Ye Olde Homestead (or, a post composed entirely of rant)

Yes, I know, I am a terrible daughter. Or at least I feel like one every time I put off going home to visit with my parents. It's difficult to find an excuse not to go over when some of my things are still living at their house. I'm just so much happier here, in my own space, in my own little world, with no one intruding on my privacy, my routines, my emotions, and my life. I'm so much more at peace.

It isn't that I don't love and appreciate my family: I'm pretty sure that I do. But when I see them, when I'm in their house, I just feel so...unhappy. I feel like the familiar walls are crushing me. I feel numb and anxious at the same time. I find myself slipping too easily into old patterns of behavior. My mother encourages me to eat my feelings, maybe because she does it too, and when I visit with her I do -- even though I know sticking to a proper diet is crucial to maintaining my equilibrium. I feel terrible now, tearful and uncomfortable the way too much food always makes me feel -- heavy and suffocated. I'll feel heavy and bad for the next few days until it wears off. 

I can't afford to do this right now. 

I don't want to do this right now.

It isn't always possible to cut the people and things that make you unhappy out of your life. I'm not an island alone in the middle of an ocean. I'm connected, intimately, with people I have no desire to hurt. They would never understand it if I said I didn't want to hear from them for a while, until I can hold onto the person I want to be when I'm with them, the person I know I can become if I let myself change and grow. Change is slow and fragile, and it would certainly be easier if I wasn't surrounded by people who, in one way or another, rely on me being the same as I've always been. They would never understand if I said that what I need is time to be completely alone in the world, without a family and without a home: no phone calls, no emails, no visits. 

I understand how people can go into a fugue and find themselves in a new place with no idea of who they are or where they come from. The mind is powerful, and Lord knows it's easier to build a new life without the old one following you around. It isn't possible for most of us to leave the past behind us and begin completely again: you can't erase your memory and your connectedness like a chalkboard.  

But I feel like I can't breathe. I feel an unnameable dread. I feel alone when I am with them, and uncomfortable in their space. I need it to be over, but I will never be able, or willing, to bring myself to do that to my own family -- to walk away without turning back. Maybe I would heal. Maybe I would be the same. I struggle constantly with the boundaries I need to keep them out of the space I am trying to build for myself. It is so familiar for my family to take over my space and my life, like a fog seeping into unguarded corners. 

I just need a lot of space right now. Maybe too much space, more than is really reasonable, or possible, or fair to demand. I need to figure out who I am, and whether or not I can accept this person or this life. I've never had the chance to be alone. I've never had the chance to put myself and my needs before what everyone else needs or wants or requires from me. I have thrived on giving myself away in relationships with others. I have been consumed by other people and the worlds they've created for me to live in.

But today I am tired. Today I want to be alone. Today I want to be free. I'm like a child demanding the impossible: leave me alone, but be there when this is over. Don't try to come into my life, but let me love you in yours. Don't make me be the person you love and want, but accept me however I feel like being right now in this moment. Don't demand or expect anything of me, but let me give you what I am able to. 

Nobody could accept that, most certainly not family. But I really, really, really don't want to see them, or hear from them, or think about them, for a while. I want to get the hell away from that place. I don't want to set foot in that house, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

I came back to my home today and cried, couldn't get off my couch for hours, after I visited my parents and they dropped off some more of my things that I don't want or need...more pieces of their house that I don't want in my life but that are, slowly but surely, shaping my new home in the image of my old one.

I want it to be over. I want it to be enough. But you can't outrun your family any more than you can outgrow the years spent loving them, trying to weave and unweave a life together that everyone can live with.