i overreacted a bit.

i don't know who the call was from. after talking to my brother, the call i got wasn't from the right area code. which means i freaked out and lost my cool over nothing.

i guess it shows that there are some feelings that are still very, very raw. if she ever really does call me from this point forward, i'll try to handle it better.

i will handle it better.

how did she find me?

it took all my strength not to lose it today... she found my phone number. someone, somewhere, gave her my unlisted phone number that has been out of her reach for 4 years. i want to scream. punch a wall. cry in a heap. smack someone. i was free. FREE! free from the drama, and the fear of phone calls. fear of hearing it ring. hearing it at 3 in the morning. having a daily reminder of her illness.

and i don't want to change my number again... it's been so nice to just have one number and not worry about this again.

i can't possibly put the rage i'm feeling into this post. it scares me. it scares me that i have to deal with it again, and make a decision to either change my number, or actually answer one of her phone calls to tell her the next time she calls, i'll consider it harassment.

save me from all this drama. i have been free of it for so many months, and i'm in such a good place mentally. as always, ALWAYS, she comes back to fuck it up just when i'm feeling free from all the shackles of guilt, anger, and shame. just once, ONCE, i want to move on with my life without fear of her interference.

it's never going to be easy. it's never going to be the life i need to heal. she's always going to just force herself back in. i hate her.

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.