Preparing to Live in the Car

As I've said before, living with my parents has been an uncomfortable situation to say the least.  As you know, four year olds are loud, and a lot of the time they are really fucking annoying.  But if they're yours, you ignore the annoyingness because you love them so much and the times when they are wonderful and loving and demonstate that you ARE doing something right are worth it all.  Well, C. is not my parent's kid.  And though they love him very much, he has begun to wear on my dad.  My dad has turned into an old man, which isn't really surprising to me because he had already lost his patience when my brother was a baby, and my brother is eighteen years old.  So he's turned into an old man in the sense of the "get the hell off my lawn, kid!" because when C. is having a four year old meltdown because he couldn't figure out how to unbuckle the seatbelt by himself or when he is told for the six thousandth time not to jump on the dog and then you have to tell him AGAIN, my dad is all "C.!" in an extremely grouchy and harsh voice and the other day C. was freaking out because he fell asleep in the car on the way home and then was really pissed to be awake and made to walk into the house he stood in the kitchen so that my dad couldn't see him and said to me in a quivery voice "I don't want Papa to see me like this!  I need to go downstairs so he doesn't see me." and then my heart broke into a million pieces and I melted into a puddle on the floor.  So yeah, things have been weird and uncomfortable in ways like that.

So tonight I got home and was having a perfectly pleasant conversation with my parents in the kitchen while C. played outside on the deck, when my dad said, "So, are you looking for apartments or what?" and I said "Yeah, I'm looking constantly!  But I've already applied to two places and gotten turned down because of my credit (sidenote: I've always been the second person on any lease with A* being the primary and this time he has an eviction from this horrible year so I'm applying by myself PLUS just in case something else happens I need to have a place in my name so anyway with his credit we were able to get places but so far with just mine it hasn't gone well; however my parents are the ones who told me to put everything in my name because they are convinced that A* will fuck up in some way and it will be just me) Anyway I said to my dad that I had already gotten turned down and he said "Well then you need to look harder." and my mom gave him a dirty look and he shrugged and said "What?  She needs to spread her wings, get out there on her own!  Were you gonna live with us forever?" and he turns back to me and I just mutter "Yeah" because they never said a time limit but obviously now I feel really weird and then I said "I AM trying" and told them about another place I was applying to that I hadn't even wanted to tell them about in case I get turned down again and then I said, probably only 20 percent joking, "I'm gonna have to go back to the ghetto because they are the only ones that don't run your credit" and then I got a lecture about how C. needs a place that's safe and where he can play outside in his backyard and there was never any SOLUTION suggested so that was pretty productive only in making me feel that much more like a burden and unwanted and like I'm on borrowed time and we're bothering everyone and suddenly it's just that much more uncomfortable to be here.

So the search has become even that much more urgent and I'm so very ready.