That special person will be missed

I am not talking about a girlfriend here, but I am talking about a special person that has been a major influence in my life.  She had died recently and she was my landlady.

She was the first person I meet when I entered the apartments and I had seen a worse case scenario of what the apartments are going to look like.  It was a total disaster and it had a smell that was disgusting. I thought it was from some party, but when I finally got into the apartments, an odor had been a way of life and a common occurrence with college.

She helped me grew throughout the years and she was always somebody to talk to when I have a problem, or just someone to visit with when I was just simply lonely.  I seen her in the first year a lot and there was a lot of problems.  She was always checking to see if there were any parties and drinking in the apartment, and she was the ones that was always calling the cops when there was a drug bust.

She had gotten me through many times in the apartments, such as when I had gotten my computer stolen.  She even helped me with my personal problems that are not related to the apartments, such as when a girl that I had a crush on found another boyfriend and I felt upset for days.  I felt a lot better when she comforted me about the crush.

She was this person that was always around and some people had described her as a "second mom" or a grandma.  She wasn't really a second mom or a grandma for me, but she was more of a mentor - just like a kinship partner.  She actually was one of the people that I look for whenever I had certain issues in the apartment.

She was especially helpful during the first and second years, and got me adjusted to the place where I reside to attend classes.  It was a different life outside of the life in my hometown and it was an experience that I needed more than the ones that "wuss out" and commute back and forth to college. She was the one that even got me in for the job offer at Walmart last summer.

Now she is gone, which shows a end of an era and a beginning of a new era.  Her death represents another death with me - now it is time to grow up and not be too dependent on others.  I need to be more independent and there is not going to have this person anymore when I need someone.  It looks like everything is pretty much ironed out except for the apartment and eventually I am going to master the concept of independent confident living.

I tried many shortcuts that don't seem to work and now it is time to get with the program.  Maybe it is a lot easier to do my own laundry instead of carrying that purple bag home to mom just to break her back even more, or  it might be more worth it just to wash my dishes instead of just using TV dinners and paper cups - it is going to make sure I eat more nutritious food and I am going to be a happier person.  A diet of McDonalds and ramen noodles is not that good for you anyway.

I think it might be a  time to change and to quit all these shortcuts that don't work, and to do it the easy way it works.