It’s time. Today’s the day. We are leaving. Noah has plans to return to the country in November for work/seeing his best friend. I don’t have any plans to return. I may someday… life is long, but I have no idea when. It might be a decade. I might come back for a book tour. Maybe there will be a wedding or a funeral I can’t miss; I don’t know.

I miss my mother already and being much further away from her increases the likelihood I will maintain the severing of our bond. I need to and I hate it and I feel so sad for her. This life has been so spectacularly unkind to her. It’s a lot easier to see that after I have been cherished for years. Noah and my kids like me. I am not sure my mother has ever felt like that. It’s really sad.

I don’t know what it will mean to be Scottish yet. I am looking forward to finding out. I look forward to uncountable hours wandering the Highlands. I wandered up and down and forward and back in Fremont. I used to wander the Santa Cruz Mountains. I wandered the woods of Oklahoma. I wandered the freeways and highways of the entire United States. I want to know Scotland in my bones; that’s going to take time. I am not a sporty person, but I am active. I want to be active in the glorious Scottish rain.

RAIN, Y’ALL! IT’S GONNA RAIN ON ME UNTIL I DON’T LIKE RAIN ANYMORE. I am from the desert. That seems like a miracle. People keep telling me that I will get sick of the rain. After the Mojave I have my doubts! We’ll see! It won’t be happening in the first five years!

The first five years are assured. Past that… we don’t know yet. I have hopes but that’s not a plan and even less of a fact.

Our flight leaves in 14 hours. The car is due back in 11 hours. I have a solid workday left in the US and no more work to do. We are packed. The only shit still out is the stuff we need for hygiene and I have a nice empty hole in a suitcase for that equipment when we finish. I have another load of leftover groceries to bring to the neighbor who has been so kind over the summer. She feeds a lot of people because her kids and grandkids are always over. She’s absolutely thrilled to get free food. Her husband has spent a bunch of time painting with my kids. My children love her grandkids. It’s been a really blessed summer.

I am not trying to make it sound like there is no good in the US. I know good people. I know how to make a life here. Even though Portland can’t be my home I understand the appeal. Excellent donuts, decent weather most of the year (WHAT IS UP WITH THIS SUMMER), and absolutely stunning scenery. I get why my friends love it here.

I just have this internal drive that says I should not be here; this is not for me. I don’t know how much of that is related to my feelings about colonization. I am an 8th generation Californian and I still feel like I shouldn’t be there too.

Feminista Jones says she only wants to go places where a face like hers is unremarkable and welcome. I understand that feeling deep in my bones. It’s like Trevor Noah says: there are places where it being mostly white people is a problem (hello Australia) and places where it being almost entirely white makes sense (I am running to Scotland as fast as I can).

I feel like my existence is a problem in most of the world. My ancestors were the raping, pillaging thieves who helped wipe out other cultures. In many ways my body being here has continued their efforts whether I meant to or not. It’s white guilt and it isn’t. My ancestors were driven out of the British Isles. I’m coming back, bitches.

Not really “bitches”. I mean… it’s complicated.

My entire species has been on the move for hundreds of thousands of years. Is there really a “place” for any of us? I don’t know. I really don’t.

My buddy last night tried to do the “I will come visit you” dance and she didn’t appreciate it when I stepped off of the dance floor. She wanted me to hope. I can’t do that. There are two people I am pretty darn sure will travel to the Highlands to see me but that’s because A&P like to wander up and down the UK every summer. They’ve already been doing that for a while and I won’t be much more out of the way of their summer wanders than I was in the bay. Everyone else?

I can’t hope. I can leave space in my heart for you. You will always be welcome. I would love to see you. But I can’t live with feeling let down or disappointed so I can’t hope. I will wait and see. It’s part of how I can’t move to the PNW because my expectations would drown me. It isn’t that anyone else is doing anything wrong.

The tension I felt managing Dad this summer was awful and really depleting. I love that man even though sometimes I wish I didn’t. But his behavior and attitudes and personality… managing him takes work. I don’t have that to give in this life. If I stayed here I would feel compelled to work on him and help him be a less shitty person. Kind of like how I spent my childhood lecturing Uncle Bob about how he really didn’t need Auntie to wait on him hand and foot; he has hands and feet he can go get his own damn iced tea. I would lecture Dad. I would try to change him.

I would tell him that either he formally adopts that kid or he needs to stop fucking encouraging a child with a developing brain to think of him as their father. It is going to be monstrously cruel if this child grows up to find out that the only father they have ever known only financially provided for his “real” kids. But it’s not my circus and it’s not my monkeys and I’m not sure I could force him to behave ethically and I sure as fuck can’t watch him behave unethically.

I don’t want to do the dance with this little kid about why my children can’t spend the night in their house ever again. It isn’t their fault that the grown ups have different feelings about what appropriate behavior in front of children means. It would hurt the kid to be rejected all the time when they ask for time together in their home. But I can’t throw my children on the fire with them just because they want to be burned with company.

I have obligations to keep three children safe. I am not capable of being the boss of everyone’s children. I tried with the Bonus Family and that blew up in my face. I miss the Bonus Kids like an open bleeding wound. But their mother told me to go the fuck away because I couldn’t allow her to continue educationally neglecting her kids. Ok. I’ll go.

I don’t want to get into a position where I love another kid I can’t help and that feels really chicken shit.

I can’t save everyone. I’m not even sure I can save me but I’m trying.

We must leave this house in 6 hours.

Tick tock.

Hello Bangkok, it’s lovely to see you. Even if I fear I will feel like I want to die in the heat. Please slap me if I ever say “I think I’d love to go on a vacation in a hot place.” Hawaii was so hard; I spent a lot of time feeling like I couldn’t move or breathe. Bangkok… is going to be hot. Like holy shit hot. Upper 80’s-90’s and raining most of the time. We are showing up for monsoon season; I’m actually super excited about that part.

And we are going through Hong Kong airport on a Saturday while protestors are trying to shut down the airports on weekends. It’s going to be an adventurous weekend! If our flight gets fucked up I will consider that a very worthy outcome. Good for you, protestors. Keep it the fuck up. Fight. I absolutely support your efforts, even at my own expense.

I am so forking happy I never have to sleep on this shitty mattress again. Yes.

11 days until we go home.

This is like the end of the road trip only it isn’t because I asked Sarah to join us for the last week of the road trip so I didn’t say “fuck it” and just come home early.

Speaking of open, bleeding wounds.

Run away, Krissy. Run away from all the shit you can’t fix. All the people you tried to figure shit out with but you failed. Failed. Failed. Failed. Failed.

It feels like it is all my fault. If I were less controlling, less of a bitch, less demanding…. maybe I could have a mother or a Sarah or a Bonus Family. But I can’t.

So go.

Stop fucking crying and go.

I don’t feel like a victim. I feel like if I wanted to have these relationships I would have been less of a fuck up.

I am looking forward to the chance to be an entirely different person in a community. Maybe if I don’t show up wanting to find enmeshed friends things will go better. Jenny has always been incredibly good about holding her boundaries. I have never been able to push her to inappropriate intensity in over 25 years. I have a lot of hope that we will figure things out. It certainly seems worth the attempt.

I am very lucky. I get to keep trying. I get to keep striving and growing and becoming. Even if I am a grown ass woman. Not everyone gets to keep changing throughout their life. Lots of people get to a place/level/situation and they feel stuck. I don’t. I feel full of utterly limitless potential.

I want a quieter, smaller life so I can write more books and make more art and watch my children grow without being distracted by having to drive 90 miles most days of the week.

And we got through the birthday dinner with great civility. Huzzah. I was not trying to burn bridges. Kiddo says they had an absolutely perfect day. Today is our last full day in Portland. We will do a load of laundry and pack those clothes. Big kids will practice writing. We will almost certainly walk to the park to stretch our legs and get some exercise. Tonight we have dinner with my only buddy who lives in Portland who was born in Portland. Seems nice to close out my Portland time this way.

We are otherwise packed. We have just enough leftovers in the fridge that we can scrounge up a couple of meals. Oh, we should probably bring the groceries we didn’t get around to eating to a neighbor.

I think we are going to have 9 rolling bags. One of which must stay with us as carry on (it’s a little kid size) because it is all art supplies. 3 backpacks and a diaper bag. 3 purses. That sounds like a lot and it sounds like we have reduced a lot. We are not at the maximum for weight limit with a single bag. I probably have at least a cumulative full bag of weight leftover. The heavy shit is on the boat. This is fun because on the way to Bangkok we get 2 checked bags per person with a seat. 8 rolling bags: perfect. And 8 carry ons. Technically we could turn that into 6 carry ons with a grocery bag. Going from Bangkok to the UK we only get 1 checked bag per person. I will combine things so we have 5 checked bags and 4 carry on roller bags to go with 3 backpacks and a diaper bag. The purses can get shoved into the roller bags for security. No trouble.

That’s even under our baggage allotment, just barely.

I could have at least one more backpack full of stuff. Technically one of the roller bags is MCs backpack.

It is lighter and easier to manage than we’ve had all year. This is good. I also plan to go to the airport hella early because I am over rushing to an airport. I’d rather hang out there for an extra few hours doing laps with the baby. We have to check out by 11. The car is due back by 3:30. We will probably have lunch somewhere and then go straight to the airport.

I still haven’t figured out where I can drop off the car seat that is now old enough I should not rehome it. Hm. That’s a problem I need to figure out today. I have time.

Apparently the host for the Bangkok apartment is sending a relative with a van to pick us up from the airport. That sounds absolutely awesome. Did you know that Thailand requires you to have enough hard cash to pay for most of your trip or they might not let you into the country? Did you know that stays of more than 30 days require a special visa you have to get in country? How about did you know that if you overstay your 60 day visa (that requires special permission to begin with) by even 1 day you can get permanently banned from the country? I assume this is a rare worst case scenario but Thailand doesn’t fuck around. Alright then.

Gotta fill out the passenger information for the tickets. Go to the post office.

We leave on the 30th. We don’t arrive until the 1st. It’s going to be a very long trip.

Ok, passport information is now entered for the trip. Woo.

The brick of passports is even more solid and intimidating than usual because it has all the paperwork that allows us to enter/stay in the UK. It’s the size of a huge cell phone/small tablet but it is so dense that if someone handed it to you casually you might drop it from surprise. Vaccination records, international drivers licenses, Global Entry cards, and some travel cards for companies. Our life depends on this brick. Today we are wondering if we should photograph the stuff in the brick for record keeping. But then all of our most sensitive data will get stored in either iCloud or Dropbox and frankly that’s scary too.

Ayiyi.

25 hours until we check out of this house. 12 days until we go home. We looked into flights to Taipei for Christmas and I about choked. It would cost nearly $5,000, maybe more, just for flights. Given how fussy I am being over not wanting to spend $5,000 furnishing my house it seems kind of ridiculous to pay that for a trip right this minute. Perspectives shift. Priorities change. It wouldn’t have been as expensive to fly straight from Bangkok if we were staying in Asia for months. But we aren’t. Because it is time for school.

I emailed the head teacher yesterday. No response yet. I assume telling her about a problem that will arrive in two weeks isn’t that urgent yet.

Also, if you are a Girl Genius person: WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH LUCREZIA!??!?! I don’t understand how she has been doing this wandering in and out of time business. What was her ultimate goal?!?! I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS AND THESE AUTHORS HAVE TAKEN OVER 20 YEARS TO GET THIS FAR I MAY NOT LIVE TO SEE THE RESOLUTION. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I am looking forward to having a more curated life. I am hiding from reality and I know it. But my brain and my body need a break from stimulation. I need to slow down. I don’t know that I will hide forever. Just for a bit. Until i don’t vibrate with pent up energy because I never slow down.

What will I feel like when my life is smaller?

I can’t wait to find out. I want to walk. I want to explore. I want to look at plants. I want to learn to eat plants as a bigger part of my life. I want computers and internet friends to take up a smaller percentage of my life. I want video chats to be a bigger chunk of my online time than forums and I suspect I will never get above 5 hours a month of those.

Social media makes me feel like my friends don’t prioritize me or care about me very much. Not being on social media means that when I talk to my friends I feel showered with blessings because they took time out of their busy lives to acknowledge me.

I don’t want to be on social media again. It seems unwise for my mental health.

I should make the kids sit down and do all the last reviews for their classes and clear out my inbox today.

I keep hearing the Rascal Flatts song I’m Moving On in my head.

I did not write my mother a letter or postcard or anything. Silence will inflict less pain. I do not want to hurt her any more than I already have. Just… go.

I know very well that Bailey didn’t come up with the quote about friends being around for a reason or a season or a lifetime, but she told me in a way that really influenced my life and my thinking and so for the rest of my time in my head that will be the author of that line. If I was pretty sure it came from a woman of color I would probably try harder to accurately attribute the line but I’m an asshole and I don’t think it did so I don’t care to be more specific.

Don’t we all have our own sense of priorities on these things? Who is important to acknowledge and why. You decide for you and I decide for me. It’s hard to tell who will be important in what ways. I am quick to cite people I don’t want erased from the greater story.

Aren’t we all creating a story? The plot differs, the setting is wildly different from place to place, the characters vary but we are all in medias res.

Who shapes your story? Why are they important to you? How did you pick them as the influencers you want upon your life? Did you ever consider whether or not you can deny them the power to influence you? Can you deny someone the right to influence you? Do you want to? If you do the opposite of what someone says is that still being influenced by them? What if you were doing a thing before they gave you advice and you kept doing the thing no matter what they said? Does that count?

I have no answers, only questions.

Question everything.

Especially your mother. She is not G-d. Even though sometimes it feels like the creator of your being, your former host must be the same thing as a G-d.

I feel like the level of emotional distress I feel in the US is directly tied to my feelings about my mother. It’s just different when I am farther from her. I want her, I love her, I miss her.

I will keep on missing her.

It is interesting trying to start coaxing my kids towards behavior that will be more appropriate for school. I have been calling them on a lot of little shit lately and they are kind of stunned. I have never paid so much attention to their small annoying habits in their lives and they are clearly gobsmacked. This is going to be an interesting transition for all of us. I really wonder if either kid is going to say they want to home school again. I honestly don’t know if we should. I think they need to learn what being Scottish means and I am literally incapable of teaching them.

Holy tomato sauce. Becoming Scottish means not expecting to see rows of tents living on the side of the freeway. We are moving to a first world nation. No we aren’t. We are moving from a declining civilization to one that is thriving and caring for its citizens. I fear that the American Dream is dead; long live the American Nightmare. That period of time when white supremacists would rather set fire to everything than share one iota of the beauty created often by POC.

I wonder when someone will use dynamite to sever a nose from Mount Rushmore to make a symbolic point about what this country is doing to itself.

So yeah. I am thinking a lot about the casual rudeness we embody as we move into this new culture. We are collectively trying to develop our Super Egos and that’s kind of wild. It is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick situation. I have no adapted that well to the US. How will I adapt to Scotland?

“One in ten women in Scotland has experienced rape & one in five women in Scotland has had someone try to make them have sex against their will.”

Uhh, I think I will adapt ok. I think things will feel a lot safer. Even if sexual crimes are practically the only crime still increasing in Scotland.

I really should take a damn sleeping pill and go to sleep. Erf. I was half asleep all day but gosh I just feel so so so so awake. I am stretching my legs. 6.5 miles today. It was a good day.

I have been leaning on vices and coping methods really heavily for months. I need to stop. When I leave the country I need to not buy alcohol for a long time. Maybe six months. Maybe longer. I am drinking in a way I don’t want to continue financing. Pot is off the table. We need to take a break from sugar. I need to not do *mumble mumble* anymore.

I think I want Noah to make less money because when he can fund everything we need and vices… I have vices. When it is vices or food… I just don’t have vices. I mean, low key mellow non-self abusive ones.

That’s not true. I substituted free much more abusive methods. Hm.

Well I can’t be self abusive ever again. My visa depends on it. Talk about motivation. I declare myself cured. Guess I’d better get real into running. We live on a one track road that leads off into a running path. I am going to find out how long it is. I want my biggest hobby to be walking all over memorizing the city. I am going to walk around until people start nodding at me because they recognize me.

Which means not looking at my phone. It means being prepared to smile at pretty much any time. It means having a whole set of pre-prepared scripts that are as socially acceptable as I can manage.

1. Weather
2. How great Inverness is.
3. How awesome rain is.
4. Questions about gardening.
5. (After multiple conversations) Requests for information I should know about living here.
6. Travel observations.
7. Talking about children in an upbeat and unrelentingly positive way.
8. Cooking.
9. Questions about their hobbies.
10. Books.

I think that is what I’ve got. I hope it’ll get me started.

I figured out how to thread the needle of respecting the boundaries I feel are important while still seeing a Portland friend. This stuff is so complicated. I feel proud of myself for how I handled it. I learned a lot from the parenting forum. When an offer was made that I was not comfortable with I said, “We will look at our schedule and get back to you.” As a family we talked in privacy about what we could counter offer with that might be well received. We figured out a plan. Our plan was accepted. Yay we get to see each other.

But there’s a lot of tension and pain all around. This is why I feel so bad about having judgments. I don’t want to hurt someone else just because I don’t want my children exposed to their life. I feel like it is saying that I am better somehow and that’s not it. I’m not better. I’m a different flavor of asshole; a hypocrite about slightly different things; I fail just as often.

But I would rather fail myself than my children. I pick them over and over and not everyone prioritizes their life around making choices I want to expose my children to. That’s ok. That doesn’t mean I’m better.

My kids ask me why people do various behaviors I don’t model and I usually say something like, “Well people are trying to cope with the things they are having to experience. They have been taught some set of behaviors by their family and school and community. They have their natural impulses. They have the badly constructed bridges between those two things. Sometimes a bad choice is the best choice you have available. A choice may be bad for one person and not bad for another person. Sometimes there are health/financial/life consequences for needing to use a coping method. Life is hard.”

My *mumble mumble* usage does not do good things for my body’s overall vitamin absorption rate. It is good that I don’t have a choice about leaving it on this continent. The amount of sugar I have been eating has increased the inflammation in my body. The fatty food we eat contributed to Noah and I both developing fatty liver.

Choices have consequences. I am not better.

I kind of feel like I don’t need to bother trying to cut people off at this point? I don’t need to worry about future influence because, frankly, I don’t have plans to bring my kids back to this continent and that limits the influence of everyone here. I am going extremely low contact with… everyone.

That’s not true. I have a growing list of people who are scheduling video chats. And I have some awesome friends who type at me all day long sometimes. And I am going to increase my consistent in-person contact with Jenny for the first time in ten years. I am going to learn from her. I will get to enjoy who she has grown into being.

So yeah. Generalities are rarely correct. I’m not moving away from everyone. I’m moving into a more curated level of exposure to people I love.

And the US has many lovely places to live where people are very happy.

More than one thing can be true.

Objectively I think I am doing better at handling my feelings than in the past. But right now I have about 938,201 feelings. I feel sad and happy and bitter and excited and nervous and proud and ashamed and embarrassed and tired and competent and strong and weak and foolish and brave and stupid and like I am a rat running out on a sinking ship.

“Why are you moving to Scotland?”

“Because I want to put my children in school and have them not suffer through live shooter drills.”

I’m not making friends on my way out the door. And a lot of the old friends who are reaching out to tidy up old ends… I’m leaving them frayed. If I haven’t seen you in person in 5 years despite you living less than an hour away from me? I truly don’t have time to see you one on one for a personal send off. Are you nuts?

I appreciate the kindness of people reaching out to say goodbye. I do. I also feel bitter that it took this for these people to acknowledge me. If you have spent time with me or if you live far away I am probably not talking about you.

I don’t know if I am proud of me yet; I know I feel bursting with pride in my children and my spouse.

Today was complicated. We went to a party at Noah’s bosses house. Me and the kids felt out of place and like we didn’t do all that well socially. I had to talk my kids into not frantically running around tidying up after the party. We are not here to be the help and these aren’t good friends who really need our support. Leave the damn water balloons on the grass. Someone else will handle that problem. But I teach them to pick up litter on the sidewalk?

It’s different. It’s not that I want to say fuck you to Noah’s (very polite and civil and decent) boss but I don’t want my kids arriving at a mansion and immediately going into cleaning mode. No.

The little suburb where this house resides is outside the bubble of poverty growing and simmering in Portland. Right next to the country club.

It’s All Fine Here.

Rome is burning but It’s All Fine Here.

Raise taxes. Massively. Save the fucking country. Save all of the people who are literally not able to save themselves because they were born with the deck stacked against them. That sucks. It’s not fair.

There is no fair.

I’m anxious about this discussion tomorrow. I fear that I inserted myself more than I should have last time. It’s not about me. This is not my space. Just shut up already.

I think that if Jenny were less demonstrative in her glee about us moving there I would be flipping the fuck out. Instead every time I touch base with her a little she talks about another way she has thought up to ease my transition. I have bawled. She wants me that much.

People don’t extend invitations to me much. They expect me to invite myself. And then I either do it for too long or too short and I’m wrong again. She didn’t invite me… but she has greased the rails in ways big and small because she isn’t demonstrative but gosh she wants me there.

I want to be there.

I am nervous about all the changes. This will be a change in lifestyle from top to bottom. We are going to try to live on a very fixed, much lower income. (We have failure routes if that’s a problem.) We are going to put the kids in school for the first time in their lives. I will have my own bedroom where I can go be bitchy and not be bad. I can’t buy pot and I really shouldn’t buy much sugar or alcohol cause shit’s expensive. I’d rather furnish my house. I get to drink the fabulous tasty Scottish water and tea–unsweetened.

Unsweetened tea is going to be a hard jump. I’m just saying.

But I’ve made bigger, harder jumps before. I HAD FUCKING VEGETABLES THREE MEALS TODAY. LIKE A GOD DAMN HEALTHY PERSON.

Ok. I think I am tired enough to sleep. I hope. Ugh.

I really am my favorite person to talk to; I feel like a narcissist because I enjoy writing to myself so much. But, oh well. Maybe I just have fleas.

I should be asleep. Two hours ago I took two sleeping pills because I ache in the atoms of my bones from exhaustion. Can’t sleep. Brain will eat me.

Grief. Loneliness. Pettiness. Spite. Greed. Fear. Desire. Frustration. Generosity.

I have all the feelings and then some.

I haven’t heard back from Dad about tomorrow. I assume that means he is blowing me off. (I contacted him twice and he didn’t respond. I am not reaching out again about Saturday.) If I don’t hear from him in a prompt and timely fashion in the morning my plan is to take my crew to Ikea. We had a really successful first trip and I learned a lot of important details about what I don’t want from a few lines but I still don’t know how I am going to solve a few problems and Noah’s opinion matters. Thus Noah has to go. We will be there for a bit talking and debating. Luckily, no actual shopping. Just reconnaissance.

In the afternoon his boss is having a house warming. We need to go and be polite and mannerly and pretend we have et-e-ket.

Sunday I am seeing some of my very strongest influences for who I am as a woman of Leather. This is the Middle Aged Guard who brought me up and I love them so much. I’m glad I made it for one last meeting. It’s a mitzvah.

Monday and Tuesday we got nothing. We have enough food to not need the grocery. We have no social plans or obligations. I think I am out of shopping and errands. I might want to spend a little bit of time on Tuesday working on packing, but we aren’t really unpacking at this point…

Wednesday will be a Middle Child birthday kind of day and we will be letting our little darling set the tone all day long. It will be fun. We won’t work much, I expect. The current plan (that Dad did agree to) was hanging out at the park for an hour or so before going to a restaurant. I know that means he will bring his whips. I’m leaving. I don’t have to face this issue head on.

Thursday I will spend all day packing and cleaning and trying to not stress myself out. We have everything we need to make this all work out. We’re fine. Thursday night my buddy C is going to have dinner with us so she can have a second visit. I’ll tell you plain, internet, that if I had gone to Michfest when I was 18 like I wanted to go… C is the kinda gal I would have tried to hitch my wagon to. It’s not just her looks, it’s her personality and attitude and grit and intensity. That’s a woman who knows how to melt my butter.

Good bye, love.

Folks think I am so pro conflict but I’m not really.I’m a coward.I have up and left so many places and faces and jobs and communities… There’s a problem! And no one cares. Bye.

Hi America, you can keep the guns. I’m out.

It’s not that I think that everything or everyone here is bad. I could start describing the mythical beauty of the Black Hills and go on all day. I could talk about the sheer terror of driving down some of the giant mountains on this continent with an over-loaded minivan and a trailer. I could talk about the jaw dropping awe of seeing Alaska. It’s just bigger than a place has a right to be, and so beautiful! The sunset in Louisiana. The sunrise up over the Florida Keys. The best ice cream in Wisconsin. Going from one corner of Lake Superior to another and finding completely different types of beaches and wondering how the water pattern created that…

There’s a lot of good here.

And I’m not even touching on the people properly. God I love the people. I have had some over the top, amazing relationships here. My dating history was spicy and exciting. I have had excellent friends. I have had a solid community. Hell, I even got a good education. I was raised in California and I worked there. I gave back.

I feel this overwhelming horror that I Must Go. I don’t know if it fear of earthquakes or fires or more concentration camps, or guns, or my mother, or just plain being too hot and having diarrhea for more years as punishment. I don’t know if I can stay here and learn more productive/useful/healthy relationship patterns with my friends. Not because they are incapable of change, because in this environment I can’t even figure out what change is needed let alone how to implement it.

I am overwhelmed. I hurt more than I’ve hurt in months and it is from the driving. I’ve barely been typing so that isn’t it. I know the beds suck, but it’s not that kind of hurt.

This itty bitty house is kind of a microcosm of our problem. I can be a very good mother if I have time to myself to decompress and do things that I don’t want my children seeing. If I have to be “on stage” 24/7 I get bitchy. I run out of ability to see what needs to change and I don’t have the energy to change things.

I need access to more boundaries for me because in this space… I don’t get any. I have not had personal space… really in years.

It was amazing how relaxed I felt during travel in terms of hypervigilance. I mean, I felt stress. I was anxious sometimes but hypervigilance is different. In the bay area I am always on alert because a family member might show up and I might have to react in some way that I don’t want to. I am going to let my half crippled sister die believing she could always kick my ass. I don’t need to show her what I learned in Impact.

I can just leave.

I think that part of the reason I can’t sleep is because my butthole hurts so much. I got more hemorrhoids with each child I birthed. Being on my period makes them worse. And we’ve had terrible toilet paper lately and that stuff is like sand paper. My poor butthole. Now I have Tucks pads and lidocaine. I love me some lidocaine.

I miss anal sex. *sigh*

Bodies. Life.

I can’t even begin to process the ending of this chapter of my life. All the people I will never see again.

Friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.- Bailey