I only ranted for like an hour. Then things calmed down.
Sometimes I reflect on the fact that being the mom means you get the best and the worst. The most boundary pushing and the most love.
I like being mom. But there are days (like today) when I want to get on my knees and kiss the babysitter’s feet. Because she gives me a break.
Sobriety sucks. Today the kids woke up on the wrong side of the bed. So they screamed and fought over everything. (Seriously. We need to have a screaming match over bowls?!)
So of course now I’m flamingly pissed. They are… calming down because once I’m in a towering ranting rage… they don’t really want to keep fighting.
And my wrists fucking hurt because I slept on them wrong. It isn’t even from typing. That pisses me off.
I just want today to be over and it is 9 in the morning.
I AM NOT REINSTALLING THE GOD DAMN CAR SEATS BECAUSE I AM THE ONLY ADULT IN THIS EQUATION WHO HAS THEIR ENTIRE HANDS GO NUMB FROM DOING SO.
But if I want to be able to walk through the house I have to put them back in the van.
I want to rant for hours. Only I don’t. Because my hands hurt and it is all petty and stupid and I know I’m just being an asshole.
Fuck.
Someone has written about this better than me and I needed to read it this morning.
Yup. That.
Goodness. Yesterday… didn’t go according to plan. Well, we went to the party we meant to go to. I didn’t play with any friends. It didn’t seem…. wise. We fought again. It got to screaming again. I don’t feel like I’m in a position to be holier-than-thou about it.
The party was ok. We played some together and we socialized. Maybe that was what we needed to be doing just then.
Today we had a productive conversation. Like… the kind of productive conversation we haven’t been able to have all year. I sorta feel like we had to go through layers and layers and layers of nasty to get to this conversation. This morning we were able to just… lay it out. “This is a problem. This is a problem. This is a problem. Yes x, y, and z won’t solve it… but it’s a problem we have to fix.”
I feel like we are getting to layers of honesty we’ve been burying for years.
I didn’t even know we were concealing all of this. We have been trying so hard to protect one another’s feelings in so many areas. We have been doing our best to provide what we interpreted as what the other person needed. We have both been choosing to not ask for yet more support because we both feel like we ask for too much.
Maybe we need to change what we are asking for. Maybe this is really complicated. Maybe instead of retreating and trying to make ourselves smaller we should be trying to be bigger.
This is my second day of complete sobriety. It is going better than anticipated… my stomach doesn’t hurt. I’m not feeling frantic. I’m not being nasty with my tone of voice. I’m not stomping out of the room before I have big feelings all over people. I feel like the taper plus using alcohol to smooth out some of the initial bumps of mood distortion helped. I feel like the sleep is helping. (8 hours again last night.)
I’m taking stomach acid reducing pills, nutritional supplements, and allergy medication. How come my complete sobriety involves popping so damn many pills?!
But none of them are fun.
Sigh.
I’m in a better mood than I anticipated first thing this morning. That was an incredibly positive after breakfast chat. No screaming. No fuss. Just…. this is a big fucking deal and we have to talk about it.
Why can’t we change one or two things at once instead of throwing the whole damn deck of cards in the air and saying “Let’s see what happens!”
Some seriously hurt feelings. But you know what? I don’t think I could have gotten to the point of being able to communicate some pieces of this without causing that much pain.
I don’t think I’m that good.
Noah keeps coming back to “But you say and say and say that this relationship has been the best years of your life. How can it also be so awful?”
This relationship has been the happiest period of my life. Full stop. No hesitation. That doesn’t make it perfect. That doesn’t mean it can continue as it has forever. I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Our kids are changing. There are specific pieces of the relationship that must change or else.
There are pieces of it that hurt and are damaging and just aren’t fucking ok.
That doesn’t take away the fact that this is the best I’ve ever known. Both of those things can be true at the same time.
Somehow… me wanting better… is all your fault Noah. If I hadn’t had ten years of this good, would I be capable of imagining better? I don’t think so. I really don’t.
I needed to have a best friend like you who would tear himself apart and rebuild to suit me. Just like I have done my best to change and grow for you. I have.
I am not the person you met. That’s part of why some of the things I could tolerate then I can’t tolerate now.
I don’t think that means either of us are evil. But it is true that we have to change and change again.
You are my monster and I am yours. Rawr.
What are we going to do? I don’t know. But I’m glad I get to do it with you. You are my best friend. No one has ever loved me like you do and no one else ever will.
This article about Susan from Narnia made my morning.
Yeah… you get no context on the music conversation yesterday. If you are close enough to ask me one to one I’ll tell you. If you are a blog reader you get a mystery.
14 days till we leave for the trip. I’m excited.
Things with Noah are going a lot better. A lot smoother. More gentle. Quieter. Less fighting and fuss. I’m not rocking the boat any more.
I read something a while back, I don’t remember who said it. “If you have a life better than most people can imagine, you don’t get to complain.”
I have a life, right now, that is far better than anything I could have imagined when I was young. Does that mean I don’t get to complain about it?
Does the fact that most of my sex life is good mean I’m not allowed to complain about feeling hurt or degraded sometimes?
I don’t know.
How much pain am I required to shut my mouth about because I have it so good? I don’t know.
I was thinking about this as I watched my whiny-baby-eldest-child do martial arts yesterday. She is in a new/harder class because she bumped up. She must have complained loudly, “OW THAT HURTS” more than a dozen times. Her classmates kept freaking out thinking she was seriously injured. No, that is her, “You want more energy than I feel like expending” voice. When she’s hurt she’s higher pitched.
I talked to her about crying wolf. If you say OW every time you round the corner as you jog around the room because you hit the edge of a pad, no one will notice when you break your arm.
I could barely talk my mom into taking me to the hospital when I broke my arm because I had such a habit of complaining about being in pain (Well, I was in severe pain but now I would say it was caused by trauma/anxiety.) that my mom didn’t believe me.
I believe my kid. But I think there is minor pain and serious pain. How do we learn to tune out minor irritations? My kids haven’t had to. Whatever is happening to them in this moment is all that matters and… oh sweetie. I’m not doing you favors. Some hurts you shrug off and keep moving. A paper cut doesn’t end the morning.
Instead of screaming and freaking out when you stub your toe, you learn to pick it up.
I think I’m sucking at teaching some kinds of resiliency. They are emotionally resilient and physically… not so much.
Hm. We should work on this.
I think keeping them in martial arts is the right first step.
I’m… feeling better? Less anxious. Less frantic. I don’t feel suicidal. I feel a little slow and sad but not overwhelmingly so.
I don’t think I’ve suffered from an intense long lasting depression or period of anxiety in years. I think the worst was after Uncle Bob died. Everything else… I can shake off a lot faster. I have more ability to be upset and then stop.
That’s progress, right?
I don’t know how the sex stuff is going to work out. I really don’t and that is hard and frustrating. But I think it is going to take a long time and I just can’t sustain burning energy on that problem all the time because I think it is going to be handled slowly, case by case over the next ten years.
I have no idea how much play we will do with others in that time period. I think we will play with friends this weekend. How much play? I don’t know. Will sex happen? I don’t know.
We’ll see.
And yes Noah, I’m being very selfish about this. We aren’t searching for people you want to play with while I help. I’m playing with my old friends and partners. I’m being utterly and completely selfish about this.
This Saturday I hope I will get to play with the very first person who ever put me in bondage. I love her with all my heart and I would really like to celebrate the 16th anniversary of that with play. She is a dear and beloved friend. I would not be who I am without her. Knowing her is an honor and a privilege.
I am a ridiculously blessed person.
This weekend is the 16th anniversary of meeting the group of people who changed my life. I’m pretty excited.
I’m probably going to bring my Owner flowers. We started dating a few days after that first meeting of the whole crowd. I ended our relationship on our anniversary. So 16/12 years ago respectively. I’ve sent flowers before.
But this year I’m thinking hard about myself and who built me and whether I am worthy of love or respect or… anything really.
I need to stop hearing in my head that I’m a worthless whore. I need it to go away.
Oh goodness. On the vein of sex work is completely separate from my issues with the word whore, recently a friend noticed that I was in distress and reached out to me. Unfortunately I can’t have dinner with her because she forgot I don’t live in her city/state, but it was lovely anyhow. I am… surprised sometimes that my network of support includes some of the most famous sex workers of my era. I like who I get to be. If these are the sorts of people who are like, “Gosh you look like you need some help” then I’m doing something right. Because I love these people so much. And they love me back.
Holy shit.
That one needs to go on my mental list of “See you can’t be all bad.”
I have friends reaching out to me from an incredibly diverse array of communities. My neighbors represent a rainbow of ethnicities and religions and I’m out about the kind of weirdo I am and they are all checking in on me because I am not being as social as usual and I seem down. They invite me into their homes and tell me all their problems and listen without judgment to mine. Even when mine involve promiscuity and drugs and their eyes bug out. “Wow. I have never… met someone who had any problems like that before. I… I have no advice. What do you think you will do?”
But they’ve already known me for years and years. I didn’t unload about this shit early on. At this point, they have this deep well of trust and affection for me.
It’s trippy as shit.
I’m out about being kinky. I’m out about being non-monogamous. I’m out about my mental health problems.
I get to normalize the fuck out of weird populations for these people. It’s hella cool.
I am trying to find a way forward that honors the totality of support I am getting. It blows my mind. I feel like I am living in a storybook. People don’t get to have this kind of real life.
Something I get told when I’m freaking out and they have no advice, “Krissy… I don’t know what you’ll do but you’ll find something. You’ve already figured out more hard things than I have.”
I get told minor variations on that over and over.
Why in the world do other people have so much faith in me?
Breakfast.
Have you ever had the experience where you “knew” something but you don’t believe it at all. So like, for example: my brother committing suicide. I wasn’t there. I didn’t pour gasoline on him and light him on fire. It is not my fault he died. He did that to himself.
But I don’t believe that. I believe he died because he was in so much pain from me and our father and our mother and our siblings that he had to. That’s what I believe. I believe I am to blame, in part.
So there is knowing and knowing.
At least I no longer think it is all my fault.
I came back from the road trip and things were much better in the sex department. It’s true. But then we had a triggering sex event. And I exploded. I can’t do that anymore.
I didn’t explode in a way that will really solve the problem and that sucks. I did what I have done since I was very young to try and solve sex problems. Add more sex with more people.
It did increase my overall responsiveness and readiness for sex. It did mean even a no-frills quickie can get me off because I’m just primed all the time. It did mean I wouldn’t get so mad at Noah for times when he… doesn’t do the work.
But at a cost Noah can’t bear. So it failed.
So it worked and it didn’t. I know that it didn’t work and I know that it sorta did.
Trouble.
Noah wants me to be fulfilled by him alone.
I know. But I don’t know how. I need so much connection. I need so much attention. I need so much love. I need so much adoration. I need so many people.
I am a black hole and I can consume him entirely.
I don’t know what to do.
Yesterday I discovered that some people consider the controlling of music to be a nearly unreasonable boundary.
No one else has ever wanted that before. Well I fucking do. I’m a special god damn snow flake.
If you want me to open my mind and my soul I’m not going to do it to shitty instrumental music of your choice. I will get up and start breaking things in frustration. No. No. No. No. No.
If you want me to go within and feel safe, I am going to set the terms.
It’s different at the grief ritual where I am part of the music being created. That isn’t shitty background instrumental music. That is life.
I’m not going to relax in your environment unless I get to change it. Because if I can’t change it I can’t make it safe for me. Yes, the accommodations I’m asking for are bigger than normal. Deal with it or I walk.
He was surprised that I was so ready to accept, “Ok I’ll go” as the answer. Then he wavered and decided maybe it would be ok.
First he said I could send him a few tracks and he would decide if they were ok to include.
No. That’s a boundary. I am not doing work so you can approve or disapprove my inner journey. That’s not your place.
He looked fucking stunned.
“Is this journey about you or me? You don’t know where I am coming from and you don’t know where I’m going. Music sets mood. I set the mood or I’m not interested.”
Given that this is meant to be therapeutic I said, “I’m open to suggestions of listening to music or turning it off for a while to move into different stages of processing. I’m open to questions about ‘Why did you pick this song?’ I’m open to long periods of silence. But sometimes I’m going to want to turn it on and that has to be ok.”
I’m doing this because I need to be able to think about myself for a while in a state where I don’t hate myself and feel like a worthless whore. I don’t have access to very many states where that happens. So I’m going to god damn do it whether people approve or not. So don’t fucking share your disapproval.
I’m outwardly focused to such a degree that it creates problems. It’s because I don’t like looking in. It is like looking into a mouth full of decaying, rotting teeth.
I don’t like myself very much. Not because of the promiscuity, amusingly enough. The “whore” thing and the actual sex I have don’t seem to be related. I mean, sometimes they do? When I’m gritting my teeth it matters.
I don’t feel like a whore when I have joyous sex with my friends. It just… never becomes part of the dynamic. Even if they whisper that I am a good little whore. I’ll orgasm. But I don’t feel bad.
If only it were that simple, kids…
Breakfast is ready.
So many feelings.
I’m up I’m down. I’m finding layers of peace. I’m still dysregulated and sensitive and whiny.
On the ride home yesterday I hit… an important piece, I think, around suicide and pain. I can kill myself if I am in so much physical pain that I will no longer have good days. I hold that right to be sacred. If I hit stage 4 cancer, I’m probably going to pick the day I go instead of letting fate decide.
But problems in my marriage aren’t like cancer. It is not inevitable that things will decline further until death. It’s not the same and I can’t act like it is. I spent a lot of time yesterday frantically wanting to end my life. Because I hurt. Because that is the well trod pathway my brain takes when it is in pain.
I can’t commit suicide over a problem in my marriage or a problem in my sex life. I am too big for that now. Maybe that would have been understandable at some point in my life. It isn’t now. I am too big.
I don’t mean I weigh a lot. That’s too literal. I mean metaphorically.
If I am in too much pain and I have to run away I have places to go. I have homes in the bay area that would take me in with no explanation needed. I could go to Oregon or Washington or Minnesota or Georgia and I’d find berth. No questions asked. Ok, they’d ask questions. But they’d ask questions after I got there because they care about me, not because they would gate keep based on whether or not my answers are good enough.
I am good enough.
That means that when I’m having problems… dying doesn’t need to be the answer. If I have to get away… I have options. I don’t need to die.
I’m rereading the speech I wrote when I performed a wedding. I am not being good at advocating for myself in my marriage. Not really. My second thought? Shit I rambled on too long about history and irrelevant shit. Good grief.
Hey, they asked their favorite teacher to officiate. They got a lecture.
Marriage is what you make of it. What kind of marriage do you want to have? One where you both hurt each other often as a lifestyle choice?
Not really.
It was really mean to come home from being gone for half a year and immediately leap into that much dating. Noah missed me and was faithful and that’s how I rewarded him. That sucks. There have also been a number of ways in which we haven’t managed to communicate well and I’m not always lying if we have different definitions. We are talking past each other but that isn’t the same as lying. And I’ve done a piss poor job of communicating the boundaries Noah wishes I had to people as I’ve gone off on adventures. That’s a huge problem. I know I need to fix that.
It is hard to talk about bdsm. It is hard to figure out how common sexual euphemisms like “first base” translate. If I have literally played like that with folks when I was in the quad when I was in high school… yeah I consider that first base. There were no genitals involved. No one was overtly sexy at all. Sometimes humans are just hella rough with other humans. That’s… ok.
I really did grow up brutalizing people for fun. The weird ass part is how many of those people still know me and have a good opinion of me.
No, kneeling on someones chest and laughing at them as they gasp for breath isn’t second base in my head.
I don’t know how this works for other people.
Punching for a few minutes on the thighs and the shoulders… doesn’t feel like sexuality. I mean yes? But no. But sorta. But not?
I did think I was being good and acting within the boundaries.
If I try that hard and I run into a place where you have a different definition that needs to be a conversation about definitions not an accusation of lying. I didn’t lie. I told you where I would set my boundaries, but apparently I didn’t define that well enough for you. That isn’t a lie. It is a failure to communicate. I came home and told you right away. There was no lying.
There also needs to be some room for “I expect I will do ____” and “Well I actually did _____.”
Between the two of us we need to figure that out because we’ve run afoul of it in both directions. That isn’t the same thing as lying either. Not when you did it and not when I did it and I’m being accused of lying up one side and down the other.
I have not ever said, “Oh I followed the rules” and then later you found out through dubious channels that I wasn’t doing so. That hasn’t happened. I said that I wanted to break rules and you found out in dubious ways. I think that’s different.
I’m the one telling you about every fuck up.
I’m not presenting them straightforwardly and simply. I am reacting with hostility when you challenge me on a variety of things.
I need to stop that.
I think I have had to get this angry to assert that I will not ever grit my teeth through sex again. Whatever I owed anyone on that score I have paid my debt many times over.
And I can’t even talk about what that means unless I talk about it in context of overall volition and other partners because I can’t just push back against Noah. I owe him too much. I don’t feel I have the right.
But I have managed to learn that I don’t owe Deity or Cupid or my submissive or or or or. I go when I want to and I don’t when I don’t. (Ok sometimes I don’t get to go when I want to but that’s different.)
This is so complicated and I need to go.
I started the day with chores. Watering the yards, making breakfast, showering, getting the kids ready for a day. Emailed with the contractor. I also arranged one leg of the shuttle journey for the Florida trip. The other two legs are proving cantankerous. So it’ll take more work. I tried for half an hour then had to leave.
We drove to Oakland. It wasn’t a fun drive. Gosh we have a hard time being nice to one another lately. We had a therapy session together. It was… so festive my therapist asked if Noah could pretty please come back again. (My therapist is feeling pretty freaked out the “Best Marriage She Has Ever Heard Of” is flailing so badly. She feels the need to uhhh intervene.) Then I drove him to a thing he had in El Cerrito and dropped him off.
Then I came back to Fremont. I scarfed food. Emailed insurance broker because we are getting harassed by the bank again. Went to the nutritionist to pick up yet more pills. Went to pick the kids up from the movie they were at with their babysitter. Had to sit and wait 20 minutes. Whee.
Dropped off the babysitter, went grocery shopping. Came home. Threw the food into semi-appropriate housing. Got the kid dressed for Tae Kwon Do. Went to class. Came home to get the thing we forgot for the girl’s class. Went back to Tae Kwon Do for a second class.
Came home. Cleaned up from enormous mess that arrived from the grandmother. When she sends us stuff it always comes with three garbage bags full of non-recyclable packing materials. Yay. And a full recycling can full of recyclable bits. All so the kids can have a third god damn horse for their dolls.
Assembled dinner for the kids. Assembled dinner for myself. Sat down. Ate three bites. Oh. Time to go pick Noah up from BART.
Did that. Now here I am. I’ve eaten half the bowl of soup. (Leftover split pea, hella good.)
I had a good time in the car on the drive home from El Cerrito. I spent a lot of time listening to Beyoncé sing about how her husband ain’t married to no average bitch.
I’m not married to an average bitch either.
I have a deal that is better than one could imagine if they made it up. Is it perfect? No. God no. But I need to figure out how to make this work.
I told the Quiet One I need to stop talking to him. I poisoned that well. It’s my fault and I’m not blaming anyone but me. But I’m hurting Noah by continuing any friendship at all there and I need to stop. I need to not make Noah veto someone. Making him feel backed into a corner is… something I need to not do casually.
There are a lot of things I don’t like in this life that I have to do anyway.
I’m trying to figure out what that means.
I can already feel the pendulum swinging back towards center on several points of my hysteria. I still don’t know what the answer will be.
But I feel a lot more sure I need to find an answer with Noah.
I didn’t have any alcohol yesterday. I proved to my satisfaction that it will be an ok way to help bridge the gap when I’m traveling and I don’t have other options. Beyond that it has a super high toxicity load and I just can’t drink all the time. I can’t be an alcoholic even though it sounds kinda nice right now. Maybe it’d help me die faster.
I self harmed yesterday. I’m not doing well. I don’t want to talk about it.
I can sorta hold my shit together when someone is looking at me. Then they stop looking at me and I crumble.
I can be trusted while someone is looking at me. Otherwise I’m pathetic, worthless and not worthy of trust. Only I didn’t do anything when I was out of eyesight last time either. I don’t really want to deal with it being all my fault when I get hit.
Fuck everything.
The new contractor is engaged to begin work the Monday after we return from our trip and they will have the framing done in about a week and the roofer can start two weeks from the Monday after we return.
That’s finally a piece of news that makes me smile.
Recently I was asked why I am busy. It was asked by someone I don’t know and I don’t care to know more. I didn’t feel the question came out of curiosity but rather “You are a housewife, what could you do that keeps you busy?”
I didn’t answer. I’m not going to answer such a question when I do not like why it is asked. It is none of your business.
So instead I mull on it for myself and shred myself because surely I don’t do enough. I’m lazy. I’m worthless.
What do I do with my time? Sure I do the housewife shit, minus cooking. And Noah has started doing laundry in the last few weeks.
I also homeschool my kids, which takes a lot more hours than you would think. I plan, I execute, I clean up.
I spend a tremendous amount of time researching child development because I need to do this right and I don’t know how.
I plan for travel. My kids are world travelers in a way I could not have imagined when I was a child living in abject poverty. My kids have seen the world. I couldn’t imagine the world. It takes a surprising amount of time to plan and execute.
I have a social life that is busier than it should be. I know.
I garden and remodel my house. This takes up a lot of my time.
I have written two books and I need to take the second apart and simplify it and I have more waiting to get out. I don’t have the spoons to address this right now. But it intermittently fills my time.
I provide a lot of support for various sufferers of mental and physical health problems. I do a lot of this online but it also exists in my real life. I need connection with other people who have experienced trauma. I spend time on this.
I manage my own physical and mental health problems. Do y’all realize I’m up to nine health care providers and I have more referrals coming that haven’t been followed up on yet? I also need to keep up with managing my kids health care providers.
What do I do? Oh, not much. Just sit around watching Netflix and eating bonbons. Like you do.
The best thing I can say about this week is that I’ve gotten more sleep than I have in any week in any recent year. That makes me wonder if the pot is seriously interfering with my sleep.
The other good thing I can say is my attempt at functional alcoholism using very high grade whiskey has not resulted in burning, heinous diarrhea but I’m well aware this is not a long term solution.
I can’t say much else is good.
I feel very depressed. That may be contributing to the sleep too.
I’m ranting and raving this morning. I’m being a fucking asshole. Youngest Child is feeling fussy and particular and I’m… not being nice. I’m trying to vacuum the house, cause folks are coming over and my house is gross. And the kids are standing around watching me or fighting instead of picking up their stuff so I’m yelling. This sucks.
So I’m coming out to the garage cause it’s only 9am and I’m not ok.
I’m kinda sick of “Pick up the floor” being interpreted as “Move one or two big things and pick up none of the little things.”
I can’t vacuum up all these beads, bracelets, slippers, play money, pencils, and hair bands. Pick.Them.Up.
I’m such a mom.
And today I’m an asshole mom.
I keep wondering why it is so important that I get off the medication that works and has a very low side effect profile so that I can get on something that doesn’t work, makes me sick, and has a ridiculous side effect profile of damaging my brain forever.
WHY?!?!?!!?
Because it is illegal in many places, that’s why.
I had dinner with a friend last night and she really wanted to help me brainstorm how to sneak pot on my trip. I finally yelled, “I have no interest in ending up in a Caribbean fucking prison can we change the god damn subject!”
She meant well.
Cannabis is not more legal if it is in a pill or a brownie or oil.
I have now smoked my first bowl of the day. Do I feel better yet? Not really. Sad face. If one bowl could do it, I’d feel ok with my usage during pregnancy.
Ok, I got up and walked around the house and finished vacuuming since the kids finished. Maybe this is more impact than I think. I think that means one more will be enough. That’s not bad for me.
And frankly… the kids actually didn’t take that long. They needed four reminders, but… I think that’s the same kind of lack of spatial awareness their dad has.
Their dad can’t find things in the refrigerator. Even if it is on the right shelf if it isn’t in the exact quadrant he expects. This happened again like a week ago. Literally, it was 5″ from where he expected it to be and he couldn’t find it.
So maybe my kids come by it honestly.
This is what I like about pot. I go from “WHY THE FUCK ISN’T THIS DONE?!?!?!?!?!?!111111” to “Ok, you missed a few things but you are making progress. Well done.”
Anti-psychotics don’t make me feel this way.
I feel sad that I have to hurt myself in order to hopefully stop feeling like I can stop hurting myself.
I got almost nine hours of sleep. I declare allergy medication to be a miracle. I think I’m going to ask for allergy testing. I am pretty sure… I have allergies. Like whoa. All of a sudden I can breathe. I’m not even waking up to pee until 8 hours of sleep. That’s a miracle.
Noah is going to take the kids to martial arts. I’m going to stay home and clean. Maybe it will help my cranky. I feel so cranky in a messy house. Messy houses = work waiting to crash on my head. I dislike messy. It makes me anxious. It’s like having 100 unread emails in my inbox. That’s overwhelming. Have I mentioned that my whole house is messy because of the remodel and it has been since February and I’m about to lose my mind?
But! The plan revision is finally appropriate and at the city. Once I get it back I can submit the new contractors information to the city and start work again. Right as we are leaving. So really it should wait till we get back. *beat head on ground*
September 12th will hopefully be the start date then. And I get to pray it is done by Christmas. I hope that means the roof will be finished in September. I will have to consult with the contractor and the roofer. I hope the roofing can start on September 26th. I sent an email to that effect. To both folks.
Oh boy. Being a grown up is lame.
Second bowl is done. I feel… better but not good. Sigh. I’m going to go do more cleaning. Meh. Fuss. Whine. Folks are coming over in two hours.
I have way more thoughts about my leaky bucket. But my house won’t clean itself.
I’m gritting my teeth. I’m grumpy as fuck. Controlling my voice inflection, tone, and volume is a nightmare.
I want my pot back.
Stupid cruise.
Stupid baby.
I take it back. You aren’t stupid, baby. You are worth suffering for.
BUT THIS STILL SUCKS ROCKS.
This morning has involved quite a few minor mistakes and every single time my response is to start ranting about how stupid, pathetic and worthless I am.
I’d like a break from being in my brain.
Five weeks till we get back from the cruise and I can figure out a usage level that can be appropriate for the next few years. This is going to hurt so much.
I’m not out of pot. I just think I shouldn’t use it all up right now.
I feel like my periods of equilibrium are short and not satisfying. My life has been in limbo for pretty much all of my life. I’m always transitioning. I was transitioning from “done breeding” into “more exciting” and then that got… interrupted. Instead I’m back to breeding.
If only I didn’t want more children so much that I cry with every period.
I miss being exciting. Being a wife and a mother doesn’t feel exciting. Being sadistic and masochistic and slutty feels exciting.
But I want these children so much that I deal with not feeling exciting. I want these children so much that I will defer most dreams. I will put off most goals. I want these children so much it physically aches.
I thought that having two kids might scratch the itch. No. I want more. I want more kids so much I feel like I can barely cope with the urge. I feel no end of gratitude that my partner changed his mind about two and done.
But I’m struggling with feeling like so much of me is shoved into a box in the closet indefinitely. It’s like those other parts of me don’t exist.
I am sadistic. I am masochistic. I am submissive.
How much of me are these things?
Not as much as being a wife and a mother. No matter how much I resent the fuck out of mostly being a wife and mother.
I want to be something different. But instead I’m typical. I’m a wife and mother.
I really want to be a badass motherfucker. Instead I’m a wife and mother.
How do we decide who we get to be? What we are? What makes us?
I don’t know. But I struggle.
My partner has gone from saying “One kid… maybe two” to saying “As many as we can” given the constraints of our life/age/health. That means we will have three or four. He’s open to five. The reality of my age is that probably won’t happen.
I feel like there is something I have to give to these children. Something that is so important that it is more important than fun or excitement or personal projects.
I need to have these children to repair the damage I feel inside me.
I don’t know how to get over grieving that I didn’t get to grow up in a family. I didn’t really get to have a mother or a father. So instead I give to my children. That is my only route to having a family. Because I feel like I am dying from lack of care and love that I should have gotten from a parent.
Instead I have children who shine with love, attention, and good health. Because I wither on the vine because I still miss my mother. I still wish someone wanted to mother me. But no one does. That door is closed. I get to give, not receive.
Life works that way, sometimes.
One of my beloved’s is off with a partner who doesn’t like me much. To be fair… I have uncharitable thoughts towards that person. My beloved is still checking in with me to share feelings about how it is going. I am being as loving and supportive as I know how. Your partner doesn’t have to work for me to work for you. I see how much you get from this relationship. I want to support it.
Why can’t I feel this way about Noah?
I’m so tired. I’m so tired I have managed to nap today. Yay? BaGG was wonderful. My friends embraced me to their pervy bosoms and nurtured my slutty nature. Thank you for loving me and tolerating my come and go nature.
I asked Noah for permission to play a little since my month isn’t really over. I said I would keep it light. I did. I played for like 15 minutes with a person I met at a party recently. It was fun but not real intense or in depth. I also spent a lot of time flirting/kissing/dancing/rubbing on a variety of other friends. Some of whom are previous lovers/play partners.
The kissing stayed light and not intense. The play never got sexual. Ok, rubbing my butt on people while dancing was sexual but that was the most of it.
I feel bad that I haven’t been better at keeping things at this level. This would not have hurt Noah so much.
One of my former lovers/play partners actually asked me if I wanted to leave the club and go to a motel for a few hours. I said thank you, but no.
Your wife may be fine with it. My husband would have feelings and I need to care about that right now. But thank you for the offer. You are aging wicked hot (God damn) and I feel quite flattered by your offer.
Noah keeps telling me that I’ll never run out of tempting offers. He’s probably right.
I have to say, knowing that I’m 10 weeks out from trying to conceive (that means we’ll get started trying right after a bleeding cycle ends–convenient) means I’m less tempted to push hard on new partners or renewing a partnership that hasn’t been acted upon in more than ten years.
If Deity flirted hard saying no would be much harder.
Sigh.
The music wasn’t great… but honestly that’s typical. Oh well. I did get to help demonstrate that a polka can be done in an incredibly constrained space.
When I got home Noah was waiting up because he doesn’t sleep without me. That makes sense. I don’t sleep without him either.
I have been binging on season 5 of Call the Midwife. I like the examinations of families and interactions and burdens and joys. This season is brutal and sad. I wouldn’t recommend coming in at this point to anyone. It would not grab the heart in the same way. But it is informative as to history still. And beloved characters are carrying on. I like seeing what that means even though most of it is sad.
I understand that mostly, life is sad.
My beloved submissive is going to come watch me paint so that I feel a little more motivated to get done. My neighbor wants me to come over so we can have more girl talk. Friends will drop by this weekend.
I hate how not talking to people all day long on the internet means I feel lonely. It is an existential feeling that I hate. I don’t deserve to feel lonely. My life is full to bursting. This is misperception. This is broken.
I’m not alone. I am loved and cared for. I do not know how it would be possible to end up with more/better than I have. Not for someone like me. Why don’t I appreciate it more? Why don’t I just sit with the gratitude I feel?
Where does all this pissiness come from?
It isn’t that I think I should have more or I should get more. That’s not it at all.
My sweet loves have cuddled me for a lot of today. I’m afraid this oxytocin rush is going to have to come from them. I won’t be able to kiss my friends to get it. I just get to love my children.
Wife and mother.
Be that.
Why doesn’t it feel like more?
I am more? Does it matter? Does any of it matter at all?
I don’t know. But that’s enough typing for today. Ow.
Thank you, Beautiful, for the ride. I had a great time. I’m glad I get to be friends with you.
I am cis-sexual. My kid is not. That means I should try not to be an ignorant fuck.
I get to go to BaGG tonight because my friend is going to drive me home afterwards.
I am blessed.
I’m asking Noah over and over: why more kids? He says he didn’t know how good we would be at parenting (fair, that was hard to evaluate with a 28 month old and a 6 week old and that’s when he got snipped) and he didn’t know that we would adapt and have so much fun. He says he waited until I got to the point of saying that I will accept a lot of medical management so I don’t die.
I’m definitely ok with signing up for whatever support I need so I don’t die. I know this will be complicated.
Why do I want more? I never didn’t. I have cried through every period I’ve had in about the last five years since I started bleeding again. I always wanted more kids. Why? Biology is a bitch. I like breeding. I like my kids. I hate being pregnant–I’m a miserable pregnant person. But at the end I get this baby. I can put up with nine months of anything.
Baby.
And my babies have turned into little people I like and respect who behave in ways I’m frankly quite proud of. My kids aren’t perfect. They are assholes just like their parents. But they are trying. They care about how their behavior impacts people and when they hurt someone they apologize and try to make it right. I respect them. They try so hard to be good people.
The struggle is real.
I’m going to have one bowl this morning. That’s uhm, barely using any pot for me. The Bonus Kids are here and hopefully this will be enough for me to get through breakfast without fuss and I need to start managing my mood more sober. Fuck. Shit. UGH.
It’ll be great. All four of these kids make my socks roll up and down with joy.
I uhh start off most days with 6-10 bowls. So 1 is a huge taper. Like whoa.
In my opinion if I could get my usage down to less than 5 bowls in 24 hours… that’s a level I won’t hate myself for during pregnancy. Less/none would be best. But… I use a lot. I don’t want to think about how much because my tolerance level is so ridiculous. It took me a lot of years of gradually increasing to get where I am. I haven’t had a month off since we went to Europe. Ha.
I didn’t sleep for the first 8 days of that trip. I need to not experience that again.
Noah’s vasectomy reversal is 6 weeks and 2 days away. We leave for the trip in 3 weeks and 2 days. So we can start trying for a baby in 10 weeks.
Holy crap.
This is Noah’s 35th birthday present to me. Surgery.
So I can have a baby. Baby. Baby. He keeps saying things that are freaking me out. He doesn’t think we’ll stop after one more. I HAVE SAID THREE FROM DAY ONE. NOW HE’S TALKING FOUR OR FIVE.
We would have to move. Probably out of the bay area because we won’t be able to afford a bigger house here. I mean, we could if we gave up the kind of travel we do. That’s hella expensive. But I don’t want to. Hell, it’s going to be even more expensive with more bodies. We are jumping from one to two hotel rooms in a lot of places. Eeek.
This is how I will have a family. I do not have sisters or brothers or aunts or uncles or parents or cousins who want to know me. I get to have children. With Noah. That’s the only family I am ever going to have.
Yeah. I’m ok with more. This is going so well.
My kids radiate joy and love. That has been their whole life. Yes, I’d sign up for more of this. We are so much more patient and loving than I expected.
I think that for me, parenting and teaching are all mixed up. This is the relationship in which I am allowed to be my best self. I am allowed to give the things I have that are the most valuable and worthy. I don’t have to slice down my offerings to be what someone else wants to hear in their brief 15 minutes of listening to me in this whole lifetime. I suck like that.
My children get to see what I do habitually, what habits I actually prioritize, how I behave all the time so they know the difference between doing well and failing.
They get a pretty uncensored picture. I mean, I don’t tell them all my feelings or thoughts but my children have witnessed the vast majority of my behavior for years. They know where I’m a hypocrite (I’m such a fucking whiner) and where I walk my talk.
Mostly I do walk my talk. I am consistent even if I can’t do it in the ways other people want from me. That’s ok. I may not be the person who can get the kids to the library story time like clockwork every week for years but I am the person who will show up to help, whenever necessary and I’ll do whatever is necessary.
I am not good at being a community member. I’m a top notch foul weather friend.
I am not the kind of person most people want to spend lots of time with. I’m abrasive and challenging and stubborn and controlling. But god damn I’m great in a crisis.
I have to believe it takes all kinds. There is a need for lots of kinds of people. I have to believe there is a place for me.
Someone has to be willing to talk to the incest cohort. I was reading through more studies recently. WHY DO MOST OF THESE “STUDIES” MAX OUT AT 50 PARTICIPANTS. I’d put money on these populations being homogenous. UGH. THIS IS NOT USEFUL INFORMATION. GOD DAMNIT.
There are millions of people who have experienced incest. You couldn’t find them? Shit. I’ve met more people in my lifetime who have talked to me about their incest experiences than these god damn researchers can find.
I think you need to be able to smell them. And I can. It’s remarkable how often I sidle up to a complete stranger and start talking and in under two hours they’ve told me that they were raped by a family member too.
We are everywhere. If you can’t find us… you aren’t looking.
That’s the only piece of sad I have about more babies now. That’s setting back my research by 10-15 years.
I guess I will have to stay alive longer if I want to really do this. I want to compile information on the incest cohort. I’m trying to find language for this that works for me.
Tribe is out. Victim is out. Survivor is out. Sufferer is out.
Why?
Because all four of those words will alienate a lot of the people I want to talk to for complicated reasons. I need to find language that will generalize and be ok.
How do I talk about incest without implying from the get go that someone is always hurt? It… isn’t true. Some of us have been hurt quite badly *raise hand* but a large number…… weren’t hurt. Either because they were perpetrators (and god damn I want to talk to them) or because… they didn’t feel hurt. That happens. It’s normal and ok for someone to have that set of responses.
I need to not alienate those people if I want to understand incest. They are a big part of the picture. They are what my father wanted from his incestuous acts. I don’t think he truly wanted to kill the souls of his children. I think he was looking for connection in the fucked up way he knew how.
I want to talk to people who manage to connect that way and have positive results. I want to hear all the details they are willing to share. I sincerely hope that when it happens I get to be a balm to their souls because they haven’t ever been able to be honest with anyone else about it.
Truth is freeing.
Tell the truth and shame the devil.
I write as much as I can about what I think because for good or bad… I am. I exist. I am here. I am complicated and good and bad and… that’s life. That’s what being a person means. No one is all good. No one is all bad. We are all trying, in our stunted ways, to reach for the light.
Most people who deal with the kinds of racing thoughts and mixed feelings and experiences I have don’t ever find a voice. They live with this cacophony trapped inside their brain.
I am so sorry. It is much easier when you can pull a thread out of the melody and release it into the world… somehow.
I may not feel connection exactly from sharing my words but I definitely feel like I am solidifying who I am. I feel like I am making sense of a terrible enigma. I am figuring out why I am doing what I’m doing. Sometimes it is biological compulsion. Sometimes there is even less sense than that.
People suck.
Done with the one bowl. I’ve been writing for an hour. Get off the computer. (Hey, I took breaks! I went slow! Yeah… your hands suck. Stop it.)