Day 139: White Oleander

White Oleander by Janet Fitch.  ISBN: 9780788739705 (audiobook).

Sometimes I feel like I get what it's like to be an orphan, to not know where you'll be in the next month or year, to not know who your friends will be or who you can trust.  I get that.  I know what it's like to live with people you aren't sure have your best interest in mind.

I'm not trying to negate the hardships faced by people in foster care, but sometimes I feel like I went through it, being jerked around so much by the military.  I haven't known what it's like to have a stable home, even though I could rely on my mother to always be part of the family.  On the other hand, each move made it seem like we changed into other people.  It was almost necessary that we became different people in order to adjust to our surroundings.  It was difficult to find ways to fit in and it often necessitated what seemed like radical changes in behavior, dress, and mannerisms.  Like chameleon pod people, we seemed to replace our selves with new selves depending on where we were stationed.

Some of this was also the changing dynamic in on our family as my parents drifted apart and my brother and I hit puberty.  And then again when my parents went through separation and divorce, and yet again when my brother got kicked out of my mom's house.  Even when we were stationary our home was in constant change and chaos.

I'm ready, I'm ready to be quiet for a moment, to be still and to stop changing quite so much.  I know I have plenty of life changes ahead of me and some additional chaos, I need to get that steady job which will require an upheaval and probably a move.  I also plan to get married which will involve some more chameleon action as we adjust to living with each other and creating a working partnership where we don't kill each other.   But after that, it'll ease into stability and some form of normality.  I won't have to worry about having my physical or emotional life upturned again and again, right?  Someone tell me that it eventually all slows down and I get to rely on always being in the same place or job or state, at least.  I feel like I've had more than my share of upheaval, and all I want to do is breathe.