hello world, it's been a while

So it has been a lamentably long time since I've posted (yes, thanks Justin, I know you reminded me to keep writing every single day), but I think perhaps being under virtual house arrest and clicking into Marshall's blog and then into mine has brought me back for a while. And it's been a busy sequence of events...a lot to catch up on, if you're paying attention, and kind of a lot even if you're not.

I don't know if I'm ready to get back into the full swing of posting again with detailed life updates, I think I'm more inclined to copy some of the writing I've done recently and post it instead, but I'm even wary to post anything...because my tablet died and hasn't been replaced yet, so I've been using my dad's laptop, which both he and my mom use regularly. And I'm terrified they'll manage to gain insight into and even more control over my personal thoughts, rants, and musings. Because I'm not going to lie, I am feeling very, very smothered by my parents at the moment.

In fact, perhaps I will rant about that for a bit. Mostly it has to do with this new house that they're all excited - for excited read totally and completely consumed - by. It makes me really anxious to think of relocating and not knowing where I'm going or how it's going to feel or where my things will be. Or what will happen to my house now. I mean, for crying out loud, there have been a few points in my life where it has made me anxious to the point of panic attacks to move from one room to the next. And now this move is happening so suddenly and so slowly at the same time...it's stress-inducing agony. Like, three weeks ago I lived in this house where I have pretty much always lived unless we've been abroad. Or at school. When I used to go to school and have freedom before I fucked it up. And even though it was always supposed to be a small, temporary house, and even though my parents have been "buying" a new house for more than ten years - or perhaps because of it - the actuality of the change being set in motion seems very sudden and unsettling. More than ten years of "moving" and then three weeks ago, all of a sudden, I actually have to go to this new place for real. BUT, given that they bought the house so suddenly (well, at least for Lori and Michael) we're moving "a little bit at a time". I'm not sure what the theory behind this is, but I do know that it makes me feel like everything I know and that is familiar to me is slowly disintegrating around me, so that I feel like I can only sit in my room because everywhere else in my house is full of boxes or emptiness that makes my chest close up.

On top of this, or perhaps because of it - I mean, I saw it coming a mile away - I am now grounded for two weeks as per the punishment I earned for going off the rails. Now, knowing myself and the way I work, I knew that the combined stress of feeling out of control, moved without consent, and the anxiety of going to a new place at all would be hard. Put on top of that all the time my parents spend talking about it, going to it, and ignoring me more than usual, I felt impotent, invisible, and unheard. But honestly, sometimes I feel like it is a distinct product of my upbringing combined with my personality to be so purely self-concerned some of the time. Even to have that capacity. Because everything I learned growing up showed me that no one else is going to be looking out for you or how things might work best for you, so if you want it, you better look out for number one. Perhaps that sounds dramatic, and perhaps it is. But with my parents, if you're not looking out for yourself you get bowled over pretty quickly. And thoroughly. AND THEN, on top of all of this stress, Storm quits school, I start having these INSANE dreams about this boy that I had only just met, my own computer breaks, and I'm just ready to explode. So explode I did. And, of course, it only made things worse for me - read, I only made things worse for myself - because I had this whole Wade thing that I feel bad about, and then I feel bad because I think I feel bad for the wrong reasons - being that I feel bad it didn't work out and that everyone else was right and that I wish he had called instead of feeling bad for behaving in a totally ludicrous manner and more than earning the relatively light punishment that has still managed to make my life much more closed off. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do feel bad for the right reasons too. I feel super annoyed with myself and super stupid, and I know I looked like - well, acted like, did a pretty good impression of, whatever you want to call it - a complete idiot and an easy lay to boot, but also, there was comfort there that I haven't felt in a long time. Sort of a taste for the poison after a long, long time. And that's worse. So I don't know. OH AND I don't have my phone because of that night, since I'm a dumbass and lost it somewhere, and Zach is supposed to check the last place it could be tomorrow, but I think I even remember the screen being a little broken last time I did see it, but that is probably one of the worst parts of the whole thing...that I feel without everything that sort of stabilizes me...that gives me what little independence I do have, and that connects me with people I want to connect with without my parents interference. Oh car, freedom, laptop, blackberry, how I miss you.