A Place at the Kitchen Table

Cal thinks I'm a bit weird when I talk about this, so I wanted other opinions.

You guys have a "place" at your kitchen table, right? That chair that you always sit in. Your spot. I thought everyone did. At home, my family and I always had specific chairs we went to at the table. When we moved and had a different table, my brother and I spent a good amount of time wandering around it, debating which one would be best.

Okay, so maybe the debating thing was weird -- but at Hollins, it was the same. At the apartment. We always sat in the same chair, did you notice? Heck, in Moody we always tried to sit at the same table.

We had a Place that we could call our own. That little spot we knew was ours. I thought this was a normal thing. I remember teachers/professors telling us we were creatures of habit, and given the opportunity we'd sit at the same place we had the year before. (Demonstrated in Trig/Precalc and AP Calculus--the teacher let us pick our seats, and being from a small town the two classes had (basically) the same people in it, and we all sat in the exact same spot second year.)

Therefore, you can probably imagine my consternation when I realized that this is not what's done here, and it's bothering me. It is amazing how much this is bothering me.

First of all, the chairs are never pushed in--that's how you know, after a long day away, that they have been used. All four chairs are ALWAYS pushed out. These people use the chairs like they use the rest of the house--with no respect for anyone else living there. I don't know why they wouldn't just go for the nearest pulled-out chair and sit down. No. They have to go for the other, not-pulled out chairs. The ones I mentally claimed for Cal and myself. I try to sit there as often as I can. For breakfast and whatnot. When no one's awake. We brought up the fact that it was bothering me briefly, and got weird looks.

It's just--I DO NOT HAVE A PLACE AT THE KITCHEN TABLE. I want to be able to say, hey, look, I have a place in this house. But the kitchen table seems to be representing our lives, here. I don't have a place there and it feels like I don't have a place in the house. Like I've been squashed in with all of my stuff but don't really belong here. It's awful, I don't like it, and sometimes I just sort of want to push them out of a chair and say "That's mine!" like some sort of kindergartner or something.

Am I overreacting? Is this the stupidest thing to be talking about right now?

I just don't feel comfortable here. At all. As I type this, my stomach is growling because I don't want to go to the kitchen and be alone with them.

Quite frankly, it's like I don't exist. That's the amount of respect I feel like I'm getting. I can't remember if I've posted this in the blog or just told Erin, but here's the way I deal with people: upon meeting them, they have my respect. They don't need to earn it. I like to think of everyone as awesome human beings. Innocent until proven guilty.

Then, when they've done something to get that respect taken away--say, not being respectful of my space--it's gone pretty much forever and they're never getting it back. Harsh? Maybe. But they had a chance and lost it.

So right now, I feel like I've "lost" my chance with them, if that makes since. Like I've done something horrible, because they're treating me the way I would be treating them if I was a little more immature and they'd lost my respect (which, quite frankly, they have). Last week I was chased out of the house by some video on someone's computer turned up to full volume right outside my door (turned up to full volume so that it could be heard over the video game played down the hall, also turned up to full volume). Taking refuge in the library, I just wanted to beat my head against a wall.

In answer to any questions, yes, we are planning on moving. It's just that our lease is up in October, so we can't yet.

It's like any discussion about anything just goes over heads too. I don't even know. I hate it, I hate it here, I want to live with Cal all by ourselves in some nice little one bedroom house that I can decorate with ideas from pinterest. And goshdarnit, I'd have a place at that kitchen table. Might even write my name on it with glitter.

Of course, Cal and I probably aren't going to get that any time soon, since we want to save money more than we want to protect our sanity. I just need to keep thinking: Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe. It's all to go to Europe.

...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.