I feel like part of the reason I am leaving is because I want to stop feeling angry at my friends. It isn’t their fault that I wanted them to be more like family and that isn’t what they want or need. It makes sense that they already have families and they are not auditioning new crazy members.

I think it’s going to be really interesting to find out what it feels like to only deal with my family for a long time. I won’t be able to look to my friends.

I think that is how I have killed my ability to stay here. I needed my friends to be family and they aren’t up for that and I can’t cope with the reality. Will I do the same thing in a different place? I don’t think so. I won’t establish myself in communities there in the same way.

If I try hard to be reasonable with myself, I know that I would be welcome in a lot of different communities. If I showed up week after week, they would be happy to put me to work. I wouldn’t be expunged. I have not been driven out.

But it’s more complicated than that. An awful lot of the communities I left I did so because of health problems or trauma reasons and I can’t really figure out how to not be bitter about no one noticing or caring.

I have a fair number of friends who are more disabled than me. I make sure I do the work to carry the friendship because that’s fair. But fucking everyone thinks of me as more able bodied and resourced than them. I’m not.

Fully able bodied people expect me to drive 40 minutes to visit them in their completely child-unfriendly houses.

I am really struggling with my feelings around this. Because I don’t get to act entitled to people’s time or attention. They don’t want a child friendly house. But they want me to come visit and somehow keep my children from touching anything?

Seriously, if you ask me over and over how to make your house a better place for my kids and you never take a single suggestion and you berate my children for touching your stuff? Uhhh I need to stop coming over.

THEN PEOPLE GET MAD AT ME. THEY SAY I AM BEING MEAN AND SELFISH BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT DRIVE 40 MINUTES FOR MY CHILD TO STAND STILL IN A ROOM AND NOT TOUCH ANYTHING.

Get the fuck out of here. My kids are far more important to me than you are.

My kids are there. You are not. You expect me to give to you endlessly as you bitch about how I didn’t give you more.

My fucking children are more grateful than you bastards.

My children understand that the time and energy I spend on them has a cost and I have to pay it. My friends seem to think that I am a bottomless well of attention and energy for them. It’s really kind of odd.

It’s kind of funny how much people let me know that I exhaust them by driving really far to see them and showing up to do work in their house. Ok fine. I can stop. I won’t exhaust you anymore.

A buddy today told me I should change so I can have more friends.

No. No. No. NO. NOOOOOOO

If I made my personality less abrasive I wouldn’t have more good friends I’d have more people happy to use me.

If you knew I was cracking under too much stress and you made promises to be there for my kids… how dare you cancel every visit then tell me you think I’m doing a bad job. You made sure my calendar was limited to you. That was all the spoons and time I had for planning. Then you rarely showed up. So mostly I just stayed home and cried.

And I couldn’t talk about the year of this shittiness while it was happening OR I WOULD BE FUCKING DISLOYAL.

I feel like everything is all my fault. How dare I get so angry. How dare I act so frustrated. How dare I run out of the ability to take care of every one every minute of the day while getting nothing back…

You try taking care of people 24/7 for ten years and see if you can manage to never get frustrated.

I am glad that for most of the next 9 months I won’t feel like I need to reach out to people to help. Jenny’s life is well in hand. She doesn’t need me and she has very little free time. We have been talking about how busy she is in advance of me coming. This is wise. That way if I see her for 2 hours in a week a handful of times I won’t feel rejected. I know that is squeezing me in.

I struggle with the fact that other than these four people, no one’s life really has a Krissy shaped hole. It doesn’t matter when I am gone. I am not integral.

That makes me wish I were dead.

That makes me feel like a complete fucking failure at life. I truly wish I didn’t hold these relationships as the deciding factor in whether I have failed at life.

Look around, bitch, you’ve done other cool shit.

But it never feels like enough. I love you so much. But love is not enough. Fuck you John Lennon.