It's Only A Paper Rose

These past five years or so, I've gotten used to living a fairly changeable life. I've bounced around from Anchorage to Barrow to Fairbanks to Juneau, I've changed college (and future living) plans twice on account of some relationship or other, I've pursued about three different degrees and gotten almost nowhere with any of them (though I do have almost all the basic requirements done), I've worked several different jobs, and I've dealt with the beginnings and endings of several love relationships - some painful, some not so much. It's been a tumultuous half-decade. And yet, through it all, my mother's been sitting up in Barrow with a good job and a place for me to go during holidays, summers, and just if I need to retreat.

I find it kind of interesting that this aspect of stability is planning to remove itself from my life just as I'm finally starting to build some sort of stable structure to base said life upon.

Nothing seems to be final, yet, but my mother's pretty much decided that she's done with Barrow and being a lawyer for the time being. This isn't exactly unexpected - she's known from the beginning that it wasn't going to be a permanent thing, and even before she took the job she had planned to get out of practicing law eventually. And she made it clear that once she did quit working for ASRC, she probably wasn't going to be able to support me as she has been - especially since she's headed towards something more service-oriented.

I guess she's always been a samurai that way.

The loss of financial assistance will be somewhat difficult, but hardly insurmountable - I make a livable wage, now, and while I might have to cut some luxuries and take a semester or two off from school to build up my savings, I'm not going to starve or fall behind on rent.

I think what's hardest about this is the fact that, up until now, if things went kerplowie for one reason or another - or if I blew up my life as I've been so good at doing in the past - I'd have somewhere to go. I could retreat back to UAF and work a student library job again, or even hide up in Barrow and crash on my mother's couch. Not that I'd ever seriously considered doing that, but it was an option.

Now that I don't have that, the world suddenly seems a lot bigger and scarier, I guess. I have to make my life work, because if it doesn't I won't have anywhere familiar to retreat to. (If I had enough money saved I suppose I could go back to UAF and pretend the last couple of years never happened, but I really didn't like it there. And most of the people I knew when I was there have moved on, anyway.)

Maybe that's what's hardest about this - for once in my life, there's no going back. Or really, there never was, but now the illusion that I could go back is gone. I've gotten too big for the nest.

On the other hand, at this point in my life I have a lot of things that I've wanted for years - a boyfriend whom I love and who loves me and treats me wonderfully; a home of my own that I share with my loved one, and finally my very own cat - something I've wanted since I was a little girl but could never have thanks to my mother's allergies or dorm regulations.

Yes, it's going to be scary living without this safety net.

But I think I'll be all right.