Eredien's Journal

A friend expressed surprise that I am not planning to stay in Boston. I'm not. I have wanted to be in a home in Indiana since I first visited there in March; I want to go do my masters' in food studies and a PhD in landscape design to build sustainable, food-producing, noninvasive, artistic gardens. I want to do tai chi. I want to birdwatch. I want to start my art company. I want to live somewhere quieter, and greener, and cheaper than Boston, and had been even before I left Boston, as much as I love all my friends here.

It was already time for a change for me before I moved--hence quitting the job and doing an art internship for a month. I was certainly making more progress with my art and cooking and gardening and martial arts and boundaries with my parents--all things that make me happy in and of themselves--in Indiana than I had in Boston in years, despite the fact I was also trying to set up a house and also got quite sick a lot this summer.

In Indiana, I:
Made new kinds of bread and food
Made a great deal of headway on trimming/pruning a neglected garden
Made and submitted a tshirt design for a weekly contest
Wrote four book reviews
Wrote two complete longform poems, and started in again on a work I hadn't looked at since 2007
Took up tai chi again
Deliberately exercised as often as possible to feel good about my own body
Cooked often to be creative, to feel healthy, and to positively take charge of my own diet issues and concerns
Started roughing out applications essays for the food studies program at IU
Learned how to play board and computer games for relaxation with and without friends, without calling myself lazy or feeling guily and without beating myself up when I lost
Wrote text and designed banners for my web store
Began to learn css for my design portfolio
Learned how to use the newest version of iMovie
Started on a webdesign project for my father for my portfolio that I hadn't touched in three months
Started laying aside papers to be scanned or placed into my portfolio/website
Created several sets of notecards with a hand-made stamp of my own design
Designed and sewed a Nintendo DS case
Designed several cellphone charms to sell in my web store
Organized a great deal of my personal paperwork
Found a therapist
Started setting serious boundaries in my relationship with my parents
Started making friends
Decided on a career path and was embarking on creating an income stream from work I genuinely enjoyed
Enjoyed the process of reassessing what I needed from my romantic relationships with both of my partners, and enjoying their own reassessment, though one of those ended abruptly and badly

I think I was able to do all this because I finally felt I had a home, a solid place, physically and in my heart, to reach out from. It turns out that neither those physical or emotional places can be my home anymore now, but that does not mean that I can not and should not make my own--in fact, it is probably the only thing I can and should do right now. In time there will be other physical and emotional places, or maybe some of the old ones differently, with the passage of time and life.

I am planning to use the next few months to find a job in Indiana, and make a portfolio, and write, and apply for grad school at IU, and do martial arts, and finish my basilisk mask, and go to therapy and get meds, and hang out with people when I want, since that is what I was planning on doing anyway. It has been going slowly due to mourning and computer issues, but I am working on those as best I can.

I was not planning on looking for an apartment and packing and moving, and I am not looking forward to doing those things so soon after having just done them--especially since I wanted a vacation this year and both of my vacations were effectively cancelled due to first dire sickness and then breakup, and I did not take a vacation last year either due to cancellation--but if I have to do those unpleasant things in order to do the other things where I want, I think I can forego a vacation.

I am moving back to Boston. Probably in August but prossibly earlier.

Q: Why Boston?
A: I am moving back to Boston, rather than elsewhere, because I already have people I care about there, and activities I care about and can get back into. I also have a therapist who I was already working with. These were the main reasons I chose Boston; it wasn't for the cheap rent. I had hoped to go elsewhere, and was thinking about it (I had been excited about leaving for somewhere else I'd never been to remake my life), but once I realized I wouldn't have to go through the work of finding a therapist I trusted again, Boston was the clear best choice. People in Boston: I hope to see more of you all soon. I expect that our relationships will be somewhat the same as a month ago, and somewhat different.

Q: Why Moving?
A: rax wasn't sure if she wanted me to move to Bloomington in the first place, but I didn't find that out until two days before the move, largely because that was when she realized it. We decided to move anyway, partly because I had plans here of my own and partly because of the dismal timing of her announcement, and mostly because we decided that if what I was having problems with was "working and having a relationship at the same time," it would not make sense to just concentrate on one or the other; what I needed was both, and time. We agreed that we would try and work on our relationship together after we moved.

Things have been vastly better for me personally since moving here and getting a little time to breathe, and getting out of some of the patterns and roles I had accidentally put myself in, but they have not gotten better enough for her to feel comfortable living here with me. Besides not knowing if she wanted to move, rax realized two weeks after moving here that she doesn't know if she wants to marry me, and doesn't know if she wants to marry anyone in particular, ever. So she is also under a lot of introspection and stress, and the fact that I am trying to work through our relationship now as-is with all my issues isn't helping her make up her mind about anything else she has been thinking about.

We are currently still engaged and currently still interested in remaining in a relationship.

Q: Why August?
A: rax and I were planning on being in Boston at that time anyway for some mutual friends' weddings. I may go earlier, I may go later.

Q: What happened to your relationship?
A: I am trying hard to recover from abuse in my past--and that's good--but the way in which I am doing that has been actively damaging to me and to her. I have been using her to try and heal from something that she can't heal me from. It has hurt me, and hurt her, and I have been using our relationship to hurt myself emotionally (which is, of course, also hurting her). So I need to get some space and fix my head.

Q: What is going to happen to your relationship?
A: We are going to continue to have a relationship and try to be together long-distance. We don't know if it's going to work out, but we are hoping it will. The plan is to visit a few times, and talk on the phone and try and figure out how things are going. Eventually, if it is getting better, then we are going to try living together in Indiana again at some point in the future. I am scared about having a long-distance relationship--my last serious long-distance relationship left too much room for me to misunderstand the other person and too much room for me to misunderstand myself and my commitment--but I think I have learned something since then.

Q: Is anyone else moving?
A: I am taking my gecko back to Boston, but leaving Oolong here with Rachel. The move was stressful enough on the cats last time, and we both think that separating them again is going to do more harm than good. It will also be vastly easier for me to find an apartment if the only pet I have lives in a tank.

Q: Can I help you or Rachel?
A: If anyone has any job or pet-friendly apartment leads in the Boston area, hopefully in reach of public transport since I will not have a car, please let me know.

Q: What now?
A: Now I am going to bed because I was up until 4 last night, worrying that something like this might happen. In two weeks I am going to visit lotusbiosm, seishonagon, thespooniest, angstnokami, and B. in Virginia.

Q: Is this what you want?
A: No. I want to stay in Indiana and try and work this out. I just unpacked my office last week. I spent 3 hours hanging up the awesome new projector system for the Wii. I was looking forward to hanging a feeder for hummingbirds in July and August.

Q: Do you think it is a good idea for you to stay in Indiana?
A: Not at this time, if rax and I want to save our relationship, which we do.

Q: How are you feeling?
A:
...Discouraged.
...Like I can't believe I have to pack again.
...Confused.
...Frustrated that I cannot just go live with previous housemates.
...Like I am not looking forward to that drive.
...Worried about money.
...Guilty.
...Slow to change in a meaningful way.
...Hoping that therapy will actually do something this time.
...Terrified.
...Sad
...I miss my cat already.
...Boston is probably going to seem noisier and more dirty than normal to me this summer.
...Worried that the friendships I have in Boston are going to crumble under the stress I will be coming back into them with.
...Excited that there is something concrete I can do to try and fix my and rax's relationship instead of trying to throw myself at things to see what sticks.
...Hopeful that rax, once she has some breathing room, also finds that there is something she can do to fix our relationship.
...Thrilled that I might have the ability to try going on medications for the first time ever.
...Happy about being able to intern at the maskmaking workshop again in my spare time.
...Excited that there may come a time when rax and I want to be in the same room together again.
.................Generally exhausted.

Sympathy is ok, although arguably of limited utility at this juncture; sniping will be discouraged.

Things to do before moving back to Boston:

Find apartment/roommates
Find job
Get bedframe + mattress
Packing
Pack Truck
Laundry
get warmpacks for Tokai
Send out email/LJ announcement with new address
Change of Address
Go to Bank
Charge Phone, iPod, computer
Water plants
Go to pet store to buy gecko food for first week in house

Things to do after moving:

Bring boxes into house
Return moving truck
Set up gecko area
Setup bed
Sleep
Eat
Finish last part of rushthatspeaks' origami mobile
Call parents/email friends to let them know I am alive
Water plants
Find new vet for Tokai, transfer records
Change voter registration back again
Change addresses for companies, gov't. again
Unpack
Transfer old computer to new computer
Changes of Address for memberships, college again, email flyers, amazon, etc.
Reregister for Boston museum email newsletters
403(b) paperwork
Bryn Mawr Boston Membership Cards
Redo resume
Put 5 layers of paper mache on basilisk mask so I can release mold & give back underlying layer to E.
Do business cards
Setup my website with resume, portfolio of artworks/design
Setup dad's website
Paint mask
Return mask head to E.
Start doing taichi in the morning
Setup appointment with old therapist
Find new church
Visit bike mechanic
Get haircut if I can afford it
Finish last part of rushthatspeaks' origami mobile