I know how ridiculous it is that I spend so much time feeling sad that I don’t know how to make the friends-vacation thing work on a regular basis.

A while back a friend said something to me that has stuck with me. She was commenting on difficulties I have with my therapists. She said, “Your therapist seems to think you should treat your friends as friends but your friends are your family.”

I know too many people who vacation every year with a group of friends. It’s a thing I hear about constantly. There was a group in high school that I was almost a part of, I was invited to their group thing once, but it got really fucking awkward because my ex wasn’t very polite about me being there.

I can make it work to visit people. That often goes well. I can go see a person at their house and have that go well.

I even think that the trip to Hawaii with my girlfriends went well.

The cruise was… really challenging. Since the Bonus Family divorced me I can say that traveling with them was kind of a nightmare. The fact that they have never traveled on an airplane nor dealt with so many changes for a trip in their familial life wasn’t the problem. The fact that the adults got really angry with the children for having stress reactions was a real problem. Don’t fucking yell at and shame your kid for vomiting when they are exposed to an excess of food like they’ve never seen before. That’s not ok. I don’t give a shit that it is your birthday and you want to feel like the center of attention and everything is perfect. Kids get sick. You’re a parent. You put your big kid panties on and you cheerfully help your kid. What the fuck.

Kids are dragged along on trips. They need to be accommodated. When you know your kid has a bunch of special needs to start with… You need to pack extra patience. Period.

The Scotland trip was… mostly hard because I couldn’t sleep to save my life. That made me so fucking crazy. And Uncle Bob died the month before the trip and I was out of my mind anyway from divorcing my family. I’m surprised Scotland went as well as it did. And I’m still wearing the underwear that some friends kindly purchased for me. I think of y’all when I wear them. (All of my underwear was actively falling off because I was losing weight from stress.)

I was invited to Scotland. That was a HUGE DEAL.

Pam invited me up to Clear Lake and taught me how to water ski with her boyfriend’s family when I was 18. That was awkward but fun.

But I’m not someone who gets invited back. I wear people out. I know it is my fault.

I wish it didn’t bother me so much to hear my friend talk about the annual vacation her family takes with this large group of friends every year. They’ve been going for over ten years I think? I don’t begrudge her the trip. I’m really glad she has such a tight group of friends. I think it is fantastic that her children get to grow up with a community like that.

I will never have that. Just like I’ll never have parents. I will never be part of traditions with anyone outside of my nuclear family. I won’t have “This is what I do every year in X month” with a bunch of other people. That is not my story.

I spend so much time thanking a God I don’t believe in for the gift of my nuclear family. They are the reason I get up and face each day.

Noah is the reason I have a family. Because he decided to take a chance on me. Because Noah looked at broken, shitty me and decided that I was his best chance in this life for a happy family.

I think I’ve been doing better lately at being nice to Noah. I’m working real hard on it. Even as I feel whiny and mean.

It was hard when I started inviting people to the cruise multiple years in advance and something like six people told me no… and then went on a cruise within 3-6 months after ours.

I would have smaller feelings if I felt like an asshole inviting people to things that were simply beyond their reach. But that wasn’t it. Other friends and other timing was better.

Ok.

I don’t fit. My timing is wrong. I want the wrong things on the wrong days and other people have better timing. Ok.

I feel like I would be a happier person if I stopped looking to do things with people. I feel like my life would improve if I didn’t want to spend time with people. But I’ve failed entirely in my devious plan to be an isolated loner.

I know too many people who are wonderful. And I wish I got to do more things with them. Both locally and travel-wise. Because I think it would be fun.

I have a lot of good in my life. I have a husband who would learn how to do backflips through a fiery hoop if that was what I needed to find him entertaining. I have children who adore me and still tell their friends that they’d rather be with me all day than anyone else. I have a fucktastically cool house that is cool because *I* made it that way. I have financial security. I have a growing team of competent medical providers after years of struggle. I have a library that would make my child-self fall down and weep with envy. I have a garden I find delightful and healing. I have lots of people who love me and who give me everything they have to spare.

I don’t have a lot of genuine reason to feel sad and whiny. That sure as shit doesn’t slow me down.

I don’t even think I need the expensive shit. It isn’t just the travel.

If A had followed through on his promises to be family “no matter what” and he had shown up and down real work for Sunday Family Dinners instead of being a giant man baby who expected to be taken care of forever…

But depending on people sucks.

I could pay to go to leather events and be part of that. If I could find consistent, safe childcare. But no.

Just… no.

I can’t.

And that makes it my fault that I don’t have a group. I guess. Ok.

Most of the things I’ve ever done with people have been at my initiation. “Hey, we could do _____”. My suggestions are rarely good for other people. But people don’t counter with, “We could do ______ at this other time though.”

Ok.

Shrug.

I’ve deleted three social things off the calendar over the next few weeks. All of them involved a bunch of driving. Nope. Can’t do it.

A while ago I felt like a horrible asshole because I was visiting a buddy and I got a glimpse of her life. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack the whole time I was there because their life is intense. Her family gets a lot of shit done. They go a lot of places. They have a lot of commitments and responsibilities. I… I can’t do what they do. I’m just not that good.

My life is too much like their life right now and I’m melting.

I have four or five changes of tone/activity today including 2 hours of driving and it feels like hell.

Tomorrow only two changes of activity. But one of them interrupts my fucking bed time because the fucking martial arts belt test is now later at night because my fucking kid is now an advanced belt so we’re the last fucking test of the night.

I mean, I’m glad she’s made progress–that’s cool. BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE AT THE MARTIAL ARTS STUDIO TILL 8PM.

I’m a whiny wussy baby.

I cancelled Saturday’s fun plans. I can’t be fun right now.

The charter school told us they expect the kids to be doing a minimum of five hours a day of academics. Oh this is going to be a fun switch.

Not.

And given that Future Middle Child is decidedly not reading yet… That’s five hours a day of direct instruction. This right here… this is why I wasn’t interested in a charter before this. Fuck.

I think Eldest Child is ready. I feel this is going to be appropriate. FMC is going to flail and spend a lot of time resisting and screaming. I can’t wait.

I’ve been talking to EC. I don’t think we are going to keep looking hard for her to have a one on one therapist. There are no pressing issues in her life. There is nothing she feels she wants to work on/through. I can’t handle adding the driving plus one more thing just so she feels like she gets a captive audience. FMC needs a therapist because we are establishing a paper trail on gender identity stuff. That’s different. If EC had a reason I’d make it happen. But she’s not in distress. She’s not struggling. Nothing is bothering her.

I just can’t.

The whole family therapist is going to fall into an every 3-4 week schedule. That’s kinda sustainable. I’m going to put my main therapist on hiatus indefinitely and see the somatic person every two weeks. FMC currently sees their person every week and I think that is important as they get established but after a couple of months I’m going to ask to move to every 2-3 weeks. FMC is not in major emotional distress. They don’t have big problems that Must Be Fixed. They need someone to help them in court someday and they are going to benefit from having Enby role models who help them figure out how to grow up. That’s important but it doesn’t have to be weekly.

The pain doctor is going to be a pain in my ass as far as driving goes for a while but not forever. Long term I think he’ll be more like once a month.

I’m just in crunch “get established” times with several people at once and that’s breaking my schedule.

I am looking forward to running away from home more than I can express. I need a break. I need to only think about myself and my physical needs for a while. Over a week! I’m SO EXCITED.

Oh wait, break time. I went to pick up the big girls from the park. They wanted to come home because kids were harassing them. Including commenting on their butts. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE THAT THEY WILL COMMENT ON THE ASSES OF 9 AND 10 YEAR OLD CHILDREN.

I hate the whole world.

I’m going nutty. I’m driving out of my city almost five days a week. This is not ok for me. I’m losing my mind. I’m cancelling friend meet-ups because I cannot fucking drive. Modesto today sucked.

I mean, the trip was fine. But driving to Modesto and back sucked.

This week I have to drive to Mountain View, San Jose, Modesto, Sunnyvale, and I was going to drive down to the Santa Cruz Mountains. I just can’t. I’m about to lose my shit.

I’m having 4-6 medical appointments a week. This is not sustainable. Not when so many require lots of driving.

I’m pretty sure I’m putting my main shrink on time out indefinitely. I may not fire her in messy fashion, but I need a break from driving to Oakland.

New/Somatic shrink says they really appreciate me telling them to read my book slowly because whoa. Yeah, I know. I can’t read more than a chapter at a time because it is so distressing.

I feel like I want to be having 3-6 appointments in a week. Instead I have 14 depending on how you squint. (4 appointments are kid exercise classes so… getting 3 a week just isn’t happening.)

In random news: I’ve felt much better after puking last night. My body felt almost human today. Even in the car. It’s not like a euphoric DXM puke, but that was a good puke.

Ok, random confession: I’ve been having weird urges towards using harder drugs. I’m not going to in any way shape or form but it is interesting to me that I’m having this compulsion. I don’t remember feeling like it would be fun during previous pregnancies.

Let me reiterate that I’m a fully cognizant adult who thinks the pot I use is bad enough… but I had the impulse and I want to be honest with myself.

Like, DXM sounds fun. Because for a few hours I wouldn’t feel any pain at all and being in my body wouldn’t feel like hell. I’m not going to do it because holy tomato Batman that’s not ok. But I’m thinking it.

In this moment I don’t even hate myself for my horrible compulsions. I’m not doing anything about it. I’m just thinking about it.

I’ve been thinking about our M/s contract. The first line I stole from my friend’s contract. The first duty of the slave is to protect their mental and physical health.

I’m in a different place with that sort of thing right now than I ever have been in my whole life. I hurt myself less now. I damage myself less. I put myself in fewer toxic/abusive situations. I actively eject people who are showing red flags.

This has been a slow, gradual process. I was not ready to be told I had to put my mental and physical health first at any other point in my life. I may have pretended so with my former Owner but goodness that relationship was fucked up. It was fucked up with strangely healthy boundaries but it was still fucked up. I made a lot of choices that hurt me because I wanted to make him happy.

I’ve made a lot of choices in my marriage to Noah that hurt me because I thought it would make him happy. Changing those dynamics is hard.

This was the point of my marriage though, right? I wanted to learn how to be healthy. I wanted to learn what supportive and loving looked like. It’s still weird and different for me than it is for other people.

Other people can handle “teasing” that I can’t handle. I am too sensitive. I will flip out. Many of my friends are in marriages that… well… I’m glad it works for them because it wouldn’t work for me for five minutes.

Noah doesn’t taunt me. Noah doesn’t tease me. Noah doesn’t put me down in “jokes”.

I don’t think I am as respectful of him and that makes me feel small and ashamed. I need to stop denigrating Noah. Even in my thoughts.

He says I’m doing much better than I did for a few years. There was a peak period of me being shitty to him and this isn’t it. Even the cheating period was different.

It is hard feeling a mixture of feelings for him. I feel like he has earned love and adoration and respect. I STILL WANT TO BE FUCKING NASTY TO WHITE DUDES. This is a problem. Is it because all white men deserve it? No. Because I’m a petty fucking asshole. Because there have been just enough white men who suck that it is really hard to let my defenses down, even with someone who has been as kind as Noah has.

I told Noah that part of my asshole-shit is based around the fact that when I was a kid the only valid stories were about white boys/men. The only music that was supposed to exist was either men singing or women singing about men. Movies are supposed to tell the white male story because that’s all that matters. I am so completely oversaturated in stories about white men.

But diversifying is complicated and messy.

How do you appreciate the stories of people from other demographics without appropriating and being evil?

I don’t fucking know.

I just know that I’m bad and bad and bad and I don’t know a way to not be bad.

Somehow telling myself “But I’m getting better!” just doesn’t make me feel good about myself.

Most of the way through The Body Keeps Score I started thinking that maybe I had never finished the book before because it is upsetting. But I remember the last chapter so I think that I have finished it before. But there are sections that I almost completely forgot because they hurt so much.

The most interesting therapy for people like me is neurofeedback and I have no idea how to get access to it.

One section of the book talked about Internal Family System (IFS) therapy. In very rough terms I’ll describe it as recognizing people as being like a fully integrated multiple personality system. You know, how shrinks have described me in the past. The goal of this type of therapy is to encourage people to see themselves as a grouping of “parts”. Good parts and bad parts. There are Manager parts that keep you as functional as you are going to be. There are the Exiled parts that you squash and don’t manage in healthy ways. The parts of you that were traumatized and you don’t want to feel weak ever again so you deny that you were that part, ever. Then there are the Firefighters. The Firefighter parts show up when your Manager parts can’t handle situation and you need to Deal With A Problem. Think of a firefighter completely destroying a house in order to put out a fire.

Think about how I like to blow up the boat I’m standing on when I don’t know how to handle a problem.

Like that.

I feel like a lot of the purpose of my marriage is for Noah and I to figure out how to be healthy people while standing next to each other. How do I deal with problems without needing to blow up the boat? How does he manage to have emotions within the marriage? These are things we are working on.

Yoga, meditation, art, and gardening continue to be the activities that are recommended for helping me deal with my shit.

Not socializing.

Bouncing off of other people is complicated.

Everything is complicated.

But being with my children continues to be, in my opinion, the single best thing I do for myself. My children ground me. My children attach me to the present. My children make me want to grow and change in healthy ways.

I’m really grateful for my children.

I just finished reading White Trash by Nancy Isenberg. I feel like this woman gave me my whole life. It is very challenging to track down an email address for the author so I don’t know that I’ll be sending her fan mail. There is a phone number for a representative for media requests. I doubt I’ll trouble them.

This book is wonderful and talks about so much that people deny. We are waste people. Large swaths of society wishes the poor white trash would just… disappear.

And oh god. So much truth was dropped. Poor whites will empty their own pockets to fill the pockets of a charlatan who tells them they are better than someone else. SO. FUCKING. TRUE.

Enlightened self interest is… complicated.

I’m going to stop and say that I am so excited that I finally signed up for 23 & me. I don’t know who the fuck I am or where the fuck I came from. I have stories I was told that I can’t verify. Did one branch of my family come over on the god damn Mayflower? How the fuck do I know? (Yeah, I could dig around on ancestry.com…) What happened to the women who were supposedly in California for so many generations? Who did they have kids with? Where were they from to start with? I don’t know.

Are the Mennonites as German as they claim or is there a bunch of Russian mixed in as I’ve always wondered?

Who are you. Who am I?

What will these results teach me? Will they give me permission to be something other than what I have perceived myself to be? Rootless.

What does it mean to be authentic? What does it mean to exist? How many “Italian Americans” are actually staying true to the roots of Italian heritage? How many people who are proud of being… whatever they are… really know what they are?

There are so many lies we tell. So many convenient half truths.

I see the hostility thrown at American Blacks for mixing African cultures. That shit’s complicated and not my battle. But I see that authenticity is a fight that many people have to engage in. I’ve heard Asian Americans complain about dilution and mixing of cultures. It’s not just a white thing.

When Mexicans are *shocked* to find out that big chunks of their genetics come from Africa and Europe. Yup.

What is “realness”?

I read about First Nations people. Some groups are very worried about blood purity. Most of what I see is worry about cultural purity rather than blood purity. Who cares if white men polluted the blood line with their rape. Did you grow up like us? Are you like us? Ok. You count. But it varies so much and I don’t understand a lot of the nuance.

What will I do if my grandfather was right and there is a distinct African strain? Will I claim being biracial? Probably not. I completely lack the authenticity even if I have the blood line. What will I do if I find a streak of Indigenous blood? I will read more. Maybe I will ask permission to learn more from real people if I can do so in a way that isn’t exploitive.

But I won’t start decorating my house as if it is my culture. It may or may not be my blood line. My culture is white trash.

Smokey and the Bandit was serious fucking shit in my family. That stupidity is where I come from.

Waste people. Rednecks. My grandfather died with a red neck from working outside. He had a heart attack walking back to work from lunch. Like you do.

Breeding. My father told me that the only problem with incest is you shouldn’t make babies with family members because it enhances negative genetic traits.

That’s.The.Drawback.

What is authenticity? What does it mean to be real? What does it mean to have an identity?

Fuck if I know.

My kids are now old enough for us to have family meetings about important topics. This sorta blows my mind. I never participated in this kind of thing as a kid. I was told what was happening to me, not asked what I wanted. Or I would be given a shitty non-choice. “Do you want to go to abusive home A or probably abusive home B with folks you’ve never met before?”

My kids are pretty sure we should move. We really want a bigger house. Not a fantastically huge house, but bigger. The kids want to have rooms they can leave messy without it being common space. I don’t blame them.

We are looking at house porn around the country. I’d like to spend less than $300,000. That means… not one of the biggest places.

Southern Oregon, Louisville Kentucky, Cincinnati Ohio (Have you seen the houses there?!?!?!?!), Knoxville Tennessee, and maybe Boulder Colorado. Depends on how much I don’t like other places. I’m not sure which other cities we’ll try.

We still want to spend a season in Washington DC going to museums and the transition year out of CA and into where ever we land is a great time to do that.

Overseas is interesting but… pot is illegal most of the places we would be interested in moving. Including some of the states we are looking at. That’s not a great thing.

Pot is legal (at least medically) in Ohio, Oregon, and Colorado. Oregon is allowing third gender IDs. That’s a big draw. But Oregon is so white. Like, did you know that between 2010 and 2016 Oregon went from being 83% white to being 87% white? That’s… yeah.

Oh fuck. Kentucky is 88% white. California is 72% white. Whoa. That’s… interesting. Hm. White/non-Hispanic is only 37%. For Kentucky the white/non-Hispanic is… 85%.

For Tennessee the numbers are 78%/74%. (white/white+ non-Hispanic). Ohio: 82%/79%.

Hm. So these are all fucktastically white places. I’m kidding myself. Hm. California has a lot of white Hispanics and that’s a huge chunk of the white population.

White. What does being white mean? I live in a country that is mostly white. For the whole country the numbers are 76%/61% for white or white/non-Hispanic.

That makes it sound like leaving California means leaving for Whitelandia.

Florida is 77%/54%. But I can’t handle the weather. Full stop.

Arizona is 83%/55%.

I am noticing some weather patterns here.

Ok. So unless I want to start baking my sorry ass I need to accept that I’m moving to a massively white place. Portland isn’t more so. 76%/72% for the city of Portland. You know what? I need to stop being an asshole. Portland is doing better than many of the places we are considering. I apologize to my Portlandians for the slander I have ignorantly displayed.

BUT THEY WERE FOUNDED AS A FUCKING WHITE SUPREMACIST UTOPIA.

It’s changing though. I need to stop being a dick.

I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO.

I don’t want to move to Portland in large part because I deeply value the relationships I have there and I’m completely convinced that if I leaned on any of them more heavily they would evaporate. My strong impression is that a visit a year is about the max load I can put on those people. And skipping some years makes the next visit go better.

I don’t want to fuck up the welcome I have. I love these people so much.

OH MY GOD THIS HOUSE HAS AN INDOOR POOL WITH A FUCKING DISCO BALL. It’s $250,000. Clearly Oregon has something to recommend it.

But yeah. This will be huge.

I scared.

I’ve been in the bay solidly for 20 years. Intermittently for 30 years. That’s a long time.

I find it funny how when I am pregnant I am aware of cognitive load in a way I’m not really at other times. It’s similar to how marathon training taught me what hungry felt like. Before that I didn’t have much connection with the signals in my body. I eat because it is time to eat or because I’m being a vicious nasty person.

In general I don’t think about how much interacting with people is a cognitive load to carry. I think about math being a cognitive load. I think about art as being cognitive load. Reading varies depending on material but it can be draining to the point of doom. I read intense, complicated subjects. My brain has to dance backwards wearing ballet boots to keep up with that shit.

But I don’t think about conversations as being cognitive load most of the time. Mostly conversations are the wind beneath my skipping feet. They give me lift and energy and movement. I love conversations.

Fuck. Right now thinking is sooooooooooooo haaaaaaaaaard. I feel like I’m being even more gauche than usual. I’m definitely not listening as well as usual. My brain gets over loaded and I can feel a flinch reflex and then I start blurting out something that is easier for my brain to process so I don’t have to hear more. I know it is an asshole move. I’m trying to keep it under control. I’m only sorta succeeding.

I am feeling incredibly blessed by all the conversations I’m having lately. But I feel like I have a permanent hangover. Thinking is harder by the day.

We have two days with nothing scheduled during the next 22 days. I’m a little nervous. Mostly that’s medical appointments and exercise classes. But shit, dude.

Moving to the woods where this shit isn’t possible sounds sooo awesome.

But I’ll Skype like a mofo. Just you watch me.

Skype is making talking to the people I like so much better. I’m typing less to IM. I get to have the joy of seeing facial expressions. Video chat is magic.

I talk a lot of shit about technology. I talk a lot of shit about expensive toys. I understand that we have the good, positive, life changing things we have because of the bullshit. But I still want to bitch about bullshit.

I’m an asshole like that.

Noah pointed something out, about how I’m an asshole. It’s an important thing for me to think about more than once and the public humiliation of writing it here will help sear it on my brain so I don’t slide on this issue again.

Noah points out that I’ve spent a lot of our marriage talking harshly about how I really don’t care about the emotions of white men. So if I feel like I don’t know how he has felt for the last few years… how much of that was him protecting himself from my nastiness?

I am such a fucking bitch.

(He didn’t say the bitch part. He doesn’t talk to me like that. Ever. Even when I was a cheating fucking hag.)

I need to work on giving Noah space for his feelings in our relationship. I have made an unsafe container for him and that’s not ok. I didn’t do it on purpose, but I did it. Maybe part of the reason he feels so boring to me is because I have made it unsafe for him to share the parts of himself that I find most interesting. What a way to set us up to fail.

Yeah. I did that. And I need to fix it.

I have done that bullshit thing in myself where “I’m not as bad as ______ so I’m fine.”

No. It’s not fine to make it unsafe for my husband to express feelings. That’s not fine.

I don’t ever get to decide in my head that I’m not a bully or I’m a good person. I will keep uncovering these fuck ups until I die.

I pray that my children will be better people than me.

I cannot make it unsafe for my son to have feelings.

I don’t know that Lightening is a boy. I was just given a bunch of cute femme baby clothes to go with the cute femme toddler clothes I still have. So whatever genitalia this kid comes out with… they may end up in a lot of dresses because that’s how the cookie crumbles.

But I’m kinda poisonous in how I talk about white men. I’ve got some big nasty feelings. And my kids haven’t done anything to me. They don’t deserve that. The vast majority of white men haven’t done anything to me. But you mighta done something to someone else and I don’t fucking trust you.

That’s complicated.

Noah has done something to someone else. I know because she told me and he corroborated. They have different points of view, of course. But yeah. That happened.

Noah picked some horribly bad timing for a scene I stupidly agreed to have no safeword and to allow it to be sprung on me at any time. Yeah. That was…. a big deal.

And I think I hold a grudge. I think I use these things in my head as reason to be on my guard and kinda mean and to make sure I don’t look like a good victim ever again.

I plan to live with this man until he or I die. I begin to understand my aunt and uncle’s marriage. Things got bad. For better or worse. Who says you get better, bitch.

But Noah…

Noah has earned forgiveness. He has earned the right for a genuine fresh try. Knowing that he will hurt me again some day in some way.

Noah has memorized me like I am his favorite poem. He has twisted himself around the gnarls of the tree that is my soul. And he has done some damage as he spread and as he learned… but he has healed me in so many ways. I was ready to fall down in the wind. And he gave me something to lean on and keep growing.

We will both fuck up again. We are monsters. Monsters do that. They hurt people. They don’t have to mean it.

Sometimes.

Things.

Just.

Happen.

Cognitive load. Who is most important to me. How do I allot the time and energy my brain has to give? I’m tired.

There are a whole lot of people where I pray they will be willing to forgive me for the months and years I drop away. The remodel ate my brain. I didn’t contact many people. Now my brain is being sucked into a biological process. Hi. I may love you, but time I barely have. Brain power is in shorter supply. God I can’t drive to social more than I do. I hate doctors. I have hope for my current doctors. I have a whole bunch. I see soooo many doctors. uuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhh

Don’t traumatize your fucking kids, yo. This shit is expensive.

It is fun talking to other parents about where they set their lines and why. We are all so different and all the reasons are valid in context.

I don’t think I would be physically capable of getting over my hatred of white men if I had to do so as a childless woman working in an office. I hear enough about office politics that I’d be a political lesbian under those circumstances because men just…. no thanks.

But that isn’t the life I chose. For reasons. There’s shit I need to learn. There’s shit I need to be physically able to care about and the only way I know to learn how is to develop those relationships within a family.

I don’t have another way to get a family that will actually stick around. Ok adoption. But then I won’t work through the things that are connected to me and my issues and my stuff that I specifically need to reparent.

I’ll work through their issues instead. And I will have to be put to the side.

But I really need more family feeling. I can’t call my brothers and learn to get over them torturing me when I was a child. I can’t call my sister and try to forgive her for refusing to keep me out of dangerous situations when I begged her to take me home. I can’t call my mom and forgive her for telling me that I made my bed and I needed to go sleep in it when my father was raping me.

I have children to protect.

We go on the best date nights with our kids. Our kids associate dates with intense one on one conversations where you educate one another about all sorts of topics.

Before I was five years old I knew that a date was supposed to end with a dick in my mouth.

It’s intense for me to talk to people who have long term poly relationships with no sex. I treat a lot of my female friends like they are long term romantic partners. Without sex. I have a few male friends who are kind of like that but everyone got more distant after last year and the rubble. Makes sense. They are trying to be my friends and respect my marriage.

It’s kind of intense having honorable, decent people in my life with boundaries. I didn’t grow up with folks like this. Boundaries are expressed so you know where to step first.

What is this life thing going to turn into. I don’t fucking know.

I never really aspired to being a monster, you know.

But when I was Eldest Child’s age committing breaking and entering. Because it was better to hang out in empty houses than stand around on the street alone.

My kids will never have my burglary skills. I’m not sure if this is good or bad.

It’s… different… hanging out with kids who are so safe.

I start to understand interactions from my childhood in a whole new light. And my kids are coached on consent forking daily. Most kids aren’t. Most kids have squidgy boundaries. My kids say NO. No squidge.

It is safe for them to do that and for them to have feelings.

This needs to be true for Noah too.

I have not been fair.

This needs to change.

I keep having these fragments of interesting posts wander through my brain. I don’t write them down. I forget. That’s kinda my brain right now.

Things of note for tracking reasons: everyone in the house is noticing a big change in Future Middle Child’s behavior. Things kinda hit a fever pitch of rough there and then things changed. They aren’t hitting so much. They are doing a much better job of verbally advocating for themself. They are sleeping better. They are globally acting like, “I know who I want to be and how I want to act” and they are following through. It’s wonderful to see.

Eldest Child is reaching out for friendships in a way that feels striking and new. She’s changing.

Eldest Child is starting to advocate strongly for moving. Her words: “I feel like by the time I’m 11 or 12 it won’t be ok that my only private space is my bed.” That’s completely legit. There are not enough rooms in this house for everyone to have a room of their own and still have common space. Noah and I talked about shooting for when Next Kid is about 18 months old. That’s pretty fucking terrifying.

Aptos/Salinas is currently the only place in California we’d really consider. And those are… not honestly strong contenders because we want to go somewhere cheaper. That means away from cities.

We are looking all over the country. Portland is not a consideration. Eugene is a maaaaaaaybe. But Oregon doesn’t want more Californians. We won’t move to the East Coast. We won’t move to Texas or the deep south. I’m terrified of serious snow.

I don’t know what that means. Colorado is interesting but I don’t know any close friends there. (I know a handful of friends of friends, but I don’t know them and they are from communities where I’m pretty closed mouthed about myself.) Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico are all so hot I’d melt.

Wyoming was so unfriendly I couldn’t fucking bear it. I would not be able to handle living in a place where folks are that monosyllabic.

I don’t think Nebraska or Kansas would be… as bad as other places but I’m not sure I’d be popular in either state.

Ohio? Indiana? Pennsylvania? Tennessee? Kentucky?

No to Missouri. Can’t.

Oklahoma seems…. too close to Noah’s family.

Over seas sounds great. But complicated. I don’t know. I am fairly certain that Noah would be able to get a job over seas. He’s well regarded in the international community in his field. He could go to most countries. But where?

I’m terrified of leaving for a million reasons. But my daughter is right when she says this house is not going to work forever. We don’t want to spend the $300,000+ to add a second story. That puts Noah in debt bondage for a lot of extra years. Even though he makes obscene money.

Noah is 41. In my personal opinion it would be lovely if he didn’t have to have a full time job by 50. He says that what he would like is if he could do seasonal contract work remotely for a few months a year for vacations and extra shit but otherwise we’d like to be living off investments.

We are at $750,000 (approximately, obv) in investments. At 2 million (if I do this right) it’s possible to take about 3% out in dividends and get $60,000. That’s a huge salary for most of the country or the world. In 10 years of marriage I have tripled our assets. If I’m as good as I hope I am, having a 9 year runway to get to 2 million isn’t impossible. If we sold this house we could be well over a million invested after we pay off debts. We might even get as high as 1.2 or 1.3 million.

That makes retiring look… way more attainable. We will probably buy another house somewhere, but I’d love to move somewhere that we are looking at under $300,000.

The goal is retiring so we can teach people stuff without needing a job. Because we are wacky like that.

I don’t know what we are going to do. I don’t know where we are going to go. But I’m sure glad I will get to figure this out with my family.

We keep talking about spending a year or two nomadic so that we can try out different areas for a while before committing. We’ll see.

AND AFTER I PUT IN THAT GOD DAMN BATHROOM.

But if someone else loves this bathroom as much as me… maybe I will effectively be paid for my labor. Maybe. There’s a lot I need to do to the house and yard to make it someplace that someone else will want to buy. There’s a lot to fix and change and stuff. I hate caring about other peoples opinions.

My belly hurts. I’m hungry and eating hurts. This is not fair.

I haven’t been writing much about the evolution of Noah and I talking about sex and dating. That’s for a whole lot of reasons. I don’t want to pressure the situation. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. I handled last year tremendously badly on a variety of levels and I can’t absorb another fuck up that big. I’m not saying that I tried and failed so I’ve settled into permanent monogamy and that’s the end of the story. This has not been a good time to push.

Last year blew up for a variety of reasons. I didn’t negotiate for what I needed I reacted terribly to a situation I didn’t otherwise know how to change. I’m not proud and I’m not saying I deserve sympathy. Stuff was happening that I couldn’t cope with and I blew up the boat.

Noah has bigger emotions than he lets on most of the time. I think there was a slow decline in me noticing Noah’s emotions over years. Last year I genuinely didn’t think my actions would hurt him as badly as they did. That was hubris and ignorance and being a selfish asshole.

What does that mean for our future? Well, I can’t have a boy/girl friend.

I don’t think we will be completely monogamous. I think we will go years in between times and people who are ok to sleep with because both of us feel safe.

I think there will permanently be a belief that I have locked down Noah while being overly free myself and… I can’t say that’s completely wrong but it isn’t completely right either. It’s more complicated than that.

When Noah needs a break from being a husband and a father he wants to be alone. When I’m in need of a break I want to go be in relationship to other people so I feel like I have a different role.

That’s part of why I misunderstood pieces of what happened last year. I thought Noah wouldn’t really mind me being gone in the evenings when the kids were going to bed because he wants more alone time than he gets anyway. Only me being on a date is deeply triggering to him. He will sacrifice necessary alone time to go date if I’m paying too much attention to a particular other person.

Which kind of means that I need to sit in my house and Skype with people Noah doesn’t find threatening so Noah can have the alone time he needs without feeling threatened by my behavior. That’s complicated for me.

I want to do kinds of bdsm play Noah doesn’t want to do. That’s going to be rough forever. I want to figure out how to negotiate respectfully with everyone involved to find a way to get some of those needs met without hurting Noah. But if I’m out of his sight I’m hurting him.

I haven’t negotiated with anyone in the last year. I haven’t even hinted at possibilities because I feel so ashamed of leading people on with promises I can’t keep. I don’t know what I’ll be permitted to do in the future. Right this minute very little is possible. I don’t know what will be true in the future.

But Noah has earned the right to have me be considerate of his feelings.

I’m really tired of being in bed for 10 hours and sleeping 3.5 hours. This shit sucks.

Tomorrow I hit 9 weeks. I’m down almost 8 lbs. Of course. I swear to cheese I’m eating everything I can hold down. I feel so sick.

I went to the group “welcome to our maternity system” class yesterday for my medical provider. It was strangely like an episode of “Call the Midwife” without the great accents. It was fine, it was fun. I participated in appropriate, non-rude ways. The lady giving the presentation really wanted questions. No one was asking any. So I got things rolling. I brought up sleep. GUESS WHAT SHE TOLD ME TO DO?! Exercise more.

I did not lead from there into “But what if you have HPA axis dysfunction and exercising too much is probably part of the reason you can’t sleep to save your life?”

See, I was appropriate for the group. I wasn’t self involved. I didn’t lead it into a tangent that doesn’t apply to other people.

I can kinda conform for brief times if I work hard at it.

I wish I could throw up and feel better. But pregnancy doesn’t work that way.

I need to water the garden. I am going to be babysitting for 5ish hours today whether I feel good or not. I need to go to the grocery store again. (I was foolish and I didn’t plan for feeding the friends who are coming over tomorrow. Folks for lunch and folks for dinner and boy howdy do all of them eat differently than we do.)

I think I have scheduled too much again. I feel so dead.

But I hate cancelling with anyone. I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaant to see everyone. Whine.

On Wednesday the 19th I have to drive to Modesto and I’m all kinds of unhappy about it. It’s 86 mother fucking miles away. I’m going to feel so shitty. That’s for a fucking group class where they explain what is necessary for working with the charter school. All information that is on the website but they have to tell us in person. UGHEHGHWGHWGHEWHGRE

Luckily I’ll never have to go there again.

I’m tired of feeling like a slug. I want to feel like I want to get up off the floor. Right now… I’m literally lying on the floor.

Ok. I watered. Damnit. And I made lunch and I did scheduling with Noah and I did food preparation planning.

Productive. See.

Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.

K- I worry that Aptos isn’t going to stay smallish for long. I remember it quite fondly.

Ok. I need to get awaaaaaay from my keyboard.

Hey, I’ve been doing much better lately. No social media, no forums. I’m not even chatting that much. Yay Skype.

I’m so grateful y’all talk to me. You don’t even know. This pregnancy is easier. I feel so much less lonely for so many reasons. Thank you for spending all this time to get to know me. Thank you for thinking I’m fun to talk to and showing up for dates year after year.

I like talking to you so much.