In reading over the past two days' entries, I realized that I need to be a little more discreet when it comes to other people.

It is one thing to talk about my life openly, it is another to talk about the people in my life just as openly. I have to weigh what I am saying with the potential harm it could do to the lives of those people if the wrong person should ever come across this journal. Although the Web is a large and mostly anonymous place, it is still conceivable that someone could read this journal and learn things that aren't just hurtful to their feelings, but hurtful to their lives as well.

With that in mind, I went back and copied the relevant sections from the entries and put them into my private archives. Then I went back and changed the person's name to a pseudonym, and cut out portions that reveal too much about his identity.

And I'll have to be more careful from now on about what I write in this journal. Hurt feelings are one thing: I've learned the hard way that I shouldn't read things that have the potential to hurt me, and I can only advise others to do the same, unless they're willing to examine why exactly it hurts them. I did that, and I knew why it hurt, and I decided that was all I needed to know, that I couldn't change it, I could only avoid it in the future. Continuing to read isn't going to make me feel better, so I stopped. I still get tempted from time to time, but I'm learning what I need to do to move on.

  

Last night I came home from Justin's game to find a group of punks sitting in my driveway and garage. I walked in the house and told Scott: "That's the reason I'm moving."

I'm tired of being host to a bunch of good-for-nothing kids. Hanging around them is what has turned Scott into an irresponsible person. I know he's my son, but he's 18 and maybe it's time for him to sink or swim on his own. I can't continue to hold his head above the water for him. I can barely hold up my own head these days.

  

Laying in bed last night, I started thinking about Friday, when the kids will be moving out to go live with The Ex. I started to cry, realizing how hard this is for me, even though I know it's the right thing for them.

I've noticed that they've both been saying some hurtful things to me, about how The Ex's live-in is a better mother than I am, and while part of me knows that they are trying to distance themselves from me to ease the separation, it still hurts to think that I have failed them in some way.

I hope one day they will forgive me and realize that I did the best I could, and that giving them up is more of a sacrifice than they can really understand right now.

I feel inadequate in so many, many ways at the moment - not just as a mother. The past year has been nothing for me but one failure after another. Sometimes I just want to give up, but I guess I'm too damn stubborn to stay down.

  

Bud called again; this is beginning to make me a little nervous. Maybe because I am not in the mood for flirting games with everything else on my mind.

Although I think the real problem is something far, far different, which I just don't want to face anymore.