Keeps Me Hanging On in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I still haven’t heard back from the French Consulate. They’re very slow at responding which is incredibly frustrating but very… French. I’ve been spending the whole time making back-up plans as a way of NOT waiting and being idle. I feel like such a weirdo for it but I’m trying to prevent myself from going on another shame spiral.

That’s not easy with my family around. I hate how difficult it is to remain positive around them. It’s like having to constantly refocus myself after every encounter. I know they try, but their judgments just keep getting in the way. I suppose it is what it is.

I just think that I’d like to once again be surrounded by people who care about me which, unfortunately, is not in the same sphere as my mother and the rest of them. I’m not trying to talk negatively about her, it’s just that I don’t feel comfortable around her, I don’t feel a lot of things around her.

I’ve even begun to analyze critically where I would go if Paris doesn’t pan out. I see three options, but I’m only seriously considering two, and neither of them is too far from the other. Either I head back to East LA where I went to school or I had to Palm Springs. If I’m being honest, I don’t really think I would tolerate Palm Springs too well. The desert heat was not exactly what I wanted, especially since there are no working air-conditionings in that entire city. But I think it would be a nice change for me.

The reason I’m not sure about going back to Claremont is because when I think about it, I was sad while I was there. I haven’t really been truly happy somewhere since I was in Paris, but since that may no longer be an option, it means I must choose a lesser degree of sadness. But when I think of the circumstances of my unhappiness during that time, it all goes back to school. I felt isolated, even though I wasn’t, because I didn’t have any time but to see people in my routine.

I spent 10 years doing exactly what I wanted and not needing to fit other people into my life. I started doing it while I was in SoCal, not very well, but to a small degree, and when I came back here, it stopped again. It’s not that I’m too busy, it’s just that nobody here really wants to fit into my life.

I’ve noticed that I’m being paid lip service by people who claimed to be my new friends, and my old friends are off having children. There’s a part of me that thinks that I must readjust my life to accommodate this, but I’ve never wanted children. I’ve never wanted to have to have “kids’ tables” at holidays (which I don’t celebrate anyways).

I am starting to transition away from those things, I had been doing it over the last couple of years, but then moving back home, where it’s “EMBRACE FAMILY VALUES” makes me want to run screaming back to my old ways, even though I know that they are no longer for me. What does it all mean? What can be done?

Nothing. All of this is conjecture because I’m in a holding pattern, waiting for my future to be decided by a French bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.