I am so worn out and I am trying to both rest and catch up and it strikes me that they are diametrically opposed. My growing zone has an annual last frost date somewhere between the last 4 days of April and the first 5 days of May. There was snow on the ground last week. Because of the world-wide problems with insect die off it is widely considered wise to wait until the average temperature is 10C or above. This is slightly hilarious to me because only July and August have night time averages above 10C… the average is 11C. Does that mean we shouldn’t ever disturb gardens here? It’s a thought to ponder. (Waiting until the temperature rises is because bugs hibernate when it is cold and if you go out and tidy up your garden you may well kill off a generation of wee beasties unintentionally.)

Tasks I need to perform:

• install bike pulleys
• install trailer pulleys
• build a better compost unit (my pallets are all rotting and sagging)
• sift my compost pile and distribute the lovely material around my garden
• get some fertilizer on my hydrangeas and all the food plants
• finish taking apart the old shed for boards
• build the potting benches for my poly tunnel and the raised beds I want to have in there
• weed, always weeding around the fence borders because the ground elder is fierce
• get more wood chips and cover more grass with it because by golly in about 4 years I will have subdued it enough to make a serious start on alternative ground covering plants
• get more seeds because I only had like 5 packets of veg seeds left, and they were mostly gone in any case, and I need to get cracking on starting this year’s plants
• figure out storage for the mountain of costumes I brought home from Texas
• respond to cafe owner about holding meet ups for the youth group
• schedule a walking munch and the 101 workshops
• clean my dang bathroom
• tidy up my room because right now it is a royal mess
• restart the subscription orders from the grocery service
• do a bit more pushing with the mum bike group to get some activities scheduled
• figure out when the group camping trip is happening and get myself organized for that
• install the trailer hitch on the new bike so that I can have towing capacity when I have extra passengers
• get YC more time out on the balance bike because she has nearly outgrown it and I don’t really want to buy a bigger one I want her to progress to pedals, dangit
• schedule with a freakin roofer
• schedule with a plumber for the apartment bathroom (the sink is leaking)
• schedule getting the retaining walls repaired around the property because it is past time
• I really should be reading books because, dude
• don’t forget the damn skin care routine
• oh yeah I should eventually have sex with my husband
• all of my kids could do with some one on one time because they are all feeling super needy and emotional
• I really need to organize group bicycle skill training for my family because my instructions are not adequate to help all of them know what they need to know
• I need to organize specific training in bike maintenance because this is causing a lot of fighting and fussing and it is driving me insane
• I should submit data to the national database about when my fucking fruit trees are in flower because tracking this stuff is important
• the XR people would really appreciate it if I took on more duties, as would the allotment people
• oh yeah, I also need to schedule some physics experiments because my kids really don’t understand some basic elements that would make cycling go better
• I need to sit on my kids more industriously about working on their school work because that is literally one of my main jobs
• I haven’t touched up the sloppy paint areas in my room I was going to come back to
• I want to move the white board from the kitchen into my bedroom so I can use it to track forking lists like this
• I also want to change a bunch of how I store things in the kitchen/dining room/laundry room because the current set up is inefficient, sloppy, and difficult to keep tidy
• I should also be more industrious about exercising and eating vegetables and going to fucking sleep at a reasonable time

Yeah. Fuck me. I still have almost constant headaches and neck aches from the concussion. The sensitivity to light is really bothering me but I have to push through it anyway. I am still feeling stupid and like I am not retaining new information. I feel unmotivated and weary and frustrated at basically every moment of every day.

Visiting Noah’s family was intense. I feel like I understand the dynamics a bit better. I have much stronger opinions about what I would guess for various folks’ diagnostic labels but I try not to say those out loud too much because I am not an expert and I am not seeing any of these people in any kind of professional capacity so it’s a dick thing for me to call out. However, it helps me decide how I should respond in terms of my own behavior and as long as it is my opinion and judgment and it exists in my head and I’m not trying to influence other people I think it is ok. It’s funny to me how much I can now go, “Oh yeah. I’m trying to place a rules system around this topic because that helps me understand it.” I don’t want to make other people agree with me or change… heck I don’t plan to see any of those people again for 3-5 years. I will barely communicate with them through rare letters.

I believe it is important for me to think about things in this way because I have to think in a long term way if I am going to manage the historical trauma my children have inherited. I happen to be a big believer in the epigenetic nature of trauma. The things that happened to their parents impact them. The things that happened to their grandparents impact them. The things that happened to their great grandparents impact them. That said, neuroplasticity and resilience count for so very much. And let’s not discount the benefit of various levels of privilege.

I don’t need to try hard to control other people. I need to know what I need to think about when it comes to my own behavior and what I am modeling for my children. That’s what I am doing here.

I mean, I can worry about the gardening and the social life and the academics and the house maintenance… but what I am actually fucking doing here is figuring out how to raise people who can come from a fairly intense amount of ancestral trauma and thrive. Their mental health, their resilience, their ability to grow and change and find a better path is what I am fucking doing with my life.

I lose sight of that. I get mired in the weeds (literal and figurative) because it is easier to put my head down and just do whatever is in front of me. When I do that I invite inconsistency and acting out unconscious patterns. I invite the repetition of behaviors that have already damaged their bodies through their inherited genetics and what the fuck am I doing; I know better. I don’t need to shove them through survival. I don’t need to create lists of tasks so long that no lifetime can contain them all and then convince my children that they are inadequate if they aren’t working their bodies into dust.

Life is not about grinding yourself in a mortar and pestle. It’s just not. There are costs to those behaviors and attitudes: impatience, lack of understanding, lack of dignity, unkindness, addictive behaviors, unhealthy bodies and minds.

Noah’s grandmother survived, but the costs her children paid were so severe that they cannot bear her presence. There is duty there, some of them still serve that duty, but there is no love. Her grandchildren can barely tolerate her. Her great grandchildren are split on despising her or on not knowing her. She accomplished fairly impressive things. What was the cost? She lies on a bed alone in a room day after day. Most of the people who have ever known her have no interest in her company. Was what she accomplished worth the cost?

Noah’s mother mostly has good relationships with her children. Noah fleeing the nest as early as he did and with such intensity seems to have made a lasting impression. She worked on her behavior. She came to therapy late in life but she did get there. That’s something. Is she perfect or healed or a person I would want to spend much time with? Oh goodness no. But the difference between how she acts now and how she acted when I met her over 15 years ago is dramatic. Not different enough for me to leave my children alone with her, even though she did ask politely.

I have stopped looking at the long run. I no longer weigh and measure how I behave based on the relationships I want to have with my 30 and 40 year old children. I am sloppy. I am messy. I am inconsistent. I am pursuing short term goals at long term cost. That is stupid. I am not modeling what I think should be modeled. I am not showing how to make better choices with a joyful heart. I am dragging myself through a series of tasks and I am short tempered and impatient. I don’t think I am being vicious but that should not be the bar. Frankly I am not happy with how I have behaved for a while. I’m distracted. I’m snippy. I am not performing the behaviors I believe are necessary because I am wearing myself to the bone on things that matter so much less.

This is not what I want my children to remember. Do I think they need to have some challenges and some difficulties in life in order to build resiliency? Of course. That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to be outward focused. I want to be focused in on the people I made commitments to.

Krissy, you know who you are supposed to be. Go fucking act like it. Or you will pay the cost.