Well I  haven't secured a home. not even the tiny cheap place. At first the agent told me it was 'more or less a done deal, just have to complete some formalities" and I was excited but I haven't heard from him again, I have called and he wont return my calls and the secretary just says the landlord "isn't sure". It's high summer, I bet he has an offer to rent it out as a holiday rental for lots of money or something. It happens a lot around here, you waste money and time going to look at advertised rentals and apply for them only to be told the landlord "isn't sure" and a week later the place is full of vacationers. They list them in multiple places, holiday rentals where they can charge $thousands per week over summer and then as long term rentals "in case". So this is a very big deal because I have to be out of the place  was in in the next 2 days and I have nowhere to go to. I'm right back to where I started except more tired, fed up and angry. And determined to grow from it; what's the use of hard times if you don't at least grow and learn from them?

So I contacted my mother (remember, she has been saying for months I will have to go and live with her, I  have no choice, blah blah) and told her 'll be driving there (last) night and she was uber nasty telling me what a huge pain in her butt it is for me to go there and a million reasons why I shouldn't and can't, there won't be anyone home to let me in, "your brothers cant be expected to stay home just to let you in the house, they have lives you know", don't you dare bring that cat anywhere near this house, A isn't allowed anywhere near the house, your dog cannot be inside, obvious stuff that she didn't need to say. Anyway she made it abundantly clear that she didn't want me to go there and 2 seconds later I got a text from my grandmother that said "don't even THINK about driving to your mothers its too hot your car wont make it you'll break down on the freeway and be killed". No I'm not kidding that's actually what she said so obviously mother called her straight away to complain that I am ruining her holiday by saying I am going to her house. Yikes, Melissa is going to do something we didn't tell her to do today, better threaten her with death, that usually does the trick.... Later I got another text from dear old granny saying "I'm glad you made the right decision not to go to your mothers (she's been virtually ORDERING me to go and stay at my mothers for months and telling me i need to just "give up and accept  have to go to my mothers and stop being stubborn" so this is absurd). Why don't you go and sit on the beach, that'll be nice' she says. I haven't replied to either of them, they can go and be mental together, I have no time for even trying to understand. Go and sit on the beach? Huh? I've  been detached, positive etc with them and made every conceivable effort not to engage in drama or give them reasons to drag me into theirs for a long time now but it makes no difference to them and I suppose it isn't meant to, other than for me. I don't feel any need to reply, or angrily try to explain how contrary and ridiculous their comments, behaviour and repeated "offer to help and then retract the offer when I accept" nonsense is. Whatever. Go try it with someone else. I made a mistake deciding to accept help and ask to go to my mums. You would think I would learn really.

So I went and stayed with A for New Years and the following few days. Daughter is at her dads. A's brother and his partner wanted to do something with us together for new years, probably hoping we will get back together and I will get him out of their house but anyway that part of things was nice, A was drunk but the rest of us weren't drinking and he behaves nicely in front of his brother even when he is drunk out of his mind (interesting that he can do that), we all went and sat on the beach and watched the fireworks all the way across the city, it was quite a sight to behold. I'm not going to apologise for going there, I am not wanted in the house  have been staying and I am very, very tired of sitting in my room alone trying to be quiet, I spent Christmas like that, I wasn't going to do new years as well. I actually asked mother if I could visit her beach house as they have a big new years party every year and she said no, hows that for nice. Well she gave her new standard speech about how it isn't safe for me to drive all that way, the car won't make it blah blah and anyway they have guests and no room for me. Okie dokie. Later when it was too late she sent me a message saying 'sorry what a shame you couldn't come, everyone is here, lets plan it better next year". I thought a 4 letter word in her direction and what i actually replied with was Happy New Year.

So staying with A was all the fun of the fair as you can imagine. He follows me around cleaning up after me and hissing things at me, asks ridiculous questions like 'did you wash your hands after you patted the dog, did you wipe your feet" its constant and he actually asks me to re-use his dirty plates after he has used them because 'he doesnt want to upset his brother by using too many dishes". But when I have stayed there I wash all the freaking dishes, for everyone and go out of my way to be neat and helpful. Its really nutty and I'm sure you can imagine after the way he treated my home when he stayed with me years ago it was absolutely disgusting) and the way he treated our homes together, piling empty cans and rotting food 3 feet high around his bed, smoking in every room of the house and dropping his butts on the floor, vomiting on the couch and the floor and leaving it there, peeing on anything and everything when he was drunk, behaving, basically, like an animal, to now have him follow me around his brother's house LITERALLY watching me like a hawk and waiting to pounce in case I drop a crumb...well, it does my head in. I had a shower and he came in to the bathroom with a pair of his old holey socks and handed them to me, I said "it's a bit hot for socks' and he said "you have to wear them, you might make footprints on the floor".  Yet A isn't clean himself in their house, he smokes inside when he drinks which is forbidden, and leaves filth everywhere, but as soon as I visit he fusses and hisses and also gives me looks and waves at me desperately and shushes me if I speak near his brother, he's scared I will say something embarrassing or something? I am really hyper sensitive to the way he silences me whenever I speak now, it makes my blood boil. I can't be around him, I just don't have the ability to take that kind of crap anymore. I'm not angry with him, he is who he is and I chose to go there, it's just not healthy for me, obviously. As a side point his brother and his partner have stayed with us, they are easy-going and welcoming to me. And my dog, who is good friends with their dog, whom they have brought to stay at our house many times. It isn't an issue for me to be there for a few days for anyone except for A. But he made me feel like I was some kind of lumbering giant ogre wrecking the place and covering it in filth. It's weird. And irritating. And not worth trying to work out.

Well, trying to understand A and his behaviour is on my list of things that I'm not going to waste my time with but I had to get this out, asking me to re-use his dirty DISHES??? WHAT?????????

And of course knowing that I don't know where I am going to live he has been making it all about him, all he wants to do is 'help" me by renting a place with me again but I won't accept his help so I am bringing it all on myself blah blah blahdy blah blah. Anyway I didn't intend staying there for 3 nights, I was only going to go for new years but I was tired and the thought of coming back to this place wasn't very enticing either and I was waiting and hoping for a phone call from the agent. Finally last night I accepted it isn't going to happen. I decided to drive home and wanted to wait for the traffic to die down plus there was a hell of a thunderstorm going on so I waited and fell asleep and when I woke it was 2am. I said 'I better go or the morning traffic will start up" and A said 'I don't want you to go" and when I asked why he said "You might wake my brother up when you walk past his bedroom door so you should wait until he gets up for work". This from the guy who kept me awake pretty much every night of our entire 9 year relationship. Doesn't want to risk me waking his brother with my quiet careful footsteps. I see. Ok.

Well I got out of there lol, what a drive, here's one for the gratitude list, 1.5 hours of highway, I saw 3 cars the entire time, radio cranked, the storm had passed but there was light rain and I let it come in the window and cool my face, so nice after the stinking hot days we have had, dog with his head out the window drinking the air and wagging his tail so much I couldn't see in the mirror, lol! I enjoyed it very much. This is my big reward for not driving until the age of 38, I now get to enjoy it SO much, it's all new and fun and exciting and when I complete a long or difficult drive I feel all happy and pleased with myself. How many people get to enjoy that at my ripe old age lol!!!! When i get out on the highway and crank the radio it's FANTASTIC. I don't regret a moment of not learning to drive until now, I get to feel like a teenager every time, it's pretty cool

And here I am, back at the house I must be out of in 2 days. The cockatoos are screeching and stripping bark from the ghost gum outside my window, you can't imagine what that sounds like until you hear it, its freaking AWFUL lol they are SO loud. My American friend sent me a video of coyotees (spelling?) howling on her property and I think that sounds much nicer and more tuneful than screeching cockatoos vandalising trees to put it in perspective, lol but as awful as it is, that sound IS summer mornings in rural Australia and it makes me fee kinda happy, kinda at home. I lived for summer when I was a kid and that sound reminds me of camping at the beach with my parents, happy memories.

So I arrived home to find the internet password has been changed here, although I pay a high price for a room with bills included there has been a lot of stuff like people opening my door to turn off my light if I go to the bathroom or to make food (who does that?), and the hot water gets switched off as soon as daughter or I start the shower, it's so uncomfortable and I wont even go into everyone here eating my food without asking, I got tired of it and for example actually went and bought 18 eggs for the other members of the house (free range but from the supermarket) and I bought 30 eggs from a local farm for myself, I told them clearly that the supermarket eggs were there if they really needed them but please dont eat my farm eggs but of course they ate all the farm ones first and then the others and then complained there were no eggs, its like this with all of my food and washing detergent too and I just arrived home to find once again they have been in my room and stuff has been moved around, everything has changed so much and honestly it's like living with A again except there are 3 of them. For the first month or so that I lived here I cooked dinner every night for my housemate lady person and she raved about how nice it was and how much she appreciated it but after a while I felt it was unfair that she never contributed any food, helped herself to everything I had without asking and ate all of the leftovers even if I hadnt had any yet...of the food I paid for and cooked. Why am  complaining about this? It's just a slap in the face that now i cant use the internet either when I pay a lot for a room and the internet was agreed to be included, theres a whole stupid backstory to this, my housemate landlady person doesn't want her son to know I pay rent here, so he thinks I am a freeloader, ergo he doesn't want me using the internet he pays half of and it's been a big issue the entire time. It's also probably why he uses my stuff and takes my food because she doesn't want him to know I have been  paying to be here, she wants him to think she is penniless so he will repay her money he owes her. Basically I have let myself be a pawn in some lame passive aggressive game. Silly me. Anyway the point is I can get on to MIP with my phone but I can't listen to music and that's really bugging me right now, I'd so love to listen to something good but have no music other than what I can access on the internet. So it's screaming cockatoos or nothing.

WELL that was a lot of whinging about everyone else wasn't it, and I know I am just venting about this to avoid dealing with the real issue which is WHERE THE HELL AM I GOING TO GO?? Daughter is away until January 14th and after that she can go to my mothers until school starts in february although she will be upset and she called me today wanting to come home, how do i explain to my child we don't have a home right now? So I have about 4 weeks of being child-free and obviously I have to start applying for more inland places to avoid the beach-house conundrum. And I'll secure something eventually and it will be OK but in the meantime I actually will not have a place to stay and at this point unless there is a miracle I am going to be living in my car, with a dog and a cat. Yes, it's really happening and I am thankful daughter isn't here because that would be much worse. Over the next 2 days I will get out and search for a place where I can park and live. It needs to be near water, I need to be clean, it is bad enough going to house-inspections with my jeans ripped to pieces, I don't want to stink and look like a hobo as well. Am I complaining and saying poor me a lot? YES I BLOODY AM!!!!! This FREAKING SUCKS!!!!! But it's also a once in a lifetime really. The ultimate letting go, maybe I need that.  I can turn this into a positive, put that on my asset list, I can turn virtually anything into a positive and I'm grateful that I can do that. I am very blessed in fact, to be able to find the good in really crappy situations. It means I get to enjoy life where many other people would be wailing and wringing their hands. I'm pretty free right now. I can pack my car and go wherever I want and i don't even have to be a proper mum for weeks. 

I'm not going to let it get to me, I'm really not. I'm not sad, I don't wish it were different even. I'm glad no-one in my family will help me because I CAN do this alone and I will feel FANTASTIC when I survive this next trial and eventually move in to a place again. I have enough money to survive it by the way, not a lot but maybe enough to buy a small cheapo tent and I know of a free camp site in the Otway Ranges near here (google it, it's beautiful). So maybe I get 2 weeks in the wilderness, I have a camp stove, I can buy what I need to get through, I have a solar charger and a phone and an e-reader loaded with about 500 books. Good books.  I'll have dog and cat for company. I know cats aren't traditionally good campers but I suspect MD will enjoy it, he likes being in the car and likes staying close to me. And seriously, google the otways. Waterfalls and beaches and big forrests. It's pretty magical. Maybe an hours drive to town whenever there is a house to inspect and apply for. I'll be away from all of these people that I keep entangling myself with and being angry with. Maybe it's just exactly what I need.

Maybe a few weeks camping in a national park all by myself is not a punishment but a big fat opportunity to heal and make peace with myself. There's no reason that I won't be able to rent a place and realistically I have just been setting my sights too high (aside from that little place), i want to have a normal big home with a big yard, so all of the other places I have applied for have been too expensive for me alone and that's just how it is. Things have changed since I rented alone when my daughter was a baby, rents are way higher, government support has been cut back a lot, it's a different world for a single mum now. I can complain and be mad all I want but this is how it is.  I will apply in cheaper, uglier areas for small 1 bedroom places and I will secure one, rebuild my financial reputation, get work, finish my course, get daughter through high school, write some books, sell some soap and live and be happy. I'm not letting this crisis turn me into a gibbering mess. I control how I react and respond and I am choosing to enjoy a couple of weeks of camping and being away from the crazy nonsense I keep getting drawn back into. 

Sigh on Monday I am meant to have an appointment at my uni to enrol in new on-campus classes for my bachelor of naturopathy, and on Tuesday I had booked a $5 massage at my uni, ohhhh I was looking forward to it. I made the appointments about a month ago thinking i would be 'sorted out" by now. Part of me wants to scream, why, why can't ANYTHING GO RIGHT but it's not going to until I let go of something, that's clear. I have to cancel those appointments and once again just waste my time on survival. Getting mad isn't going to help. 

I you-tubed one song, that's gonna cost me a lot on my phone bill but I wanted to hear something. Geeze I wish my ipod wasn't packed with all of my stuff at my mothers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_5q0n2mDR8

Isn't that what we do here? Be ok with "I don't know"?

So something might change and I might get a call on monday to say i have a place but it isn't looking good and all I can do is make the best plan I can, and right now I think that's just going camping. I could drive hours to my mums and wait on the doorstep, and I am sure I wouldn't be turned away. I would just have to engage with the same garbage and belittling that I am so familiar with. So I'm not trying to cry poor and helpless...I'm not out in the snow dying from cold... If I insert myself somewhere...at A's house, at my mothers, even the place i have been staying, no-one will throw me into the street. But I am not wanted or welcome and I am so deeply sick of always feeling as if I have to apologise for existing and I'm sick of the way people drag me into drama and scapegoat me and more than anything I am sick of the way I let it happen and engage with it and probably invite it. I play a big role in this and some solitude might just help me figure out how and break out of it.  I think a couple of weeks in the otways ranges (did I mention you should google it because it's pretty) will be good. Right for me. And I'm gonna do it and be happy about it.

So that's me. My world has crumbled and I'm going camping. I think it's a win