Can’t argue with a spreadsheet.

3 Replies

I have been taking a good long look at my budget for the upcoming roadtrip. That’s way more fun than thinking about how to manage conflict.

An RV would be $15,000-$25,000 depending on what I was able to find. There are occasional “steals” at $15k. Plus a massive amount of ongoing maintenance I can’t predict now. Plus twice as much gas as I originally planned. Plus learning to manage a longer, taller vehicle that will be hellishly difficult to park.

A pop up tent would be $6,000-$11,000. Plus ongoing expenses I can’t predict. Plus learning to drive a 30′-40′ vehicle. Plus much more gas than originally hoped for.

Did I mention that my original budget for this trip is $12,000?

Shit.

Whereas I can get a roof storage container, portable toilet, tent that kind of telescopes onto the back of the van for privacy and space to stand up, nice camp kitchen set up, and the odds and ends I want for over $2k. I could probably get much cheaper if I was willing to troll Craigslist patiently.

Sold.

It’s going to be much much physically harder. I’m not “looking forward” to how physically hard this will be. All of my other plans will have to scope down until I can handle things.

On the upside I can’t find any advice on tent traveling with kids for extended periods more recent than say… settling the US. People don’t do it. I bet I will find some interesting writing material off of this trip. Ha.

The kids have some super rad tumbling mats from Ikea ($10 a pop) that fit sideways in the van if you leave some of the sections folded. If I take out the middle row seats and have the car seats come in and out (The Britax Frontier is not that hard to install–it’s just getting a tight seatbelt connection instead of those FROM HELL clips on the True Fit I have.) from the back row… we could sleep in the van and use the exterior space more optionally for other purposes.

We don’t *have* to set the tent up every night. I am going to have a fabulous roof container to store shit so I can have a versatile potential set up.

Ok, part of me thinks it is kind of hilarious that I am going to attach a tent to my van that has a main room and a vestibule so the vestibule can be my bathroom.

As this morning demonstrates to me once again… I can’t be without toilet access in the middle of the night. Just can’t. Must have access. Luckily these days there are some darn nifty little numbers that will be easy to bring with us. And from the pictures it looks an awful lot like you can unscrew the storage tank and walk to a public toilet and slowly dump it in with two or three flushes and you are good to go.

That seems like a level of septic management I can handle. I was frankly a little terrified of the whole RV hook up thing.

I’m scared. This seems like… a fuck ton of work. It’s going to be hard. But I want this experience and I really don’t want to spend my entire budget before I hit the road, know what I mean?

I was asked, “But couldn’t you resell the RV or trailer when you get home?” The answer being, “I hope but such things are hard to predict and I would have to just be prepared to eat the money. Plus lots of other money in the future if I want the vehicle to be in good enough shape to sell.”

I want to pay off my mortgage. Buying an RV would seriously derail me. It would derail the international trip.

Ok fine. I can suck it. Yes, it will be hard. We will also be staying at friends’ houses pretty frequently. It will work out.

I’m more worried about Noah joining us than just the three of us. It will make sleeping harder. I’m not sure if the four of us can sleep in the van together. We may need to have options for sleeping on the ground those nights anyway. In general my plan is to sleep in the van. I really prefer the idea of sleeping behind metal and glass and locks. Is the van totally secure? Of course not. But I like my illusions.

I have woken up from sleeping in a tent to find a grizzly bear foot print less than three feet from where my head was. That scared the crap out of me. Of course I took a picture. (And DA remembers–see, that proves it.)

Do you know what part of it is? If I let the budget for this trip explode… Noah will sigh, put his head down, and “try to earn more money”. Naw, the original budget will be more than adequate. I am already fleecing him in ways that give me the vapors. I feel like I am taking advantage of him. But he is agreeing and such. He wants his kids educated by me. In whatever way I see fit. He sees it as an investment the same as a private school.

Life is complicated.

There is exactly one bike rack on the market that will allow us to take three independent bikes plus the recumbent trailer we are endeavoring to learn how to use. We haven’t fallen yet! I’m proud of us. *phew*

Shanna says she is looking forward to this trip. I told her that our screen time will be severely limited. I won’t be able to be online either. She clapped her hands and said, “So you will be forced to play with us ALL DAY EVERY DAY. That sounds wonderful.”

Oh man.

I told her that every single day I would need to take private time and the way that is going to work is I will sit in a chair outside where I can see them and I will put head phones on. I don’t want to talk the whole time I have the head phones on. I need time to be private inside my brain. She said she can agree to that because they will be able to see me so it’s all good.

She jumped up and down and squeed. She is so fucking excited that I won’t be able to hide in the garage. Sigh.

Sometimes it is hard for me to understand how much my kids like me. I’m not sure I have ever in my life had as unmixed of emotions as my kids have. They love me and adore me and nearly worship me. There isn’t a lot of hesitation.

I have never seriously hurt them and the minor injuries I cause tend to involve lots of apologies and noticeable change in my behavior so I don’t duplicate the fuck up.

Some days, some moments I am able to see that I am doing what I want to do as a mother. Even though it is hard and I am very scared. I am doing it.

The only thing Calli understands about the trip at this point is, “I get to go to Disney World, right?”

Since everyone decided they didn’t want my points for Hawaii, you can be at Disney World for a really long time, kiddo. I’m sorry that my friends had life events come up that caused them to not go on their trips. I’m ok with getting more time to luxuriate around a pool at Disney World. I won’t have to set up a tent for a month. Sounds fucking awesome.

Although if I wanted to conserve points… Disney World has a camp grounds. Ha.

I don’t want to stay longer than four weeks so the point conservation is less mandatory than it could be. There are too many things to do in the country to spend all of our time at fucking Disney World. But I think a month in the middle of this trip will be decadent.

I want to save budget money for going to the fancy princess tea party at Disney World, no I don’t want a fancy RV or pop up trailer that bad. I’d rather get to do all the things I want to do than have a posh sleeping place.

Because now my budget is down to being about $10,000 because I’ve spent the first $2,000.

(I had to decide. I had to just do it. We have a camping trip in two weeks and… I don’t have a plan as to how to provide for it. Erf. I told Noah that I want to put the tent up and down four times during the weekend while I have a grown up there to help me. The last time or two I want to put it up alone. Shanna says that I will never put it up alone. She will always help. We’ll see.)

The funny thing is, I bet Shanna will be able to be all the help I need. By the time we leave on this trip she will be seven. I have felt shocked her entire fifth year by how competent and capable she has become. I expect seven to knock my socks off.

She says she is looking forward to “all that nice lazy time for me to practice my cooking–we won’t have anything else to do.” She says that by the end of the trip she intends to be an expert at preparing camping meals.

And Calli says she is looking forward to me having to read to them for hours every day. She says that will be her favorite part. I have been a slacker asshole on reading for a while. I have been overwhelmed by life and my emotions.

We won’t drive every day. On driving days we will go three or four hours then set up camp. Camp set up needs to be perfected in under an hour. Take down needs to be perfected in half an hour. I will have to practice until I can get it. If I include food prep that will put me up to about six hours a day of “work”.

I won’t be able to garden or socialize much. I won’t have to clean the house. I won’t have my whole library with me so I can read a book or two a day. I won’t be reading on the screen because that’s just fucking rude after a while. Plus, I don’t want to spend the whole time obsessing over charging my fucking phone.

With sleep that will account for 14-16 hours of the day/night. That leaves me with a solid 8-10 hours every day of leisure time. I should probably schedule an hour in the morning of writing time and an hour after dinner of “mommy-quiet” time. That gives me 6-8 hours a day of paying attention to them.

I’m looking forward to sleeping with them more. If it didn’t seem so mean to Noah I would probably do it all the time. I love waking up to see them. I can’t believe I made you.

I feel so lucky. Even when we fight or have disagreements, I still feel so passionately in love with my kids. Not sexual passion. It’s not like that at all. I feel pretty grateful that I missed the pedophile gene in my family. I experience no arousal at the sight of a child.

But I have intense surges of emotion. Sometimes they feel so strong I almost can’t keep standing.

This is the best thing I have ever done. This is the best me I have ever shared with anyone.

A few months ago in February it marked ten years since I met Noah. In August (actually on my nephew’s birthday) it will be ten years since I broke up with my Owner-turned boyfriend. He wasn’t my Owner by the time I left. That had been over for a year because it was “too much work”. In September it will be eight years of marriage. Next month marks eight years of living in this house.

Time keeps passing. It isn’t like it used to be. I used to mark the seasons of my life by which trauma occurred and where I was living. “Well I was raped when I was going to x school so I must have been y age because that is the correlation to the grade I know I was in at that school. So-and so died or had a violent accident while I was at that other school.”

The most terrible break ups of the past ten years have involved Puppy (not that horrible and I’m happy to be rid of him) and my family (terrible, but necessary and contained in scope of harm) and Sarah. And she’s not completely gone. That we may be able to grow past some day. We ain’t dead yet.

Uncle Bob’s death and divorcing my family is probably the biggest trauma in the past eight years. Ok, that last rape is hanging on to the curve. Kind of sucky that it will always overlap the marriage timing.

But we had lots of therapy over that shit.

Now I’m marking the years by “the year I hired an awesome guy to build up my backyard” or “the year I added trees” or “when we went on that trip”.

Is this what “normal” life is like?

I’m trying to psyche myself up for the conversation I will need to have soon. I’m leaning towards:

“Hi. May I talk to you kind of privately? We don’t know very much about one another. Sometimes when you don’t know someone very well, humor is especially tricky. Humor either creates a feeling of shared experience or alienation and it’s a difficult line to walk. At this moment in time I am giving you all the benefit of the doubt in the world. I believe you are trying hard to create camaraderie within the group. Unfortunately I’m not really someone who has a “typical” sense of humor.

Which is a long-handed way of saying that sometimes your “jokes” are kind of personal and they feel denigrating to me. I don’t like feeling denigrated. I need to avoid people who evoke those feelings in me and I’m hoping I don’t have to start avoiding you. Outside of a few specific jokes we have otherwise had positive interactions and I would really prefer to continue down the positive path.

My kid is kind of in love with your kid. It would be super rad if we could all get along. I’m really struggling with your humor. I need you to lighten up on me. I’m on the sensitive side and that has to be ok.”

I have been thinking about it a lot. It is a lot less aggressive. A lot more from the point of view of getting along. Less threatening sounding. Less attacking sounding… but I make it clear I will avoid her if I have to.

It is ok for her to have the sense of humor that she has and it is ok that I am a sensitive fucking snowflake. Surely we can find a way to get along. Not that my issues are online. But that Wired article is pretty cool.

And hey Lisa–it’s funny that you tell me that it’s not an option for me to leave the group but you are ALWAYS talking about how much you want to move. If I did smileys on my blog I would stick my tongue out at you. But I have more dignity than that. So neiner.

Today I feel less like every one hates me and I should go eat worms. That is nice.

Identity stuff

Leave a reply

I had the night off. So I went for a run (about 3.5 miles), took a shower, then headed off to see one of my Daddy’s. We went to a gay bar for kinky queers night. I spent a lot of the night reminiscing about the good old days.

On the drive down I rolled all the windows down in the car and I played my sluttiest collection of songs and I took a trip down memory lane.

Sometimes, when I stop to go through the mental rolodex, I feel very grateful for the life I have lived. I have touched (metaphorically and literally) an awfully high number of really interesting people. First love songs are kind of funny because I get to pick and choose between which early partner I kind of miss.

My life is so different than it was. That was a lot of the theme of conversation. “Wow. Things are different now.”

In August of this year it will be ten years since I left my Owner. Lots of changes. Basically every single individual piece of my life is different.

I think hard about why I’m making the choices I’m making in contrast with the other choices available. I am doing with my life exactly what I set out to do. But I didn’t know it would work out the way it has. I didn’t go into parenting expecting mostly vanilla monogamy. But it is what is working for us right now.

I have feels about that. About how I have changed. I don’t know if it good or not so good. It just is. This is just another thing I’m doing for a while. I don’t know how long it will last.

Slutty songs in my world are always interspersed with sad songs because I listen to a lot of sad music. That means I alternate thinking about those who are no longer in my life with Those Who Are No Longer With Us. I usually spend a while in such moments crying about the fact that Noah will die some day. I ponder how I would handle it.

It’s funny how my mood changes. On some days I ponder celibacy as a widow because man, no one can measure up to Noah. On other days I think about a fuck-buddy relationship with the dear friend who is kinda in the #2 slot as far as the Top 5 go. Then I think, “Nahh. I’d go to a queer leather con and find 5-10 women. Oh hell yes.” I miss girls in a way I just don’t miss boys given that I fuck one quite regularly.

It was very nice last night to be in a space at an event where ogling the hot women was not only ok it would have been a little rude to completely not observe how much effort they put into their hotness.

Oh man. The nice girl in the legging pants with the flirty ruffled short tunic that completely didn’t cover her loverly ass? She had nice shoes and nice legs and an ass that can make a grown woman cry for joy. It was so nice of her to stand so near my line of sight for extended periods of time.

I kinda miss fucking women. It’s just different. I am different when it happens.

I’m feeling stress, so I took a trip down memory lane. Dylan Thomas says you can never go home. I feel like I can visit home, but I can’t live there any more. And that’s ok too.

Mostly it was just lovely having a night where I could bounce from topic to topic to topic and I didn’t have to worry about offending or scaring anyone. These are some of my wonderful old friends and play partners. They’ve known me for more than 1/3 of my life. (They are older than me so the percentage is lower in the other direction.) They are blog readers (at least occasionally) and have been for most of a decade or longer.

It is so nice to sometimes be able to jump around talking about widely disparate parts of my life and identity. I could talk about the stuff that I’m feeling weird about and why I’m choosing it even though it feels weird. They could listen and understand why I would make the choices I’m making. Oh how I live for validation.

Sometimes you can’t go to the home school mommys and ask for validation. They don’t have any idea (not really) of what I gave up to become a parent. They have no idea what the contrast is like between me now and what I was like before. Their evaluation of me is… kinda limited. They can judge what they see today, not progress.

I feel so lucky for my old friends. I feel so lucky that these hot, fascinating people say “You ever decide to break the Big M give me a call.”

Hawt.

Not that I’m breaking my monogamy. I was a good girl and all. But I got to talk about why I am doing this.

Of course it would be lovely fun to have you beat the shit out of my while I scream “Monkey Fucker” again. That was a really good time.

When I’m talking to people who had reasonably good childhoods who went into Leather later in life… it’s weird talking about how I am doing this partially so I can step back and understand why other people react to me the way they do. This is as close as I can get to experiencing “childhood” as other people know it.

Sometimes I sort of think of my approach to parenting as being similar to people who go into monasteries and take vows of silence to really test themselves. My life is hard. It requires a tremendous amount of focus, concentration, and effort to do what I am trying to do. Because my standards are so high with regards to my behavior… it’s a fully time job just managing my emotions. This is my boot camp. These are the only judges I will ever fucking care about and the way I judge is to watch our interactions. A high percentage of our negative interactions are clearly my fault and I work on minimizing the damage I do in presenting negative behaviors.

I never punish my kids for doing something I model. No punishments for swearing. You learned those words from my mouth. Why would I hurt you for listening to me?

The hitting is a thing though. “I’ve never hit you?! Where in the world do you come up with the idea that it is acceptable to solve your problems with your fists? I never taught you that!” That sort of indignation. Sometimes, if they are in the back yard alone… I let them fight it out. I feel guilty but I know that kids who go to school have so many more fights than my kids that I’m maybe doing them a disservice if I never let them practice and learn… I feel deeply conflicted.

And last night I could talk about it and not feel scared that I was going to offend the shit out of people till they will no longer talk to me. I feel scared in the home school group. Best behavior, Krissy!

Relaxing is so nice. It’s nice knowing that I have already changed dramatically on every access and these people still like me and respect me and are glad they know me.

I can’t be doing everything wrong.

Oh, and because I was too chicken shit to say anything about this last night with a stranger: yes, some white people do occasionally get confused for one another. True, that happens. But when that happens it is usually two white people who have some major overall similarities.

When two Asian women who look nothing alike and who are widely diverse in age are treated as interchangeable in a community because all of the six Asian people in the bdsm community are treated like they are interchangeable… maybe white people don’t need to talk about how it’s no big deal. It is alienating and othering. Sorry, white people don’t get put into a little pod and treated like they are all interchangeable. The #knowyournegro and #knowyourasian campaigns were started by small very specific groups of people who are widely treated like they are more or less the same person by a HUGE NUMBER of clueless white people. It’s just kind of different.

If people who are not white are complaining about the fact that they are not recognized as an individual person with their own personality… if you are white… just shut up. Seriously. Don’t try to one up this. It makes you look like an asshat.

Post-therapy.

3 Replies

We started out this session talking about the last session. Wrapping up the things I was freaking out about such that I could not actually speak about them. It is hard to be able to talk about the freaking out while I am freaking out. Figuring out how to describe things is hard. If I say, “I’ve always done this” it sounds like I mean that I do it all the time and that’s not accurate. “I have had periods where I do this throughout my life” is a different thing. I freak out sometimes. Not all the time. We clarified things like why I over reacted when she said that I would need to go on medication (she doesn’t think of pot as being on medication–I disagree; strenuously) and money stuff. It was a lot easier to be clear about the dividing lines amongst things I was talking about last time. I was more coherent today.

Then we spent a fair bit of time talking about the micro-aggression stuff in the home school group. We came up with some language that would work for me. Then I went to the park and asked the organizer of the group about my language and she… well. She isn’t as pro-confrontation as I am. She likes people to get along. She told me I could say what I wanted but she looked… distressed.

I don’t really want to distress this person. I like her.

My options, as I perceive them:

  • say nothing and tolerate someone taking pot shots at me.
  • say nothing and leave the group.
  • say something and potentially have it blow up in my face.
  • say something and have it go well.

So once you get past the idea of say nothing or say something you have to deal with what to say. There are more and less confrontational things to say. I am the kind of person who would say, “I don’t really like being the butt of the joke. If this continues to happen I will have to make sure you no longer come to my house and I will stay away from you in public.”

I want to say that. But it’s all confrontational.

Well, I could just leave the group. That’s a nice and tidy way to ensure I am not confrontational. Because I’m not going to fucking keep my mouth shut any more. At this stage of my life… no. Fuck no. Fucking fucker no.

This is the “school” group I have been involved with the longest. I’m not sure how long it will last. That makes me sad.

I feel like I frequently end up in this boat. If I stand up for myself I will make people sad. If I don’t stand up for myself… I’m going to just leave.

At least I already know I wouldn’t be missed anyway.

Money, money, money by the pound.

8 Replies

I’m scared and insecure. Let’s talk about money. I won’t feel as bad about myself. That can’t be healthy, can it? I feel insecure about some parts of my life. Let me wander over and assure myself that my social problems are not going to derail me getting to do whatever the fuck I want to do. Maybe that isn’t unhealthy.

I have decided that I can’t buy an RV for the road trip until I have maxed out on saving for the road trip and I have maxed our emergency fund. That seems S-M-R-T.

This month’s salary + bonus (the bonus Noah is whiny enough to say isn’t high enough) will almost entirely go off for credit cards, mortgage, etc. Luckily I can now say that the second business I helped fund has been so successful I have been bought out. The check is on its way to me. I’m a god damn entrepreneur. Go me.

With that bump I will have $21,000 (rounded, obviously) out of the $25,000 I want in the checking account before I travel and $25,000 out of $40,000 in an emergency fund. That means I want to save an additional $19,000 before I buy an RV. And it means that I will be blowing a huge hole in my emergency fund that I will have to recoup. So uhm. Erf. But I think I can do that in the next few years.  Seriously, he makes obscene amounts of money. If I can’t do that then I’m a fucking loser. Technically I have been saving at a rate to make the goal on the emergency fund in four years and some. I want that as back up before we go over seas.

Yeah yeah yeah I have an IRA, 401k, two 529s, and additional investment stuff going on. Don’t tell me, “Oh gosh if you have that much cash you should invest!”

I like having a cushion. I invest, but I like my cushion. Shit happens. I like having many options. I like knowing that I will be able to do what I want to do.

Noah has already earned $15,000 out of the $60,000 I think we will need for the around the world trip. His ability to earn money continues to blow my mind. That is kept in a third account.

My real “back up” in case Noah loses his job is the fact that we have $60,000 in cash distributed between accounts nominally in the name of other more shallow goals. Of course all such frippery could be tossed to the side in case of a catastrophe. I’ve got back up plans for my back up plans.

I… don’t earn money. But I manage it very well. He wouldn’t have this much if he had to manage it himself. That isn’t his strength. That’s my strength. I’m not so good at earning.

A friend was mentioning how her partner needs to hire a professional organizer and I said, “I’m close to putting out my shingle. I’d charge $30/hour.” She yelled at me for a while. She thinks my starting rate should be $50/hour with the possibility of a sliding scale if I’m feeling fucking generous.

I am going to potentially have four whole hours tomorrow to edit the book. Maybe someday it will earn money. Probably when I’m dead. That’s usually how it works for writers. Luckily I have children who will get the income. It won’t just go to a publishing house. Ha.

I feel pretty weird about having this much money. But looking at it does help calm me down.

My mom spent my whole childhood crying over money. All the time. Almost every day. My mom has experienced poverty in a way I will never really understand. Children don’t get it. Kids don’t understand being poor vs. rich. It is too complex. Now I feel like all I can do is try to imagine my mother’s experience.

I’m so grateful I don’t have to endure what she went through. She has no money sense. Even when she has enough in her pocket to cover all her expenses this month she can’t do it. I don’t know what broke her or when.

Even if things in my life were to go badly they can never ever ever go as badly as they have gone for my mom. I have a college education and a history of helping to start businesses. I have a rich and varied work history and a lot of people who would vouch for me. I could find work at a reasonable salary. My mom never could.

The head of my union told me that if I ever want to go back into teaching it doesn’t matter if they are hiring or not they will hire me. I can teach gang kids. I can form personal relationships and help them understand the benefits to them of literacy.

That’s a god damn marketable skill.

I feel really bad for my mom. She is becoming a Dickensian character in my mind. She never had my options. She never had the same privileges I had.

I went to Los Gatos High School. Maybe only for my sophomore year but I got to learn about the standards of college and a rigorous set of expectations as a teenager. My mom graduated from Bakersfield High School pregnant with absolutely no expectation that she would need to learn anything more complicated than cooking, baking, and sewing.

For the record, she’s great at all three. Better than me.

It is harder and harder for me to be angry with her as the years pass. I feel really sorry for her. But I can’t let her hurt my kids.

My children have absolutely no exposure to toxic, bitter people. None. The last few years have been the nicest of my life. I have felt suicidal less often then ever before. Pretty frequently I find myself consciously making choices that work to extend my life because I’m not ready to die yet.

I never felt this good about myself when I knew my mother. Having pity for her is fine. I can pity rabid animals too. I shouldn’t pick them up.

It’s all mixed up. My mom. Money. Feeling scared. Feeling attacked. That asshole “funny” unschooling dad. The mom who keeps making cracks about me. Scheduling difficulties and feeling unimportant. Other people have their own shit and aren’t just my support units. It all feels the same. The same unworthy, stupid, bad. Talking about it feels manipulative, but I don’t want anyone to change what they are doing.

I feel this way right now. I don’t always feel this way. I write it down partially so I can prove to myself, “See–it changes. It goes up. It goes down. You have weak boundaries right now. That isn’t anyone else’s fault. It’s ok. They will come back up again soon.”

Soon I won’t feel like everyone hates me and I should go eat worms.

I wonder how much it is tied to Shanna’s current defiance. She’s getting very close to being the age I was when I caused the fight with Tommy that involved Uncle Bob burning Tommy with the hot coffee.

The punishment for that was moving to Texas and my brother got hit by a car. I will have a hard time handling this defiance streak. “Abreact.” That’s my therapists favorite word. Reliving trauma. Supposed to be in a therapeutic session but welcome to my life. Flashbacks?

I’m not having flashbacks. But I am reliving some of the terror I felt when I was disobedient. When she turns around and flips out at me I feel like it is all my fault and I am about to be punished and then I over react.

It’s going to be a rocky few months. Holy shit on Crisco. But we will get through it and we will develop new coping methods for handling triggering situations without abuse. Like you do. If you want to know your kids in thirty years.

I tell my kids that I’m sorry for my mistakes a lot. I hurt Calli yesterday. We were playing and dancing and I twisted her arm a little wrong. I’ve done exactly that dance move with her hundreds of times. But she gained weight recently and it pushed her past a threshold. Oops. I’m really sorry. We spent a while cuddling with an ice pack. She’s fine now. But she was really freaked out and she kept yelling that I hurt her.

Yes. I did. I’m really sorry. It didn’t hurt the last time I did it. I won’t do it any more. You are too big now and I didn’t notice because I wish you were going to be my tiny baby forever. As you grow up I will sometimes hurt you because I misunderstand how your boundaries are shifting. I’m so sorry. I can’t be perfect. There is no such thing. I will make many more mistakes. I’m so sorry.

By the end we were petting the cat and each others faces and she told me she forgives me and we went on with the day.

It doesn’t really matter if some woman who will never be my friend makes jokes about my lack of value. But I miss my mama. And I wish that my mama had thought I was valuable. My mama didn’t miss me when I was gone for a month either. No one really misses me if I’m gone. I know.

Some days it hurts more than others.

I’m not “funny”. Instead people “can’t tell the difference between my whining and my talking”.

I am a whiny baby and I don’t like being picked on.

It’s really not fair that I have to continue having involvement with this group for the sake of my children when I would rather just not go back. That’s how I handle these things. I can’t have a fight. I can’t make drama. If I don’t like how I’m treated, I leave. But I can’t leave.

I can make sure I stop talking to this woman. She thinks she is “funny”. I think it’s not funny to tell someone who has been suicidal for most of their life that no one would miss them.

Happy fucking Mothers Day

I’m almost done with the third quartet from Tamora Pierce. I’ll go back to reading about people who are allowed to start fist fights with bullies. Sometimes I wish my life were that simple still. I am going to read every book she has ever written. I even have the add-odd short story collections. I’m really glad she is out there writing.

Rape, rape culture, and home school dynamics. (What a fun title.)

2 Replies

If I sat down and delineated all of the relationships that are bumpy right now… I wouldn’t have many people willing to talk to me next week. I feel like if I am having this many problems all at once it must be me. I’m doing something. I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing wrong.

Is it oversharing? I haven’t even done that much of it lately. Not for me. Not in the scope of my level of over sharing.

I don’t know.

Passive aggression today. (Err, obviously not with the person who might read this.) There is one mom in particular who likes to make cracks about me. In the past it was a comment about how it isn’t possible to tell the difference between when I whine and when I talk. Today it was how no one will miss me if I disappear for a month. “Oh I’m kidding.”

I would cheerfully like to lock my front door, set up grocery delivery service, and maybe come out next year.

At least someone else, who I consider more friendly to me, looked kind of shocked when she said no one would miss me. I don’t think I was the only one who thought the “joke” wasn’t funny.

I’m sorry I’m not the quality of person you wish you got to associate with. What would you like me to do about that?

I’m feeling really really sad about some scheduling things. I don’t think anyone did anything wrong. Sometimes scheduling is hard and makes me sad.

I am happy that I got to speak with someone else on the unschooling list who felt very upset about the whole exchange. She felt that his “I’m not defending what he did to Krissy… but this show is great! He won an award!” was pretty disgusting. I’m so grateful to hear that I’m not the only one. I’ve been feeling really bad about the fact that I live in a world that prioritizes the funny rapists. I don’t feel like I want to live in a world like that. She said she wouldn’t care if I was the only victim this guy had–the fact that he has many such stories from many women isn’t more problematic. The fact that people will cover for him even for one rape is seriously a disgusting thing. She said she doesn’t want her kids in a room with someone like that and she’s grateful I spoke up.

Mostly I get crickets back. So I never know how much of what I say harms people or helps them. The people who do speak up are usually men telling me to shut up because I might hurt one of the poor men folk. I have less sympathy for this point of view than many might hope.

I don’t go out of my way to hurt any individual men. Well, or at least it has been a great many years since I have. (And all of those guys had to ask VERY NICELY.)

If I hurt my rapists by talking about them… sorry dudes. You made this bed, not me. I didn’t tell you to do what you did. So I get to talk about it. You get no privacy from me.

The vast majority of men in the whole wide world haven’t done a negative thing to me. So mostly I think guys are ok. I wish they would yell at one another for inappropriate sexist behavior more often but no one is perfect. I’m a yeller. I understand it isn’t everyones thing.

I feel scared. Unimportant. Stupid. I feel like if I got raped so many times it must be all my fucking fault and there is nothing I can do to take away me deserving it. I feel like maybe I wasn’t clear enough with Paul. Or with Dan. I told them so many times that I didn’t do bareback sex. Over and over I said, “This is a cover required portal. Thanks.” I thought I was funny. I said that I only have sex when two forms of birth control are used. (I sure as shit knew I didn’t want to coparent with either loser. Having protected sex is one thing. Having a baby with a loser is different.)

Am I allowed such fine tuned boundaries? Or is that breaking some rule such that it’s ok when guys want to stick it in any way?

“He won an award! He’s so funny!”

I hate you. I’m glad I don’t even know who you are, funny unschooling asshole dad, but you can jump right off a cliff.

Wait. Isn’t that me wishing harm on an individual man? Didn’t I just try to claim I don’t do this?!?!?!

Well, ok I’m a fucking liar. It’s unusual for me to wish harm on someone. And I don’t wish to go harm him. And I don’t wish to have someone else go harm him for me. But I’d be cool with him jumping off a cliff. Ok, no I wouldn’t. He’s a parent. That would be horrible and I would be a horrible person for being cool with him committing suicide.

Ok… uhm… don’t jump off a cliff. But shut the fuck up, okay? Stop endorsing rapists. It makes you look like a Very Bad Person with Questionable Judgement. Now that I know that you will send your kids to Paul I think I need to make sure my kids are never alone in a room with you.

And yet I live with someone who has committed rape. What kind of fucking hypocrite piece of shit am I? I really wonder sometimes.

Why can I forgive one rapist and not another? Well. I don’t have a good answer to that question but it fucking keeps me up at night.

Noah is not the only rapist I have forgiven. Life is very complicated. Why in the hell do I carry around a grudge bigger than Alaska for some of the dudes who raped me? Why do I pick and choose?

I want to believe that part of it is, I don’t forgive the ones who have a long list of victims. I don’t forgive the real predators.

So Noah isn’t a real predator? Enh, not really. Noah learned boundaries slow and hard but he has shown continual progress across the board in his life. He hasn’t sat in one place doing the same thing with chick after chick after chick. I have seen no sign of my kids having anything like inappropriate sexual knowledge and I bloody well look for signs. I believe that he has been as honorable within our family as one can be.

This unschooling dad who is defending Paul probably has many years of positive experiences. Lots of trust. Why shouldn’t he defend his friend?

Do I really believe that rapists deserve to be shunned for all time and banned from all gatherings?

I can’t say yes with a straight face, now can I?

I think this is where I sit in the hamster wheel. I can’t say that all rapists should be banned. This is what is keeping me up at night. Then what do I think should happen?

I’m not shy about outing Noah. Which means that I am inviting other people to shun him if I say that rapists should be shunned. Is that what I want? Do I believe that secretly it would be better for them if they just got the fuck away from Noah? Err, no. I think he’s a really interesting person with a lot to offer.

Why don’t I want to see Paul in such a light? Why do I want him to be cast in the role of villain so I can rant and rail and hate him so much? Is this misdirected shit at my dad?

I think that part of it is–I can forgive someone for raping me. I know that my behavior “invited” such response. When there is a whole string of other women… you know… no. You are hurting people. I know of three other specific women who have been extremely fucked up by you. You are a bad person. You are a liar and a cheat and a fraud as your profession. You say hateful nasty things that you really believe with a smile on your face and people laugh because they think you are “joking.”

If you make a big chunk of your living from being a jerk… I don’t think that is funny. Clearly lots of other people do because you have made a career out of this. People are fucking weird.

But given the things I like to do… I can’t say that much.

Only clearly I can say a lot.

I sat a friend’s sister down before Burning Man last year and gave her an intense conversation about always having a sober trip sitter if you do drugs so you can be safe.

You never know when there will be someone around who just wants to “stick it in a few times. It’s no big deal.”

Because too many people, me included, don’t think all rapists should be banned from all spaces. So they are everywhere.

I know there is a large demographic who believes that it is my fault or the woman Paul raped before me’s fault or the woman before that’s fault. We didn’t report. We haven’t put Paul in jail. It is our collective fault that he is out there raping a whole string of women.

Cause uhm, yeah. That makes sense. It is his dick and it is our fault we have cunts he can put it in. Like, duh.

Something like that.

My heart hurts. I feel so sad. But at least when I can write about it Noah knows why I’m so tetchy. It’s easier to accommodate my anxiety du jour if he knows what it is shaped like.

Sometimes I feel very sad and very scared that at the end of the day I belong with the rapist camp. I know so many rapists because, well duh. I just would. That’s just the shape in the world I belong in.

Why do I only forgive some of them? Noah’s not the only one. But the others in my life have more right to privacy. Noah’s a sucker for marrying me. Marrying was like the opposite of an NDA. “I agree to having my life discussed in detail on the internet. Even the embarrassing shit. Ok, maybe mostly only those bits.”

Is it just because I like Noah’s jokes more? He doesn’t make jokes that make other people look small or pathetic. His jokes are about bicycles. And smart ass parrots. He doesn’t want to denigrate people.

Is that enough of a difference? Does that justify my attitude?

“Get over it.”

I’m trying. It’s complicated.

Paul and I had sex several times. It wasn’t a stranger rape. He was a sometimes-partner at sex parties. He is less than 1% of my sexual partners. Why do I care so much that one time he did something that was against my boundaries? Why is it such a big deal that I want to keep my children and the children of my friends away from him?

Because he bloody well groomed me into inappropriate displays of trust followed by an action that could have resulted in an STD or a baby. He’s a big whore. He has no right having bareback sex.

Paul feels like a legitimate threat. Not to me–never again. I’m no longer in a vulnerable demographic as far as he is concerned. But there are a lot of nice young girls out there. Waiting to be groomed.

That scares me silly.

I feel attacked even though I am not the one at risk. Even though no one is attacking me. Even though instead of attacking my character or criticism instead only support was voiced. I en’t saying my feelings are logical so don’t nitpick.

How do I get over feeling attacked? Anxiety is energy stored in the body that needs to be used somehow. Well, I have a 10k race tomorrow. That should help.

It is hard to stop feeling attacked when I continually run into people who make little “jokes” about me. Oh I’m sure she doesn’t mean it. (See–it’s totally not just men I have trouble with. I have troubles with all possible gender configurations. I’m flexible like that.)

Deep breath. In. Out. Not here to make friends. Here to provide children with opportunity to make friends. I don’t have to be friends with the parents. It is not a requirement.

Would it really be that tacky if I started bringing a book and sitting off to the side? I feel like speaking in the group is resulting in people disliking me and I would prefer to just opt out.

I’m tired of feeling scared of every word out of my mouth. I’m tired of feeling like I’m doing something wrong.

This is why I loudly say I’m poor white trash. Or I used to. I’m not any more. Now I don’t get to say that and my lack of cultural mesh is just my fault. I’m just… wrong.

I’d rather be wrong because I said I’m poor white trash than because you’ve just decided to despise me despite my best efforts at being sociable. I’m not as good at the social slams and I don’t really like being around it.

I need to make some different choices. What the fuck.

I feel sad. I feel bad. I feel like I’m doing everything wrong. Define “everything”. I can’t.

I could come up with complaints about my parenting, but they are all fairly minor complaints. In the scheme of things I’m doing ok.

I don’t think I’m doing everything wrong with Noah. He keeps telling me he likes me. When I crawl back into bed after one of my many trips to the bathroom he snuggles me like a teddy bear. Clearly this is a man who has jumped over hoop after hoop after hoop to demonstrate his love for me. Clearly.

Do I think everyone should put as much effort into me as Noah does? Nah. That would be hella annoying. I don’t have anything to exchange on that level and the exchange is most of why it is important.

I want my belly to stop hurting. It’s not food. It’s anxiety. I want my teeth to stop chattering like I am on the verge of crying. I want to stop crying. I want to be less testy.

Where’s my god damn zen state?

Up your butt and around the corner. That’s where it fucking went.

I am so mature.

In other evasive news, I have started making more editing progress. I’m not making it shorter. That will be why I pay a real editor. But I am doing a lot of editing and clarifying points. And this coming week I have three separate days where I have babysitting so I will have more space from the kids. One of those days is just an hour for therapy. Two of the days I will use the time for editing. I have a local teenage baby-sitter and I found a local stay at home mom who wants to do trades. Awesome. She has work she needs to get done too.

I’m not actually doing everything wrong. I just feel like it. I just feel like I’m walking with a black cloud over my head.

I’m not doing everything wrong. When I am less able to be stimulating to my kids, I make sure they have lots of contact with other adults and children. They aren’t being isolated. Yeah, some weeks they get more screen time than they “should”. But they are still well under national average so whatever.

My kid is going to go run a 1.5 mile race tomorrow because she really wants to. I know she can do this distance because I have run much farther with her. I’m not worried about them getting some screen time. Balance, grasshopper.

I’m not eating a balanced diet. I haven’t done meal planning in a while. I’m not sleeping adequately or evenly. I’m not exercising consistently enough. Basically I’m not doing anything to keep my body on an even keel.

See, we all fall down sometimes. It’s not about how many times you fall down. It’s about how many times you get up.

Why do I think Paul should be shunned and not Noah? That question keeps me up at night. How can I justify my own nitpicky hypocrisy? Why are some people beyond redemption and other people aren’t? I don’t know. Why the fuck are they?

“I’ll just stick it in a little.”

Because I still want to beat my head when I think about how stupid stupid stupid stupid I was for being near a piece of shit like you in the first place. Wanting to be near a dirt bag like you sure seems to be indication enough that I deserve whatever I get.

Now I’m picturing Agatha Heterodyne chasing my brain hamsters screaming, “DIE!!!!” (Noah will probably provide a link to an appropriate web page tomorrow. He’s cute like that.)

Why does my cunt matter so much? Because I god damn say it does. Because it does. Because it is part of me. Because I get to decide what is and isn’t important as it goes in and out of there. No one else.

If you don’t understand that basic ownership violation I just… maybe I’m finally out of words.

Confluence of events

1 Reply

The thing about PTSD is cumulative stress is a greater than normal problem. A bunch of “little stressors” combine to make big ones. If I have one piece of support fall down the whole structure is going down. Which is to say, I’ve had a bad week and some. It’s my problem. I’m carefully staying away from the idea of asking for help. When I am already in this state and I start asking for help I don’t react rationally when people appropriately tell me “no”. So I can’t ask at all.

I’m not dealing well with people emailing me to tell me how awesome my rapist is. I find myself crying at random points in the day because all I can hear in my head is what a worthless whore I am. At least he is funny. He even won an award for being so funny.

Uhm. Bully for him?

I am struggling with the fact that the homeschool group is not full of my friends. They are the parents of the kids my kids play with. Leaning on them for emotional support is inappropriate and potentially a hostile environment. They sure as fuck aren’t going to take my side. They want to remain neutral and hear all the points of view. In their world it is totally ok to go to the rapists’ show. He hasn’t done anything to them, after all.

I feel attacked. I don’t think anyone is actually attacking me. I’m pretty sure no one gives enough shits about me to attack me right now. But I feel fully activated for a big fight. I feel scared. I feel unsafe.

I feel like no one is going to like me any way so I might as well be as aggressive as humanly possible just to make sure I don’t end up with the short stick as usual. Which is a privileged, asshole way to respond to problems.

I don’t see much in me worthy of liking lately.

It is hard trying to be “rational” about other people handling their own needs and priorities. I feel abandoned and unimportant.

I am not responding to emails because I have nothing positive to say and I want to unload a big fat self absorbed whine on everyone so I’m just… saying nothing.

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all. Which is a lot of why I haven’t been blogging.

I feel like shit. Physically and emotionally I feel awful. I feel sad. I feel unwanted and stupid and like I should stop bothering people. I should go the fuck away already.

I suppose the upside is I don’t especially feel suicidal or like I want to cut. I just want to hide and avoid everyone.

Who the fuck could like a stupid bitch like me? I’m not funny. I’m not especially worthy of anything.

Just a waste of fucking resources.

What a nice day.

Leave a reply

Woke up late. Breakfast was leftover tea sandwiches from yesterday, so no work. Ran a nice six miles up a hill (and back down of course). Lunch was more leftovers.

We spent the day sleeping. Me and Noah at least. The kids played. Calli napped all afternoon.

Shanna played. We have a very festively decorated sleeping room.

Now the three of them are off on a sushi adventure. I don’t like fish. Better for them to try things without my gagging sounds in the background.

I’m going to go read more now.

Please sir, may I have some more?

3 Replies

After the Easter party I sat my little Shanna down and told her that there is no chance I can do three parties in a month if they all involve her being difficult, contrary, and defiant. I don’t have it in me to give. And given that her birthday was the third of the three… Watch it kid.

Then today we had a tea party. Shanna was angelic in the lead up to the party. She vacuumed. She swept. She picked her toys up with the slightest hint of a request. She made tons of food. She did a lot of the decorating. In short: she made sure I was happy and feeling energetic by the time the party arrived instead of being worn out and cranky. The day before the party both kids insisted that I spent hours resting so I would have lots of energy. They snuggled me while I read.

If every party went like that I could do it weekly. They made the whole process so very wonderful and painless. I was quite effusive in my thanks for their help.

The party was a smashing success–I would say one of the best kids parties I’ve put together so far. We had a range of kids from barely walking to eleven. Girls and boys all participating in every stage equally. The boys dressed up for the party. I thought the outfits were incredibly spiffy. One handsome lad came in a rather posh suit. We had a Hawaiian prince. Not to mention the rainbow gowned beautiful ladies. So much for just pink. All good. They had a wonderful time and dressed *to the hilt*.

They went through far more sugar than necessary. It was hilarious cleaning out the cups at the end. I think kids learned a lot about the solubility of sugar today. Science.

The gluten free cake was surprisingly good. I will get that mix again when I have similar dietary requirements in the future. When everyone else was satisfied after a small piece… I kept eating. I ate ~ 2.5 normal sized pieces. But with how the cake was cut up it looked more like 14 pieces. Ha. Yeah… I’ll buy that again. Mmmm.

When everyone finally trundled out after four hours of delightful fun I went into my room and fell into bed. My nap lasted three hours. When I woke up Noah was home and had done most of the rest of the cleaning up.

I feel so supported by the people in my house. This was a wonderful experience from top to bottom and a lot of it was the help I got from Noah and Shanna. (Calli was more iffi… but she’s three. She made a couple sandwiches and helped pick up toys with a lot more reminders. That’s cool. I am thrilled with her too. I thanked her for all her bits of help.) I think it is funny how strongly my “love language” seems to be “if you show up and do work with me then I will believe that you care about me”.

And it helps that at the end of four hours the mothers had to physically drag their children out because no one wanted to leave.

I’m really grateful that I get to homeschool and I get to build a community of people. My kids are growing up with a pack of children. They are not alone. They are not spending their days being quiet while they listen to boring people drone. They get to decide the flow of their days. I love seeing what they want to do with their time.

I look forward to the future with them so much.

 

 

Up then down.

Leave a reply

Yesterday was rad. The kids and I got along all day. No one had even the slightest hint of conflict. We were all mellow. We went to a super fun birthday party at a trampoline place. I jumped for well over an hour. I am physically exhausted.

So it was awesome sauce that we had a great day. I’m grateful. We needed one.

Then this morning I woke up to an email on my unschooling mailing list inviting me to a show performed by one of my rapists. Now it is 2:30 in the morning and I am completely awake because I have no idea what to do. Should I just ignore it? Should I say something? That will be opening myself up to abuse. Big time.

I think if lots of people got mad at me for “being a liar” right now I don’t have the spoons to manage that. I don’t think I could cope without self harm. That would be too much for me right now. I don’t have a lot of reserve self esteem this minute.

I’m very tempted to not say anything. But that seems kind of evil.

Sometimes it is hard to remind myself that other people really don’t care what has happened to me. They care if they are a potential target and as long as they aren’t then my experiences are irrelevant. Paul wouldn’t hurt them therefore Paul is fine.

I just…

If it was the home school group where I am a well known figure I would speak up in the first instant. I’m not well known on this other list. I only know a handful of people and I don’t know any of the really active list participants. I don’t feel safe enough to say anything.

I’m sorta tempted to move the discussion to the home school list where I *am* known and give the warning that people really shouldn’t bring their kids near him. He’s not a good person.

Not just because of what he did with me. Because I’m not the only story. Because there are a lot of stories from a lot of girls that indicate that his strong personal preference is to be violating the limits of the people around him. He’s not a good person.

But man I’m not up for being attacked as a liar today.

Manifesto of sorts

1 Reply

This article here nicely illustrates why I think my “career” after kids will be in incest research. Eventually I think I will do a lot of international travel to gain as wide of a perspective as possible.

Sometimes I feel scared. It feels like the last stage evolution in my self harm. Ok, if I am not allowed to cut or drink or do drugs or have sex with everyone, fine I will just go take on all the pain of all the incest in the world.

Can I contain that much pain?

I want to understand incest in a way no person currently living does. I’ve read the books. The scholarly ones. The hard ones. The ones by the “experts”. They don’t know enough. No one understands this phenomena, this tradition, this taboo. I want to.

The only thing I can do to help “people like me” is find out all there is to find out and then make that knowledge available. If people understood what they were seeing happen in the people around them better then kids in incestuous families could get help.

Yes, I know there are currently “national networks” who are trying to be resources. They are pretty ineffective. Working under their umbrella would hamper my ability to do what I want.

It’s not fair but I have financial support. I can go do whatever the fuck I want with my time and still have a home to come back to. That’s a privilege. It means I don’t have to conform. It may not be fair, but it’s fucking life.

I want this knowledge. I want to find out how other people deal with this. Do they get past it? Do we think about it until we die? Will I interview people in their 90’s and listen to them cry about things that happened 80+ years ago?

Can I hold that kind of pain?

Would it make their life better to tell the story? Yeah. Probably.

Well, I guess I’ll find out how it goes.

It’s a scary next-stage-career to plan for but I like challenges. Thank goodness I have fourteen more years to plan.

Home schooling is a hard enough job. Holy toledo.

Ok I’m going to put a name on it. I want to be known around the world as the leading expert on incest. Even though that sounds terrible and disgusting and like not something that anyone would want to be.

I do. I want to change peoples lives for the better on a large scale.

Only limiting myself to the topic of incest means it will always be a relatively small pond. *phew*

I like small ponds. Small ponds are awesome. The ocean is scary.

Some day I would like to teach police officers and teachers and doctors how to better serve the needs of this population. Yeah, it’s a weird sub group. But it crosses all barriers of race, class, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic level, religion and culture.

It happens. It happens every day. It has every day for all time. Is it a problem? Well…

I’m 32 and I spend a lot of time crying about it. Does that matter? Is it a problem? When I talk to other incest survivors their reactions range from crying to numbing themselves habitually to just… not remembering anything.

Does that matter? Is that a “problem”? Can it be solved? Does anyone care.

I do.

So when I have spare time I will look into it. Right now I’ve probably used up my forbearance of patience from the kids. Time to go in.

Post-therapy

4 Replies

I was a bitch to my therapist today. I have already apologized. I walked in looking for a fight. I started out the day freaking out.

I’m going to have to deal with this “handwriting makes me feel like an abused child” trigger at some point. I can’t keep freaking out at my kids over it. I will fuck them up.

My therapist voluntarily offered to lower her rate of pay so I can have more babysitting. I really feel bad for being such a bitch today.

We kept having minor misunderstandings about definitions and word choices and I… couldn’t rationally parse them out. I just got defensive and snippy.

I feel hella guilty. And yet if my shrink never sees my bitch-tastic side then… why would she believe me that it exists?

Then I went to a fabulous acupuncture + cupping appointment. First day results are I feel a lot less pain in my neck. I can’t tell much about some of the other stuff. I also went to the gym tonight and did weight training. Like forking everyone has been telling me to do.

I did my forking weight training–ok?!

Looks like I may not make it to Portland this year due to scheduling constraints. That feels like a bummer. But I know extremely busy people. Can’t bitch about people being busy. That’s life.

I guess I’ll just have to run locally. So I don’t forget how. Luckily I’ve picked up an occasional running buddy who lives six miles from my house. And the peasants rejoice: Huzzah.

I got a nasty comment this morning on an older post. I’m not going to look it up again. Something about how my true happiness will be attained through being raped in the butt for days. No, it’s not the first of its kind. I’ve had others. Not a lot. I assume I will get more as the years go by.

Isn’t that how it goes?

Talk about rape: have people tell you that you should be raped. At least I have some snappy come backs: “Already been done! Ha! You are late to the game you slacker!” Err, or maybe not so snappy come backs.

Sigh.

I’m up to 38 books so far this year. I love reading. I think I’m going to try and push myself to hit 52 by June 1st. Only 14 books to go. That is fewer than I read in January. But May is a busier month than January. We’ll see. This year I get to reread. I’m visiting old friends. It is delightful to share their company again.

I think I’ll spend more of that babysitting time reading without disruption. It’s practically a vacation.

My attitude sucks donkey dick and I need to turn it around. I can’t be a cunt all day tomorrow. My free pass expired a while ago. I can’t do this. Be fucking nice, Krissy.

I don’t wanna be nice. I want to hurt people or scream or cry. Something like that. All of those things. Excuse me sir, but may I crack your ribs? I miss hearing that last horrified gasp of pain.

I feel so nasty. My shrink asked if I was up near an anniversary… not really.

I’m just… a bitch. Fuck.

Not a nice person.

6 Replies

Periodically I see references to the idea that every is a good person from their own point of view. Everyone views themselves as the misunderstood protagonist of their own story. Not me. I think of myself as more like an anti-hero. I am not morally superior. If anything I am inferior.

A long time ago it started to seem to me that being a hero was something that just wasn’t available to people like me. I am certainly a protagonist in my story though I am probably mainly an antagonist in other peoples stories.

As Agatha likes to say, “I can work with that.”

I don’t see a lot of point in working hard to be nice.

If I felt physically threatened I probably wouldn’t call the police I probably would beat the shit out of the person threatening me. I’m not so much with the “lawful good” personality trope.

Ok, the first thing I would do is verbally clear up the fact that this person knows it is a really stupid idea to threaten me. That clears up like 99% of issues without violence.

But it is backed up with the real and serious threat of violence. That means I’m not a nice person. I can work with that.

I’m not going around beating people up for casual insults or for doing things I don’t like. I am too apathetic for such shenanigans.  I will only hurt someone if I believe I must do so for self defense. I have experienced an unusually broad range of conflict from mild verbal to physical fights.

Calli turns four in August. Then we all get to enroll in martial arts. Whee! It will be good for us. Maybe they can teach me more control over my abysmal temper.

The goal isn’t now or ever to be a nice person. I want more control over how and when I am not-nice but that doesn’t mean I want to be a nice person.

What makes someone a “good” person or a “bad” person. Are all soldiers automatically bad because they have the potential to kill? Some of them even have. The ones who do kill people tend to come home totally fucked up.

I’ve never killed anyone. Does that make me a good person? But if someone hurt my babies and I thought the police were going to do nothing… Well I don’t feel real bound by the 10 Commandments anyway.

I’d take that person to the desert. My babies are off limits. The penalty for fucking with them is your life.

Does the fact that I will defend my children make me a good person? If I don’t defend my children am I a good person or a bad person? I would be a non-aggressive person. A passive person.

Mostly I just make sure they aren’t alone with people. Not even for a few minutes. And they know ALL the technical names for their body parts and explicitly that anything covered with panties is *private* and people who touch you there mean you harm when you are a kid.

My kids will not be victims.

And I’m very ok with that meaning that I can’t be a nice person. Ok. No problem. I lost that potential long, long ago anyway. I will be fierce instead.

If I were still trying to be a nice person I think I would be paralyzed with fear. I have too much bad in me that might leak out if I say the wrong thing. I might have to stop talking altogether if I wanted to be “nice”.

The little slice of the world I inhabit isn’t very nice. I think it is funny that so many of these writers know only people who think they are nice. Really? I know a lot of people who would laugh at the idea that they are “nice people”.

My shrink says that people who have had easy lives don’t feel comfortable standing near me and that is a lot of why I know so many people with ridiculous trauma histories. She tries to get me to understand that my view of the world is perhaps a bit skewed.

I know a lot of former childhood prostitutes, male and female. I know a lot of people who have been arrested for violence. I know a lot of rapists. I know a lot of people who beat the shit out of people for fun or money. Not like, mafia beat people up or anything.

I didn’t manage to end up friends with the nice fluffy spank-o-philes who just like a nice spanking. I know the people who want to be cut up with razor blades and long whips and turned completely black and blue from all the terrible bruising.

I broke a bone in a scene and didn’t stop the scene for health care. I stayed tied up for hours. We stayed at the party for a while after the scene before we bothered going to the hospital.

Pain is part of my life in a way it isn’t for most people.

I’ve had two hard pregnancies followed by two hellish labors (One unmedicated for 40 hours the other unmedicated for nine days) and neither was anywhere near as painful as when a large man picked me up by my pectoral muscles and shook me like a dog with a toy.

I thought that feeling was so overwhelming I would completely and totally combust from pain. That is still my personal 11. Nothing has been as painful as that.

And I have pictures from a long and storied relationship before that showing how I worked up to it.

Then the week after the hardest scene ever Noah asked me to marry him. Then things changed.

Let me tell you, there is no way to tell the story of me and Noah without it sounding like a rescue mission. All of these pieces fit together and layer.

My Owner was pretty happy with Noah as a partner for me. He gave me Daddy’s permission to date that nice boy. Even Puppy (a not-nice person I dated in between the times I dated Noah) gave me his blessing when I married Noah.

Pretty much all of my ex’s came to my wedding reception. They were all jolly and happy and very glad to see me with someone who wanted to jump through the hoops they were not fucking interested in jumping through.

I feel lucky. Despite the fact that I am not very nice people still love me. As much as I talk about being a raging asshole… that doesn’t actually come out much any more. It did when I was much younger. It did when I was a kid, a teenager. I had it mostly under control by my twenties and I’m doing really well in my thirties.

I think mean thoughts but I mostly keep them to myself. To people I say the nice things I think. I’ve learned better how to filter them at full speed. Like all skills it has taken a lot of practice.

But I’m still not nice. Because if I need to say mean things in order to create the effect I want to create I will fucking well do that and probably not feel bad for more than a few seconds.

I have no problem with being nasty to racists but I’m working on doing it with slightly lower volume because I dislike having my throat hurt from screaming. See, still not nice.

My children are the best mirrors in the world. Children learn to treat you by watching how you treat the world around you. They don’t do what you say they do what you do. I don’t really want my kids to have to deal with the punishments that come with being a screamer. And clearly we are all screamers. So I have to figure out how to change myself.

I can’t get through this by telling them what they must do without changing me first. That really blows.

A friend commented with dismay when his childling heard the definition of rules-lawyering and was happy. “No! Don’t do that!” I encourage my kids to do it. Without yelling. Without pestering.

The pestering rule is kinda my favorite thing. Persistence is awesome! Pestering is annoying. Asking for something more than three times is pestering and then you don’t get to have whatever it is that day.

Bam.

When my kids ask for something a second time all I have to say is, “That is your second request.”

And they zip up their lips faster than you can say, “Bob’s y’er uncle.”

I get the impression they react pretty much how I react when someone says their version of “You are getting close to a boundary.”

React with glee! They are defining themselves for you! This is a good thing!

When people used to ask me to leave the morning after a pick up I took that as a sign of healthy boundaries and I left happy to know that I hadn’t over stayed my welcome.

I like my house. I like that I am not going to be kicked out. I can make it as weird as I want to. It’s ok. I have permission. I don’t need no fucking permission. Something. Anything. I can do it to my house.

Kind of crazy.

I look at the houses around me and think, “Man we have different aesthetics.” My neighborhood is full of people doing shit to their houses. Some are gentrifying. Some are just doing general maintenance and repairs to the facades they created decades ago. They like the look of it.

My house right now is just one of the shittier ones (from the outside) in the neighborhood. Not quite derelict, but man do we need to do some repainting. Shabby. Not improved upon since the 1950’s.

Meh. I don’t want to spend the money so I ignore it.

We all channel our frustrations in different ways. I have lots of control issues and I’m not a very nice person. Only I can be very nice and very polite and great to talk to.

Isn’t that why sociopaths are so dangerous (not that I’m a sociopath–too much empathy)? They are so charming. I don’t have to be nasty just because I’m not a nice person.

So many layers.

Noah says I’m consistent. I think I have so many special cases that it is weird that he can find consistency.

I think it is much healthier that I now side track onto thinking about home improvement projects rather than sex or being hurt. I know that I will have to make my own status in this life. I inherit nothing positive. People think of me only as a sum of what they can see.

I can get away with whatever I try hard enough to get away with. If I want to have a community I have to go out and fucking meet the people around me and introduce myself and consistently say “Hi” and smile for years.

Having a distinctive yard is helping. “Oh! You did that!” Yup.

Small pond. A very small pond. I want to be a big fish in a very small pond. That’s all I have the spoons for. I know all those other lakes and rivers and oceans exist but they are kinda scary for me. I like my very small pond.

Here everyone walks to the table completely neutral to one another. We have no preconceived associations other than the most gross (meaning large–not necessarily yucky) and general racial and sexual assumptions.

It was just dumb luck. We happened to move to the same neighborhood during the same span of time. Let’s talk.

I have lived here longer than anywhere else in my whole life. I want to know my neighbors the way other people got to get to know their elementary school peers. I want it.

My kids need community. Communities happen when people create them. Just keep doing things.

I’m not a nice person. But I can be quite charming and fun when I put my mind to it. When I try.

This is why I try to limit my time with people to the amount of control I have to give.

I am an angry girl. But I’m not angry with you. And I try hard to differentiate my behavior better than that. You are not a representative sample of your group to be punished for the whole. No one is. No scapegoats here.

We are not a collective. We are a bunch of individuals. That is why change is so hard. It can’t be mass taught or enforced. It has to be lead.

People aren’t willing to dramatically change their opinion in public. That would mean losing face.

Grow the fuck up.

Sex is weird.

6 Replies

For some value of sex I’ve been sexually active for a bit over thirty years. But most of that early stuff doesn’t count. That was abuse. I asked someone to fuck me for the first time twenty years ago. It feels crazy that it was so long ago.

Noah took me to Carmel for the first time ten years ago. That is where he got me roaring drunk and introduced me to the wonders of anal sex.

Before and after Noah I had lots of other partners. I’ve tried a lot of different kinds of sex. I still get surprised all the time. It doesn’t go how I think it will. I react emotionally in ways I don’t anticipate. I physically react in ways that surprise me.

Shouldn’t I know how to do this already? But I don’t. I’m still learning. I wonder if I will ever feel like I really know what I’m doing.

Even so many years into marriage sex is still surprising. We had a lovely weekend. Lots of raunchy sex like we used to do all the time. Just like old times. Only this time it was different. It isn’t like old times.

Now when things start hurting I can’t dissociate any more. I get angry. Then I start crying. I didn’t used to do that. This is new. This feels… awful. I feel like a failure at sex. Noah says that when I stop him during the fourth time in less than twenty-four hours I don’t get to feel like a failure. He says I was willing to try and go as far as I could before my body says stop. That’s success for sex.

Only…

A long time ago someone told me that an orgasm isn’t the point of sex. I believe I started guffawing like a donkey and pointing at them. Wheezing while I stammered out, “Not the point…. Orgasm isn’t the point of sex…” I thought that was funny.

I think I’m kind of fucked up in how I think sex is about orgasm. If it doesn’t end in an orgasm I kind of don’t want to give myself a mark on the quota tally sheet. It doesn’t count. I wussed out. I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t satisfy you so it doesn’t count.

But I don’t dissociate like I used to. I really can’t do it with the kids around. I have had to change my body awareness a lot over the past few years in order to not space out and ignore them. I have to pay attention. I have to keep them safe.

I’ve been thinking really hard about what I had to do to be a slave. It was very hard. He didn’t want to know anything about my trauma history and I had to keep all of my emotional messiness pretty much in check. In some ways it was good for me to learn. I’m glad he was kind enough to not marry me. He would have been a bad husband.

A lot of things Noah doesn’t actually want me to do. Noah wants to know when I’m upset. He will change his behavior based on my emotional state. He is considerate and caring.

When I started freaking out he physically backed off but was verbally very supportive. I can’t complain about how Noah treats me.

It’s weird. Sex is becoming more vulnerable by the year. I didn’t expect that. I thought of sex as being kind of like running. You go do it and you learn the physical motions and that is that.

But that really isn’t what sex is about. It is… but the physical parts may be some of the least important bits.

I don’t know how I feel about all this. I dislike how volatile I feel lately. I know I’m due to start bleeding any day. I could blame it on that. But I don’t think that is all of it.

I’m really glad I have a partner who is patient with me.

Leave a reply

I think I use Twitter as the way to lean over and kind of whisper in Jenny’s ear. I know she reads my blog but it’s different. She interacts on Twitter.

Today is going to be a good day. I wish I hadn’t woken up crying, but there you go. I miss my mom. It is an inconvenient fact of my life. I can pretend it isn’t true all I want but that doesn’t alter reality. I will probably always miss her.

Thirty years so far.

Yesterday the kids wanted to talk about the Loma Prieta earthquake again. (We’ve been talking about disaster response stuff.) They finally got around to the point of asking why my cousin had to rescue me–where were my mom and dad?

I started crying. I was glad I was driving because they couldn’t see my face.

During the Loma Prieta earthquake I lived in a house built on the side of a mountain just a few miles away from the fault line. Our house rocked off its foundation. It was pretty scary. I was alone in the house and after the quake my cousin ran in and grabbed me and carried me out past all the broken glass and debris. I wouldn’t have been able to get out without injury. I was seven.

Some day I will write more about my cousin Daryl. It will sound exactly like all the “my cousin Daryl” jokes you have ever read only it freakin’ happened. I’m waiting until I see obituaries though because he’s a nice guy. He’s just… a little slow. Stuff happened. It’s a long story. Later.

But they’ve been asking for more details. “Where was your mom?”

I didn’t want to tell them that my mom was sitting Shiva next to my brother’s bed while he was lying in a coma.

Where was my father? Living not far from where my brother was in a hospital. He tried hard to keep my mother from being there.

I had just gotten back from Texas. I was with Auntie because no one else was willing to take me. I wanted to be closer to my mom but none of our extended family were willing to tolerate me because I was such an unpleasant child.

Sometimes it is surreal to me how often people comment on my children being good. I was told I was bad all the time by freakin’ everyone. I don’t understand how I have come through that with the ability to do anything right.

Now I understand why I set them off. I get it. I wouldn’t let a sexually inappropriate child in my house either. I need to keep my kids safe.

It’s a no-win situation.

Sometimes it is weird feeling like I am ok as an adult but even me-as-an-adult would shun me-as-a-child. It is right that all people shun such monsters.

The day is supposed to be good but it is starting out pretty mixed. I have medication to fix this.

I don’t choose to spend my day stewing about the fact that people I don’t know any more didn’t like me as a child. Oh well. Nothing I can do about it now.

Are those kids monsters though? I didn’t molest everyone. Just the other kids with poor boundaries. I did well with people who had firm boundaries.

By the time my kids are tweens I hope that if a young sexually inappropriate child came over things would be ok. My kids would understand about sex and boundaries and when the kid needed to be told to stop it would happen in a natural and appropriate way.

If there is a God–that is what I’m praying for. My kids will know how to have boundaries. Not because they have been hurt but just because they have been taught to know the limits of their comfort and prioritize their needs for safety. That sounds weird. I don’t know how to describe it.

I want my kids to learn who they are as being separate from the people around them. “Just because you want x doesn’t mean I have to want it.” “Just because someone asked me to do y doesn’t mean I have to.”

I struggle with this. Still. This is a pervasive problem. If someone asks me to do them a favor… I don’t really say no.

I no longer have sex with anyone who looks at me too long. I appreciate the buffer that is my kids. I’m aware that if I went longer periods without them around I would miss the hunt more. I worry about the future.

It scares the shit out of me that Noah is who I have. I have friends–but if things blew up with Noah I would be pretty much on my own. Not that we are having problems. Not that having Noah is bad (I can see how the wording of this paragraph is ambiguous.) it’s more that I worry about solitary systems. I like back ups. I don’t really have many back up plans.

I read in survivor books that “I have to make this work” is one of the keys to developing true problem solving resiliency in the face of serious problems.

This dude (Al Siebert is my favorite author on that topic) is almost exclusively talking about work problems. He’s not a trauma writer.

Trauma writers don’t really know how people get over things. It’s A Mystery. (Ok, some people believe they have the explanation but I’ve read enough directly conflicting accounts that I’m pretty skeptical.)

People write about getting through concrete business problems. They write about getting over financial hurtles. There is much less conflict on the resulting opinions. Which makes me feel a little more secure about thinking, “These tactics may actually have some level of moderate effect.”

I’m not a business. I’m just some chick. I don’t really have financial problems. In a time and place where many people are struggling we… aren’t. It’s because Noah picked the right obsession in early childhood. It doesn’t seem fair. But then again, what is fair?

I’ve read a lot of marriage advice books too. “We can’t get divorced” is as good a reason as any to stay married. Neither Noah nor I have anywhere to go if we left one another. He and I are both uhm weird in ways that make us very hard to match up. We would find other people to date–sure. We are both rather trampy like that. But we match.

Noah is the only person who has ever really wanted to know my story. He’s the only one who wants to be there every morning whether I want to have sex or whether I need to cry. He doesn’t need me to be a one trick pony. I can be a lot of different things.

My Owner could help me calm down after a nightmare but he explicitly didn’t want details and he went right back to sleep after the initial panic subsided.

Before Noah my Owner was by far the nicest person to me I had ever lived with.

Yes, there are other people who are caring in the world. It’s a big picture compatibility thing.

We are having a date tonight. It’s a Godmama weekend. I am kidnapping him and running away with him. We will return on Sunday. This is perhaps our last chance to do a weekend mini-break sorta thing for a while.

We are negotiating things we don’t seem to be able to do in our house. I seem to be developing a lot more boundaries around bdsm play in my house. It doesn’t feel like bdsm it feels like domestic violence. They are very different.

I think I need to know that it’s not ok to make me grovel in my house. Fuck you.

Which is weird considering some of the things we talk about doing after the kids are grown. Am I going to need all of it to be done while traveling? That’ll get weird.

I don’t know.

What I want is to someday build a room on a second story and that is the only place I’ll act like that. And my kids can’t come in. Ever. No matter how I’m dressed.

Boundaries are interesting. Everyone has their own. They are what make you interesting and unique.

I like being with Noah. I worry about it not feeling like a choice and instead it feeling like I “have to” stay. Because I don’t have anyone else.

It is hard to know that I probably could never again attain this degree of emotional intimacy with anyone else. Partially because of sheer time spent and partially because Noah went out and memorized a lot of things about behavior and human interaction and family dysfunction before he ever got to me.

Let’s not forget the massage training. And the cooking classes. I swear the boy trained up for me. And he didn’t even know me.

In turn, Noah’s grateful to have access to my uhhh range of skills. Trades are good.

It’s good to be valued for what you have to give. There are a lot of things I’m not. If Noah spent a lot of time pining for those things our lives would be pretty hard. Instead he says thank you for being what I am.

He wants me to pay attention to him. He likes that I track his projects and prod him along and care about the results too. It makes him feel important. He tries harder because I give him his gold star. (Although he came home with a work evaluation yesterday that makes my gold stars look as pathetic in comparison as they are. I’m too snarky. Apparently he deserves flowery florid praise. I’m not the girl for that.)

He probably eats more vegetables because I encourage it. He goes to the gym partially because I praise the efforts. “If I have to stay alive–so do you, motherfucker.” Staying alive is more effort than it looks. We have these kids to teach about life. Exercise is part of it.

I feel really proud of the way that Noah has kind of settled into the traces. That sounds bad. He’s not trying to merge the party lifestyle and the parent lifestyle and I’m fucking grateful. I don’t really miss it. I’m glad I’m not dealing with my kids on the weekend while hungover or tired.

Instead both of us decided that this portion of our life is the only time we will have to hang out with our little kids. So we are doing it. Because we wanted them so bad. It only seems fair.

Not many things in life are fair, kiddos, but every once in a while you luck out.

We will have a nice day. At some point I will stop crying. Stupid tears.

We are spoiled and pampered and I’m going to stop and notice that today. I feel very grateful for the life I have. Things haven’t always been this way for me. Today I’m going to drive past the house I lived in during the Loma Prieta earthquake and I’m going to think about how far I have come.

They are all still there. My Auntie and all of her kids. My mom is either there or with my sister.

And I will drive right by. Who is rejecting whom? It’s a whirlwind.

In twelve more years if Shanna wants me to take her, I will. I won’t bring it up. I kind of hope she doesn’t think to ask. They will not be able to hurt her and they will love her. They will think she is wonderful.

They will like Calli too. But I think Calli would like them less. We’ll see. There is a lot about her personality I can’t see yet. She’s not quite four.

I think Shanna will want to meet them at least a few times and she will feel basic affection. I get the impression Calli is going to hate them for hurting her Mama. That’s the vibe I get. I’m not really encouraging either response. I answer questions about my family with as few words as I can. I’m as neutral as I can be. They will make up their own minds as best as I am able to allow.

We are leaving our laptops home. I don’t plan to bring my phone out of my backpack all weekend.

Rest is good for you, I hear.

Give me my cookie.

4 Replies

I’m a pretty standard kid of my generation in many ways. If you want me to do something: you need to give me my fucking cookie as a reward or things won’t go so well. I need rewards. Gold stars. Stickers. Approval. Validation.

I need it to confirm that I’m doing the right thing. Or I don’t know. And I spend a lot of time freaking out.

Yesterday and today have been the kind of days where I’m getting validation in my choice to do what I’m doing with my life. Not because everyone should be like me. Not because I’m perfect. Not because I am better than a single other person because I’m doing what I’m doing.

That’s not it.

We went to see doctors for the kids. I think it is funny how doctors are such a negative force for me personally and they have been this really positive force for my kids. Irony.

We were told to try Claritin for three days and if it doesn’t clear up our symptoms then we do just keep getting colds that drag on for months–bummer. Ok dude.

I reported the eye tic. He shrugged. They are very normal and common. No big deal.

I told him about how sad Calli gets sometimes. I told him that I don’t tell him this because I think she is depressed at this point but given that she has protracted (for her) periods of slight withdrawal I thought I should come in and fill him in on some family medical background. I told him it will be really important over the years for him to build a specific relationship with my kids to watch them for areas that I am not catching.

We talked about our growing library of books on bodies, feelings, coping with life circumstances (of a pretty freakishly broad array of life circumstances my kids have never and will never experience). He said that he thinks my kids are very lucky to have a parent who wants to teach these things specifically.

We talked about how my kids will have to be watched for mental illness issues. They have stuff from both sides. Teaching them essentially therapeutic skills from their earliest development is pretty much the ideal environment for kids like mine. Genetics are a really interesting thing. Trauma changes your kids DNA. Nature and nurture weave together to create amazing things.

The optometrist was a really good sport about testing Shanna’s eyes and getting her to inadvertently prove that she could read the letters just fine with no help. He was tactful and awesome. At the end he told her that she was right–clearly she needs glasses but unfortunately her prescription is so heavy that she can’t wear the glasses yet. She needs to be about twelve before her neck will be strong enough to carry all that weight. Until then she should eat vegetables and do the eye exercises I (her mom) assign so she can hopefully lighten the prescription a little so it doesn’t hurt too badly. Awesome dude.

Then there are all the random people who talk to us when we are out.

The delighted older woman at Kaiser who watched us play in the rain. She looked to be in her seventies or eighties. She was struggling along with a cane. She stopped to smile and say, “I always loved to play in the rain but my mother wouldn’t let me. I’m so glad you let them play.”

Later in a store a Middle Eastern man (I mention this solely because he is in a demographic that very rarely talks to me randomly in public) commented on my parenting. He watched me start to ignore Shanna then realize I was doing it, apologize, then backtrack to acknowledge what she was trying to show me.

I had manners. Like you do.

After that I was just standing around waiting for them to finish what they were doing and he told me that yesterday was bring your child to work day. He has three daughters. The youngest is seven and he brought her. He said her behavior was no where near as appropriate as my daughters and “How old are they?” !!!!!!

He said a few more things but in the end he told me that watching me with my kids makes him think that maybe the problem in his family is that he isn’t paying enough attention to his kids. He doesn’t think he has ever apologized for ignoring his kids and he thinks he should start. He thanked me and went on his way.

I got my cookie.

Leave a reply

Last night the kids and I watched “Brother Bear” a Disney movie. I’m sorry I watched it. The kids couldn’t figure out why I was crying so hard.

There is this song where the human-tranformed-into-a-bear recognizes that he killed the mother of the cub without justifiable provocation. He realizes he is the monster. “I did a bad thing” is more or less the theme of the song.

I started hysterically crying. I’ve done so many bad things. There is nothing I can do to fix any of it.

And the ending of the movie is him deciding to stay a bear to raise the cub–out of love. Not out of guilt.

My brother picked loyalty to a dead rapist over me after I did a bad thing.

I feel so much of the time like I did a bad thing.

I feel like I’m choking on the crying. I want to cut so much. I want to lock myself in the bathroom and give me a reason to cry.

I was brought up with the belief that you aren’t allowed to cry unless you have been physically hurt. Maybe that is why I have always liked cutting so much.

This is what they mean by “trigger”. Not “I felt uncomfortable” but “I will hysterically cry for days and be unable to stop the tears”. Because something reminded me that worthless whores aren’t worth picking.

Maybe if I had been an actual innocent kid people would have believed me or supported me or helped me.

But I must have deserved it. No one wanted to help me.

How can I stop feeling like it is all my fault?

Mama

Leave a reply

In the night

sometimes my kids say in their sleep,

“I need you Mama.”

I need you too.

I need you to heal this hole inside me.

It was formed when I was three.

“Mama, I need you”

but she wasn’t there.

She still isn’t there.

My mama picks rapists. Not me.

So I go to my kids.

I try to not wake them up with my crying.

I have to let the tears roll down my face in silence.

No shaking. Must not sob.

Mama. I need you Mama. Where are you?

Never again.

No comfort for me.

Just the comfort I give.

Calli says, “I need you Mama.”

I need you too.

You are all I have.

Not usually a late starter

Leave a reply

I didn’t do much other than read to the kids and sit around dazed through the morning. I napped. I woke up around lunch time. Then I napped again. Then I talked to a friend on the phone and sat very still. I don’t feel well.

But after dinner I edited the book gasp! I also went on a lovely run with Shanna. I am very happy that exercising together is a consistent way for us to positively bond. Tonight she went 1.75 miles. She ditches me on sprints and I slowly catch up Pepe Le Pew like. She is convinced that together we will train to win ALL the races. I say, ok ma’am but you will have to do the scheduling for the training. That sounds like a job.

I’m thinking about screwing myself over financially. By “screwing myself over financially” I mean paying off my mortgage approximately one year later than I originally wanted to have it done–which is early on a fifteen year mortgage.

Perspective is important here.

 

Nightmares and such.

1 Reply

I feel like I live in this place where I am supposed to pretend that everything is all hunky dory–NO PROBLEMS HERE so that I don’t make other people uncomfortable.

I don’t ever want to be raped again. I’m firm on that in a way I wasn’t earlier in my life. I used to, fairly seriously, just expect that it would happen no matter what–so what.

I think I would rather die. And that’s kind of weird. When I was younger I was very contemptuous of the rape victims who treated it like a good enough reason to die. If you think you should have to die if you lack “honor” as defined as a maidenhead then lets line up all the motherfucking men and shoot them now. Not one of the bastards has a hymen.

Oh wait–it’s ok for them to not have a hymen? Then it’s god damn ok for me to not have one anymore too.

I believed, when I was young and stupid, that having sex–even sex I didn’t want and was saying “no” to–made me an adult. I thought I was just … what’s that gamer phrase? Leveling up?

By the time I was ten years old I could look around a room of adults and guess which ones had less sexual experience than me. I thought that made me better than them.

Now I weep over it and ensure that my daughters will not in any way shape or form have access to the kind of education I had.

It’s not about keeping them “pure”. It has nothing to do with that. Who they (consensually) fuck or don’t fuck won’t be any of my business. Keeping them safe while they are children and sex isn’t appropriate is my job. It’s not about “purity”. I don’t give a shit about their hymen one way or another. It is irrelevant to my experience of them.

However my kids have read enough anatomy books that they have a way above grade level understanding of how bodies work. They know as much at their age as I knew. Only all their knowledge is theoretical with a strong underlining chant “Not till after puberty”.

Ok, they don’t know 1/10 of what I knew.

But they know a lot more than their peers. They have spent a lot of time looking at anatomy drawings and talking about the prostate and how weird it is that girls get a urethra and a vagina and boys only get the urethra for pee and baby making. That’s so weird. (I hear.) Shanna wants to know if pee can start a baby just like sperm does.

I think I kind of coughed no and changed the subject.

My kids are very well versed in “red flag” touches and “tricky people” and they have no knowledge of “stranger danger”. Strangers aren’t the problem. Your friends are the potential problems.

I love watching Shanna do sword play with the little boys. She is learning how to negotiate her boundaries. She is learning that some kinds of bossing work better than others. And a full throated roar is often the fastest way to get a pack of people doing what you want.

That’s my girl.

It doesn’t always work. And sometimes people get mad at you. Tools are like that. Not every problem needs a hammer. Sometimes you use a hammer and you get in big trouble. Doesn’t mean a hammer is a bad tool.

I feel so sad. I’m not sure exactly why.

A lot of people came yesterday. They are all very nice people. If I added up all the hours I have spent with every person at that party individually I think it would be at less than a week.

I know a lot of people. But I don’t spend very much time with anyone in particular. I spread around my time. It’s the only way I have found to ensure I don’t overwhelm people and ask for too much and hurt the friendship.

Manure is a funny thing. A little bit of it is good for your soil–even necessary. But if you plop on too much and it’s too fresh you will kill your plants.

terrible trouble terrible trouble terrible trouble terrible trouble terrible trouble

It’s always coming. If I say the wrong thing they won’t come back. If I am too violent or mean or aggressive they won’t come back. Don’t scare anyone. Don’t be rude. Don’t talk about subject that might bother people. Don’t dominate the conversation. Don’t be too loud. Don’t be too defensive.

If I stay in a world where I make sure I only deal with women then I can kinda sorta follow the rules and tone down enough that they will keep me around because I work like a dog. I take on the man role in a group of women. I do the butch physical labor and I love it.

But when I’m in a mixed environment I have to deal with the fact that my life is populated by men who have raped. And I am not supposed to be defensive or aggressive or anything like that. No matter what has happened to me. I’m supposed to be encouraging and sweetness and light. I’m supposed to make them feel like the big strong men.

But what if I’m raped again? In their rulebook the only option is to close my eyes and wait for it to be over. I disocciate incredibly quickly. I wouldn’t even really feel it until later when the ache set in. Would that even count?

“Oh don’t be so paranoid. Who would rape you?” Want a list?

Yes, it hasn’t happened in 7 years. Have you noticed how that time span overlaps with my marriage and me not being alone with men.. basically at all?

Ok, sometimes I will be alone in a room as long as other people are in the house. Sometimes I will walk alone on a side walk because passers-by happen and there are houses so I could scream. I have risked that kind of “alone time” with men.

The only time I have been alone in a house with a man was when I went and asked the guy to apologize for putting a taser on my cunt. I was shaking like a leaf the whole fucking time.

When someone says, “Get over it” really they mean “stop making this impact me” and it would be far more expedient if they said the second instead of the former. That is a useful bit of feedback. Boundaries.

I would really like to stop having nightmares. I would like to believe I am safe.

I could go down a list of ways I do feel safe. I am a privileged person living in the first world. I am not worried about popular insurrection or genocide suddenly occurring in my neighborhood. No asshole government (Thanks USA) is going to drop a bomb on my house. (I am pretty ashamed of my government.) I have food security. I have secure housing. I have enough money in the bank that I could survive quite a few small to medium financial disasters and come out on top.

I believe that Noah will never rape me again. (Now that’s a long story. I’m still here because consent is a very complicated creature. I will never again promise in advance to do something I may or may not want to do at the time.) But sometimes I know in the deepest part of my heart that every woman who has ever been raped has had a period of time where they believed that about the husband/boyfriend/family member/friend who rapes them.

Noah has worked so hard at gentling his manner. And sometimes that sets me off because it seems like predator behavior to me. It’s the honey moon stage. Only it’s been 99% of our relationship and one huge fuckup that was as much my fault as his. (When you give consent in advance but then change your mind it is a very complicated muddle of blame.) We like to joke about Stockholm Syndrome.

I have never liked how someone treats me as much as I like how Noah treats me. He gets mad at me for saying things but he doesn’t tell me to stop. He will argue for why he thinks it is a shitty thing to do, but he doesn’t boss me. He doesn’t tell me who I have to be.

He married an angry fucking woman. He knows it and he tries to deflect the blasts to prevent scorching and he otherwise tries to be as supportive as he can be.

He makes me fucking breakfast every morning. And he frequently makes dinner when he gets home from work. I don’t have a husband. I have a working wife. (My former therapist was a Berkeley dyke and she liked to talk about Noah being a Berkeley dyke with a dick he unfortunately can’t put in a drawer.)

Noah is a partner.

So it feels really bad when he’s being painted as the enemy. Noah is the only person alive who wants to stand next to me every day and make my life better. When I get stuck and I don’t know to take a next step he helps me work it out.

He built me a sales page for my book. If you want to buy it: here it is. That’s because of Noah. Not because he wants me to hurry up and make money and support him. Ha. Not because he wants me to hurry up and stop stealing his money.

Because he thinks my writing is good and he thinks people should be able to buy it and read it. Because he believes that people should know about the things I talk about. Because instead of silencing me he wants to do what he can to amplify my message.

I can’t construe Noah as the enemy unless I do contortions and backflips and then look through a two way mirror the wrong way. I am more my own enemy in this marriage than Noah is my enemy.

Noah’s a kid who grew up and found a girl he liked and he’s trying as hard as he can to make everyone happy. Once he thought it might make me happy to have him rape me. That turned out to be more complicated than we understood. He is not my enemy. He is not someone I need to punish.

But he’s not the one who can rescue me either. He can do the wife thing, and he’s a fucking good one. But that’s not the same thing. Wives are not white knights.

(If you assume that the title “wife” is assigned after noticing what sets of duties someone does instead of looking at their crotch then it’s a fairly clear role. A knight should function fairly similarly in my opinion.)

Sometimes it is so hard. On one hand: you can tell the story so that no one is the enemy. Everyone is a “victim”. On the other hand: the fact that I was abused so terribly does not give me the right to climb on a bell tower and take a bunch of people out.

I do kind of think that undergoing an extensive many decades long process of becoming more violent … at some point you are going to be to blame for continuing to be that person.

I don’t hit my kids. That is one of the most important rules of our household. I don’t hit my husband. No one else gets to hit either.

If some dude casually gropes me “just as a flirtation” I have the right to break his nose and do pretty much anything else I want to do right in that moment. I have no reason to believe he will stop at a casual thing and I have too much to lose.

Kill first, ask questions later.

No, I don’t need to be less violent to the men who touch me.

I get that I should not be verbally attacking every person who stands near me over nothing. Duh.

I’m actually a very pleasant conversationalist. I can find conversations anywhere with anyone. I will find a way to get them to talk to me. And it’s not through being violent or scary. I can be quite charming. Downright non-threatening. People tell me how calm and safe I make them feel.

I don’t hit kids who touch me in inappropriate ways but I do give them sharp verbal feedback about the boundaries of my body.

The violence I feel seems… ya’ know… warranted.

I’m struggling really hard with how to talk to alllllll the men who ain’t never done nothing to no one and they are so fucking sick of being treated like they are a rapist and a monster and blah blah YOU HURT MY FEELINGS AND YOU OWE ME AN APOLOGY.

Ok, now I feel violent towards you too. Because you expect me to accommodate your feelings while stomping on mine.

I’m sorry my trauma inconveniences you. I will try to do my house keeping better.

You know how you can tell you have a good house keeper? You never see that anything needs to be done. It is invisible behind your back. I am an excellent house keeper.

My mom started working at Ross Dress for Less when I was twelve. I would hang out during her working hours because I had no where else to be. So I helped.

I have always been good at taking a random assortment of “what the fuck is this?” and creating order. When I was older and I worked for Ross I was moved from store to store clearing out the stock backups because I worked faster than crews of 5-7 people all by myself.

Probably what Noah thinks of as a 10x engineer or approaching it.

It “doesn’t matter” only that’s a serious skill. Yes, I used it in department stores–but I also used it in my class room and in my house.

I get a random huge pile of shit and I can figure out what to do with it all in a very short period of time. I don’t have to stop and think and ponder and wonder. Keep/trash/recycle. Kitchen/bedroom/playroom/garage/living room. Move big stacks. Put it ALL AWAY PROPERLY.

This is just how I do things. I go through months of not actually keeping up and then it takes me 30 or so hours to get it back to baseline so I can coast for a while.

It’s harder with kids. They tear things apart so fast.

Yesterday I was bitching to Noah about how defiant Shanna is getting and how annoyed I was. So I went into the garage and picked up the six year old book in the magical series I love. Guess what the title is? Loving and Defiant. hahahahahahahaha

I love these books.

I now have a much better idea of how I need to arrange my spoons over the next few months. I am going to grab the idea of “three chances” and run with it. I am going to have to sit on my yelling no matter what. This is a phase. It will pass. If I scream a lot the thing we will remember from this period is that I was a screaming harpy. We will both forget that she was a gigantic pain in my ass.

I hope all we remember long term is that the Easter parties are ridiculously fun. I will forget how tired I was from all the work. I think I nailed the behavior profile I was shooting for. I’m proud of myself.

I managed to refer to hot tawdry days of yore without making it seem indecent at all. I was proud of myself for that G-rated explanation. *pat self on back*

There were representative samples from the home schooling group, dancing, Noah’s work, Noah’s college life, neighbors, the poly community and former uhh partners-now friends.

Everyone got along great. It was very kid appropriate the whole time.

Then I crash. And want to spend a day crying. There is some part of this trade that isn’t working and I don’t understand yet what it is. I’m not still irritated about the My Little Ponies. We kept hunting till bed time and eventually found two. I can think of myself as some random middle school kid who got similar donations from friends. I can let that one rest.

But man still feelings. Explosions of feelings. Tornadoes of feelings.

My head hurts so much. I have lots of allergies. And I’m physically tired from the twelve mile run on Saturday. But the massage was miraculous.

Dinno. I’m a puzzle.

Hosting is always a learning experience.

Leave a reply

I understand that the below bit sounds a little ranty. It is not actually something that ruined my day or anything. It was a really excellent party. It was lovely to see everyone. 35 people came which means we lost about 10% of the RSVP list and far exceeded my catty assumption. Ok, I’ll be less suspicious next time.

I had great verbal exchanges with every single party guest I think; I managed at least a sentence or two. The kids got along pretty well once we instituted the “only soft swords” rule. (Err, technically another mom was there and did it. Thanks!) Much candy was consumed by all. We have very little left and most of what we have left was delivered by a neighbor as an auxiliary present. We have tasty leftovers for days. I’m thrilled. The house was entirely cleaned up by 2:30. Well… there is one more load to go through the dishwasher. But that’s it.

All told I think I spent about sixty hours on this event. Shopping, cleaning, more cleaning, more fucking cleaning, gardening, food prep, egg prep, decorating, etc. When we are going to have a party that is the time when I go through and actually clean off all the surfaces because usually they are piled high with shit. I do this for two reasons:

  1. If people walk into a clean house then they try to clean up after themselves because it is obvious that they have made a change in the environment.
  2. People are less likely to break things. I don’t know why this is true but I’ve tried experiments.

All that extra cleaning is pretty hard work. Even just filling the fucking eggs. That took like three hours while I sat and watched The West Wing. Again. They are starting to feel more like my friends than any of my friends. I think there might be something kind of wrong with me.

Some of the things I learned for next year: the hunt is only for kids ten and under. I have feelings. I am not angry about anything, but I want to have a different outcome to a particular situation.

I spent a lot of money on toys for the eggs. Probably actually more than I should have. I bought a bunch of My Little Pony figurines because all the kids are really into them. I divvied them out into eggs knowing that I would *have to be ok* with the possible outcome of most/all of the toys going to one or two kids and everyone else getting none. Including my kids getting none.

Yup, my kids got none. That’s fine. We don’t exactly need more shit. I’m pretty happy that the only “things” they came through Easter getting are some bubble wands they will break in two weeks, a lunch pail, handle bar streamers, and two small stuffed animals. Sweet. The nice great aunt who usually sends them so much shit I can’t count it all went light this year.

But I’m having some feelings about the big kids who don’t actually play with my kids getting all the toys so they can bring them to school and share them with their friends there.

I didn’t intend to donate a bunch of toys to middle schoolers I don’t know.

I’m having feelings. I feel kind of like I did something for my community of kids I know and have relationships with and… this kid I only kind of know decided that it should instead go to this outside community. It’s not the kid’s fault that we don’t know each other very well. I sort of feel like I am punishing and I don’t mean it that way. If this kid wanted to come to the party next year and be a big kid helper I would be thrilled. It isn’t that this persons presence is a problem.

Feelings.

I could solve this by not buying toys next year but I don’t think that is the solution. I think the solution is saying that the hunt is for kids ten and under. Even if it was one of our six year old friends who got them all to take home I think I would feel differently.

The toys would probably be things that my kids could go and visit and play with that way even though my kids didn’t “get” them. I’d be throwing a line out into the community and creating a path for more friendship and play.

Instead someone we don’t really see much and who doesn’t play with my kids much will go give them away at school.

I have feelings.

Kids ten and under. Kids over ten can buy their own damn toys.

No one did a darn thing wrong. I didn’t realize that I had this underlying need/hope thing about the toys. That was my mistake for not knowing in advance what kind situation I was trying to create.

I *don’t* want to shun older kids (especially not the kid in question) but life moves in stages. There are things you do at some ages that you stop doing at other ages. That doesn’t have to be a mean, terrible punishment. Maybe I could figure out some kind of big kid alternative activity for next year.

Actually, that would be awesome. I bet I could come up with something that would be more interesting than just walking around picking up eggs from the middle of the grass.

I don’t want to punish. But sometimes I do something with a really specific goal in mind and once I understand what that goal is then I want to work towards it as much as I can.

There is a place for big kids in our house and at our parties and in our lives. But they do different things. We have enough up and coming babies that I think that having a slower paced hunt where the little kids don’t have to run to find stuff… would be more what I’m looking for.

I’ll have to think about what the big kids could do. Luckily I have a year to plan.

I am really enjoying throwing an Easter party every year. Every other forking holiday is already solidly overbooked for everyone in my life. I’m camping on Easter in a totally-non-Christian way. This is about the American holiday “Easter” rather than Christian beliefs and it is kind of interesting to see how that is shaping out.

Atheism is kinda weird, yo. Not that our kids are atheists. Shanna is very firm that she believes in God. All of them. You just need to call on the right one for that day. I love my kid so much.

Go find the ally you need today. You won’t always have the same needs. You will change. Your needs will change. Some people will be good at taking care of you under some circumstances and really bad at taking care of you in other circumstances. Life is about finding balance.

I started working at 4:30 this morning. I stopped at 2:30, Then I sat down to type for an hour. I’m tired. My arms hurt. The rest of me feels better than it has in ages because Tay the magnificent was here. Best fucking massages ever. I am a lucky person in so many ways. Tired. Go flop now.