The emotions in disappearing are far greater. When I leave this time, I won’t be coming back. And that’s disturbing as I’ve been trying my damnedest to be stronger.

Five years and change of trying my best and it’s just marked with repeat failure on my end.

• The semester was finished out with all “A”s - even math!
• The keys to the apartment were turned in.
• A promotion was received at work.
• I went round’n’round at the Heartland Park Topeka during a track day and made improvements on my abilities.

For the sake of keeping my brags to myself, lets just say that school ended on a really high note. At this point, I have tentatively swapped my major over to Public Administration and need to sit down with an adviser at Washburn. I’m penciled in for my Fall classes, but I want to double and triple check with Washburn to make sure that I’m not going to be taking anything I don’t absolutely need. Once that’s done, I can just write them a check and be secure in my Fall schedule, which will be very similar to the one I just completed.

Last Tuesday I went into the apartment after work with a vacuum, some cleaner, and a roll of paper towels. I went through each of the rooms systematically and cleaned any surface that dared to be dirty. Once complete, I vacuumed each room from the back to the front until I backed myself up to the entrance. This left that “someone just vacuumed every inch of this place” look. By the time my tasks were complete, it was too late to return the keys to the management office. So, I returned on Thursday and handed them over. My mail has already been forwarded for a few months; the electricity and the cable Internet are scheduled to be turned off; and all of the necessary paperwork describing my intent to move out had long been submitted. This means that I am done with that apartment. It lingered as an awful reminder of how this past winter went and I am so relieved to be out from under it. This leaves my head much more clear.

Since January 7, 2008, I have been able to move through the lines of business at work with relative ease. We have “modular training” that we run through from time to time. With each “skill set” that we learn, we must “certify” in it before we can move on. Thus far, I have learned four and will be going back into training for the fifth this month. This last particular skill set is entirely different from the others and should be a ton of fun. I’m definitely looking forward to getting into it and seeing if I will be able to handle it smoothly.

Because Monday of last week was designated as a national holiday, I actually got the day off work and I got to spend it at the track. Though I spend a ton of time at HPT because of Phil’s racing and track days, I rarely get to spend my own time on the track. In fact, this was just my second track day. We spent a few hectic hours preparing my bike for the track - it got new shoes, taped of head & tail lights, the fairings were stuck back on there, and it even got washed! I should give my bike that kind of treatment more often. All of these things helped me to work my way safely around the track. I had no issues, only a few minor bobbles, and made good improvements on my entries & exits, apexes, body position, speed, and overall control. I left the place wanting to hug everyone - and did.

At this point, that is how I am feeling day in and day out. I want to hug everyone. Not just small embraces - rather, huge, squeeze-you-until-your-eyes-bulge clasp. I’m calm, cool, and just loving everything right now. Hopefully I can continue this natural high without much interruption. I’ll be leaving for Texas on Wednesday after work.

Normally those tears are over my own mother. Not because I miss her, but because it’s just a reminder that I don’t have a mother to honor. I always send special cards to my Grandmothers and even called Phil’s Grandmother to wish her happy mother’s day. But I still feel like I’m lacking.

This year, the tears were also for my relationship with Zoe. We were up late the night before at our friends’ house. She got to stay up late and play with kids her age, while us adults were hanging out in the Man Garage playing games and acting goofy. Sunday morning rolled around and she was zonked out. The kind of sleep where her mouth is wide open, drool oozing from the corner of her lips, and she doesn’t move an inch when you softly say her name and rub her arm in an attempt to wake her. Originally, I had hoped to make pancakes and eat breakfast with her. But, due to her deep sleep, I let her go until she had a half hour to get up and around before her mother picked her up.

Per the Kansas Child Support Guidelines, if other arrangements cannot be agreed upon, the mother is to get her from 9am to 7pm. Everyone else in her life is ignored, despite the role they may play. So, I silently played by the books, woke her up, fed her, and clothed her before there was a rapping on the door at 9am. I got a big hug and kiss and she was gone.

I went about my day, looking forward to making a nice dinner and sharing about two hours with her before she was to hit the sack again, as the following day was designated for school. About 6:50pm, Phil’s phone rings and it’s Zoe calling from her mom’s phone wanting to know if she can just stay the night. I try to tell Phil in the background that she needs to come home so that we can spend some time with her. Eventually her mother gets on the line and they argue before Phil agrees to let Zoe stay because that’s what she wants.

The frustrating thing about this is that her mother wins her over with cheap junk food and video games. Tales from the child indicate on all levels that all she does while she is there is consume hot dogs and play Wii. In the unlikely event that she’s not doing one of those two things, her mother is buying her various material items of no value or dropping her off at Grandma and Grandpa’s, where she also does little to nothing but sit in front of the TV.

It is no wonder Zoe would rather be there, than at our home. Here, she eats vegetables, goes entire days without the boob tube on and interacts with others. She is given tools of creation like chalk, water colors, legos and blank drawing paper. None of these things are visually stimulating or mind-rotting as endless episodes of Hannah Montana or the mountain of children’s DVDs that she has that dwarf our small collection of DVDs. They just don’t compare.

When asked if Zoe had eaten dinner, her mother replied, “Yeah, she had a Lunchable.” Way to go, mom. I guess she’s getting some variety from the usual hot dogs and Mac & Cheese.

It didn’t seem that at any point she had considered that we wanted Zoe home for the evening. Nor did she seem to think that maybe I’d like to see her on Mother’s day. Perhaps she forgets that when I entered Zoe’s life, five years ago, she couldn’t walk up the stairs without gripping someone’s hand. That I’ve spent countless hours putting small clips and crazy pony tails in her hair. That I’ve snuggled with her on the couch and rubbed her back during coughing fits, puking binges, and various bumps and scrapes. I’ve spent five years dealing with temper tantrums, the ailment of childhood fears, and the neediness of a toddler. Or that I’ve been one of the last things she sees before falling asleep when she’s here, because I lay down and read Curious George, Skippy John Jones and Walter the Farting Dog to her.

Or, worse: Her mother considered all of these things and still didn’t see any reason to bring Zoe back to our house on Mother’s Day, but instead let her play Wii Mario and barely interacted with her before sending her to bed.

Either way, I ended up in tears. I don’t feel like I ask for much in the mother-daughter field. I know she’s not mine. But I was really looking forward to that one dinner.

I don’t have any other particular field that I excel at. I’m not a spectacular family member, nor am I a trophy wife that someone is proud of, and I’m a dangerous motorcycle rider at best. I try to garden, but even my easy-to-please hanging ivy is turning brown and crusty. In earnest, the only thing I haven’t killed is my cactus. I’m limited by my knowledge of how to do things and my physical ability to do the few things that I understand how to do. (And I am hyper-aware of those limitations.) No one comes to me for help building their deck, fixing their computer, or explaining why something carries more mass while spinning at a high RPM.

But, I can research the hell out of Joanna Baillie, Aristotle’s Rhetoric and volunteerism. I can properly lay out an MLA-style bibliography. And I can knock a literary analysis out of the park. I spend a lot of time formulating essays, double checking my algebra homework and writing detailed notes for upcoming tests. For the most part, I’m really proud of the outcome and am trying my best to keep it up.

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Last Saturday night, Phil stated that I should come home. Being that we were both well on our way to getting inebriated, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and told him I wouldn’t hold him to it, should he not feel the same way the next day. We continued the night and filled it with friends, beer, and the smell of roasted Michelin tires. I was able to not mention the topic throughout the next day. We were sitting at the dinner table, stuffed with biscuits and gravy when I threw it back out there on the table. I half-way expected him to apologize and say that he wanted to wait a bit longer before having me move back.

Instead, he took my hand and told me that, yes, he does in fact want me to come back. Even while sober.

I kept a dry eye then. But, it’s easy now to get choked up about it. No one else has ever made me feel so much like I belong with them. I’m very blessed to have someone care for me the way he has and does.

Now, I can check Topeka off of the list of places I’ve resided in and don’t care to ever return to.  I’ve started the process of moving back. Updating my address again, looking at my options to get out of my rental agreement, and returning the few items I unpacked back to their cardboard boxes. I bet no one else in the world has ever been this elated to move to Carbondale, Kansas.

Realizing again that I’m capable of being alone has restored my confidence. I’m back to charging ahead, stepping up the ladder at work and blowing through my classes.

I’m at an impasse with my future. Over the past four years, I’ve known exactly what I was working for and what was in store for me. Now, I’m very unsure but not as distraught over it.

There have been so many days in the past month where I wasn’t sure where I was woke up in the morning. Some days, I’m in the apartment with Rocky snoring off to the side of the bed. Other days, I’m at the house, pressed up against Phil. Neither place is home. It takes me a few minutes to assess the situation and figure out if I’m coming or going. Will I be sleeping in the same place later that day?

It has become stressful driving to and from both places, constantly packing and unpacking my car, eating out so much because it is difficult to keep food in both places. Stress aside, it is worth it to spend that down time with him.

All in all, it is relieving to feel like my old self again. I feel like I’m hot on the trail of many good things in each facet of my life. And I don’t know if it would be possible to be any more grateful than I am right now.

Now, let’s back up. Here’s more of the “putting it all out on the table” jazz. I’m, embarassingly, way below college level algebra. I tested into an Elementry Algebra class. I will have to complete both it and an Intermediate Algebra class before I can even get into the college level class. This is all my own fault, as I failed and cheated my way through math in high school. After years of putting it off, I’m now paying for it. But there are about 17 other people in my class, so at least I’m not alone.

Thankfully, the professor decided it would be who of him to quickly cover some of the basics; he defined things like “quoefficient” and explained simple things like “rational numbers vs. irrational numbers.” It was nice to have a refresher on things I haven’t seen, read, spoke of, or used since 1998.

Then he dropped the bomb. We were subtracting mixed fractions with two different denominators. And he told us you never subtract in  math.

What? Never? Not even when you’re cornered? He just destroyed everything that was taught to me K-12. Every math teacher I’ve had taught addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. No one has ever told me that this subtraction business was all a lie. This is like strange sorcery that I’m only to learn in a no-name college in Nowhere, KS with 17 other people too stupid to test into a class that actually counts toward your degree.

I’m happy to report, however, that  I at least understand his reasoning about only ever adding a negative number. It makes sense. I can handle that concept. But this is an interesting sign of things to come, I believe. I’m anxious to see what I continue to learn in this class.