It was either tell half my family I didn't love them or do this.

God, how I wish that was the first sentence in some gripping fiction story and not a reflection of my life. How much easier that would have been. How much pain and struggling and indecision would've been avoided. How much harder it would've been to look forward to college. How many tears would have been averted.

I couldn't tell anyone I didn't love them. It would have been a lie. It would have torn me apart. It does to just think about it now, now that it's all supposedly over and done with. But it's not. It's all coming back, harder this time, just because the government says I can deal with it. What if I can't? What if I'm going to fall apart in the upcoming months, because I'm not as strong as I'm supposed to be? What if I have to learn slowly and have all my emotion ground away by the very people I love and who love me?

Parents are so impossible sometimes, especially when they're the closest friends you have. I almost wish I were a normal kid and that their opinions didn't matter so much to me. I wish I didn't always believe them, only to be torn apart when their opinions conflict.

Sheesh, I never thought it affected me so much. I never knew how much pain and hurt I'd been hiding behind those sheafs of hand-written fiction. No wonder the world accepts me. I can hide anything by convincing myself it doens't hurt. That it could be worse and I'd still be brave enough to face it with sarcasm and a light attitude. Or an attitude at all. Anything but the indifference that has sheltered me for so long. I can live with anything, can't I? Anything but that. Even this, so long as it's not that. So long as I don't have to tell them I don't love them anymore.

But every time they mention it, every time they suggest to each other that I should stay with them, it brings me back to that courthouse. To that question. What do you want to do? Who do you want to stay with? Who do you prefer?

All I said was that I look forward to a time when I won't have to choose. When it will be me on my own, making my own choices among my own friends, without any binding committments to those who've given so much to me. To those I can't stand to hurt. A time when it will be me and my ordained schedule and my committment to God and my studies. They always rebut with something that ends up meaning, "It won't be that nice." But they're speaking from their own experience. Their parents were never divorced before they graduated, were they? They never felt that tension. "Who do you prefer?" "What do you think?" "We missed you at Thanksgiving" and "We wish you were here for Christmas." Even the semi-pleasant "We get to have you for two holidays this year!" I know they mean well, but they don't know what it's like, and whenever I mean to explain, whenever I start to answer, as always, the words never come out right. I never say all I thought or communicate how I feel. Because everything they hear from my mouth filters through their experience, their perspective. They don't understand how much I love both of them, and that just muddles things more.

I should start breathing regularly again. My lips are going numb, as are my cheeks. But I have to say this now. I have maybe twenty mintues, and after that, who knows? I'll have to put on my strong face so when I go to youth group like a promised I would, they won't stare at me and wonder why I'm so upset. I don't want them to wonder. I don't want their sympathy until they've heard the whole story, and I won't say it in front of the whole group. They're good people, but I don't trust them that far. I don't trust many people that far to be able to let them listen to me in person. Usually my parents are among them, but not on this.

God, why have you taken all my best friends from me? Why do I have to feel like I'm going through this alone? Who is this possibly going to benefit? Can this feeling of being mentally drawn and quartered possibly teach me something that will benefit anyone? I suppose I can face anything else with superficial emotions because of this. The superficial emotions that have kept me safe so far but that will probably ultimately cut me off from people. Maybe it will save me from experiencing something they referred to in Stargate: "If you had one fault, it was because you cared so much that it tore you apart when you couldn't help." If it weren't for this, maybe that'd be true for me. But is that a good thing? Is it a good thing to keep everything at an arm's distance so you don't remember what it was like--the bad times or the good? Is it a good thing not to feel someone else's emotions so deeply you have to do something? Of course, I can hardly do anything for myself.

The last time I talked about this was about four years ago. So much has changed this then. I thought I had changed since then. I suppose not. It was as as superficial as my emotions except for my connection with God. God, I know you have a plan for me. I just wish it didn't hurt so much. I wish I didn't have to sit at that table and look at her face. She looked distraught, and I don't want her to feel like that. I know it's not her fault, but she doesn't always help.

This isn't my fault. I didn't really chose this. My only choice between this or telling one of them I didn't love them, and I couldn't do that.