I’ve picked up the task of writing my life story more than once. I’ve put it down one fewer times than I’ve picked it up. I picked it up again last weekend and I want to put it back down again. In the last 10 years constant reader you’ve seen the ups and the downs. From “little” things like TSH driving down I95 with a water heater I could not afford to seismic events like the incident. I’ve done and lived through and survived a lot.

I stopped writing this story in part because the pressure and stress and frankly pain of reliving some events can be too much. I am in one of those moments now. As I write about the experiences from Manheim St to Manheim St the return, it is stirring up shit that I thought I settled.

I’ve spent the day typing and crying. Feeling sadness and fear, and settling on a disturbing idea that California is not the end game.

It is, and it is also not.

As I settle into something similar to normal, watching the light escape the sky I understand something I previously was not willing to allow myself to admit, there is a lot more work to be done.

Old Nicole popped up with all of the reasons why I was not deserving of the happiness I have currently and that bitch is annoying. Like, I don’t need her asking these questions right now as I move to the next episode, shut the fuck up.

The thing about Old Nicole though is she is uniquely capable of protecting me and keeping me safe and alive and to completely muzzle her would be a mistake. She needs to talk. I don’t have to follow her advice, but hear her out? I need that.

She’s kept me alive when I did not want to be, she’s earned a voice. What I battle in the moment is not allowing her voice to be louder than my current voice. It’s a battle I think I am losing at times today, but I am reasonably confident at the end result. I got this.

While she will certainly pipe up and explain why I should not be doing these things and making these moves, I have enough of a foundation and it’s solidified enough to not crumble. I ask myself as I type though if it is cracked.

I woke today thinking all that I need is the Daddy person. I just need the ability to wrap him around me and it will all be okay.

That’s not the case.

He makes things better. He improves. He creates, but it all won’t be okay with him.

I have to make it okay without him and that is a part of what unsettles me this afternoon.

I recognize that I am ‘rushing’ things from a place of fear not of power and it’s forcing me to be still in this moment and ask why. The answer to that why is I still have shit I need to work on to get ‘there’.

That’s a burden when so much else is on my plate, but I am fairly strong.

If he sent the plane ticket tomorrow I would take it and run to him and at some point along the way we’d have a day, or a week, or more where the shit I haven’t dealt with lay between us. I do not want that. I want what we’ve managed to build so far, a love absent the dysfunction.

Being transparent, I ask myself if I will always carry the dysfunction with me. It’s so familiar, so worn in. So weaved into all that I have done. So…….me.

And I need to LOUDLY remind myself that it’s not what I’ve done since leaving the Summer House so I can certainly do different. I am doing different because instead of doing what Old Nicole would do, I told him I was afraid. Even if we didn’t get into all the ways I am afraid, I told him.

I got this.

I know that I am going to finish the story. I also know that I am going to keep that appointment this week. I need to be back on track and part of how I get there is with assistance. Sometimes the coach needs a coach. I keep asking myself what if this means going back on medication and I shout NO. Yet, I’ve survived medication before and there is no need to despair that it would be lifelong. I keep thinking of that bottle of Welbutrin upstairs and thinking a nap would be nice.

And then I think of not taking that nap, I know that I will not, even when it gets uglier, and as I type more I know it will get uglier. I am stronger than the ugliness though. I got this.

Memory Lane is bumpy as fuck though, 1 out of five I do not recommend