I find myself once again fighting a demon that I thought I had long since eaten into submission. It's a very frustrating place to be. I have been trying to do this the healthy way this time, and with quite a lot of success, but as soon as I let fear get to me I was the same messed-up eighteen-year-old again.

I never really told anyone about it back then. I don't know if anyone even knew. I guess being an actress has its advantages - makes you a good liar when you feel you need to be. Ironically, looking back now the things I was dealing with at the time seem inconsequential to adult problems but at the time, being my drama queen self, they were monumental. And really, 1993-1994 kinda sucked. I really let myself get treated like crap by too many people.

I'm realizing now how much of a "Type A" personality I am. I don't know if I was back then. I didn't feel like it, but maybe I wanted more control than I actually had. Being here, with no possiblity of working even if I want to, with no control over our financial situation, no control over when or if we go back to Canada... Heck, we're renting so I don't really even have control over the house, which is basically my domain at this point.

I don't know why I'm writing about this today. This blog wasn't intended for this kind of stuff. Feels good to get it out, though. Maybe now I can just let it go.

Or not.

Blech.

Went to the gym tonight after the kids were in bed. I've been saying for two months now that I was going to do that, especially since Leah and Ian seem to be unimpressed with me leaving them in the babysitting room. The first time I tried it they screamed for 10 minutes straight until I heard myself called over the loudspeaker to come and get them. So since then I've usually only gone on Saturday mornings while Millie is in her class and Hal can look after the little guys.

It felt SOOOOO good to be out of the house BY MYSELF. There was no one calling for Mommy. No phones to answer. No one wanting a drink, a snack, or to drool or climb on me. One of the things I love about this Y is their "cardio theater". I watched three different tv shows at the same time and didn't have anyone complaining that they didn't want to watch what I was watching.

And the rest, well... I was going to write about it, but not tonight. I'm choosing to enjoy the feeling of having accomplished something, no matter how insignificant it may have been.

*post written (GASP - by hand) at 4:35pm

Ian is 14 months old today. I can hardly believe it.

Sometimes it's so beautiful here that I wonder how I can possibly unhappy, as if somehow the physical attractiveness of a place should make up for a lousy healthcare system and a school system that I don't understand, and no right to privacy.

Right now I'm sitting on the playground equipment behind the YMCA while Milllie has her swimming lesson. Ian and Leah are happily running, climbing and sliding. We are truly in the middle of a forest here. Trees that are already turning dozens of different colours are surrounding us. It's the perfect fall temperature with just the slightest breeze. Driving here today I looked at all of the For Sale signs, the same way I always do, thinking about whether or not the houses would suit us. It's silly, because we know we want to leave here. Even if by some chance we end up staying in the US, we're too far from the city. I'm not a living in the country kinda gal. I don't like driving 20 minutes to the nearest grocery store - or anywhere else for that matter. Not with young kids. But it's beautiful to look at, and to think about.

Are we being too hasty about this country? Are we not giving it a chance? Maybe we had our minds made up before we even got here. On the other hand does it matter? If we love "our home and native land": our friends, our church, our family-at-large, is that some kind of character flaw? A lot of people are making us feel that way.

Some days I don't even know.

Guests, guests and more guests!

One thing I'm learning about living away from home is that you have to deal with friends and relatives in an entirely different way. In the whole four years we lived in our last home I don't think we had overnight guests more than a few times. After we had Leah and Ian, and all the bedrooms were used up, we only ever had one of their cousins stay overnight once, and Hal's parents stayed overnight on Christmas Eve once, on a mattress in the living room!

I love people and I love my friends and family, but I never really wanted company overnight all that much. I was glad to see them come, and glad to see them leave.

Now it's a completely different story. People can't just come and visit for the day. I have two friends in the entire state and see them pretty rarely. Everyone else who comes to visit us has to stay at least two nights. So far MIL (mother-in-law, for those not up on netlingo) has been here twice, FIL (father-in-law) once, my mom once and just last weekend I had two friends, and the baby daughter of one of them. The friend and her baby were here for five days. I loved having them here, but it gets exhausting.

I just got a message on Crackbook (AKA Facebook) a while ago that a friend and her "new" husband (they've lived together for years but just got married the weekend after we moved down here) are coming to visit next week. Agh! I love her dearly, and we always have fun together, but we haven't spent any REAL time together in years. And she doesn't have kids, and really doesn't know much about kids. I don't know if they know what they're in for, and I'm not in the mood to try and keep my kids from being kids just to keep them happy. I also suspect that they're just using my house as a place to crash more than anything. They're already talking about a day trip into NYC and I seriously doubt that the schedule I use when I do a day trip in is what they're thinking of, so I doubt if I'll be going along. I guess I get to do another major cleaning, though. Should be interesting since Millie, our two-year-old, has to have a tooth extracted the day before they arrive (*rolls eyes).

I used to listen to BIL (brother-in-law... do I really have to keep explaining this? You're an intelligent person...) bitch about having to come home every time he had a vacation and say to Hal, "He's the one who moved across the country!" Now I get it. I'm desperate to go home and see my friends, but our ENTIRE vacation for this year is going to be used up doing that. I think we'll come back here a few days before Christmas vacation is over, just to have some time as a family in our OWN home.

What on earth is going to happen if this company moves us to Europe like they keep saying? We'll become a crash pad for every refusing to grow up friend that I have. Fun. (And I love my friends, but I'm in a VERY different place from most of them these days.)

I wonder if people will believe that our guest room burned down???

Spent Saturday in NYC. Kept looking at neighbourhoods thinking "I could live here... if I could afford it." Every time I start to think I should just wait it out, my worries about the healthcare system remind me how good I had it at home. I think we've already spent (or been billed) enough on healthcare here to cover our entire 2006 tax bill in Canada.

I do love New York, though. Walked past the Actors' Studio and nearly had palpitations :)