.....

It's all tied together is what I told her. And it is. So I don't really know where to begin (it feels like I can't get people to stop asking me to do things for them long enough to figure out where to begin.)

I guess the crux of the matter, the all encompassing truth is I don't feel like things will ever be good again. It's all changed, you see? And change is never good. Life has never changed for the better, it's always brought people leaving, places leaving, things ending. Change is end. Change = end. Yes.

I don't know how I am supposed to keep going along with this. This being this life I see forming around me. I think we may move to Seattle at some point, it may take a long time, but they seem pretty determined. But everyone keeps painting these pictures of how wonderful it will be. Mom will work, Dad will find a job or get his disability. They tell me that once we move, I can go back to school, get a job if I want, I can build myself a life. I won't have to take care of Michael, or the house, or my parents anymore. But I can't see that happening.

How is Dad supposed to take care of Michael, be his father, when he refuses to do it now? Who feeds Michael, who entertains him, who makes him take a bath, clothes him, makes him behave? Me. Always me. I am his Mother while his real Mom works. I am 25, and I am a mother, and not by choice. When we move to Seattle, Dad is supposed to magically take up this mantle? He's supposed to care for Michael without screaming? If I so much as leave Michael's care up to my father for more than a day, Dad is yelling, and stressed out, and his blood pressure is up, and he's overwhelmed and Mom is sighing and irritated, and asking me to just put up with it.

Am I making sense? I don't know. It's my journal. I don't think I have to. I see myself moving and I see myself unable to do anything but help care for my family. Because they need it. Because I can't be hurtful. I really can't. Everyone tells me I should put my foot down, so to speak, I should put myself first. Tell them they have to find another solution, I have to live my life. But what is so great about me, or my life, that I have the right to withdraw help that my family truly, realistically need? I love these people. Very much. How do you justify hurting people you love for selfish reasons? "I'm sorry, I am going to hurt you possibly beyond being able to repair our personal relationship so that I can go do things for myself." It doesn't make sense to me.

So I see 30 coming and going, and I haven't gone back to school. And I am not sure I ever will. I think I will grow old and care for my parents. And that will all I ever do. I will not marry, I will not date, I will not have a career. My parents will be my career. They are my career. And maybe that isn't so bad, except that it sounds so unbearably lonely. Terrifyingly lonely. It was different when Mom I were so close.

There was this time when I told her everything. She was my Mom and like a best friend to me. I talked to her about Her. I talked to her about Steph. I talked to her about all my insecurities, and the things I wanted to do, and be, and when it was bad I went to her, and when it was good I went to her. And now I can't. Maybe it makes me sound like a child, I think it does. And that makes it doubly hard to say. But she has no time for me. My father demands her time, Michael demands her time, work demands her time. There isn't anything left. She's told me as much. No one in her life will back off and give except for me, so I do. Because I can't not see how tired it makes her. How thin she is stretched. But in the same breath it renders me isolated. So many things happen each day, each night, and I don't tell her. I don't tell anyone. And she's so close with Michael now. He's exactly like her. They understand each other, connect with each other like I never could. My mother doesn't understand why I feel, or think, or want the things I do. My moods irritate her. She has Michael now. She doesn't need me except to babysit, and clean, and help care for the family because she has to work. These are the reason she needs me now.

Steph is gone too. She has a boyfriend, and a son, and a new job, which she hates, but she has no time to be online. Who could blame her? She's exhausted. She comes home and whatever energy she has left she spends with her family.

Her... she can't often stand me anymore. I can't blame her. I feel like there's nothing good left inside me to share, like I've burnt it all out. Who wants to talk with that? When she does come around I have nothing but complaints. She'll go too, eventually. It's happening in stages. We've spent so long fighting now I am not sure if we do anything but. The times when things are good are getting shorter, the times when things are bad longer. She finds other people to talk to now. Even our roleplay has ended. There was a time I thought that would never happen. There was a time when I thought we'd always have each other and our rp too. Half of that is gone. The other half is soon to be gone too. People don't stick around. I am coming to think that love is not actually love, it's affection for as long as someone is entertaining, someone makes you feel good.

I imagine this post is disjointed. Which would concern me more, if anyone read this, which they do not. Thank God.

The problem is I see everyone leaving. Eventually, and somehow I've crafted my life so that the only thing I have is the people in it. And once they're gone, what? I am getting worse. I am happy less and less, angry more and more. And the things I do to deal with that anger are getting worse and worse. If anyone knew the half of it, I'd have even more problems. She tells me things will get better. But I think she's wrong. I think they'll stay just like this.