Catching up?

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I am feeling bad for Middle Child. He can get through how many pages he is supposed to get through. Catch up… is brutal. He just doesn’t want to and his brain shuts down. He may be back to screen time by puberty.

Oh, after we got back from Mexico he stopped doing math. After watching his sister be in trouble for weeks. I just…

I need to be watching them more closely. This is my fault. I am getting overwhelmed and not babysitting their work enough. That’s totally my fault.

But! I’ve been watching closely for the past couple of weeks! I’m checking in constantly at this point. No more slipping. He missed like two weeks. But if he really refuses to do a single extra page in a day…. being only two weeks behind is a lot. So me missing two weeks when we got back I feel a little bad about but not that bad. I mean, if I really have to sit on your neck like a poisonous toad we have problems.

I am feeling pretty dang confident in “You can use the screen for mandatory school activities and no fun until you catch up.” It’s motivating because they want to play video games and they can’t right now. Not motivating enough for them to catch up…. but hey. They are working hard and doing a lot, I don’t want to make it sound like they are doing nothing. But not quite enough.

I am having a hard time with physical therapy needing to be an hour drive away twice a week. But, if I can make my body feel better it is worthwhile. Let’s just hope. Ugh. Don’t wanna drive.

I just got all the billing for the last year of chiropractic care for me, Noah, and EC. Over $600. I think it is professional to send these bills out a bit more often. Sheesh. (Noah, don’t you dare feel like you should stop. Your bill was $30.)

Beautiful asked if I was up for seeing people and I totally am. I’m lazy as fuck and I’m not sure how much I want to drag my kids all over the bay…. but I’d love to see people. We can’t get together at a park because we can’t breathe… so uhhh….. All bad.

So if you have any interest in coming over for dinner or something… you have till January. Then we are gone.

Time is running out.

Shuffle, shuffle, sift

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Phew. That was a lot of work. I haven’t figured out how to deal with the clothes on hangers yet. I am eyeing the rail for the garage door and maybe some pieces of the palm tree bookcase for baby clothes. There’s a handful of food items in the house that need to come out. I kind of looked around and noticed tonight that I can probably move the books from the green bookcases to the black bookcases and get rid of two more pieces of furniture. That makes a slightly better place to put the coffee table, which will be where we work and eat once the kitchen gets ripped out.

Another day, more progress.

This week will be a gnarly work schedule. The kids and I will keep our noses to the grindstone: academics, sifting through stuff, getting every book shelf out of here we can before the remodel starts so we have as much floor space as possible. We are going to be basically living in a studio apartment for a few months. Eep. Not really. Once the painting and flooring is replaced I’ll be putting the kid mattresses back into their rooms so that I can have some forking space.

I am slowing down the rate of putting things on the table. I am not going to create a huge spread. A few things at a time over the next two months will be fast enough.

I need to update frequent flier miles. I need to go through paperwork again. I need to update Mint.

Tired. Go to sleep, Krissy.

Always more to do

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Noah is driving away for a conference this afternoon. I’m sad that we get him for like 8 more hours then he disappears for another week. This is why we are going to follow his ass. Being without him sucks. I know that people do this living independently thing… but it’s no fun.

Today the bedrooms are all being stripped down to nothing but mattresses.

Tomorrow I meet with my contractor. Weeeee.

I went to the dispensary for the first time in a long time. The selection sucked. Oh well. I have marijuana. The industry is resettling after the new rules came in. Bummer.

Took a bath with Noah this morning while all three children slept. That felt lovely.

Ok. Gotta move furniture and make tea and eat breakfast and ALL THE THINGS

Hard to write

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There are a bunch of things muffling my fingers. I want to express my feelings but I also don’t want to bag on people. I want to talk about what I see changing about myself but I don’t know how to do so without sounding like I’m blaming other people and that’s not the point. It really isn’t.

We all make choices about what we accept in life. We make those choices for a myriad of reasons. Things like accepting that I have to have daily sex even when it was shredding my vagina. I make stupid choices sometimes about what I accept. I make my decisions based on what I perceive to be important for other people and I don’t really look at the cost to myself. I am not saying that I pick people who hurt me. I am saying I pick situations where I tell someone that it’s ok to expect a certain kind of behavior from me that is quite a strain and quite difficult and I allow them (or encourage) to think of it as a base standard expectation they should have of me.

Then when I break down from strain and difficulty I can be angry with myself for failing. Cheers.

I lean on my friends too much. I want them to be my family and uhhhhh yeah. That doesn’t work out. I know people who claim that chosen family works out. The people I know who are most devoted to the concept are pretty much not leaning on the same people they were leaning on 20 years ago. Things and people shift. But I notice how most of those people keep going back to the same families. Because it is different.

With every day that passes that I have a real family I feel the difference.

It’s ok for me to stop leaving open huge gaps in my schedule and my heart for friends. It would be healthier for me to do so. I need to stop looking to other people to make me feel ok. They are busy. They have other concerns. That’s appropriate and right. And when they promise me that they will show up for me and they drop it at the last minute because they got busy I feel destroyed. I can’t stay on this cycle.

What is this going to mean going forward?

I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone since I got back. I have plans with T and maybe L (must confirm) and dinner with some former students.

My circle continues to get smaller and I feel pretty happy about it. I’m not chasing people. I know there are a bunch of people who are waiting for me to reach out and say I’m ready. I’m not ready. I don’t have anything to give and my friendships require me to give a lot. I set up my relationships like that. They all need a lot from me in terms of energy or time or work… I’m tired. I have nothing to give. I guess I don’t need to call up my friends.

This weekend will be spent shifting things to the garage and the table on the drive way. It’s becoming very real to the kids that they get a rolling back and a backpack and… that’s it. What toys do we want to bring? What toys are worth packing for storage? It’s a process of discovery.

We are having some changing feelings about Legos, apparently. Now the big kids are maintaining that we need a bag of toys for Her Sweetness and all the Duplos definitely need to come with us. I think they just say that because they want the dang Duplos. Ha.

I am starting to suspect I lost the ring sling because I can’t find it. There are a couple of other things I’ve been looking for and I can’t locate. Damnit. I’m going to do this over and over again. UGH!

I need to ship the box to Jenny. Erf.

I have a long list of things to do. But… I have a deadline. I’m selling the house. What gets done gets done. What doesn’t get done…. won’t be my problem much longer.

Realtor says forget updating the kitchen. It’s not worth $40k+. Paint the whole house, replace the flooring, replace the doors (this is a serious need and I agree), update the baseboards, fix the yards. Sell the house.

Ok. That’s the plan. I have a meeting with the contractor on Monday and my goal is to be able to say, “I’m ready. When are you ready to start?” Which means all of our shit has to be in the garage or in the storage unit or given away by Monday. Painting/molding/doors will only take a week or three. I hope. We’ll see. Sigh. But we have a very good chance of being done with remodeling stuff before Christmas, which would be nice.

I am, of course, collecting stuff for Christmas. I am feeling happy about needing to restrict my shopping to stuff for travel or immediate consumption (food). This is feeling very good right now. But everyone has a luggage bag of their color with stuff in it waiting. Because folks will still get stockings.

It’s weird that I don’t know how many weeks past Christmas we will still be here.

Noah comes home today and leaves again tomorrow or Monday, I forget which. We get him back for a while on the 16th. Back to back trips lasting over a week total are hard. We miss him a lot. I manage to keep the kids eating healthy food (so many vegetables) but life just feels less fun without him. Not that I expect him to hurry home and be entertaining. I expect that right now he’s going to be sad and slow. But I can snuggle him when he is home and I cannot when he is traveling.

I’m really glad that in general he wants us to go with him because it makes travel better. I know a lot of people who are grateful to get away from their families. Noah doesn’t feel like that. I’m so grateful I found this partner.

I have hit the lottery and I bloody well know it.

Middle Child slept in my room while Noah was gone. Solo rooms are not as exciting as they seemed on first blush. Seeing as Eldest Child had to get to 10 before it was truly a draw… that makes sense to me.

The kids think that my mood has improved since we got back from Malaysia… but I’m still being really insistent about school stuff. Yeah, that’s going to stay true for a few years. Complicated. I’m glad to hear that I am overall doing less screaming and fussing. EC says I am still yelling, but it’s not of elevated volume or fierce and it’s more of the “I’m tired of repeating this direction” variety. So the pot is definitely helping. I’m not angry about other situations in the same way and that’s helping. But I am going to sit on my hobby horse and repeat “Math. Math. Math” for a few years.

I’m having some fun because they are caught up on math enough that I’m assigning more writing work and that’s really fun to read. Grading math sucks. Grading writing is fun. I love seeing how they are progressing and changing in their thinking. EC is frustrated with how my standards are increasing. “This is not written as a fact it is written as a personal story. Let’s try again.” EC is working on writing on a few levels: she has the writing she’s doing about religion, her fan faction, she’s working on a report about Malaysia, and we do a bunch of supporting work on grammar and spelling. This is a fairly new work load for her. She’s had pieces of this at times before but having all of that worked on in a month is new. She’s both feeling overwhelmed (more work) and feeling really happy about having a variety of tasks on her plate instead of just one or two things that feel big. Task switching is improving her mood. I’m struggling with it.

Middle Child is still working on reading fluency and writing skill enough to turn in the same kinds of reports. He still leans heavily on copy writing for his stuff instead of producing his own… that’s what we are going to work on this year. But we are also going to work on the neatness of his writing because I literally can’t grade it without him reading it to me right now. That’s not sustainable.

Both kids have just in the past two weeks hit sections of math that are much harder. It’s interesting seeing how they cope with this. MC still doesn’t want to ask for help. EC is banging the drum of “Give me help so I don’t waste time.” She is tired of having to redo things. Ha.

I feel like they are both doing pretty well this year. It’s kind of loosey goosey but we’ve always been. I feel like we aren’t doing enough science lately but we have times when we mostly do science for weeks. Enh.

I get everything I have to get done…. done eventually. But I am struggling with timing and feeling efficient. Bah.

scheduling musing

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I doubt I’ll stick with this, but I need to think somewhere.

Academics. 4 hours/ 5 days a week just uhhh isn’t enough any more. Often because the kids are developing that neeeeeeeeed to have wasted time in the middle of work. If the work could take them 2 hours often it takes 5 because they stop to play in the middle. I get that. But it means I need to not feel like we are constrained to those hours or my ability to ask them to work is up. They don’t work efficiently.

How can we break it up more?

We need exercise time. We need chore time. We need hygiene time. We need food time.

Good grief. How do people get everything fucking done?

This Friday I sat down and reviewed all their recent work. I have been doing it occasionally. I need to make this a weekly ritual.

Still struuuuugggggggling to find a routine that works.

So tired. Can’t plan.

Everyone gets to have their focus

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I’m researching what Slow Travel families believe to be essential travel stuff. So far no one really  packs a kitchen kit. Uhhhh I think we will. We cook a lot and the shoddy cookware we had in KL really cramped our style and made meal preparation unpleasant. I think this means that for our family…. some combination of pans and pots will be essential. I’m looking around at options that are both lightweight and not too bulky in size. This is not as simple as it seems. Backpacking stuff isn’t big enough–we don’t want to have to cook 4 volleys of each meal.

So far stuff in this collection is looking the most interesting to me. I don’t know that we need the whole set. I may try to get a couple of individual pieces.

We will need at least one sizeable frying pan. At least one stock pot because we make a lot of soup. Do we need another pot or pan? We probably should bring a modest cookie sheet? A knife? The squashy silicone food storage packs that I use for forking everything? One or two wooden spoons?

The full set of those pots and pans are about 7.5 lbs. We get 50 lbs in a checked bag. Maybe cookware needs to be under 10 lbs total?

Our bathroom supplies are currently pretty heavy. That’s a lot of weight.

The physical therapist I’ve seen has indicated that a TRX unit will be a really strong component of what she recommends going forward so it will stay in the bag. (It’s a strappy exercise thingamabob.)

We are hoping to go to the park today but air quality is bad. I will feel guilty if we don’t go because the kids busted their asses to get caught up on academics. They are both less than a day behind at this point.

That’s awesome. They are less than a day behind on math (after months of fussing that’s AMAZING) and they are back on track doing religion writing, fan fic writing (it counts!), and they are each working on a report about Malaysia. We restart yard work and all the botany/biology that goes along with it on Monday.

We’ve been doing pretty dang well at maintaining walking distance. We won’t be fussed about 7 mile days next time we head out. We are training to 6-7 miles/day at this point. I made the kids walk to Tae Kwon Do last night. That went pretty well all things considering. The kids really blossomed with having a pit stop at the local coffee shop for a cup of (non-sugared) tea. They felt energized and ready to come back and do a ton of homework.

Mood wise I feel like things are settling down a lot. A lot less fussing and fighting and bickering. Not nothing…. but not a lot.

We all miss Noah. It’s hard that he has to be so far away right when he was hit with a massive load of grief and he could use extra comforting.

We are doing ok and that feels good. I have spent a lot of the past few months feeling worthless and wracked with doubt. When I constantly set aside a big chunk of my spoons for someone who then disregards my effort, time, and energy… that hurts me.

Maybe it is time for me to consistently make choices around not hurting myself anymore. Maybe 37 is old enough.

I have hurt myself to cope with how I am treated in the past year. That’s maybe a sign I need to change what I tolerate.

Which isn’t to say that anyone is terrible or bad or wrong. I just… I need to deal with my shit.

Too much

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Being in the bay feels like too much already. So many chores to catch up on. So much work to do. So many friends we really should be reaching out to.

And I’m tired. This baby still isn’t sleeping independently much.

I’m feeling more calm–I think? It’s hard to tell? I’m doing a lot of work but I’m not being a jerk.

We are getting home to put our noses to the grindstone and seriously make academic progress. Not to mention that it is time to get the yards together for selling. There is still stuff to get rid of in the house… but not much. That part isn’t the hard part.

We found out that some of the folks we loved a lot from the home school group have splintered off. We are going to try out park day this week on Friday if we get our math done. Tomorrow will be crucial. I’m looking forward to it.

Noah is moving slowly and not sleeping. He’s clearly sick but he’s also really upset about his brother. I don’t know how to help him but I’m trying to take work off of his shoulders.

We are doing one of our periodic sugar fasts. Not that we truly cut out all sugar because we eat fruit and dairy. But we don’t have added sugar for a bit. It’s like my tolerance breaks for pot. They are useful in the long run even though they suck as they are happening.

Noah is in Austin. I have no idea how he is going to be doing. I’m worried about him. He’s sad. Noah isn’t sad much.

I feel like I really should be reaching out to a bunch of people. But I’m tired. And Noah is gone for 4 days this week and like 5 days next week. 11 days out of the next 23 I have to leave Fremont. That’s feeling like a lot. So many medical appointments for me and all the various kids. Ugh. But, it’s life.

My shrink asked me how I was doing with losing a major piece of support. I told them shockingly well. I’m waiting for the grief to hit.

On the plane, boss

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“I do this partly because it makes me feel better than other people.”

Damn. I envy that kind of self assurance. It’s beautiful and sparkly and intense. I think that is one of the gifts I give the people I love. I am rock solid in my belief that I can bestow specialness on other people but I can’t seem to do it for myself.

I spent the plane ride from Kuala Lumpur to Manila having a wonderful conversation with a Pakistani man. We talked about our kids and travel and religion and why people retreat into hate. He had some judgements I don’t share and I argued with him strenuously but with love. For example, he somehow had the impression that the average Mexican is violent and dangerous! Au contraire! No! Yes there are some people who happen to be Mexican who are violent but in general they are a peaceful and loving people. He said he was afraid to go there. I told him it is peaceful and friendly and he should give it a shot.

In turn he told me I should come to Pakistan where no one will think or say that I have too many children; everyone around me will know that children are a blessing and I am lucky to have them. He was astonished that anyone could think three kids are too many. He has seven and he hopes for more. I play acted horror and said “Oh I couldn’t handle the laundry.” I was glad it made him laugh because I was shooting for funny.

We talked a lot about politics and hate and religion. I said I was overwhelmed by how friendly and wonderful Malaysia was because I expected to be disliked. He stressed that Muslim people will welcome me everywhere. We talked about the fact that there are evil, violent people in every country and it is terrible when they take over as Trump has.

He listed a bunch of countries that he thinks we should visit. Then a bunch of neat grandmothers asked how long we were staying in Manila and they were bummed we were just connecting through. They asked when we are coming back and I said “invite my husband to a conference!” So they asked what he does and wrote down his contact information and said they would get on it.

Every assumption I had about Asia was wrong. I want to come back and find out more about how wrong I am.

I don’t want to go home. I am not sure I have ever felt so strongly that California is not where I want to be. I really do bring my home with me when I bring these people.

Going through the Manila airport was awful and it was 100% the fault of the US and the fucking TSA. We had to go through layers of extra security and not have easy access to food or drinks or restrooms. I mean, we could go get those things but we had to be searched over and over. It is dehumanizing and pointless and stupid.

“Humility is stupid. Stop that.” I don’t have a simple explanation for my life and I feel insecure about it. That’s why I feel awkward when someone with a job title asks me if all I do is take care of my children. I don’t perceive value in most of what I do.

My life is small and selfish and I feel kinda like a narcissist because I mostly write about myself. And my kids are asking me to write about them less. Fudge.

I garden and make art. I feel useless. Soon I will leave behind the evidence of the last ten years.

What do I do? A lot of laundry.

Just post.

Last day.

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We fly home tomorrow. Malaysia was wonderful and I want to come back. I’m pretty sure Noah will be invited to the conference again next year and we will be in the country for more than two weeks next time. We will get out of KL and explore the more rural states. Everyone has told us to go to Penang and my response is, “Ok!” I met a really nice lady at the Batu Caves and she says she wants to spend a lot of time feeding me. Ok!

Before this trip Scotland and New Zealand were my bar for friendliness and I think it just got raised. I feel welcome here.

For the entire nation there are only .6% of people living below the poverty line. In the US it’s about 14%. It is fascinating being in a place where most of the country is ok. I mean, there is still a big difference between the lifestyles of the rich and the lower middle class… but the difference isn’t starvation and suffering.

I’m feeling quite good about being in a Muslim country instead of a predominantly Christian country. The difference is feeling so very humane.

I am going to see if it is possible to get another massage tonight before we fly home. That would be pretty ridiculously awesome. It would make the plane flight 100% better. Carrying the baby all the time jacks me up.

So we are going home to try to get the house ready and sell it. We will spend as much of January and February as possible freezing our asses off in Washington DC. That’s going to feel like a harsh reality after this burning heat. We will probably spend some of March in DC, not sure how much, before going off to Japan for March and part of April. Noah needs to be in Minneapolis in May. We will need to see the orthodontist somewhere in there. Maybe while he is doing his conference the kids and I will go to California. After that there are conferences in the Netherlands and the UK so I’ll get to go see Jenny. August is Nashville. Nothing else is announced for 2019 yet. I assume October will involve Malaysia again.

Today we are going to go see the National Museum. We’ve missed a lot of stuff because we left our sight seeing till the end and things have been a bit more physically stressful than we expected. The Petronas Towers (tallest twin towers in the world) are over 1,000 ft high and we went up to the top. When we came down we had hours of me and the kids feeling shaky and sick so we didn’t go do a bunch of sight seeing.

Oh good. We have lots left to do when we come back.

Eldest Child is just over a day behind on math. I have had such an emotional roller coaster as she’s caught up… but she’s basically there. Her life is going back to normal now and we are all so happy about it. And she’s about halfway through the 4th grade math textbook (which is where she was scheduled to be) so she will be 100% caught up to grade level by the time she starts 6th grade. And she’s going to be used to working at double time speed so I wouldn’t be shocked if she was a bit ahead by high school.

Even though I’ve felt eaten alive by worry over the past few months…. this is basically what the plan has been since she was little. She needed a seriously delayed start. She didn’t have the focus. Trying to force her into academics in first or second grade would have gone poorly. She needed the delay so very much and as a result now that she is busting her ass she has focus and drive she just couldn’t have had while younger.

She is feeling incredibly proud of herself. At this point she cheerfully says, “I still don’t love math, but clearly it is very easy for me. I have natural aptitude.”

That’s an absolutely outstanding attitude for her to have. It’s true. She does have natural aptitude. She can go through hundreds of new, challenging problems in a day and only ask 1-3 questions. And when she gets a problem wrong I can say, “Hm. Maybe you should look at that one again” and she does and then she smacks herself in the forehead and says “Oh good grief. Look, right there I messed up. I should have done x instead.”

I don’t think I had that at her age. I was already convinced I was stupid and bad at math. I hadn’t memorized the multiplication tables yet and I’d already had teachers in 5 schools tell me that I just sucked at math. They kept saying that my brain was wired wrong.

Fuck teachers.

When I got to college and math became more interesting all of a sudden I got better at it but I was still stymied by my complete lack of self confidence. It’s like how teachers told me I was bad at art so I was ready to fight anyone who told me I was artistic until I was in my 30’s. Teachers have so much power and they abuse it so much. I feel so much gratitude that my children are getting to grow up feeling like “I’m good at a lot of things but I don’t have to love everything I’m good at.”

I had a moment of internal ugh when I was talking to some of the speakers from the conference and the question was, “You don’t do anything other than take care of the kids?” Ouch. Yup. I’m a useless lump just sitting with my kids.

Being a private tutor the way I am is a fuck ton of work. No, I don’t also have a job because I would have to only sleep 4-6 hours a day. I am very lucky to only need to do one job. I know it’s a privilege. But schooling my children the way I do is so hard that uhhh more than 90% of parents just couldn’t do it. So acting like it is nothing? Uhm…. ok.

In order to provide the kind of education I’m providing most parents would be spending many tens of thousands of dollars a year. But ok. Yeah. I don’t do anything other than take care of my kids.

I’m an insecure pathetic nitwit.

I spent 10 years preparing for this job and I’m doing it very well. I wish I had more confidence in myself that it is a job worth doing.

Cause the other mothers at the con left their kids at home. The other mothers have real jobs and pay people to be daycare and then put their kids in school. Why am I not doing something with my life?

I would want to jump off a building if I had to do your job. It would kill my soul. I would cry a lot if I only got to see my children for a few hours a day and I was always dealing with sets of behaviors my children learned from other caregivers.

I don’t think it is wrong for other mothers to handle it that way. I have deep wounding that is being healed by the relationships I’m having. I’m hoping that with a few more years of this I will be really ready to watch my babies leave the nest and go off to have their own lives.

The kids and Noah and I had a really fun conversation yesterday about how your parents aren’t always as important as they are at this stage. You will outgrow us. You will have friends and partnerships that replace us. We won’t always be your most important people and we probably shouldn’t be. You can still love us and hopefully you will want to spend some time with us… errr, hopefully y’all will want to spend more time with us than Noah or I want to spend with our own mothers….

But you don’t owe us. We give you this gift of importance and time and love because we want to. Because giving this to you is important to us. That doesn’t mean you owe us back. You get to have your own path and you get to decide how much you include us on it.

Two of the female speakers at the conference brought their mothers. That’s pretty cool. I’d be down with that. But I don’t get to require it.

It is up to you all how much you want me in your life when you are an adult.

I feel incredibly confident that I am not preparing my children to be useless or dependent. I am just enjoying the fuck out of the stage when they are dependent. I don’t need to push them out of the nest any earlier than they want to leave. We all are still enjoying our life together very much and I want to maintain that as long as this works for everyone. Someday it won’t work any more and that will be right and correct when it happens.

We are mostly packed. The clothes we wear today I will wash tonight after we get home (we are all happy to sit around in our underwear in the heat anyway) and I’ll put the bathroom supplies away after we shower tonight.

Then back to California. Back to the violent US.

Noah asked me if I felt like my safety was more at risk in Malaysia from things like muggings or being attacked. I don’t think he expected me to laugh. No. I worry about cars running red lights here. I don’t worry about people attacking me. I worry about that at home where I am surrounded by white men. Not here.

I am afraid of my country. I am a lot less afraid in other places.

I am very grateful that I don’t have to be in the US for the rest of my life. I don’t know where we will land…. but I am grateful that I get to leave a white supremacist nation.

woo woo shit

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Tarot reading.

I could be pulling this all out of my ass. I asked about where I am and what the near future is going to be about.

First card representing me: King of Rods. I want to be in control. I want to be a spiritual person. I want to be honest and just.

Second card representing what is blocking me: 9 of Swords. Failure, delay and disappointment. Disappointment has been a major word lately.

Third card representing what I hope for: 6 of Swords. A smooth passage from difficulties. Oh boy do I ever hope for that.

Fourth card representing what I have experienced lately: 8 of Pentacles. Craftsmanship and skilled labor etch out financial security. Well. Between Noah and I, hopefully with selling the house we will indeed be basing our future on financial security.

Fifth card representing the influences that are passing away: King of Cups. Compassion and understanding, success in endeavors and peace and contentment. Helpfulness and kindness to others.

Sixth card representing the influences soon to come: The Emperor. Says a mature man with conviction and the ability to execute plans and ideas. Maintain an overview of all situations with stability, control, and reason.

Seventh card representing my attitude towards the future: 3 of Cups. Bountiful outcome with contentment and solace.

Eighth card representing my environment and those tendencies or influences in family and friends who might have bearing on this: The Chariot. A triumphant victory over life’s opposing forces. With difficulties resolved, balance is restored.

Ninth card representing hopes and fears: 4 of Pentacles. Impressed by wealth and power, one clings to material gain for identity.

Tenth card representing the culmination: 8 of Swords. Bound by the dictates of authority, one is unable to free oneself from crisis.

Hm. Interesting.

What a day

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Yesterday, for all kinds of reasons, was awesome. Middle Child decided that instead of lots of academics he wanted to clean the whole apartment. He spent an hour and a half on it. I allowed it. He was doing work for the family and it is unusual. I’m not sure why he decided to spend his morning that way but I appreciate him taking the workload off of me. Eldest Child got 18 pages done. That is by far her best day. She’s two days behind now. She’s feeling really excited. She won’t be caught up by the time we go home because we are taking some time off of academics to look around but it’s feeling pretty good.

I feel so much more calm and relaxed about it than I have in a long time.

I’m trying to figure out how to write about something and not be mean because being mean isn’t the point. I don’t want to inflict pain; I want to record my process.

I think this needs to not be a break with Sarah. I think this needs to be the end. Something I have struggled with for years–it was the primary reason living together failed–is that Sarah chronically over promises and under delivers. She always has a good reason for her not doing what she promised. It’s usually health related. And then if I get mad then everything is all my fault and she has to retreat because she is triggered and she drops more promises and she hotly defends herself and blames it all on me.

This relationship is not healthy for either of us. She needs me to never get angry about how she drops things. She needs me to not notice and to just show her a happy face all of the time and I can’t do that. If I get angry she tells me that I am triggering her, which is a reference to her mother.

For the record her mother beat children.

But frankly she is just like my mother. She likes making promises she has no ability to keep just because making the promise is as good as doing the thing in her mind.

We hurt each other so much.

For her, intention is as good as delivering. But I half kill myself keeping my end of bargains because intention is absolutely nothing to me. I get the work done. Even if I’m a nasty bitch in the process.

But then she doesn’t want to be near me because I’m a nasty bitch. Fair. Then her share of the work doesn’t get done and I’m left holding the bag and everyone in my family is left dealing with my hysterical anger.

This is so incredibly unhealthy and I need off this train permanently.

That sucks because I love her so much I feel like I will crumble into a ball of pain without her. But my children need me to be consistent and that’s not possible if I am ever looking to Sarah for anything. Because I don’t have enough spoons in my drawer to cover her just…. not doing what she said she would do and never ever admitting that she didn’t show up.

I can’t.

This sucks. I wish this could be a break. But it can’t be. We can’t be close friends. We hurt each other. I hate having to be an adult. I hate that I have to never come back to this because my children need me to not be on this roller coaster.

I’m glad she has found a partner. I hope it lasts. I hope he meets her needs. I’m glad she has many other friends. I hope they take care of her. She deserves to be taken care of.

But I can’t do it. I hurt myself trying to be dependable for her. I hurt my kids when she doesn’t do what she says she will do.

Neither is ok.

Fuck.

It’s not that she does nothing for me! I’m not claiming that! But she makes a lot of promises and keeps a few of them and that’s not something I cope with well. The complete and utter inability to be honest about it destroys me. I am angry for months. My kids don’t deserve to deal with that.

In order for me to be the person I want to be I have to be honest about my behavior. I am a basket case when I am looking for Sarah and she’s “too busy” and she makes plans and breaks them. When I’m not looking for her, I manage my spoons better.

And frankly in the last year I haven’t seen many friends because I budget most of my friend-time for Sarah and then she frequently cancels and I don’t get to see anyone at all. That has been hurting me a lot and it is good that she sent me a “Fuck you, you can’t fire me; I quit” email. I’m not sure if I could have made the break. I love her so much. I’m ride or die. But if you quit on me I can respect that and stop chasing you.

Now I will never need to show up and do a ton of work for her again. Wow. How many things could I do for myself with the energy I’ve spent on her? Soooooooooooo much.

Much like how the Bonus Mama firing me was a really good thing for my family, we’ve all done so much better without the drama the Bonus Family brought into our lives…. we will be more stable without Sarah. Without her promising things to my kids she won’t deliver on.

My kids already know that when Sarah promises something they have at best a 50/50 chance of getting it and that really sucks.

That’s what I grew up with.

My kids know that if I don’t deliver on a promise I will acknowledge it, apologize, and make it up in some very specifically delineated way.

Sarah doesn’t do that. She can’t. She makes too many promises to too many people and she spreads herself too thin to make it up to anyone. And the apologies? Heh. Ha. Yeah right.

This is a gift of freedom and I need to take it.

It’s time to go.

I think if I am ever going to know in my bones that I deserve better than my mother gave me that I need to stop replacing her with friends who will treat me the same way. It’s not that I don’t love Sarah or my mother. It’s that the way they are in the world hurts me. It doesn’t hurt everyone. Some people are good enough with their boundaries that they don’t believe the promises or leave space for them in their lives and they can do fine with the disappointment.

I don’t do well with disappointment.

And that’s really something I need to be aware of and deal with. I need to insulate my children from that. I need to not invite it into my life constantly. Constantly. CONSTANTLY.

I need people who under promise and over deliver. And I think Sarah was the last person left who is completely the opposite. I loved her too much to do anything about it. I guess I got mad enough that I caused the break up? Was that passive aggressive of me?

I didn’t get mad because I wanted the break up. I got mad because I was promised attention but because I was grumpy she spent the trip in her room and then told me it was all my fault because she was triggered and has to flee my ill temper.

That’s fair. You shouldn’t have to be around an angry person.

But yeah. I’m not an angry person all the time. I have absolutely been grumpy for a while because of math and Eldest Child, but my fury is different.

I take responsibility for my side. The best part about the break up email is that there was only blame. Everything was my fault because I wasn’t cheerful enough.

That’s clear. That’s a pattern I can’t ignore.

I need to take that as the sign it is. And be done.

And the wave breaks.

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It is interesting seeing what things make me angry. What things make my anger seep through my entire body and poison everything in my life.

Broken promises are a big thing. If someone says they will do something and they don’t… I get more and more angry. If I am then told that my anger is the reason for the broken promises and everything is all my fault? That makes me more angry. It becomes a cycle.

And all of a sudden all of the promises are broken and I’m not waiting anymore? Oh. Oh yeah. This is what it feels like in my body to no longer be looking for those promises to be kept.

Ok.

Just keep moving. Nothing to be angry about. No point in caring. None of those needs will be met. Just shut up and keep moving. There is nothing to be angry about. There is nothing to notice or care about.

Just keep moving. Don’t ask anyone for anything, no matter how much they encourage you to depend on them. They didn’t really mean it anyway. They meant, “Ask me to do things that are not important or serious because I will do it when or if I feel like it not when you need it.” Ok.

Why do I worry more about your feelings than mine? I do. It’s a big problem. Then I get angry because the reverse doesn’t happen and I’ve hurt myself for nothing.

I know that a lot of this is my fault. I believe people when they tell me to lean on them. I shouldn’t.

And of course there is a parting shot about how I’m a bad parent. That’s as predictable as the sun coming up.

Great lunch

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I had lunch with an American I know from the internet. She has lived all over the world and we had a great time talking about culture and boundaries and family and health. She pointed out lots of places I should take the kids and she is so right.

I could live here for a while. I think it would take me 3-6 months to learn just the city center and it’s not big there’s just…. so much. This city is dense. Not like NYC is dense. Not like London. I haven’t been to other cities in Asia yet so i don’t know how it compares to them. But it’s just… it’s so much.

NYC is overwhelming and hard because everyone is aggressively yelling at you to buy their stuff or actively shutting you out because you don’t look rich enough. KL isn’t like that. There are only a handful of people promoting projects, mostly stuff is just around and people hop up eagerly to be available if you want them to be. There’s just so much stuff. I’ve seen 3 malls so far and there are many more within a mile of me. That’s intimidating! Each mall has more eating places than Valley Fair in San Jose and then the whole street is lined with restaurants and food trucks and people selling food out of the backs of their vehicles. There are also people with blankets set up selling food.

It’s just… so much. I can’t imagine that most people here cook much. There isn’t a good reason to.

The blending of cultures here is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It makes me much more eager to go elsewhere in Asia.

And yet it also makes me want to go to South America.

I love travel. I love seeing how people live. I love seeing how people want to organize the stuff they want to look at. I love seeing what things people consider optional or mandatory. I love meeting people.

Sometimes I’m deeply afraid that I’m better at meeting people than staying friends with them.

I love how much I’m walking here. Out of the last 7 days I had one day when I walked 1.65 miles (we were sick and barely moved) and every other day it’s 4.5-6 miles per day. I feel like it would be a lot easier to stay in shape in this kind of environment. I’m learning how much suburbs make it hard to stay in shape even though ostensibly it is “easier” to exercise there. It has to be something you go out and do on purpose and set aside time for. Here… you just move because it is life. My body is feeling pretty good.

And the massage here…. Is great. Great. GREAT. I’m getting another one tomorrow and I’m so excited. And it’s cheaper than at home by a lot.

Today I figured out that the other end of the street our apartment is on is a whole row of food vendors. I’m just saying. This place is serious about food. And it’s all so good. Given that my doctor asked me to cut back on pork, halal is awesome.

Oh gosh, we’ve had a few things that are “British”…. but they are all spicy. I think Malaysia is getting even with England for colonization. Ha.

Intensity balancing

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There is this thing where I am super intense. I wear people out. So I try hard to limit how much people have to put up with me. I carve out chunks of time or small slices of topics that I think are “acceptable” to share with a given person. Something I am noticing more as I get older though… if I very carefully limit what I share with someone… they don’t reserve space for me. Then when I come back to try and get more…

The spot I used to fill in their time/life has been filled and there isn’t really room for my intensity anymore.

Oh, shit.

So it’s like I shoot myself in the foot.

My kids did stupid shit yesterday and risked getting killed. I’m still trying to regulate my body from that. I took two sleeping pills (7 hours apart) last night because I couldn’t stop crying and shaking.

The first thing I want to do is turn to my friends. That’s complicated.

No Pam, you are right, my friends can’t love me enough to make up for me not loving myself. Because my friends are off finding partners (good for all of you) and my friends have big families they are involved with (I’m so fucking glad) and my friends have jobs/vocations (this is mandatory for survival!) and I don’t begrudge anyone any of that. People do think of me.

It’s true.

Ok. I am no longer talking behind anyone’s back if I process this because I have expressed it to the people in question.

I plan things with people because I want to soak in people. Because I want to crawl around in their brains and talk to them for hours and hours and hours. Like Disneyland. I spent… I don’t know how many months planning that. More than six. I wanted Sarah’s juicy brain. She wanted to feel special at the center of all of her people (totally valid!) and that means… there wasn’t much time for me. And the other friend who came said out loud that she wasn’t there for me she was there for Sarah and to read a book.

So I spent a lot of the trip feeling like dog shit. I spent that much time and energy planning to be with people I love very much and uhm…

Yeah. I got to wave at the people I love. I got to have a few meals with them where I could barely fucking understand the conversation because my hearing ability in loud restaurants is so shitty. We had few meals in the room together and I felt awkward and uncomfortable during them because I felt like I was forcing my presence on people who just wanted to use an apartment and not be bothered.

That came hard on the heals of having to surprise go to Texas and deal with the fact that one of my brother in laws is dying and my mother in law was a cunt and I did two weeks of work in one week so I was exhausted and….

I can’t keep pushing myself this hard hoping that I will get jolts of energy from my friends. I won’t. I won’t get these glorious long conversations where I feel good about myself and good about my journey and good about my relationships. Because people are busy and people have filled up the intensity spots in their life. I am someone to stand near sometimes and… yeah.

It was kind of like when I went to Alaska and my friend’s partner refused to let my friend pay attention to me.

My friend’s partner had the right to insist on her husband focusing on her. That’s right and just and appropriate and I don’t get to complain about it. But I can feel sad.

Sarah should focus a lot on her boyfriend. (There were some complicating details there that meant he did need some extra attention and I support that.)

But I can feel sad.

I feel very very sad that I waited all year for this and now my chance is gone and I’m not going to get it back. I need to just keep moving with this hole in my heart.

I feel selfish and horrible. I feel like I am so very very very very bad that I want so much from people and I don’t deserve to get it and I should stop fucking asking for it. Because other people are being just fine. I am the problem.

I am always the fucking problem.

I am so overwhelmed with feelings. I am tired and frustrated and sad and sad and sad and sad. There are so many reasons I’m overwhelmed. Those reasons are valid and it’s ok that I’m having giant feelings.

I can’t keep being unmedicated. This is so brutal. Where can I travel with pot.

Canada is sounding better. Uruguay. Ecuador. Portugal. I could find it in Australia but it is supposed to only be for medical patients. Switzerland. Estonia. Germany at some point. 

I am scared right this minute. It is hard to shake the abject terror I feel right now. I showed up here having big feelings about a lot of people and then I feel like I watched my kids risk their lives and I am a volcano of feelings.

I love my friends so much. I feel so bad about wanting them because I feel like I put inappropriate pressure on them. How dare I be so selfish and want so much of their attention. They are sharing with me what they want to share with me and I am an ungrateful piece of shit.

Then I withdraw and ask for less and I hurt more. And then when I do see them the pit of need is even bigger and the amount they have to share with me feels so much smaller in comparison to the void I have in me.

I understand, Pam, why you are afraid to call me. I am sorry that I am like this. I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry.

I feel like I am doing absolutely everything wrong.

The bad part.

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My kids forgot where we were tonight. They had to be dragged out of traffic more than once. More than 20 pedestrians per day are killed here.

I flipped.

I told them that I don’t hit them. But there isn’t a CPS worker or judge or cop in the world who would punish me for spanking them after they walked in front of cars that many times in one night. I literally pulled EC out of the traffic lane seconds before a motorcycle whizzed by where she had been standing on the way to dinner.

We watched a fucking cement truck blow a red light and not even slow down just a minute before you walked in front of a car coming out of a driveway and you didn’t even look.

What. Are. You. Doing.

Spanking is not an effective teaching method in general.

This…. is different. It’s ok for me to instill terror in you of cars. That’s my fucking job. If I have to hit you to prevent you from killing yourself… ok. I don’t want to, but ok.

I did not hit my kids.

I told them, instead, that if they are careless with traffic in any way again we will turn around and walk back to the apartment and they will not leave it again until we go to the airport. Their dad and I will get groceries and they will stay inside.

That seems completely fucking fair.

I will have three children when I leave this country. I don’t care if you have a good time.

The place where they ran out into traffic? I watched a man die there yesterday. Kuala Lumpur plays for keeps.

More on Kuala Lumpur

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I remain thrilled with this city. The food is so good. The scenery is so beautiful. I am reminded by the army of people working to clean every moment of the day that this kind of beauty isn’t natural in the polluted world we live in. You can’t walk five minutes in KL without seeing people cleaning. Usually several. Like, the public bathrooms have attendants who mop out the stalls between people. (Bidets are everywhere and I get the impression that folks aren’t that good about keeping the water in the toilet.)

Side note about the most important data that everyone cares about: solid poop has resumed! I’m excited! The bidets are incredibly helpful and comfortable for my poor hemorrhoids that have not receded since my last pregnancy. And it occurs to me that above the water/food/sleep deprivation…. the thing that has always liquified my bowels the fastest…. heat. Damn it’s hot here. I’m adjusting though. I’m also taking these “don’t have diarrhea” pills that I got from the travel clinic. They aren’t a treatment, they are a preventative. They are mostly cow colostrum and I think they are helping. Anyway.

We are spending a lot of time in/near the local mall. Not because we are buying lots of clothes or random stuff but because that’s where the grocery stores are and you can cut through the mall to get to the park and holy tomato the mall is FULL of deeeeeelicious restaurants. We went there for lunch. We will go to a different restaurant there for dinner. Because holy cheese we want to try all the food.

Random note: in the fancy Thai restaurant we went to (the head chief used to be one of the main chefs for the king of Thailand) didn’t have yellow curry. That made me wonder if yellow curry is mainly a US adaptation? Kind of like how Chinese food in the US is not like real Chinese food?

There are two gigantic malls across the street from one another. Near as I can tell they are divided by price point: moderate or $$$$$$$. Like, every fancy brand I’ve ever heard of is here. I walk past the stores and don’t really notice what is in them because…. I would never shop there. But the food is good!

French brie costs ~ $35. Eeek. (We did not buy any.)

I am surprised by how many US brands I see in the grocery stores. Like, we bought Cheerios when our tummies were upset because it is familiar and simple.

It’s hot in a way that climbs inside you and makes you wilt and move slooooowwwweeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr.

Frankly I don’t understand how these construction workers cope. It’s brutal.

I am still struggling with dealing with laundry. I have to run it constantly. But I’m still happier with cloth diapers because of situations like today. The only baby changing station is approximately a 1/4 mile walk from the food court down several stories. Fuck that. I will just squat in a bathroom stall and change the diaper on my lap. With cloth diapers that snap… easy peasy. No fuss. I can’t do that with a disposable. It slips and moves and never gets to the right dang position. I suck at disposables. I can’t do it with a velcro diaper either. Snaps =  awesome. But next time we travel I will bring fewer diapers. Our whole stash is pointless here.

The apartment… well it’s a good thing it won’t be allowed to be rented out anymore. The building is banning short term rentals. We check out the day before people incur punishments  for doing this. Whoops. But it’s dirty. And we found glass shards on the counter. And the pans were disgusting and not washed. It’s kinda gross.

Not relevant to KL, but cool in general: Eldest Child is caught up to this week of math! She’s still a couple of days behind but this is great! She has worked really hard. She has had days when she didn’t and I was frustrated…. but she has caught up. In the past two months she has done five months worth of math. And those five months of math are really more like six months in a normal academic year because she’s trying to get through two academic years in one year. So… she deserves recognition of that.

I’m struggling with the lack of pot. I’m being too bitchy. I made Middle Child cry today and I feel really bad about it. It’s not that I did anything big or really over the top. I’m just nit picking and sniping about stupid shit and I really need to stop. He doesn’t deserve this from me.

I feel like I have been picking on him lately and I really don’t like myself for it. He deserves better from me. He’s such a good kid. He tries so hard.

And…. it turns out EC has been using data on her phone because she wanted to look things up on fucking google when she is banned from the computer. Ok. Well. There goes my blood pressure.

I get mad over the dumbest shit

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I’ve had 5,726 feelings today. So when we went to dinner and I only wanted one of the four things we ordered and everyone else ate most of it I sulked until I went home then ate half a block of cheese and half a loaf of bread.

If we had stayed the baby would have screamed. She was done.

But I’m still lowkey mad. That shit was good and we brought home leftovers of their choices.

Petty as fuck.