Maybe it is evidence of my friend choices, but I realized the other day while trying to justify again to another friend why I want to live somewhere else that I actually was justifying myself. After I got off the phone I started thinking about all the people in my life who have made it their business to question my choice and to try and talk me out of it and it leaves me wondering why the fuck they think that’s okay. I would not question their choice to live somewhere else or make any other decisions. And it isn’t simply a matter of people asking out of curiosity either. They genuinely question me like they think it is their job to talk me out of it. I don’t get it. It’s my life. Part of me can hear them reasoning that they just want to make sure I’ve thought things through. The irony in this statement is that I would be willing to bet most of these people would describe me as one of the most responsible, unfrivolous people they know. I have heard all of them say something to this effect at one time or another. Yet when I make a decision they wouldn’t make, they try and talk me out of it and claim it is for my own good.

Now that I’ve noticed this is going on, I’m going to point it out to people when they do it. We’ll see how quickly the backpedaling begins when I ask someone why they are questioning my choices, what they hope to gain from the interaction. I’m not justifying myself any more. I do not make huge decisions lightly. I have my reasons for making the choices that I do. They may not be the same reasons or choices another person would make, but that is one of the beauties of being human, we are individual and can be different.

A friend of mine emailed me about the second house sale falling through. She said, “You’ve been living in a perpetual house of horrors for several years now.” Exactly. That is exactly how it has been. So I want to make a locational change in an effort to 1) get away from the perpetual house of horrors, and 2) perhaps live a life without a perpetual house of horrors. Is that too much to ask? These people who question my choices haven’t lived my life. They don’t have what I have here. Their situations are different.