It's funny, sometimes, how things work out. Honestly, there are a lot of things I can't remember, or at least that I really don't remember clearly. A lot of things that have run together into one long, almost like a very blurry dream. Not in its entirety, but a lot of it. Until probably toward the end of 2005, there are a lot of pieces like that, long blurry dream-sequences that are my life.

I wish there weren't, but there are. That brain tumor fucked up a lot of things for me, things I won't ever get back. And I don't really spend a lot of my time usually sitting around dwelling on it. Not generally. But sometimes, especially lately, I think about it. And how different things might have been, if I hadn't had it. If I'd simply been normal, and had my normal memories, and not the back-and-forth mood swings, and the irrational temper. Hadn't had the inability to make reasoned decisions. How very different so many things might have ended up, about my entire life.

Some of my poor decisions are my own, and I take full responsibility for some of them. But some of them I can't even remember making, much less what I might have been thinking at any given time.

I know that I once had hopes and dreams and goals. A life that I wanted for myself, and things I wanted to achieve. I know when I was a teenager, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I was twenty, or twenty-five, or thirty years old. But I know that being married with children wasn't in my plans. I know that college, and a career *were* in my plans. A bright future, security, a life. Those were what I wanted for myself. Someone to love, who would love me, yes. But no children until I was established, in a career. Stability. I wanted to *be* someone. I know that.

And I remember thinking at the end of September 2007, beginning of October, when I was finally starting to feel like a real person again, for the first time I could *remember* in so long that it truly scares me, I remember thinking "finally". I could see a glow at the end of that long tunnel of darkness, and thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could carve a niche out for myself, and be that person again. The person I vaguely remembered, from when I was an actual functioning person, when I was, what, sixteen? Fifteen? When I still had dreams, and hopes, and a belief in myself? When I believed there was a spot in the world for me, a place I might belong, that I could be productive and happy in, just because I was me. Because I finally, after all these years, felt like myself again.

I tried so hard to explain that, to everyone, to anyone who would listen. I was trying to get some space, some time to be me again, without running, without fighting. Just a little bit of space while I figured everything out. I didn't know what I was predicting for the future. I didn't know what was going to happen in the next four *weeks* much less the next four months, with all the new things exploding inside of my head. I just wanted for everyone to take what I was offering, and let the future take care of itself. And I wish so badly that that had been enough. I thought it was.

And I thought that for right then, what I was offering was enough. It should have been, with everything in chaos. With everything spinning around in my head, and my head finally screwing on straight for the first time in years.

I was asking for the time and the space to not lose everything, and a chance to be me. To be your friend, and be just me, with the now and then right to hold your hand, and kiss you. Stroke your hair, and cuddle with you. Get hugs when I needed them, and go to bed with you sometimes. Go to the movies with you maybe, and listen to your dreams, and hope you'd listen to mine. Be silly once in a while, and build a past together that we could both enjoy remembering, instead of one that only one of us could. That was all I wanted, some time to try and figure it out.

Only it didn't work out that way. Somehow, whatever I was trying to express backfired, and everything went asplodey, and blew up around me. And by the time I recovered from the fallout, everything was gone. In a matter of days, or so it seemed to me. It actually was only a matter of days. Not even two weeks. My entire life vanished in two weeks.

I've done the best I could, with what I had to work with, and I'm very slowly rebuilding. Sort of. I've been kicked around, hard. I'm still getting kicked around, but I fake it much better now than I did before. Except when I break, and cry and can't help but have the cork explode out of the bottle, and the anger crashes all over. Even I can't hold everything in all the time.

And when I end up being treated the same by both of you, whether it's intentional or not, that just makes it worse in spades. Because having to take what little bits and pieces are left while you live your lives isn't fair to me, and it never was. Not from either of you. Watching everyone else be happy, and celebrate anniversaries, and go on their merry way, living the life that was mine? Hurts and crashes across me and breaks me into pieces, and it isn't fair. I have a heart, even if it's shattered. And there's only so much that I can take. Because I honestly didn't do anything wrong.

Even when I tried to rebuild something, I got smashed, and everyone still ended up happy except me. And it's almost worse now. Because everything that I thought was a lie, included how I felt, and what I believed. The grass I thought was greener? It was spray-painted on. The paint has faded, and it was dead underneath all along. If only I had seen it in time.