by CrazyTaraWitch » Sun Dec 12, 2010 10:28 pm
Okay, so my entry is long winded and rambly and tangential and ranty and fairly nonsensical, but that's me, and my favourite thing about the kittneboard is that it's the place I can be me, so here's what being a kitten means to me:
In January my little sister, who had always been known for her moods crashing almost in an instant, had a mental and emotional breakdown and was briefly hospitalized and then diagnosed bipolar. She's technically my stepsister, but she never really felt like that; she went very quickly from a stranger to a close friend to my sister, and the step part never really mattered to me. We had been drifting apart for a couple years but I still love her like crazy and was of course very worried and upset when all this was happening, but she got on meds right away and started seeing doctors, therapists, and psychologists, and she moved out of her dad's and back in with our parents and things got a lot better really quickly. She started... actually seeming to have a good life, to be reasonably happy and capable of socializing without tanking emotionally, she calmed down some of her more wild behaviours, and she started doing well in school for the first time in about a decade. There've been a couple brief stretches of trouble in the last several months, she stopped taking her meds a couple times but my stepmom always notices pretty quickly and until very recently she seemed to be doing really well.
I moved a few houndred miles away from home a couple months ago, and since then I've had very little contact with her, my other stepsisters, and my stepmom. We have a very loving family, but my little sister's the only one I've ever been really close to, and the only one I've ever talked with much except face-to-face, so not talking much with the rest of them has hurt a bit but not been too surprising. Not talking to my little sis though... it's been hard. I keep trying to talk to her through facebook, as we've never been big on phonecalls and a few years back we talked online all the time, but I never get a response. She's never been good at replying to things, but even so it's really hurt to have only her statuses on facebook to go on about how her life's going. In the last few weeks I've noticed her seeming angsty and melodramatic and depressed again, but I tried not to think much of it because it's just facebook statuses and you can't really tell much about a person's life from that. When I talked to my dad last week he hinted that she was having a little trouble but he didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it, so again I let it go, though between that and her statuses and hardly hearing from her in three months I was definitely starting to worry.
Today my dad told me she has a brain cyst. My 17 year old bipolar sister who has finally been getting her life in order for the first time ever (and she's had a long 17 years) has a very large brain cyst. The doctor's not going to do anything for now, because he says she's probably had it all her life and if it's growing it's doing so slowly. She's probably fine for the time being, but no one's going to just take it out and make it all okay, and that news made her tank terribly. They've known for a while, apparently, that she had the cyst, but not until two days ago how huge it is. They've known for a while and they didn't tell me. She's my sister and no one thought to tell me until I'd been talking to my dad for 20 minutes and I mentioned that I hadn't been getting responses from her in a while. He told me because it came up, not because it was information anyone thought I deserved to have, not because they thought to tell me that someone I love more than myself is majorly not okay.
A month ago I found out via her husband's facebook status that my oldest sister is pregnant, and that hurt. On my birthday six weeks ago I didn't hear from one of my sisters at all, even though a few weeks before on her birthday I'd sent a meaningful present, texted, and called, and that hurt. Another sister I only got a card from, and that not until a couple days late, and it made me sad. From my little sister, the one I used to be so close to and who I've tried repeatedly to reach out to since moving, I only got a facebook message and her name on the card for a present I know my dad picked out, and I wished it had been more. My stepmom's name was on the same present but I didn't hear from her, haven't heard from her by now in 8 weeks, and that hurts. But this... I'm scared for my sister, but I'm also heartbroken that my family would shut me out this way, and the fact I found out all this now just makes it so much harder, because the time of year I've been dreading is upon me.
It hasn't been as hard as I feared so far, but it hasn't been easy either. I finally live somewhere with snow, but half the time I look down and see snow I expect it to be on the beautiful, swirly sidewalks of the city I thought would be my home a few weeks from now. I thought I'd be spending this Christmas with the woman I loved, like I wanted to last year but couldn't. I thought we'd celebrate New Year's together again, maybe watching fireworks out of our bedroom window like last year. I thought we'd be really and truly starting our life together, maybe even getting married, within the next month. It's been almost 8 months since she left me, almost as long as we were together, but the truth is I'm still not 100% okay, and having 2011 draw near... it's harder than I can say.
Being scared for my sister, feeling like I'm losing my family, still dealing with the pain and sadness of missing my ex and the life I thought we'd have together and what I thought this holiday season would be like, preparing for the first Christmas I will ever spend away from my mom and the first in years away from my sister, worrying about money because my roommates still don't have jobs, the fact I found out yesterday I waited too long and missed out on registering for classes for the spring which completely throws off the life schedule I *finally* made in the wake of losing my ex, the fact I found out today the beloved dog we've had since I was 7 is dying, having virtually no companionship or emotional support in the new life that I left everything behind to start because I thought I'd have *more* support and friendship, still periodically (and usually out of nowhere) worrying about my ex's health, wondering if my alcoholic 17 year old cousin who ran away three weeks ago is okay, no longer knowing how to communicate with one of my best friends, and for a couple weeks now hardly hearing from the one person I've felt really close to since my ex left is just too much to handle all at once. Sometimes I think about going back home. I think I would have before now if I didn't have roommates depending on me. It seems... wrong... that I'm so far away right now, with the best dog I've ever known about to die, with one of my sisters pregnant and another going through a brand new hell after so recently getting out of her old one, with the holidays coming up, and with me being a bit of a mess myself and wanting friends and family to turn to but having no one that really feels within reach. When I thought I'd be getting to take free classes next semester to get a start on the education I'm finally ready to want I was able to convince myself that things might be worth it, cause I would've been saving easily a thousand dollars, but now I don't even have that bright side cause I screwed it up. I keep thinking 'I wanna go home', in a ridiculously childish voice that's sad and scared and lonely and just wants some comfort, but I'm not sure what "home" it is I want to go back to.
My mom's been mostly living out of town for over a year now and is getting ready to rent out our house, which is where I lived before I moved. My mom is home, but she's not really there anymore and unless I could pay at least twice the rent I was giving her before our house wouldn't be an option for much longer, so that home is gone too. Sometimes the rest of my family, my dad and brother and stepmom and stepsisters that is, have felt like home too, but the truth is my little sister's been getting more and more distant for two or three years now, and I've never really been close to the rest of them, so I'm not sure how much of a home that would be. It wasn't enough to keep me from leaving a few months ago. I used to have friends there, but they became so distant... I probably did too, I'm rarely good at maintaining friendships, but I know they had a big part in it; they even bailed on seeing me to say goodbye, so that's nothing to return for. My best friend, who I've known for over a decade now and whose friendship is the only one I managed to keep after high school, feels like home, but she moved away for college and as tempting as the idea is I don't think moving to where she is would be the right choice, cause I can't build a whole home out of just one friendship, especially with a friend who hopes to move all over the world once she graduates college. I know it's stupid and I need to let it go, but I think on some level the home I'm still craving is the one I had with my ex. We didn't live together, we didn't even live on the same continent, but we referred to her place as ours and that's how it felt. Even with as little time as I was able to actually spend there, it felt more like home to me than anywhere else in my life ever has. I think that feeling's what I've missed most of all, more than I've missed her or having a partner; I miss home. Obviously she was what made it feel like home, but I think it would be possible to have that feeling somewhere without having her or another girlfriend, and I think if I could have that home feeling I wouldn't mind so much being single, or even not having her in my life.
I used to think I'd live with my sister someday. When she was 15 and had her first serious boyfriend, and I was 18 and starting to plan my future with motherhood in mind, we used to talk about living either together or next door to each other with our families. We talked about what our kids would be like, mine especially, and once when I talked about her being 'Aunt Rocky' someday her boyfriend even asked if he could be 'Aunt Maxie'. I think a life like that would've felt like home; having kids, and my sister being close by and part of my daily life, would've been home and I truly believe it would've made me happy. We even talked more than once about her living with me her last year of high school and during college and babysitting for me in trade for rent. Of course it's her last year of high school now (or it's supposed to be at least), and 'Aunt' Maxie has been out of the picture for a long time, and we're not close anymore, and kids still look like they're sadly a long way off for me, and I'm living in a different state, so that future is long gone to say the least, but I can't help thinking it would've been a good life, a good home. I really want a home.
I thought my friends and I would be building a home when I moved here, but it just hasn't worked out that way and I don't think I can force it to happen. I can't *make* myself be happy here. It's no one's fault; there were a lot of issues at first, but my friends have been pretty good roommates lately, and we're trying to get back to being better friends again, but I don't think they'll ever be my family, not like I wanted them to be. They're my family when we talk from their pets' viewpoints and I'm 'Auntie', they were my family when they let me live with them for free when I first moved here, they were my family when I lent them money for our apartment without hesitation, they were my family when things were bad and I thought about getting out of our lease and couldn't do it cause it would have left them with nowhere to go, and they were my family when we got our Buffy poster and had it signed to all three of us to hang as the centerpiece of our apartment, but they weren't my family when it was Thanksgiving and they didn't invite me to cook or eat with them, they weren't my family when they stopped inviting me to go with them to their grandmother's, they weren't my family when they were avoiding me and hiding in their room, they weren't my family when I was avoiding them and hiding in my room, and they weren't my family tonight when they knew I was in pain and after talking with me for a bit they went off to watch my second favorite tv show which we used to watch together without inviting me. They've told me more than once that we're family, but they never let me all the way in even when I really need them; they're not really my family and this isn't really my home, it's just a place to live, and a lot of the time not even one I like very much, and I wish I could go home but the truth is I feel like I don't have one left.
The only home I've got is here. The kittenboard. The one place that's always been here for me. My ex and her new girlfriend are kittens, and when I got dumped and they got together it became too painful to be here, but it never stopped being my home. The people here... they are and have always been my family. The friends I moved here to live with are kittens I've known for years, and even though they're not the family I wish they were they have been here for me in ways no one else has, and the wonderful and amazing life I had with my ex, however briefly, was thanks to this board, and nearly every person who was really there for me when I had my heartbroken was someone I found here. "Home is the place that'll catch you when you fall." I feel like I'm falling now, and this board is where I have to come to. This is the one place I know will never let me down. It's been my sanctuary and my safety net for seven years, long before I'd ever spoken to another kitten this was my home, the place I felt free to be me and say everything I couldn't say in real life. The love and friendship here, the openness and lack of judgement, the genuine concern and kindness everyone shows even toward strangers, even toward awkward girls like me who can't keep friends and feel alone in their own families, makes this board pretty much the best home anyone could ask for.
I'm proud to call myself a kitten, proud to be a part of this place that changed my life in so many unspeakably wonderful ways. I am a better, more caring person for knowing this place, for being part of a community that welcomes and supports anyone and everyone. Being a kitten means being a friend to everyone, accepting and embracing people from all from all over the world, with all sorts of backgrounds and struggles, finding the good in people, and trying to make the world a better place through kindness. I am better for the kittens I have known, the many still in my life and those with whom I've parted ways, better for the lover and friends and family I found here, better for the loves and heartbrakes it brought me, and I am forever grateful to this home.
It's good to be back.
"To days to come."
"All my love to long ago.
I hope, we'll have more happy ever after
I hope, we can all live more fearlessly...
~Jas
I really hope this poem is well liked at least. It means a lot to me. <3
Great ending
