these are things.

I have so little room in my life nowadays. Between the insanely stressful work situation I have, school, money, moving, and my family's needs, there just isn't much left of me at the end.

I think that's the main reason I need to move so badly. I feel like until I've got a bubble set up for myself that only contains me and Meridan, I can't function properly. I spend so much time dwelling on other things that I shouldn't be dwelling on.

And yes, the majority of my issues lie with my relationship with Shen. I have tried for months now to figure out why I'm so frustrated when there's really nothing out of the ordinary going on between us. And it only occurred to me recently that the reason is right in front of me. It's nothing out of the ordinary.

I have always loved and cared about Shen despite her flaws. Obviously, we all have things we're not great at. It's not the job of a friend to throw those things in your face constantly. And who's to say whether something is really a flaw? I'm not going to consider my opinion in that regard as the absolute truth. That's not fair.

But what does hit home is when you watch a person consistently make decisions that hurt her. And I watch Shen slip up time and again with things, forgetting important things, making mistakes with money, or whatever, and I see how it affects her, and it drives me crazy. My reaction up until recently has always been to nag her, to point out these mistakes and lecture, trying to help prevent them in future. It doesn't work.

It comes down to this - I hate seeing her sad and unhappy. But right now, when I see her sad and unhappy, I feel nothing but anger and frustration, because I know she could have prevented it. I know that she knows it too, though. So why should I lecture her about it again? I don't want to deliberately make her feel bad. And I can't pretend there's nothing going on. So, I end up ignoring her. Which is doing no good, because I know that the one thing that would help her is attention from me.

It is so fucking hard for me to even have a tiny conversation with Shen without picking at her in some way, asking about some deadline or some crap like that. It's as if I've trained myself to do it. I'm embarassed by it, and my reaction to it of late has been to just not talk to her at all. It's not fair, but I don't know what else to do.

Anyways. I constantly feel bad about all of this. I'm mad all the time, so I feel guilty about being mad. Then, I get mad that I'm feeling guilty. I've been hard with her because I have no choice.

I know in my heart the only thing that's going to come close to repairing my relationship with Shen is for me to move out. I know she'll feel better when she has money coming in again, because it's obvious that it's been really hard on her to be so financially dependent on us. So, between that and being able to eliminate any other kind of roommate, space-sharing type disagreements, I really do think things can improve.

Shen - I know you'll read this. I really hope you understand where I'm coming from, and why it's too hard for me to explain this all to you in person. Let's just get through these next couple of weeks, and when I get out and settled... you'll come over, we can talk, and I think things will get a lot better.

To the rest of you - enjoy my dirty laundry. And go e-mail or call Shen or something, because I know she'd like to hear from you all.