I want to go home.

Home to my daddy, with my cats, and just have everything be okay.

This is not home. This will never be home.

Right now, the wind is whipping outside, howling and throwing the branches of the trees against the side of the house and sounding for all the world like it's a deep blizzard out there. It's not. It snowed earlier but now there's a polar blast or something coming in.

This part of my life is hard again. It had gotten better, I'd gotten into a routine and I knew what was what even though I struggled, but now there's another page being turned, and it's hard. Well, challenging.

When I write about it I'm not as depressed or stressed as I am when I just think about it in my head.

Thought I should mention that things are going really well with Cal and me...excellently, in fact. Figure I ought to record that for posterity's sake.

My friend Nia is finally happy in a relationship...and I'm SO happy for her. Like really. Seriously. She deserves it. I hope they make it work.

I want my room. My bed. I want to go home. But my cats are here, and I said I would stay the night because last night they escaped the room and there was chaos with the other cats...

I need a full-time job that pays me $30k a year. Preferably $36k. Or at the very least, $30k because then I can do tutoring and make up the rest. And I need it in less than a month's time. And then I need a studio apartment.

There will come a point in my life when this part is past; when it's sorted out and it's over and it's easier. Oh yeah, it'll be hard in its own way, but this too shall pass.

See ya.

You know, if you think about it, there's no reason why I shouldn't have a proper job.

Like, a career by now.

I'm gonna be thirty in a few weeks. I have a bachelor's degree in biology.

What am I waiting for?

I keep thinking I'm not qualified for things. But I'm just gonna go for it.

When I have the job, the apartment will come.

When I apply for the jobs, the job will come.

It will happen.

I look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself.

A lot of it has to do with the short hair, but there's also something else, something I can't quite put my finger on.

It could be that I'm doomed, and this is the face of someone who is no longer a Christian, no longer walking the right path, and it's something spiritual that I'm sensing.

I'm more inclined to think, however, that there's an odd look of maturity on my face.

I look at myself, and I think...she doesn't look naive and afraid anymore.

Maybe it's a look of determination. Of having lost so much and been so beaten down that I'm sick of it, and ready to move on, move out, finally get my own and live my own life.

I'm not sure.

On the inside, I still sometimes quake with fear. The idea of getting my own place is scary, especially when there are people trying to convince me to jump into things before I'm ready.

What's the catalyst, you might ask?

My father gave me an ultimatum, and it motivated me to give away my cats (temporarily). The thing is, he thinks I've given them away for good. He has no idea where they went, nor does he care. He's going about his life singing and playing music and making smoothies and putting his shoe rack where their litter box used to be.

I hate him for this.

But I also don't want to hate him. It just hurts how oblivious he is to my pain.

It's fine, though. Such appears to be life. He can be happy now, no cats to put fur on his clothes, or to meow in the middle of the night, or to come running to greet him when they hear his key in the door.

He can be happy living on his own with his own space when I find a studio or a one bedroom and move out and take my kitties with me, and we can both be content, knowing that we have what we want out of life.

Yes, I'm bitter.

Yes, I think this is a silly catalyst to make me finally move out, but it's what's happened, and that's that.

Oh. I also stretched my ears up to 7/16". I think I'll be stopping here.

New Year 2019

Welcome to the new year.

I'd been meaning to do my year-end self-summary before December ended, but never really felt like it enough to break out the laptop and the charger and do something about it.

So here goes: This is who I am now.

• tea in the mornings
• a barista at Starbucks
• the Starbucks is in a Target and there is cash office involved too
• therapy (six months in)
• really short hair (like, teeny weeny afro short)
• obsessed with the color gray to the point that my wardrobe is 90% gray, 7% navy blue, 2% burgundy, and 1% mustard yellow
• took up linocut printmaking
• actually want to go back to school and finish my master's degree
• same two cats and a betta fish
• doctor who is still #1
• Starbucks cheese danishes omg
• 2 years and 9 months into my relationship (and genuinely happy)
• PS4 owner
• part-time tutor
• flannel sheets 
• ESO
• anime
• watercolor
• psychology internet research
• living with dad
• missing mom
• minimalism
• drawing, but less of it
• classical music
• honda civic
• anxiety about religion and life
• finally close with my brother
• netflix sci-fi binges
• rose scents
• cantu shea butter edge control
• overthinker
• sporty wardrobe
• no bras
• too many socks
• wooden things and wicker baskets
• turkey bacon
• fairy lights
• blueberries aren't so bad
• all other berries are still better
• pink isn't so bad either
• i believe in choices, not destiny
• trying to speak up for myself in the moment and act in a way opposite to fear
• photos of friends and family all over the bedroom walls
• relatively organized
• pinterest & youtube only
• no instagram for over a year
• hate social media 
• easily triggered relating to trauma
• battling BV 
• general dislike for music with words
• happy place = target or a lake surrounded by woods
• still insecure
• piles of unread books because they're not that interesting
• post it notes
• bullet journaling
• hand lettering
• hair experimentation (there was a pixie cut that lasted a few months)
• gold wire
• boho minimalist decor
• keyla's baby daughter is named after my mom
• website owner
• still believe in Jesus
• just got a lotta questions