Day one over, today we fly home.

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I’m so happy I don’t have to be here long. I’ve been good. I’ve been very good. I can’t keep this shit up.

I have a lot of issues. This is plain to me. I hate rich people. I don’t like poor people a lot more. I hate rich people for their assumption that life will just work out and things are fine. I hate poor people for reasons that are harder to explain. I hate poor people because I hate my family. I hate the inability to see how you are creating at least some of your own issues.

It’s hard because in general I believe that most poor people are literally incapable of solving their own problems because they do not have access to the resources that would allow them to solve their problems. So I feel enormous guilt about being one more asshole being mad at poor people for not hurrying up and doing what I want.

It isn’t fair or right of me. I also like a lot of rich people and love a lot of poor people. But being in Texas changes this feel. I am an elitist bastard. I don’t like rich people. I like educated people and you can find educated people on every level of the financial spectrum. Sometimes people who are poor have unusual educations, they are eclectic and they have weird gaps in their understanding–but they know a lot of shit.I respect that.

Noah’s family has money (at least part of it–not the great grandmother). Like the kind of inherited money where none of them have ever had to hold jobs. They can be artsy fartsy about their quilting and get indignant that most quilters are silly because they don’t have a separate outbuilding workshop along with two spare bedrooms for sewing. Are we artists or what?! She expressed shock that some of the most beautiful quilts in the world are made by people who have to “pause their work then shove the quilt under the bed while they use the room for something else. How can you call yourself an artist that way?!”

I uhm, was polite. I told her that if she wants to know the difference between an artist and a craftsman the artist is probably starving and the craftsman is doing just fine. You expect artists to have craftsman space and that’s ridiculous. Artists don’t have the money for that shit. She kind of looked surprised. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

No, I don’t think that a woman who thinks of her “Junior year abroad” as being “real travel so you can really find out what people are like” understands why I want to travel. I don’t want to go on an exchange program between my chichi Ivy League School and another equally prestigious school in a 1st world nation. I want to see how people really live when they aren’t like me. I want to sit down in coffee shops and listen to whatever stories people want to tell me.

I don’t want to visit a country and stay in an expensive apartment on the nice side of town eating at all the best restaurants so I can say I have “experienced” a country. I want to walk the slums. I want to find out where more than 50% of the people live. I want to go hang out with them.

I argued with the great aunt about the “Golden Rule”. I don’t believe in it. I’m not going to treat everyone how I want to be treated. They wouldn’t react very well. Other people don’t want the kind of treatment I want. Noah used the example of trying to solve peace in the middle east. If you have an Arabic man and an Israeli man trying to have a conversation you will have problems. The Arabic culture allows people to make long personal speeches without interruption. Then someone else will get their turn. The Israeli’s will interrupt every time they have a thought or think you are wrong. Where in the fuck does the Golden Rule fit in there? Her response was that it works fine in her town because there aren’t different kinds of people. Hoo boy.

Even though I do sometimes feel annoyed by the behaviors of poor people. They have no where else to be. I will not shame them even if I don’t like what they are doing. If I don’t like what I’m seeing I have the money and privilege to walk away. What fucking right do I have to tell them to stop acting that way where I can see?

Yesterday a person I follow on Twitter remarked how “creepy” it is if you see a man pushing a baby stroller with stuff other than a baby in it. I told him that those people are probably poor and don’t need his judgment.

Seriously? How dare people exist in front of me in a way I find aesthetically displeasing. Ew. Go exist somewhere else.

Then I read about this guy. I swear to God that if I lived down the street from him I would do substantial property damage to his vehicle and home. Just because I hate him so much. Is it right? Nope. Good thing I don’t live near him.

I’ve been told I’m too ugly/dirty/disgusting to be places. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Yesterday Noah told me, “Haven’t you noticed that you have arrived and now you are high status and people won’t treat you that way anymore?”

I really don’t give a shit if it happening to me or just to someone else. I would cheerfully go firebomb the car of someone who thinks he is that much more important than his fellow human  beings. I wouldn’t touch him. That’s over my personal line. Clearly the piece of shit has enough money to buy another fucking car.

I like my neighborhood so much. I like that in my neighborhood no one is obviously rich. We have some families that are more obviously struggling. I’m trying to figure out how we as a community are going to solve this. I think that by the time I am old I will know everyone in every house in my neighborhood. That’s a goal. I want to help my neighbors. If I can walk to your house and you have a need that I can assist with, I want to be there.

Communities rise and fall together.

We need rich people and poor people regardless of whatever set of emotions I have towards these people. My venom will drive away potential allies with wealth. Some of my neighbors have extra money. Not tons, but extra. That’s clear by the slow gentrification some of the houses are seeing.

What would happen if I could convince my neighbors to donate their yards so we could grow more food?

I think. I plan. I’m not ready for that. So far I’m still meeting everyone and trying to learn their names. I should have a neighborhood party in 2014. I need to stop putting that off.

I have spent most of my life running from place to place trying to find people who would understand me, like me, tolerate me without yelling at me to change. Here it is weird hearing about how you have to just work with whoever lives in a two block radius.

Apparently part of that journey is just getting older. And marrying a rich guy. I don’t hate him. Ok, in some brief seconds I do. Mostly not even close. It’s not about the money. I use Noah’s money and feel guilty about it. I picked Noah because he is the only person I have ever been able to talk about myself with for hours and hours. Everyone else gets overwhelmed, wants to change the subject, or starts to avoid me if I try. I picked Noah because he makes me feel like it is ok for me to be alive.

His family is interesting. Rich people. Really Really Rich people. Ok, they live in East Texas so everything is relative. In the bay area they wouldn’t be Really Really Rich people they would just be Rather Rich people. They have a few million. Nothing to sneeze at but not much to a venture capitalist.

Sometimes I feel like I am participating in an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers exercise. Why are these people letting a white trash whore into their generations old museum fancy house?

They aren’t. They are allowing their First Son to bring his wife. Different.

I’m not invited. He is and they won’t stop him from bringing me. My children are invited–they are blood. I’m just… a few steps up from the nanny.

I have a hard time when rich old people say “Sure touch anything” when the house is full of exceptionally breakable things which are all at least a hundred years old. The great aunt is obsessed with old fashioned viewers. They are delicate little contraptions. She must have more than two dozen. I doubt we saw all she owned. The paper is old, delicate, and starting to fray. Sure why the fuck don’t you hand it to my three year old. *head desk*

I tried not to hover. The kids did great. There were no mishaps so maybe my paranoia is just out of place. I didn’t say anything. I just had a lot of stomach acid. Being sober is extremely painful. On a 1-10 scale I would say the acid feeling is at about a 7. I’m going to need to work with a doctor on this before I can really handle getting off pot. If I had this feeling every day I would spend my days on the couch crying. I wouldn’t eat because eating hurts too much. If I don’t eat enough I vomit.

The great grandmother was really delightful though. I think that she and I have some interesting things in common. She grew up poor working class. She had to support her family as a single mom because her husband died in a farm equipment accident. The belief is it was probably suicide. The nasty story in the family is that he died to get away from his mean wife.

Now she is old. Old people are trying to buy their way into heaven, right? She was very nice with us. She has a bunch of 50 year old dolls from her kids. My daughters had a lot of fun playing with her. She teaches pre-K as her “retirement” (she taught at continuation middle schools. She was a science teacher. She spent 19 years working with American Science. She also had a few years of teaching science at the college level. She’s hella smart.) and she makes beautiful instructional material for the kids. She makes these story-books about the life cycles of plants and animals. They really are lovely.

Early in our letters she was very derogatory about the idea of home schooling. Then she discovered that state law says that every pre-k teacher should have 12 students and an aide. Instead every teacher has 22 students and the aides are split between two or three classrooms. She said, “If you can give them better than that, do it.”

She tried to defer to me on whether the kids got hot chocolate and cookies. I said, “If a kid can’t get spoiled by their great grandmother then something is wrong with the world. Do whatever you want.” That seemed to make her happy.

She is working on one of the prettiest quilts I have ever seen. It is a hand made piece of art. It’s about the Cupcake Girls. It is pictures of two little girls doing things. Playing in the garden. Climbing a tree. I can’t remember what all. She has sewn all of these little pictures by hand. It is incredible. She says she has been working on it for a year. It is still a ways off from being done. She wants us to send her pictures of the girls doing stuff in Texas so she can add squares for that.

I am so glad my kids have someone in the world who thinks about them like that. I look at those kinds of efforts as magic talismans. Their great grandmother doesn’t have a lot she can do for them or give them. But she loves them. She wants them to be happy and she wants them to thrive. She wants them to feel like they are seen.

I’m glad we came to Texas. I’m really glad they got to meet her.

When they knocked a potted plant over the response was “No big deal. I’ll get a paper towel and the compost bucket.” My kids felt safe and appreciated. Not to mention that she had a cool living tree in her front room and tons of animal stuffies. My kids will be talking about the Enchanted Forest at Great E’s house for years.

I am so grateful that they get to have this experience. Whatever feelings I have or don’t have. I’m being very patient. I haven’t yelled. I’m not being demanding. They are doing really well on their own without my interference.

We went out to dinner. I had the best freakin fried pickles in the whole world. I may have to figure out how to do that now that I was gifted with a deep fryer. Holy crap that was so good. I could have eaten like five of the plates. Instead I tactfully shared with my sister in law.

At dinner we had Noah’s oldest brother (they are all younger than Noah), his wife, his son (who is exactly one year younger than Shanna so also one year older than Calli), Noah’s uncle, his wife, and their daughter, and the great grandmother. It was a really lovely meal. The food was good. The conversation was lively. The kids were rambunctious but little J had a long day of having to be good in the library and my kids sat on a plane all day yesterday. A bit of bouncing and wiggling is to be expected. They did great.

The three kids were ecstatic together. The biggest issue was when Shanna declared that J was only her cousin and not Calli’s cousin. Calli had some words (and fists) for that declaration. I curtailed the fight and talked Calli into believing that Shanna was just wrong and she (Calli) doesn’t have to listen to her.

The three kids were hugging and kissing foreheads and giggling like mad people. They were super thrilled to be together. J looked like the car Calli gave him for Christmas was the best thing ever. I’m glad. Calli put a lot of emotional energy into hoping he would like it.

Just in general it was nice seeing them. We traded stories and commentary about what different places are like. I learned how their county is getting royally screwed because property taxes are a lot of their tax base but more and more of the land is publicly owned through the national forests or the universities so they are getting into a nasty squeeze. We talked about the various methods of construction and the value or not in them.

It was an energetic flow of conversation the whole time. I don’t think I dominated and I wasn’t a wall flower. That’s perfect I think.

Today I get to pack up our shit. Then we go back to the Great Grandmother’s for cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. (I will be eating my leftover chicken fried steak for breakfast so that I don’t puke from all the sugar.) Then Noah and the girls will go out to the compound. They will pick me up later and we will head to the airport. We will sleep in our beds tonight.

This is probably the right length of time to be in Texas right now. I’m hoping that by 2015 I will have done some work on my stomach and this will go better. All of the relatives are telling me that when we come through for Trick or Treating they hope we will stay for a week or two because they all want to spend time with the kids. I hear you. I will keep that in mind. I will see if I can handle that. Clearly my children adore you all and you are being very nice to the kids. Both sides deserve to have relationships with their family members. Whether I “like” it or not. I will be supportive and loving. That is my role here.

But I will cry in the mornings. Because no one has ever loved me the way these people love my kids. I wish I wasn’t so sad about that. I have Noah. I have Shanna. I have Calli. They have to be enough. The amount they love me has to be enough.

I remember knocking a plant over on accident. I was hit in the head hard enough to make me hit the floor. Then I had to scramble up to get a broom and a towel by myself. I shook while I cleaned because the adult in the room was screaming the entire time about how stupid and pathetic I was.

My kids will have a different life.

what a lovely way to start the day. not.

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I’m sitting here in the hotel wrapping presents for Noah’s family and crying. I don’t give a shit about these people. Why do I have to wrap Christmas presents for them? Oh. Because I’m the mom and my kids should be taught to not be self absorbed assholes. This sucks.

For those following at home the day of traveling went fantastic. The kids were so good. Our only crying was when the final descent hurt their ears while they were sleeping. If someone gets cranky at a kid for crying about that I have a long and nasty lecture for them. It happens. The kids did so well.

It helped that I was perky and upbeat for the whole day. That really smoothes things along. I played with them and answered questions and kept them moving just about every minute that they weren’t strapped in car seats.

They were such big girls handling their own luggage. I was really proud in a dorky way.

Putting the carseats on the plane is both obnoxious and really awesome because I don’t spend the flight yelling at them to get back into their @#%#%@# seat. They just sit and relax. Excellent.

Today we see the great grandmother and the great aunt and other great uncle family pod group. Because the grandmother said she was going to have her birthday at home whether I like it or not. Ok. Have a nice dinner. We’ll go out with someone else since it is too much trouble.

My kids are still asleep. I tell myself this is because we arrived at the hotel at midnight our time and it is now only 6am our time so maybe I should be patient.

Yeah. Not so patient.

leaving on a jet plane

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We leave our house for Texas in nine hours. I should probably go to Kaiser and refill my Ativan prescription today. That I can fly with. I’m very happy that I made 30 Ativan pills last six months. That’s about the correct rate of sleep assistance for me. (Last refill was the beginning of June.)

I slept for seven hours. That’s not enough after getting three hours the night before. I am SO VERY AWAKE.

The gingerbread house party deal was really awesome. Everyone had a lot of fun. The other moms were really proactive about jumping in and helping my kids during the actual construction of houses while I drifted around all spacey from lack of sleep. I really like the women I am spending time with in this home school group. I am progressively more “out” with all of them about a wide variety of topics. It is kind of weird how being out with them is making me feel more and less safe with them.

I feel more safe because so far I have gotten the opposite of rejection from all of them. They go out of their way to make sure I feel included and like my presence is a good thing in their lives. I could not possibly begin to express how impactful this is. They are not all “like me”. They are not tribe. They like me anyway. They think I have value. And they go out of their way to keep telling me that they want me around. That their kids FUCKING LOVE coming to my house. That feels so good. I’m not chasing everyone away. I’m not being bad.

I feel less safe because I’ve poured a lot of myself into them already. I am not as big a part of their lives as they are part of my life just because they have other people who take up space. They have families and churches and communities they have been part of for most of their lives.

I have a lot of level 3’s.

I love my level 3’s with all my heart and soul and I say prayers of thanks for them just about every day. I do not denigrate my level 3’s.

But it is very hard knowing that I have to be very careful all the time or I risk alienating people who are a huge part of my network. They don’t have to know they are a huge part of my network. I know.

I know that when I do things in my house I do it because I hope ____ will tell me I did the right thing. I know that when I respond to my kids I am actively channeling _____ because she is just plain better than me.

So the more I give of myself to this homeschooling group the more pain I am potentially opening myself up to in the future. That’s hard.

But I’m doing it anyway because this life thing goes better for most people than it has for me and I am responsible for providing this kind of environment for my children. It’s my job to work through my anxiety and provide them a community.

It is hard to once again feel like my experiences don’t matter. It does help that I know that my terror is irrational. My experience of being afraid when I am with home schoolers is not predicated on their behavior or attitudes. It is instead from my previous history with other people. I am trying hard not to project. I am trying to not believe that one personality quirk in common with someone who rejected me means that I will be rejected again. I don’t have a crystal ball.

Luckily home schoolers, regardless of the whole “pervy tribe” thing, are at heart people who want to do things their own way. This seems to transfer to a higher tolerance for people being very different. Pinterest has allowed me to see other sides of these ladies. Ha. (They may not swear around their kids but they are ok with swear words existing and being used and all.)

I’m glad I did the gingerbread house experience. Next year I will be making gingerbread boys and girls for the kids to decorate. Much less baking involved. My forefinger is still completely numb. Stupid knife.

I did not try to restrict the sugar intake because that would have been a losing battle. As a result Shanna went to sleep with a nasty stomach ache. She commented, “You know… I think that maybe next time I won’t eat so much sugar. This doesn’t feel very good.” I didn’t laugh. I’m proud of myself. Instead I cuddled her to sleep and said, “Yeah. We’ve all been there. You have to figure out what your body can handle. I’m sorry you hurt now.”

I need to back off on my cleaning expectations. They are 3 and 5. I have been turning into kind of an asshole for a few weeks and I don’t even know why. I’ve been refusing to engage in any play unless they clean up first. They aren’t ready for this. I apologized for my attitude. I’m not treating them like little kids and they are little kids. I need to be more patient.

I also need to reread my 3 and 5 year old books. Maybe I’ll take them to Texas with a highlighter. Then I can pass them on to K’s husband who told me he promised that he would read them if I highlighted the important and non-repetitive passages. They are kind of annoyingly repetitive. (He has a full time job, is in full time college, and he has two kids. I think it is reasonable to say “I can only handle the highlighted sections.”)

We would all be better parents if we really took into consideration the current physical development of our kids. They change so fast but still not as fast as we might hope on some days. It’s important to let them be kids. They will never ever get another chance. (Being an Adult Baby or interested in Age Play doesn’t count.)

The thing I like the most about my kids is that they really are always trying their best. Sometimes their best is not what I, as an asshole adult, want but it is their best. I can tell them it isn’t good enough and create that dynamic in their mind or I can say, “That is exactly what a five year old should be able to do. Excellent. You’ll get bigger and things will change.”

Shanna is starting to have serious interest in reading. Last night she complained to me that she’s really frustrated because the only words she knows how to spell are “Shanna, zoo, Calli, and love.” She wants to know more. I told her that it is ok that she doesn’t already know everything. She’s five. Her brain probably hasn’t quite switched yet so that learning reading is super easy–don’t get impatient. Soon it will get much easier and then you will be shocked by how fast it comes. I told her that if she wants to start really practicing, she can at any point. Whenever she is ready.

Unschooling is really emotionally complex. I have all these assumptions and desires and preferences. My kids meet and totally don’t meet them. I still believe that if I sat down on paper and explained my ideal child Shanna is it to a T. That makes me feel guilty and like I don’t love Calli enough.

I don’t think I love Shanna more. But she is what I would have designed on paper before having children. We are so deeply compatible that I worry that we aren’t and I’m making it up in my head and I will fuck her up by assuming we are.

Calli is more directly challenging to me on a minute by minute basis. She surprises me all day every day. I like it. She’s neat. She is starting to really come into her own. I love the way she will absolutely defend her own boundaries and then be nice once you have allowed her all the space she feels she needs.

Keep that up, wonderful girl. I am so proud of you. You clearly know that you get to take up space and exist. Watching you is so exciting. She likes being a benevolent tyrant. If you defer to her being in charge then she will be generous and kind and ridiculously sweet. If you try to insist that she isn’t in charge then she explodes. Luckily she is starting to be mollified by the idea that she is always her own boss. No, you aren’t the boss of Shanna. Sorry, kid. But you are your boss. I’m a temporary assistant manager.

Calli’s favorite game is “Mamas and babies” and I have to be the baby. I’m a thoroughly obnoxious and demanding baby. She loves it.

Calli keeps telling me she doesn’t want to grow up. She wants to be my tiny baby forever. Sometimes I feel like I’m not as important to Calli as I am to Shanna. Then I get my head out of my ass and I see that Calli is maybe more attached to me than Shanna.

Shanna likes me and I hope we will be friends when she grows up, but she is outward focused. She is going to be someone who wants a lot of friends in her life. I will not be the center of her world forever. I get the impression that Calli will seek out fewer people. I may always be more central in her life. Who knows. The future is a long way off. I’m enjoying these little flashes of how wrong I am about my assumptions. Calli is very attached. Calli is somewhat needy and I am struggling to really enthusiastically meet all those needs. I think I was more giving with Shanna.

I like them both so much. I feel so lucky that I get to hang out with them all day. I think it is funny how often Shanna talks about wanting to go to school “Some day when I am big!” but when I tell her that school involves being away from me all day she says, “Not yet. I don’t want to do that yet. In a few years. Then I will be ready.” She debates the merits of starting at 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. She says she thinks that she will definitely no matter what be ready by 14. I told her I suspected that was true. By 14 she will be old enough and big enough that she will certainly want to go learn things I can’t teach her.

I mention that we want to spend the year she is 12 traveling, so maybe going for a year or two before then would be fun to find out what it is like before she travels? Maybe she just wants to wait till after that to start? I don’t know. It isn’t my decision.

Sometimes it is weird noticing how many parenting things I think aren’t my decision. Other people make these decisions for their kids. I don’t feel qualified. I don’t think I know what is inside their heads and inside their bodies. I don’t know what the best decision will be in the long run.

I maintain this feeling of being conflicted about home schooling. I love it as much as I believed I would when I was 17. I feel scared that I am doing this for my needs instead of theirs.

I continue to do research about education styles because I want to be as eclectic as possible. Every single theory of education has benefits and deficits. Some can be combined in useful ways to get the benefits of multiple disciplines and some are inherently contradictory. I’m trying to figure out how I can get out of my head enough to be objective about what they need instead of just doing what I feel comfortable with.

Home schooling isn’t about making my life easier. That’s not the point. It might coincidentally do so… but that’s not the point. If I start making decisions based on my convenience I will fuck up my kids and that’s not cool.

K, I’m almost done with the book you gave me. I think I have a lot of the earlier part of the series. I may take one or two on this trip. Wow these are easy to read. It’s another Tamora Pierce book for those who don’t know K’s taste. She is going to get me through the entire collection of stuff that author has written.

I’m not worried about my children learning to read. They want to read. As soon as their brains are ready it will come. If they have learning disabilities and it doesn’t come automatically that is something I will watch for and address. Dyslexia runs in my family. My kids want to read. That’s the important step. They know that books contain whole universes of awesome and they want to benefit. I’m not worried.

I feel so weird knowing that whatever problems emerge (they will happen–that’s how life works) I have a lot of ability to handle them. I don’t feel very helpless any more. Sometimes I feel paralyzed with fear but I know that if I can get my stupid body moving I will be able to do something that is acceptable even if it isn’t the absolute best solution ever in the history of ever.

It is weird feeling confident and unconfident at the same time. Is unconfident a word? (internet says it is a word.) Insecure?

Of course there are problems outside my scope. If my kid gets cancer there isn’t a lot I can do. I mean, we have insurance and I would take them to every doctor. I would beggar myself in the process with no worry about the future. Take care of my baby.

Let’s stick with educational worry, ok? That I can do something about.

It is weird knowing that if my kid came down with a major medical malady Noah’s family would probably pony up. I am not someone who has had that as a resource in this lifetime. From when I was very young I have consciously thought that if I get diagnosed with a terrible disease the right choice for me is to die as fast as possible because no one who has ever been responsible for me had the money to pay for much treatment. I don’t want my family to suffer after I’m dead because dying was expensive. But things are so different now.

I feel very weird about the way suicide keeps being pushed further and further back for me. It is feeling less and less like an option. I could not do that to Shanna and Calli. Even if I did have cancer. They deserve the fullness of every minute I can give them. Killing myself is actively hurting them, forever. I don’t want to do that to them. Suicide has become my constant feeling of “out”. I don’t have to take this (no matter what “this” I’m talking about). I can die.

Now I can’t. It is… weird. I want to see what my children are like in their 30’s and 40’s and 50’s. I want to find out what the repercussions of my parenting style are. They will exist. I’m going to do things wrong if I haven’t already. (I have.)

I believe with all my soul in what I am doing. I think the American school system is broken and I don’t want my kids to be part of it. I don’t want to work long and hard enough to pay for private schools when I’m not sure they are enough better to justify how much less I would see my kids. We have great upper division education. We don’t do so well with the littles.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. There are amazing teachers within the system who do a great job. I think that some people luck into having positive public school experiences but it is a crap shoot. I don’t think I am the right parent to navigate my kid having a positive experience. I don’t think I can do it. I feel like a failure.

I do and I don’t. I feel like a failure for not being able to manage the public school system as a parent like I feel like a failure for not sewing. I feel like I “should” be able to but I can’t. Yet I don’t actually consider those skills mandatory for life.

Do I think I “could” learn how to manage the public school system? Sure. It’s a system. I could figure out how to hack it. It would be really hard and it would take a lot of time and energy and work and I don’t think it is worth it. Just like I could learn to sew but I don’t think it is worth upping my frustration level. The level of positive I would gain doesn’t outweigh the cost right now.

I believe there are different circumstances that would change my mind.

Everything is situational.

busy day

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Good news! I had ten days of pot left in the stash I brought to Dad’s house. I had two more weeks in the freezer. Christmas will not be as stressful as I thought. YAY!!!!

I thought making gingerbread houses would take me more like 1/2 an hour per batch with a little extra wiggle room. Instead it is taking over an hour per batch. I had to make 14 sets. I wish my kids had fewer friends. And some people are kind of grumpy with me for not being invited. My finger is numb from pressing on the knife to cut out the pieces.

Ok, have to start making icing. People arrive in 2.5 hours. I slept for about four hours because I so dramatically underestimated how long this would take. Today had better be fun.

violence

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Yesterday I bought more than $100 of vitamins. I have ~ 7 days of pot left. I think that will be when I stop. I’m not going to get more to make it through the end of the year. With the break for the Texas trip (I’m not flying to Texas with pot even if I *do* have a medical prescription) That will get me to the 20th or 21st. So Christmas will be interesting. But you have to just go at some point.

I took my vitamins yesterday. I rested yesterday. I didn’t run because for some reason my hip decided yesterday that it hates my guts. My plan for today is yoga, baking gingerbread for tomorrow, and swinging. I may or may not pick up the garage. I haven’t decided.

We went Christmas caroling with the home school group yesterday. I was nominated as choir director at the last minute because the person who had volunteered let us know that she only meant she would run the rehearsal. Uhm, ok then. Pretty much what that meant is I counted off the beginning of the songs. We were not good singers. But we had fun.

Being in a senior assisted living place was kind of hard. Some of the people in the locked dementia ward cried when we sang. I can only imagine what was going on in their heads. I don’t think we cheered them up. One woman was mostly muttering under her breath with occasional louder shouts about how we were all liars and bastards. I don’t blame her for that opinion when we are singing Christian songs about hope and how everything will be awesome for Christmas.

I got bitchslapped on the ptsd forum. I talked about my uncanny ability to figure out that people have been sexually assaulted. Some woman spent way too much time telling me how inappropriate and terrible I am for being able to tell that about people. I should certainly never let on that I have such suspicions or I am violating their privacy. You know… I can see why you are over sensitive. My most frequent experience is that people cry and hug me and are grateful to be seen. I’m not going to stop because someone on the internet objects to my behavior. It is working for me.

Yesterday I was sitting on the floor and my mind was wandering and Shanna wanted my attention. She walked up and flicked me in the face. It was a very near thing for me hitting her. At this stage of my life the flicking in the head leading to violent reaction thing is a reflex. I don’t think about it. That came from many years of abuse.

I talked to her about it then and again at dinner. Noah had the brilliant idea of comparing it to accidentally kicking someone when they tickle you. It’s a reflex. You aren’t consciously deciding that you want to kick someone. It just kind of happens. When someone flicks me in the face I just react. Please don’t do that to me any more. Please. Please. Please. I don’t want to ever hit you and I’m terrified that if you do that to me it will happen before I have the ability to stop myself.

I am really sorry I live in the body I have. At this stage of my life, just don’t fucking flick my face, ok?

Shanna said I scared her when I talked about it. I was trying hard to not be scary. I’m so sorry. But I’m very serious. Don’t flick my face. Truly. Don’t.

I woke up thinking about how after reading eight books on codependence I don’t think I know the difference between codependence and interdependence. I’m still scared I am “inappropriate” all the time. I grew up being told that “we” were just codependent–like it or not. That’s what my mom and sister said.

I feel so guilty for needing things from Noah. I feel like I am suffocating him. He tells me he is fine but when you lie the way I do all the time about being fine you tend to not believe other people either.

I don’t want to hurt my children the way I have hurt other people. I think my kids deserve better. I feel guilty for the fact that I didn’t think my friends deserved better. I shouldn’t have cracked ribs. I shouldn’t have hit people so much. I shouldn’t have tried so hard to make people bleed.

I’m not even talking about the bdsm. Those people consented. I don’t feel guilty about beating someone until they lie sobbing on the floor in front of me if they asked me very nicely to do that to them. I feel very guilty, still, for all the fights as a kid. I was so god damn mean.

I’ve only cracked one set of ribs since reaching my majority. Uhm, progress? That time the person even went to the doctor and had x-rays to confirm it. Yup. I cracked their ribs. When I was younger people just dealt with months of pain instead of going to the doctor.

I regularly talk to men who are very dismissive of whatever “power” I ascribe to them. They don’t see themselves the way that I see them. They think they are powerless. Naw, you’ve just never really learned that you aren’t ten years old any more. I understand that no one likes young men. I get that. When you are a young guy you have the opposite of power, no matter what color you are. But things change.

I haven’t cracked any ribs in ten years. I should stop feeling bad. I did stop. I haven’t made anyone bleed in… about the same length of time if memory serves correctly. I’m getting close to being out of the scene (mostly) for almost ten years. I still bottom to Noah but I’m not in the scene and I don’t top any more.

I am somewhat unlikely to ever viciously beat someone again. That is weird. I have done it so many times over my life that I don’t know what to do with all those feelings. I really am a vicious, nasty person.

But you wouldn’t know it to look at my kids. I’m nice to them. But today I scared Shanna. She kind of melted out of her chair to hide under the kitchen table.

I’m so sorry Shanna. I wasn’t trying to scare you. I don’t want to hit you. Please don’t flick my face. I don’t have time to think to stop myself from reacting. I’m trying. I have worked so hard on my reflexes. I no longer hit instinctively when someone startles me. For many years there if someone thought it was “funny” to jump out and startle me they were as likely as not to walk away bleeding.

I *have* learned a lot of control.

My biological father used to flick me in the head. It usually came along with some deprecation about my intelligence. I learned to fight as hard as I could when I was flicked. You are not going to treat me that way any more.

The last time I hit someone was up in Portland. (She’s a friend. She liked it.) It’ll be two years in February. That was when Noah and I agreed to stop that part of our relationship.

I think a lot about what it means to stop being violent. I have a lot of compassion for military veterans. I can only imagine how dangerous I would have become if I had entered the military. (When I was 17 a number of “official” sort of school people tried to talk me into the military. I was seen as very suitable. That would have destroyed me.)

Life is about a series of choices. Sometimes some people pick violence. Does that mean you are stuck being violent forever? Malcolm X managed to (relatively) calm down.

Maybe I will get to the point where I can say that I haven’t hit anyone in twenty years. Maybe my guilt will reduce over time.

I still feel bad for fracturing Jason’s ribs in high school. He was on the wrestling team and was bragging about how if he took me on he would win. No, he really didn’t. And he paid for months.

That was more than half my life ago. He didn’t hate me forever. He did try to act inappropriately the one time I have run into him as an adult. But that was a different issue. That was sex and alcohol and bad boundaries.

I’m glad I’m off facebook. I’m harder to find. I am less likely to run into random people I hope I won’t run into again.

Sometimes there are downsides to knowing so many people. Sometimes there are downsides to having such a history of hurting people. They find me years later and I get this new rush of shame. Yup, I’m that kind of person. Or I was. Do you ever actually change?

I don’t hit my kids. The worst I have done is smack feet that were viciously kicking the car seat. I was going to drive off the road if I didn’t stop the kicking.

I don’t want to hit my kids. But inside me there is always the potential. I don’t really know how to live with that.

Do you know that the US refuses entry to people from other countries who have documented issues of depression? A Canadian woman was going through the US to get to a cruise. She was blocked from her vacation. Because she was stupid enough to think that a crazy person gets to have normal life experiences.

I don’t imagine the biases against “people like me”. They are well documented. That doesn’t mean I personally experience that much discrimination at this stage.

It’s a lot like white men thinking they have no power.

All of these things are so complicated. Power. Safety. Violence. They all entwine.

I don’t feel good about the progress I’ve made. I don’t feel like I have come far enough. Really I don’t think I will ever give myself much slack because I have already done what I’ve done. I can never undo it.

Are monsters ever redeemable?

I was asked why I won’t consider working Dickens. I can’t deal with my rapists. Sorry. I know that nothing will ever happen to them. They will continue to be Fine Upstanding Members Of Their Community. They have a lot to offer. They are important. They are worthy.

I just…

 

post-therapy (more) hobbies and yay friends.

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It made me very happy to tell my therapist “My friends and I are in a fierce and loving argument/discussion about hobbies and how I should learn to manage time better.” She thinks it is great that you all interact with me. Heh.

Then when I explained the “I can’t do fiddly shit” she said, “Oh of course not. Your flavor of PTSD should be kept as far away from those kinds of actions as possible. If someone has dissociation issues then often things like knitting can help them be more present. You are so hyperaroused that it will drive you crazy. Don’t do that. Try martial arts.”

See, the knitting is very good and healthy for lots of my friends and not for me. I appreciate my pats on the back. Validation is my friend.

I talked to her a lot about wanting to come off of pot. I’m past the baby stage. I told myself I was using pot to give me the self control I needed to get past the baby stage when the kids really couldn’t help how much they triggered me. I don’t have babies any more. Shit.

I think there is the non-zero possibility that I will stop using pot until my kids are adults and then start again. Being stoned is awesome but I want to teach my kids a different lifestyle.

My shrink says she has known people who have had good luck taking some melatonin during the day while getting off pot. You have to be careful to never take it for more than ten days in a row (I should research why) but it can be useful. I also have to up my B vitamins. I should be taking 1,000-1,500 units per day. Ew. Ew. Ew. I should double the fish oil dose. I should start 5-htp.

The idea is that this will probably take a full year. Not to get off pot. That will take less than a month. I have to get my bodily stress more under control. It is going to be a process and it is going to be hard. I will have to really retrain my body with new habits. New habits can be formed in as little as thirty days. I don’t think my lifelong habits will be undone in a month. Ok, I’ve already worked on a lot of the other big problem areas, but more to handle.

Yesterday Shanna kind of complained about me watching The West Wing. I told her I was watching it because I was frustrated and annoyed and I was trying not to yell at her. She said, “Turn it off and let’s talk about it. You won’t solve anything this way.”

I feel so lucky. I feel like I have so much reason to work on my issues. I finally have iron clad reasons to think that my emotional state matters. It impacts my kids hugely and massively all day every day. I matter.

My therapist continues her stream of being shocked by how many people I know. She has been sorta trying to talk me into working with a writing teacher she knows. He could edit my books. I told her I was saving money to work with my friend Janet. She has a lot of experience with writing and running a publishing company and she told me she wanted to work with me. I really want to try that avenue first.

My shrink said, “Oh, what publishing company?”

“Greenery Press.”

Her jaw dropped and her eyes bugged. “You know her?”

“Oh yeah. I’ve known her for more than ten years.”

“Uhm, yeah. Work with her. That’s amazing. Wow. You know a lot of people.”

I really do. I know some ridiculously cool people. I get out and talk to people a lot. I am constantly out trying to pull more people into my tenuous web of connections. I like people. The more people I know the safer I am.

By contrast she (my shrink) told me it was pretty chicken shit to have relationships with people where I invite them over a lot and then I stop and expect them to invite themselves over. She said that’s not cool and I should stop it. I said, “But I’m scared.” She said, “So are they.”

Damnit.

She wants me to consider working with kinky survivors as one of the hats I put on some day when I’m a grown up. She thinks I would be uniquely well suited to being able to help people in that category. I’m flattered. This comes up because I spend a lot of time on the PTSD forum fielding questions about bdsm. It is hilarious to me that I hand out this long list of book recommendations and I am friends/former play partners with almost all of the authors. Yeah, I vouch for the information in the book and the integrity of the people giving the information.

I told my therapist about Noah’s reaction to me wanting to go to Islamic countries as an old woman as part of my work with incest. (Noah’s response was, “Ok we need to start martial arts. Now.) Her eyes teared up and she said, “You are so lucky to have a partner who is that supportive of you. Do you understand how rare that is?”

I do understand. I’m grateful every single day.

No, Noah doesn’t try to talk me out of things. I say, “I’m thinking about doing _____” and he says, “How can I help!?” (As a bonus he also makes cookies. So far this year: snickerdoodles (three batches [err… I ate a whole one alone…]), chocolate chip, haystacks, and he has made dough for refrigerator cookies, sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies, and molasses crinkles. He’s serious about liking my ass slightly more when it is bigger. Ha.)

I have friends who put up with me being rude, offensive, and foul mouthed.

I am ridiculously lucky in this lifetime. Not very many people receive as much non-family support as I get. It’s all about perspective, right?

Apparently I need to start a structured routine for a (long) while. I need to have “sitting on a swing for an hour” as part of every day. (Rocking motions are soothing to your brain. If you are upset, hug yourself and rock. You may feel lame but it does help.) I need to find a martial arts gym that will let us come in 2-3 days every week. I need to be running almost every day. (Rest days are important too.) I need to start teaching Shanna how to ride a bike and practice with her. (She has one… but she’s a wuss. She won’t try it unless I’m really bugging her. She likes going as fast as she can with her feet thankyouverymuch.)

I tend to have structure for a short period and then go off the rails when I add a big project. I can’t have any big projects for a year. This feels crushing and unfair. Waaa waaa waaa. Should I call the waaaaaaambulance?

I have to train my body to relax. I’m not sure I have ever been relaxed. Yeah, it will probably take a year. If I am fully relaxed at the end of a year it will be a G-d damn miracle. But I have to try. And this is the year. Go.

If I want to be able to do the serious international travel later I have no choice but to do this now. I can’t put it off any more. I don’t want to end up beating my head on concrete again the next time I leave the country. It is really unpleasant. In 2015 I want to travel with my kids for almost six months just to see if I can. I have to do this work in 2014. I’m feeling very annoyed with myself.

Why don’t I just give up on these hard things and have an easier life? What is wrong with me? Well, I don’t think that what I’m doing right now is actually easier. It is a different hard thing that I have slowly juggled towards as being the best I can get with my current coping skills.

I need different coping skills.

I feel like now it is finally safe enough to try. I have two kids who love me to the moon and back and who want to be nice to me. They just need me to teach them how. I need to teach without yelling or being nasty because then I will actually teach yelling and being nasty.

I feel so blessed that I have this time and this space. I don’t feel I have earned it. I don’t deserve it. But here it is. I have time. I have safety. I have money to fill in the gaps for when I can’t do everything for myself.

I have so much privilege that there is no longer any justifiable excuse for me not doing this work. Shit.

(I do believe it was justified earlier in my life. I was not physically or emotionally capable of doing the work before. I was never safe enough.) If you have to spend all day running to stay in one place someone who criticizes you for not finishing a marathon is a fucking asshole. You are doing what you can do.

I am seven years post rape. I have lived in this house for more than twice as long as I have ever lived anywhere else in my life. I have three people I get to live with who all think I am really nice and wonderful.

It’s time to stop being afraid all the time.

Being afraid makes me nasty. Being afraid makes me inclined to fight anyone and anything at any time because I perceive everyone as a threat. I am really sorry that I am so scared.

I’m going to work with a doctor on my body pain. Pam has offered to either go and hold my hand or babysit. I think I would prefer the hand holding. I’ll arrange the appointment on a day when Noah can stay with the kids.

I am very lucky. I am sorry I act so ungrateful so much of the time.

Terrible thought

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So the thing about meditation is that it is learning to sit in the still space.

My whole life requires me to move around and constantly respond to stimuli. I’m used to taking in fantastic amounts of information and consciously thinking about it. (If you are ever curious, ask me what I’m thinking about randomly some day. The firehose may drown you. I can talk faster than I can type. Muahahahaha.) That’s what hypervigilence means in a broad sense.

Meditation means turning off my awareness of ALL THE THINGS.

I think I am struggling with finding space where I really feel safe enough to not pay attention.

I pay a lot of attention to my kids. They still create messes and destroy things at a rate that blows my mind. I don’t clean the house every day. I would lose my mind.

My kids are extremely hands-on and creative with their environment. What that means is a shit-ton of work for me.

I have to maintain a certain level of clean so I don’t freak out. I have to vacuum a few times a month or we get bugs. Noah worries more about clutter than I do.

I think I have more anxiety around trying to please Noah than about keeping the house picked up. If he gets house and their shit is everywhere he sighs deeply and starts stomping around to pick it up. So I try to do that most days. But not every day.

But I set boundaries around “You have to have your stuff picked up before you can move on to some other large structured activity”. I’m inconsistent around this though. Like, the house is a mess but we went to Dickens anyway. I had Monday as a scheduled “cleaning day” so I was ok with that. The kids do help when I clean. They are getting really good at that.

The balance on that kind of stuff has improved dramatically. The training is working. Ha. But they need a tremendous amount of energy and direction from me to learn still. I don’t have time to go sit in a quiet space. They bug me every two fucking minutes.

“Quiet time in the garage” doesn’t really exist lately. They come in every fucking two minutes. If I get to the point of yelling at them then sometimes I can get up to ten minutes. (Still differentiating yelling from screaming as about volume/intensity/level of rage. Not sure if it feels that much different to them. They don’t cringe when I yell but they do back off. I’m usually yelling from the far corner of the garage to say “NOT RIGHT NOW.” I’m not feeling guilty but it isn’t effective either.)

I’m doing something wrong or they are testing boundaries or this is a phase or something. Holy fucking shit. Parenting is not usually as hard as it has been for a while.

We were traveling. It’s the holidays. I am probably pretty short compared to normal.

December 6th is my leather mom’s birthday. She’s going through a hard time and I can’t really support her. I feel shitty about that. It is also my biological mother’s birthday. She turned 64. Today is my biological father’s birthday. He would also have been 64. Instead he sat in his garage when he was 49. Stopping time on his maturation process.

I’m flying to Texas but Noah’s mom refuses to meet at a restaurant for a meal. I guess I won’t see them. That’s probably for the best. No I won’t be going to your house for you to yell at me. No thank you. I did not abandon one abusive mother in order to turn around and submit to another one.

I’m sad. I feel like I’m “doing everything wrong” again.

I read these annoying fucking checklists of “habits of mentally healthy people” and I think well no shit I’m not mentally healthy. I know people who don’t remember their lives very well. That would be the only way for me to lose awareness of the anniversary shit in my life. I may love those people but I do not choose to pursue that coping method.

I like my memory very much.

I need to feel safe enough to sit in my quiet space. I resist meditation because it is about sitting around and practicing self control for the fuck of it.

That sounds like hell on earth.

I would much rather multi-task to the point where I will have a stroke. It’s more comfortable.

What does that say about me?

Fuck you still place. Fuck you with a big stick.

“Why don’t you just stop dwelling on the past?”

Why don’t I just stop being sad that I don’t get to have a dad I haven’t had sex with in this lifetime? Really?

Uhm bugger off. I get to have my feelings.

If you haven’t had to buy love with your cunt for most of your life you really can’t understand.

It’s kind of weird now. Now I feel like there really won’t be any reason for people to want to know me. I don’t know how to talk to people. I don’t have anything to offer. I don’t know what to say. Being in public is weird.

What role in society can I fill? I spent most of my life looking for sex partners. I only grudgingly tolerated no’s when people made them explicit (and then they sometimes told me later “I was kinda hoping you would ask again later” WTF!).

Healthy? No. But it’s what I did.

Now what.

I don’t know.

I really did spend my childhood believing I was preparing for a career in sex work. Now that it didn’t work out my back up career is turning out to be way the fuck more work than I thought it would be. Good grief.

But it’s good. I want to be doing what I’m doing. I really do. I want to learn what it is like to be this kind of person. Even if I will never “really” understand because I will always have a brain that is paralyzed with terror because I’m prepared for the next problem.

Yeah yeah, fucking still space. Exercise the self control muscles you have more of them. Have more of the self control muscles have more ability to calm down central nervous system. Fuck you still place. Fuck you you fucking fuck.

My inside voice isn’t so inside today. Apparently.

Sometimes the process isn’t so pretty.

I think I struggle with completely letting go of the white trash stuff as part of my language evolution in general.

I have been yelled at not to curse for nearly three decades. I promise you that someone will yell at me again soon. “How dare you speak that way in front of children.” I get it every so often.

I no longer turn around and say, “Fuck you you ignorant fuck” but I did before I had kids. Ok I only actually did that once. She deserved it. I hadn’t been “cursing” so much as I was being literal and explicitly educational. Then I switched to cursing. Uhm, you had to be there?

There are people who can kill ’em with kindness. There are people who can disarm with humor. Then there’s me. May I introduce you to this trout I am going to smack you in the head with?

But most people who have been in a room with me have no idea. FUCK YOU PEOPLE WHO SAY I DON’T HAVE TACT.

You just say that because my tact falls on a different line than yours.

Why am I so interested in saying fuck you lately? Fuck you universe. Fuck you fucking everything in the fucking everywhere in the whole fucktastic piece of fuck world.

Good day for therapy.

But my kids don’t act like people who live with someone who talks that way. It would show. I am doing the routine. I’m just not good at being nice when I’m challenged. I’m sure this means I’m not nice. As if there was doubt.

Naw, lately the problem is that I’m taking shit personally. They are kids. They aren’t doing much because of me. (Well other than breathing and not being covered in filth all day.)

If they are bothering me I need to respectfully ask for the space I need.

I’ve listened to a god damn lot of victim blaming shit in my lifetime. I can tell you 57 reasons it is all my fault I was raped. O course I can figure out how my over reaction to my kids not being very thoughtful is all my fault. As if it were not completely developmentally normal (I HAVE BOOKS FOR THIS SHIT) and all that.

I can’t take it personally.

But I am. Because I’m like that. I need to stop.

Fuck you still place. Fuck you with a fucking chainsaw.

hobbies (cont…)

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“You fight, fuck and garden… of course you have hobbies.”

First: I love you. Second: I love you.

Maybe if I argue then I can go back to sleep tonight. Ha. Tonight has been rough.

I have a lot of highly physical tasks I engage in. The current argument about hobby activities started from the premise that I needed more rest and not more physical activities. I think the word hobby is maybe not the point.

I have a lot of activities that I engage in that fall under the label “hobby” but they are universally depleting.

I don’t have a lot that “fills my cup” and I have a lot of things that empty my cup.

For most of my life I suppose I have used hobbies to burn off stress but I don’t know how to do the corollary of increasing relaxation. Burning off stress and relaxing are not exactly the same. I recharged by spending a lot of time alone. I don’t have alone time now unless I give up sleep. That’s a rough trade.

At the end of a long day of gardening I don’t feel relaxed. I feel tired and sore and frequently I feel really pissed off at my kids. I usually stop working because I am too angry to continue because the kids want my attention span to be as long as theirs and they will dive bomb me like fucking blue jays defending a bird feeder.

This process is the point for me. How to do things with them without the hate.

I’m struggling because my kids want fifteen minutes of work on a dozen different projects in a day. That involves so much set up and clean up that I don’t do anything but set up and clean up. I act like a god damn public school employee where my life is about putting other people through their paces.

Not what we are doing here, bucko.

I think that if Shanna and Calli want to set up and tear down a dozen projects in a day they are welcome to the work. I choose to work for many hours each on two or three projects in a day.

The problem wasn’t ever that I can’t find enough to do to keep busy. If the idea behind “find a hobby” was “find something to do” then I don’t need to worry about it. I’m busy. The point was “find a way to relax”. That I am not going so good at doing.

Does that make sense? It isn’t actually that I need to “go find a hobby” rather that I need to “find something that relaxes me so I can use fewer drugs”. Different argument.

I did take a bath yesterday when I was feeling pissy. It helped.

I’m not sure that I am “not creative” K and I’ve been fighting that word battle my whole life.

So if what we are looking for is to add more and more activities until I die of a heart attack we are on the right track.

The problem with hobbies-with-people is that whole panic disorder problem.

We went to Dickens Fair yesterday. The kids are on a streak of being the opposite of considerate (it happens occasionally) so it was not a fun outing. I shouldn’t get pissy about some of the stuff that happened (like them throwing a fit insisting on peanut butter sandwiches for the tea party and then not eating any of the pbjs and instead stealing my whole lunch) because it isn’t a big deal. Unfortunately if my whole day goes that way I am pissy by the end. Fuck you. I ask you what you want, I give it to you, then you take mine? Oh this isn’t god damn on.

But it’s all trivial stuff. And the whole point of being a parent is that kids behave badly and you are supposed to still act right and show them how it is done.

By the last half hour I was standing in a corner of every room and shaking. If someone wanted to talk to me I plastered a fake-as-shit smile on my face and tried to be pleasant. I ran into a lot of people I know. People I don’t see much. It isn’t ok in any way shape or form for me to start exploding or being snippy or pissy with them. So instead I shake. After the second time of Calli throwing herself to the floor in the middle of a dance at Fezziwig’s I just picked her up and carried her out before I lost it.

Then the whole walk out to the car was Calli screaming at the top of her lungs about what a terrible time she had and I’m so mean because she didn’t get to see any friends. I asked a lot of people about going with us. No one wanted to. So I guess I should be screamed at for hours because I deserve it.

By the time we got to the car it was all I could do to not break something or someone.

But I didn’t! I didn’t even yell at them beyond, “I said SIT DOWN IN YOUR CAR SEAT.” I listened to loud music on the way home to drown out the bitching then I took a bath. Calgon take me away or some shit.

Ok. I think the argument has gotten past “get a hobby” to “but I have TOO MANY hobbies”. Originally this argument started because I needed to do less work and find something relaxing. None of my hobbies are relaxing. They are all baskets of stress to go.

So maybe the point isn’t to find a hobby but to learn how to just sit still staring at a wall? I’m feeling pissy and nasty about the fact that I think the next step is meditation.

Can I tell you how not open to this idea I am? Yeah, I get that it is the next step. Fuck you too.

Sometimes that is just how I am with the next step. I’m fairly sure that if I look at a calendar of my hour by hour activities (I’m so god damn anal that I do that with my life even though I don’t have a job or anything) the problem isn’t that I need to find something to do. The problem is that I need to replace two to four of my “things I do” with rest. Or meditation or some shit.

But I’m not good at rest. I sit for a few seconds and then I get up and find some shit to do. Because I have tons of hobbies.

And kiss off I’m not creative. You ask me to show up at your house and clean up a huge mess that overwhelms you? That’s creative.

I’m a different kind of creative. I’m trying to learn to appreciate the gift I was given instead of feeling sad that I’m not the kind of creative other people are. If you showed up at my house and said, “Build me a set! I want to perform Hamlet!” I could do that. Sure. No problem. Literally that wouldn’t be a problem for me.

That’s creative.

I just can’t fucking sit still and stare at something fiddly. Does that mean I’m not creative?

No. I refuse to concede.

Wendy does have good points (as usual) about how some people find hobbies with other people to be relaxing. I’m not one of them. Hobbies with other people are a nightmare of anxiety about how at any second I will say the wrong thing and I’ll be told to leave and never come back.

My life would be a lot easier if I believed that people liked me. Even though you nice people leave me comments on my blog I think that if I spent enough time with you in person you would not be able to handle the firehose. I get that you have been patient with text. Text is less invasive–I promise.

Noah is the one and only person in my life who has spent a lot of time with me and kept coming back. Every other friendship when it escalates in time spent blows up. Yeah, I know this is my fault.

If you have the same problem over and over it isn’t other peoples fault. It is your fault.

I stress people the fuck out. Doing hobbies with me isn’t relaxing for other people any more than they are relaxing for me. I’m really sorry.

So I have hobbies. What I don’t have is relaxation. What I don’t have is a way to come down from the anxiety load that is destroying my body.

Go read up on what chronic stress does to your internal organs. It’s not pretty. That’s what I’m trying to combat with the idea of “hobbies” that I’m arguing with up one side and down the other.

The point isn’t “hobbies” the point is stress reduction.

I run, I do yoga, I take baths, I take a lot of anti-anxiety medication, I read, I write, I garden… these are all the “should calm you down” color wheel. I’M NOT CALMED DOWN YET SO I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY BACK.

If I could learn to function just as well while shaking with anxiety my life would be fine.

At some point in the past couple of years of research I hit this point where I realized fairly point blank that if I want to see my kids reach a lot of adult milestones I will have to be alive. I’m not existing in this body in a way that will allow that to happen. That’s why I am nattering about “must find hobby” only the problem is I have too many hobbies not too few. I must find a way to stop destroying my body.

January is coming. I’ll see a doctor again. Last time allowed me to figure out that I don’t have a hernia (good step) which prompted research into IBS which caused me to drop carbonated water. That eliminated a lot of pain. That’s a good first step. I still have periodic throbbing in the same spot which could indicate an aneurism. Hopefully it won’t rupture or anything. I’m going to move forward with the “Hope it is just IBS and food allergies” assumption and pray.

It’s kind of like how I have gotten way nicer to my cat in the past two or so years. I finally realized oh shit you are getting old and you will die. She’s been with me since I was sixteen. It is going to be really hard when she goes. I am the only mother she remembers. I had her before her eyes were open. I bottle fed her and kept her alive when her mother abandoned her. I’m going to miss her a lot.

No, I’m not just going to replace her with some of the many foster kittens I hear about. Over the next eight years I want to be traveling for almost two years worth of time. That’s not cool to do to an animal. Maybe after the WWOOF year we can consider taking responsibility for another animal. Not before then.

I’m going to miss my cat.

It is 3am. I went to bed by 6:30 because I was exhausted and angry. I woke up 1:30 for poop thirty and haven’t been very sleepy or tired feeling since. I laid in bed for almost an hour. Sleep doctors say to not stay in bed forever if you aren’t sleepy. (They also say to not use screens. Piss off.)

I miss having weekends off from the kids. I’m not doing very well without them. I don’t have down time. I have “quick let me juggle a way to entertain you and you will come and interrupt me 75 billion times” experiences instead.

No, it is not normal, natural, or healthy to raise children without a village of support. There isn’t a lot I can do about the circumstances I am in. I “could” go pay someone to watch my kids. I suppose I should get a job to do that. Or stop overpaying my mortgage. Or stop buying books. Or clothes. Or buy cheaper food so I can pay a daycare.

How about if we start living on ramen again so I can pay someone else to hang out with my kids while I have time off. Sounds awesome.

Oh wait. Other physical issues. See, there is always a down side. Not to mention that when the babysitter comes over I get a break only I have to come back and do a shit ton of work to make up for having stepped out for a few minutes. I always feel like I should have “sucker” tattooed on my forehead. Time off that means much more work overall isn’t “time off”. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I don’t think my life circumstances are more difficult than other people. That’s not what I’m trying to say. I don’t think my life circumstances are all that unusual or challenging. I just think I am shitty at dealing with it. Different.

A problem is only as big as your inability to handle it.

I watch The West Wing or Firefly when I want to zone out. Mostly I watch them while I fold laundry or clean the kitchen. It occupies a lot of my brain.

I like rewatching things. When I was a kid we didn’t own many movies. I never watched broadcast tv much. I’m not interested in moving with the wave of culture. I think that watching a new show means submitting to not being sure if I will feel like I wasted my time by the end. I don’t have a lot of time I like to waste.

So I watch my friends. I think about what it means to be a kind of person. I think about what it means to have to interact with the people around you. I think about what it means to lead and inspire people.

Not that I think I will become a mighty leader. But people tell me I am inspirational. What does that mean?

Inspiring means making people think things are possible.

Is it possible for me to learn to relax? We’ll see.

I wish that hanging out with K or Blacksheep or Wendy or or… was just “relaxing”. It’s not. I love you. I am completely freaked out every single second I am in the room with you. When are you going to get sick of my shit? It’s inevitable. People do.

I get to be sure that people get sick of me and move on. My life is littered with such events. Often combined with nasty letters telling me that they are done with me because I’m doing bad things. So… don’t say I’m paranoid.

Does everyone react that way with me? Of course not. Usually I leave first.

I don’t know how to change these patterns and beliefs. They are self created and self reinforced. I’m not denying any of that. Just because that is true that doesn’t make it easy for me to change. I created these systems unconsciously a long time ago. The fact that I can explain it now it doesn’t mean I have exact control over it.

I want to stop typing. Blah. Hungry. Tired but not sleepy. Therapy in nine hours. This is probably good timing.

Bouncing up

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“I read your book. It made me feel really depressed but then I felt a lot better about my life.”

Oh. Uhm, good?

We went to an Amanda Fucking Palmer show last night. It was at my friend’s house in their living room. It was ridiculously fun. It turned out that almost 25% of the people in the room were there because they knew me, which was frightfully convenient from my point of view.

I don’t usually feel all that safe in groups. I really did last night and it was a nice feeling.

I spend a lot of time figuring out ways to denigrate the opinions of people who think highly of me. It’s a skill. With the people who were there last night… if they said I was awesome I couldn’t argue. They’ve known me a long time through a lot of different phases.

It’s weird sometimes, this having public accountability stuff. If a former casual lover tells me I’m awesome I will pick that apart and get nasty. If one of these friends tells me I’m awesome… I will tear up and say thank you. I want them to like me. And they do. Maybe I’m not so bad.

It was a worse party for not having a Blacksheep. That’s just a true fact.

I got to throw myself on a couch holding my husband and two good friend and Amanda Palmer. Of course she got up approximately 2 seconds later because she had shit to do. This is as close as I get to star fucking these days.

My friends turned the basement of their house into an art gallery featuring work by the various attendees of the event. It was really rad walking back and forth between people introducing them.

“Oh, you like this picture? Then let me introduce you to my friend over here who shot it. Here friend-who-is-a-nature-photographer, meet this other friend who is a bondage-photographer. Oh and here is this other photographer who is less into bondage and more into fetish (which is a different genre.)”

That was cool. I like being able to introduce my friends to one another. I think they are good people and that they will have appreciation for one another’s skills.

The vegan soul food was ridiculously good. I’m not really a vegan eater and this was good. It was also mostly gluten free. This gives me hope for the future elimination diet period. There might be food in the world that follows the guidelines without sucking. Yay!

Today is supposed to be a Dickens Fair day. Everyone stayed up too late. The babysitter keeps every light in the house on and lets the kids keep the iPad long after bed time to “calm them down”. Uhhh… that’s not going to make them go to sleep. We will have words before the next baby-sitting engagement. Gentle ones. I’ll talk to her about strategically leaving the lights on in the front of the house to make her feel safe and like people won’t do a hot break-in but can we turn off the light in the kids bedroom and the hallway… please?

It’ll be great. I’m glad they got to have a fun night playing. It is awesome when babysitters have extra lax rules because then children crave their companionship. Ha.

I spent yesterday being all pissy and fussy. It wasn’t other peoples fault. I just was. Then the concert was fabulous.

Amanda sang two songs that are new–she hasn’t released them anywhere. One was about how stuff can be evil and own you and you need to assign the meaning to your stuff that it has. The second was about a kid who told her he was being raped by his dad. This is as close as she can get to advice for him.

I cried. It was really touching and beautiful. I’m grateful that people are out there in the world acknowledging these things.

In general I was impressed with her ability to perform. Many singers can sing in a studio. She was mesmerizing.

I’m grateful I live in the time and place I live. I have so much opportunity and access and potential in my life. Sometimes it feels like if anyone at any point in history could do something surely people can do more/better/faster given the technology and access we have now. We have so much potential (wo)manpower. We have so many wonderful people all out there existing.

Surely we all get to be here.

Ok Blacksheep, you are right to point out that I shouldn’t think of my writing as having the power to “make” anyone feel anything. They bring their feelings to the writing.

But I write in large part because I seek connection. This is how I bond. I *do* want to make people have a set of feelings. I’m trying to. It’s a conscious effort.

I want to make people feel like they are making the right choices for them. I want to make people feel like they are doing the best they can do with the things that landed in their life this lifetime. I want to make people feel like they are important and should be here.

That’s really a lot of the reason I write. I need you. And you. And you. I really do. Even if I think you are an asshole. Even if I think you are a predator. Even if I think you make really bad decisions sometimes.

I still need you to exist. I understand that my needs aren’t your problem but I was sorta hoping we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. I need you. I think you need me too. I think you need to see how different I am and how whack job my choices are so you can properly appreciate “holy moly I’m glad I have my life“.

I’m glad you get to have your life. I’m glad it is different from mine. I’m glad you get to make all your own brilliant choices. I can’t do everything and I want to find out more about human potential. I can watch you and feel admiration all the time that our species is so complex and wonderful.

I can change if you exist. You present me with this permanent foil of “See, it doesn’t have to be this way it could be that way.”

There are always more options.

I have a God complex. I want to be able to make people feel things. I really really do.

I want to make you feel important. I want to make you feel valuable. I want to make you feel loved.

Whether you like it or not.

Find a hobby

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My interpretation of “find pleasure in” involves doing things that do not make me scream, cuss, break things, and hate everyone who is stupid enough to talk to me. That means all hobbies are out.

It also doesn’t help that when people start listing off possible hobbies my first thought is “What is the arm load like? Nope.” I am at mass capacity on arm load. I truly can’t pick up hobbies like knitting or crochet at this point. I would fully cripple myself in a year.

My arms burn. Right now. All the time. Sometimes the pain a lot worse. I was dumb in November again. I still don’t have a workable ergonomic set up. I had one that kind of sort of worked only it didn’t. So yeah. That will take money to fix. I just… this whole year sucks for money.

When I paint it is better if no one is in the room with me. If someone is near me while I paint it isn’t going to be very pleasant for both of us. The motherfucking piece of shit might breathe at the wrong time and then I will turn around and scream and scream and scream because how fucking dare they distract me.

Painting my house has been an adventure. I can’t scream at the kids like that. But painting is horrible and stressful so I try to only paint while they are able to be distracted doing something else. I curse under my breath. I sound really bad.

Why do I work all the time? Because I get a sense of satisfaction from it. I do have “hobbies” given that I don’t do anything for pay. Everything I do is a hobby. I work all day long. None of my hobbies are “relaxing”.

When I sit down to read a book as often as not it is dense, difficult to read, and kind of uncomfortable. I read a lot of things that cause me psychological distress because I need the information contained within.

The primary thing I have ever done in my life that consistently reduces my stress is go pick up sex with strangers. Yeah, not doing that any more. So I’m hosed.

I do gardening. That counts as a hobby. It is horribly arm intensive and expensive so I have to carefully dole out my pleasures. Yes, I can always weed for free. Ask me how happy gardening would make me if all I got to do was weed. (Technically gardening isn’t usually that expensive. I’ve had a few larger issues in my yard to correct. At this point I think I am past most of the big expenses. I like seeds. Seeds are cheaper than plants. But I wasn’t going to plant trees from seeds. It’s too hard.)

I clean as stress relief. But I live with people who do the opposite of cleaning all day and that raises my stress. It is an interesting balance.

Running is kind of a good thing. Only finding time that isn’t pre-6am is hard. And frankly, this is the only time I get to sit in silence. I’m not fucking giving it up for running. I will be too angry all day. I need to sit in silence. I need it.

I dearly wish that all these little hand craft hobbies didn’t make me angry but they do. They make me so angry and hateful that I really don’t want to be near anyone for days. I can’t have more of that feeling in my life right now. I don’t get the space to process my frustration. I have to just sit on it. No, that doesn’t make my life better.

I wish that I didn’t get so angry. But I do. I can’t unmake that fact by wishing it away. I have to live with the body I have.

I hear that my friends have hobbies that relax them and make their lives better. I’m glad that works for you. It will make me beat my children.

Yesterday the kids decided to play with one of my tea sets. One I was given as a birthday present. They soaked the tax paperwork we just received and broke a porcelain spoon.

I’m having a hard time controlling my mouth. I have to be alone in a room because I’m cussing a lot. I feel really frustrated and angry. I’m saying things I don’t mean and I need to make sure they don’t hear me.

Relaxation from a hobby comes from being in the flow state. The learning process isn’t relaxing it is torture. Flow comes after a lot of practice. So I walk up to every hobby and think, “Great. One more thing it would have been nice for me to learn years ago so I could enjoy it today. Oh fucking well.”

I like woodworking. That takes tools and money I don’t want to spend right now. Woodworking is satisfying. Knitting a fucking scarf makes me think, “Wow. I could have spent $5 and bought something more attractive. What a fucking waste of my life.”

I honestly dislike drawing. If I have to sit down and do it my stress amps. I start cussing more. I get mean really fast. No, I don’t do a lot of drawing with the kids.

I think I hate everything that is meant to be done alone. Intrinsically. That is the opposite of what I want in my life and giving in to it means admitting that I will always be alone. I don’t want to. I don’t want that to be my fate.

People tell me to find a hobby so I can relax and have fun alone. I don’t like being alone. Being alone means a walk through my shitty brain. Things that require intense concentration and learning just make me feel like I am not paying attention to my surroundings and soon I will be eaten.

I listen to music sometimes. When I’m not feeling obsessed with silence. I like music.

I do like to dance alone. As soon as someone else is there the stress amps. My kids expect me to carry them the whole time. Which makes my arms hurt. Which makes dancing not fun. Which makes me resent them. Which… it’s a bad cycle.

I feel like everything I do just convinces me how incompetent, pathetic, weak, and stupid I am.

Why don’t I go find a hobby? Because I’m a fucking loser. Leave me alone.

It’s not a bad suggestion. I get how it comes from a loving place. Being in my body full time is really unpleasant.

When people try to talk me into their hobbies I really want to launch into a full detailed explanation about how their life would be much better if they embraced promiscuous sex. Let me tell you why!

I could sell it as a hobby. I’m serious.

Why don’t I learn to make music? Because I feel stupid, wrong, bad about myself, and like I should walk in front of a bus because I am so stupid and pathetic. No really.

Have you noticed the “not rational” bit about my brain?

If I could trade my brain in for one that works how other peoples brains work I would. But I can’t.

I did rest yesterday. I read to the kids until my throat gave out. Because that’s “resting”, right? The singing practice with the home schoolers didn’t help my throat. I’m not a singer. And the kids didn’t know the words so the grown ups had to sing loudly and enunciate because a lot of the kids can’t read yet.

Because we came home early from Portland we get to go caroling with the home schoolers at an old folks home. We were going to miss the rehearsal so we couldn’t go. That was a slight factor in coming home early once my friend told me she had strep (maybe she doesn’t and it was just a flu because she feels better–much bummer all around). The kids wanted to do this.

Everything the kids want to do involves me having to teach them shit. Mostly shit I don’t know how to do and I’m not good at. I really do not have the bandwidth to go learn more than I’m learning.

This is where I run into that time as a limiting option. What balls should I drop from my life so I can “go learn a relaxing hobby” that will make me feel angry, pissed off, stressed out, and like I hate every fucking person in the whole fucking world.

I am really angry this morning. I woke up angry. I’m not angry about the comments I’ve been getting despite this rant. (Actually the comments are useful. I appreciate my friends. They cause me to think about the shape of why I am doing things and that is really fucking useful.)

Like I do need to rest more. Whether I can pick up a hobby or not is debatable. I HAVE to rest more. That’s not negotiable. Maybe I will have to find something other than a hobby because I do not find the same physical anxiety relief in it that my friends do (I am really glad it works for you–no sarcasm.) but that doesn’t mean that I get to opt out of rest.

Rest is mandatory. Knitting is not. (I use knitting as a strawman in this argument. You could substitute “do calligraphy” or “learn to make beer”, really anything.)

When I have the kids come over and do painting stuff I watch. I can explain the process. But I can’t get involved and do it myself with them. I will get too control oriented and bitchy.

I throw a lot of temper tantrums. Now that I am all big and stuff I work hard to only do them in private. So I can’t engage in group hobby stuff because my experience of doing them involves sitting and cussing full stream ahead.

I actually limit the cussing in my writing a lot. If you were in the room with me you would hear less than 20% of my words are non-curse words while I’m painting. I can make whole paragraphs and ditties using just curse words. I do slip in conjunctions and prepositions. No nouns.

Studies show that swearing lowers stress. Maybe this is my hobby.

I do care about the results of painting. So I’ve worked through my anger and hostility and I’ve learned a lot. I do enjoy it more now than I used to. I made everyone in the scene shop miserable when I was in college. After a while they only let me prime sets because they needed it done and no one wanted to listen to my mouth when it came to the harder kinds of painting.

Painting is the opposite of relaxing.

But I do still like it. I like the results. I just don’t like doing it. It is stressful.

Do you know what I used to do for stress relief? I beat the shit out of people. It is incredibly relaxing. And fun! If I had more spare time and childcare I might take up boxing. Noah and I are talking about enrolling the whole family in martial arts in January.

I do seated work. I write. I read. Isn’t that enough sitting? I cuddle with the kids for at least half an hour often more than an hour every day. Isn’t that enough? I’m sure my ass is in a chair for at least four hours a day. Surely no one needs to sit more than that…

I actually kind of think that is the role the pot plays in my life. It physically relaxes me. I sit down while I smoke. It’s awesome.

More baths? I could start taking daily baths. Those help to physically relax me.

I need to run almost every day. I just need to. I need to stop cussing at everyone. Although it is hard to not use it as stress relief. I mean good grief. I’m trying to not do things like cutting–is cursing really a big deal? I mean really? In the scheme of things?!

But it is actually more important than the cutting. It really bothers me that it is true but it is. Cursing in front of people will cause me far more problems than cutting. It is better for me to cut to deal with my stress instead of cussing all the time.

That feels really sad.

This is what I mean when I say that I live in a time and a place where my problems are mine. I can’t share them with my community. I’m not allowed to telegraph stress.

Learning is hard for me. It is stressful. I cuss while I do it. I always have. I have been getting in trouble for this since I was five years old. I’m unlikely to develop more control over it than I have right now. I can’t wait until my kids are adults and I can start swearing in front of them more. That’ll be awesome. I will have given them a childhood where they got to experience not being around a nasty angry person. They will be able to handle my stress not being about them. That’s the long-run goal. Fifteen years to go.

You can’t get better at things unless you deal with the frustration of learning. But I already have an ambient really high level of frustration. Adding more makes me defenses crack and then I’m not really fit to be near.

It’s about balance.

And yet what I’m trying to do is teach my kids to do stuff. Teach them how to be an adult.

I do learn in front of them. But I’m really fully stocked on what I’m trying to learn. I’m doing stuff I planned in advance. I’m slowly acquiring more skills in a conscious way because I am teaching them. I’m learning cooking and gardening and how to maintain a house. These are things that people do need to know. My kids won’t have to work on these skills as adults; it can be run as a background thing in their lives. The goal is competence.

I think that maybe I should think about co-working during writing time. With the kids I mean. They can do their own table work at the same time. They can always find something to do.

I feel kind of insecure about not directing my kids. I don’t tell them to do art. I don’t tell them to draw or practice writing or whatever.

They just do these things. I give them a certain amount of money every so often and we go to craft stores and they pick what they want.

I really enjoy watching them enjoy these things. But I’m shit at making the kinds of things they like to make. I don’t have the physical coordination. The irony is staggering.

Fiddly work makes me crazy. Is that a character flaw? I like sudoku. I play that a lot. Maybe a book of them in my Christmas stocking? That would get me to close the computer and sit with the kids…

That’s all I’ve got right now. I’m trying.

I’m gonna be a super model.

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Not a supermodel. That’s different. I frequently feel weird that I don’t do things for myself. I do them so that I can show my kids how it “should” be done. I need to show them how to eat healthy food. I need to show them how to exercise. I need to show them how to rest. The list keeps getting longer. All the “shoulds”. I won’t do them for myself.

Lately I’ve been thinking very hard about the fact that cutting is free and pot is expensive. Only there is a hidden cost. I teach my children by what I do. I don’t want them slicing themselves open. I want them liking their bodies.

Yesterday I randomly blurbed on Twitter about Calli telling me that we are both good girls. I said that it surprises me that people think I’m good. One of my Daddy’s popped up and told me that lots of people think I’m good. That one didn’t surprise me much. Another former lover piped up to tell me I’m awesome.

Uhh, what you know about me is that I showed up for sex when you wanted sex and I didn’t talk about myself and I didn’t stay longer than you wanted me around. Oh, then you went on to work with my husband which was hella awkward. What in the fuck are you basing the word “awesome” on? The fact that I’m good at showing up for sex and keeping it on the down-low so no one has to be aware that you touched me?

Feelings.

Sometimes when I stop and reflect on the fact that my writing makes other people feel judged, particularly that people think I am holding myself up as better than them…

Feelings.

I’m struggling to think that anything I do is “right”. I’m trying like hell to believe that it is ok for me to teach my children the way I am. I don’t know I am right. I’m just hoping that the best I can do is good enough.

Isn’t that what everyone is doing? We are doing the best we can every day. Everyone has something different they are good at doing. I’m not good at everything. I’m not good at all that many things. My list of failures is longer than my successes.

But that’s the process. Right?

Today I will try and rest more. It feels bad. It feels lazy. It feels like skipping out on life.

But I’ll cuddle more with the kids. The first year of my kids’ lives I sat still with them. That’s pretty much what I did. I sat still and managed my anxiety and let the world rush by without me.

No, mothers aren’t meant to be alone all the time with their children. I know. It isn’t best practice. I do not believe that the option of day care/school is the best way to solve this problem in our family. I don’t think they are bad or unworthy options but they aren’t options I want to pursue.

I don’t really want to go get a job so I can afford to pay someone else money to watch my kids for me. I don’t want to.

I have the privilege to make another choice. I want to make the choice I am making. I am not saying that the options shouldn’t be there for other people. I think they should. I think they should be government supported because it is best for all of society if children have access to such support.

I still need to do what I’m doing.

I need to learn how to be an adult. I want to do this so I can show my children how to be an adult. This is the best I can do.

I wish I were better too.

Home again, jiggity jig.

7 Replies

I like my home. We are home. Ms. Blacksheep got sick. Much sadness is had by all. So we came home a day early. Yay home.

I was told that I am perhaps more hypervigilant than necessary and I could be more honey badger like.

Thing is, hypervigilance isn’t something where you can say, “I’ve been hanging out at a 9 for years now so how about if I turn it down to a 7 in your house because you’re cool and all.”

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

For most of the past week I have had the really intense, invasive thought, “I will never have a dad who hasn’t fucked me.” I can’t get it out of my head. I keep repeating it over and over to myself.

Do you really think that would be an ok thing to bust out at your house? Really? If not then I can’t turn my hypervigilance down. At all. Not a notch.

When I am feeling stressed and kind of anxious I have a bad habit of talking about my many sexual exploits. That is my “relax and feel comfortable” line of conversation. If I can’t start extensively going off on the many people I’ve fucked then I am on Best Behavior and no I can’t relax.

Noah asked me what the penalty would be for people not liking me now. I said that the problem is that I only leave my house with the hope of finding people who like me.

I’m not interested in most hobbies–have you noticed? I don’t hang out with people so that they can also do what I am doing at the same time. I just don’t give a shit.

I leave my house because I want affiliation and I want people to like me. I only interact with people from a sense of “Please affirm that I shouldn’t die because you like me.” No, I’m not calling this “healthy”. I am just accurately labeling how it works for me.

I go visit you, Blacksheep, Bladerunner, Pam, S, K, T, P, etc because I want you to love me. That’s it. That’s all. When I stop inviting you over it is because I am scared that you don’t actually love me very much and I am just bothering you by asking you to come over.

I can’t see inside you. All I know is my very broken perception of how you treat me. I want people to love me so bad that sometimes I feel like the only reason I get out of bed *ever* is with the desperate hope that someone will love me.

I don’t feel very lovable. I don’t feel worthy of Dad’s love. I feel like an ungrateful piece of shit who should be lit on fire.

Even though I was very nice to him the whole time I was in his house and I cleaned the house before I left so he wasn’t negatively impacted and I left enough money on the counter to cover our food. I still feel like a disgusting user. I still feel like there is no reason for him to love me.

This is why I appreciate so much that people insert themselves into my life. Dad tells me to come visit. Blacksheep arranges plans. Etc on down the list.

I’m scared. Basically all the time that I am not worthy of being loved so I should die. Yeah, it is hyperbolic and annoying. Try living in my head for a week if you want to bitch about how annoying it is. It sucks.

I have better weeks and worse weeks. Clearly when traveling it escalates in pitch for me. They are all people I rarely see but upon whom I base a lot of self worth. If these wonderful people see something in me worthy of loving then maybe I’m not as bad as I think.

If I were to not care what people thought of me I would stop leaving my house. If I didn’t want love so bad I feel like I will drown I wouldn’t deal with people. The stress isn’t worth it.

Let me tell you I would not be nice to your random friends if I didn’t want you to love me so fucking much.

I wish I were just nice. I’m not. I’m only nice with a lot of conscious effort.

Noah asked me “what I want from life”. I want people to love me. I mean, I will do a lot of other stuff while I’m praying for that to happen. I’ll build shit and paint shit and garden and hang out with people doing random other things.

All of it is a structure around my fervent prayer, “Please love me.” Sometimes this need feels so big it will drown me. This is the need that nearly killed me because for a long time… people didn’t love me much. I went through most of the formative period of my life having everyone tell me how much they hated me and resented my presence. I was an unwanted burden.

Yesterday I was talking to Ms. Blacksheep as her illness kind of unfolded. I erroneously made a comment about her being overscheduled. She set me straight. Apparently the move to Portland has involved a more reasonable work schedule and shit.

Man. I work at least 75 hours a week. If you include kid care (which is myriad and complicated), reading (I don’t just sit down to read for pleasure I sit down for 3 hours to read this book and then I move on fast), other house repair, home school events (which count as hard work for my body system let-me-tell-you), and cleaning. I think it is very rare that I do less than 11 hours of work in a day. I don’t just sit around and rest. I don’t really know how.

I therefore followed up with, “How does that work?!” I should figure out this “being healthy” thing. Working 11+ hours every day is not really “healthy”.

I work because I have no value sitting still. I’m a piece of shit who should be earning my keep but I’m not really. I think I am lazy, and not very effective. Don’t ask me who isn’t lazy or who is effective. I can’t answer that. Anyone but me? Regardless of how our to-do lists match up?

Ok, not rational. I get it.

I am so scared I won’t be prepared for something I work hard all the time because I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel like I will be allowed to stay if I become any more of a horrible burden than I am. Is Noah doing or saying anything to cause me to think he is on the verge of kicking me out? No. Of course not. Noah makes undying promises of support all the time. And he backs them up with converting his inheritance into community property so that no matter what I have to take half of his assets whether I like it or not. He won’t let me walk away penniless and pathetic. Even if I’m the one running away.

I’m not saying I’m rational. I’m saying I am where I am. In many ways this does represent positive progress from where I was. Seriously, I’m much healthier than I was fifteen years ago. Life is about progress, right?

I try to not hate myself for being this broken and annoying. I wish my brain just worked. I wish I didn’t hate me so much. I wish I wasn’t so convinced that I am doing everything wrong and at any second people are going to be fucking sick of me and they will tell me to go away and not come back.

I wish I believed that people would actually be there for me. I don’t. I have no faith at all.

I have a long list of people who have told me I “could” call in the middle of the night. I don’t. I don’t feel comfortable or safe. I will use up my welcome and then I will not even have the bits I have now. Don’t overtax your support system. Just don’t.

I’m really glad to be back in my home. The longer I live here the more I like it.

I would not belong in a bigger house. I would have so much imposteur syndrome. The shoddy little tract house is about as high as white trash like me should climb. If you get too high then people want to knock you down because they don’t like seeing a loser with more prestige than them.

Also: these big houses are expensive. This trip I got to visit the House That Porn built. (When I defend pornography as a lifestyle it is because I happen to know a lot of pornographers. Some of them are excellent people and some of them are scum, pretty much like every other career choice.)

This house was four stories tall and beautiful. All through the house was interesting art. The couple who lives there has an incredible eye for beauty. They know how to make you really stop and think about the things around you. But it was all funded by porn. Well, as long as you have savings just in case I think it is awesome.

I couldn’t live there. I just couldn’t. I tried asking them how it felt to live in such a big fancy house (when I first met them they lived in Santa Cruz in a place more like the house I am in now) and I was told, “Enh this is small and shack-like.” You just can’t get a straight answer out of him.

Thing is, I’m pretty sure he was entirely sincere and he just lives in a world I don’t live in.

(They’ve moved through four houses since moving up to the Portland area. This house is not the biggest they have owned but it is the fanciest. Like, whoa.)

I really like a variety of people. I think they are all doing the right things for them. The Christian home schoolers and the pornographers are each doing what makes them happy. Awesomesauce.

I want to live in a world where you all exist. I want to live in a world of stay at home moms and stay at home dads and working moms and working dads. I want the variety. I want it so much. I am not more validated by people being like me. People being like me usually makes me sad because it probably means they are not as happy as they could be.

I’ve been reading about group cooperation among humans and animals. I don’t have an “in” group. I haven’t for a long time. I seem to have some weird ability to grab on to the whole of humanity and say, “Ok, you’re mine.” I don’t need them to be related to me by blood or to have grown up in the same place or even for them to read the same books.

You’re mine. I love you. I want you in this world. I think you are good. I want you to still move about in the world doing things. I really do. Even if they work in opposition to what I’m doing. What is life without a little opposition?

I want it so bad.

I want them all to love me and think it is ok for me to live. I don’t need them to do much for me. I just want the love.

Something you discover when you read a lot of rape narratives is there is this horrible phrase that comes up a lot. “Please love me.”

Rapists like to make people say it so they can justify what they are doing. If you are forced to say something it doesn’t count no matter what you are saying. It is easy to force people to say things. Really easy. Like, whoa easy. I can do it. No problem.

Please love me. The phrase turns my stomach and makes the hair on my neck stand up.

But I mean it. I’m obsessed with it. I want to be worthy of love. I don’t think I am. I’m very sad about that.

Keep trying

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This trip has involved more “heavy” conversations with Dad than I can remember having before. I’m really glad I came. Even with my irritation about football. That’s a trigger. That’s not his fault.

You don’t understand what someone is giving you of themselves until you find out more about them. I’ve been kind of interrogating him. I’ve asked a lot of questions about his family-of-origin, about how he raised his kids, his money situation, his life choices… all kinds of things. I know Dad but I don’t feel I know him if you know what I mean. Ha–I’m almost punny.

Yeah. I found out some things about Dad’s financial situation that surprised me. Noah makes a lot of money. We live in a bubble of tech workers who all earn rather obscene amounts of money. Dad’s not in that bubble.

The idea of “generosity” or “caretaking” change as your quantity of money changes. Dad is much more into making food for people than he used to be. He no longer volunteers to take everyone out to restaurants. That’s a good choice. But man I don’t feel like I have any right to say anything didactic about how he handles his money. He was a CPA for longer than I have been alive. Right now finding a good job is hard.

Noah asked me if Dad keeps all the daughters and I said no. Most of them move on. Most of them bring their needs to Dad and expect him to meet their needs and I don’t. I don’t think Dad is obligated to take care of me. I appreciate any tiny nudge of caretaking and in turn I will clean your whole house before I leave. I’ll leave grocery money on the counter so you can’t argue with me. I know that our monthly grocery bill is more than half of Dad’s monthly income. He does not need to pay for us.

But he loves me. And he loves my children more by the year. I can’t buy that. I may have money but I don’t have a lot of people who want to sit down with my kids and show them how to play with a Wii. I’m grateful that he wants to.

My life has been such a series of up and downs with relationship to money and secure attached relationships. I have money now. I’m squirreling it away. I obsess constantly about not saving enough even though I’m way above all of the averages and expectations. It’s not good enough. I’m not safe enough. But the human dependent loving relationships… I can’t just fix that for myself.

I don’t know how to defend myself without running people off. I’m trying to change this. Defending myself is a real, serious priority for me and I’m not going to give up on it. But the mechanism could be more gentle. I would like to alienate people less.

I really like this feeling of being welcome in Dad’s house. I really like that he has spent a lot of years so far putting drips and drabs of trust and love into my bucket. Dad has earned every ounce of tolerance and patience he needs from me. He really has. I do have to work on being patient with him. He is very much not like me and that is hard sometimes.

I’m really grateful he has allowed me to grow up in this relationship. Kind of like how I am grateful to my Owner.

These men may not be able to give the kind of emotional support I want but it isn’t their fault and it isn’t their job and they really have given me all they have to spare. Say thank you. Smile. Don’t be nasty. Go somewhere else for the rest of your needs.

Thank you, Noah.

I love Dad a lot. I’m really glad I get to know him. He validates me and appreciates me.

Last night he told both of us that he thinks our priorities are in the right order and we are clearly making good decisions right on down the line. He said he was proud of us.

I need that feeling so bad. I am so glad I am not a disappointment. I’m trying so hard.

No, he doesn’t do everything I can imagine wanting him to do. He watches way more sports on television than I want to be near. Really if that is my big complaint I need to shut the fuck up.

He does pretty fucking well by me. Even if he does make fun of me more than I want. His way of being is valid. We’ll figure it out. I will keep coming back year after year. I like being in his presence.

Not because I like feeling smug because I’m making good life choices and he is in a hard phase. I feel guilty that he is in a hard phase. His life got really hard when his wife died. This was a ship that needed two incomes. He has struggled a lot with picking up the pieces.

Being here is changing some of how I think about death. Francesca didn’t commit suicide (we think) but she did accidentally kill herself. The hole she has left in me, in Dad, in all of the people in this community is still gaping and raw. It has been more than five years.

It wasn’t like this after my father or my brother died. There wasn’t a whole community of mourning. Really it didn’t matter much that they were dead. They were both so far outside of my life and my community that I wasn’t impacted. I never saw them when they were alive, why would it matter that they were dead?

I have always thought I would be more like my dad and brother when I die. No one will give a shit. No one will be impacted.

I don’t think that any more. Now I look around and think, “I would hurt people the way Francesca hurt people.” Err, that sounds like I’m blaming Francesca. I’m not. I’m not saying she hurt people. Her death hurt people. Her not being in the world has been very painful for a lot of people. She is not replaceable in any way.

I miss her so much. Not very many people were as forgiving of my fuck ups as she was. She could look at me and say, “Krissy I don’t think that came out how you meant it. Would you like to try again?” People just don’t say that to me. They think I mean what I say and say what I mean so I am just a mean and nasty bitch.

I have a lot of big feelings. My tone of voice often sucks. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. I’m trying. I’m better than I was.

Sometimes I wonder if me wanting to go off pot so much is going to be like a schizophrenic refusing to take their meds. Is my control going to slip in ways that make me more dangerous to be around for other people?

Francesca would have told me that she got off heroin so I can do anything.

Sometimes we need the relationships we have because the people in them view us in a way we need to be viewed. A lot of people who have done “great things” did so because they were conforming to the popular opinions about them. They were told they could and must.

Dad thinks I’m pretty spiffy. He tells me so. Maybe I can substitute his beliefs about me for my own.

What does love mean, anyway? I love Dad. I want to do nice things for him. I want him to be happy. I want him to feel like he gets the things he wants in life.

He sure as heck doesn’t feel that way. The older I get the more I discuss white privilege with white men the more I feel kind of sad for everyone in the whole world.

If this is the “easy level” no wonder life sucks so much for everyone else. It isn’t easy or fun or comfortable here either.

I feel sad that I am not better at having relationships with shorter gaps in between visits. I am profoundly shitty at seeing people frequently. My boundaries get worse. I get more impatient and needy and difficult. I keep everyone on varying length rotations.

I wish that I handled Portland better. I like all the people here so much but it is also hard for me. I have to “behave” and it isn’t how I normally act so I have to think really hard and try really hard and I get so tired. I feel like such a failure all the fucking time.

I miss Wonderland. I’m glad I get to go back to it. I have a hard time with my relationships at home too, but being able to retreat into my cave of wonders really helps.

Here in Dad’s house I always feel like I am about to break something and I don’t mean to. I don’t want to leave a wake of destruction… but I do. I always have. I don’t get that mad at my kids for breaking things because I am a Destruct-o-Matic. I feel scared. I feel like I am about to do something stupid, reveal a need I shouldn’t reveal and then I will be banished.

I wish I could feel like people love me. I wish I could predict the boundaries of my acceptable behavior better. I wish I could maintain appropriate behavior better. I fuck up so much.

Ok, time to do something else.

Catch up sleep is my friend.

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I got nine hours of sleep last night. I only manage such a feat a few times a year so I’m excited. I medicated for sleep last night. I don’t do that much. Mostly I just medicate the day-time anxiety so I’m not a mean, nasty bitch. Once in a while I help myself sleep. My body feels pretty happy right this minute.

We sat around yesterday. I did a couple loads of laundry and made dinner. That was my productivity. Noah caught up on the internet and the kids played. Today will be a going-out day again. Tomorrow too. We got an SMS from Ms. Blacksheep and I told Shanna and Calli that we were offered the ability to sleep near their new friends A and M. Shanna declared loudly that she was ready to leave Grandpa’s house in favor of being near A because A IS MY BEST FRIEND. WE SHOULD BE AT HER HOUSE! Oh. Well, ok then.

It is interesting watching the vagaries of children. What does “best friend” mean to a five year old? I’m not going to say she is right or wrong. I’m glad y’all are getting along. Sure, we can camp at their house after school the last day/night so you can see them again. That sounds great.

I think the kids are getting pretty bored of watching Dad play video games (his way of playing with the kids) or now he has switched to watching football. He has exhausted his repertoire trying to entertain them.

I think I maintain a relationship with Dad because we live very far apart and I don’t have a lot of expectations of someone who lives this far away from me. If I lived close to him I would resent the fuck out of coming to his house and making dinner for him only to have him walk away from the table with barely a nod to watch football. Yeah. I don’t work this way.

People are so different. Being in this house is reminding me of why I’m glad I don’t have a television set and I will probably never have one again in my life. I feel so much anger when someone ignores me to watch tv. I don’t know what it is but football makes me feel hate.

Really. Watching other people run back and forth on a screen is more interesting than talking to me. Well fuck you very much too. I’ll just fucking leave.

When I was a kid the tv was on 24/7 and I was constantly screamed at to shut up so I didn’t distract people from watching tv. But they were never not watching tv. So basically I was just supposed to be silent.

I hate the tv. I hate the fucking surround sound that means I can be on the far side of the fucking house and I can’t get the fuck away from the fucking football.

I’m having issues. Time to leave. I love Dad with great intensity but it is such a good thing I’ve never actually lived with him. I don’t think we would get along. I don’t say that because I think that he is a bad person. I don’t think he is a bad person. I think he is a very good person. I really do. My feeling “triggered” is not about him. It is not his fault. I don’t think he is bad for liking football. I just don’t like it.

This trip I have been busting out terminology. He says he didn’t know I had PTSD. He knew that some things happened to me a long time ago but he has carefully avoided knowing what or that it might have current effects on me. I’m getting clinical. He kind of looks shell shocked. I should probably shut up.

Only if you want to know me and you have known me for almost fifteen years… you probably should have some idea about what my life is like. You should know some real things about me.

If the only thing you know about me is that I like single tails and canes why are you calling me your friend? We aren’t friends. If that is the only thing you think is worth putting in your memory banks about me then we aren’t fucking friends.

I’m just another girl in your line up.

I took a break there for an hour or so to talk to Dad because he woke up and came down. He is trying so hard. I feel really guilty for being impatient with him.

Dad is doing his best to have a relationship with me. He is fully bringing all he has to offer and that is all that any human being can do. It isn’t his fault I am so needy and damaged. He didn’t do any of it. He has been intensely respectful of my consent for the entire time I have known him. He’s a big consent advocate in general.

Dad can be an asshole, yes. Mostly though he is a very good person. I feel so glad that I get to know him.

We had a good talk this morning. I sort of opened the flood gates. He asked why I write the way I do. I told him that I have this burning internal need to exist in front of people and mostly my life is very isolated. I either write about myself or I feel like I don’t exist. I want to exist so fucking bad.

I love Dad a lot. He has been very good to me. I feel very guilty for feeling irritated with the things he does. He isn’t hurting me.

He’s really nice to the kids, too. He’s been patient with them destroying stuff. He hasn’t yelled at all. If I think back I can’t think of him ever yelling at me once. He just doesn’t do that. He tends towards apathy not inappropriate control.

No person is without challenging parts of their personality. I have more than most. I need to be patient with people being where they are.

He confirmed that I am way easier to be around now than I used to be. I’m a lot nicer now. He said that Francesca really saw my potential. She made sure I kept coming around. And now she is gone. I miss her so much. I saw her potential too.

Every time Shanna is kind to animals I tell her about Francesca. That was kind of Francesca’s thing. She was an animal rescuer. My kids have played Diego and Francesca the Animal Rescuers!

It makes me cry. I wish Francesca had gotten to be a grandmother. She would have been a very good one. She didn’t get to have kids. Life is like that sometimes. I miss her so much.

I have this feeling and I try to believe that other people would miss me like this if I died. So don’t die.

Yeah, I feel more patient after the sleep. I get so nasty when I’m exhausted. I feel really bad about it but I don’t know how to control it better. Sometimes I don’t sleep and that is that. Sleep hygiene. Or something.

Sometimes it is hard knowing that almost every relationship in my life is opt-in. People can choose to show up occasionally or not as they see fit. There is no assumption that we will be together and you have to opt-out. That’s the difference between friends and family. You have to guiltily tell your mom you aren’t coming “home” for the holidays. You don’t have to tell me shit. The assumption is I am on my own.

But Dad keeps opting in. Maybe I should work on being less of a cunt. I have already made a lot of progress. He tells me so.

 

PS- my arms burn like fire.

PPS- Dad asked for the link to my blog again. Good thing I don’t say anything behind anyone’s back that I won’t say to their face.

My people.

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Yesterday I got to spend time with two thoroughly excellent ladies. It is kind of funny that I am referring to them that way because one of them is dealing with a situation at work where she has to tell someone else in her department, “Uhhh stop sending group emails to “Dear Ladies”.”

Two women who inspire me came out of hiding yesterday. One is a preschool special ed teacher (talk about a special breed of saint) and the other has a background like mine and she now has a masters in social work. After dropping out of high school in 9th grade and never completing high school.

One of my friends is not a parent and the other has one kid. I am on a very different life path than either of them. I am really glad that my kids get to know a lot of women who have entirely different interests. My children mostly know women who work. My children mostly know people who have nothing in common with us other than being breathing monkeys and all.

You don’t have to be like me. I am doing what I must do. I know it is kind of weird.

I am so grateful to talk to other people who are fascinated by the vagaries of humanity. It is nice to get to talk to people and say, “Yeah we share ____ bad habit and ______ good habits. Whoo hoo!”

Noah got to ask the social worker friend and I why we care so much about the opinion of people we don’t like and don’t respect. Why don’t we just get over it already? He’s been pestering me on this one for a bit now and I haven’t given him a useful answer. It was kind of nice for him to get to ask another person who is as angry and difficult as I am. I am NOT ALONE. muahahaha

Yes, Noah you are right. Our lives would be better in every way at this point if we didn’t care.

When you are a white trash kid who depends on a lot of charity… you have to care what people think or they don’t give you any help.

I got out of poverty because of a lot of white privilege. People who would help me just an inch here and there. If I didn’t give a shit what they thought I would have behaved even worse than I did and I wouldn’t have gotten the help.

Historically in my life not caring was more dangerous than it is now. At this point it is a legacy bad habit that I do need to change. It is a coping method that *used* to be necessary and it is still around when I don’t need it any more.

I kind of have a long list of personality problems I am already working on. I haven’t really had time to deal with this one yet. I’m too busy figuring out how to not scream at my kids all the fucking time. It’s really hard. Now I understand why my mom beat the shit out of me.

But I will not pass it on. And that requires a lot of truly active thinking on my part.

If I go on “auto pilot” then I am nasty, shrieking, and violent. I hurt people with great joy. If I want to behave differently then I need to really think hard about it all the fucking time. That doesn’t leave a lot of spare brain cycles for fixing the stuff Noah thinks I should get around to.

Uhh, sorry.

I know you are right. I know that is on the list of things I need to change. I get it. But there isn’t a neat little switch attached to my body some where. I don’t get to just decide, “I am going to stop being angry and afraid; all of a sudden I am going to just massively increase my apathy.” Sorry, my nipples aren’t that kind of dial or anything.

I know it “would be better for me” if I could stop having intense emotional reactions to the fact that there will always be people in this world who hate me and wish I would die. Yup, my life would improve in every way if I stopped feeling so bad about that. I know. I know. I KNOW.

I just…

I’m trying.

It has been nice over the past few days to see people I have known for so long. They have been commenting on how different I am. I don’t hit people any more. I don’t even mean like in a bdsm sense. I hit people fucking constantly for most of my life. It has taken years for Jenny to stop flinching when I come near her. I have had to work really hard at not being scary any more.

I understand that this isn’t an “everyone has it” problem. Please can it be ok that I am working on this problem first instead of the “caring too much” problem?

Seriously. I need to care what people think of me. Fewer people, sure. I agree. I do need to care. Not as much as I do. Yes yes yes the strangers who hate me can fuck off. I get it.

The caring runs on a background tape I never take out of the deck and examine. It’s just kind of there. It is an unfortunate feature of my personality that just exists. I don’t consciously go turn it on. I don’t try to increase my anxiety. It’s just there.

Sometimes people have unconscious reactions. It happens.

So it was nice for Noah to get to talk to both of my friends yesterday. They are very different and share very different sides of my interests. Good grief am I grateful that he got to meet someone as angry as I am who is out doing stuff in the world. She has as many anger problems as I do and she has to just fucking master them, like yesterday.

She is very inspirational to me. I confess that I have a hard time taking advice from people who are not inherently angry. If you aren’t like me then you won’t understand what advice I need or why I need it. She gets it. She gets it better than almost anyone I have ever met.

Why are my very closest friends all former child prostitutes? They can understand me. They don’t flinch. They don’t judge me. They understand why I am angry and they think I need to keep the anger but figure out how to manage it. They are the only fucking people not telling me to just “get over it.”

Dad lectured my friend and I last night about how we need to stop getting so angry. We should learn how to deflect rude/awful/whatever things with humor so that people will like us more.

I did not light up like a roman candle and I feel proud of myself for this. I did leave the room soon after.

Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you.

I love Dad with great intensity but man he is hard for me to deal with sometimes. I view it as practice for dealing with all the people I hate. I don’t know why Dad has managed to cross the line into being so strongly in my affection. He has all the markers of someone I would like to set on fire. But he gets a pass. He has earned it from me.

My friend and I discussed our sixth sense, “I can spot a rape/incest/severe abuse survivor at thirty paces.” I can see it on peoples faces even when it happened decades ago. I just know.

I’m sure I miss people. I’m sure there are people who are better liars than I think. I doubt I miss many because I find them all the fucking time and statistically they aren’t the majority of the population.

It was nice being able to talk to someone who really gets what I want to do with an incest database in the future. Most people feel confused as to why I want to go talk to a bunch of incest survivors. Won’t that be depressing?

I am somewhat unlikely to ever “stop being an angry person”. I think that short of being so stoned I cannot form a coherent thought process I will always be someone who has intense emotions. I feel a lot of anger. A lot of sadness. A lot of fear. Basically all the time.

I don’t understand people who just kind of drift through life apathetically. That is not my way and I don’t have a lot of desire to be like that.

I want to get shit done. Anger is very motivating. Fear is very motivating. Sadness isn’t. I try to lessen how sad I feel. I don’t have as good of a reason for being sad any more. I’m really grateful for how nice to me Noah and my kids are. My sadness is bigger than them and outside of them and mostly they block it out kind of like an eclipse.

Letmetellyou having kids doesn’t block out my anger. Holy shit they piss me off sometimes.

I want to have grown up children who have lived in a low stress environment. I can’t get visibly freaking-out-angry any more. I just can’t. It is not on the list of permissible actions.

I can’t cut myself to maintain control. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

I’m getting rid of my broken habits as fast as I can. I am sorry I can’t go faster but I can’t.

I feel like such a disappointment. So what about what I have done. I am measured by how far I still have to go before I qualify as a good person. I’m not sure I will ever make the jump. The gorge seems so wide.

I am so grateful to the two women who took a break from their normal lives to come talk to me today. They inspire me in very different, complimentary ways. I want to be more like them even if they are polar opposite in some important ways. I like conflict.

It is harder hanging out with Dad than the other friends as the trip goes on. I am having a hard time with my expectations and entitlement. I have some picture in my head of what a “dad is like” and I’m just wrong. I can’t take it out on someone else that they aren’t living up to the pictures in my head. I’m pretty sure I have succeeded at being nice to Dad the whole time we have been here.

Man I’m having a hard time with the constant “teasing” that feels like taunting to me. I want to fight. I want to fight so fucking bad that sometimes sitting very still and not reacting makes me sweat.

No, I can’t just “deflect it with humor”. That path is closed to me. What I could do instead is break your nose. How about if we try it my way and we will see whether your way or my way is more fun for me?

I really struggle with dealing with people sometimes, “Yes–you think everything is funny. You want to make everyone standing near you the butt of whatever joke is floating through your mind this second. I get it. When you do that I am going to react with rage, violence, and perhaps I will inflict a lot of pain when you try using me that way. Please just leave me alone.”

I say more or less that. It doesn’t slow down how often I feel mocked and taunted. “Why can’t you take a joke?” I just can’t. I’ve been god damn telling you so for almost a decade and a half. ARE YOU FUCKING DEAF?

At what point is it bullying instead of playing? If I ask for twenty years for someone to stop making fun of me and they won’t am I entitled to break their kneecaps? I think I should get to start escalating at some point.

This is why I used to hit people all the time. Dad made fun of me less often when I punched him as hard as I could each time I was the butt of the joke. Now that I don’t hit him any more he makes fun of me a lot more.

Why in the fuck is it a good idea for me to stop hitting people? I am having trouble remembering right this second.

Recently Shanna had a situation where a playmate was hitting her a lot. We have talked about it a few times afterwards. We’ve talked about all the things she can do when someone is hitting her. I made it very clear that if she tries two or three things to get someone to stop and they don’t it is ok to hit back.

I don’t think it is ok for me to hit people just because they have said something I don’t like. If someone hits me first I have every right in the world to start breaking bones.

Man. Why doesn’t anyone hit me any more? I’d really like to get in a fight. I’ve had a lot of adrenaline for a while now.

I talked to Shanna a lot about how when you end up in a fight with a friend it is important to not hit in the face. You can damage people easily, accidentally and they don’t tend to forgive you for that. If your friend punches you in the arm and you punch them in the arm back… that’s probably something you will be able to get past in your relationship. Once you break someones nose they don’t forgive you.

Why is caring about what other people tied into this? Because for me not hitting Dad really hard when he pisses me off is part and parcel of the anxiety about other people disliking me.

I want a relationship with someone who will hand me the crumbs of affection Dad is willing to give me. Even though it doesn’t come anywhere close to a real parental relationship. Even though it is always very crystal clear that he has “real children” and then those play partners he tolerates calling him Dad.

I feel so pathetic that this is the best I can share with my children. It is the pinnacle of what I have to offer. No, he will never treat you like his “real family”. I hope you never notice.

He is nice to the kids. He is nice to me. But he’s also an asshole. I’ve known that since the first fucking time I met him. I love a lot of assholes. Just go through my list of friends. I don’t hold the fact that someone is an emotionally unavailable asshole as a reason to not be friends with them. Sometimes that is all I can get.

Noah likes being alone in a way I just don’t. Noah spent his childhood trying to get alone time and failing. I spent my childhood desperately wishing that someone would like me and that people would stop hitting me and raping me and that I wasn’t always alone in a room listening to people laugh. If I came in the room the laughing stopped and the yelling started.

We will always react to stress differently. I need that to be ok. I can’t change it.

Dad would like it if I found his humor funny. I don’t. I’m not sure what to do about that either.

I’m never all that keen on the social solution that involves me just having to shut the fuck up about feeling hurt by someone using me as the butt of the joke over and over. For some strange reason.

You can’t change other people. You can’t decide that their personality should be different so you will just bully them until they conform. You can make them learn how to avoid problems with you but you can’t make them change.

I am learning a lot of this with my kids. I can’t make them be different people than they are. I have to help them learn how to manage their own particular quirks but I can’t just decide to make them different.

It is honestly kind of hilarious having to help Calli learn how to not hit people when she is angry. She really struggles with how intensely mad she gets. She wants to make people bleed when she is pissed. I get it, kid.

Sometimes when she is ramping herself up I will pick her up and carry her away from whatever is making her mad. She will fight me at first. She wants to get right back to the fight she was in the middle of so she squirms really hard to try and get away. I carry her into a calm, dark room.

I say, “I think I can see that you are very mad. Am I right?” Scream/sob answer, “YES!!!!!” “That’s really hard. I’m sorry you are having to struggle with that feeling right now. Are you sure you want to hit when you feel that way though? Do you want someone to hit you when they feel mad?” “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” “Ok. Then we need to find a different way of managing this. If you hit then other people will hit you back.”

I think that is one of the parts that gets me. I don’t like being hit back very much. That’s a lot of the reason I actually stopped hitting people. Noah hits really hard if you hit him first.

I want to show my children how to be a functional adult. Functional adults don’t beat up their friends. (Well… only at special parties with pre-arranged negotiation. That’s different.)

Dad is giving me all he has available to give me. I could be mad that what he has to give is so inadequate compared to the scope of my need or I can be grateful that he bothers at all. No one else has.

Sometimes it is really hard talking myself into consciously being nice and grateful for things that are so inadequate compared to my needs. Why in the fuck should I act nice when someone hands me an ice cube but I needed a glacier to do what I need to do.

You act nice or people go away. You act nice or people don’t give you the time of day. You act nice or you end up alone and hated. You act nice or you might as well already be dead because the whole long shitty life will be so painful that it really has no upside to enduring it.

Dad asked me if I thought I had kids because I was trying to relive my childhood and make it better. He said it in that “Do you understand you are broken and bad and you shouldn’t be doing that” sort of way. My response was, “Oh heck yes I know I am doing that. I write about it extensively. I am very consciously and deliberately trying to find out what a healthy childhood looks like.”

He said, “Oh. I don’t read anything you write. I’m not into that kind of thing.”

I said, “Yeah. I didn’t have any suspicion that you might actually give a shit about what is going on with me.”

He looked a bit taken aback but didn’t respond.

Sometimes it is kind of weird for me that I put so much of myself out into the ether and I just pray that people care. I pray that someone will read it. Someone will give a shit. I know that the vast majority of everyone doesn’t care and never will.

I have to be ok with that. I can’t tone down so that I attract a wider audience. I can’t stop talking about uncomfortable things so that emotionally stunted men will feel entertained by me. Yeah, that’s not my niche. Go watch Chris Rock.

It is hard dealing with the fact that people “caring about me” will rarely intersect with my needs getting met. The caring doesn’t actually do anything for me. I need actions. I don’t get them much. Sometimes I do. Noah is working himself into an early grave much to my shame.

I am not fair to Noah. It is not fair to anyone to have to live with someone as needy and pathetic as I am.

I am sorry that I have so many needs and no way to fill them.

I wish I had a dad who thought I was good for something other than fucking or hitting.

I wish.

In this lifetime it seems like those are the main early things that people liked about me. I am stupid enough to let people hit me really hard. Hell, I even like it. It seems an appropriate thing to do to me.

I slept more last night than the previous two nights but Noah and I went to bed bickering so I had trouble sleeping again. That probably factors into my right-this-minute emotional instability.

Instead I’ll just come out here to the couch and cry.

I wish I could stop caring what people think of me. I wish I could not care about Dad making all these comments. I wish I could.

I don’t know where the dial is. Can someone please show me?

I’m afraid that the first step in ignoring people not liking me is for me to like myself enough to make up for them.

I’m not sure I will ever be able to do that.

Dad was asking me, “Well why don’t you just _____?” I said, “Are you familiar with PTSD?” “No.” “Have you ever heard of hypervigilance?” “I’ve heard the word and I could guess what it means.” “I am not physically capable of just doing what you want me to do.” “Well try harder.”

I want to hit him in the head with a baseball bat sometimes.

“I don’t know anything about your medically verifiable long list of problems but I still think you need to just get over it and act how I want you to act because then I will get to have more fun.”

Let me jump right the fuck on that for you. Since you are so god damn important and all.

I feel like a petty, whining baby.

If I try to be kind to me I can see that I’m not just whining. I’m processing. Maybe life shouldn’t be as hard for me as it is… but it is. I have to get through each day. I can’t just ignore my physiological response to my life. I have to deal with it. I have to acknowledge that it is real. I have to treat it like it matters.

Yeah, I know I don’t have to be important to anyone else. I get it.

If I want to get through each day while smiling and being nice to my children then I need to have some space somewhere in the fucking world where I am allowed to have all of these feelings.

So I write. That doesn’t mean I am whining. I don’t make people fucking listen to my fucking feelings in person. I’m god damn aware that no one cares.

If I stopped caring what people thought of me then my ability to self-censor would evaporate.

It is genuinely hard for me to censor the stuff that goes through my brain. I think about self harm and suicide and incest and rape about as often as other people think about food. I can’t talk about it almost at all because most of the world will react with violence if I am stupid enough to bring up these topics. These are things I am supposed to pretend don’t exist. I’m breaking the veil by talking about them and I should be punished.

I have to care what people think if I am going to make sure I don’t say anything “inappropriate”. If I just cared about what I thought I would not have so many friends. I really like my friends. I don’t want them to leave me.

Even though I am a petty, pathetic, ungrateful bastard. I try as hard as I can to be grateful for what people have to offer.

I’m really sorry that I have so many needs and that I am so aware of them. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I wish I had a parent who would love me. I will do my best to not take it out on all of the people who just can’t love me that way. I understand that this is my problem and I need to shut up.

Sometimes it is really hard. 4,000 words in. Sometimes writing it is all I can do. I’m sure as fuck not allowed to talk about it. That would be rude or something.

No one can give me what I want. I know. It isn’t anyone else’s fault I feel this way. I know. It is my fault.

I should just stop caring.

Sleep would be nice.

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Do you know what would be totally fucking awesome? If my kids would let me sleep a full night through without climbing into the bed and shoving me off. I would think that was SO GOD DAMN AWESOME. As it is I haven’t had a full night of sleep in a while and I’m starting to feel punchy and sick to my stomach. Cheers.

I’m really enjoying reading historical stuff recently. Human beings are so complex and fascinating. There is no choice that a human can make that hasn’t been made already. Ok, there is technology left to invent, but that isn’t the same thing as a human choice.

At the core of every human being there is this attachment to the whole history of humanity. Whatever color you wear on the outside of you, genetically we are all very mixed at this point. There has been so much global moving around that we are not very different any more.

Why do we fight the same battles over and over? Throughout history sometimes homosexuality is ok and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes group marriage is ok and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes there is massive wealth disparity and sometimes there isn’t.

The differences seem to come within each individual society as the people pick their group-think for what they want to do with their time.

This gives me great hope. If we want a more global society we just have to figure out how to market it. What does the propaganda look like?

If African countries can willingly give up their guns because they want to move towards peace, why the fuck can’t Americans? Let me tell you, Africa has more recent reasons to be gosh darn sure they are armed. It is increasingly obvious that there can be no peace as long as people have the ability to go out and commit mass killings.

What will it take for humans to decide, “Wow. We made a bad call with this whole “weapons of mass destruction shit”. We should roll this back.”

What will it take for people to understand that it isn’t materially different for someone to love a man or a woman. Either way the vast majority of the relationship isn’t about what a penis or a vagina is doing. The vast majority of relationships are about finding food together and hanging out. Why do you care what people do during the ten minutes a week they have sex? (Ok, maybe I’m under rating the time spent…)

How do we decide what a given human is “worth” for their labor? How do we find people to run the bureaucracy of government so that we can help one another without dealing with megalomaniacs who want to subjugate everyone? Where is the happy medium? How do we value our ditch diggers and our CEOs.

Through all of history will the majority of humanity be good for nothing but cannon fodder? We think more than a million people died making the great pyramids. Did they think they were sacrificing their lives for a good cause? How many died in the name of any empire?

What is your life worth? What will you do with it? I am probably cannon fodder in the scheme of history. I doubt I will be important. I’m just one more idiot choosing to breed. Whoopie. So I’m part of the gene pool now. Uhh, congratulations?

I’m not special because I had children. I did not “do something” for the world. I contributed more mouths to feed. More drains of resources. I don’t think I did something great or noble. I just did what I did.

I did what I did due to biological and psychological compulsions. *I* want to have children. *I* want to have relationships with people of my blood in thirty years and I believe that without having children there is no chance that it will be true.

That doesn’t mean I had kids to be my bosom companion throughout their lives. That’s not what I mean. I didn’t have my kids for friendship or company *now*. They are not my friends. I can’t depend on them. They don’t meet my needs for anything other than hugging. That I don’t feel too guilty about.

I have to demonstrate for thirty years that I am capable of being nice and having boundaries if I want to have relationships with blood relatives when I am sixty. Pretty much everything before I was thirty is irrelevant. This is the time I will be judged on.

How many people get a do-over?

Even though my kids haven’t let me sleep in a few nights I have to be nice to them today. I don’t get to take my ill temper out on them. That’s not on.

It is hard waking up every day and having to tell myself, “It doesn’t matter how you feel. It matters how you act.”

My feelings should matter, shouldn’t they?

We went to a bdsm party last night. As usual I had sex. We were either the only couple to do it all night (pretty common) or just the first (I’m almost never the last one to have sex). I have found it pretty odd for my entire adult life that so many perverts like to have their bdsm without sex. I’m not wired that way.

The public bdsm community varies from region to region throughout the world. I’ve had the good luck to see how people vary across the country and the globe. I hear more details from my friends who travel more than I do these days.

In some places spanking is pretty much the thing. In some places it is bondage. In some places, and for fairly brief periods of time, some communities become obsessed with blood play; they like whatever method of drawing blood is currently chic.

I have very rarely come across a bdsm community that has a lot of sex. Bdsm is often treated as “other” than sex. Maybe part of sexual foreplay in the abstract but a very high number of bdsm players don’t have sex with the people they play with.

Many people are what you call “play poly” which means they can do bdsm with any of their friends but they can only have intercourse with their partner. This kind of creates the atmosphere where sex is kind of weird.

Lots of people aren’t sure if you can have sex and still keep the “power” lines clear. I don’t care. I do bdsm to get off the same way I have sex to get off. I came into the bdsm community at eighteen looking for kinky sex. I am the kind of player who is sometimes referred to with derision by the stone (no-sex-having) hard core Leather identified people.

If Leather is your sexual orientation or identity then frequently a lot of the normal expectations around sex are radically different. That’s ok. Every human body likes different things and we are all allowed to be different. It’s ok. Truly.

But man I am not wired to understand asexual people. I love many of them (err, platonically). But my brain is different.

So going to bdsm parties is increasingly weird for me. Noah is much further on the “the point of bdsm is foreplay before we have intercourse” spectrum than I am. I am capable of doing a nice sadomasochism scene with friends while fully dressed. I was trained.

I spent years listening to the constant denigration of those people who were sex focused. I “grew up” in a pocket of perverts who really didn’t like sex much. Their sexuality was about the fetish items in their lives. Penis-in-vagina intercourse is really kind of off-the-path of their sexual interests. That’s cool and all. But given that I am totally obsessed with sex this resulted in some serious self-hatred.

I must not be a real pervert. I’m not Leather the way they are. I’m just some chick who likes to fuck and get hit once in a while. The hitting isn’t my whole life. I don’t want to spend my Saturday night going from fully dressed scene to fully dressed scene to fully dressed scene with a series of friends who either want to experience some pain or give me some pain.

It’s ok that other people want to do that. At a different point in my life I thought that was pretty fun. At this point I am exhausted all the time and my feelings about my own masochism have changed dramatically. I no longer have a lot of inner desire to prove that I can take more and more pain. I no longer think I’m doing something impressive. I understand that some people like the ever increasing highs that come with intense pain. I get it. I don’t denigrate being on that journey. I’m just doing something else.

It is always weird coming up here. Dad and a few specific members of the leather community here started out in the bay area. I met them all when I was eighteen/nineteen and we spent a lot of time on IRC together. I have known these people my entire adult life. I seem to be changing at a much more rapid rate than most of them. Maybe this is because they were all in their late thirties to late forties when I met them.

That’s not all of it though. Most people decide what they like and more or less do that forever. I’m not like that. There isn’t a lot that I like so much I can keep doing it year after year. I read. I dance by myself in an empty room. That’s pretty much the only continuity in my life.

Everything else changes really fast.

I feel broken because I can’t pick a mold and then learn how to fill it. I can’t pick a community and create a role for myself and stay there. I can’t be a dancer or a historical reenactment actor or a leather community member. I can’t be a high school teacher or a theatre rigger or a fast food employee forever.

It has been more two years since Occupy happened. Two years since the last fun fling with my Muse. There is the distinct probability that Noah will be the last person I ever fuck. It’s a good thing I like how he does it.

I like visiting Portland because I get to briefly witness a lot of different kinds of relationships. There is a couple in the leather scene here, I met them before they got married. Now they have been married for thirteen years. They are some of the most brutal people I have ever met in my life. Heavy players. Like whoa.

But they match. They are so right for each other that they glow at a distance. They are very happy together. They have a kindness and tenderness for one another that encompasses and highlights the extreme bdsm they do.

I see brutality and kindness as being opposite sides of the same coin. It is about learning how to be with another person. Some people are more brutal than others. Do they get to exist and grow and be the same way that other people do? Are predators allowed to be loved? Are they worthy?

Yeah, I think they are. Maybe they don’t deserve to have their prey love them and forgive them–I’m ok with different rules for different people.

I love watching how other parents talk to their kids. The first thing I get out of this experience is, “Ok I’m not the only one who sounds frustrated a lot when I’m talking to my kids. Phew. I’m probably not the worst mother in the world.” (Not that I’m implying I think I am better at mothering than the other mothers I know. I do not think I am better.) We all have different strengths and weaknesses. I feel slightly less pathetic when I see other people have weaknesses too. I feel less like *I* am just a big stupid failure.

I need to see other people failing too. Mostly I just see how other people succeed more often and bigger and better than I do. It is very hard that other people don’t share their constant fuck ups on the internet the way I do. Well, at least not anyone I read at this point.

I go through phases where I trim back and trim back and trim back on what I am reading. I am almost entirely out of every forum site at this point. I think that 2014 needs to be a year of not looking to the internet for support. I’m sure as fuck not getting what I need from it.

I think that I need to look forward to a year of pulling back. I want to figure out some of my health issues. I want to stop paying for pot. I have many other uses for that money. I want Noah to feel less pressured to go out and earn more money. I feel like a ridiculously expensive pet lately. I feel entirely unworthy of how much money I spend to keep my body and mood moving along in a way that is easy for other people.

I want to spend less money. I want to spend less time on the internet looking for support that is never going to come. I want to spend more time with real life people in my neighborhood building relationships. I want to exercise more. I want to stop using so many of the crutches I use as stress reduction. Which means I need to reduce my stress. By a lot.

Man. This sounds like work.

But I will do it without having a bunch of parallel “must work harder and faster” goals.

If I want to do the road trip in 2015 and the cruise in 2016 and the around the world trip in 2020 I need to save money. Period. These things will all cost a ridiculous amount of money. How serious am I about wanting these things? Very. Very serious. I want them.

Why? I don’t know. I really don’t. My life is ruled by a lot of strange compulsions.

I want to meet more people. I want to find out more about humans. I want the connections. I want the experience with different kinds of humans. I want to find out more about patterns of behavior. I want to know how other people deal with their pain.

I want it. I want it so bad.

Sometimes I think that if I can know that I have reduced the amount of pain someone else has to experience in life then my life has been worth something. I am not just a waste of resources. Pain and suffering are so entwined in the human condition. The alleviation of pain is good and worthy.

I pay too much attention to history. I am too aware that the span of a human life is a blink in the cosmos. I want to matter. I want to be remembered. I want to help.

Culture

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I think that one of the things I enjoy most about being a parent is that I get to explain the rules to people all day long. It’s not a control thing. When I was a child I was bounced between a lot of different kinds of environments. I was never told “The house rules are ____” I was just randomly and arbitrarily punished for breaking rules I had never been told were rules. I spend a lot of time (still) feeling bewildered and terrified and like I’m about to be slapped for being rude any second. I don’t know the rules.

My kids don’t have that experience of life. I feel so grateful that I get to find out what it is like for people who are supported.

We visit a fair number of people–especially when we travel to visit. Like, duh and such. We have already been inside three different houses, Grandpa, blacksheep, and Aunt Cookie. Holy hell the rules are different in each house. Completely and totally different in every way. (I’m not upset or complaining. Just stating.)

I appreciate that I get to talk to my kids about this. I appreciate that they get to hear my opinion about how to treat the rules at different houses and then they get to hear other adults argue with me about the rules. My kids understand that *I* don’t always know the rules and we are doing our best guess at all times. My kids don’t feel my terror when asking for clarification. But then again my children have never been slapped for being uppity when they ask for clarification.

Sometimes I look at my children and I’m not sure I can see them because I see this phantom self of me at the same age. I understand how very different we are. I feel a lot of pity for myself. By five my life was hell on earth. Shanna has no perspective for understanding me. I want to keep it that way for a long time.

Different people have completely different expectations for their houses. Some people are ok with little kids coming over and picking everything up and touching it and potentially breaking things. They will just smile and think it is cute that a kid is exploring. (Yay for the Aunt Cookies of the world.)

Some people think it is ok for kids to touch some things but not all things and the kids should know which are which. This is a lot harder. I sure as fuck don’t guess right under those circumstances.

Most people haven’t thought carefully about which things in their house they are ok with “sharing” and they will have different rules suddenly over and over through the day as the kid discovers new things. Sometimes the rule is “Oh it’s just stuff. It’s ok if stuff breaks.” and then all of a sudden, “BUT THAT IS IMPORTANT DON’T TOUCH THAT.”

Grandpa’s house is a lot harder to manage than dear Aunt Cookie. But we have also been here for days already and we were only with Aunt Cookie for two hours.

I spend a lot of time with my kids walking around new houses pointing out all the doo dads at eye level and talking about a)what material it is made out of (some things are more inherently breakable than others) b)which things look super personal and irreplaceable and c)which things they really should specifically ask about before touching.

I feel so much gratitude for being able to do this for someone that sometimes I just sit and cry. I get to make it so someone else isn’t screamed at and beaten. Thank you whoever is letting me do this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

My children are not bad. My children are not demons. My children are not monsters. They try hard to be considerate. Sure they fail sometimes but they are three and five. Most fifty year olds aren’t perfect.

But for every adult you deal with you have to figure out what their base assumptions are about children and you have to figure out how to manage them without too much backlash.

Last night at Thanksgiving Round Two I rediscovered that I live in a bubble. I didn’t understand the vast majority of the conversations. It helped that more than half of the talking through the whole night was about alcohol. I don’t have a problem with alcohol (or rather… I do… an intestinal problem) so it wasn’t that I felt offended. I just… had nothing to offer.

I nodded and smiled a lot. That’s what I could add. Yup. Y’all drink a lot. And you spend a lot of time thinking about your last drink and planning for your next drink. Ok. I feel that way about ice cream so I’m not throwing stones. If I tried to drink like that I would never leave the bathroom and my poor behind would burn so bad I would spend even more time crying. Totally not worth it.

Culture is interesting. People do the things they do for such a wide variety of reasons. We were looked at funny for bringing a bottle of home made mead to the home school camping trip. Some of the parents openly commented about it being questionably appropriate. I brought a small bottle to share. It was the size of a beer bottle. To share. And people thought that was… sketchy.

So going to dinner last night was a culture shock. Not in a bad way. I didn’t feel disapproving (or disapproved of). I just… didn’t know what to say. I can’t participate in the conversation. I tried. I think I did fine. It was a large group of people I mostly don’t know–of course I don’t really have much to talk about with them. That’s standard in groups of strangers.

I was reading a friend’s blog recently. She posts about her cooking adventures. She would have fit in better at last nights party. I’m not very good at the alcohol infused mad-cap-gaiety thing.

I’ll go sit in a corner and tell depressing stories. I’m frickin Eeyore.

Lame.

My kids asked me why people were drinking so much alcohol. I’m pretty sure that the only time they have seen groups of people drink before has been at weddings. We just don’t do that much. My kids hear my angsty relationship with alcohol. “Alcohol tastes good in your mouth but it is a poison for your liver. So like a lot of things it is not a problem if you have some once your liver is fully grown but having too much can cause problems. Kind of like eating too much sugar. Some is fine for you. Too much causes problems. How much “too much” is depends on your individual body.”

It is completely ok for people to be different from me. But man do I feel like I am terrible and bad and lame and boring for not conforming to whatever culture I am standing near. Sometimes I wonder if I stopped going to the Burning Man events because I don’t drink much (if I have three glasses of wine it is a *heavy* drinking night–normally I have one. We go through a bottle of wine a month.) and I wanted to stop doing so many drugs. The way I know to do that is to stay home.

I know there are people who can go and be sober and social. I feel awkward. I feel awkward all the time whether I am sober or not. Being not-sober doesn’t make me feel better but it makes me feel more like I am required to stay until I sober up so at least I relax on feeling like I should LEAVE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE SOON EVERYONE WILL HATE ME.

I’d like to apply for a brain transplant, k – thanks?

Do I really believe that everyone will hate me? No.

Noah thinks it is pretty irrational that I worry about the small percentage of people who dislike me. I think I worry about the small percentage of people who have historically hit me and told me that I am not longer welcome wherever I am standing. Yeah, it doesn’t have to be a big group. All you need is one son of a bitch who beats the shit out of you.

Am I really worried about being hit any more? I can’t tell if that is the underlying anxiety or not. I can’t tell if I am just worried about social opprobrium or if I am genuinely afraid of being attacked. It is really hard to tease apart.

Sometimes I think it is less that I am afraid of the bad things that might happen to me. My anxiety has changed a lot since having kids. I am more afraid of rejection now than I was eight years ago. Eight years ago the idea that someone might reject me was really just not a big deal. I was ready and prepared to walk away from anyone and everyone in my life.

I grow more scared by the year. Now if I get in trouble for being bad my children will pay the price. I am so sorry I am your mother.

A while back I watched a movie The Stoning of Soraya M. In it a Muslim woman is married to a bad guy. He wants to be not married and not responsible for supporting his wife. So he gets someone else in the village to imply adultery. The wife gets stoned.

It is a true story. It didn’t even happen that long ago. Sure, it didn’t happen in my country. Would you like me to start pulling up references for what happens to women in my country? It’s not good. I wouldn’t say it is better. Being afraid of random violence is not irrational given the world we live in.

I’ve had a good couple of days. I’m actually at a low anxiety point. I feel cheerful. I feel like things are going fine and I had fun last night and I didn’t offend anyone and things are fine.

But I still have this feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’m not even sure any more if it anxiety or pain from eating things I shouldn’t. How the fuck do you tell the difference?

Today is lunch with one set of friends. A former lover and his wife are expecting their first child. I can’t wait to see them and express my joy and support. I’m sure they will do well. Tonight we are going to a sleazy party. It will be awesome. Sex will be happening. I’m sure someone will be crying but I’m not sure if it will be me or not. (Err, Noah’s not a bottom.) I haven’t been to a bdsm party in a while. (The hosts may not appreciate me using the adjective sleazy but it makes me very happy.)

Tomorrow the Childrens Museum with good friends.

I get to cook over the next day or so. Cottage pie, turkey soup. That kind of thing. Dad is the sort to just stick his Thanksgiving leftovers on endless pieces of white bread until they are gone. Psh. Not so much.

I feel like I am welcome to be here. Even though this is clearly not my culture. I feel like people are as nice or nicer to me than I deserve. I don’t think I am kind enough in return. I feel like I don’t even know what to do to be more kind. I would like to be more kind but I don’t know what to do.

It will all work out in the end. If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.

Thankful

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I think yesterday is going to be a shining memory for me. That was one of the least stressful and least anxious holidays I’ve ever had. My kids got to watch cartoons on grandpa’s giant tv screen which seemed like a ridiculous luxury to them. My lovely men cooked me dinner. (I did a little prep work but they did all the cooking.) I cleaned up because it seems all nice and such.

Dad and I are still working out our little I-have-anxiety-so-I’m-a-control-freak issues. It is a more relaxed process than it sounds like. “Oh. You have strong opinions about how this soup gets microwaved. Ok. Show me how you want it done then. No, I’m not cranky–I just don’t know what you want and you have a specific process in mind because you complain when I deviate. Just show me the process.”

We don’t actually know one another that well. If you add up all the hours we’ve spent together in all the years it is a lot less than a month of time. Getting to know someone is effort.

I went on a run. This place is fucking cold and I hate the hills. I love Fremont more with every passing year. Lovely perfectly flat Fremont. Ahhhhh. But I could feel my ass muscles going, “Oh YES! THIS IS WHAT WE NEED” so it was kind of weird.

Dad is trying so hard to make me feel comfortable. He flat asked why I was reacting so anxiously. I think I managed to explain sufficiently that he understands that I vibrate with anxiety when I’m alone in a room. He doesn’t have to do anything for me to react anxiously. When I’m kind of freaking about my kids playing with the random glass “art” shit you have sitting around? That’s not because you have been a stress monkey. I just do that.

It was a really peaceful, nice day. The three grown ups were mellow. The kids played and seemed pretty happy all day. We had extremely tasty food. Most of it made by Dad.

I somehow managed to escape feeling like I did everything wrong. I’m nervous about our plans for today. I am afraid of a misstep around this family. I like them so much. I don’t want to become uninvited because I screw up around a member of the extended family.

I can usually manage to not horrify people who like me. I’m not so suave at meeting the extended families of my friends. I often manage to say something horrifically inappropriate and then I’m not invited back again. Woo anxiety.

The stakes seem so much higher now. I don’t want to uninvite my kids. Every person I offend and run off from here on out is an injury I am doing to my children.

Dad and I were talking about how perception of risk changes over time. He made a comment about how I’m feeling my mortality. Oh, we were talking about seeing a doctor and doing the elimination diet stuff. He said that of course I care more about my body now because I recognize that I’m mortal.

I said, that’s not it. Before now I wanted to die so much that being in pain was just part of the process. I didn’t care about maintaining my body because I hoped I would die. It isn’t that I thought I was immortal. It is that I wanted to die. Right now. Today. So why fix things?

Now I want to see my kids grow up. Now I know that I have to stop feeling this much pain in my body so that I can be a nice person with them. I don’t have enough reserves of patience to deal with chronic pain and be nice. Some people can. I can’t. You have to know your limits. I need to feel less pain.

In general I feel that 2013 has been one of the kindest years I have lived through. Fewer big blow ups than usual. Less drama. More effective planning and work. I don’t think I have done anything to earn additional opprobrium this year. It hasn’t been my highest sex-having-year ever but it would be hard to top the first year of my marriage. Really hard. We would have to consciously work for a whole year in order to beat that year. It was a really good year. That will probably be a project one year. Just for fun. When the kids are older.

Life is always about moving towards new things, right? You can’t spend your life focusing on what is behind you.

But what is behind you shaped who you are. If you never figure out why you behave the way you do then it is harder to adapt to your current circumstances.

I’m trying. I’m trying as hard as I can.

Next year I need to figure out how to manage my shit without pot. The money I save on pot can be spent on a big fancy Disney cruise for my 10th anniversary.

I have things to look forward to. I want to figure out how to hurt less. I don’t want to need a crutch.

My life is really good. I need to walk unassisted now. Even though it is scary.

When I am feeling kind towards myself I acknowledge that for me to want the degree of control over my anxiety that I want will be not that different from people who are severely disabled working towards the Paralympics. My brain was severely damaged by my childhood. What I want it to turn around and do is hard for people like me.

I’m going to do it anyway.

Be thankful

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Yesterday one of my favorite people asked me what I am thankful for. (Other than her of course. Even if she does split my personality.)

I’m thankful for so much. I’m thankful for my husband and my kids and my house and my yard and my life.

I’m thankful that I have a Dad now who wants me to come see him for holidays. I didn’t spend holidays with a Dad for more than 25 years.

I’m thankful that I can break contact with my biological family and not end up alone for the rest of my life. That was what I expected. That is why most people don’t maintain no contact. The being alone is too hard.

I’m thankful for all the beautiful flowers I have been able to plant in my yard. I am looking forward to next spring. I feel antsy and joyous about seeing all the bulbs come up. Next spring when the tulips and narcissus and wildflowers (a “variety” bag of seeds) and marigolds and hydrangeas and lilies and roses and blue potato vines all bloom I will get to sit outside and know that I’m allowed to pick those flowers if I want to. I’m allowed to look at them as long as I want to without creeping anyone out. I’m allowed to be here.

I’m thankful for that. I didn’t expect to ever have this feeling. This is my home.

Shanna told me yesterday that she was nervous about going to Portland because she doesn’t want to leave Wonderland. “But this is my home. It won’t be the same to sleep somewhere else. I will feel like I’m not as safe.”

I asked her what about Wonderland makes her safe. She said, “Wonderland is magic because it is so full of love. No where else has as much love.”

I just about burst into tears. I did that. I made that come true for someone else. I’m thankful for that.

She eventually decided that since I was going with her the love would come with her and she can consent to the trip. Oh good.

This morning before we go I will churn the custard into ice cream and put it in the freezer (we had a bunch of milk and cream and eggnog–my life is made of awesome). I have more bags to throw in the back of the van. We have food to eat before we leave. But mostly we are ready to go.

I packed yesterday. The older I get the harder time I have doing my packing in advance. It doesn’t help that my kids and I each have less than a week of warm-ish clothes. So I had to wash and pack absolutely at the last minute because… that’s all the clothes I have.

Ok, I have more warm weather clothes. I could go at least two weeks without doing laundry in the summer. In the winter I have about six days of clothes. It’s all coming to Portland.

I’m thankful that I once again have a washer and dryer in my garage. Witness my happy dance of joy.

I’m thankful for every person who works at Apple creating the products that make my life better.

I’m thankful that I can decide to go on a four mile run uhhh jog energetic walk and my body is able to carry me through. I am so glad I have the strength to get through the distance even though I am not fast. It is a step in the process. Not everyone is able to do what I can do. I’m thankful for the strength in my body.

For a large portion of my “runs” I act like a whack job extra who got off the set of Swing Kids. I like dancing down the side walk. It’s a lot of fun.

I think it is funny that I so strongly reject the label of “dancer” because I dance all the fucking time. I love to dance. I just can’t be part of the dance community any more. I know too many rapists there. Not my own–thankfully. That community was easy on me. But I take sides. I have had too many women come to me with the stories of what is happening to them. I can’t pretend it isn’t true or real.

I can’t let the rapists touch me. I can’t be nice to them. I can’t pretend we are friends. I also don’t have the right to confront them. It isn’t my story.

I’m thankful that I can flee from communities and still have friends.

At this stage of my life I don’t get to complain much about what is happening to me. I am safe. I am loved. I am thankful for that.

I’ll finish Outrunning in another day or two. I feel scared and like it is the right thing to do.

One of the ladies on one of my sex abuse support forums (I have such a cheerful life) was relaying a case in her community. An 11 year old girl pregnant by a 15 year old boy. Neither of the kids knew you could get pregnant the first time. Now the boy is in jail for rape even though it was consensual sex.

Do I believe that an 11 year old can consent?

Does it matter if it was consensual? How would their lives be different if they had read a nice book by a weird lady telling them to use two forms of birth control even for the first time you have sex? Would that have helped?

Well, whether or not an 11 year old is ready for sex is debatable. It is not debatable that she is not ready to be a mother. No one is at 11. Your brain isn’t ready to treat someone else as more important than you.

I will try to publish. Even though it is scary. I believe it is the right thing to do. I don’t want to micromanage how people run their lives. I want them to have more information before they make decisions. I want them to understand the choice they are making before they make it. I’m not sure if I can fully help them with that but I can give them some of the first inklings. I can give them some of the outlines of what they need to know.

I’m thankful for all of the people who have written books that I have been fortunate enough to read. I’m so glad I know the things I know. I like my brain.

As I get older I’m not even as angry about being raped. I learned so many things about myself and about human nature. I don’t think I would have been able to learn those lessons from a book.

I feel really bad for the people who raped me. They are all people who are so full of hurt they are incapable of seeing how they hurt other people. I am thankful I am not like them. I am thankful that I can see the hurt I cause. I am grateful that it is not invisible to me. It seems like that would be a terrible burden. I don’t want to be unaware.

How can you be considerate if you are unable to tell how your actions effect people?

I am thankful that despite lots of good reasons to be dead inside I am not. I can feel. I can be sad and angry and happy and joyous and miserable. Not everyone gets to have the full range. (Sometimes I wish my range was spread out a bit more over time but you can’t have everything.)

I like my body. I am learning to be grateful for my brain. I have a great brain. It has allowed me to do a wide variety of neat things.

Go forward. Do your best. It’s all you can do.

(I’m really not mad, Pam. I get why you say what you do to your mom. I love you to the moon and back.)