Fucking Mother’s Day is Shit.

Fucking Mother’s Day is Shit.

Fucking Mother’s Day is Shit……

And I hate the whole fucking day.

(To the tune of “Happy Birthday”)

It’s not that Noah or the kids are going to be awful. They are going to show me love and respect and caring. And I am going to spend the day feeling like undeserving dog shit because I “should” be “honoring” my mother.

Emotional flashback for the lose?

Honor thy mother and father. But what if your father is a rapist and your mother is neglectful and cruel?

HONOR THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS BECAUSE GOD DAMN CONFUCIUS SAYS SO.

But what if honoring them will make me end up killing myself?

I know I’m supposed to stop talking about suicide. It upsets Noah. I’m not saying I want to or I should. I am making choices to avoid it. If I were on that god damn merry go round with my mother I think would. I think that I would be absolutely unable to absorb how much she hates me on top of how much I hate me. I have fucking limits, yo.

Instead we had a nice day at the botanical garden and science fair and park. Then my niece came over for her first ever overnight. We had a nice dinner (it was one of those meals where everybody ate slightly different things because they have different preferences) and the kids played and then we read stories. It went well. I am hopeful about tomorrow too.

And hell, I’m ditching Noah pretty early tomorrow to go get body work done and have tea with Jenny. Then she will pick up her daughter after the kids have a day to play together.

The only hiccup is the big kids thinking they can force the baby out of the living room so they can have privacy. Nope, go in your room.

Even that we weren’t mean about, just matter of fact.

I’m reading the forums again. I’m not commenting. I’m not rejoining the groups where I feel so uncomfortable so I can’t say anything. But I’m trying to make myself feel better? Misery loves company? If I read about how other people have it so much worse–they are going through active trauma and I’m just a whiny bitch–maybe I’ll stop crying?

I’ll tell you if it works out.

I took some Ativan tonight because I seriously need some sleep. But it’s 11pm and it hasn’t kicked in. Insomnia is part of depression for some folk.

I want my mother. I hate my mother. I miss my mother. I resent my mother. I love my mother. I feel unworthy of my mother. I feel bad that my existence caused her so much pain. When I think of her I still hear “Mama mama mama mama” in my head and I start rocking without even thinking about why I am doing it or if I want to do it. I have done this since I was 3 years old. Mama. Pleeeeeeeeeeease come get me. Mama. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease love me.

I wrote the book so I can’t rewrite these stories in my head. I can’t give her all the slack I want to give her.

I don’t know if she “really” loved me. I know it doesn’t matter. She neglected me and didn’t teach me that I should be alive.

She failed me.

And I fail her by not trying harder.

Life’s a bitch and then you die.

We all suffer.

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I don’t want to want to hurt myself because my fucking mommy doesn’t love me.

I feel so deeply uncomfortable sometimes when Noah or the kids refer to me by a mother name. Mama. Mom. Mommy. Mummy. Mum. Maman. They’ve fucking tried everything and I think they see me flinch.

Motherhood is the only club where I am welcomed in to be a member where I want to be there. Only I feel so fucking bad about myself.

I want so very badly to not be bad. I held my shit together today. I laughed. I told jokes. I kept my voice calm. I didn’t criticize. I wasn’t nasty.

I want to be good enough to deserve being kept. I’ll just wait until everyone goes to sleep to cry. Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep. If I cry when they are awake I am bad and I don’t deserve to have them. There is not fucking deserve. But I might fuck everything up. I might drive people away from me because I am a fucking monster, a bully, a bitch who does not get to have people want to be around me. Noah isn’t really asleep. He has his hand on my shoulder. He doesn’t know what to say and neither do I. I mean… I can type. But I can’t talk about this. It’s so repetitive. It’s so pathetic. I feel so fucking embarrassed for being this fucking stupid.

STOP CRYING YOU STUPID BITCH. YOU FUCKING SUCK YOU DUMB CUNT. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Why do I always want to put a trailing ‘e’ on the end of words? That’s weird

What the fuck does shut upe mean anyway.

Be nice. Don’t be irritable. Don’t be angry. It’s not ok to be angry. If you do people will send you away. They will avoid you. They will tell you that they are doing so because you are bad for being angry. It doesn’t matter what they do. Just stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

But I haven’t cut today. I haven’t done any form of self harm. I sucked it the fuck up and I was nice all day. I gently touched everyone. I gave them what I wish I got. What I can’t allow anyone to give me.

I’m glad Noah fell asleep. When he touches me like that sometimes I feel like I should claw my skin off. I feel so bad. I don’t want him to touch me. Not because of him. Because I am bad and if he touches me badness might get on him and that will be my fault too. I know I’m supposed to trust that he knows what he is doing and he is making a decision (practically daily) to stay with me.

But I know I don’t deserve him. He is far too good for me.

And that’s part of why I get so bitchy. I feel so bad about ruining his life with a stupid whore.

I don’t even put out much anymore. I can’t tell if that is selfish in a good way or a bad way. I just know I feel ashamed. Fucking bait and switch you god damn lying cow.

I have nothing to give. And it would shred me because I cannot be turned on right now. My equipment feels dead. And it isn’t worth bleeding over.

Because I am selfish. Maybe that’s a good thing and maybe it isn’t. I am not capable of evaluating it.

All of life is fucking suffering.

Fucking Mother’s Day is Shit.

I’m not physically sick but I feel like I got hit by a mac truck of exhaustion. Getting some rest is making me feel worse about how much lack of rest I’ve had for a long time.

A bunch of little things are disappointing. Having my screen die the way it did means I might have lost 15 years of digital pictures. I paid for cloud storage. Nothing is on it pre 2016. I lost the road trip. I lost my whole life before then.

I really need the mental health support weekend I thought I was going to happen again this year. Last year was excellent. But the person who insisted she wanted to organize… hasn’t organized anything and she can’t afford to go so I think she is not feeling motivated to get it done. I could potentially buy last minute plane tickets but I don’t think she understands that if you try to book a big house for a whole bunch of people… that takes a bunch of lead time. And this time we are trying to go during a school vacation when everyone else will be on summer break so vacation rentals will be booked up. I think it is going to fall through and I’m feeling super sad. Not to mention that being the one to do the research and figure out where we are going means you need to be able to drop a bunch of money on the deposit and… she can’t afford even her own share let alone floating everyone else’s share until folks pay you back. I am not mad at her. But I feel really sad.

When I express frustration with my kids not following through on the routine tasks that have been in their lives for years someone always always ALWAYS asks if I have tried making lists for them and then I want to break ALL OF THE THINGS. Yes. I write lists for them. They copy the lists. We go through verbal reminders. Then…. they sit and stare at the wall until I say, “What’s next? Check your list. What’s next? Check your list. What’s next? Check your list.” Then by the time I get them through all of the things (WHICH HAVEN’T CHANGED SINCE YESTERDAY OR THE DAY BEFORE OR THE DAY BEFORE OR THE DAY BEFORE THAT) they are all “So how are we going to have fun together now?

And I’m fucking exhausted and frustrated and I want to go in a dark room and cry by myself and NOT FUCKING ENTERTAIN YOU.

Most of the time I suck it up and find something entertaining/bonding/fun to do because I feel like it is my job. But then sometimes (like now) I feel dead inside. I’m fucking rocking the baby to sleep as I type this. Because I am doing something for my children nearly 24 hours a day. (I have talented feet. Thank god this baby will go to sleep in a stroller with rocking.)

I have a growing number of emails to respond to and I feel sheer panic at the idea of trying to respond in upbeat, friendly, supportive ways.

I canceled my online therapy plan because I wrote as much to her as I write here and she would respond with a couple of sentences a couple of times per week. I get more response from my friends. My friends say more helpful things. Why am I paying $200/month for this? Maybe if I didn’t already blog it would be more useful but it really isn’t helpful for me to have that little back from a therapist.

It drives me nuts that I clean up from meals and the kids come back for seconds and make a big mess and expect the fucking fairies to show up and re-tidy the kitchen.

Getting a little bit of a break always feels like it hurts more than it helps. Because it doesn’t undo the damage I have done to myself with overwork and it just reminds me that I need so so so so so so so much more and I can’t have it.

I keep telling myself that it has gotten much less stressful every time a kid hits 18 months old. Only 3 months to go.

I keep thinking, “It would be better if I cut.” Because the very best thing I can do with feeling shitty is to make sure my feelings don’t impact anyone around me. I’m drinking more alcohol than I wish I would (about a shot, occasionally two) in a day because otherwise I will be hitting the Ativan more than is healthy for me because I need some kind of sedative and I keep thinking “It would be better if I cut.” And that makes me feel really bad about myself.

I was googling last night wondering “Is it bad for your kids if you pretend to be happy” and loosely paraphrased the responses I got were “Yes that is bad. So you should use your drive home from work to decompress so you aren’t faking it. You need to be actually happy.” and “No it’s great to pretend to be happy because fake it till you make it! Smiling even when you aren’t happy encourages your body to produce hormones that will make you feel happy even when you aren’t!”

It would be better if I cut.

I have yelled a couple of times since we got to Scotland but only a couple. And not in a few days.

I’m still doing better than I have done in California in years. I fucking hate that Mother’s Day is coming up because I always remind Noah to think about his mother and I always feel like a flaming pile of dogshit that I am not going to do anything for my mother so I don’t deserve to have anything done for me.

I am going out on a date with Jenny on Sunday. It isn’t Mother’s Day in this country anyway.

I have this terrible resentment that people will try to talk about how horrible family estrangement is for them but then you ask them more questions and it turns out they talk to their mother every week or their father lends them money every time they have a problem or their step mother comes over and spends whole weekends cleaning their filthy, disgusting house because it is just “Too hard for them to manage alone”.

And I want to put my head through a window. That’s your idea of estrangement? I haven’t spoken to my mother in eight years. I probably never will again. If I did she would ask me for money and to do things for her in the first five minutes.

It would be better if I cut.

It’s not even that I object to giving people money! It’s that she would combine it with telling me how stupid, ugly, and worthless I am. I am a failure. Now why don’t I pay for all of her needs?

Why don’t I just cut? It would be better.

Why don’t I get up and do more work for people. Why don’t I cough up more money to support people. Why don’t I just kill myself and leave a detailed will so that everyone who is better than me can have access to the only part of me they want?

Jenny has never asked me for money. And I will see her tomorrow and again on Sunday.

But I need to keep my shit together. I need to not be a problem. Or I will lose her too. Like I lost Sarah because I could not pretend well enough that whatever I got was good enough.

At least Jenny doesn’t ask me to fund her vacations while she hides and refuses to talk to me.

I feel really bad about myself.

Just keep moving. Keep pretending you are happy. Don’t let your problems make trouble for anyone else. This isn’t Burkina Faso and no one thinks your problems are problems for the community.

If you get upset again someone else will tell you that you have Borderline and you need to shut up.

Ok, the will I ever learn part is about pain. I got a massage today. Specifically: a Thai massage. Those puppies are magical. The simmering rage and resentment I have been feeling literally evaporated. It is hard to be both a manager and a worker when I am in raging pain. My body and my brain are not interested in doing ALL OF THE THINGS WHEN I AM IN THAT MUCH PAIN while being nice. I can’t. It is something I am literally not capable of accomplishing. I am grouchy, vicious and just plain nasty when I hurt to that level. I’ve been trying not to whine all day long about it because that gets on my nerves but it’s been getting really bad. Travel is hard on my body. Setting up house is a lot of load. Being alone with the kids is fairly brutal. Portland will be… complicated. Luckily I have a lot more access to folks I feel comfortable saying “Can I dump my kids on you and get a massage?”

I probably could ask Jenny but… it’s complicated. My kids are so wild and her kids are so young and she is so much in the thick of it. Her husband is not a loud-screaming-wild-children oriented kind of person and I would feel really bad about my children making him feel uncomfortable in his home. I don’t want to inconvenience them when they are being so nice about hanging out with us when I am there to intervene.

We are talking about doing sleepovers: one kid at a time and that I think will be ok. But all three of my kids on top of their two kids? Brutal. I mean… I could probably do it. But managing large groups of loud-screaming-wild-children is quite literally my thing.

I want them to like us and I feel like that has some decided limits on how hard I can push at this stage. Losing Jenny would be utterly catastrophic for me emotionally. I can’t push too hard or be too demanding. I just can’t risk it.

Which is why I am feeling a little worried about the pain/hanging out balance because I was kind of a dick on Monday. I was a judgy piece of shit. I don’t really mean it. I’m hurting. And that makes my patience levels drop to basically zero. We were in the pool for an hour and I did really well being my little niece’s assigned person. I did very poorly handling MC be… aggressive with me. What the fuck is up with yanking on my hair and ripping my glasses off my face? Why in the mother fucking hell would you think that is ok? He… avoided me the rest of the hour. Which felt a bit sad. I did well being patient with Jenny’s oldest though. We swam around a lot and played kitties and had a good time.

After lunch I was doing way too much nasty expressing how some children’s behavior wouldn’t work for me. It wasn’t necessary or helpful or useful or anything good. Kids are different for a million reasons having to do with nature and nurture and environment and different peoples tolerance levels and….

I don’t need to share my stupid ass unimportant opinion on why other peoples kids would be hard for me. Just shut the fuck up already.

I really didn’t do well at that on Monday.

And when I am hurting a lot I find that I am a lot more prone to ruminate on how much I would like to be hitting everyone who annoys me. That’s a fucking nasty, inappropriate trait.

I am not a perfect person nor a perfect parent. Where do I get off judging other people?

I really hate myself when I act like that. I know I don’t mean it. But sometimes I can’t zip my stupid mouth shut and I feel so embarrassed. Just shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up.

I’m glad I said I couldn’t handle the park. I couldn’t. I was being a dick.

I don’t want to be a dick to my friend or her kids or my kids or Noah.

Thank cheese toast for massage. I loved the massage lady. I will be emailing her to schedule a bunch more work before I go and I’ll be giving Jenny a gift certificate for her birthday. It’s a dang near magical experience.

Like I always do, I spent over 20 minutes talking up why she needs to value her growing experience and talent and raise the rates you set seven years ago.

Body workers never feel they deserve to raise their rates. They always think that what they earned their first year is what they deserve to be earning 10-20 years later. Fuck that shit. You are amazing and you make peoples lives better. Raise. Your. Rates. Your expenses increase. The amount of damage you do to your body causes you to need to pay for support. RAISE YOUR RATES.

But anyway.

One of the many reasons I don’t think anyone should write a parenting book when their children are under 18 is because we are all just throwing shit at the wall and seeing if it sticks. Parenting is one of the few jobs where you don’t have easily identifiable goals (writing a web app, getting 80% of students to increase their score on a standardized test, setting out all the new product in a specific layout dictated by corporate). You make this shit up as you go along. It’s influenced heavily by culture and region and all kinds of stuff. Family traditions. Parental personality.

By which I mean… I’m trying a new thing. Because you throw shit at the wall until it sticks.

My kids are not bad children at all. But I am really struggling with how to teach them stuff around executive function, habits, and frugality. To try to change our dynamic I am going to start paying them more for chores and academics and such. We sat and made a price list for all of their activities. They are not being given a bunch of new work. If they do stuff with no reminders I am going to give them 100% of the money. With a reminder, 75% of the allotment. With 2 reminders, 50% of the allotment. If I have to pester you (defined as 3 reminders in our family) then I do not pay you because you made my life harder instead of easier.

With this significantly expanded amount of money they are going to start buying their clothes, toiletries, and all junk food. I’m not going to keep buying all the sweet treats and potato chips and what have you.

Why clothes and toiletries? Mostly because it’s a math and budgeting exercise. I’m not objecting to how much they cost. But my kids will go through a bottle of face wash in a week. A bottle of shampoo in two weeks. That’s… excessive like whoa. Their junk food goes in boom and bust cycles based around my moodiness and that’s not good for any of us. The kids can’t buy toys until their other needs are met.

I will buy basic foods of course. I will continue to pay medical bills of course. I told them that a lot of their “I want to go to a museum/play park/activity/event/classes” is going to need to come out of their money so they had best save up.

We are going to be paying them pretty much what their share of the budget has been for the past few years.

I know this isn’t an approach that would work for everyone. But my kids are not motivated by most rewards/punishments and they need to find some kind of motivation in this life. I was doing similar levels of providing for myself from not much older with… a very tiny fraction of what they can potentially earn.

And if they don’t want to earn it, well… their life isn’t going to be as cozy for a bit. I think they will find motivation.

And they really want fancy expensive clothes and makeup and more accessories. Ok. Then learn how to set your habits so you get them. This is life training my bucko.

My kids are being exposed to a level of privilege I completely was incapable of understanding at their ages. I don’t know a better way of helping them learn to understand the scope of their life. It’s not that they are a burden and I’m bitter about paying for their shit. I set up a payment schedule so that I’m still paying the same money.

But they need to learn how to set habits without me being their externalized brain.

Maybe this will fail. The point system worked really well until we didn’t have enough to trade that they wanted so it failed. If they are buying the stuff they want and need on a weekly/monthly basis… maybe it will go better?

We’ll see. And if it fails we will try something else. Because there is no way out of this gig but through and they are the sun around which I orbit. We will find a way to learn skills and habits because they are really important for life.

My belly is saying that having vindaloo and other curry four meals out of the last four was… maybe questionable. Hey, I ate other vegetables and meat with it…. whiny body.

I am just about vibrating out of my skin. Noah’s flight should land in about 20 minutes. Hopefully he will be here about 40 minutes after that. So about another hour of waiting. It was my scheduling and choices that caused him to be gone so long, but patience is not my long-suit.

I miss Noah.

I sometimes marvel that we handled several seven week gaps on the road trip. It felt necessary at the time. But now we upended our whole lives so we don’t have to do that.

Putting Her Sweetness to sleep reminded me of Jenny talking about how her nightly routine has involved putting a little one to sleep for many years now. This season of life is mixed. It’s wonderful. It’s tiring. It’s frustrating because sometimes the boogers want to nurse and not go to sleep for hours and my nipples are so over this bullshit. Over five years of fucking nursing sucks. Jenny is at a similar length of time because her kids didn’t tandem nurse and she had a larger gap between them.

This is a season. Why do some seasons last so long? Seasons are supposed to be short! In the long run this will feel short. When my children are adults my memories of this time will be hazy and have a mostly rosy glow.

I will be proud of myself for giving long past the point of wanting to quit. Fuck I want to quit at like six months at this point. Fuck it. Drink some damn formula. But it’s not really about calories. It is comfort. It is connection. It is agreeing to meet your needs with my very body.

Fine. I won’t bloody wean you.

I kind of suspect I won’t be able to wean until we land somewhere permanently. She needs consistency. Where will it come from if not my body?

I ask so much from my children. Some day they will truly separate and they will find out if the world asks more or less of them. I truly wonder how they will feel about it.

It’s hard not to look at property around here. But I really shouldn’t. We are not going to settle for over a year. We don’t know if we could move here. It’s not good to get my hopes up about a house. (Like this one. Doesn’t that look like a me sort of house!? It’s BEGGING to be painted in interesting ways!)

Gah

I don’t want the fanciest or the most modern. I don’t want polished and chic. I want slightly run down so I can fix it up how I want. But a garden is a must. And if someone else has done a bunch of the work to get the garden together, even better. I can spend my time inside painting.

Criminey. I am going to spend another ten years painting a house. That’s going to happen. Oh golly gee. Doesn’t matter where we land. That’s happening.

I’ve been torturing myself with “It’s better to cut than to break down in other ways”. Cutting hurts other people less. One of my buddies said, “Don’t cut. Paint.” One of the buddies that said tell her where I land and she will try to follow me. That sure would be complicated for her. So many kids. So many obligations to ex’s and parents and adult children and grandchildren and… I am not sure she will ever be able to leave California. Filial piety, yo. Some people care about that business. (Yes, she’s Chinese.)

But it’s nice that she says she wants to follow me.

We are having some hard conversations about what it will mean to have to shave off some of our sharp edges to try and conform and fit in and become part of a very different community. This is going to be a necessary hurt.

Here the primary schools go up to grade 7. I suspect… it might be an easier transition for Eldest Child if she gets to have the softness of primary school for a year to transition in before the added complications of switching classes. So… that’s just over a year away.

I suspect we might want to start her on ADD medication when she starts school. She truly struggles with executive function and focus. I’m not sure she will needs meds forever but I worry a lot about her adjusting to everything at once. I don’t know. We’ll keep talking about it. We will get in touch with a pediatrician before she enters school.

I don’t know if Middle Child should wait an extra two years or enter school at the same time. I think that entering school will allow the kids to make friends in a way that is much harder as home schoolers. It will allow them to learn the local culture. It will allow them to learn what normal means here.

We’ll see. I have mixed feelings about admitting this… but I think school is going to be a harder adjustment for EC than MC. MC is seriously motivated by feeling smarter-than and more-accomplished-than in a way that EC is not. I think that MC will blossom when he is put in a room with same age peers in a way that he can’t when competing against someone who has a two year head start.

We’ll see. Seasons. Will Her Sweetness home school? Will I try to help her make little friends by putting her in school quite young? I don’t know.

I am super fucking burned out.

Noah’s plane landed. His bags arrived! He will be here in 20-30 minutes! Woo!

We are going to have to adjust and change. That’s a given no matter where we land. New places require that. New places provide the opportunity to reinvent yourself in a way that is simply not available if you stay in the same place with the same people forever.

No one here will know me for the things I’ve done. I mean, some people might read my blog archives out of curiosity but that still will show them a very slanted view of me. A curated perspective.

What is it going to be like to live in a place where I don’t have a former lover within hundreds or thousands of miles? Holy shit. That hasn’t been true since I was in god damn elementary school.

Talk about reinventing ourselves. I’m going to get a whole lot of being smacked in the face by people having erroneous assumptions about me for better or worse. I will be best served by playing my cards close to my vest and letting people just… make their guesses.

I’ve been talking about that with the kids. You don’t always have to correct people when they make a wrong guess about you. Just… let them be wrong because otherwise it will lead to a fight. It’s not always worth the fight.

I am not sure when I gained such perspective, but I finally have. It’s ok for other people to be wrong about me. It doesn’t matter. The important people know me. The important people can see what I’ve done and where I’ve been and who I am.

If new people guess wrong… I can just giggle.

But I’m old.

Fuck, I was taking selfies to look at the braid I did today (I don’t have good mirrors) and I was entranced by all the gray hairs. I am becoming an old woman. I am not a crone yet… but I can see it coming. Fuck yeah. I’m looking forward to this season. I think my crone years will be fucking awesome.

I will have no fucks left to give at some point very soon. I hear that turning 40 is like falling off a “No fucks left” cliff. I can’t wait. I have literally no desire to look young. This may contribute to my lack of skin care regime. I mean, I do better than I used to. But I’m not trying to slow the signs of aging. Fuck looking young. Fuck pretty. Pretty = harassment. I can’t wait to be an invisible crone.

Time marches on and eventually you discover it marches across your face. (Loosely paraphrased, thank you Dolly.)

I have the money to pay Noah’s taxi on the table next to me. I have the window blind open so that I can see any cars that come into our driveway.

I get my Noah soon.

Noah is on his way. He will be landing in London in a few more hours. He has a long layover (I will get the knack of scheduling travel…probably by the time we stop traveling…) and then he comes up to Inverness this evening. He will arrive after the kids are asleep tonight.

And we have plans to go to the seaside tomorrow with the cousins, weather permitting. Given that we’ve seen hail several days this week and SNOW it may or may not happen. It’s supposed to be 10 degrees for 3 hours today and otherwise chillier than that. Tomorrow at 6am (when I wake up) it’s supposed to be a whopping 2 degrees. Holy cheese toast. I’m not bringing a fucking bathing suit. I would not go in the water unless it was 25+ outside. Forget that noise. Tomorrow’s bleepin high is forecasted as 8. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

(If the translation is rough for you: 8 C is 46 F. So this is forking cold. 25C is 77F.)

I like the “30 is hot, 20 is nice, 10 is chilly and 0 is ice” rhyme. It helped me get the perspective well.

Welcome to Scotland!

Could I live with this? I think so. Eldest Child has been running around outside in leggings and a t-shirt proclaiming herself far too hot for a sweatshirt.

We got moving so slowly yesterday. We didn’t get our butts in gear to go visit the cousins till after 3pm. That’s unlike us. I am in a lot of pain and the kids and I are tired. I scheduled a Thai massage for Tuesday. I am thrilled. And I have a more standard massage scheduled for the 12th. Bless Noah’s job and our ability to pay for this care. I haven’t had a massage since Hawaii. It’s been over 6 weeks.

Once again, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude that Jenny’s husband is helping us get groceries delivered so I don’t have to push all of it up a mile long trek up a hill. My wrists were getting seriously fucked up. I was having to wear the braces to push the stroller because bones were popping out of joint and it hurt so much. I am in much less pain thanks to his help. (You have to have a UK based credit card to use the website.)

We had dinner with Jenny’s family last night and her husband ate with us. It was my first conversation with him. He’s not what you’d call a “people person”. He lived alone for most of his adult life and worked at home. He likes quiet. He likes his own company very much. But he’s quite charming and funny when he decides to put up with us annoying humans. It was a real treat. I get why Jenny likes him so much given that she strongly prefers her own company and quiet as well.

I am blessed that these two quiet, reserved people think I’m worth putting up with. That feels like quite an honor. It’s funny how different it feels interacting with them than hanging out with other extroverts. I feel less bubbly, less like I have to perform and be entertaining in order to get them to like me. It’s about as close as I get to understanding the phrase “a comfortable silence”. I think if I lived here I would get to the point of visiting and bringing a book and sometimes we would sit in a room quietly and not talk for a lot of the visit and that would be ok too. That’s… not something I experienced much in California. I would have felt like I was letting people down. Jenny and I are still in the “we haven’t gotten to talk to each other enough in the last nine years” so we still chat a lot during these visits, but I remember us having quiet visits when we were kids.

Sometimes she doesn’t want to talk and that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like me. I don’t… usually feel comfortable with that. That’s a dynamic I usually struggle with quite a bit. But I know Jenny likes me to the marrow of my bones and I don’t feel like I need to struggle to earn it. She decided she liked me about 25 years ago. She doesn’t have an enormous coterie of friends I have to compete with to be interesting enough to get her attention.

And the curry was divine. We ordered in from their favorite restaurant. I can still feel a little bit of burn on the roof of my mouth from the vindaloo. I am most pleased with this sensation. Her husband and I had a chummy amusing conversation about the lack of aloo in the vindaloo. I have been complaining in the same way for 15 years. It was really funny to me.

And her eldest daughter is warming up to me. By the end of the visit she was climbing into my lap and demanding cuddles. My plan of treating her like a cat (Bring nice treats and don’t get in her face demanding attention) is working like a charm. Ha. I am so happy about this. She and I actually have some stuff in common. She has food texture issues and she’s sensitive emotionally. Food texture issues ruled my life as a kid and holy tomato sauce was I sensitive.

It’s interesting to me how kids need to play through what they are experiencing. Jenny’s kids roleplay being cats and babies to get attention. They express that they need help doing things in adamant ways.

The Bonus Kids used to come over and roleplay screaming fights about divorce and yell foul names at each other.

Kids do what they are taught. My kids roleplay “school” and lecture incessantly about how “You have to practice if you want to learn this.”

Errrrrr

It was nice talking to Jenny about mental health stuff. Her perspective is different from mine (obviously) but she doesn’t invalidate what I say. And she doesn’t ever diagnose me casually in conversation. That was such a triggering part of hanging out with people in California. An awful lot of the folks I hung out with in California would default to telling me what they perceived to be my diagnosis anytime I engaged in behavior they didn’t like for one reason or another. That’s one big downside to the therapy culture there. If I am agitated Jenny is never going to tell me I am being manic. If I am angry about something she has done Jenny is never going to tell me that I have Borderline. If I am sad or I feel grief Jenny is never going to say I am depressed.

That’s just… not something she does.

It is fascinating how much less judged I feel. I feel accepted, warts and all. I am not sure I would say I always feel understood in the same way. Therapy culture means that sometimes people can understand some of my twitchiness in ways I still surprise Jenny because she doesn’t have the same pattern matching going on.

People are so complicated.

But feeling accepted and not judged…. I don’t feel like that much.

Making other friends here would be important and tricky. This is a relatively small (less than 50,000 people) city mostly filled with folk who have lived here since birth. They have their friends already and I will definitely be a weirdo. It’s a very church centric town. That would be an interesting match for our pagan/atheist bent. I mean, we would find folk. But it would take patience and time to make a community for ourselves. Home education is not illegal but it is not common.

My kids are talking a lot about how much they wish they could live near the cousins permanently. They haven’t had much of a sense of family in their life. The folks in the bay who claimed they wanted family roles stopped showing up years ago. Jenny’s kids also express a hunger for cousins.

We’ll see.

We aren’t going anywhere today and we have no academic work to do. Thank cheese. I’m so tired. We have leftovers to eat: curry, pasta, breakfast scramble and sausage. Today is going to be so chill. I need it. I’m glad we set it up so it can happen. Maybe we will even put some Netflix on the telly.

Or maybe we’ll read all day.

It’s going to be a nice day.

I’m thinking about Noah basically all of the time. I hope I will keep up the cooking when he gets here. I keep thinking about how I will change or improve things to be more to his taste. I miss talking to him, I’ve been trying not to bug him as he prepares for his presentation today. (It took me days to write this post.) It’s kind of funny how much I think I bother him given that he has devoted his life to hanging out with me.

I am spending a lot of time thinking about how to balance defensiveness with neediness. Like, I have been trying to stay off of Twitter. So I feel this aching loneliness because I feel self conscious about spamming my friends all day long when they are busy. Talking in the Slack feels more like demanding attention. Twitter feels more like talking to myself where other people can hear. I am not blogging more because my hands and arms burn like fire.

Jenny is inviting me into her life and it’s really wonderful. I am enjoying the contact a lot. But I also feel this keening aching because when am I going to be too much? When am I going to say too much? I am a judgy bitch. I speak my opinion when it isn’t useful, necessary, or kind. Who the fuck cares what I fucking think?

I am enjoying Scotland and I am afraid of Portland. There are so many people there and I want so much from them. The way Jenny is inviting me into her family is pretty rare in my world. I mean, we had it with the Bonus family. Mostly folks keep us at arms length because my whole little crew are intense motherfuckers. I am anxious as fuck about wanting to feel like family with friends when I am not their family. I used to say that Eldest Child really wishes that she had been born into a huge family and I still feel like that. I feel like that. We want to have dozens of people who talk to us.

One summer I taught a writing class at the Hindu temple down the street. I asked the kids to explain about their days. They would say things like, “Oh I have a very normal life. Every day I talk to my grandmother, my grandfather, my aunts, my cousins, my uncles check in a few times a week, I have a bunch of siblings, my parents are so involved, I have a bunch of friends I have…”

Normal.

Oh.

I hate that having Jenny love me like this makes it so much harder that for years I have struggled to have this with a lot of my friends and that didn’t work out. I mean, I feel like a fucking asshole because many of my friends invite me in more than they invite other friends. I am not excluded as much as I feel like I am excluded.

But they are friends, not family.

That doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong and I feel like a total asshole for feeling like this isn’t enough. I have so much more than some other people. I have so much more than I could have ever predicted I would have.

But I miss my mother. I miss my sister. I miss my brother. I miss my niece and nephews. I miss Auntie and my cousins.

And my friends can’t change that feeling no matter how much they love me and I feel really bad about myself for having these feelings. I should just be grateful. I am so selfish.

I don’t want to be so selfish. I want to just feel gratitude that I have anyone at all. I have three kids who are pretty much obsessed with me. I have a husband who thinks the sun rises and sets on my ass. I have intensely devoted friends; I have so much love.

I just got an email this morning from an old friend reminding me that he has known me since I was 19 and he was at my 21st birthday party and he is happy I am out exploring the world.

I am not forgotten. I am not nothing.

But I miss my family. I can’t contact them because they are evil and poison. That’s complicated. My friends can’t change that.

Today the topic of PTSD came up at breakfast. The kids have seen references to stuff in shows and movies and they had questions. I explained some stuff. Then Middle Child asked me if I ever wanted to kill myself. I said that was a complicated topic and we’ll get into it when he is older. Which is “Yes but I’m not telling you about it” and he’s smart enough to know that already. I feel bad even admitting that much but I am not willing to lie.

We’ve been doing a lot of processing their feelings (the big kids). They are having a lot of self doubt and self loathing come up. It’s normal. Development books tell me this isn’t my fault. But I feel like it is my fault. I feel really guilty and ashamed.

My boob hurts. Nursing is so annoying.

I didn’t sleep well or much last night and I feel really sad. My kids are wonderful. Jenny is wonderful. But I’m doing a lot of labor and I’m in a lot of pain and I’m supposed to just suck it up.

My kids are wonderful but they need me to give and give and give.

I miss Noah. I feel guilty for how much I take from him. I don’t feel like I give enough back.

Her Sweetness has had a little bit of puke twice in the past 15 hours. She has been a snot rocket for weeks. I think she is feeling off.

I am feeling off. I am sad. I am tired.

I can’t even take a fucking bath because I don’t have that much time off. I think I am not sleeping partially because that is literally the only time I’m allowed to be alone in a room not giving to other people or working.

It isn’t that I want to be alone. It is that I don’t want to give but I don’t feel entitled to take from anyone and that is so fucking complicated.

I haven’t responded to emails. I am so wiped out. I was feeling much better. I don’t know. I’m having a hard day.

I circle around and around and I always come back to…

I wish I had a mother who loved me. But that ship has passed. Move on, already.

I think it is funny that my kids have “early riser” as part of their self identity. We think sleeping till 7am is sleeping in and my kids refer to themselves as slug-a-beds on days they sleep that late. “Whoo. I was so tired. Maybe I’m not feeling well or I’m growing.” It’s funny because so many of our friends are night owls.

I feel so much gratitude for getting to have three kids. I don’t have to sit around waiting on other people wanting to pay attention to me anymore. I have a lot of work and attention I have to provide every day. I go to bed tired and I wake up knowing that even if I don’t talk to other people I have a full day. I mean, I still desperately want connection with my friends… but it’s different.

Today we are not going ice skating with Jenny’s family because my kids don’t enjoy it and that’s ok. I don’t feel anxious or bad or like I am missing out on time with my friend. We will see each other a bunch and it’s ok to skip events that won’t be much fun for us. When I was younger I would go do things I hated (I don’t hate ice skating, for the record) just because I didn’t want to be alone. Now I can fill a day with my family and have fun without extra people.

Eldest Child asked if we could please go out to breakfast as a treat. Then we will go grocery shopping. Then we will go to the park because it’s their last day of spring break before academics start up again.

That sounds fun to me.

The park down the hill from us is awesome. It’s huge and set up for running and there’s lots to climb and spin on. Parks in the US look so boring compared to this. There are trampolines in the ground and a bunch of merry go round stuff and huge climbing walls and standard bars (like for gymnastics) for spinning and a zip line and good swings and…. It’s a really great park. It’s like all the best part of all the parks in the bay area put in one huge place where all the kids were yelling and being loud.

That’s so fucking cool.

Not to mention that we are loving the food in Scotland so far. I’m cooking a bunch and every meal I make the kids are like “Oh my goodness this is so good.”

But I hear that Brexit is going to fuck the food situation because the UK hasn’t been able to grow enough food for their folk in 100 years. Maybe we should be building a Brexit box too… there is the possibility that food will become a problem starting two weeks before we plan to leave this country. Cheers. I would donate my storage stuff to Jenny’s family upon leaving.

I really hope that Scotland votes to leave the UK. But, it’s none of my nevermind. My country is fucking itself.

Keeping this apartment tidy is feeling easy. There aren’t enough dishes or space in the washing machine to put things off, I have to keep on top of it. But that also means there is never that much work at a time. It’s feeling like a nice sweet spot. With how much cooking I’m doing it is constant small scale tidying, but the kids are helping and it’s going well.

I have some of that white-guy anxiety here. I can feel it. But I feel enough like an outsider that I don’t feel like much of a potential target. I have that whole veil-of-white-motherhood thing. Nobody is going to touch me. I have such mixed feelings about that. I feel comforted and upset that this isn’t available to everyone.

It is weird only seeing white faces at the park. After Japan where we saw something like 20 white people the whole time… this is odd.

Heh. We barely feel like we are visiting an English speaking country. We can’t understand a lot of the talk here. That’s hilarious.They speak Scottish and we speak US-English. Then there is English-English that is divided into like eight accents.

Night weaning has not regressed this time. I’m just flippin done. Both younger kids are sleeping with me. Middle Child loves this. He wishes that we could have two queen mattresses on the floor so that I could have him in bed with me once Noah comes back. It’s a little frustrating that he likes to get a leg out of the blanket by ripping the blanket off of me and throwing it on the floor. Luckily that mostly feels funny.

I’m feeling really happy. The only thing missing is Noah.

Oh gloriousness. Yesterday Jenny brought over the last box I shipped to Scotland. We have so many books now! A bunch of things we set aside for school. Mostly religion study, but also Spanish and math. The math… we may or may not do. But the religion study books we enjoy and my kids are feeling motivated to study Spanish more after the night in Bar Corazon. Maybe I can catch them up to where I am. That would be really fun.

I am having a lot of mixed feeling about my hair. It is solidly to my waist now; it’s as long as it was when I shaved my hair when MC was a baby. I can understand why I did that then out of frustration. It’s gorgeous but so much work. I also don’t know what to do about my wispy fly-aways. I always have a halo of frizzy hair around my face. I could do Regency hairstyles so easily with my new-growth. Mostly I just let the hairs stick straight up and move on with my life. I feel almost Helena Bonham Carter with the wild hairs.

Speaking of which, I should start braiding my hair for the day. Toodles.

So I told the big kids I needed to not do much for a day and they needed to play with their sister all day long. They did! It was great! I was paged when I was needed and I cooked some vegetables for supper because otherwise we wouldn’t have had any all day (cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprout roasted). I added goat cheese to mine. Mmmmmm

I sat in bed and played travel agent. So many flights and hotels and AirBnBs and travel are booked up through January 3rd. Then I’m staring off the edge of a cliff. I partially did this because a lot of countries are pissy about you entering without an exit date. So I don’t have to feel anxious about people glaring at me for “not going home” at the end. I was grilled like fuck coming into the UK. “When are you leaving? Why are you staying so long? Do you even have a job?”

I am not here for the dole, yo.

I spent $13,000 yesterday. But, my rent is paid up through January.

I feel like this is part of why I am feeling phobic about looking at Mint lately. How do I know how in budget I am when I am paying for stuff so far in advance?!

By the end of this calendar year I may have 300,000 frequent flier points. Not bad. If I add in the points my family is earning, definitely.

That’s going to pay for a lot of trips in 2020.

I miss Noah. Kid touch isn’t the same. I went and counted. Noah will be separated from us for 48 days this year. That’s a lot. We will cope, obviously, but it’s a lot.

Today we are going to meet Jenny and kids at a park. It will be fun. 🙂 We will get rained on in the lovely Scottish weather. Ha. Luckily we all have jackets to spare now.

I am feeling so blessed by all the food in my house right now. Japan and Hawaii were emotionally hard on me because I couldn’t stock up. But we keep talking about how much we already miss Japan. No one misses Hawaii. It’s not our paradise.

We only went to Hawaii because we wanted to see people. Who were then shitty and selfish. Oh well. That’s life.

My kids are having an interesting time watching what happens when you pull taut the threads of friendship. They see who is reaching back still despite the distance. They see that there are definitely *friends* in the world for them. They wish they had more, and local friends, of course… but they are feeling better about themselves just lately. They also struggled in the bay with not being able to tell who was really their friend and who was willing to come over and let us pay for entertainment.

We do have people who care about us very deeply. It’s nice. We continue to reach back. And our door will always be open to folks who want a spot on their own wanderings. We love you very much. California just wasn’t working anymore.

It’s not your fault and it isn’t my fault either.

I worry a lot about the future. There is no peace anywhere. There is no ease anywhere. We are heading for a cataclysmic event on a global scale.

Hold on to your tits.

Why do we have children when we are just damning them to a planet on the brink of collapse. Well, hope.

We have breakfasted (goodness it was good), had a morning snack, bathed, dressed, brushed hair, watched some Anne with an E, and now… blessed rest. Today will be easy.