Honesty

I guess I shouldn't be selectively honest on this blog and although I wanted to just sweep my worry under the rug, I'm going to explore my most recent concern. I'm happy (ish) again. My best friend called, told me he was moving, said I needed a change, and told me to buy a plane ticket and move to the same state. I understand that I need to leave home because I am dying under my mom's oppressive verbal abuse and dependency. And I am alone here- really alone as it's just my mom and I on forty acres, a mile down a dirt road, and fifteen minutes from the nearest small town. At the same time though, how can I be like this? Can my mood change because suddenly my best friend acknowledged our friendship enough to encourage me to move to the area he will be living in? How unhealthy is it to pack up and leave because the one I am unpromisingly in love with asks me to? And am I just back-paddling? I am terrified to move because I will be going to a place where I can get a job (hopefully), possibly have dating options, be in close proximity to many of my dear friends, and have the opportunity to get more counseling. Am I doing something good for myself and finding a way to counteract that before I slice my skin to relieve the burden of joy? I know I am too dependent on my best friend and I want to change that before I become my mother. My dependency is mood based, not material based, my mom's is both. I am controlled by my best friend's mood and I shouldn't be. If he's happy, I'm happy, if he's not, I'm not. I hate that my mood so drastically influences my mother's mood, how can I leech onto someone in that same destructive way? But am I using all of this as an excuse so that my decision to move suddenly because a self-abusive one?

I am moving somewhere that can have a positive effect on my life, but I think I would have moved anywhere for him. That's wrong. I know it is wrong, but I don't know how to change it. Somewhere inside of me is a smile though, perhaps even a healthy one, because his suggestion shows that he does love me (I'm talking friendship here), that in some way he does want me around, and maybe even that he needs me, just a little. I hope so. It's nice to know that you mean something.

Six months ago I started a young adult book, Love, Stargirl, got distracted and only picked it up again the other night. This is the second page I read (randomly after this book sat in my room for half a year). Telling.

"And so I'm me again, Leo… I'm hoping you wouldn't wish it any other way... You occupied my space. But because you were not in my present, when I looked into my future I saw… nothing. Isn't that sad? And stupid?

Oh sure, I'll still be missing you as much as ever. I'll still smile at the memory of you. I'll still be—OK, I'll say it again—loving you, but I won't abandon myself for you. I cannot be faithful to you without being faithful to myself. I've reclaimed my future. If we are destined to be together again, be happy to know you'll be getting the real me, not some blubbering half me."

Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl