Ben and I started dating on October 27, 2013. We made it official after the Sounders game that I attended with him and his friend Michael. At that point, I was driving a crappy car that could blow up at any moment, I was working part-time at a dentist office (who refused to hire me full time or give me more hours even though I worked hard and was reliable), I lived with my parents, I had a lot of (school) debt, no insurance, no money to do anything fun, I was just tired of what I was doing and needed a change. I had been applying for state jobs but wasn't having any luck. I soon got frustrated and it seemed hopeless but I trudged on.
Ben on the other hand, was also driving a crappy car, lost his job at the fire department, was on the brink of losing his job at the ambulance place because of losing his job at the fire department, was living in his car because he lost his job at the fire department because driving back and forth to Bonney Lake everyday was a long drive that sucked up gas and money, he was living in a county where he didn't know anyone, also had school debt and he didn't want to tell me all of this because he thought I would dump him. I told him circumstances change and so does life. I said, think about where we will be five to seven years from now.
In 2014, was talked into applying for a job at the local hotel and I was hesitant to do it because honestly, I really didn't want to work at a hotel. I didn't want to work my weekends away and I felt like my time was worth more than $10 hr. I ended up just doing it and worked there for a year (which was way too long). I didn't make much, our hours varied, was stressed out all the time, was over worked, I gained weight and I was very unhappy. I was able to get a better vehicle that I trusted to get me from point A to point B and back to point A again. I ended up getting mono from this experience as well and my body was never the same after that. I was let go just after being there for a year. In May 2015, they made up an incident that took place to get rid of me. At least they could have done their research and actually made up that incident on a day that I didn't have off. I was on unemployment for about three months and made $152 a week. I was actually thankful they let me go because I was home when we had to take care of my Dad after a quadruple bypass surgery. That, to date at the time, was the scariest day of my life. He has since then recovered and changed some of his habits.
Ben had a rough spring that year in 2014, his dad had passed away from a heart attack at their family home and he got a phone call from his mom that morning. He called me, very upset, to let me know what had happened. At this point, I did not know what it felt like to lose a loved one and I didn't really know what to do or what to say to make him feel better. Also, Ben and I were still pretty new in our relationship and I didn't want to insert myself into another family's affairs. I told him that I will support him in any way I could. Ben spent a while at home with his mom and sister taking care of stuff. I went to the service about a month later to support Ben and his family. Their life had change drastically and in the midst of everything else, Ben kept on going.
The fire station ended up hiring him back as a volunteer but he also had to work another job to actually stay a float. He was first working at REI but they cut back hours so he was forced to find another job at the Lucky Eagle Casino. He was working the night shift at the casino as an EMT/Security officer. Doing both those jobs at the same time literally destroyed his health and his sleep. His car finally died and had to get another one. He eventually set his sights on a Subaru at the end of the year. Then a few months later, in the late winter of 2016, the fire district's levy passed in which they were able to hire him as a career firefighter so he put in his two weeks notice at the casino to work full time at the fire station. The stipulation was, now that you are considered a career fire fighter you can not live at the station anymore and have to find your own place to live. That caused a problem because we both were not making that much money to be able to live off of let alone rent a place to live.
That spring, we started the daunting task of trying to find a place to live that we could afford. I had been working at L&I since September 2015 and I was making more money than I ever had at my former jobs. I was actually able to save some of that money. He had some money that he has been saving just for this situation as well. We managed to find a place in the middle of the summer of 2016 and moved in. It happened fast and I really hoped that all of this worked out. I had moved from one job to another within the building but this one was permanent but it was part-time. I wasn't making as much money as I had been so I was very stressed out and had to really monitor my money. Somehow we made it all work.
He worked at the station for about eight months as a career firefighter under probation and one day, in January 2017, they just decided to let him go. We are from a state where they don't have to tell you why you were fired. They are not obligated to do so unless they want to be professional about it and actually have that meeting. In this case it seemed like they never wanted to hire Ben...it almost seemed like they had to, didn't treat him very well at least not like the other career firefighters, told him what he was doing wrong during his reviews but never added constructive criticism on how to be better, there was no comradery, Ben always felt like he never belonged...almost like he wasn't a part of the good ol' boys club. I knew moving into a house was going to be a problem. It was a huge risk getting into a place knowing that he was on probation and could be let go at anytime.
A month before, in December, I was finally moved from part-time into full time because one of my co-workers decided to move onto a different opportunity. That meant I was going to make double what I was making on part-time. It came just in time too.
Ben was on unemployment through most of 2017 and trying to figure out how to stay a float. It was a rough year. We had to start getting creative if we were going to stay in this house. Ben enrolled in school to take care of some prerequisites and because he was in school, unemployment was stretched out further for him. We also got a roommate so they could pay for half of everything, even though we really didn't want a roommate. Subletting was kind of frowned upon but we managed to talk the property management into letting us do it. There was a catch, we were responsible for the damages or any problems that may occur while they lived there so we created a contract with signatures stating that everyone understood the situation.
We visited some friends over that summer that year and they suggested that Ben apply for EBT to help with food costs since he was on unemployment and going to school. They said that it helped them a lot while they were in between jobs. They were right. It helped us tremendously while we were able to have it.
Also that same summer, my sister had to move from Nevada to come live with us with her dog. So now we had two extra people and a dog living with us and all the same house rules applied. My sister understood because she knew I was being generous to let her live there since I knew she was basically starting over again and needed the help. She appreciated it. She did everything she needed to do and then some. She was the perfect roommate.
It was fine for a while. Then one day it changed and the other roommate decided they didn't want to hold up their end of the bargain. I was frustrated that we've reached this divot in the road because we are all adults and should be acting as such. It was like we had a 12 year old living with us. They didn't want to do their chores, clean up after themselves, created more work for the others and the list just goes on.
We had a pretty important rule about not bringing plants inside the house because we had pets. Well, they brought a plant in the house and set it on the floor. Unfortunately, I didn't see this right away but the damage was already done. My cat had consumed a poisonous plant, tried to puke it up and we had to take him to an emergency 24 hour place in Lakewood because it was the only one in the area that had an EKG machine. I was very thankful he was fine after a couple days of monitoring and a $1300+ vet bill. We let them know that since they brought the plant in and caused this mess they were responsible for paying every cent back to us. They agreed.
Again, it was fine for a while and then they started to become really withdrawn, secretive, turned into a recluse and started taking advice from their friends. Those decisions turned out bad for them and they eventually moved out which ruined my weekend. I was planning on going on a long weekend trip for my birthday but stayed home just in case something weird happened. Something weird did happen and they decided they didn't want to finish paying us what they owed on the vet bill. I wasn't going to let them off the hook. For the next few months and into the new year, we tried to settle it but they wanted to be difficult so we took their ass to court.
Meanwhile, Ben's unemployment ran out as fall began and he was forced to find another job. He finished his college courses and looked into doing more some other time. He did some seasonal work at Costco, became a volunteer at the Tenino Fire Department through a friend of his and had to start working at Lowes because Costco took their sweet time getting back to him after seasonal work ended. He was back doing two jobs at the same time with an erratic schedule.
At the start of the new year in 2018, Ben was on his way home from Tenino and some lady didn't yield in a neighborhood causing Ben to not be able to stop in time resulting in his car going into her SUV. He totaled his car and had to lease a new one for the next three years because that's all he could afford at the time. When are the misfortunes going to end? When will we finally have a good year?
That late winter, we won in mediation and they paid us the money they owed in one lump sum about a month later. That was a large life lesson on how small claims court worked and further shows me how awful people can be when they don't want to take care of their responsibilities. I was so glad it was over and we got our money.
The rest of that year felt very unknown and empty. I took a year long non perm job in the last spring and I wasn't sure if it was going to turn into a permanent one. I was running out of time, because it was going to end in May, and most of my time was spent trying to spruce up my resume, cover letter and interviewing skills. It was taxing. Two months later, I was so stressed out. I had to return to the mail room, I had five interviews and were offered most of them. I had to choose. The job I wanted wasn't interviewing until the end of the month and the others were at the beginning. I ended up with the DOT job but still kept my options open just in case the one (at L&I) at the end of the month was offered to me.
That month was spent learning an archaic job. DOT was so far behind L&I when it came to filing, imaging and doing your time sheet. I was spoiled at L&I. I didn't know anyone and spent a lot of my time by myself. I mastered just about everything in two weeks or so. I eventually was offered that L&I job, I wasn't their first choice but the person they picked declined it, so I accepted it. I wanted to go back to L&I. I was at DOT for only a month.
Ben spent most of that half of the year trying to get a better job whether it was at a fire station, a state agency or even at a private industry that didn't involve retail. He had no luck but did talk Lowes into letting him leave for wildfire season over the summer for two weeks. He spent his time in northern and southern Oregon. When he got back, he continued working terrible hours at Lowes and the fire station.
The summer of 2018 was very hard. I finally, after almost three years, got myself a full time permanent state job. I could not believe it took that long but a lot of hard work, support from those coworkers who cared and putting up with a lot of terrible coworkers went into it. It was hard to be happy and proud of it because my grandmother wasn't doing too well after her stroke that spring and all my energy went into that. She eventually passed and it was devastating. I really don't remember how I made it through those three months. Life had changed forever.
The rest of that year was trying to get used to our new reality. It was hard because that person has always been in your life up to that point. She had a giant role in my life. Family holidays were going to be difficult. I cried myself to sleep most nights. It was a rough time in my life. I now understood how Ben felt when he lost his dad. Grief is the hardest human emotion to deal with and the toughest to overcome.
2019 showed up and it looked like we were going to be spared through the first quarter of the year. Things were actually comfortable and nothing was going wrong. Then I got a text message from Ben one day at work asking me to call him. I walked down to the parking lot in the front of the building and called him. He basically said that the landlord wanted to move back into the house and we had until the end of June to move out. It was the beginning of April. I was angry because moving was going to be expensive.
We started looking for a place to live that would fit three people, a dog and a cat. We had some good leads but the places online needed to update their info because a lot of the places we contacted said that the place was rented already. We got frustrated. A few days later Ben found one so we went and took a look at it. I wanted to be in a house before the end of May. I wanted to enjoy the stuff I had planned for the summer. We decided to take it because we just couldn't wait for something else that might not have become available. It had plenty of room, a pretty good sized yard, less than a quarter mile from the other house, the price was decent and we could move in asap. We struck a deal with the other house and had to be out of there by mid June. We were frickin busy that May and June.
Ben's grandma had to be put in a home and it was a terrible place. Her heath got worse throughout the year. We tried to go visit as much as we could.
As we got settled in, we were able to go through a lot of our stuff and get rid of some of it. My sister did the same. We got into a pretty good routine and everything was going well. I was learning the ins and outs of my job, my sister was working through her degree, the dog and cat were getting used to the new place and Ben had an opportunity present itself in the form of maintenance on JBLM. We've had our "hard but true" discussions over the years about his ambition to become a career firefighter and it just wasn't happening for some reason. I told him to just find something to start making money so you can have hobbies, pay off some of your bills and can go out and do some fun things again. He decided to go for it and learned a lot of skills very quickly. He was tired of working retail.
As we got into 2020, everything was working out for us. Things were paid off, we were able to save money, Ben started taking jujutsu classes with Josh and I had my entire year planned out and all the fun stuff we were going to do throughout the year such as a trip to Ecuador and Peru, concert with friends, geocaching in Canada and a visit to go see Ben's extended family in New Mexico. I was so excited.
Then effing Covid hit and it ruined our entire year. I wasted money on a trip I didn't get to go on and everything was postponed or canceled. All we did was work our life away. Ben had to physically go into work and I worked from home. I was so done with Covid after a couple weeks. It altered everything including my job. We were forced to take furlough days because the state was losing money due to the stupid shutdowns. My sister moved in with her boyfriend in May so Ben and I had this giant house to ourselves. With some of the extra time, I was able to go through a lot of stuff I had been putting off for about a decade or so. We also did a lot of yard work. Then in August, my cat that I've had for about 12 years was dying. I had to take him to a vet where we had to make that horrible decision of putting him to sleep. It was awful. I've never been without a pet before and the house was very lonely.
We actually thought it would be under control by the fall, hahaha! Joke's on us!
Anyway, since 2013 Ben and I have had some ups and downs, losses and gains and learned a lot of patience and life lessons among other things. These situations were not meant to last forever, however, they were put in our lives to teach us lessons on how to overcome, grow and deal with them. A lot has happened since that day back in 2013 and we could have easily given up but we didn't. We were determined to make the most of it no matter how difficult the situation got.
Here's to another 5-7 years when we check in again.
Next Adventure: A Covid Halloween
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