Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't get married now. And not because I'm not ready, and not because it isn't what I want more than anything in the world. I just don't know how to leave my Mom behind. I'm all that she has. And it makes me so angry.

Happy family, happy marriage, happy children. The Mom is usually sad when a kid leaves, but she has more, and her husband. My Dad's dead, and my Mom divorced him anyway. I'm her only child. I feel so selfish for not wanting to be sympathetic and take care of her more. But all my life I've grown up the only child to sick parents. Parents always too sick and hurt to do anything. Trips to the hospital, drug induced hallucinations. I stopped being a kid at 10. And my whole life has been trying to escape that world. Leaving my Mom to deal with it all for me, and she did. And I ran off and did things to escape that were wonderful in the moment, and then have ended up being a source of pain for 9 years. I've been ruined my whole life.

I used to think that I didn't have trials. Well God sure hit me hard now. The second I forgive my Dad for everything he did, he dies. I've never had a relationship with him. I was so hopeful for one starting now. But at the same time, I could never imagine him alone. Me being in Riverside, him alone in his apartment trying to keep himself alive on frozen tv dinners. There's one trait of human suffering that I can't stand, and that's loneliness. And I didn't know how to reach him to fix it. I wanted to so badly, and I didn't know what to do or say. And now the same thing is happening with my Mom. And not only is she lonely, she's too depressed to get out of bed. She's been trying to solve matters with my Dad's estate for almost 3 months. Everything is taking forever, and everything's more and more of a problem. And meanwhile while her only child is getting married, she's in the worst place that she's ever been.

So now I feel so unimaginably guilty, for depriving her of the mother of the bride experience because of everything she has to do with her ex-husbands estate. And then after all the planning? I just leave her alone in another town. I feel like I shouldn't leave. I feel like I need to stay and take care of her. Like I'm using marriage as an excuse to get away because I really don't want to deal with her pain. But why do I have to be a parent to my parents? I'm tired of having to be an age anything older than 21. But that's what I was given. I really only have 2 people in my life, and I know 1 can do okay without me for a little while. So what do I do?