The time for pride has passed.

I've always thought of journal writing as catharsis. During my morning brain vomit sessions, nothing was too sacred to impart onto the page. Never before in my writing have I held back (a feature of my talent that many editors and professors have lauded). My close friends have always been the keepers of my most intimate and life-changing thoughts and actions, and blogging has always been an extention of my all-out, balls-to-the-wall mentality. Still, I find myself in the precarious position of needing to explain why I won't be talking about what's been going on in the past week and a half. Make no mistake; the declaration of my omission is ironically necessary in fulfilling full-disclosure (which is something, as an artist and a sane human being, I need to be able to do). So. Here. I. Go.

There was no trip to France. There were, however, many talks with several women over the superior and unsated sexual appetite of men. These women were in different stages of giving themselves over to a shared life; my mom was one of them.

***

It's been three hours since I've started this post, and I can't think of what else to say. All my thoughts run together like rivers into the Nile, and all I can think of is that this stage of my progress is different. There will be no sharing with close friends, no advice sought or given, no assistance on how to manage life's duties and phases (give or take). I'm tapped out on energy and personality that don't fulfill a need.

What do I need? Money. A place of my own. Education. Trusted people who've "been there" and understand. And make no mistake: when I say "been there", I mean they're older. Much older. Ten or twenty years, at least. I see things from this point in my life that are easily obscured by attempts to communicate; I need to speak with people who have had to been through what I'm going through, singularly by the virtue of their age.

***

For so long, I've played the part of "Glue" in the very-staged drama known as "My Family". I've joked with friends about what it means to live in a household where patriarchy rules so supreme that paternal indescretions are glossed over and taken as "the way things are". I've shared stories with women who have had to learn on their own accord what it meant to have a backbone, because their own mothers never had one. I've commiserated over the strange and very real feeling that no one - especially not someone who's white or middle class - can ever know what it means to love your family the way that we love our families.

But I've moved out of my parents' house.

I have written to the lawyers, made it official that the house is in their name yet again. Signed paperwork, taken my necessary possessions.

I mull over whether or not to take my dog, Justice, to the place where I'm staying. I don't know how long I can stay; I just might be a nomad, and if that's the case, what good will it do Justice to be with me? Would I just be selfish by taking him, aka the only "person" in my parents' house who hasn't disappointed me, to live with me?

I have, in every conceivable way - physically, emotionally, financially - abandoned my family. Something I said I'd never do. Something I've always written off as a coward's action.

But now, from the other side, I see that it was really my inability to take care of myself - financially, and especially emotionally - that was holding me back from making this break. It was really an incessant need to believe that what I have - my family - is really some sacred source or goodness which nothing could waiver. It was all really a manifestation of my inability to fulfill my potential. I guess, what it boils down to, is that I had been acting like a coward by not starting out on my own two feet, without anyone's baggage on my shoulders.

All along, there were many parts of my psyche that needed only to be convinced that I was doing the right thing in "taking care of everyone". Now, I realize, I've done harm by cloaking my selfish intentions with a guise of virtue: I enabled bad habits and retarded the progression of personal insights and learning.

***

I can only hope that the vague articulations of my feelings translate into a feeling of emotional unloading. I'm finding it hard to connect to my feelings. It's easier for me to just do nothing. To be a blank personality. To instinctually act, as opposed to consciously act. To shut down in social situations. To be intimidating, intense, unphased by anything. I've been told by my brother (with tears in his eyes) and close friends that it's scary how much I can change so suddenly. It's as if this were the "real me", the side that I mask with my pleasantries and sunny disposition. The facet of my personality that allows me to survive and thrive.

I can no longer look in the eyes the people who have disappointed me. I no longer have time for verbal exposition. Too much of my life has been used in trying to communicate, and I feel like much of that time was for nothing. Why spend my time explaining my actions? Telling my stories? Sharing my theories? What good does that do me? I would be better off spending my time doing something more proactive. Something - anything - that doesn't leave me feeling used up.