It’s not the greatest of pictures, but I snapped it quick with my phone before I left work yesterday.   My supervisor presented me with my plaque on Wednesday.  She’d announced it previously but with being sick and then the whole shit storm that is my life kind of threw up on the table last week, nothing really happened with it.  But since it showed up at the office (obviously it was ordered) and there’s quite a few extra people in the office this week (mainly appraisers buying franchises and a boss flew in from Cali for the meetings) I was asked to just display it on my desk.  I’m totally bringing it home tomorrow night to show everyone.  I personally didn’t feel as though I deserved it when I was told that I was getting it but now that I’m thinking about it, I’m proud of myself for being able to fight through the headaches and annoyances known as our office…heh.  So it’s been on my desk with all of my other bits and bobbles.   I’ve got it next to the heart shaped Bamboo that Sean got me for Valentines Day. Everyone in the office is like in love with it, so I’m glad I can give people something funky to look at during the day.

Today was OK.  I had a little bit of weapyness on the way to work because I’m having a lot of trouble dealing with the fact that Lu isn’t around anymore.  My right-hand on numerous occasions and always eager to just come and hang out with me and just relax outside to shoot the breeze.  It’s just so strange to wake up one day and know that there’s a huge part of your life that isn’t there anymore.  I know I’ve mentioned her in every update, but I believe that’s heavily based on the fact that I’m still in shock about things.  I haven’t officially had a melt-down yet and I’m just not sure of when it’s going to hit me…all I can do is hope that it happens when I’m at home thinking about her and not while I’m at work trying to keep myself composed for a ‘professional’ environment.  I’m actually surprised at the fact that I’ve been able to stay at this job for as long as I have.  I have a lot of trouble focusing on things but I guess I’m just one of those people that needs to be in an office environment because working from home never quite felt right for me.  Sure the money was  better, but it got pretty damn boring, and my wrists always freaking hurt all day long from typing on AIM all day.

In any event, it’s getting pretty close to 10PM so I think it’s time to get ready for bed.

I went back to work yesterday.  Last week was just one messed up thing after another, and it had actually started for me on Sunday night.  I don’t know what kind of a bug was roaming around town but just about everyone for the past week has been pretty sick.  I woke up about 2am Monday morning after not feeling too well after dinner Sunday night (last time I saw Lu was dinner).  I wound up throwing up all night long and for most of Monday, I had a pretty high fever so needless to say going to work wasn’t an option for me.  Tuesday I stayed home so my fever could break and I could begin to get moving again.  Wednesday I woke up ready to go to work, took a much needed hot shower but felt a little off as though I was missing something (I later found out it was Lu).   So I left work early on Wednesday, and wasn’t back at all until yesterday (Monday).

Fran told me that it was pretty busy last week but I was not expecting what I saw yesterday.  We were so bombarded with assignments that my inbox literally didn’t stop from when I walked in the door at 9:45 and even after I walked out the door at 7:45 (I’m only scheduled 10-7).

I remember at one point in the day I’d actually gotten away from the desk to take my hour lunch and there were about 2 assignments that I’d just printed and left on the printer due to the fact that Trish was just too busy working on something for our boss that assigning to an appraiser just wasn’t happening.  I then came back from Lunch and I know there were about 20 assigments on the printer in total (including the two I’d printed before I left) but the other departments were over loaded so I didn’t think anything by it.  I look at my inbox and over the course of the hour about 120 assignments came through.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many emails before in this place and it was certainly overwhelming when you think about how many reams of paper it took to print out everything.  On top of that it all requires being stapled and assigned to an appraiser with all (if any) of the corrections.  It’s was definitely a daunting task

As I noted, Franny and I didn’t get to leave until about 7:45 last night.  I was home around 8:10 with the quick cig before I got in the car and the drive home.  I’m hoping that we don’t need to go through it again Today because it’s National Pancake Day at IHOP and we were planning on treating ourselves to some tasty goodness.

I’m really shaken up about an accident on Friday night that I heard about.  On my way home from my mothers there was a nasty accident on Sea Cliff Avenue.  I didn’t personally see it, I just know that my mother called me in a panic because she heard on her radio that there was an accident with a car on fire.  I later found out that it was two kids that I’d know years ago.  They were zipping up the street going faster than they should have been, bounced off of a parked car and flew in the air to the transformer.  The car then landed and the transformer landed on them.  One kid was killed instantly, the other was screaming bloody murder while the car was ablaze.  On top of that, another kid I went to school with drank a little too much after Lucy’s wake and wound up waking up in the E.R. with no recollection of how he got there.  He got into an accident on the L.I.E.

I honestly think all EMT’s in a 10 mile radius of Glen Cove are pretty shaken up by this past weeks events.  I know that I certainly am.

I’m trying hard to get through the day but when you work right down the street from where your best friend worked as a D.A. for the bus company – seeing all of the buses all day long is no longer the comfort it was before.  Her bus, 161, passed me as I was walking down to the court yard up the street from work.  It was a cold day but I needed to clear my head and that certainly didn’t help me at all.

It’s just hard to hold yourself together with constant reminders of someone who was so important to your life.

On Wednesday I received a call at work from Sean where I was told to sit down and then told that Lucy was in a bad car accident on Tuesday night on her way home from school. I’ve known Lucy since 11th grade in high school. Her, Pat and I were three peas in a pod and then we lost touch for a while after I’d graduated. For the past few years it was an AIM conversation here and there being as I was in Delaware, but when I came back up in June things were just different.

She was here every day, she turned into a member of the family to the point that I guess you could say that this was just another home that welcomed her with open arms. She was my best friend, she got me through a lot of shit in my life and she was always there when I needed someone the most.

Now I’m completely lost. Words can not even begin to describe what’s going on in my head and how empty I feel with out her here. I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye. And as soon as I look over it fades like a lifetime movie.

She was here on Sunday. She had dinner with Sean and I, hung out on the couch for a little while…we had a cig outside and she left to go home to study because while she was off from work for winter recess, she still had school at night. She never missed a day, she was a straight A student and she was leaving school from an exam. The only thing different about her is that she was talking about how tired she’s been for the last couple of days. She wasn’t getting much sleep lately and I believe (as numerous others do) that she fell asleep at the wheel.

My step fathers EMS/Fire department was the closest to this call (he’s the chief). They showed up on scene and there were so many people working on her. They brought her back a few times, they had her in the E.R. ready to transport to the O.R. and then they just lost her. She hit directly on the drivers side and suffered head trauma and internal injuries. Her sister said that her hand felt as though she had no bones. She was just lifeless and fighting it until she couldn’t fight it anymore.

This one is hitting me harder than Joe. I knew he wasn’t going to be around forever and he was sick for a long time before he passed away. Lucy was perfectly healthy, she was just tired and wound up hitting a tree so she was just ripped from a world that loved her.

My world will never be the same. When someone so small can make such a huge impact and then be ripped from your life all you can do is go through every text book emotion of grief. Sadness, Anger and then excessive laughter due to all of the wonderful memories, and everything else.

Her wake is today, funeral is tomorrow, and I’m completely spent. Pat and I found the tree on Wednesday night, he visited it multiple times yesterday. I can’t even bring myself to pick up the keys to go back for myself. I can’t pick myself up to even go and talk to her father and the last thing in the world that I want to see is that casket.

She was my muse, my best friend, my pet midget, my little sister and one of the few left that still called me “Mom”. She took great care of me and I did everything I could to make sure that she was always taken care of.

I always looked forward to weekends because I knew she was going to be here and we’d always find something extremely productive to keep ourselves amused. I no longer have that.

My sister is shaken up because, again, Lucy was a member of our family. She’s been holding it back though. Sean has had a few break downs as well.

This is one of the lowest points in my life, and I honestly don’t even know how I’m going to bounce back from it. I have to continue going on with my life and continue to deal with all of the people who truly deserve to be in her place.

She was a kind person, never hurt anyone a day in her life. She was always there when you needed her. She never once could keep you from smiling and she always had a way of letting you know that she’d support any choice you make as long as it made you happy.

I’m going to miss her terribly.

On Friday my supervisor announced to me that I have been chosen as Employee of the month for January.  I was a bit shocked by it, to be honest.  I honestly don’t feel as though I deserve it considering I’m still in the training process but I’ve been thinking about it lately and I have to say that I finally do believe that I actually do deserve it.

For the past month I’ve been coming in early to cover absences for other employees.  I don’t usually leave until well after I’m supposed to because there’s numerous files to status and make follow-up calls on and I’ve worked on a few different claims in the past month that have caused nothing but problems thanks to incomplete information and I’ve managed to actually get in touch with owners who typically wouldn’t answer their phone in order to get the information we need.

On top of my actual job of handling all of the emails that come in to the company (I’m the master email account for claims, statuses, assignment updates, cancellations – etc.) I’m in the process of learning how to assign claims to appraisers, what key terms to look for (photos only, heavy equipment, invalid phone numbers, etc.).  I also send all of the digital files to the appraisers for certain insurance companies, that’s probably the most time consuming thing considering there’s typically 2 files for every one assignment (hard copy & digital copy) and each digital one not only needs to be emailed to an appraiser, it also needs to be downloaded and added to the server individually from the website.  So naturally the work load is a bit overwhelming to me right now, but taking it day by day I’m picking up on things a lot quicker than I thought I was going to and I’m very happy with the turn out.

The upside would be that I get a plaque for my desk so I can have it as a constant reminder that I did actually work my ass off and have been since I started the position.  The only downside to being employee of the month is they no longer put a $200 bonus in your paycheck.  You’re just given a free day off where you’re punched in in the morning and then punched out at night.  I just need to give a little bit of notice before I decide which day I’d like to take off.  I would like to take a three day weekend and maybe head down to Atlantic City since I haven’t been there in over a year and I’d really like to get away.  Unfortunately I also need to deal with the NY DMV considering my liscence needs to be changed so I don’t get screwed on my taxes next year.  So it’s a toss up on which one I’d like to do first.  I’m actually thinking of just taking care of the DMV stuff on my way out of town and then heading down to AC right after.  The only problem is I won’t have any photo identification on me because NY sends your liscence in the mail, they don’t print out right then and there the way DE does.  So  yea, that’s the downside.

I’m to a point in my life where nothing really matters.  I’m sick of how my life is going but I’m in the “Just Do It” state of mind because there are more important factors involved.  I hate my job but I do it because I have bills to pay and a dog to take care of.  I hate my living situation but I deal with it because I know that at some point in time it’s going to improve and I’ll be able to afford to just finally be out on my own and not have to worry about anything but making sure I can clear the Rent that month.

I don’t like the fact that just about everyone I know is off doing their own thing so I never get to see them anymore and I hate that there are people in my past that my mind can not stop thinking about even though I let go of them a few years ago.  Ever since I moved back up here I’ve felt as though my past is catching up to me and I just can’t seem to drop it.  It’s as though any unfinished business from 10+ years ago is on the verge of busting out unless I do something about it.

I had a dear friend in high school that one day just kind of walked away – for no real reason.  And based on how close we were it’s always confused me as to how the Jock Strap way of life was more important than someone who truly cared about you and visa-versa.  I never quite understood it, and it’s really beginning to bug me because there are so many markers in my life that trigger thoughts of this person and I just can not seem to get them out of my head.

I work with a guy who I went to school with and the two of them were friends.  He recently saw him and brought my name up and this guy was like “Oh yea, I haven’t seen her in years I should get in touch with her!”  The thing that bothers me about him saying that is the fact that he was so quick to walk away and now he’s interested in reconnecting.  Maybe I’m just looking into things too deeply but it bothers me to no end and I really don’t understand why.  How could you completely disregard someone’s existance even though you saw them every single day and then 6 years later feel as though it would be a fantastic idea to just pick up where things were left?  Would you not expect there to be a lot of questions involved in that? Mainly – “What could I have possibly done in the first place?”  Either way I’m going to make every effort in the world to avoid the situation.  It just baffles me to no end.

Considering I’m working a 10 hour shift tomarrow I think it’s time to head to bed.  I need to finish catching up on some text messages first.  I’m way behind on those – heh.  Thank god for a QWERTY keyboard and unlimited in network messaging haha.

Side Note – I received an email tonight that was really kind of strange.  But just to be a brat I’m going to answer it here.  FYI - Sean and I are still together, we live together, I just don’t update my website often enough to talk about him and he’s too busy working for 4 different people to really have the time to throw his personal life online as well.  So instead of coming to the conclusion that we broke up please ask before you make assumptions.  Kthnx.