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