The night before the drive

You know shit was serious somewhere you've been when hitting the road to drive back there and stay for a couple of months due to a job is making you feel anxious. 

You know shit is serious when you don't want to leave your mom. Yeah. Silly right? I don't want to leave her behind. I feel like a child. My cats, too, I don't want to leave them, especially my orange. Not another time. Plus they're old and despite the fact they're in relative good health for their age (my grey has CKD but handles it really well considering he was diagnosed five years ago, my orange is fat and might be developing some issues himself)... I never quite know if it's the last time I see them.

You know shit was serious with your dad when the idea of going back there even once to fetch your stuff makes you feel absolutely terrified. I know it's once. I'm not going to step into his house a single next time again. But this is making me feel so godawful. My heart is racing. 

There are people I love there. There's the one I should refer to as Hopoe (or Hina? I'll have to see because both are fitting nicknames to anonymize her on here, as Hopoe is Hi'iaka's aikāne and Hina is a goddess too...). The city itself was fairly neutral to me. I still don't give much of a crap about it and I will certainly not miss it when I'm gone. 

But oh God. I feel such a surge of... anxiety. I almost want to cry. Why is it that the minute I find my equilibrium, I need to GTFO or just... move.

I know it's going to be alright. I'll have my own space there. Truly mine. My home in a sense. Nobody will, non-exhaustive list here mind you:

• tell me that I should've waited for them to have dinner, nevermind the simple fact that by the time I would get home I would've spent easily 7 hours without eating, and that said person often comes home two hours later;
• guilt-trip me for my reactions when I understandably get angry, cry, or run away when I've almost been hit;
• shit me for locking myself into my room, because it's "not very pleasant for the rest of the household";
• decide when I clean my bathroom, especially since in this place there will be a cleaning lady;
• scream for daddy in the middle of the night, either waking me up or preventing me from falling asleep in the first place because they can't just fucking get themselves to get up and go see him. (not really my little sisters' fault though, but it was hard on me)
• move a rain collector under my windows at 11pm when I'm desperately trying to fall asleep in summer, then say "oh I didn't have time" when they spent the whole fucking evening watching Netflix;
• tell me to take expired medication to knock my ass into sleep otherwise I will be "too tired";
• decide when I eat, and force me to eat greasy shit that will make my stomach react, at 8pm when I have to be in bed by 10 to try and at least get a minimum of eight hours, and have me still be up at 1:30am with a racing heart;
• throw five fucking demands at me in the same evening, or tell me to vacuum clean the upstairs floor when I haven't even been up for half an hour;
• police my language and tell me swearing isn't good in a young lady's mouth;
• argue in circles about something completely dumb until I snap;
• be standing there, or just radiating anxious energy, with a face whose tense expression sends me into fight-or-flight just thinking about it;
• hit the dog and then say it's a "pack leader" thing and that "dogs do worse to each other in the wild", there won't even be any dog in the first place;
• and others.

I'll have a chance to reset. To truly be in my own rhythm. But a part of me is concerned I can't take care of myself. Or that I'll end up in such a spiral or decompensate so hard my work is going to suffer. I mean, I did crash out like crazy when I was 17, burned out from years of trauma, and desperate to get friends and a girlfriend because I had been isolating for a long time. But I'm no longer 17. I'm almost a decade older, and I know now is not the time for tomfoolery. I have a festival planned, I have stuff to experience... loose ends to tie up. People to see again.

I shouldn't put so much pressure on myself, I know. But fuck. I want to cry thinking about all of this. It may just be like when I drove 500km south... it's daunting when you're about to do it, but once you're out on the other side, it's okay.

Fuck. I just wish I didn't have to stand all this all alone. As usual. Alone. I can't have someone by my side to do this, and I wish I had. It's always that same thing, people are always unavailable due to distance, logistics, or just because I don't consider them close enough, I think they probably think the same, and I am afraid that they will refuse because understandably, I'm not anywhere near... important enough for them, and they have their own life, I mean, they don't need me. Especially since I tend to only ask for help or connection when I'm not doing well. If I'm starting to get vocal, it's not exactly a good sign coming from me, and on top of that... by the time I get to that point, it's already reaching a critical point of pressure. 

I'm proud of myself after the fact, but it's so heavy, heavy. I have to contain it to bother no one. Cry alone. Bite the bullet, break my teeth on it, and still get there. Nobody really talks about how fucking terrible it feels to be the strong one, especially if you're relatively stoic. I do complain. I do cry. I used to keep a completely straight face. I can't do this anymore, and that's a good thing. I'd rather cry the whole time and still do it than have to stop midway or crash because I decided to white-knuckle through shit and go over my limits in a way that's dangerous.

I just hope this isn't my last drive. Should be fine, but you never know. You take your car, you roll a handful of die. If they happen to make specific combinations... you're either in trouble, or done for.

Let's hope the Devil has nothing in store for me.

(Hopoe, I bet you feel that way too. You said it yourself, you have no one and have to cope on your own. 

If you can let me in and lower your armour for a little bit... could we just cope together? I'm not talking, you know. Relying too much on each other. But I mean, just.. being there. To listen, to be by each other's side. Me coping with your health struggles, you helping me cope with mine.

Anyway. I'll see you at the end of the week. Same building, I reckon we're on the same floor too. You don't need to jump into my arms, just don't ignore me and don't be stone cold like you were six months ago.

You've had your own challenges during those months, and I can tell. I just want to tell you that you're doing a good job regardless.

See you later.)