2019 in Review
Hello all!
Sorry I have not posted lately for those who follow me regularly, but I’ve been extremely busy since the summer ended. I’m in my thesis semesters for graduate school and I’m currently working on a lot of short stories that will eventually be published in my book for thesis (most of them have not been posted on here).
I will start advertising for it in early spring, but for now, I’m just going to mention here that that’s what I’ve been working on and it’s been taking up all of my free time. I still plan on posting the rest of my trip to Colorado, but that’ll take some time xD.
So, I’m doing another end of the year review, mostly for me to look back on when I’m older. I sort of did a decade-type review in my “Dear 11 Year Old Me” blog when I turned 21, so I’m not going to do that again so soon. (Maybe when I turn 31.) But I wanted to post this 2019 review as a blog since I haven’t posted in awhile.
A lot of people have mentioned that 2019 has been a weird year. A lot of memes are going around that say “2019: What the hell was that?” and “This year was the worst, and also strangely the best, year of my life.” Well… I agree, except for it being the worst year of my life. (2012 still holds the record for being my worst year alive – congratulations).
However, 2019 had a lot of ups and downs for me. I also grew up a lot this year specifically. And I wanted to share it with you.
This is being broken up by months (but I start combining months towards the end).
Enjoy!
January
Not one of my best months this year – I had a lot going on.
It was a pretty lonely New Years for starters – one of my roommates was working and my other roommate had a party to go to, so I was left on my own. However, I was able to salvage it a little by inviting one of my friends (coworkers at the time) over to watch TV with me. Then we drove through downtown to see the fireworks.
I was also still trying to cope with the fact that I had to wait almost another whole year before I could reapply for in-state tuition for my school. I had originally tried to apply in Fall 2018, but I had to wait until Fall 2019 to re-apply – even after going through the process of getting my car a state inspection, changing my license and registration (which was a long, horrible process), gathering my leases from apartments & houses I’ve lived in, my W-2s from my work places in my state, retrieving my birth certificate, the entirety of my 2017 taxes (which was difficult since my mother had all that information, and for that reason specifically, I decided to register as an independent and do taxes myself this year), getting a new title for my car, asking for my official voter registration card to be mailed to me (even though I had already voted in Fall 2018 for house & senate in this state), etc.
All in all, anyone who’s looking into getting in-state tuition – start that process early because it takes A LOT to apply.
My school wouldn’t let me have it in the end because my license and registration had only been recently switched to my current state’s license & registration (in November 2018), but it had to be changed 12 months previous to the application, which is BS.
I was even called for jury duty in March. And, in my opinion, if I’m a citizen of my state enough to be called in for jury duty, then I’m definitely a citizen of my state enough to have in-state tuition. But whatever.
I also had to deal with kicking out a roommate that had once been extremely close to me. I had even convinced that person to move in with me to get away from family, but that bad living situation had been building up for a long time.
I had thought long and hard about what to do, but I drew the line when said person ruined one of my friendships and spread lies about me. In the end, I was able to actually have the conversation with said roommate towards the end of the month, that me and my other roommate did not want them renewing their name on the lease in May.
I don’t really regret doing it because our living situation improved significantly after they moved out, but we hadn’t spoken all year until one week ago… and we still lived together from January-May, so you can probably guess how awkward that almost half a year was.
February
I haven’t dated anyone serious since 2016, so I actually hung out with the same friend (coworker at the time) that I hung out with on New Years on Valentines Day xD. We just watched TV again, trying to make light of the fact that neither of us was dating someone and we had no other plans – pretty uneventful holiday once more.
Things were still awkward in my house since the roommate we were kicking out pulled little digs here and there just to make life more miserable for everyone. And I honestly pulled digs back, because I was angry.
The situation made me regress to when I was a teenager. I resorted back to the petty ways I got back at people and family in high school, and it brought me to a dark place with myself. My mental health suffered heavily in the months from January-May.
My work situation was also getting extremely difficult to deal with in this month. I had been working at Chick-fil-A full-time since June 2018, and I’m not going to beat around the bush with this – it was the worst place I have ever worked. Not because of the franchise itself (Although I also don’t stand by the anti-LGBTQ organizations they support – they were paying $13 per hour. I was there strictly for the paycheck), but the specific store that I worked in was awful for a variety of reasons.
I may go into depth about that experience in the future, but I don’t like revisiting the time that I spent working there. It destroyed me in a lot of ways. And it destroyed my coworker friend that I hung out with a lot xD. We became closer friends after the experience. And a lot of people, including me, all quit around the same time.
Plus, I was getting up for 6 am shifts, having night classes twice a week, and doing an internship once a week. So, I felt like I was dying inside for awhile.
March
Ah, my first jury duty. What a f***ing nightmare that was. (But a quick side-story before I get into that):
Since I had just switched my license and registration a few months prior – my DMV sent me some nice, friendly reminders that they were kicking me off of my car insurance in a few days, and that if I didn’t get on new car insurance, they were going to suspend my license.
I had been under car insurance with my parents, so when I switched states, obviously that wasn’t something I could do anymore. And I didn’t realize that until they sent me a “we’re suspending your license in 7 days if you don’t find new insurance.”
So I scrambled, and took out a new, more expensive policy by myself with the same insurance I had with my parents. It was more expensive because I lived downtown, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice at the time. So, since it was my first time taking out insurance by myself, I quickly passed the quote by my parents before I accepted fairly quickly.
Well, they scanned over it and gave me the okay. However, after the deal was said and done, one of my parents wasn’t very thrilled about how much it cost, and I got angry because I had told them to go over the quote over the phone before telling me to go for it. (They live in a different state, so obviously, I couldn’t do it in person). They told me to just find another insurance company that was cheaper and switch.
…then came jury duty day.
It was my first one, since I’ve always been able to avoid it since turning 18 due to me going to college out of state. But now I couldn’t avoid it, and I was there from 8 am – 5:30 pm.
We ended up having a fire drill in the main building and lost about half of the 2,000 people that were called in that day because we all split up unintentionally.
Some of us went back to the main building after the fire drill when we were supposed to head to a new building to meet with a new judge. So, those of us that went to the right building had to spend about 2 or 3 hours waiting for everyone else to show back up before they took a headcount of all 100 of us in this one court room.
Then we broke for an hour for lunch.
Then we all went back to the same courtroom and did ANOTHER head count. It was a f***ing joke.
You know, besides the fact that it was a murder trial, which is just fantastic.
Thankfully, they sent me home at 5:30 pm after bringing us up ONE by ONE to be asked about some of our answers. Remember, there was 100 of us in that room.
No wonder everyone hates jury duty.
But I got into my first car accident directly after they sent me home. I was exhausted, didn’t exactly know how to get home, and it was raining on top of that. I ran a stop sign, but barely touched a car perpendicular to me, heading in the other direction. They took down my insurance and left, not bothering to call the cops.
I had a phone call with someone from my insurance about the claim to describe the incident, then someone came out to take pictures of my uninjured car, and that was the last time I heard about it.
But now that I had been in an accident, I wouldn’t be able to switch insurances for any cheaper than what I had for, at least, a couple years. I was then stuck with this expensive-a$$ insurance, no matter who I decided to go with, in other words.
Again, I was still having issues with said roommate who was moving out at the end of the lease, my sucky full-time job, classes, and an internship. So I was still not having a good time.
April
I was still having issues with my car during this month. My tire pressure lights kept turning on, so I kept having to get my tires checked. I ended up getting into a fender-bender with someone (not my fault this time) on the way home from work one day (and it was raining that day too). He was apologetic and my car didn’t even have a scratch on it, so I didn’t bother with making a claim. I just let it go (much to that dude’s luck).
Work was still going horribly. I was in the process of finding a new place to work ASAP. That process went on for much longer than I liked it to, but I really started looking in April.
I had one month left with the roommate that we had kicked out. One month. I was counting down the days because our living situation had only gotten worse.
My internship was winding down and coming to an end. School was doing the same, and I was looking forward to just working on an independent study over the summer to earn some extra credits and prep for thesis.
I had also decided to apply for the University of Denver’s Publishing Institute, because, again, I was dying for an actual career-type job. I needed to get out of Chick-fil-A, and I thought this might help me put one foot in the publishing world door. I thought it might help me prepare for life after graduation. And I knew it would be expensive, but I felt like it was worth a shot – I had nothing to lose by applying (except for the application fee, but whatever).
Thankfully, I found out a few weeks later that I had actually gotten in. I was in shock. They only accepted 90-something people out of thousands that applied all over the world. I kept re-checking the welcome letter email, because I couldn’t believe it.
And that’s when things started turning around for me this year.
May & June
I also started really planning for Colorado in May & June. I took out more loans and I was leaving mid-July and coming back mid-August – it was a 4 week program with lectures, exercises with important people in the business, and a lot of extra time for us to explore Colorado. I booked my flight (which my school ended up paying for), paid for a rental car (if you want to read about that s***-show of a situation, you can find it on my Colorado blogs!), and I paid the rest of the tuition, housing, and meal fees these two months.
I planned to give my car to one of my roommates during the 4 weeks that I’d be gone, so I had to print out my registration and car insurance for her. I also had to call my car insurance to make sure she’d be covered.
I was working heavily on one story in particular this summer for my independent study (that I really hope will end up in my thesis book), and I was starting to interview for new jobs. I was hoping to find one before I left for Colorado so I didn’t have to come back to Chick-fil-A after my program ended. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way, but at least I tried.
May was also my birthday month – I turned 24 this year! I felt like a big weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, but I still had a lot going on.
July & August
I was in Colorado for part of these two months, and I also finished up my independent study / started thesis towards the end of August.
These two months were honestly the best time of my life. I’m super happy that I was able to go to Colorado and live there for a month, and I’m thankful to my parents for being supportive and helping me pay for it. I’m also thankful to my roommates for looking after my cat and my car that whole time.
And as much as I hated my work place, I am thankful to my bosses for allowing me to keep my job after I came back from Colorado, and I’m thankful for the few coworkers I had who covered my absence those 4 weeks. I’m just thankful all the way around for the opportunity.
I had also been accepted to a job that I had applied for a few months before I left during my time at the program, and I accepted. I was able to work for one week back at Chick-fil-A when I came back before giving my 2 week notice. I worked a total of 3 weeks after I came back for Chick-fil-A before I quit, started a new semester (thesis), and had a week off in between my old job and new one (I visited my parents & Salem, MA this week)!
If you want to read more about my Colorado & Salem experience in particular, I’m in the middle of posting other blogs about them, so stay posted!
September, October, & November
Firstly, I was published on September 6th of this year!!!!
My short-short story “Lightbulb” was published in Peculiar Magazine’s online journal. That story is posted on this blog, but it was published here if you wanted to check it out: https://peculiarsmagazine.weebly.com/journal/fiction-marissa-merriman
I also started my new job on September 9th – I’m working at a financial publishing company as a customer service rep. It’s a major step-up from Chick-fil-A since I’m working in a publishing company, even though I’m still in customer service. This was my foot in the door, along with the publishing institute. I’m still with them, and I’m happy.
Obviously, like with any job, there are aspects about this one that I don’t particularly like. The customers, for one. However, compared to any other job I’ve ever worked – this one is the absolute best. I’m very satisfied with it thus far. I’m also making more now, which is a major plus in the bill-paying department.
I also spent a lot of this time hanging out with friends more, since I was only taking 1 thesis class in the fall. I had more time on my hands and a happier living situation to bring friends over to. We also did things like Renaissance Festival, Halloween activities, etc. I decorated for holidays more, bought higher-quality x-mas presents for family and friends, and was just overall happier than I had been at the beginning of the year.
However, the main thing that I struggled with over these three months was the adjustment of my medication. I’m trying to wean myself off of the medication I’m currently taking, and it hit me harder than expected. My anxiety rose pretty significantly before I got used to it again, so I came to the conclusion that I was going to stick with the way that it is now for awhile. I probably won’t adjust it again until after graduation.
I also decided to try a dating app in October, which didn’t really end well. I won’t go into detail, but it was an anxiety-inducing experience that won’t have a repeat anytime soon.
December
This was a great month to end such a roller coaster year with. I felt very settled into my new job and I was able to take a longer vacation for Xmas this year (a paid vacation might I add), and this semester went well overall. My professors seemed to be like the stories I was writing for my book, and I spent a lot of this month editing heavily (still am).
I set myself up for graduation in December of next year (although I walk with my thesis class in the spring, which was very nice of my program director), and my new semester starts in January, and it’s bound to be even busier since there’s 2 thesis classes instead of one.
Aside from friend and family drama this month in particular (and towards the last half of this year), I’ve had a very blessed and busy year with plenty of lessons learned, memories, and presents.
Here’s to 2020! 🙂 Happy new year / new decade!
Catch you later,
Rissy ❤
rissy stories 
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