it's a quiet revolution.

i don't think i'll be able to really make this entry make any sense. i've really been searching for reasons why i'm so much happier here. when i moved from ny, i was tired of my routine. i was at a stalemate. i was living in a place for my job, with no friends or family nearby. everyone was an hour away. i was bored. i was tired of my life existing for only work. i was tired of my life being a non-life. so i moved. i decided that a fresh start was needed.

and here i am. new place. new faces. new things to explore and feelings to reexamine. and somehow, i am truly happier. i feel so damn hopeful. so damn full of promise. i am sitting in a beautiful apartment, at my grandfather's desk with photos of the family staring up at me from the glass top, and somehow recognize that in this moment, i am more of my own person than i've been in years. yes, this year will surely be a pivotal one. i feel so close to... something. to some kind of breakthrough. of miraculous self-given freedom. i'm still a mess of a girl, but somehow, being here makes me feel closer to figuring out how to fix it all. maybe it's the physical distance from the rest of the family, or the friends that knew me back when... back when everything started.

something always brings it back to her. my mother. there have been many, many days here when i've been thinking about her. mostly curious what she is up to. but what she meant to me long, long ago. celebrating the times we had, and mourning the times we won't. this physical space is so good for me. i am trying to forgive myself for all the hurt, the pain, and move on. move forward to the rest of my life. i deserve one. i can't spend my life mourning her, or beating myself up for how i kicked her out of my life.

everything is going to get so much better from here on out. i know it will.

finally, finally unpacked.

it's amazing how moving can completely turn your life upside down. i've never enjoyed the feeling of being temporary. i hate being nomadic. i've been that way for so many years. moving just sucks. the last month and a half have been spent living out of boxes. after a week of being in my new apt, i realized how much i hated it. the building was nice enough, and let me pick a different apt to move into 3 weeks later. so i spent the first month basically just existing to work, trying to find which box had plates, which box had all the paperwork i needed for a new drivers license... trying to find which box had the iron in it. finding out my mother has already tracked me down here.

needless to say, i've been a mess.

to top it, the new store has been tough to get used to. i don't know anyone there the way i did in my old region, where every other supervisor was someone i had trained before. here, i'm the new kid. i'm the one the management teams are trying to size up. it's not a feeling i like either. i don't know why i have to keep proving myself, over and over and over. at some point, i should just get the damn respect, instead of starting all over again from the bottom.

sigh.

on the plus side, it has been amazing to see my brother and his wife so much. all i can see is the life we will all share somewhere down the horizon, when i establish my life a bit more, and they branch out a family.

for now, i just have to get through this little patch. i have to remember my life's mantra: everything is only temporary.

thank you for being out there, and reading. it helps me so much to know that i have a cheerleading squad out there.

new beginnings!

i did it! i moved! i'm sorry for the long hiatus but it took a while to get my stuff back and the wireless hooked up ;) writing from my smart phone just isn't the same as writing on a keyboard.

the kitties and i drove for 16 hours over 2 days to get here, and the amount of emotions that i've had in the last two weeks are almost hard to believe. i cried when i drove away from the city, smiled the whole way through virginia's beautiful shenandoah valley, and became almost panicky nervous by the time i got here.

my brother and his wife have either talked to me or seen me every day since i arrived, and i know that this is a good move for me. it's just hard to deal a little at the moment. my stuff hasn't arrived yet, so the only furniture in this big apartment is my bed that i bought when i got here. the apt also has no natural light at all -- all the lights have to be on all the time. these two little facts have been making me utterly miserable for my first week of living here. i don't feel like i'm living at all - i'm surviving. this nomadic lifestyle gets sooo old. i want to be settled. i want to be in an apartment that's perfect, with sun and style.

but i'm trying to not complain. i am very excited to be starting my life over a bit. i just wish this feeling of temporary life would go away. i don't like this part of it.

to new beginnings! and new (happier) adventures!

packing.

i promised myself that anything in this house that made me unhappy would not be brought to the new house. but there are things here that i am finding that make me think of my mother. i have photos, letters, scarves she knit for me... an entire file folder containing all the paperwork i collected over the years detailing her jail time, her weird letters, her painful self-narratives...

just how much am i willing to purge? and why do i keep holding on to these things?

in the back of my head, all the letters, the records, the photos, are things that i could someday show to her social worker, or therapist. i am saving them for future use.

but i've sworn there is no future.

so why am i keeping them?

the logical answer, i suppose, is that i still hope for her to get better. to allow me to help her. and in all honesty, it seems i still want that. otherwise, all this shit would be in the garbage.

finally, some forward motion.

i'm moving south in 3 weeks. let me say it again, just so it sinks in...

I'M. MOVING. SOUTH.

the decision's been made, the lease has been signed, and i'll be about 30 minutes away from my brother in just a few short weeks. oh happy happy happy!

for those of you that have been reading this blog for a while, you know that this is a huge deal for me. for those that are just getting to know me, well... this is the beginning of change. of action. of finally admitting what it is that i want in my own life, with my mother and her illness the last thing i'm worried about. it feels like freedom and liberation. it feels like all the trauma of losing my mother to her illness is starting to ease up, and i can finally stop the self-punishment and isolation that have given me the ability to survive it.

it also means that i had to say goodbye to my support group here. there's only 6 of us in the group, so leaving means that a piece of the family is going away. i tried to explain to them how important they were to me, how grateful i was that there was a group of people in my real life that i could be completely honest with, and who could witness my emotional growth and healing over the past two years. i know that what came out of my mouth was inadequate to say all of that. i wish every one of us - every child of a mentally ill parent - has the chance to be a part of a group like that. the self-acceptance and healing power of a group of individuals that grew up the same way, with the same kind of fears and struggles and storylines, is immeasurable. my secret wish is, and will always be, to start a national organization for us children of the mentally ill. but i think i would settle for starting a group like the one i've been a part of in my new community.

moving is always such a stress. but this time, i'm purging. i refuse to bring everything i own down to atlanta, to start over with all the same baggage. anything in this apartment that makes me unhappy, that causes me stress, is going away. it's not coming with me. the only things i want to bring are the things that make me myself. that define me. that bring joy and peace.

i can't wait. oh, i can't wait. bring on the change!!!!! i'm positively starved for it.

heard from her.

The day after I wrote the last entry, I received 2 letters at my address. One had been forward from a previous apartment I had. And they had the same printed letter inside:

"i have been trying to reconnect with you. i hope i have reached you at this address. you know i care a great deal about my daughter, and i welcome you to visit with open arms. why have you stayed away so long? we always had a trusting affectionate relationship! i did not know which address, so i am sending this letter to all of them. please write, phone or email me before i visit so i know you are okay. [contact info edited out.] the trip to visit me is only 6 hours away. let's meet this winter! i'll be praying for you. love, mommy."

what is sad is that no, i don't want to contact her. i don't want to write, or call. i don't want to visit her, or see her. but in the same breath, i will say it was good to see her send something so i know she is alive. how do i balance out these feelings? it worries me to see her say things like "before i visit..." it gets my anxiety up immediately. but reading between the lines, it sounds like she is too tired or too poor to make the trip. phew. how will this end when i am 16 hours further from her than i am now?

what is the end point for all of this?

a new year, indeed.

hello, my friends out there in the void. i've been terrible about writing lately, and i'm so sorry. i am still very much here, and very much committed to this blog and the folks reading far and wide.

the truth is... well, the last two months have been poignant. not because my mother was in them, or because everything has fixed itself. but because i have made decisions. and not just make them. take action on them.

in december, i celebrated my 29th birthday. for the very first time in years, i spent it exactly how i wanted. compartmentalized all my friends into the events i wanted them to be a part of. didn't even blink an eye when two of my supposed best friends weren't even there. it didn't bother me. i felt something in me letting go of all that concern. somehow, i had decided that this was my last birthday in new york. and i told them all that. whether they wanted to be a part of it or not was their own issue. i spent the weekend with the people that i wanted, and did exactly what i wanted without the burden i often put on myself of trying to make it easy on everyone else.

new years was the same thing. told the two people i cared about to come over and we'd make dinner and watch the ball drop while watching movies. and that was that. quiet. simple. not the stupid annoying house party in the city that most people would have gone to. just what i wanted. what i needed.

i knew in my heart that this was my last new years here. and 3 days later, i sent an email off to the vp of my company, asking about transferring near my brother down south. word came back that i can leave whenever i want, and i've set the date for two months from now. somehow, i'm still amazed i had it in me. i had a small panic attack last week as i called to ask for a moving date in april. suddenly freaked out that i was leaving all my friends, most of my family, and the life i've been living for five years.

but now, now i feel excited. free. giant weight off my shoulders. like now that the action has been taken, i can take a deep breath and just start planning my life out a little more than it has been planned out in the past. a shiny new start to my life as a belated birthday gift. no more treading water, or waiting for something to happen.

no longer waiting for my life to bloom like irises.

the only thing i hate is this dread. dread that my mother will show up and fuck it up. dread that i'll never forgive her. dread that she'll follow me there. dread that i'll never see her again. i'm worried about her. she deleted her blog so i can't check in on her that way. and i haven't heard a peep from her in a month. it's almost... too quiet. sick, isn't it? i don't want anything to do with her, and i still can't help wonder if she's ok. wonder if she's sick and homeless, or hospitalized? or imprisoned? but i want to keep moving forward. not look back. not keep myself shackled to this life. the workaholic life that kept me breathing, dealing with the trauma of losing her like that. i have spent five long years paying penance for something i didn't do. i don't want to punish myself anymore. i don't want to refuse myself foward-motion, just because i'm afraid of where she is.

this is going to be more than just a new year. it's going to be a new approach to my life, and my acceptance of the grief and the loss. it's going to be a new chapter in moving on with my life, and without her in it.