Category Archives: adult-only

Published in the adult-only category

Find a hobby

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Painting is the opposite of relaxing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That feels really sad.

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

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

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

It’s about balance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m gonna be a super model.

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

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

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

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

Feelings.

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

Feelings.

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

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

But that’s the process. Right?

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

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

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

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

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

I still need to do what I’m doing.

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

I wish I were better too.

Home again, jiggity jig.

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

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

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

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ok, not rational. I get it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want it so bad.

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

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

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

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

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

Keep trying

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you, Noah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ok, time to do something else.

Catch up sleep is my friend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m just another girl in your line up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

PS- my arms burn like fire.

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

My people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uhh, sorry.

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

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

I just…

I’m trying.

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

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

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

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

Sometimes people have unconscious reactions. It happens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I feel like a petty, whining baby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I should just stop caring.

Sleep would be nice.

5 Replies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How many people get a do-over?

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

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

My feelings should matter, shouldn’t they?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything else changes really fast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man. This sounds like work.

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

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

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

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

I want it. I want it so bad.

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

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

Culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lame.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow the Childrens Museum with good friends.

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

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

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

Thankful

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m going to do it anyway.

Be thankful

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do I believe that an 11 year old can consent?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoa.

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I think my neighbor has forgiven me for shouting at him about the racist stuff. First he went to Walmart and bought a patch for my jeans because I was too lazy to do it for myself. Then he just up and bought me a new pair of jeans.

I feel overwhelmed on a variety of levels. How kind. How thoughtful. How loving. I’m aware he is on a very fixed income (he can rattle off what he spends down to the penny every month) so this feels like a huge deal.

People surprise me all the time. I really appreciate that he did this. The jeans don’t fit me well but they will work fine over leggings with a belt. That’s how I go through the winter when I’m too cheap to go buy more flannel lined jeans. (I haven’t had any since pre-pregnancy.)

I would die in real weather.

It is weird to me how some people drift into your life and just kind of stay. And they become important. I see every sign that this gentleman may live another ten years in his current state. He’s in good health and he’s pretty vigorous. I may get to know him for more than fifteen years. That’s a long spell. We talk a lot.

I’m glad I started talking to him years ago. I’m blurty, like I am, so he knows I have issues but I haven’t been specific about what. My kids are always standing there. But he knows I struggle with feeling like I have worth.

This feels like a big deal. He’s trying to say it is nothing. But it isn’t nothing.

I feel weird about my neighbors all thinking I’m poor. I don’t mention that I have spent $19,000 this month and it isn’t a big deal. I can afford it. (That includes the IRA and college fund and other stuff like that where I’m transferring money more than I’m “spending” money but my heart palpitations only see my main checking account going down.)

Sometimes it is hard to fully see that I am becoming who I want to be. I am creating a place in a community. People have known me for quite a while now. I have lived in one house for 7.5 years. That is the longest stretch of my whole life. Twice as long as the runner up.

I see neighbors coming and going. I give Christmas presents. I help people with things they are doing. They help me.

Now if I could get my emotions to reflect my reality more then maybe I would stop having panic attacks. I wish I didn’t feel so scared all the time. I wish I wasn’t always looking for who is going to do what terrible thing next.

I don’t trust people. Not individuals and not collectively. But I do. I am an incredibly trusting person.

I’m just conflicted. I’m told that is one of the reasons I am a survivor. Living in that place of tension with opposite beliefs is part of what makes me able to adapt so quickly to new situations and new people.

I can always go find a new place. I’m like a cat with millions of lives. But I can’t go back to places I’ve tried before. There is always too much baggage.

I’m starting to worry about Dickens. I always see one of my rapists. It is very hard to behave “appropriately” with my kids. I try to mostly stay away from that side of the Fair. I know it is my problem. But it hurts. It hurts knowing that he is a vital and integral person for a lot of people and I’m just not so I can go away if I have a problem.

I have a hard time fully trusting people. I don’t trust my neighbor more (uhm partially because he is severely racist) and partially because I think that he would take the side of a random man over me in a dispute. That’s my basic assumption. I think I will always be the only person on my side.

What about Noah? Would he be on my side? Maybe. Mostly. If he’s not busy. I fight my own battles. He has no interest in going places with me. If I have difficulty it is my own to handle. Either I can manage it or I can’t and that is that.

Wow. I don’t have to have multiple identities. People split me for me. (That needs context.) A friend just told me that when she talks about me to her mother she has split the conversations into being about two people. One real me and she has made up a friend named Alice (like in Wonderland) who has a tragic background.

I feel….

Wow.

Yeah. That’s just how it is when you are me. My life is so unbelievable that people make up a person to ascribe it to.

Yeah. Ok. Time to go write 5500 more words on Outrunning so I can be done with the rough draft.

Feelings. Feelings. Feelings.

Find some gratitude

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I’ve been exchanging emails with Dad about the upcoming trip this week. He’s very excited to see us. I asked if any of his other kids will be there (he has other scene daughters and two biological children) and he said it is just us this year.

That makes me think he is probably pretty glad to have us coming. Sure, he can always find somewhere to go. He has lots of friends. But I’m willing to bet that by his stage of life it feels pretty good that your “kids” and grandkids want to come see you just because they love you.

I’ve been thinking about my biological father. I kind of wish he was rotting in prison so I could ask him why? What happened to you?

Instead I will go see someone who adopted me when I was an adult after my father was dead.

I met my Dad when I was 18. I was at the Power Exchange in San Francisco for the second time. This time I had shiny pvc clothes from Hot Topic and I was ready to go. Dad was one of the first people to talk to me from behind “the fence” where the players hung out. He saw me watching him and the other dirty old men and he hollered, “Hey you! Come here. We need bottoms.” Then he laughed. I did not go inside the gate with them. I sneered instead.

I met him again at a private party a few weeks later. He apologized. We still didn’t really talk because I thought he was old, slimy, and gross.

I ran into him at munch after munch after munch after that. Back then the leather community was a lot smaller. It was harder to avoid people who were geographically close to you.

After a while he started giving me bossy advice I mostly didn’t listen to. I started sarcastically calling him “Dad” as a way of saying, “Alright Dad I’ll jump right on doing what you tell me to. Not.” I had a few issues with authority. Maybe one or two.

But one day I was sitting in my Owners house alone and I was talking to people on IRC and Dad was one of them. I was talking about how sick I was. People were trying to talk me into visiting a hospital because I didn’t sound so good. I said that I didn’t want to drive. I was sure I wouldn’t die.

Dad volunteered to take me to the hospital. He stayed with me while I got IV fluids (turns out I had a nasty bacterial infection and I was severely dehydrated and I probably was on the road to serious issues if I hadn’t gone in) and medication. He held my hand and made jokes with me.

It was the first time in my life that someone was nice to me when I was sick. Usually I was screamed at for lying or for being inconvenient.

After that Dad and I played a few times. He is very good with a single tail and that’s not a skill everyone has. I enjoy a good single tail. If you do it right you can make me orgasm. So Dad and I had fun playing. Eventually we even had sex. That didn’t go so good. I’m not a big fan of penis piercings. They hurt.

And more than thirteen years later we don’t play or have sex but I still love him and he loves me. He wants to see me. He wants to get to know my children. I believe he will be appropriate with my children because I know Dad’s biological children. He was a very good father to them. He was very appropriate. They think it is kind of weird and surprising that he has this whole community of freaks because they didn’t know that part of him. But they are nice to his friends anyway.

They think it is a little weird that I call him Dad but not as weird as the live-on girlfriend who screamed “Oh Daddy” during sex. They understand that he and I are not boyfriend girlfriend and never have been. They have been ridiculously nice to me every time I have ever been in the room with them.

I’m nearing the end of Outrunning. How do you forgive yourself for making bad decisions? How do you learn how to stop hurting yourself? How do you figure out what is good and what is bad for you?

Everyone is different. Everyone has different needs. Not everyone needs an adopted Dad who is a flaming pervert. I do. I need him very badly. I need to feel like he wants me and loves me and accepts me. I need him to welcome me into his home and ask me what kind of cereal to get for my kids.

I need to feel like *I* am wanted. Mostly I don’t. Mostly outside of Noah and my kids I feel like it would be better for the whole world if I was lit on fire. That’s not even hyperbole from me. When your brother lights himself on fire you can’t ever use the phrase just for effect. You have to be dead serious or not say it at all.

I’m really grateful that I have a Dad now.

getting there.

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I finished reading. I’m just shy of 43,000 words. I think I will finish Outrunning before I go to Portland. Soon I will be begging people for input. Right now it isn’t organized at all. Right now I just have a bunch of separate chapters some which will need to be combined and reworked some will just be deleted whole because they are more standard blog material than book material. That’s ok. When I am done writing I will need to delete almost 40% of the words. That makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.

Editing is hard.

I’m looking at this doctor contact information tab. I won’t close it till I call him. I should call before going to Portland. Oh man.

Trying to change what you do means you have to look at why you do it. You have to come up with other options. This will be hard.

The bulbs are in the ground. I’m not sure I want to spread any more mulch until the hot tub is gone. I want to put up Christmas lights and I need to rehang the swings. Then the yard is as good as it will get until the next time I harvest and plant the beds.

I’m feeling accomplished and like now I get to flop down and be very still for a long time. Only I should probably go for a run. Exercise would help. I haven’t been exercising much. Ugh.

Life plugs along.

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Now that the bleeding is over I’m wondering if my freaking out over the past week is just my cycle.

If I can learn to time my emotional meltdowns based on my period then I can plan my life around that and not have times when I inappropriately start going off on people. I can control the swearing better. I can consciously plan how to keep the kids occupied during times when I’m not able to be emotionally present how they need. I need to think about this more. I have ~35 day cycles. I could figure out how to plan five of those as conscious rest days where I stay off the fucking internet so I don’t yell at anyone or act like a cunt.

Maybe figuring out that cycle and what adaptations I should be doing when should be next years project. “How to live in the world and not be an asshole”. Whether I have good reasons for being an asshole or not, I don’t need to actually hurt people.

If I want affiliation I need to stop driving people away and screaming at them for reaching out to me. It’s part of a whole system.

I hit 40,574 words today. I’m pretty excited. I keep reminding myself “50,000 words for NaNoWriMo; 30,000-40,000 for the real book. Kill your babies.”

Or rather hope I can find people to help me take out all my random stupid off-topic rants that I just slip in without noticing.

It’s not all about me. Really. But sometimes I don’t notice where I’ve slipped in something about me. *blush*

I’m a blogger at heart. I have been for a very long time. I like stream of conscious. I like not having to feel married to what I write being True All The Time. I write about my feelings. My feelings change very quickly. I can hate someone and love them in a flip flop experience every thirty seconds. What I feel this moment is not for always.

But books are different. Books, for me, are about recording true things. Real things. The things that remain true no matter how your fucked up sense of self is doing that day. I need the books. I need to have the verification of this standard of truth.

Does that mean I am right in every opinion I have? Oh goodness no. I’m careful to differentiate between facts and opinions and state that my opinion isn’t the only one and no one has to agree with me. I have mine for a complex list of reasons that are maybe only true for me. But here are a whole list of facts. You need to know them. Then you can form your own opinion. Please be aware of how your opinion impacts people around you and try to be polite.

But you can think anything you want. You really can. It’s ok. You don’t have to be like me.

Uhm, it’s probably better for the world if there aren’t many people like me, youknowwhatI’msayin? Be like you. The world needs more people like you.

A friend popped up with a “Here is the member of my extended clan you should be talking to.” Ok. I have step one on dealing with the pain. I don’t even get to procrastinate on calling. I should probably call on Monday and make an appointment for January. That way it will be just done.

I’m excited about the Portland trip. I am nailing down specifics of who and when and where and that’s exciting. We will see all of the people who make an effort to know me. We will mostly be hanging out at Dad’s house so the kids can get used to him.

I get to kidnap a blacksheep for nearly a week for adventure. I had not anticipated such a treasure falling into my lap this year. Maybe this is my Christmas present from Santa. All Platonic All The Time. Life is different when Santa hands me presents now. Back in the old days… very different. But I wonder if I will enjoy this more because I don’t have the mental tape of “well she’s only here because she wanted ______.” She’s only here because she wants the pleasure of my company. Merry Christmas.

I talked to my therapist about the way I am pulling back from friendships I had pre-kids. If people don’t want to know anything about my kids then they aren’t my friends. My children and my interactions with them are the biggest part of me that I have ever been proud of in my life. This is the only part of me that does not radiate pain in every corner. I have had five years of not feeling like a worthless piece of shit whore.

If you don’t want to know my kids then I think you must not like anything good about me. I think that maybe I shouldn’t want to know you.

But it isn’t exactly like that with people who live far away. I’m not sure why. If someone lives permanently across the country they get a pass. I think we can be friends for the hour a year I’m in town and I don’t care if you know my kids.

Why do I hold the people within a fifty mile radius to such an impossible standard? I don’t know but I do.

Yesterday I was informed that I would be taking a rest day. Shanna told me so. We played games instead of gardening. I guess that means I should get to work today. We had a great day. I napped.

I am cautious about feeling happy or upbeat today because I dislike the way I bounce. I feel self conscious and silly and irrational. But I think it is accurate.

I worry about trying to flatline my expression of the experience because I feel so pathetic for the extremes of the emotion bumps. It just happens. Don’t judge. It’s not something I can control all that well. I’m trying to learn how to control it better.

I’m sorry I fail so much. I’m really sorry. This is the process though. You don’t learn how to do things right without making thousands of mistakes.

All 52 books.

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#1: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson
#2: The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larson
#3: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larson
#4: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. by John Taylor Gatto
#5: Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
#6: Giving the Love that Heals by Harville Hendrix
#7: The Myth of Ability by John Mighton
#8: Animal Farm by George Orwell
#9: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
#10: Alanna The First Adventure: Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce
#11: In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce
#12: The Woman Who Rides Like a Man by Tamora Pierce
#13: Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce
#14: Your 5-Year-Old Sunny and Serene by Louise Bates Ames
#15: Mother’s House Payment by Ronnie Schiller
#16: The Survivor Personality by Al Sieber
#17: Betrayal of Innocence: Incest and it’s Devastation by Susan Forward
#18: Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
#19: Mindstorms by Seymour Papert
#20: The Resiliency Advantage by Al Siebert, PhD
#21: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#22: Escape from Childhood by John Holt
#23: Dry by Augusten Burroughs
#24: Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs
#25: The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien
#26: Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#27: The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#28: 1984 by George Orwell.
#29: You Better Not Cry by Augusten Buroughs
#30: By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#31: Private Parts by Howard Stern
#32: The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#33: The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#34: Girlfag: A life told in Sex and Musicals by Janet Hardy
#35: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
#36: Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
#37: Kids of Kabul by Deborah Ellis
#38: The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#39: Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan
#40: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
#41: Hello, Cruel World by Kate Bornstein
#42: Disney Scary StoryBook Collection by assorted.
#43: The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley/Danko
#44: Tao Te Ching translation by Ron Hogan
#45: Blessed Among All Women by Robert Ellsberg
#46: A Series of Unfortunate Events-A Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
#47: A Series of Unfortunate Events- The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket
#48: The Suicidal Mind by Edwin S Schneidman
#49: How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying To Kill Me by Susan Rose Blauner
#50: When Darkness Comes: Saying ‘No’ to Suicide by Angerona Love
#51: Murders, Mysteries and History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania 1800-1956 by Don Hilton
#52: A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor
(Technically I have a few pages left in the last one but I will finish today.)

Didn’t wake up crying.

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I’m up to 38, 471 words. It is getting harder to think of topics I should cover. Almost through the process. Thank goodness.

Therapy was good yesterday. I got to have some time off afterwards because K told me not to come home until two. Yes, ma’am. I sat and ate and wrote. Good thing because I was falling behind in word count.

I have a blank white wall in my garage. Noah suggests islands. My garage is much warmer now. The wall is tilted because it was built around the garage door in such a way that I could believably tell the city inspector that I can dismantle it myself in an hour so SURELY this isn’t a permanent room and thus breaking city code. But it is much warmer now!

Today I need to put plant bulbs in the ground. Daffodils and tulips of joy oh my. So “need” is probably a strong word. They are in the fridge and according to planting guides they want to go in the ground sometime in the next five days. Today is the best day. The lovely rain softened up the ground for me. How convenient.

My therapist and I talked about the whole unmet needs thing. I told her that I’m struggling with the fact that I have actual needs at this point in my life but they are going unmet and they will continue to go unmet and at some point my kids will grow up and I won’t have these needs anymore and hopefully it will be easier then.

I’m kind of used to having needs that aren’t met.

But sometimes even when you have actual needs they will never be met and it won’t kill you. And you have to just get up and keep moving anyway. Even though your needs aren’t being met.

I keep checking the internet. My mother told me that if I took my children away from her she would kill herself. She isn’t dead yet. I guess the need for my children wasn’t as strong as she thought. I think I’m glad. I’m not sure.

I have a lot of good reasons for being an angry person. That doesn’t make it easier for anyone to put up with. That doesn’t mean that people should put up with me lashing out at them.

I asked Noah if I am still harsh with him. He said not anymore but I used to be. I used to be that harsh when I didn’t believe that he would respond well to boundaries or support me or believe me. But I’m not harsh any more. I stopped a while ago.

I blog the way I do, in this stream of conscious sometimes I regret volunteering all of my inner drama to the world sort of way because people like me usually never find a voice.

Being inside my head is not pretty. I really and truly want to accurately reflect it. Being a real person means that you are not always what other people want you to be. That means the difficulties and the good things too.

When I die it will be possible for people to still know a lot about me. The good, the bad, the ugly. It is really important to me for reasons I couldn’t possibly explain. It just is. I hope I am this obnoxious for the rest of my life. Not because everyone deserves to be trashed–that’s not the point. I’m not trashing people.

When I complain about issues I tend to complain about larger patterns and not particular people. I have had a large number of people over the years tell me that they have thought about helping me and they decided not to. That pretty much exact exchange has happened numerous times. I don’t think I have ever blogged about it before (can’t recall off the top of my head) so it is this invisible pattern in my life. It’s a pattern that is causing me problems.

I haven’t talked about it because I know the people involved “mean well”. I don’t actually want to hurt people. I have way more tact than anyone would believe.

But sometimes I am not able to put my head down and shut my mouth and just smile and say thank you. Sometimes I can’t. I regret my lack of control but I’m not sure mastery of this subject is within my grasp in this decade. Maybe later.

If you need to exist out in public that means you will be judged and that means that sometimes you will fuck up in public. Sometimes people will not like how you are acting. That has to be part of the process.

I don’t promise to talk nice in my blog. I promise I will do my best to always treat you exactly how you deserve in person. I’m very sorry that knowing about the difference between what I think and how I act is hard. I am trying to learn how to not be offensive. I don’t know how to turn my brain off though.

I am looking forward to planting and spreading some mulch today. I’ll move slowly.

I’m not going to paint the garage wall this winter. Can’t do it. That means the garage is put back together for a few months. Today I will attach the bookshelves to the wall. That’s the non-self-hating thing to do. I hear.

I’m very glad I get to pick what I do in a day.

I’m very glad I get to spend today with my girls.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that when I was Calli’s age my parents divorced. My mom moved a boyfriend in to support her and I was “mean to him” and he left resulting in my mom and sister hating me. We became homeless. I was sent off to live with the first in a long string of homes. That was when I started rocking and crying myself to sleep.

I’m glad I get to be with my kids all day. I want this life so bad.

The house is clean so the kids can help with cooking stuff. There is room and space and I won’t freak out as I trip over things. I can be patient enough to let them make another mess.

I’m not teaching them to be kids. I’m teaching them how to be an adult. Adults have to go do a lot of different things. You have to have skills. We’ll get to academics. Later.

Today will probably be good. I’m almost done with my reading list. I’m almost done with my gardening projects for the whole year. I’m done with house stuff for the year.

I want to put up the outside Christmas lights. We haven’t gotten a tree yet but we’ve done the rest of the decorating. (I had to move the cabinet the decorations were in–I might as well put them up at the time. Also we will be out of town for 10 days of Christmas. I’d rather not have to do the decorating during the shortened time period. I instead get to come home to Christmas. Yay!)

Noah is making cookies already. I should freeze some. He’s made three kinds so far. Sugar is love. Ha.

My house is already clean enough and set up enough for the party in a month. I will only have to do flight of the bumble bee.

We are in the process of eating all the carbs in the house (almost done with the backlog in the freezer) because come January I will have to do an elimination diet. Yes I will work with medical professionals. I need to need less pot to deal with the pain in my body. I need to stop paying for the ability to eat. This isn’t working. It is too expensive. I need to do something else.

I would like to be fully off of pot before I go on the cross country road trip with the kids in 2015. I don’t think I should be driving during the days and getting stoned every night while I camp alone with my kids. That strikes me as wildly inappropriate and unsafe. So I have to be functional in my body alone before then. I have a year to make it work. Ok. That’s what next year will have to be about. Shit.

Some people need a crutch for their whole life and there is no shame in it. Sometimes you need a crutch for a temporary period. I went about 25 years unmedicated (there were some stupid periods mid-way where I tried meds–I was so sick the whole time) so I will have to get back to that. Stress management has always been how I have done it.

Sex, exercise, better food choices for my body (which I don’t have a fucking clue about right this minute), and I don’t even know what else.

I feel good about the fact that my life is so clearly plugging along. I may be whiny but I get shit done. Things are changing.

I will have tulips in the spring and for every spring afterwards.

I don’t know how much gardening this year will bring. I may be growing very different foods next year if I can’t have nightshades any more. We’ll see.

I am trying to organize some local families into a fruit gleaning group. I have buy-in and initiative. I just need to figure out the details and do the back end work. That will probably be part of next year.

Next year I am going to have to find the courage to go get rejected by a bunch of publishing houses. Woo. bleh.

Good thing next year is next year and this year is this year and I am almost DONE WITH MY CHORE LIST!! Ahem. I uhh probably take too much self-identity from this.

I have completed 50 new-to-me books so far and I am more than halfway through two more.

I really changed the yard this year. Man I’m grateful for the help I got. I sing hallelujahs and praise the names. Paying for help does not invalidate that it is help.

I’m happy with the house progress. I’m overjoyed that my garage will no longer flood. I like the pantry set up a lot more than I did. This is better. Once I have the boxes outside for the tools I think the pantry will be perfect for at least five minutes. Then I’ll find a reason to whine. I’m talented.

No, I’m kidding. I think I may have found a configuration that can just last for years. I feel… way more feelings than I should about this. I’m happy with the idea that my house is settling into a shape where I might stop ripping it apart constantly.

I get to be here. I get to stay here. I’m allowed to make this into what I really want. Nope, it isn’t polished and perfect and an expensive looking house. I’m kind of a cheap date. I’m happy with cotton batting over the pipes as a line of clouds instead of a wooden enclosure. I think it is pretty fun.

I don’t need perfect. I’m not perfect. I’m having fun.

You say you want people to visit you yet you have no time; what gives?

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Great question. How can I whine fucking constantly about being overscheduled and lonely at the same time. Totally reasonable to wonder about.

Ah! You assume me being “scheduled” implies social time! Well, some of it is social time. But an awful lot of the stuff that is on my “schedule” is work.

If I don’t schedule when I will do gardening work… it doesn’t get done. I have a crisper drawer full of daffodils and tulips. Those need to get in the ground in the next ten-ish days or I won’t have a spring crop. They had to sit in the crisper for approximately six weeks. I have to put “gardening day” on my calendar or I will have wasted a shit-ton of money on bulbs. I can’t just have stuff in the house and hope I will get around to it; I don’t.

I put “decorate for _____” as a scheduled activity.

Some days my scheduled activity is “go to therapy” because after therapy I’m kind of a wreck. I often spend hours crying and I can’t really change gears to “go do” something else because I can’t sustain the attention. Is it pathetic? Well, whatever. That’s beside the point. It is what happens. After therapy I need to cry and cry. Will I ever stop feeling crazy? Will I ever feel in control of my body? I don’t know. So I cry.

Some days we have home school events scheduled. I take it pretty seriously that I have to provide social interaction for my kids. They must get to know children. So I can’t be a hermit-crab. So we have home school park days and occasional outings and one day I invited people over to make gingerbread houses (which will involve two scheduled days of preparation in advance to *make* all the fucking gingerbread so I have to be home and working those days).

So when I say I am “scheduled” I don’t always mean “with people” or “with friends”. (I am maybe moving in the direction of friendship with some of the home school moms but mostly I try to not be offensive because I need my kids to have access to their kids. I may *like* a lot of the home school moms tremendously but being around them is an anxiety train wreck because I am so afraid that they are going to start hating me and then they won’t let my kids play with their kids and it will be all my fault. It is nothing resembling rest to hang out with them.)

I have a day set aside to pack for the Portland trip.

I have two days devoted to gentlemen doing work on the house. Plumbing and building an insulated wall behind my garage door because holy crap do I need my garage to be useable this winter instead of being a fucking refrigerator.

I have a trip to Portland that will take ten days and a trip to Texas that technically only takes three days but with packing and a rest day afterwards (our flights are late at night–the kids will be crispy fried) that is more like five days of commitment.

If you want to know about “social time” I have two friends who are coming over for tea in December. (One will be gluten free–which takes extra thought preparation for me.–TOTALLY worth the effort.) I have a friend who comes to dinner on Wednesday nights. Someone else is coming this weekend. I scheduled an open house in December. (I think that at least ten people will show up. I’m excited.) That’s my me-social-time till the end of the year.

I talk to K every day on the phone or I go absolutely crazy. That is one of the biggest supports in my life.

I even schedule days where the kids get to decide what I have to do all day because otherwise they feel ignored all the damn time. (They aren’t ignored… I talk to them all day while I’m doing other stuff but they really wish they were the center of the universe AT ALL TIMES.) I have to schedule playing with them because I am so tired all the time. If I don’t schedule it I don’t do it. That’s how spoon management works.

So that is how I can be overscheduled and lonely at the same time. I don’t see much of my “friends”. But I get a lot of work done.

Not helpful

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I often worry about writing about people. It alienates people when I write about my experience of their behavior. I often have to weigh “How many hours of crying should I be silent about” in favor of keeping the illusion of a friendship going.

Yesterday wasn’t a great day. It was fine after the one short scream. That’s kind of how it goes. I put up a lot more boundaries and then all of a sudden we stop fighting.

When I’m having a shitty day it isn’t very helpful for me to have people write to me and tell me that they thought about helping me but they decided not to because they have other things to do.

You know, I make that assumption. All day every day. People don’t help me because they have better things to do.

I don’t really need to be reminded. I don’t need a specific and conscious reminder. I don’t understand why people feel the need to write to me and say that they thought about helping me but decided not to.

What in the fuck is that supposed to do for me? Why did you tell me that? It isn’t just one person doing this.

If fairly particular people set up a time to help and then back out again I’m not sure I can handle scheduling with them in the future. How many times of being cancelled on in a row should I allow? I mean… how stupid am I?

Yeah, I know that people aren’t going to help me. That’s my basic assumption every fucking morning of my life. That has been true pretty consistently no matter what has fucking happened to me for my whole life.

You can stop telling me that you aren’t going to help me. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

You don’t need to send me emails “I’m so busy. Sorry.” 

What am I supposed to get from that?

Did I god damn ask you for help? No. I mother fucking didn’t. Well, some of you I asked you for help a long time ago. You agreed or you didn’t. I haven’t asked since.

I wait and see what you do. Yeah, I can see what you do. I really don’t need to hear about your thought process as you decide to not help me. That just makes me cry for days. I know I’m not that important. Thanks for fucking writing in to remind me.

I spend a lot of time feeling like a piece of shit because I need as much help as I do. I need help. I’m not getting it. But I need it. Oh well. You don’t always get what you need in life if it is dependent on other people. Sometimes if what you need is other people then you just have to accept that you aren’t going to get what you need.

Noah gives me all the support he can. K lets me go to therapy. If I need more support than that I can go fuck myself.

not good.

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I screamed. Specifically what I screamed was, “STOP SCREAMING AT ME” because both kids have been in my face and screaming at the top of their lungs all day.

I want to hide in a closet. I feel so ashamed of myself.

I stopped almost instantly and apologized. Then I started crying and left the room.

What the fuck am I doing.