6 Months

About 6 months ago I was packing up the final pieces of my puzzle before I crept out of the house in the wee morning hours.  I was afraid.  I was dying inside.  But I HAD to. 
I fed my cats some special treats and tried to get an hour or so of sleep; knowing it would be a long time before I would be in a place where I could sleep again.  I sat on my bed and mentally counted seconds, listening to the sounds of the house dying down and waiting for the lights to go out.  I locked my door from the inside and shut my babies in until whomever next came and found that I was gone.
My feet hurt, because I had just spent two days walking around a rollercoaster-amusement park in bad shoes.  I had large blisters that had broken and bled, even, that were making each step a chore.  I had spent some precious time with my next-oldest brother, the one who would have everything on his shoulders after I left.  I think he knew, by how I told him that I was enduring my parents and going just for him.  But, he might not have known.  We laughed and smiled and compared rides and giggled ourselves silly over his faces on the pictures that the ride-cameras took.  We bought lunch at one over-priced booth instead of walking back to the car for sandwiches.  I told him I would pay him back, and before I left I put a 20 by his bed.
I wrote notes for all my siblings, and I wanted to leave them in their rooms, but I didnt want to risk going upstairs and having anything be found prematurely, so I left them on my dresser and hoped against hope that someday they would be found again and someday they would read and understand a little of my reasons.


This evening I sat in my car filling out an application for promotion; thinking about my life and what I wanted for my future.  Then I realized what date it was; and how absolutely ridiculous such thoughts/plans would have been 7 months ago.
As I began crying the one word I could think of was: happy.
My life now is, with a few exceptions, happy.
 I went to the gym and swam; my head filled with re-lived memories and plans for what I might say to explain my lack of a resume and/or any kind of "qualifications" for the post I was aspiring to.
I couldnt go for very long, I ended up spending most of my energy on tears and emotion.  I left feeling lightheaded and worn.
I came home and spent some time with the people I live with.  I had bought a funny calendar and we enjoyed reading through it.  I laughed.  I REALLY laughed.  Because I was happy.  And it was amusing and sarcastic stuff.

Then I came up to my room; my safe, cozy, little space.  And that is when grief hit.  All that I missed; all that I lost, both by leaving and by living as I did before I left.  My cats.  My siblings.  The nights we would watch "America's Got Talent" and get some knowledge of the pop-world from the demo-performers.  The movies we had watched hundreds of times and could quote line for line.  Rubber-band wars.
I guess I miss my family.  I miss the love we had at times inbetween fights.  The total familiarity with one-another.  The fights and the mess and the chaos that was my "normal."
I dont miss a lot of things, and in a sarcastic tone my cynical side reminds me of the "bible studies" and lectures and all the brainwashing and hate-mongering and downright terrible things that I would wish on my enemies (I am cruel).  But they are part of me, mixed up in all the baggage of past that weighs on the present and overshadows the future.

I almost didnt ask for that form.  I was walking to my car and I thought about all the reasons why they should not pick me.  And then I stopped and I told myself that the worst thing that they could do was turn me down, and I was already turning myself down, so I had nothing to loose.
Each decision; each step; small yet so important.