Straighten up, soldier.

Past few months, I've been through a lot. I've been through more than a lot of people know though, so it hasn't been surprising or particularly difficult to deal with. What makes the recent things easier is that people like Juliana and Bea can understand. It helps a lot when your best friends can understand, relate. It makes it easy for me to go to ghoulies house, find her, stef and justine sleeping in her bed, cuddle up and cry. Just cry for all the things that pull me into sadness like ropes around my neck. It has not always been so easy, to find people going through the same thing. I had to wait two years to find Amanda, a councilor at my summer camp, who had been through what I had. I marveled at her courage, to speak about it in public and even go through therapy. She said she marveled at mine, hiding it from my family and limiting it to a personal struggle.

I didn't feel very brave at the time. I don't feel very brave now. In fact, I have even more reason to be scared of repetition. Michael and Mack told me about two middle-aged men who, on a few occasions, spotted me at co-op and apparently liked what they saw. It shook me. Michael said he was very close to asking them to leave, because of what they said the last time. It terrified me. It is secretly a major reason behind my new hair. I'm hoping it's enough. I know Michael wouldn't joke about that. He knows me very well. He tried not to sound scared, but I know him very well too.

Dealing with this wouldn't normally be so hard, but I can't lean on you anymore, and that makes it very hard. I know that if this separation lasts a very long time, I will be fine. I don't need you to survive. I've been doing things on my own my whole life. But I care about you, and having you in my life would make it a lot better.