To bail or not to bail?

So. The second part of my Deep Red trip involves going deeper into the Deep Red to my father's house. He always comes to my sister's home about 6 hours away from his when I come to visit--for all holidays and in the summer. My sister and father have long suggested that I go down to my father's house for the 4th, which my sister, her husband, and four kids always do. My sister has many high school friends in this tiny Southern town, so she enjoys going. My father lives close to a tennis club, so the kids play tennis and swim all day. I got the hell out of that town as fast as I could within days of graduating from high school. My mother left about a year later.

So. This trip has already been difficult on a number of levels. I've been here a week. I have not had much time to myself and have certainly not made even a dent in the huge amount of work I have needed to get done while here. There are . . . tensions between my mother and me. I also miss The Someone desperately. (No small part of this is about missing The Someone desperately. What I am realizing even more here is how completely fulfilling being with The Someone is. If I did not have the contrast of knowing an amazingly full and rich and bright and beautiful life with The Someone, I might not even fully understand the lunacy of what goes on here. I would note it, but I would note it as something necessary and to be endured until I figured out what flaw in me needed to be overcome to make it right.) Without going into too much detail, I will say that I feel that my very identity is being sucked down some cosmic drain and there is nothing I can do about it. I am disappearing.

So. This trip farther South to my father's house? It's going to be traumatic. Every time I have walked into that house since I left, or maybe since my mother left, I have pretty much burst into quiet tears that never quite go away until I do. It's also going to be chaotic. Seven people and three dogs in a three-bedroom house. Normally this would be fine and even fun, but I need some time and space for myself, even the tiniest bit, right now and that's just not going to happen. My mother is very upset that I am leaving here and spending the last week of my trip away from her. So that's the emotional toll. Then there's the psychic toll. I am fairly certain my father's house is farther down the cosmic drain.

So. I feel like a selfish bitch, but I am seriously considering changing my plane tickets, flying out of here early, skipping the journey farther south part of the trip entirely. I feel guilty at even the thought, so it probably will not happen. But why should I do something that is so clearly not good for me? So damaging? So traumatic? Is the point to walk through it and learn what I can learn or is the point to know when and how I need to take care of myself and to do it?