now we get to the difficult part. i'm just going to jump right in and hope it leads me somewhere right and good.
as golden as the times in the privacy of my home were, the times we were out in the world started to weigh on me. this is not, I REPEAT, this is not about anything you did wrong. this is why this part is so difficult. i am going to try to outline here some realities that started to creep in that came together to shape the way things have developed.
around the time of the chicago road trip, maybe a bit before, and definitely after, it started to be obvious to me that my daily life and all it contains are chock full of stressors, and these are stressors that might not be the greatest things for you to be around on a regular basis. lots of uncertainty, lots of rushing around, lots of pre-adolescent complaining, lots of last minute changes and seemingly rash decisions, lots of indecision and conflicted wavering, lots of bad parking and unfair transactions and frantic supermarket trips. these things are part and parcel of my day to day existence.
i mostly don't take it much to heart. (for things i do take to heart, see 'panic attack' in the forthcoming glossary...) mostly i am in a pretty good mood about all this logistical stuff and bounce along, riding the waves. as you know i was raised with crisis writ large like a banner across every possible situation, and i threw that shit to the curb as soon as i was able. i really, truly, don't give a shit if someone passes me on the right and honks, or if the store closes in 2 minutes, or if someone cuts in front of me in line etc etc.
however, i started to see how these things do affect you negatively, how you started consistently remarking about how stressed i am even when i am not feeling it deep down (maybe my overly dramatic personality makes it seem so?), and how the idea of being thrown around in the rock tumbler of my daily life is probably not at all a great idea for you.
then, i started to feel that, on the flipside, the details of your daily existence weren't really a great package for me to carry around, either. i like to joke a lot about greek grandma, but it's actually really true that i have a great deal of concern for those that i am close to.
i really do respect the choices you've made and your commitment to those choices but the thought of you hungry is enough to make me short circuit. the image of you looking through a garbage can for food would come to mind while i was preparing dinner and it would literally choke me. the thought of you sleeping somewhere in the cold or on a train makes my throat tighten up. so it started to really be a conundrum.
i knew from my many years of psychologically unhealthy care-taking that it was not a good idea to 'take you in'... that 'saving you' by giving you keys and cooking for you every night was not a viable option. but not doing that means what? leaving you to look in a garbage can? i can't. i mean i really can't. this anomaly of shouldn't try to 'save' him but yet can't stand to leave him suffer became really almost unbearable.
