So there was this contrast between this charismatic, articulate woman, very intelligent, charming and seemingly together in some ways. And, you know, sort of the chaos that was lurking just beneath the surface of that. Absolutely.

Yeah. I think my mom's chaos and her charm developed in tandem, where the charm was a defense that she could use except for the disagree with her, or they tried to challenge her. She always had a response. And she could always justify what she was doing. So I don't remember her ever really admitting that she was wrong or imperfect, or that there was something that could

change.

So we can before I started sixth grade, Michelle came home from a hearing and told me that my mom had one cussie and that I was moving in with her, and that she was going to arrive any minute then. And then she went to her room and slammed the door. And I was sitting there just completely shocked. I had been prepared to start sixth grade at a middle school with my best friends, and now is going to be in a different school district, living with my mom in a different part of the Twin Cities. And I went up to my room, you know, my space covered in tears. I packed all my stuff into these black plastic trash bags before my mom arrived. And that night I moved in with her. Before the custody evaluators came to do a home

visit, she had

cleaned out her apartment by moving all of these boxes of stuff into an adjacent apartment. We lived in a juke black, and during that time, the top floor, which she normally rented out, became a storage facility for her junk. But by the time that I moved in, there were boxes of photo albums, receipts, packaging, empty water bottles, already kind of encroaching in our living area. You know, and I had hoped that my parents played the public custody, but a few weeks after my mom won custody, Michelle came to see me at school, and she was moving across the country. And that was the last time that I ever saw her. And you were held? I was 10. I thought I was a turn 11.