by his computer lab at KU just to say hi and to rub it in that she was going to be hanging out with me that weekend… who would have known?

This time I won’t slack – it’s time to stick it out and finish, and my motivation will be to know that wherever she is, Nicole will be proud of where I’m at now, just like she’s proud of all of our friends. We’ve gone our own seperate ways since then but we will always have her.

Forever.

-M

As I finished writing this, another Rilo Kiley song came on: I Never

"And all the beautiful things
That make you weep but
Don’t have to make you weak

Cause I never loved somebody
The way I loved you."