My son shares his dating exploits with me the way I write mine online. I find this touching. I have not modeled this with him as I have been dating. I have been incredibly moderate in what I have shared for lots of good reasons. He had no notion of how many people I uhh auditioned last year. I have always treated my friend reports to his dad like this, though. He watched me do it. It’s like he is live-tweeting at me now. I get little blurbs from him through the day.

It’s funny how since Noah died EC and I both notice that he is a lot more like me than he used to think. One of the things I wanted (and got) in having a third child was to break the “teams” shit we had going before Shortie came along. For a long time Eldest Child was Noah’s Gemini and Middle Child was my Virgo. In many temperamental ways the patterns are remarkable true and consistent. Noah and EC were both oldest kids. For a long time MC was the baby like me. Noah and EC tend in the stoic direction. MC and I struggle with our explosiveness. There are distinct and dramatic patterns.

MC is discovering ways that they had a lot more in common with their dad than they knew. Puberty and social isolation are combining to teach them a lot of the overwhelming anxiety that Noah struggled with despite growing up in a stable home. MC doesn’t have the bone deep sensation of being adored. I failed there. I didn’t manage to inculcate that a second time. I mean, they know I love and adore them. They have a lot more awareness of the world rejecting them. They feel more isolated and different. They didn’t spend as many years in the welcoming bosom of my queerkin in the Bay. They lost that and then went into lock down in a new country. They have a lot more anxiety than EC does. EC had a big bounce of anxiety when he went to school. With MC it is feeling like something where they will have to settle into long term management of chronic mental health struggle in this area.

EC wants to share every thought in his head. I am still his favourite audience. I choose shouting into the void. It is the only place I have ever felt comfortable. If people opt in to reading my words here, it isn’t my fault if they have feelings. I didn’t make you come here.

I am struggling really hard. I over extended myself. I should not have reached out to Pretty Lady yet. I needed her to have far more patience than was considerate. I wanted her to invest in me in the long run. She needed me to invest in her more upfront. I can understand not finding that deal appealing when I can’t match the energy she has right now. I can’t though.

Some days I pause long enough to feel in my bones how deep my burn out is. I was intensely burned out before he died. He wasn’t looking for a job because he wanted to be able to genuinely give me long periods of rest. I wanted to stop homeschooling when we moved to Scotland. I am tired. I have some friends who spend time with Shortie so I can be off duty for a bit. They all say that when they go home they are exhausted. Most of the time they fall asleep. Hell, my cleaning lady is here for two hours and she says she goes home and can’t do anything for the rest of the day because being in my house is so overwhelming. We are just talking around her. We aren’t being intense at her.

As I hide in my room because I am banished from the kitchen I have to take a moment to feel in my heart that I got here. I have one adult child. I have a quasi-adult child in 7 more weeks. (Scotland is weird.) I have one more small one to get through puberty. This is what I set out to get. I have always felt deep shame that “find a partner” was not my #1 life goal. I talked to Noah about this. He knew he was, in large part, a means to an end. He helped me have children. That was my goal. To make people of my bloodline who were ok and who made it to adulthood with as little trauma as possible. That level is higher than I would have preferred. I have my babies. They are magnificent to me. Including in the way that gets me banished from the kitchen from 10pm-12am every night. That is when I have a choice. I can let a magical fairy clean up my kitchen in complete privacy or I can incur the wrath of the furies if I enter the kitchen.

Really, is it even a choice?

All of my children have a lot in common with me. I find it affirming that we get along well. We can all set boundaries and make demands. Oh boy is my youngest making a lot of demands. This is tricky. MC, Shortie and I are all very PDA flavoured and that makes the fact that we are all demanding motherfuckers pretty complicated. It was easier to give them both the space they need when I had Noah giving me the space I need. I don’t feel like I can find Mary Poppins anymore. I am too tired. I don’t have the ability to be practically perfect and attentive to their every need. My battery has been empty for a long time.

In my mind I carry a picture of my grandmother in law. I have always considered her as a there but for the grace of God go I sort of character. She was a brilliant woman. She was also deeply hard and selfish and unable to consider the needs of her children. She was violent and cruel and abusive. She kicked my mother in law out, literally kicked, when she got married. She said her daughter had become a whore. That’s a fascinating view to have of someone getting married as an adult while not pregnant in the 1970’s. Hardly harlot behaviour.

Like Auntie was a martyr I don’t want to be. Like my mother was a perpetual victim and childlike in her inability to care for herself. Like my sister passed on the legacy of destructive behaviour we were taught. Like my mother in law didn’t get her PTSD under control in time to save her relationship with her oldest child.

I have so many examples I want to do at least slightly better than. Not because I think I am better than any of them. I’m not. I’m equally as damaged and distraught and overwhelmed and out of cope. I am better resourced than all of them put together, though. I don’t share their justifications for needing to lose their shit. My therapist keeps trying to convince me that my life is super hard. They would like me to give myself a lot more slack. They worry a lot about my nervous system. I appreciate that. I am definitely feeling the HPA axis dysfunction lately. My body is not doing well. I’m brittle. I’m cranky in ways I don’t mean to be. Stupid shit sets me off. I don’t like being this low in reserves. I keep feeling like I just need a little rest. Then I am interrupted by one of a million things.

I need to have more capacity. The only way to increase my capacity is to do less. I can’t do more with my capacity if I am doing less. I’m kinda fucked here. I feel terribly selfish for missing Noah because he gave me rest. He did a lot of taking work away from me and sending me off to be alone. He and I were very interchangeable in the house. It was amazing. He was doing more and more with every year. I really appreciate the way that we never stopped turning towards one another. We were both doing intense stuff to bring focus back to us as a dyad all the way through the end.

I feel like I will permanently have less than 40% of the capacity I used to have. I can’t manage to finagle that level of support in time before Shortie has outgrown the really intense period. I am in this death march until she hits increased independence. My coparent is gone. He was amazing. I can’t imagine having anyone try harder to support me in raising a family. I don’t seek another coparent. That is not a fair role to ask of anyone. Noah casts a big shadow.

I can see my daughter casting about for father figures to bond with, though. I am glad that she has a few different ones. I am glad that she gets to have a bunch of men who are being loving and considerate and careful of her as she goes through this period. I’m lucky. I laid the groundwork for this in advance and friends have stepped forward when I asked. She is clearly pretty interested in having a relationship with Gentleman. I keep thinking how much Noah would approve of Gentleman. Noah was always afraid of me choosing to date people who were disrespectful of me. He was very concerned that I not subject myself to any more substandard treatment. Adoring me is step one. If they don’t, off they fuck.

Noah both did and didn’t set me up well for losing him. In many ways I am struggling because I lost my main emotional support person on top of my main physical support person on top of my coparent and exercise buddy and there is the tiny little matter that he was the only real witness to my life. It’s overwhelming how hard it is keeping all of my shit off stage from the kids. I feel like such a liar all the time. I don’t share every thought with my kids.

They definitely think I exist to be an external hard drive for their brains though. Holy shit.

I am struggling with getting us to all the appointments. All of our fucking bodies are high maintenance and I don’t know how much it is ADHD and how much it is perimenopause and how much it is grief and how much it is cumulative brain injuries but fuck I can’t remember anything. I listen to my friend cite to the penny how much money she has in her bank account and I feel deep shame. I couldn’t keep numbers in my head right now if I was paid for it. I’ve always struggled with dyscalculia. It feels worse than ever. It’s a good thing I have people who are actually watching my finances. I can’t fuck anything up too much. The money is out of my direct control. That is both terrifying and quite a relief. I am scared of being this person. I am scared of having this kind of responsibility.

How in the fuck did I manage to end up the fucking heiress for some generational wealth bullshit?! This was not something I fucking planned for. It will allow me to keep my babies safe. It reminds me of the story Peter wrote about me. He depicted me as quite a savage creature, covered in scars and wounds. I crouch over my sleeping babies with a knife prepared to end any creature who accosts them. I don’t actually think the knife will be necessary. This is good. I’m not a particularly violent human as they go. No matter what my father would have wanted for me. No matter what my blood thirsty ancestors would have done.

I feel alone. I feel like I must be alone for all the hours of the night and day. I feel like this is a terribly heavy burden to carry forward.

I feel terrible because I should be soaking in how awesome my boyfriend is. He really is. Instead I ruminate on the story in progress from a holistic point of view. There are so many moving pieces. I feel like I am drowning. On I swim anyway. No time to stop.