9 days in to the new year, and I'm so busy with a multitude of crap, I don't even have any time for myself right now. Part of the reason I'm so busy is because I'm trying to prepare for my vacation in a few months, which as previously stated, includes a wedding. I'm also *actually* searching for a new place to live, the longer I stay here in California, in this house...

...the stronger the feeling it is making me more than slightly insane.

Never in a million years did I think this place I once loved so much would become the bane of my existence.

It has.

I want my life back.

The life when I was away from the people who are *technically* my family. The people I went out of my way to avoid for the most part over the span of a decade and a half. The people who are a blatant reminder of the fact that blood is NOT always the tie that binds. The life I had when I answered to no one but myself. When every decision I made was based on MY life, and MY future, when I was responsible for no one but myself.

I've spent a great deal of my life taking care of most others around me. Most of it was a loving necessity, something I would do over time and time again, no matter how many chances I was given to do differently. Taking care of the person I am now...let's just suffice it to say, if I knew how to say no, I wouldn't have spent the last 3 years wanting to hurl myself into oncoming traffic most of the time. Nothing like taking care of someone who has spent a lifetime NOT taking care of you. Someone who spends all their time blaming others for their *inability* to take care of themselves.

Just a side note...condoms are not expensive. If you aren't willing to put any effort into the consequences of your actions, you should seriously consider the investment. It's a lot cheaper than the financial/emotional care a child needs, then you won't have to use the fact that you have too many children with too many different women, and you don't want to work because you won't have any money left over for yourself.

I didn't ask to be born, neither did my brothers and sisters. Mom and dad sure did a bang up job of spreading it around, making me the oldest of 10 brothers and sisters, 7 of which are half, 1 adopted.

Nice, eh?

Everything happens for a reason. Good or bad, we all have to deal with it the best we can. I contend with it by keeping mostly to myself, by building a family of my own that consists of my closest friends, picked very discriminately by yours truly. By spending time with a boyfriend who I adore to pieces, and who I know actually loves me back. By surrounding myself with only those who do what they can (when I let them) to bring me up, and keep me there.

I have a friend who once referred to me as a *free spirit*. At the time I kinda laughed it off, but thinking about that in the years since she said it, I've come to realize how true that really is. My brain does not run on the same track as the rest of the world, and I can say I am very glad about that fact. If I have nothing else in the world, I know that I have one thing going for myself, something those I let get close to me have taken note of, something I remind them of when they seem slightly in awe at the way I think about life in general. This is what I tell them, and I have yet to have anyone disagree...

"You'll never meet another person in the world who is like me...not one."