Monthly Archives: September 2017

Just another day.

I have a birthday coming up in a few hours. I’m ignoring it.

Do I feel more mature? More ‘together’ than I did a year ago?

I feel like I have more self control in some areas and I also feel like I am running out of fucks to give on social stuff. I’m increasingly isolated and pretty happy about it. I see people… but not like I have for most of my life.

I’m Skyping regularly with some of my closest friends. I have delightful people who come over for walks and for dinners. I visit people when they invite me. I’m not inviting folks over as often. It’s me, not you. I’m feeling distant.

A few years back my birthday was this fevered pitch of need. I don’t feel loved and I need people to jump through hoops to PROVE THEY LOVE ME. Folks jumped through the hoops. In the end I felt worse because I know they jumped those hoops for me and I still struggle to feel love at all.

It’s not what anyone else is doing. It’s in me. I don’t want anyone to jump through hoops anymore. I know the love is there… when I don’t feel it isn’t your fault and you shouldn’t try harder. It’s me.

Sometimes I feel kind of dirty and ashamed because I can see how loved I am. But feeling it is more complicated.

How much of learning to love yourself is learning to set boundaries to prevent people from hurting you? How much of learning to love yourself is learning to accept responsibility for the problems you cause?

I’m a judgmental piece of shit. I judge people left and right, often when I have no right at all. When it won’t even impact me.

Where is the line between judging whether something should work for you, judging whether something is a Problem, and judging whether something is just… suboptimal but fine. I’m struggling with this. I still catastrophize more than I should. Oh no! If you haven’t helped this person be independent by age ____ then they will have x or y or z problems!

Bitch, put your crystal ball away. You aren’t right all the time. And if they do have those problems… how is it your fucking problem?

Mostly it isn’t. And I need to chill the fuck out. There are things I need to judge, when small children are behaving in a terrorized fashion. But mostly… folks are doing their thing and it isn’t about me and I don’t need to be so reactive and bitchy.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I’m willing to put up with in the past few years. It’s shifting. It drifts. What I would tolerate three years ago I’m completely done with now.

I don’t know who I’m going to be by the time I hit 40. It isn’t that far away. 4 more years.

I’ve been out for 18 years. I’m still having to try and learn how to not pick codependent, dysfunctional relationships. I’m still trying to learn how to not judge things that are none of my business.

I don’t hit like I did. I don’t scream like I did. I don’t hurt myself anymore. I will tell someone to stop contacting me instead of cutting myself to manage the dysregulation I feel when someone I love tells me that their problems are allllllllllll my faaaaaaaaault.

It’s some kind of progress.

I’m not that great. Some day will I be able to feel less hatred for how far I have to go to be who I want to be?

Home. And Petty.

I’ve spent most of the last week grateful I didn’t have a computer. I would have written some incredibly unkind things. I wanted to stoop to a level of petty that would be darn near epic. Why?

Because people get all twisted up in my head. I’m never responding to one thing at a time.

I’ve spent the last few years in therapy doing a tremendous amount of work around the fact that the Bonus Mama triggered all of my “like my sister” buttons, minus the sexual assaults. She has quite a few of the same problems and in my ridiculous codependency I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix her problems.

It is a gift from the universe that I am now done with that set of behaviors. I never need go clean her house again. I never need try and help her children emotionally cope with neglect. I never need try and pretend that I am unaffected by the physical violence in her marriage again.

I am free.

I think this is a positive step in my life. I need to stop trying to cover for broken people. It’s a real problem I have.

I need to stop investing my life into trying to make up for people who won’t even admit that I’m doing a back breaking amount of work for them. It’s stupid. It’s self defeating. I have spent a lot of time and energy and money over the past few years trying to do something for the ephemeral child self I still have. Other people helped me so I helped her kids.

But I’ve given what I can and it’s time to move on.

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Part of what this relationship came into my life to teach me is that when my children say, “I don’t want to associate with this person because she is mean” I need to never overrule them again. I need to never ignore such a signal again. I feel deeply ashamed of myself for telling my children to cope with behavior that made them feel diminished because I wanted weekend babysitting. That was wrong of me. My behavior was selfish and disgusting.

I was wrong.

I will never deliberately send my children to the home of someone who speaks to them with contempt again. I. Was. Wrong.

Hopefully I have learned the lesson I needed to learn and in the future when someone triggers my “like my sister” buttons I will run like my tampon string is on fire.

No more hoarders. No more people who refuse to acknowledge that they are literally physically, emotionally, and mentally unequipped to take care of their children while they brag about how great they are. No more people who are in a marriage that involves domestic violence, gaslighting, stone walling, and screaming matches that the children can hear only to turn around and tell me that if the marriage is destroyed it’ll be my fault. Sure. Because y’all had none of these problems the day I arrived. Right. Who is the one with the convenient memory? I write down all my bad shit so I can’t claim it didn’t happen. Remember how I’ve begged you to document your DV for 7 years because shit like this comes to a head and you always said, “But I don’t want to remember.”

Sure. If your marriage is destroyed it’ll be my fault. Yup. Right. Because I’m the one sitting there filled with contempt. Yup. That’s me.

Take your guilt trip to someone who is stupid enough to be buying. I’m fresh out of money for such bullshit.

I am free.

Do you know when I freaked out and started demanding that your kids be put in school the fuck away from you? When you took them to Moana and came home crying because you believe your children are incapable of understanding and appreciating the story. Guess what? Your kids are capable of understanding. You are incapable of teaching and your children need to spend time with competent teachers who can teach them. Stop fucking over your children because you are fucking broken and you want your children to be as limited as you are so you feel comfortable. Your children have more potential than you do. Let them go be taught by someone with actual ability to teach and they’ll be ok.

The worst thing that ever happened to you was someone telling you that your IQ is high. You use that number as an excuse for why you are better than people as you cannot fulfill basic life functions. It’s sad and pathetic and your fucking children need to be educated by people who have the humility to say, “I don’t know everything so I’d better study.” You think that if you buy all the books and don’t read them it’s just as good.

Your children deserve better than to be locked in your company all the time.

And after this I need to never ever write about your family again.

I’m done.

Set fire to the bridge

I understand that you think I was out to wreck your marriage. I’m sorry that your irrational refusal to look at the science around vaccinations will cause such a result.

That does not entitle you to harm your children.

I don’t give a shit about your marriage one way or another. I literally don’t. I care that you were neglecting your damn kids. If pointing out that your behavior is having such a result means I am dangerous I can fucking live with that.

Stop fucking emailing me. I really don’t give a shit if you are sad and you miss me.

So no one worries

I am heading off to hang out with a friend in about half an hour. When I get home we are going to start driving to SoCal. I am not bringing my computer. I may or may not use my phone for brief updates but I rarely enjoy the interface so probably not.

I’ll be back online by the 11th.

Love you all. Have a good week.

Yay another year passed.

I’ve now been married for eleven years.

I like Noah. I don’t just mean I like what he does for me. I like him. I like the way he smiles. I love the way he softens around me like butter, as if I’m safe.

I like that even though I sometimes get very mad at him for having different opinions than I have, he doesn’t back down and he stubbornly defends his sources because he came to this conclusion for reasons. I like that he doesn’t bend at my whims.

I love watching him parent. I picked Noah as a coparent and I made a really god damn good choice. He’s such a good parenting partner for me. Our kids shine with love and that isn’t all me.

I appreciate how much work he’s willing to do to help me figure out my complicated body.

I like how hard it is to go to sleep sometimes because I wannna keep taaaaaalking to hiiiiiiiim.

If you had asked me when I was 10 years old if I believed I would grow up to have a good marriage I would have fallen down laughing. But here I am.