Is it something I can manage? Because I sure don't feel brave in preparing to do something that seems insane.
I'm going to be moving across the country to live with three people, one of whom I trust solidly. One of three is an F, after all. I'm going for a big sea of promises that I'm not entirely sure will be delivered on, but am terrified to actually verify which of them were liberally sprinkled with dishonesty.
I'm sure at least a few were.
Can I really handle that environment? It's going to be temperamental, discordant. I may be a relatively seasoned peace-keeper, but is it enough? It wasn't last time I was there. The longer I think on it, the more I want to curl up into a ball and wait for the decision to be made.
I'm not a warrior, not anymore. I don't fight for things, I let them happen and make the best of them. It's what I've done for quite some time, and I'm very pleased with it. I'm pleased with being able to pick up threads and feel them to the end.
I'm not liking any of my threads right now.
I walk through the last of the Indian summer. Leaves are falling and the sun is warm on my face, and even the water sings to me. The sky is never a blue like it is here, the grass isn't as soft, and the cold doesn't embrace me like this, anywhere else.
This is home.
I don't want to go.
When I went the first time, there was no expectation. The offers were casual, and the joy when I accepted was unforced, unfiltered. Now there's judgement and deadlines. There's going to be upheavals and screaming. One wrong move and I'm out on the street.
It's almost what I'm doing now, only with violent upheavals and screaming.
Moving. Good idea?
How do people make decisions like this? Because I can't come to terms with anything but what I know is happening, and what I know is happening is increasingly concerning to me. If I'm riding in your car and you deliver endless promises for support, but start stalking me for little details and pressing me more and more frequently for a decision the minute I get home - is that the sort of "support" I'm leaving for?
Simultaneously, I'm also finding that many of those offers for aid were invalidly offered. Och, aye, a few were granted, but what good is it if it is a grudging gift? I'm going to be depending on that.
Am I brave enough to walk into that huge fucking mess? Am I really?
It's not just me, either. It's Katie, too. I'm bringing Katie into this. She's going to be there. It may be easy enough for an optimistic sort to imagine us laying by the beach and laughing, and indeed it is what I had hoped for - a respite. A small, easy window of comfort before real living resumed.
I don't think it's going to happen now.
She's almost as terrified as I am, but the difference is that she actually is brave. Fearless.
I can keep her safe. I can get us home if the worst should prove true. That's true. It must be normal for people to have second thoughts about huge, life-altering conditions of this sort, mustn't it? Surely, it must. It has to be.
But good God, Finley....
I can't imagine my mother going somewhere without her husband, or Katie going somewhere without me. Hell, me without her. But I'm going to have to leave him. Yes, it's temporary, it is. Until I finish college - that's all. I'm coming home, a few years at the most. Less than five if I can help it.
I don't want to leave him alone here! This is an awful, awful place to live! Isolated, judged for each and every twitch, the whims of the larger groups - how am I to stand leaving him here!
Especially after he cried and basically begged me not go. I told him I had to; at the time, I was sure I did. His first tear cleared up that little problem nicely. I love him. Every bit as much as I love her, and they're even starting to understand the tremendous undertaking of that. Starting to be all right with each other. But Finley isn't going to have anybody to protect him if I go! He won't ask anybody for a goddamn thing. I've asked my mother to look after him, and I honestly think she will, but he's terrified of asking her for anything, though I made him promise. I think in his mind he's lost a right to be liked by people like my family, which is the biggest crock of bullshit I've ever encountered.
Worse. What if I come back, and he's--- he's gotten someone---
I keep thinking about Milo. Obviously, Helen of Troy was pretty awful to him, but when he leaves, her father, the King, tells her it was best for him to grow away from her. That she was really hurting him, no matter how much she loved him, it wasn't really in the "right way" (as if that had anything to do with it!).
But is it? Is it better for Finley to not have me, to lose me for five years or so? I can't bare the thought of hurting him. If he asked me, I'd can this whole thing. Right now.
Of course, let's just top this entire situation off with the huge serving of self-loathing I'll likely have until I die. The one that never sleeps - and will probably be the worse for living off a relative's charity. Was Marty right, when she was talking to Finley? Does it not matter if my life is getting better, because someone handed it to me? Is it wrong to take help?
I'm so confused and hurt about everything. I don't want to go, I really, really, don't, but I can't not go. If I bail on them a second time (the first, admittedly, not my fault, but I doubt it will matter), they'll surely cut me from their lives like they did everybody else and I love them, too.
I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do.
How will my mother make it, if I just up and flee from the life she's provided. My dad! My dad's shitty car was a huge gesture for him, and now he's got Randi, my nieces and nephews, too, to look after. Taylor notwithstanding. I'm just starting to have a vague sort of relationship with him.
And Craig. And my sisters. And Kamden. My Grandparents, and aunts and uncles. How do I leave them? Even for a little while.
Even for today.
I keep watching movies and listening to musicals. There's a comfort in that. These people, they are the ones who took their lives and made them fit their big, brave hearts. There's a story for every walk of life, and the ones that haven't one need only to wait.
Maybe one day, this will be my story. Maybe I'll be cast down as fearless, that I did something just do it.
On the extremely rare chance that is so, let me tell you now: It isn't easy.
It isn't easy, and I hope, very much, that it turns out to be worth it. Because I will fall apart if I trade the only hope that's held me up, in return for the life - and the people - that mean everything to me.
I hope I can be brave.
