I’m back :(

[Card29]

Venting something about myself that goes back as long as I can remember. I didn't want anything to change. I didn't want my friends and family to move away. Of course it's normal for a kid to fear the death of a parent or grand parent when they realize that that is inevitable, but that was one of my earliest fears. I didn't want to move away after high school, I stayed and went to university in our city.

Seemingly every great friend I've made over the last 18 years has moved away. High school friends, to be expected. They go to school all over the country. College buddies got jobs elsewhere after school, I got it. I was tight with a young church in early 20's, and a lot of the men were here to go to a seminary. I became really good friends with 3 or 4 of them, and they all left when they got church jobs. Friends I've made at work have taken other jobs that have moved them all over.

I have more friends that live 5+ hours from me than I have in town. And I've felt a little trapped here ever since D#1. There was no moving anywhere for 16 years due to custody of D11 (D2 at the time).

I also know it was an aspect of buying my grandmother's house after she passed (2 doors from my mom). When I was growing up, she was a foster parent and babysitter of me, my sisters and a bunch of my cousins. We all got off different school buses at our house. Our parents came over after work every single day, and we had a huge dinner with 30 people 4-5 days a week. So to me, that house was the anchor point for our entire family. I was thrilled to buy it, to keep it in the family. But I have learned a harsh dose of reality that it wasn't the house that tied all of that together. A lot of those people have moved away, some have died. And they were there for their kids and and be with our grandmother. The house has lost its luster to me, and especially with the sourness of what's going on with my mom.

I miss the apartment W and I had before the house. I miss the house I was renting before that.
I know it was because of the happy times we were having as a couple and with my young daughter, not the dwellings, and we would probably still be here right now if we were still living in one of those places.

My favorite people, the ones that I wish I could hang out with regularly, are on opposite sides of the country from me. I'll likely not see them more than once a year. I know I need to foster more at-home friendships. I need to learn how to deal with people coming and going from my daily life, though. To be able to focus on what I have, not what I don't.

I'm just feeling a little lost this morning.