You're the only ground I need beneath my feet. You're the only place I never want to leave. Wherever you go is wherever I'll be.

I was accepted into all three Master's of MFT programs I applied for. I had to write some essays and do interviews, which made me feel like a kid playing dress up. But I didn't do too badly if I was accepted, I guess. Now comes the part where I make a decision. I was never good at that. One program goes into a doctoral path...maybe I'll do that. I'll be Dr. Megan Harris McFadden or something. Wouldn't that be bizarre?

I mentioned in my interviews and essays that though I have always found systems therapy interesting, it never spoke to me the way it does now, until the aftermath of losing my sister. That my sister was a product of her family, that my mom taught us to fall in love with abusers, and accept it. Because she learned herself to accept mistreatment, and my ancestors before her fell into that as well. Like a curse all the women before me have been unable to break. I think maybe I was able to escape this (to a point) because my mom did not enter a truly abusive relationship until I was 7, and I had my dad to show me a healthy balance in emotional connections. I was at least shown enough to recognize something was wrong when I was in it and try to make an effort to leave. Though we all have our patterns, and that is why systems therapy is important, because it shows you how to break those. 

My sister had toxic relationship after toxic relationship. Never single for a long time. Once I read her tarot about a relationship back in 2014, it warned that she would be seriously hurt if she didn't stop her cycle of going from one bad person to another. She said I didn't know what love really was, that love was saving someone from themselves and taking all the pain they had to hand to you and loving them through it. 

I told her that was martyrdom, not love. That love is not saving someone from their demons. She told me that was why I was single, at the time, of course. 

Though I have my own cycle, I still haven't beaten the allegations of the Harris name when it comes to starting a new life every 10 years. My dad told me that years and years ago, when I was small. That his grandfather once sat him down and told him the family curse was becoming a new person every decade and never stopping, never settling for anything. While it made the family and my father successful, it also pulled them away from emotional connections. The therapy language I would use for that today is "avoidant attachment." I never got that part of it. Though I know in romantic love, I can be a little aloof without conscious effort. Maybe I get that from my dad. He taught me how to be happiest alone. That love was being with someone you want and who adds to your already full life, not that you need, because of loneliness. 

Plus, when I've always done my best shit when I get lonely. I become the most productive version of myself. 

A year before my dad passed, he got existential one night and said he thought he was too selfish for kids, but that I taught him to be a better person. That he was proud of me for being the best parts of him and my mom. Selfless but driven. A romantic but not hopeless. Maybe I have to break all the curses. The bad parts, at least. With the decade(s) I have left. 

-

We have another trip to AZ, since Shawn's work trip this year was there, we figured we would meet with our friends for the weekend. So that is exciting. I have a plane trip in the morning to meet my husband and our friends. I hate planes.

So, I had to make a playlist. 

More photos to serve as updates to my life. Hanging out with my new friends a lot; they have a cool sphynx cat and an old Shiba dog that I adore.

We took our cats to the vet, which was a process. We have two cats who always think they are prey, and we've been working with them to build confidence by having people over and low-dosing gabapentin to encourage calmness. Which is such a process. Though our friend Elaine came out from Michigan, our cat Jiji, the really skittish one, was out the whole time with his tail up, all brave and confident. I started crying because I was so proud of him. 

I found out one of our new friends was into tarot and weird ghost stuff like me, so we've been bonding on that level, and I was going to have her over to look at my giant collection of tarot cards so we can geek out about it. 

We reached 1000 subs on our claw machine YouTube, our friend made us an intro song, and now we are working with an animator friend to make a fun intro to go with it, so I am excited. 

OH! Also, I am thinking of going back to school to become an LMFT. Mostly because I idolize Dr. Kirk Honda, and also my company will pay for it, so why not? Also, if I am a perpetual student, I never have to pay back the student loans, as I have paid back the principal already, and now just have perpetual interest on top of interest, eating away at my budget always. 

 

Swap out all your bones until they don't know who you are.

Went to see BBNO$ with my husband and my best friend, Nicole. It was a fun time. We just talked about how we all wanted to be in a polycule with him while he was on stage and giggled the whole time. It was nice to laugh with the people I love because life has been pretty tough. My husband's dad is having some major health concerns, which is expected as he is in his 80s, but it is overwhelming for his family, and I am feeling it by extension. 

My mom called me after she finally got a hold of the full autopsy report from my sister's murder, and we found out she was shot over 12 times; we were told "at least 4 times."

There is just something about the "over 12 times" that triggers me all over again, and it just makes me so angry when I think about it too long. 

 I'm just trying to focus on other things. 

I'm not your protagonist, I'm not even my own. My wet heart catches on every thorn, you're already halfway out the door.

Went to a tattoo convention and got two new tattoos and met a lovely tattoo artist who I've decided is a new bestie of mine. We discussed designing a fun, long Furby tattoo together. 

Got sick of my hair and chopped all my bangs in my bathroom tonight and went downstairs to Shawn like, "Oh yeah, my hair was pissing me off again." 

We just got over the flu or something in this house. I literally thought I was going to die. I was so confused. I get vaxxed for everything all the time because I am so immunocompromised that I get sick if someone whispers that they're sick from four houses away from me. What sucks more is we are currently doing a stimulation cycle for IVF. I was so scared that being sick was going to fuck it up that I was furiously googling, "Will drinking liquid iv hurt my ER cycle?" "How high does my fever have to be to harm my stim cycle?" "Will cold medicine interact with IV stimulation medicine?" 

It's my last cycle that my work will cover, and I am so nervous. We have a good reserve already. I just wanted a few more embryos saved up. 

My friend Eevee and I planned a fun watch party for Love is Blind. I got into the show because my favorite YouTuber started reacting to it, discussing the psychological aspects and using it as a jumping-off point to discuss psychology and attachment styles. I was devouring his content, so I just started watching it as "required reading" for his YouTube channel. This season, they're in Ohio, and of course, it is full of terrible people. My friend is not from here, and she was like, "I can see why you had a lot of trouble finding Shawn and ended up doing a lot of long distance." I was like, "You know, men were somehow worse than this when I was in my 20s." Which is saying a lot because it seems like a lot of the men on this season are MAGA cult members, which is.... just disgusting. Republicans are, quite possibly, the worst of all Americans. Democrats are also terrible, but mostly because they are all spineless. 

I hate everyone; we should eat the rich.