I’ve been abandoned by a lot of people. Abused by a few more. I left my family to go to college and now I’m leaving my family to go ‘home.’

There’s my new parents, Jan and Filbin. Filbin constantly questions my decisions, how much I drink, when I smoke, who I sleep with, what I did or didn’t tell my therapist. And he’s kind and sweet and gives hugs just like my big brother. Jan feeds me and makes me eat fruit and veggies. She buys me lunch and lends me money when I don’t ask for it. She holds me when I weep and tells Filbin to back off. She may be younger but she’s the most maternal person in my life right now.

My brother, Dury. He annoys me to no end and sometimes I want to bang my head into a wall after chilling with him. But he gives me weed and is kind and passionate and funny. He teases me and listens and really gets it.

My sisters Trisha and Mel.

Trisha is the only person here who reads more than me and is just as nerdy. She’s always down for an adventure, even if we can’t afford it. She’s funny and crazy and gentle and beautiful and her husband better treat her right or I will murder him.

Mel, my soul mate. Five years of knowing she existed and now I have to move away. We’ve gone from sharing a 10x10 room, to an apartment to living 4 miles apart and now it’ll be 246 more. I got her drunk for the first time, she held me when my heart was breaking and we both have laughed until we cried and our sides hurt. She’s my hero.

And I don’t want to go. This is my family. This is my home.

Returning to an insane mom, an **** father and an apathetic stepmom after living next to true, glorious human beings is not what I had in mind.

This is so much harder than leaving for college. Then I was getting away, becoming an adult. Now I’m an adult who is leaving the people who have kept me alive. How is that fair to them? Fair to me? Fair to my actual family who are stoked to have me back?

To quote a favorite character, “The only fair is what you pay to ride a bus.”