I thought that if I went out and started living my life that the people who cared about me would be happy for me. This was generally not the case. 

I thought that spreading my wings to vacate my parents living quarters would make them glad. It didn't. 

I thought that having someone to rely on would make things easier being out there...to some extent it did, like I wasn't ever worried I was going to get mugged, but ....I didn't realize I was the driver until it was too late. Having someone to rely on isn't much help when you have to tell them exactly to do everything.

I had a conversation with my mother once about the dilema I was having between men. She told me that lust was just lust and when it wore out I'd be left in an unhappy relationship. She always chose Nathan, even after two years of being with Don she asked me if I'd heard from Nathan in a while. It amused me that she liked him so much from just a short span of interacting with him. 

In my life my mother has ignored me, scolded me, disowned me, and finally accepted me as well as she can. She wanted to be the driver of my life but by my choice and actions made it painfully clear to her that her dream was not mine. She's never been happy with choices as an adult because as she says "they don't make you happy" which she may have a point but the whole point is that everyone I was around was less than supportive of my relationship choices and I didn't want to be around their negativity so I moved away from them. 

I grew away from others because our life choices and goals at that time were different. I had given up on going to school for the time because I was being very unsuccessful at it but all my friends were still in school. I worked 2nd shift so the beginning of my day was the middle of theirs. I had to be proactive about seeing the people I wanted to see and even this was only about once a month due to working or having the kids, or cleaning the house or whatever the heck it was that came up last minute. 

I had very minimal contact with people outside of the work circle. That was by my choice, I wanted to be present in my life and do what I thought was the best for me. Unfortunately, closing all those doors meant I had less of a support system to rely on when I needed help. And the people who did help me acted like I owed them something for helping me besides a thank you and some money for gas. They thought they got the right to tell me what to do with my life AGAIN, and since they weren't living it and I didn't agree I most definitely didn't listen. and one by one they told me that I wasn't worth it to them if I was going to keep making the choices I had made. Everyone of them wanted me to change into a persona more desirable to them. For me to have not made the choices I had made or for me to ignore the changes in me that stemmed from those choices, to erase my history and just act like it was 2008 all over again. 

I was on my own but I wasn't really single. We entered into an it's complicated relationship. I focused on myself and my own growth And learning how to breathe through the Anxiety that was my life. I worked. We transitioned back to friends with benefits but we were allowed to see other people. I looked for Nathan and considering and seriously plotted moving to Washington State with Corey. I wanted more but I was stuck. I wanted to move on but I had lots of emotional strings that I couldn't sort through. 

And then Corey told me he wanted to go without me, and my mother told me to choose, to make choices, to decide what I was going to do with my life.  THE TIME IS NOW.

So I chose the person who had chosen me, again. For comfort, and reliability, and physically being there affection. Because I couldn't see another path forward and I hated living with my parents again after being on my own.