Saturday, August 13, 2005

Saying Goodbye, Saying Hello

All I know about bitter sweet is when it refers to chocolate.

I do know this is hard.

New York was always the place I was fighting to get to. I had my bags packed before I graduated high school, trying to get as far away from my po-dunk midwestern town and my destructive, insane family as fast as possible. Since I didn't have a passport, it was either California or New York. Winning a scholarship to atheater school here helped me make that decision.

A year into school, my body started to self destruct and I crawled back home, defeated, with odd things coming out of every orifice and some really strange rashes. I spent the next two years living in my parents basement, shuttling to doctors, trying to ignore the community college pamphlets my mother shoved under my door when she wasn't busy counting my medications to make sure I'd taken them.

Eventually the rashes and odd orifice objects subsided a bit, and I promptly packed my bags and medicine botlles and ran away to NYC again, leaving my parents words of "You'll never make it..you'll never be well enough to do anything" rolling with the tumbleweeds. There was more schooling and auditioning and working and trying to be independent self esteem building.

And then at another point, more parts of my body started disintegrating and relocating and becoming posessed by ancient demons, and back to Hicksville I went..seemingly for good. Eventually I learned how to force my body to submission, or at least medicate it into some stage of behaving. I started baking at a local joint, something I'd done in NYC to support myself between acting gigs ( needless to say, I did more baking than acting). I studied school brochures, this time for learning alternative medicine and healing, but that little voice in me kept telling me " Go East, Young Woman"

So yet again, I ran. Determined this time no matter which part of me spontaneously combusted I wasnt going to let my body define me..or make me live in my parents basement!. The last 5 years in this apartment, my mom got crazier and drunker, and slowly better. I stopped the parental interrogations and just sent them my medical bills instead. 9-11 sent me into a tailspin, and I decided to actively to pursue my life and my dreams instead of believeing that at some point my spleen was going to fall out, so why really bother?

And now I'm going back to my family, something I swore I'd never do. But this is the first time I chose to do so, and wasn't forced into it. Yes, my many kidney boo-boos influenced that choice, because after years of having no emotional support system..and claiming I didn't need one..my family was healthy enough to provide me a good one. This time there are no strings, no threats,
no failed dreams. I've accomplished more here, and in my life, than I ever really expected. And starting a new chapter isn't filling me with dread, but excitement and anticipation.

I'm sure I'll get sick of my parents ( I'm renting the apartment attatched to their house, but as they keep exclaiming.."It's NOT the Basement in Po-Dunk!") and my sister and her husband in the suburbs,, heck..even my little brother moved their last year! But they know me as a grown up now, and are actually in awe of my career and accomplishments.

I'm still changing all the locks right when I get there, though.

Things I've Learned Of Late

Pugs get cranky when they have packing tape stuck to their paws

Sometimes Blind Pugs have freak outs when they can't locate woobies or toys that have been packed or throned that have been thrown away, and then you have to rush them to the animal ER.

Rushing to the animal ER is fun when you've closed out your bank account that very day and just have a wad of cash and a bank issued cashiers check.

having four loads of laundry left to do when you only have enough change for 2 loads means you pack a box while Febreze-ing every layer

having 'arguments" with friends while experiencing something that tops the stress lists, except for deaths in the family, are really unpleasant, especially when they think you're mad over an air conditioner, rather than an ongoing pattern of behavior at a really freakin bad time

Moving really sucks.