If I were at home it would be late. Almost 1:30 in the morning. Here though, on vacation, it is only 10:30. Early still, even though it has been a long day.

Today is my last day here. My last day with my younger brother, who will be off to Germany again until next year most likely. Off to file for his divorce. Off to continue living his own life.

My last day with my older brother, sister in law, and my nephew. Sadly it has only been in the past two days that Jace and I have really warmed up to each other. He would look at me, and you could tell his 2-year-old mind is thinking.

I think children see things differently. Like artists. He hasn’t been told, that’s wrong. You don’t really see that. Or “That’s not right.” He still truly sees.

I didn’t push myself on him because I know what it’s like to have it done to myself. How it feels overbearing. I wanted him to come to me when he was ready, and he finally is. Just in time for me to leave.

I don’t think I will ever be a parent. I don’t think I would be able to give what is required to do it. I know I would want to do it the ‘right way’. I would want to stay at home, at least until they began school. I would want to be there for the field trips, pack lunches with little notes written on the napkins. I would want to help grade papers with the teachers, and be involved in afterschool actives.

I would want to be like my mom. Selfless. Caring. Unwavering.

And I don’t think I could do that. The thought scares me. And maybe at 25 it should still. Or maybe I overthink it like I do with everything. Maybe I would make a great parent.

I love thinking about Jace when he’s older, and how he’ll be my little warrior. How we’ll play with nerf guns and super soakers. How I’ll teach him how to draw, and make paper mache in the kitchen.

But right now, at the age of two, he is loud, always. He’s fussy. He’s so incredibly demanding. And I don’t know if I would be able to do what Lio does, everyday, all day.

She has my respect. In many ways she is on a totally different level than I am maturity wise, which is sort of frustrating because at the same time she is so much lower in other areas.

I think part of that is my perspective of her extroversion. Emotions that I would keep to myself she openly displays, like being aggravated by having to wait in line. Where she does not see an issue with being openly frustrated, I cringe knowing that we are making the people around us uncomfortable, how we are adding to the imbalance.

Or her obsession with ‘things’. And again, this is most likely just from where I am at in my life. I have had to move every six months since I graduated college. I have sent most of my things back home to be stored in my mom’s attic rather than having to constantly move boxes of stuff (books mostly). And being stretched so thin financially makes me, for the most part, frugal. Or at least very aware of where my money is going.

But Lio doesn’t have to worry about money or moving. There are tons of little knick-knacks everywhere. Things that I view as pointless.

There is a table in the front hallway with pictures on it. Which that in itself is fine, but here are lights on the table. Like Christmas lights, but they aren’t just for Christmas. They are part of the decor of the table. And they are left on all day. And all I can think of is how wasteful that is. The table is fine without the added expense to the eclectic bill.

Lio has a beautiful house, a wonderful family, and in all honestly is living the American dream, but I can’t help thinking that she has not had to experience a lot of the situations that I have.

How even though we are so close in age, we are actually worlds apart.

That there are some things she wouldn’t understand because she has never had to learn some of the hard, unpleasant lessons that I have had to go through.

I fly home with my mom tomorrow. We will be leaving around 1pm and landing at home at 11pm. Such a long day, filled with people and strange places, when all I will want is to be alone.

I will miss John the most, which always strikes me as odd. We would have sworn up and down that we hated each other growing up, but even as we were taking pictures last Thursday we had a moment alone and he said, “I love you.”

I replied with, “I love you, too.” And we kept walking, trailing behind our photographer and family to the next location in the park. And in the silence that stretched between us I said, “I miss you.” And he said, “I miss you, too.” And wrapped his arm around my shoulder as we walked. And almost couldn’t keep the tears back because of how much in that moment I wanted him to be able to stay with me.

I know the Army is good for him. I know he is coming into his own, and I am happy for him. But it still feels like I have lost one of my best friends. He’s not here to go out to sushi with. We can’t go to the movies and make bad jokes about the story lines. We can’t give each other hugs anymore. And it hurts.

Losing all of my close friends hurts. I know they are not truly ‘lost’. But they no longer live close to me. I can’t hang out with them anymore, and losing that physical connection is hard for me. It is something I am still trying to come to terms with.

Once I am back ‘home’ with my mom I will at least have Scarlet. She’s going to be so angry at me, boarding her at the vet. It is the longest we have been separated in years. Poor Seth has been alone in his tank in Orlando this whole time. Though as a snake I’m sure he’s just chilling.

I haven’t had much time alone here for reflection. Honestly I think this is the most I have been able to hear my own thoughts in a while. And I suppose in a way that isn’t true. I have played World of Warcraft a handful of times. I could have used that time for reflection instead of escaping into a game, but it felt good to do.

I was able to immerse myself into another world, get lost in the storyline, and have clear goals and outcomes. None of this gray, blurry uncertainty that I still have to work through in real life.

I feel now that the ‘vacation’ part of my time off is coming to an end, the real work on this healing process will begin. In a way I am relieved, while another part of me is slightly dreading it.

In a way it I think I feel how a dog would if they had to drive themselves to the vet clinic for their shots. I don’t want to do it, but I know it’s good for me, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Always this inner conflict. Always these two sides that don’t want to play nicely together.

I will most likely stay with my mom until the end of the week. She works weekends at the hospital, so there isn’t much of a reason for me to stay around past Friday, and I aught to get back to Orlando to get back into my routines before work starts up again.

I miss my morning coffee time. I miss my evening green tea. I miss having my super small meals and snacks every few hours rather than the three big meals my family normally does. And I miss not having tons of junk food around. I do not need cookies sitting on a counter staring at me…

I’m looking forward to the New Year and my goals. I’m looking forward to continuing to try to be a better me.

Which makes me think of the dream I had last night.

I have been thinking about it, and how I can see myself doing that. Falling for someone, and having a strong spiritual connection to them, but being scared of that connection now. Fearing the pain it will bring, and killing it off before it can grow. My ‘mercy killing.’

I wonder if I had that dream to make me consciously aware of my tendencies.

I know I have a hard time communicating my feelings now due to relationships in my past, and I know I will have an even harder time opening up to people for friendship, let alone anything more than that, due to how my last two relationships went. And because all of my friends seem to move away.

Why open up only to have it end and to be left alone again? Why expose myself to pain like that?

I don’t have an answer right now. My rational side says there isn’t a reason, and that I shouldn’t do that. But deep down I know that is pain and hurt talking, and that there is a reason for it.

I know that internally I am a warm person, and that even if my real circle of friends is very small and extremely selective, that I need that inner circle in my life. I cannot be without people.

The well-being and growth of others is my calling, my purpose. So these connections that I am so against right now are things that I need.

More confliction that I need to look at and understand.

A lot of it comes back to pain. Hurtful experiences. The past. Things I should meditate on. In order to leave my past behind me I need to come to terms with it, understand it fully, so I can put it down and leave it be.

The main reason the dream bothered me so much was not because of the sense of loss I felt at the death, but because of the feeling of love that I felt during the dream.

It felt like when Jarrett would hug me. When he would come up behind me in the kitchen and wrap his arms around me. How it felt right. How I could feel him. More than just his body. I could feel his spirit, his energy, wrapping around me. I could feel his love.

I know some people will read that and think I’m crazy. That I’m one of those people who ‘feels’ things or thinks she has ‘physic powers’ and believes in ‘magic’.

I believe in energy. I believe if you are open enough to the universe that you can see and feel things that you can’t when you have barriers up. I believe that people see things differently. As an artist I view the world much differently than my friends, my loved ones, even my co-workers.

And it has taken me a long time to be ok with that. To accept that just because I am different, doesn’t mean I’m abnormal or ‘wrong’.

I get ‘’vibes’ from people, and I can normally feel the emotions of the people I am extremely close to, especially if we are touching. Which is what made the whole situation with Ari a few weeks ago so confusing and unfun.

What she wanted wasn’t what I wanted, but I could feel what she wanted, and in a way that makes me want it, so if 1 ½ people out of 2 want it, how do I have a right to say no, even if half of me doesn’t want to do something?

I miss that feeling of love and acceptance. I have never felt it as strongly as I did with Jarrett. And losing that hurt. If I am honest, it still hurts. I have never felt that connected to someone before.

And I hate how I think I could have been more connected to Sir, or Mother Earth. I hate thinking that I have barriers up between myself and people that I love. But the more I think about it, the more I think that is what has happened.

I think I have replaced my normal ice walls with earth this time. I don’t feel cold, but I feel a level of detachment from myself and the people around me. I have begun to realize how little I am actually feeling from the world around me.

It wasn’t until today when I went hiking with my family that I truly realized it.

The last time I went hiking here was amazing. I felt so connected to the Earth. There was so much untainted, natural energy. It filled me with strength. That hiking trip is the main reason I want to move out here to be with my family. I want to be able to experience that feeling more often. I want to be in an area so close to nature. A place so easy to leave behind the human world we trap ourselves inside of.

This time it took a very long time for me to feel that. We hiked almost four miles, and it wasn’t until I let everyone get pretty far ahead of me that I was able to tune everything out enough to realize that the disconnect was in me.

These walls I had built up were such a part of my spiritual landscape that I didn’t even know they were there. And it took a while for me to lower them enough to feel the energy around me.

I found two rocks while I was hiking alone to bring home with me. One for myself, and one for my roommate.

I don’t know why I picked up the ones I did out of the thousands that I walked by, but I picked those two, and I like them. Mine is red, and you can see the layers in it, worn smooth by the wind and water. It calls to something inside me.

Maybe part of it is the color. Red representing my fire, in the form of earth, my other half. Both my sides, fire and earth, together in harmony. Maybe the layers also speaks to me because I see myself in them. Layer after layer, experience after experience, building me up into who I currently am.

And part of me thinks I look too deeply at things. Part of me thinks that it’s just a rock. And the other part of me is sticking her tongue out at my inner scientist. My four year old self, who still truly sees, and knows that the rock is whatever I want it to be. It can be special, or not. Ultimately the power is mine.

When I caught back up to my family, after finding relaxing enough to lower my shields and finding the rocks, I could feel my walls rise back up. It wasn’t even something I tried to do. It was like an automatic reflex. “Oh, people.” / shields rise.

Maybe that is because John and Lio are so extroverted. The whole time I was with them they were taking selfies and talking. Maybe the shields are my self-preservation for the situation I am in. With no place for meditation or down time, maybe my mind knew that it needed to protect me since I’ve been pretty strained this whole week to begin with.

But I think it is a bit deeper than that. I think part of the shields have been in place since the last fight with Jarrett. Maybe even before that. I suppose I should save that for another post. I’m pretty much written out. And I don’t even know if I figured anything out.

I don’t know if I was really trying to. Honestly, I was just letting my fingers move over the keyboard, and now my mind is tired and doesn’t want to look further into anything.

I ache at the thought of leaving tomorrow. I know that it’s not goodbye. I know it’s more of an ‘I’ll see you later.” But it hurts, and I don’t want it to.

Why does love always have to hurt?