This isn’t the first time I have sat in front of my computer since I have been back from Nebraska. There’s actually a writing that I never posted before my trip which I doubt I will at this point. Really, most of that lost writing was me being definite. This is the first time that I’m taking the time to try to figure it all out, though.

I don’t know where to start with everything. It’s another massive tangled thing within my chest. I don’t think it’s really discord, but the fact is, there’s a lot.

There’s the apartment. There’s my job. There’s the trip itself. There’s everything with Ox. There are my relationships here. There are my brothers. There’s my grief. There’s just… everything.

There’s my life.

That’s basically what it feels like. It’s so much stuff it might as well be everything all at once and I don’t know where to start with that. There’s the mountain in front of me that I don’t know how to climb. This feeling of never being able to get to the top so taking the first steps are pointless. I’m striving for an unattainable goal so it’s easier to just not try.

But I can’t not try. I don’t know how to do that. To sit and accept nothingness, so here I am. Once again in front of my computer with a blank page in front of me, my words slowly filling it with black marks as Arrival At Sydney Harbour plays on repeat, instilling the sense of calm it always does for me. Safety, security. It makes the tension of standing in front of the mountain more ok. More bearable. More do-able.

I made my trip. I guess that’s a good place to start.

I worked three days in a row. That was brutal. I took an Uber to the airport. I made it through TSA without SWAT repelling down from the ceiling to confiscate my contact solution and deodorant stick.

I made it onto the plane. I survived the take off even though I still cried through it. There’s still the feelings of… I don’t know what. The thoughts of, “Mom is dead,” fill my head as the plane rumbles down the runway. Once I’m in the air it’s fine, but the takeoff… those few seconds are so much of everything…

I want her to still be here. I want her to be alive still and take off reminds me that she’s not, she never will be. Not how she was.

I survived both take-offs since there was a layover in Chicago.

I made it off the plan in Omaha.

I met Ox in person. I don’t know what else to say about our meeting. There aren’t words which could hope to explain those feelings. I’m glad it happened. I’m glad he hugged me. I’m glad we stood there for as long as we did holding each other. I’m glad I had the time I did to relearn how to breathe.

I’m glad we touched as much as we did through the time I was there. The random touches as we passed by each other in the hotel room. The holding hands. I’m glad we talked as much as we did. I’m glad the first place we went to was a forest so I could be away from literally everything. No cars. No people. Just emptiness and space and silence and all of these things I didn’t realize I was suffocating without.

In fact, every time I became overwhelmed, or borderline overwhelmed, he let me sit outside in the fifteen-degree weather with his jacket around me. He let me cry when I needed to, like after my interview.

Which I guess that’s another thing to write about. It wasn’t just a meeting. I showed up to the clinic and was welcomed inside of an office where I sat in front of an FA and an FA assistant while conference calling another FA. It was most definitely an interview and it went amazingly well. They’re interested in having me in the area and as far as I know are still working the logistics out.

After the interview, we drove to another park. It wasn’t an empty forest, but it was still nice. We sat outside for a bit at a picnic table before driving to another area, one of Ox’s favorite spots when he needs to get away. I was allowed to explain why every accomplishment I achieve sucks now. Why it’s painful. Why it hurts and feels pointless.

I can’t tell mom. I can’t tell her I did this amazing thing. Not how I’m used to, and I guess a big thing in that regard is that I don’t reach out to her spiritually much. I still question if it’s real. It’s something I need to work out but now, today, is not that time.

There was a lot of open communication with Ox. This is week four of knowing him actually, to the day.

One of the nights we were together we drank and instead of drinking and doing stupid shit or just having sex we looked up our personality types and read them to each other and then had super deep conversations about it. It’s things like that, moments like that which make us both feel connected to each other in ways that make me want to explore this.

The internet calls our pairing “the golden couple” and I can honestly say that even if it doesn’t work between us I’m glad I have met him. I’m glad I have someone who seems to so intuitively understand… me. All of me.

I met his parents while I was there and for the first time since last Christmas I sat down at a kitchen table and had dinner with a family. I felt part of the family. I felt… home… in the middle of a place I have never been surrounded by people I honestly don’t really know… I felt like I belonged. I felt warm and cared for and accepted for me.

I answered all of the questions I was asked as honestly as I knew how.

When Ox’s mom made the comment that she didn’t know how I could explain and be open about half the things I did I replied with it’s easier to be honest than to lie and I don’t know how to explain certain things without explaining all of it. All of the parts are important. The whole story is important and needed.

I didn’t go to dojos. I did walk through a grocery store. I didn’t drive around in the snow. I didn’t look at apartments.

I had my interview. I had lunch with Ox’s mom, and then the following day I spent the day at his house. In between those events Ox and I spent our time together learning each other in person and I wouldn’t trade a minute of my time in Nebraska for anything in the world.

I didn’t realize how claustrophobic Orlando was until I was sitting in the passenger seat of Ari’s car as she picked me up from the airport. I didn’t realize how much I didn’t want to be here anymore until the plane touched down and I had silent tears from wishing I was anywhere but here. It was the first time where I didn’t cry during the takeoffs. It was the landings which hurt. It was only during the last landing that I wished I hadn’t had to leave a place that felt so right.

There was a moment when Ox and I were together, at yet another park after having met his family, where I cried and admitted that I was terrified of all of this not being real. It was too perfect to truly exist that it had to be something I would wake up from. I would wake and the soul-crushing reality of it being a dream would be too much.

I know I will move. I know that Orlando isn’t where I want to be and that if things work the way I want for them to, that I will be leaving mid-February and beginning work in Nebraska the 5th of March.

I know a lot with the apartment is falling into place though my first night back felt like a disaster waiting to undermine everything I was striving for.

Right now I’m having to breathe and be patient while the ball gets tossed around the court from one person to another, rarely ever landing in my own where I can do something with it.

The two shirts Ox let me take back with me remind me that the experience, the trip, was real. That there is a home for me there, one I am waiting to go back to. They’re reminders that it was “I’ll see you later,” and not “Goodbye”.

I have my evening with Big Bad tonight and though I want to see him I don’t want to have to drive or deal with people or leave the sanctuary of my room. I do feel the need to acknowledge I am feeling better for having written even if I don’t feel I haven’t figured much out from it.

Maybe it’s solidifying that I do have a home now and not just a place where I sleep. Even if I’m far away from it, I have a home and that makes me feel more ok. More like there’s a point to everything. I’ve had more energy when interacting with my patients the two days I’ve worked then I have for all of December. I no longer dread the hours as they tick by, waiting to finally go home so I can be alone.

I’m fully present. Several of my patients knew about my trip and asked about it once I was back. They all wish the best for me and commented on how I will be missed and how I’m a kind, caring soul that made the clinic a better place. With almost everyone I have talked to I have nearly been brought to tears from their words. I didn’t realize I made such a difference for them.

It’s nice to know that I mattered and that I helped.

It’s nice to feel like I’m being an adult. That was something I mentioned to Ox yesterday while I was on one of my breaks. I feel like I’m figuring things out. I’m taking care of my life. And, for once, I feel like I’m living it for myself.

I don’t feel broken. I don’t feel injured. I feel like I’ve gone through that process of healing wounds. I’ve been the invalid, bedridden and feeble. I’ve progressed to a wheelchair and then crutches. And now, even though my body and soul still ache, I’m beginning to walk my path again. And this time I’m walking it for myself.

My path so closely followed my mom’s for so long, and now my path continues on and I must walk it by myself, for myself. I know she’s still with me, but she’s not here to hold my hand through it. She taught me to be strong, to stand tall, and to walk with confidence, and so for the first time, I’m doing that.

At least it feels like the first time.

I’m holding my head high and making the choices I want to make.

I know there were several times in her life that mom faced opposition to her choices. No one agreed and yet she lived her life how she felt it should be lived.

I only have one life. I only have these moments. I want to search and explore and experience and question. I want… to be happy. Content. I want to be away, where it’s quiet and open and spacious and… just away.

I know with this change, this chapter, there will be an end. And end to Orlando. And end to paths. I think I’m ready for that, though. I’m ready to move away from the past and to shed it much like a snake sheds it’s skin so that it may continue to grow.

There’s still a lot to figure out. There’s still information to gather, but I support myself, and I think that’s the biggest hurdle any of us face while trying to figure out our lives.

I support what I am doing. I think it’s the right thing, and so I’m ok with other people not agreeing with it. I am the only one who knows the full story, the full history of what got me to this point, to the point of sitting here in front of my computer on this day, January 18th of 2018.

This is my year of standing up, of standing tall, and even though I’m still drained from my trip and the days I’ve worked this week, I feel like it’s a confident and stable start.

I will not fall, and I will not break. And for now, that’s as far as I feel like climbing today. Maybe that’s all that needed to be climbed.

I am moving. That’s what all of these past weeks and days and events lead up to in the end. I have found home and I will move to be there and that alone, that statement, makes me feel ok.

I’ve found home.