I think I have failed at home schooling.

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Or maybe it worked for a while and it isn’t working any more. The kids don’t want to do work anymore and the effort it takes to force them is hurting our long term relationship. It didn’t used to be like this. I am feeling so sad. I’ve been waiting for the kids to turn a corner and just… do their shit all year and the only time they work is if I stand over them seething. If I sit down for a minute and stop badgering they stop doing anything.

I can’t do this any more.

I’m always happy to answer questions. I do not appreciate having to stand there and say, “What is the next number you are supposed to write down. Now, what kind of math problem is this? Write the symbol.”

EC is 10. This is bullshit. I can’t fucking do this.

I did not object to this level of help when they were preliterate or when they were learning to write. But she’s a very good writer at this point. She doesn’t make many math mistakes. She just doesn’t feel she should have to hold a pencil and write things with it unless she is under duress and I feel like shit all the fucking time. I hate myself more with every passing day. I feel sick to my stomach.

So yeah. We will move to some town. I won’t be trying to make friends. I won’t be exploring new, interesting places. I will sit in a house all day with a baby then spend my afternoons and evenings forcing kids to do homework instead of spending 12 hours a day yelling about academics.

I feel really sad and like a failure. I don’t think this is going to result in much happiness for me. I don’t know if it will result in happiness for my kids. But I can’t keep yelling like this. It’s been a whole school year of it and it really isn’t ok. I feel so bad. And I am unable to do anything to motivate my kids. I can’t make them care.

April is booked in Japan. I literally don’t have a plane ticket bought after that. I still want to go to Scotland to visit Jenny, but maybe I can only be there for two weeks.

We can’t just pick a country and start school there because of residency issues. It would take too long for us to be allowed to stay, we will miss the start of a school year. So we have to go back to the US.

There aren’t very many places in the US that I can handle living in the weather. That’s a serious limiter. Probably central Oregon.

I anticipate a black depression while we live there. I don’t think I will be capable of doing much other than keeping the baby alive.

It is so stupid for me to want things.

Plan and plan again and throw all of those away.

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I don’t think we will be able to travel. I think the kids need to go to school. I am failing and that’s not ok.

Boarding school would be $120,000/year for both kids. Can’t afford that.

I don’t want to go pick somewhere random in the US and I feel existential terror about moving where I know people. It’s not going to go well.

People don’t like me when they have to spend much time with me.

Stress.

My self hatred is on absolute turbo

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I am frustrated. I am not medicated. I am in pain again after the most beautiful reprieve of my adult life. I feel stupid, worthless and like if I am going to be worked like a dog until I drop then I should just drop now because I am so fucking tired. I feel really hopeless today. I feel like a failure at absolutely everything and in every relationship.

I feel incapable of sustained happiness. I should have accepted the Oxycontin prescription and climbed into a closet for the rest of my life. Then I wouldn’t notice how much I hate myself and how I am treated.

My children shirking their work and lying on the heels of Sarah breaking up with me… I feel like I am nothing but rage and pain. I didn’t lie convincingly enough. I didn’t pretend it was ok for her to lie to me and abandon me so I am bad and I deserve nothing.

“By the way I want your points for next year for a trip with my family.”

Which I am not a part of. Thank you for reminding me, oh “chosen family” that you want my money and resources and not me.

I feel a lot better about giving the money to women of color or single mothers. Fuck you.

Fuck you for using me the same way you use your grandmother. You lie and steal money from her too. You have effectively stolen money from most of your housemates too and none of us are allowed to talk about it or we are picking on you!

If anyone gets mad at you for treating them like shit obviously they have Borderline Personality Disorder.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Bitch you bought a $500 plane ticket with money that was supposed to feed my children. That’s far from your only shitty act, it’s just one of the easiest ones to explain. That’s how much you care about my children.

You said you would be there for my kids. Then cancelled constantly because you always had better things to do.

I see you. I see your lies.

Stop making promises you will never, ever keep.

In Hawaii

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I miss pot. I am doing better at being nice to the kids but a lot worse at being nice to me. I am really struggling with advocating for myself. I am really struggling with feeling like I have to work until I break myself because I don’t matter. I wasn’t in pain for multiple days. It was really nice. Then today… I hurt again. I hurt because I forgot the stroller. And then I didn’t phrase the request to rent a stroller or wagon clearly enough so we didn’t. So I walked around for hours with close to 20% of my bodyweight on me. I wasn’t wearing the right shoes for that. And then the food really sucked and I was so angry about it. How can you fuck up a buffet that much?

I really liked the Polynesian cultural Center when I went when I was 21. Now it bothered me. The layers of whiteness inserted into cultures is a lot more obvious now. Now it feels really grotesque the way the Mormon church is trying to make money off of these people.

It is hard hearing about people’s connection to the land and feeling a lot of pride in who they are. My ancestors were shit. And I don’t belong anywhere. There isn’t anywhere that is strongly my home.

The boat

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I don’t care if it is a ship instead of a boat. It was an interesting cruise. The highlight was the acupuncturist. She is hands-down the most effective acupuncturist I have ever worked with. I am pretty sure she is the most effective medical provider I have ever worked with. I’m not in pain. I have a few places where I feel a little bit stiff and a little sore, but not pain. I usually have to do fantastically heavy drugs in order to feel this good. I’m really pleased with her work. And she wasn’t expensive for what she did.

I spent a lot of the trip processing stuff with Sarah. There is a lot I have not been willing to admit to myself about how bad that relationship was for a lot of years. I am really struggling with dealing with that emotionally. She used me.

I think this is going to negatively impact my ability to trust people for a long time. I have been very willfully not seeing the problems because I didn’t want to lose her.

I am feeling a little bit nervous about this perpetual travel thing. I have not been as nice to the kids as I should have been. I am struggling. For a long time I used Sarah loving me as proof that I was worthy of love and that allowed me to feel gentle and like I had some love to give. I feel like the bottom opened up beneath me. I feel unworthy of love and like I am bad. And it makes me feel mean and vicious. I don’t like me very much. That’s never good for my behavior.

I wish people wouldn’t tell me that I am inspiring. I talked to a few people on the boat about life and stuff. There was one guy in particular who was born and raised in San Francisco. He had a lot of questions about what being homeless was like. He had a lot of questions about why I hate the rich the way I do. He could not understand why I believe that billionaires are evil. After I talked long enough, he got it. It took some talking though.

I have a sore in the middle of my forehead from the acupuncture needle. It’s kind of funny, the acupuncturist constantly smacked me in the center of the forehead. She told me she was waking up my third eye so that I could accept the blessings of the universe. It’s funny that I am walking away with a scab there. It’s like my third eye really doesn’t want to open.

San Francisco is so cold. We were warm just a few days ago. And we will be warm tomorrow. I used to think that I like the cold more than the heat. But my bones ache.

Damn.

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The money has hit our accounts. I have paid off all credit cards. We now have zero debt. All of the utilities associated with the house are done. We sold both cars. Insurance is set to cancel on the 4th.

I’m putting luggage tags on right now.

I’m almost through with the hard part. Whoa.

 

What are we looking for?

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I feel like part of the reason I am leaving is because I want to stop feeling angry at my friends. It isn’t their fault that I wanted them to be more like family and that isn’t what they want or need. It makes sense that they already have families and they are not auditioning new crazy members.

I think it’s going to be really interesting to find out what it feels like to only deal with my family for a long time. I won’t be able to look to my friends.

I think that is how I have killed my ability to stay here. I needed my friends to be family and they aren’t up for that and I can’t cope with the reality. Will I do the same thing in a different place? I don’t think so. I won’t establish myself in communities there in the same way.

If I try hard to be reasonable with myself, I know that I would be welcome in a lot of different communities. If I showed up week after week, they would be happy to put me to work. I wouldn’t be expunged. I have not been driven out.

But it’s more complicated than that. An awful lot of the communities I left I did so because of health problems or trauma reasons and I can’t really figure out how to not be bitter about no one noticing or caring.

I have a fair number of friends who are more disabled than me. I make sure I do the work to carry the friendship because that’s fair. But fucking everyone thinks of me as more able bodied and resourced than them. I’m not.

Fully able bodied people expect me to drive 40 minutes to visit them in their completely child-unfriendly houses.

I am really struggling with my feelings around this. Because I don’t get to act entitled to people’s time or attention. They don’t want a child friendly house. But they want me to come visit and somehow keep my children from touching anything?

Seriously, if you ask me over and over how to make your house a better place for my kids and you never take a single suggestion and you berate my children for touching your stuff? Uhhh I need to stop coming over.

THEN PEOPLE GET MAD AT ME. THEY SAY I AM BEING MEAN AND SELFISH BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT DRIVE 40 MINUTES FOR MY CHILD TO STAND STILL IN A ROOM AND NOT TOUCH ANYTHING.

Get the fuck out of here. My kids are far more important to me than you are.

My kids are there. You are not. You expect me to give to you endlessly as you bitch about how I didn’t give you more.

My fucking children are more grateful than you bastards.

My children understand that the time and energy I spend on them has a cost and I have to pay it. My friends seem to think that I am a bottomless well of attention and energy for them. It’s really kind of odd.

It’s kind of funny how much people let me know that I exhaust them by driving really far to see them and showing up to do work in their house. Ok fine. I can stop. I won’t exhaust you anymore.

A buddy today told me I should change so I can have more friends.

No. No. No. NO. NOOOOOOO

If I made my personality less abrasive I wouldn’t have more good friends I’d have more people happy to use me.

If you knew I was cracking under too much stress and you made promises to be there for my kids… how dare you cancel every visit then tell me you think I’m doing a bad job. You made sure my calendar was limited to you. That was all the spoons and time I had for planning. Then you rarely showed up. So mostly I just stayed home and cried.

And I couldn’t talk about the year of this shittiness while it was happening OR I WOULD BE FUCKING DISLOYAL.

I feel like everything is all my fault. How dare I get so angry. How dare I act so frustrated. How dare I run out of the ability to take care of every one every minute of the day while getting nothing back…

You try taking care of people 24/7 for ten years and see if you can manage to never get frustrated.

I am glad that for most of the next 9 months I won’t feel like I need to reach out to people to help. Jenny’s life is well in hand. She doesn’t need me and she has very little free time. We have been talking about how busy she is in advance of me coming. This is wise. That way if I see her for 2 hours in a week a handful of times I won’t feel rejected. I know that is squeezing me in.

I struggle with the fact that other than these four people, no one’s life really has a Krissy shaped hole. It doesn’t matter when I am gone. I am not integral.

That makes me wish I were dead.

That makes me feel like a complete fucking failure at life. I truly wish I didn’t hold these relationships as the deciding factor in whether I have failed at life.

Look around, bitch, you’ve done other cool shit.

But it never feels like enough. I love you so much. But love is not enough. Fuck you John Lennon.

We leave in less than 30 hours

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All the feelings. I am having all the feelings. I don’t remember if I logged here that the rheumatologist says I definitely have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (after years of doctors telling me that there is no point in screening me) and I have arthritis. Osteoarthritis, not rheumatoid arthritis. Not that I’m super hip to the difference.

The house is so empty. The kitchen is empty. This is nothing like going on a trip. Our cupboards aren’t bereft of food… they are empty. The plates are gone. The cooking items are gone. Today we will do another thrift run on our way to drop off a car with a friend.

One of our cars goes away forever, today. The other one will technically remain in our possession for 15 more days because we need it between now and then but we are filling out paperwork today. We are just borrowing it for the next 15 days.

Tired. Can’t sleep. So many feelings. So overwhelmed. It is feeling terrifyingly real. We are going any minute here. I’m glad the kids can sleep. We are all anxious.

Holy tomato sauce on cheese toast… my kids are caught up on academics. I was starting to feel like that was an impossibility. But Eldest Child did a heroic push and she’s caught up. Now I need to catch up on grading. No problem.

Oh, we need to take the car seat out of the Prius and put it in storage. Eeeeeeep. Today is the day. We maybe should have/could have done that yesterday. I didn’t think of it. Oh well. I’m sure we would have wanted another run to storage today anyway so I can put paperwork in there for the house. We aren’t going to drag stuff pillar and post.

I’m going to do my best to have a media blackout for a while. I need to get off the internet. The internet hurts my mental health so much. It is hard to see a point in getting up in the morning and trying at life while reading the internet. Everything feels so hopeless. So I’m going to go talk to real people instead.

I wonder if Her Sweetness will use this car seat again while she is rear facing. I don’t think we would bother to come get it for August. We will try to borrow one for a month. It would be cheaper to buy a new one than to come get it. So we definitely won’t see this car seat again before she is about to turn 2 unless it takes a fair bit longer than that. We’ll see.

Where are we going to land? I don’t know. It is haunting me. Where can we be happy? I don’t know. I really don’t know. But it isn’t here. It’s not just me who is struggling here.

Let’s go see what’s out there. Oh goodness.

No computer

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A couple of weeks ago when I had a late night and I was awake while everyone slept I went into the bathroom to talk to my phone. This is less convenient now that three members of my family are sleeping in the room that shares the wall with the bathroom. We do strongly prefer being close to one another. It’s a little bizarre how much we like being close to one another. I don’t remember seeing anything like that when I was a kid. I didn’t know other families who are as cuddly as we are. I’m still not sure I know people who spend as much time just touching each other as we do. It’s completely non-sexual. Which occasionally feels weird, but healthy.

Noah and I are struggling to figure out where our sex life fits in around the needs of our kids. We are definitely placing our kids needs as more important than our sex needs at this stage of our marriage. They need us. It’s interesting to me how the American custom is that kids should be away from their parents at night as soon as possible. My 10-year-old is very happy sleeping in a different room. She wants that space now. She is ready. My eight-year-old is not ready. He gets upset with being alone in a room all night. I don’t see a point in shunning him.

I have a different background than most, I guess. I was bed sharing with my mother when I was 17 because I didn’t want to be alone. Also because I’ve had back problems since my age was in the single digits and if I didn’t want to sleep with my mother the option was sleeping on the floor.

Sometimes it is surprising to me that my son rolls off his bed and sleeps on the floor on purpose. By the time I was his age my body was already broken and that hurt too much.

My daughter bought a tube top and a mid drift bearing shirt because she’s always hot. She is not seeking attention. It is hard not to be afraid for her. She doesn’t even understand the vulnerability that she has. She can’t really imagine being assaulted.

They surprise me in millions of ways.

Ack, nursing time.

Today I booked…

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  • waxing
  • hotel in SF between cruise and Hawaii
  • car for beginning of Hawaii
  • car for end of Hawaii
  • emailed folks about the van hand off and transportation needs in SF
  • We want the Kuko line in Fukuoka. It will take ~22 minutes from the airport to our apartment. When we get to our stop, it’s a 5 minute walk. Awesome
  • I don’t think we’ll rent a car in Japan: https://yokanavi.com/en/transportation-facilities/
  • Holy crap! Japanese law says that babies don’t need to be in car seats while driving if you are a)in a taxi (logical) or b) nursing or changing a diaper!!! Whoa

 

I literally can’t look at us leaving Japan today. I can’t. My brain says it will melt. We are booked through April 22nd. Hopefully I can handle dealing with that step tomorrow because it would be super nice to have all of this done this week.

I’m feeling quite pleased with my progress. This is happening.

I still need to get to:

  • plane from Japan to Minneapolis for Noah
  • hotel in Minneapolis for Noah
  • plane from Japan to Scotland for me and kids
  • where are we staying first in Scotland? I assume Inverness but I should schedule a chat with Jenny
  • plane from Minneapolis to Scotland for Noah

ridiculous

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My left shift key is broke. Sometimes some letter keys are sticking. I can’t download Firefox, Hangouts, Skype…. all of this is broken since Apple “fixed” my screen. Sigh. I didn’t want to pay $1300 for a new computer right now. It’s not convenient.

Oh my cheese on toast.

$1,000 expenses are convenient or inconvenient not possible or impossible. How in the fuck is this my life?

We are so ready to go. I know I am going back and forth listing things here and on Twitter. I’m trying to not let details slip through the cracks so I’m repeating stuff a lot.

Today we take care of switching our addresses with banks. We bank in three places right now. We have one account attached to the safe deposit box and that will have to stay active or we lose the right to the box. But they are a shitty bank to use for anything overseas so we will probably have all of our US auto payment stuff go through that bank and we will just send a set amount there every month.

The credit union where our five main accounts are we will be keeping the kid saving accounts there and moving everything on to banks we can use overseas more easily. But the kid savings might as well stay there for now. So we will only have two bank accounts with them after today, I think.

And then there is the fancy international bank account. I have mixed feelings about this one. I am not a fancy international person. I’m a slobby international person.

Taxes are coming along. I think I gave Noah the last of stuff from my share of record keeping. I hope. He is so nice to handle taxes. They make my stomach hurt.

That list of address changes I needed to do? Last three places bam bam bam today.

I think we’ve notified utilities. We have to tell garbage on our last day in the house, but whatever.

Kid classes have ended.

Noah has one more Japanese lesson.

We have one more dinner with a friend scheduled.

We are going to a party on Saturday! A neighbor is going to babysit the kids so that Noah can hit me before we give away our hitting toys at the party.

I have 6 more medical appointments. Noah has 2 massages scheduled before we go and leave our favorite people. We are both lucky.

Our wonderful M and B will be staying with us for two days next week so we can have a slow paced visit before we go. I’m looking forward to that. I don’t get to see them enough.

12 days. Plugging right along.

I am not sure we will be able to eat all of the food we have in the house in 12 days. Ha. We really love grocery shopping. It’s a hobby.

That is 36 meals for 5 people and 7 or 8 meals for an extra body…. maybe we’ll get through it all. *cross fingers*

Today I will put a bunch of stuff on the driveway because the rain is over.

We have flights booked to Japan. I was anxious about that step. Now we have planes to Hawaii and Japan booked and lodging in both Hawaii and Japan booked. I don’t have ground transportation yet, but that’s feeling so much less scary. Worst case scenario in Hawaii is we take the city bus that will take 1.5 hours to get to where we are staying. In Japan I am almost certain looking for public transit anyway and I have four weeks of sitting in Hawaii to figure it out.

This is just not much stress at this point. I will get it all done with time to spare. I am relaxing a little more. I’m nervous, but it’s not at a fever pitch.

I wish I was spending less time ranting in my head about what a horrible person I am for expressing my anger and disappointment that people didn’t give me what I wanted from them. I didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t entitled to it. I’m just a selfish asshole who will throw tantrums when I’m not given things I don’t deserve. Fuck me.

I tried not to throw a tantrum. I tried to walk away. But that parting fuck you over my shoulder was uncalled for.

Why do I hate myself for expressions of anger? I’m setting these boundaries because without setting them in this way I walk into you hurting me over and over and over again because I want you so much more than you want me.

I want you and I love you and I spent years pouring energy into you. I walk away with an empty bucket and a lot of pain. But I really don’t think I deserve to be angry about that. It’s just life. Shut up, buttercup. You didn’t do anything bad to me. You didn’t do anything wrong by not wanting the relationship I wanted.

I think that is a lot of what hurts so much. I’m the only one doing anything wrong. I want things I shouldn’t want and then I hurt myself in the process and I take it out on you.

I am such a shitty person. I’m going to go cry now.

Before 11 months is over….

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She is standing for short periods by herself without holding anything. She consistently says “mama” for me and “dada” for Noah. Nigh-nigh is solidly for sleep. Nom nom is I’m hungry. She signs milk.

When Noah is holding her and I come close up she lurches towards me to have me hold her then she wants both of us to lean on Noah’s chest. It’s really sweet and cute and oh goodness I am so glad she is here.

She plays a lot. She’s super into her toys and she’s starting to kiss on her dolls.

She wants to practice walking up and down the hallway for long stretches of time.

She sleeps easily. Night weaning is going fairly well. She rarely fusses at night any more and it only takes a few minutes to convince her to go back to sleep.

She eats so much food. She eats and eats and eats until I feel like certainly she will pop. But then at other meals it is two bites and she’s done. She is learning her needs.

We are solidly on disposable diapers and her skin is now clear and healthy looking. She needs them.

She has her 1 year check up next week for more vaccinations.

I continue feeling like this family is really awesome for me.

Eldest Child continues to lurch towards finding balance. This is hard! Middle Child is struggling with feeling too big and too small for everything. Being in between is hard too.

Life is hard.

Nobody likes it when I cry all the time. It’s been a rough few weeks. But we keep moving. And we hug each other. We talk about our feelings and try to make space for people to be less than perfect.

 

I hope.

Phone calls I need to make this week.

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If I give myself a week to make these phone calls I might get them all done today. If I planned them all for today I might get none of them done.

Good grief.

  • AAA
  • Wyndham
  • Capital One
  • Jenny

We need international driving licenses and for everything else to have the new address. We are almost done. We need to go visit our banks this week. Once the rain fully stops I am going to put stuff out on the driveway again. Looks like Tuesday afternoon.

I have a bunch of travel arrangements to make. I have us getting to Hawaii. I have an apartment for Hawaii and a different apartment in Japan. I don’t know how we are getting from Hawaii to Japan. I don’t know how we are getting from airports to places. I need to do some research. Eeep.

We are going to be in Hawaii for 4 weeks. I think we will only have a car for 1 week. And it’ll be half a week at the beginning and half a week at the end. There is a grocery store as far from the house as our local grocery store is from this house–basically, that’s no trouble.

Lots of time spent booking arrangements in my week. I need to book:

  • waxing before we go because I am vain
  • hotel for one night between cruise and Hawaii
  • transportation between cruise and Hawaii
  • car for beginning of Hawaii
  • car for end of Hawaii
  • plane to Japan
  • how are we getting from airport to house in Japan
  • travel in Japan? (look at trains, look at rental cars–with 5 bodies trains might be $$$$$)
  • plane from Japan to Minneapolis for Noah
  • hotel in Minneapolis for Noah
  • plane from Japan to Scotland for me and kids
  • where are we staying first in Scotland? I assume Inverness but I should schedule a chat with Jenny
  • plane from Minneapolis to Scotland for Noah

That’s probably plenty of planning. That gets me up through May. That’s a 3 month window. And we’ll be in Scotland May/June/July except for weekend trips. I will probably book those weekend trips from Hawaii.

Phew. That’s a thing or three.

14 days and counting

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We leave this house in 14 days. That’s feeling… whoa. I have nothing scheduled for the next 5 days. I am trying to ramp down. Then next week is somewhat busy then we go.

Bye.

I don’t say fuck you because I hate you. Or because you are a terrible person. I say it because I am trying to cut this cord in myself. I want you so fucking bad and I can’t have you. Not how I want you. I tried for years. I can’t make it work.

This goes back to when my step father used to yell at me that if I couldn’t get someone to do something I just hadn’t tried hard enough.

I am trying to not see this as just a failure on my part. To some extent this is about you too, so fuck you. But not really. Oh god. I hate that I feel bad about hurting your feelings after mine have been hurting so much for so many years.

This week I am going to read. I am going to read all of the books that are sitting here in the “I should read this once then pass it on” pile.

Yes Pam, several are about Ida B. Wells.

I need to stop wanting y’all so damn much. Just move on.

14 days.

I feel like I’m going to stop breathing

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If you tell me where this post is linked (and I get to go verify it) I will send you $20. Who in the hell is causing me to get so many damn hits on this post?

Holy. Shit. This is the month. 18 days. 13 days till my baby turns 1. We aren’t having a party. I am definitely depressed. I don’t feel able to reach out to anyone if my life depends on it. I am leaving. I never get to ask for anything again.

I get these people and the folks who voluntarily ask to be part of our life. I don’t have the right to keep begging people to be in my life.

I think back to Eldest Child’s huge first birthday ten years ago. I thought we were going to be part of a big community. Well, when I stopped doing all the driving those people dropped me. Ok.

I feel so incredibly hurt by all of the people in the Bay Area who drove past me to help other people but fuck me I should do everything alone.

I am leaving partially because if you asked me for help I would show up. Even though you treat me like shit and I know it. Because that’s who I am. Thus I am moving to get the fuck away from your using ass.

“Aunties”. Fuck it.

I am so bitter.

There are a lot of days I wish that having kids wouldn’t have worked out so I could be dead already. I am so tired of feeling abandoned and unimportant. When I ask you for help and you tell me no but you drive even farther to help someone else you remind me of my mother. Anyone but me deserves help.

Fuck me. Why am I still here? Why haven’t I died already.

Things like: when I used to try hard to be part of the home school group I would find out that all of the major decisions for when and where to schedule big events were made at private “just a couple of friends” off shoots of the main group so that my schedule was never taken into consideration. “Well this is what works for us. You can either come or not come.” *hair flip*

Yeah. I see you there. Why don’t you go do all of your own work from now on.

You have no idea how much satisfaction I get from having over a dozen people tell me that the group sucked after I left. No shit mother fucker. That’s because you all suck and I tried to rescue you from how shitty you are but it was too much work. Go to hell.

I am not willing to invest in the new group at all. It’s too late. Not even in terms of time. I am angry and bitter and I owe none of you a god damn kind word let alone labor.

I feel sick to my stomach thinking about how much damage I have done to my body helping people. I drove to fucking Arizona and caused pre-term labor problems doing manual labor for someone who didn’t really appreciate me.

Because I’m stupid.

Because I don’t value myself.

Because I treat people allowing me to work for them as the same thing as love.

I mean, she did kind of appreciate me. But not enough to talk to me on a vacation I’m paying for when her more interesting boyfriend is present. Not enough to keep her promises. Hell, not enough for her to bother remembering that she made promises! Fuck me.

I really don’t want to feel bitter like this. It really doesn’t help that a lot of this is so old.

It dates back to when all of my siblings were good enough to stay with our parents and I couldn’t. Because I was too much trouble. I needed too much help. So go stay with people who hate you and talk all day long about how much you are shit.

We will never go camping again because how dare I act like able bodied adults showing up and expecting a disabled adult to do everything for them is rude.

How dare I act like I am anything other than a menial serf here to do your labor for you. You are the good one. The one who grew up with a family and parents. You deserve good things. I should wait on you because that is the natural order of things.

Waste people don’t matter. They should serve the people who matter.

Fuck you. And fuck you. And fuck YOU with a chainsaw.

Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you. I am so mad. I am so bitter. I am so angry.

Fuck Marcie. Fuck Chris. Fuck Laura. Fuck Kira. Fuck Deborah. Fuck Alex. Fuck Desiree. Fuck Jen. Fuck fucking Tamy. Even though it hurts so bad I feel like my chest will implode: fuck Sarah.

You treated me badly and I did not deserve that. I can come up with excuses for all of you. Your feelings are so much more important than mine. I can justify you dropping me or ignoring me or lying to me or not keeping your promises or you thinking that everyone else is more important…

BUT FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.

I get to be mad. I shouldn’t take it out on everyone else in my life but frankly talking about it helps me not do that. It helps me compartmentalize it.

I am angry with these people because they actually did things to hurt me. Maybe if I name them I will stop feeling like I am a monster who is blasting everyone in the world equally even though most people don’t deserve it.

I wanted some people more than others. It wasn’t returned. I feel like the problem came partially from me being stupid and allowing myself to like them so much. I shouldn’t have. They truly weren’t worth it.

That’s the trouble. These people make me feel like I am unworthy of being alive and none of them deserve that power. They aren’t worth me feeling this bad for this many years. I have cried for literal years over every person on that list of names. Because they didn’t love me like I loved them. Maybe the trouble is I pick selfish assholes. Maybe part of the trouble is I know that I have to get very angry with those people; I have to move; I have to create distance or I will be pathetic and crawl back and continue to beg these fuckers to love me.

And they aren’t worth it.

19 days and counting

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Oh golly gee wiz. We don’t have a lot left in our house. We moved back into the kitchen because the staging is over. It’s weird seeing the cupboards. We have more food than we will be able to eat in 19 days because it’s a slightly weird hodge podge.

Corn chips, rice, oatmeal, flour, nuts, and condiments. We have too much. But the kids and I want to go to the park for a picnic today (weather permitting) and that will be a good opportunity to eat a bunch of the random stuff. I have these lime and sea salt pistachios that are outrageously good. I will cheerfully burn holes in my gums eating these because they are so tart.

I should make scones today. We have three more mixes.

Whatever. Time to go hang out with kids.

20 days. That feels real.

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Eldest Child is back from her adventures. We had a long chat about courtesy and checking in and responsibility. Not because she did badly! Because she did pretty well for a first run but we need some tweaks. Everyone was happy about how it turned out.

Today I get to notarize some paperwork to finalize our forwarding address. Then the construction guys are coming back to deal with the front door; that has been an adventure in fuss. They have failed to find a lock that fits the door after a month of trying. Today they are ripping out this door and replacing it with a door that has a lock available in the store the same day.

I see my chiropractor and massage therapist. That will be good.

Late this afternoon a medical appointment for a kid. Woo. One of the very last ones. I think we only have three medical appointments left.

I have 9 more medical appointments before I go. I finally have an appointment for an Ehlers Danlos Screening. That took jumping up and down and screaming. Why do I want to find out one way or the other? Because it impacts how I should be exercising.

Noah has probably one more Japanese class. Things are winding down. Kids are done at martial arts.

I am at a fussy, fiddly, slow part of packing. Like, I’m playing with which things should go in which suitcase and I’m writing lists of what is in a bag so we can find things later. We have three pieces of furniture that we want to keep until the last day.

I have exactly one friend date scheduled, a lunch. Otherwise, I’m here. If people will miss me they know how to find me before I leave. I can’t chase people down. I’m conserving energy before my next big launch. 20 days means I need to be resting.

Although… I am looking forward to resting as we go. Boat. Island. That sounds like rest to me. I’m bringing books (that will be shed as we go) and art supplies (that will be used up and not replaced any time soon). Between toiletries, art supplies, and books I am easily bringing 40 lbs of crap I will shed in the first month or two. It will be really nice when the weight goes down. I want to read these books before I pass them on. Maybe I’ll get a bunch of it done before we leave. I have 20 days.

*One* of the bags of art supplies is 8 lbs by itself. And there is another 3 lbs bag. And then there are Noah’s art supplies in his bag. And the stuff in the diaper bag and in each of the kid backpacks. And my purse. I think that when I add paper at the very end… it’ll be a solid 20 lbs of art shit. When did we become artists? Like, that’s a huge theme for our family. That’s a thing we do. I’m not sure how this became my life.

I should weigh all the books by themselves before we leave just to amuse myself. Thank goodness the books will be a load that gets lighter as we go. None of the books we are bringing are books we want to hold on to. We will leave them in airports and on boats and anywhere we see a lending library. It’s easy to share books. Well… when you are getting rid of just of just a few curated books it’s easy to share.

Ok. We have a little bit more of a plan. For your information:

February: leave the house on the 18th. All of our stuff will either be on the driveway or in the pile for trash. We stay with friends for 3 days then get on a boat for 10 days. I am looking forward to a 10 day cruise to Mexico. I feel like a snot. I feel spoiled. I feel like this is ridiculous and I am so happy I get to do this.

March: Hawaii.

April: Japan

May: Noah will go to Minneapolis alone while the kids and I go to Scotland. Noah will join us after a week or so.

June: Mostly Scotland but trips to England and the Netherlands for conferences.

July: Mostly Scotland until we come back to the US at the end.

August: Noah needs to go to Nashville. The rest of August we will be in Oregon, I think. Middle Child reaaaaaally wants to hang out with Grandpa for his 9th birthday so we will make that happen.

September: Thailand

October: Thailand

November: Thailand/ Noah needs to go back to Nashville. I don’t think the kids and I will come to the US.

December: Taiwan with Pam?

That’s what I know about 2019 right now.

And I leave for it in 20 days. Oh my.

I have updated our address with…

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  • DVC
  • Netflix
  • Patreon
  • Voter registration
  • Barclaycard
  • Home Depot
  • REI
  • Citibank
  • American Express
  • Paypal
  • Wyndham
  • Charles Schwab

I am in progress on:

  • US Bank
  • AAA
  • TechCU

Only 938 place to go.

I now own a standing desk, dresser, and coffee table and no other furniture. I’m feeling free.

Thank you Noah for all the stuff you are updating. *gulp*

I don’t know what friendship means

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I feel like I’m really spinning my wheels here. I don’t know what I have been out here in this valley. I don’t understand it. I don’t know what this life has meant. What was the purpose of it? Was there connection? I’m in that forever place in my head where it feels like the emotion that I am experiencing right now is the only emotion that has ever existed.

I mean, I know there was connection. It’s just been a while. I have been hiding for a long time now. I’m not really talking to people very much. I am flailing at a few people online kind of sorta. I am not in a room with very many people that do not share my last name.

I don’t know how to be in the room anymore. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m allowed to say. I feel wrong all the time. I feel like my choices are wrong. I feel like my behavior is wrong. How dare I judge? How dare I have opinions about anyone or anything? I feel like I am living inside of Prince How Dare You.

I don’t even fully understand why am crying right now. There’s so much and so little.I was talking to middle child earlier about the upcoming hop we have in Hawaii. He is very excited because we are going to stay near our old neighbors. The parents of the former babysitter. We will see them and we will see the babysitter a little bit. But I had to caution him not to expect to see them very much. I need to set his expectations appropriately. People will tell you that they want to see you, then they don’t show up. I don’t know how to deal with flakiness right now. I think I need to do a lot less caretaking for a few years.

I am really struggling with the way that people perceive me as an ATM. It’s complicated having money right now. Everybody needs money. Except for me. I have enough. But I don’t think that I will be giving five digit loans to white guys right now. I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think that feels like taking care of myself.

That’s feeling like more exploitation.

I give money to women, particularly to Black women but also women of many other races because that feels like taking care of me. They also aren’t loans. Dad did pay back the last loan, and he did it early while paying interest. I can’t do it again. Not right now. I feel so bad. If I gave him the money I would feel worse about myself. I would feel like I was buying his love.

Buying peoples love has failed for me recently. I am torn between planning to use the DVC points as something that I can give away as random vacations to strangers or selling it. It hurts. Disneyland feels so poisoned at this point. Between my mother and her. I don’t have to make this decision soon. I also don’t have to go back soon.

That’s not exactly essential to life.

We are going to take the headgear brackets off of eldest child. The cost of flying her back to the bay area every three months is significantly higher than paying for a second set of braces. I started looking into the flights and stuff. Our lifestyle is going to be extravagant enough. One less tie. And besides all of our dentists are out of our network and we have to pay a whole lot of extra for them. It’s not like they are so good that they are worth it. Not without the old dentist who used to watch over me. Without him there’s really no point in a surcharge. He was great. I miss him. Even my cool dental hygienist has retired. I don’t really want to get to know the young people who are three times as expensive.

I don’t begrudge them a living. This valley is ridiculous. But I’m moving on.

Two people today have asked me if I think people are pulling away out of self protection because I am moving. How would I be able to tell? Folks pulled away years ago. Maybe it was the road trip? I’m not sure. We kick to the throat sure did a number on me. I have felt electrically uncomfortable sense. It was a reminder; some of us are waste people. If we are killed it doesn’t matter. As long as it doesn’t inconvenience a rich white boy.

Noah tells me that I want to get rid of racism, meaning institutionalized bigotry and systematic disadvantage, and replace it with casual bigotry. That’s probably true.

I got into an argument I shouldn’t have gotten into today. I was standing around waiting for the plane to takeoff and I talked to the flight attendant. I was stupid. I mentioned the idiot white boys who were rude. She started going off at great length about how they have the right to their opinion and they have the right to protest and she works for a nonprofit so she knows that lots of girls are out getting abortions for fun and she thinks that’s not OK. I almost exploded. Fuck you. Your right to an opinion should end at the minute it crosses the line into wanting to control what I do with my body. Fuck you. And I couldn’t leave. I did walk away and stand at the far side of the gate. I don’t need to listen to that bullshit. I really don’t.

I try to draw comfort from my massage therapist being way less bigoted than she used to be. It’s not much. Dealing with her makes my life better because I am in less pain and I would really like it if she was less of an asshole. She no longer makes racist statements in front of me. I am not sure if that means she doesn’t think them as much or not. I cannot tell. She might just be exercising tact. But she’s also espousing more liberal and even occasionally progressive points of use. She’s trying. In my last few weeks I’m trying to talk her into poking her brother about how badly he treats her. Her brother pisses me off. I’m glad I’m leaving. We’re really a little too codependent. I suck.

How am I going to learn how to cope with my overwhelming attraction for obese hoarder women? I like them. It’s a thing for me. I feel comfortable. Clearly they have the kind of issues that I am going to be able to get along with. I’m going to feel comfortable. I’m going to feel useful. I am going to feel like I have something to offer. I need to start picking people because they are convenient projects for me. I think I do. I don’t think that’s good. I like being a fixer. I like being a helper.

I never want to give that attention to me. I’m following the fine example of my mother. Anyone but Krissy.

I don’t exactly feel suicidal, because I don’t have a plan and I don’t have any intention to kill myself. It is weird feeling really intensely in my belly but if I didn’t have kids today probably wouldn’t see you tomorrow. I am not going to hurt myself tonight. I have three children.

I was talking with middle child about Hawaii. He said that we were going there to see our friends. I said no we aren’t. I said we are going there because we want to go sit on the beach for a month. Because we want to be there together. Because I want to watch him play in the water. Because I want to watch him tan and feel joy while swimming. I’m not considering moving to Hawaii. I honestly don’t believe that white people should live in Hawaii but that’s a whole Nother topic.

This colonization shit is complicated. I don’t really know what my place in it should be. But I’m trying really hard to find somewhere to be where I don’t feel like I’m doing something wrong just by standing there. I don’t know what all elements go together to combine to help me feel like I am electrically uncomfortable. But I am. I have been for a long time. It’s so many things. That fucking smug grin on that little white asshole. I’ve seen that grin. I wanted to break his nose. I see that grin all around me.

I’m grown up now. I didn’t really anticipate being this person. I don’t know if I like her or not. She’s quieter than I thought she would be. She is way less interested in finding friends. I have a family. I understand a lot more of why other people have never treated me like I was important. They had families. I am so sad. Almost 26 days to go. Just 2.5 more hours.

Holy shit.

We had a great chat tonight about ADD. I have been kind of retreating over the last few days. I’m really overwhelmed and I’m trying not to take it out on anybody. Middle child has a hard time with that. Any withdrawal feels like a rejection. I told him that part of the reason we tested him for ADD was to see if he was going to need to learn the kinds of skills that I am trying to teach his sister. I have this problem where I’m like a zoo animal. I get bored and I break shit and I hurt myself. I tend to find that if I’m doing only 90 things I’m really bored but if I’m doing like 93 or 94 things I’m really overwhelmed and I feel like I am about to cry and I want to twitch. The exact calibration of perfect mental stimulation is really hard to get. And I’m still trying to learn how to do that. Nobody talk to me about that when I was a kid. I’m just trying to really understand what it means now. That’s why I’m trying to help my kids figure it out earlier so that it’s easier for them. He was very happy to hear that it’s probably going to be easier for his brain than it is for mine.

I am feeling so insecure. I have no tradition to lean back on. I am not doing things because it is the way it is done. I am being vain and full of hubris and who the hell am I to think that I know the right things. But nobody knows. There are so many different traditions because none of them are right for everyone.

No tradition is right for everyone.

I’m tired of feeling disappointed and that’s a really bad place for me to be. I get really nasty. More likely to pick a fight with everyone because if some people are hurting me then it might as well be everyone and if you aren’t automatically hurting me well I can be nasty until you want to. I feel like I’m in that place where I believe that everybody who “values” me also hurts me so I am almost physically in capable of hearing anything that happens from any other point of view. I have been let down recently. That is true. That doesn’t mean that everyone I know has done so. But it’s really hard right now. I feel like I don’t know who to trust. I really feel sick.

Because the thing is, I can create the problem all by myself over in my own brain. Because if I develop expectations of people that are inappropriate then I will be let down. That’s a fact. And then I will feel like people are not deserving of trust. Even if there was no communication of any expectation whatsoever. I’m feeling like I don’t know how to negotiate for anything. Because for quite some time now I’ve been trying to negotiate in good faith and I’ve been really not negotiated with in good faith.

You know how people say that poly folks are good at communication? I’ll believe it when I see it.

OK, now she called! I feel better about that chunk.

In retrospect I should have understood how big of a problem was growing when I knew more and more that I was not allowed to write about my constant disappointment in her behavior. It’s complicated being a writer. I can’t write about everybody. There are a lot of boundaries and permission steps to deal with.

If I’m feeling constant disappointment in somebody that’s a problem anyway.

Not sure what to do about it. I don’t tend to feel a little less somebody is making promises and breaking them. But I was doing the same thing it’s not all her. It was definitely not all her. Fuck

I am really enjoying the talk to text through the WordPress app on my phone. My computer is in being repaired. I am laying on the heated bathroom floor. My legs are up on the snowy mountain. It’s a nice stretch. And it’s heat on my back. My doctors keep telling me to put heat on my back.

When I can’t sleep there is usually a reason.

I think she knew I was setting this up. She kept giving me warnings. I didn’t do it on purpose. It was a perfect storm of personality flaws.

What does it mean to be a friend? If you stop telling someone the truth are you still friends? What is the truth?

If I were to spend my time and my energy selfishly, what would that mean? Mostly it means I hang out with my kids and Noah. I am allowed to take care of them and they are allowed to take care of me. There’s none of this nonsense about how unhealthy it is for me to want to support people. And whereas there is an element of ATM in the totality, yeah. When you have kids they treat you like an ATM and that is appropriate. It feels different. They are also under 18. And not asking for $25,000.

This is feeling like my cousin asking me to take her with us as we travel. Noah asked me if she is serious. Yes, she is serious. She is serious that she wants me to pay for her coming with us. Will she actually show up? Well, that will depend on the day. And I will be expected to pick up the check for whatever modifications must be made as time goes by. Will she do the work she negotiates for? Well, she says she always has in the past. Except for that time that I bought her a plane ticket and then send her extra money so she could go buy an ID 48 hours before the flight because she didn’t have one. And then she didn’t get on the plane. So. Fool me once.

I really could go on and on and on. I’m tired. I think I’m going to be selfish for a bit. Being helpful doesn’t make people actually love me more.