  No, really, it does. Well, at the very least the Godiva chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream did a decent job of distracting me so I'd stop freaking out. Of course, it's worn off, but it did it's job for an hour or so. Whoever had Thursday, December 18 in the pool for when I was going to start freaking out about moving, you win. Warning: This entry probably won't even be coherent. Not that they ever really are.
It just hit me last night that I'm leaving. I think I've been so focused on packing and Christmas shopping that I haven't even had a second to think about what I'm really doing. And now that I have, I'm freaking out. I've already half-convinced myself that I'm going to be miserable there, even though I'm aware that I'm going back there to do what I really want to do. Of course, those of you who know me, know that I do this every single time I move, even when it was when I moved from one dorm room to another. And it's not like I'll be a million miles away from here.
When I need a hit of sanity, I know Waterloo will welcome me back for a visit. Two and a half hours isn't that far. Of course, I said the same thing when I moved to Des Moines, too and I didn't come to visit for seven months. I think what I'm afraid of is going back there and being as miserable as I was in high school. Or getting so far out of touch with reality that I don't know which end is up anymore, which is all too often what happens to people in that town. And what really concerns me is that when I freak out, there's a huge lack of friends there to calm my ass down.
There's no where to go to get away from everyone. Here I could always just lock the door, unplug the phone and exist unbothered. I value that kind of thing. I NEED privacy. I won't have that anymore after Sunday. Did I say this?
Sunday is my final day in my apartment by myself. I'm heading home for Christmas (the weather has caused me to adjust my departure time from Tuesday afternoon) Sunday (maybe Monday morning), and then I'll be there until the Monday after Christmas, when we'll be coming down here to get all my stuff. And that'll be it. That'll be the end of my having a spot in this world that no one else can touch. I've had to segregate my stuff, too. I had to sit there and decide what of my things I would need in the next year and what I probably wouldn't need.
I don't have the slightest idea what I'll need at home, as opposed to what I need here. I have like 35 boxes in my living room with two items in each because I don't know what I have to have around and what I can put into storage. How am I supposed to know all of these things. And how can I be expected to know. Hell, I've been living on my own for two years now, I don't have the slightest damned idea what I won't need when I live with other people. Maybe I like my stuff better than theirs.
Maybe trying to make an egg in one of their pans will send me over the edge and just drop me right into full on crazy. And really, I'd like to know why exactly my mother has already told me where all of my stuff is going to be in my area of the house. And why she's told me that I can "have" the rug out of the entry way so that my feet don't get cold on the cement floor. I hate that rug. And she knows I hate it. It's scratchy, it's ugly, and it smells like burning rubber because she once threw it in the dryer.
But it's too late. She already told dad to put it on the floor down there with double-sided tape. My real issue here is that I'm going to lose all control I have over any little aspect of my life and I really fucking hate that. Every piece of mail I get, they're going to ask who sent it. Every item I buy, they're going to ask why. Every piece of toast I eat, they're going to complain because they're running out of bread.
Every secret I have has very little chance of remaining as such. Every phone call I have, they're going to ask who it was. Privacy is over. Mom straight up listens in on phone conversations. Dad's the mailman--he knows what's coming in the mailbox before you do. And every old person in town is going to be all up in my business before the last box is off the truck.
Let's top this little deal off with the fact that my mother still hasn't frayed completely from her old ways. She made the comment as she was leaving today that my moving home is giving her an ulcer. Good way to start it all off, add a little guilt, too. Thanks, mom. Point of the story: I'm terrified that I'm going to be miserable again for all the same reasons I was when I lived there last. But I do know that I have to do this if I want to get where I really want to go.
It's a good opportunity for me. And most importantly, it's not permanent. As soon as something better comes along, I can go if I choose to do so. I'm not locked in, and in fact, I'm on a semester-ly contract. I just need to stop for a second and breathe. And then I need to go see my friends and go to some of my old stomping grounds and have one last look around and things before I head out. 
