Tonight is my older sister's birthday. As a reminder, I actually have three older sisters and two older brothers ... y'know, I've been wondering lately if all of my thoughts/perceptions are inescapably self-centered, but then I'm struck by the fact that even wondering that is self-centered -- yeah, no help but intensive therapy and possibly some medications to help some of us.

Anyway, that tangent was because I wanted to explain *which* of my sisters has a birthday tonight. She is the youngest girl, the child born a year and a half before me, my closest sibling both in years and, through most of our lives, emotion. I've really not known anyone whose perspective on the world has as much in common with me as her. We have the same ironic take on humor. We have the same take on family, on men/women, on peace and violence and god and country and all that ... don't get me wrong, of course we disagree. The point is, we *understand* each other when we disagree. That's a pretty huge thing.

And yet, tonight I cannot get hold of her. I tried her last night too, because we'd played phone tag a bit in the last few months, and I wanted to be sure and get a chance to talk to her on her birthday. Y'know, because I want to say "happy birthday!" and just because I want to talk to her.

"... No one's picking up the phone. I guess it's me, and me ... and this little masochist, she's ready to confess..."

The preceeding quote notwithstanding, I'm actually not feeling like I'm feeling sorry for myself, these days. If that's not one too many "feelings" in that last sentence. No, these days I'm actually feeling pretty strong. Hell, I feel more quoting coming on:

"... first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. But I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong, and I grew strong. I learned how to carry on..."

Yeah, that's right -- a straight man quoting Gloria Gaynor. And who knows Gloria Gaynor sings that song! Deal with it!

Anyway, I'm being silly, when I should be serious ... thing is, that song comes to mind because it's very much on-topic.

On the one hand, my money troubles are apparently handled, best they possibly could be, for the immediate moment. A good chunk of the debt that was choking me was done away by a bankrupty filed in late February. Not an ideal solution, of course, but when you can't pay rent or buy food, you'll take what you can get. And it did make that stuff go away.

The only debt that's still there are the student loans. *Why* aren't student loans included in bankrupty? The only thing I can think of, they're afraid that everyone will just go to school, intentionally not get a job and go broke initially, then file bankrupty, get off scott-free, and immediately after get a high-paying job without having to pay for the schooling that qualified them for that job.

I can see that, but most of us are not lawyers or doctors. Even if I *had* a job pertaining to my degree (or even if I actually had the degree -- not even going into that) I still wouldn't be living high off the hog. A bachelor's in psychology, which you use to get a social services job, does not really start raking in the bucks.

But back on track, yes, I still have my job. And it's still going well. My bosses still don't like me, and my employees mostly are still pretty pissy, but overall I don't get the feeling anyone's trying to get rid of me. I'm accepted as being at least baseline competent, even if I don't get all of the credit I might suppose that I could deserve.

Oh, and I still have my apartment. Oh, on the student loans -- just Friday, I set up a deal where, after paying $350, I only need to pay $108 a month for nine months, and after that the loans should become no longer classified as default, supposedly the record that they ever were will be removed from my credit report. At that time, I only then would need to broker a *new* deal with the original grantors of the loan -- the cool part there is, if I went back to school to actually finish the degree (again, not as "finished" as I should be) or even went on for another, I'd get a reprieve from having to pay them off while in school. It's true, I don't know how likely I am to get school loans approximately a year after filing bankruptcy, but why are you raining on my parade?

No, the point is, financially things are more stable than they've been in about forever. Unfortunately, everything else is pretty screwed up, and thus the tale about my sister being out-of-touch at the beginning there.

You guys wanna know something sad? My *mom* seems to be avoiding talking to me, of late. And I know why it is, and it's really not so very cool. All you XX chromosone types out there take heed of this one:

My mom was always all, "Call me for whatever reason. You can talk to me about anything, yadda yadda yadda..." because all of my life I've never been one to really "lean" on anyone. Oh, I may certainly over-share, as you lot may have noticed, but that's generally at my leisure -- mostly, if I'm feeling bad somehow, I deal with that all on my own.

Well. At some point a few years ago, I was kind of having a breakdown. It's probably covered in the archives, here. I know I talked about the married girl I fooled around with for a while. Hell, "fooled around with" is not the accurate term for it. I fell in love with her, and despite all common sense and reasonableness actually thought she'd leave her husband. (Side note: She actually did get divorced just a few months ago. We've still not hung out. What follows is why.) What probably isn't covered ...

Well, hell. I work in mental health, and I know that secrecy never serves healing. After many months of unprotected sex, of *course* I got her pregnant. She had an abortion, that was how our relationship ended. I believe it was hard on us both, but I honestly I feel like I had the less fair deal. This was her fifth abortion, it's been my only one. I took the "I'll support you in whatever you decide approach" and within two days after finding out she was pregnant, it was over. Meanwhile ... well, I had visions not only of her family being broken up if we had the child, but of *our* child being completely disowned and hated by half of his/her heritage, not only for having been a child conceived "in sin" but also because the mom's dad is apparently a die-hard racist, and we (the would-be parents) are not of the same race...

Again with the too-much-sharing, right? Anyway, somewhere during all of my dealing with all of this ... and being totally unwilling to *tell* anyone about what was wrong -- you guys are only the third "person" I've ever talked about any of that with -- I talked to my mom one night, and just started bawling my eyes out. I couldn't tell her why, and this is certainly the only time she's seen me cry since I was about 3 years old. You know, I grew up in a "boys don't cry" type of family. Truth is, I just haven't cried about much in my adult/teen life.

But my point is, I know my mom was kind of let down by my seeming "weak" to her. It's kind of a shame. I am confident enough to say that I am strong in ways my mom has not even imagined. For all that I respect all that she's done in her life, I feel like the truth is that I've done things in my life that *she* never had the courage for. For one thing, I left my family behind, and was willing to face the world on my own. Yeah, I know, smartass -- "look how that's worked out for you!" But still, I did it.

So anyway, the long rambling mom/child-that-could-have-been story is only the pinnacle of how my personal relationships are going. Mostly, I'm feeling pretty isolated and abandoned these days. It's a strange sort of abandoned, because I'm rational enough to see that there certainly are people there if I reach out to them.

But, if you'll forgive me, there is a kind of apology inherent in that reaching out. Am I being an egoist, now? Probably, but I can't really help that. The fact is, I feel like I've not intentionally done anyone any harm. For that matter, any harm that I've done intentionally, I've always been very quick and very willing to acknowledge. That is, I am willing to ackowledge if I've done harm *without meaning to*.

But, I'm not willing to claim I was simply wrong, when I wasn't. I'm not willing to say I was weak when every fiber of me fought for strength. I'm not willing to come to you as a beggar when I thought we were family. I'm not willing to admit to being evil, when I have wept and prayed for the path of God...

So ... yeah, none of this makes sense. I apologize, to anyone who happens to read. I actually started this just to say that I plan on starting an altogether new narrative somewhere. I feel that it is time. Whatever I was before, I do feel that I'm beginning a new chapter. The new chapter will undoubtedly be no more sublime, no more insightful, no more witty than this that has gone before -- so, if I've been boring so far, don't get too excited. If I've been somewhat interesting so far, I'll try to make it better.

Because my new thought is, I should make the new narrative less desperately "anonymous" than this one. On the one hand, I still want to be able to share things that should not ever end up influencing anything I do professionally. Again, anyone who's read this diary enough could see why I've shared too much here to be good for someone who works in mental health. Oh, I got troubles aplenty. But, you know what? The men I care for are doing quite well. So, I must be doing something right.

On the other hand, I feel that the capital-T TRUTH of what I'm trying to get across would be better served by being more completely forthcoming. Much like ... well, the child I could have had, had I been less of a coward.

So, my last post here should be some kind of direction to my new journal, when I actually get up to creating it. I would invite anyone who cares to come read along. My only request would be that you don't direct everyone (or anyone, really) who reads there to come check all this stuff out ... it's not that I want to disregard my past, and thus where there will be a connection. Rather, I'd just want my new story, whatever form it ends up taking, to stand on its own.

"I want roses in my garden bower, dig?"

I know -- I make too little sense. But take heart, d-landers. Things change, yes. But things don't really end.