Well, I guess this is growing up...

Things are sad in Delaware again.

I hate visiting my mom, because I don't like to see the pain she is in. So often I tear myself apart for my disloyalty. I love her, but I hate so much about what she has become. It takes so much strength for her to get through a day, and she is still the opposite of everything I want to be. Although I don't particularly like 3rd to 9th graders, I'm generally enamored with other children, and will probably be a mother at some point very far in the future. In that respect, raising young children and instilling an appreciation of life, I hope to be like her. In showing her children broken humanity and medical illness, exposing us to the tragedy that comes to good people, I don't want to be for anyone. It's made us good human beings, Jack and I. Maybe not the greatest sense of Christian morals, but we know right from wrong and appreciate the simple things of life. We talk about it sometimes, in little moments of resolve. His escapism is literal escape. He's never home those weekends. It's why I started walking, my short escapes. Whenever I was angry, or frustrated at our terrible condition, I would slam the door and walk for however long it took. Once, after getting furious with Jack, I left at an hour unfit for decent humanity to be wandering the streets. He waited a few minutes and followed me until I started to come home. I didn't tell him I noticed, but when I got back, we weren't fighting anymore. "Come home" isn't very appropriate. Returned to the apartment is more accurate, because my "home" is on a piece of commercial property in Pennsylvania with a tire swing, fruit trees, and dirt basement. The first time I told my mom I was considering going to the University of Hawaii, she told me I wasn't allowed to go far away. My family cannot put a lot of financial support behind furthering my education, except that neither of them graduated college, making me a first generation, and I'll get some decent need based funding. I don't really think they should have any say in where I choose to attend. My mom pointed out that if I went to Hawaii, I wouldn't be able to come home for holidays. In retrospect, I hope I didn't say what I was thinking, because I know that I would have said, "I don't consider your house a home, and my real one will be sold out from over us, demolished, the home I grew up in, and they'll cut down the walnut tree of my love/hate relationship, and I'll never be able to put up a hammock between two trees ever again." (The fact that I have a hammock between two trees is one of the greatest aspects of having a home). If I go to college, and my dad moves, there will not be a home to return to, I will probably be in better financial situation than my mom, and Jack will be busy having his own life with "exciting" people, though I will miss him like crazy. Hating Delaware has always been a selfish thing for me, but now it's because I hate her suffering, and am not inconvenienced by the distance.