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What does it mean to be good?

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I’m wandering back and forth between here and fetlife for this chain of thoughts. I’m never sure why I post stuff on fetlife at all, but once in a while I feel moved to. Ok.

I have a hard time with the very concept of goodness. What is goodness?

I keep thinking about this kid from southern Louisiana. I can’t remember his name. He was a kid who got in trouble a lot when he was young. When Hurricane Katrina hit this kid rescued a lot of people. He was black and he lived in a poor neighborhood that was not given a lot of help in evacuating. He saved a lot of lives. The news stories I read about him (quite some time ago) were all shocked that this young black guy would be so heroic… so good.

Fuck all y’all for being surprised.

The funny thing is I would trust juvenile delinquents to help and be resourceful in that kind of situation faster than I would trust most “high achievers” or obedient children. Why? Because in order to really be helpful in a crisis you probably need to be good at thinking outside the box and not following your standard way of behaving. You need something new and challenging.

In modern America that kind of personality gets sent to juvie on the regular.

I believe the only reason I didn’t end up in juvenile hall was because I moved so often I didn’t develop a sufficient pattern of behavior in a given community.

What does it mean to be good?

I’m rereading the Imriel books again. Kushiel series. Jacqueline Carey. The Phédra books are way less interesting to me this time. (I need something I can read 2 pages at a time and pick up and put down and not put real effort into learning a new thing.) I’m interested in the thought process behind being problematic from conception and trying to have your very existence not cause more problems in the world. I’m interested in what it means to try to be good when you have impulses that are not so good.

I’m thinking about monsters and intent.

Beauty and the Beast. The whole town comes out to kill the beast… why? Because they are afraid of him. Has he hurt someone? Enh, not really. He has imprisoned intruders… but that was not particularly a violent reaction at the time.

When I think of what goodness means I think of when I read the statistic (that might not be accurate) that 100% of Alaskan native women are raped. Usually by a family member. Are those rapists driven from families or communities? Of course not. They are members of the community and they are necessary for survival. They do good things.

I can say good things about pretty much everyone who raped me. Paul Nathan does an award winning comedy act. He’s great on stage. But I know I’m not the only woman he raped.

What does goodness mean?

There is a woman in my local community. She’s a god damn leather title holder. When I was a teenager she spent a lot of time actively trying to get me to sleep with a list of her friends because “They like it when I bring them fresh meat.”

What does goodness mean?

Most of the ‘big name’ presenters from coast to coast have mixed reputations. Everyone has fucked up. Most people have crossed some major line at some point. The victims tend to leave. The big names stick around and become fixtures who cannot be assailed because everyone knows them and they do so much good for the community. Communities cannot exist without tolerating abusers. Abusers do a lot of fucking work to carry communities forward and the community would cease to exist without them.

What does goodness mean?

I won’t work Dickens Fair because I can’t go face my rapist. But Dan’s been a dedicated member of Mad Sal’s for way over 10 years and he’s done  so much good for the show and the community.

I fear that over the summer when I discussed restorative justice with some folks… they really didn’t understand what I meant. I didn’t mean that “communities shouldn’t throw people away” I meant “if you don’t specifically center the needs of victims you will drive them out of your community and only keep the abusers”. I meant that it’s not just about getting over transgressions and letting folks who fuck up have a second chance. How do you help heal people from being hurt?

Shouldn’t communities care a lot more about the members who are wounded instead of the ones doing the wounding?

Naw. That shit is about work going out and communities need work going in. Victims are hard. Victims are annoying. Victims make people feel weak and vulnerable and bad.

Abusers are way better to keep around.

What does goodness mean?

“But I’m a good person”. I don’t give a shit about your inherent goodness. I care that your fucking behavior is abusive.

What is abusive?

When you make someone feel small and bad about themself and like they don’t deserve to have the feelings/thoughts/emotions they god damn have about their fucking experiences.

I do not know if I ever want to think of myself as good. I’m not sure I would want to be. I’m not nice either.

But I am kind. I am compassionate. I am thoughtful. I am giving. I am generous. I am helpful. I am a good listener. I am educated about how to help people process their emotions. I am a very good teacher–I don’t have to know something to teach it.

Maybe I don’t have to be good to teach it.

Maybe it doesn’t actually matter if I am good and instead it matters if I am actively engaged in improving myself and doing things that make the world better for others. Other people, other animals, other ways of existing.

What does goodness mean?

Goodness, monsters, and shame

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I know that other people view monsters in a solely negative light but I’ve never been good at doing that. Monsters are always creatures with a different point of view. A friend pointed out that perhaps “alien” might be an easier word to use, but I feel like alien and monster are interchangeable. A monster is a creature who is different from you who seems scary. Many monsters don’t hurt anyone at all… but they are scary anyway.

I can’t begin to count how many people have told me that I am scary.

I am amused to read that it is a common thing for autistic people to feel like they “come from a different planet” which fits more in with the word alien than the word monster. (I mention this because I have been diagnosed as autistic not because I am trying to talk about “those people”. I’m reflecting on the similar language used by folks who have the same diagnosis as me.) Only I’ve seen every Aliens movie and I can tell you with authority that those things are monsters.

Are they evil? I don’t think so. They are creatures who are trying to survive and we look like food. That’s not more evil than the bacon I had in my soup tonight.

Before you tell me I should be vegan let me tell you that many health professionals have told me that I absolutely need meat for optimal health given my constellations of issues. Veganism may work great for lots of folks… but not everyone.

Anyway.

So I’ve reached a point in the evolution of my brain where I just can’t see monsters as inherently evil. I see them as creatures with too much strength and too much ability to hurt other creatures without necessarily intending to.

Intent doesn’t matter.

I wrote yesterday that I haven’t done a major boundary violation in many years. By that I mean that I haven’t had someone say “Don’t do x to me” and then I do it. I have broken rules. I have broken agreements about what I might go do with other people. I have hurt people by accidentally doing something that would have been a boundary if we had negotiated. (I’m a clumsy bastard and I absolutely do things unintentionally sometimes.)

If intent doesn’t matter, how do I justify calling some things mistakes and other things violations?

We are all hypocritical bastards.

What I mean is that when I was young I had a few times when someone told me “Don’t do x” and I went and did x as fast as possible. I stopped doing that. It helps me sleep better at night.

But I struggle with whether I ever have the right to decide that my “softer” fuck ups are mistakes instead of monstrous violations that are evidence that I should be shunned from society for the good of people.

I look around the bdsm community and I see a lot of people who have been perceived as dangerous/bad/evil/worthy of shunning. Many of these people are monsters.

Are they worse than me? Are they better than me? What metrics are being used to judge? Why are we being judged–what’s the end goal?

The only part that matters to me in the long run is whether I find a self that is worthy to be a model for my children.

I really don’t give a shit if you like or approve of me. And yet you are my community and I love and value you so much. Many of you have contributed words of wisdom to my inside voice that I replay on a regular basis. So many of you have taught me that just because I’m a monster that doesn’t mean I have to damage people on accident. I can learn to have my damage be inflicted rarely and only with great purpose.

This community is a lot of where I learned to value the darkest and hardest parts of myself. It’s ok that I want to cut people open and lick their blood. There are folks who think that is hotter than the sun. It’s ok that I want to hit people and make them cry. There are folks who have something deep inside them made whole by such a process.

It’s not wrong to be a monster.

But can a monster be good? Do I have to be good to teach my children to do good? Do I want to teach them that they must be good?

Oh bdsm community. Do we want our teachers to be a certain level of good? What is that level? What level of goodness is demanded/expected/required of “community leaders” or educators or presenters?

We talk a lot about consent here. But how much information must be given in advance to qualify as informed consent and how much responsibility do we all bear for our fuck ups?

It’s kind of funny that in the long run of my life, the bdsm fuck ups where someone blatantly hurt me or violated my consent are not the things that weigh me down. (I say this from the hubris of having my biggest injury as a bottom be a broken bone. Broken bones heal.) I worry more about when I damaged someone else. Being a victim is not as big of a driving force to change my behavior as knowing that I have used my strength to do someone else damage.

How do we learn to be powerful and strong and monstrous and good enough?

I know I shouldn’t let the word good be taken away by assholes who want to define it as passive… but this shit is complicated.

Would it really be so bad to be a monster if one can do it without shame and without hurting people extra? Hurting people sometimes is life. But maybe just hold back on the extra?

How much hurting people is tolerable? How much is abuse?

I don’t think you have the answers either. I’m thinking that I’m still at the stage where asking the question is all I can do. The answers will come long after I need them. Like all the most important parts of life.

Such a lovely pediatrician.

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I picked our pediatrician based on her doing her intensive college research project on intergenerational patterns of abuse. She’s a neat lady. We had a follow up conversation about CPS (and the original incident last summer) and her attitude was absolutely inspirational. One of my bigger children was with me and I think the doctor’s attitude was really helpful to our continued processing.

The doctor made it very clear that everyone makes mistakes and this was just a mistake. How do you find out what kind of person you want to be if you never cross the line into being someone you don’t want to be?

I love this doctor.

Turns out the doctor had already gone over to the hospital and said, “Who might have turned in my patient’s mother for pot! That’s not cool!” and the staff over there was confused because that is not their policy. Given that the CPS visit turned out to not be about pot… I feel a little sad about not trusting them more. But this process is hard. Everyone did their job well and appropriately and absolutely everyone involved was respectful towards me and my family. I’m glad CPS shows up to ask the questions they asked us.

So yeah. Such a lovely doctor. I’m grateful for her.

Also, Youngest Child is growing like whoa. At her 2 day old visit she had dropped down to 7 lbs 14 oz. At her one month visit she’s up to 9 lbs 4oz. 26oz in 30 days. Sounds great to me. Her height went from 20″ to 22″. Around 50% for weight, 90% for height.

I find it kind of fascinating that all of my children are so tall. They have all been 75% + for their entire lives with the younger two being 90%+. Neither Noah nor I are that tall. It seems… surprising to me. Noah is dead flipping average for a man. I am an inch taller than “average” for a woman. Why are my kids like the jolly green giant?!

Must be all the damn vegetables. I wonder if I would have been taller if I had eaten better as a child.

I asked about the icy cold hands at night. Doctor said that at this stage she just hasn’t figured out circulation and as long as her core is warm, don’t stress. Put sleeves on her and don’t fret. Ok. I’ve been keeping her in sleeves. Hahahaha on the not fretting part.

She’s my tiny little externalized beating heart. I worry about her.

She barely cried for a few seconds at her shot today. I was impressed. It wasn’t a minute of crying. She just went to sleep because I had been tormenting her by keeping her awake. She hadn’t been crying about the tormenting awakeness. She just grunted at me and whined a little, like she does.

I noticed that I didn’t write that much down about MC’s milestones. I think that a lot of that choice was because I go through these periods of feeling embarrassed about my focus on my children. I know that nonbreeders really don’t give a shit about the minutiae of my children. I know that hearing people talk about their kids is boring. (I can tell my eyes gloss over sometimes when people tell me about their kids… it’s ok to not be fascinated by my children…) But then I don’t remember what month they started using two word phrases and I’m fucking mad at myself for feeling self conscious and not writing it down.

I need to not care what you don’t want to hear about because this data collection spot is useful and I need to take advantage of it.

Speaking of which, MC’s hair now reaches their waist because they really feel inspired by Rose’s hair. They want hair that goes to at least their butt. Sure.

The baby is tiny and vigorous and growing and doing all the important mammal skills.

Oh! Yesterday we had a comedy show diaper change. I was reminded of the fact that I have a huge box of puppy pads. Since the baby is so prolific about emptying the pipes while on the changing table and we are a little sad about having to deal with cleaning up the whole shebang every day… Hey I can solve a problem.

So big sister asked to change a diaper. I asked her to bring a pad, diaper, and wipes to the floor in the living room so it would be a little less hazardous.

This turned into a hilarious experience involving a lot of pulling the baby off the spreading/growing pee puddles and dragging her out of the piles of poop she wanted to kick and play with. It was nice having two kids to help with that experience. It really was fun to watch. Big sister did all the important bits and I gave helpful/snarky advice.

We all got to have a fun time. The baby was so relaxed and mellow through the whole thing. She just blinked up at us like, “What? Y’all act like clearing the pipes is something to fuss about…”

Her head has already expanded by 3/4″. Terrifying noggin.

We are getting in the books for next academic year. Why does this process excite me so much?

Don’t argue, just do what you do.

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Today we have our one month pediatrician visit. My baby will be probably have some vaccine shots. Why? Because I believe in science? No. Because there is a preponderance of evidence that this will keep my kid alive and I went through a fuck ton of effort to make her so she’d better fucking stay alive.

I’m just saying.

My kid horrified me the other day. We were discussing how we really don’t want the baby to die so we should take some steps. (It didn’t start out as a weird seeming conversation…) Then my kid said, “Yeah we really don’t want to go through nine months of pregnancy again so this kid had better live.”

My eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Whoa. Ok then.

They aren’t wrong. But that’s not really all I mean. I’m already invested in this girl. I like her. It’s not just the investment cost…

Parenting is weird.

You need to get over it, for the sake of your children… now.

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I had my first session with my shrink in a while yesterday. We focused on what stuff I need to work on to be a better support to my kids. It all came down to one thing though.

I do not perceive myself as a good person who makes mistakes. I perceive myself as a monster who sometimes does the right thing.

In my shrink’s opinion as long as this is true I will not be able to help my child deal with their overwhelming shame.

They said, “You are a good person who makes mistakes. Until you believe that about yourself you can’t teach it to your child. So you have to learn how to believe it, now.”

Sure. I’ll just do that.

Monsters and good people.

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I had my first therapy session in a while. I haven’t been driving for health reasons and this session was via technology. Yay technology.

Most of the session centered around something having to do with my kids but it has to do with my identity in this community too. One of my children is struggling to deal with shame. Ah shame, my old nemesis.

My therapist told me that until I view myself as a good person who makes mistakes instead of as a monster who sometimes does the right thing… I can’t help my kid.

Given the stuff I’ve been reading on fetlife lately about redemption and making up for mistakes and when are you allowed back into the fold and to do which behaviors… this all feels connected in my head.

I’ve done wrong and I’ve hurt people in my life. I have done everything in my power to make amends. I’ve tried to help my victims and I’ve tried to help the victims of other people. I’ve tried to not hurt more people, with varying degrees of success. I haven’t had a big flagrant boundary violation in well over a decade, approaching two decades. I did learn from my mistakes.

But at what point do the mistakes of the past no longer define you? How many fuck ups are necessary to make you a monster forever?

What kind of fuck ups can be waved away as “just a mistake”?

I don’t know.

Occupy the mind

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Not in the #Occupy sense, more in the keeping busy sense.

I’m trying to keep my mood up and level. Which is a challenge when I’m bored. Boredom = looking for trouble most of the time. Which is why I say that only boring people get bored because if I have any inkling of that feeling I go find something to do.

Which I’m trying to get healthier about as the years go by…

I can’t obsess about cleaning my house because my husband and children are so god damn helpful. The kids are not perfectly following all of their routines… instead they are chipping in to help with my chores way more than normal. I need to not be an asshole about this.

All of the stuff I will need to do for the house in terms of getting it ready to sell are… later and if I start fussing about it too soon I will drive myself crazy and end up starting to do the work myself because I won’t be able to handle waiting. I know myself. I can’t think about that project yet or I will damage my body trying to follow through on plans now when I really need to wait.

So I’m thinking about other things and making other plans because that seems healthier.

Stuff like planning for the next school year since we only have nine more weeks of this school year and the kids and I agreed to year round schooling for next year. We will only have a month off and I’d rather have my plans mostly in place by the end of the school year so I don’t have to spend vacation planning and getting ready. That would piss me off. I know it is the norm for teachers… but I have this time now and by then the fourth trimester will be over and I will not want to sit still to do more planning. I will want to be out in the garden.

That month of vacation will probably involve me spending all my normal academic/planning hours outside trying to get the garden to a better place for selling the house. The more established the plantings are when we list the house… the better. I’ve got some shit to do.

I am doing the shopping and preparation I need to do for summer/travel. I scheduled two trips. Because having stuff on the books helps keep me from feeling trapped. The first trip will be somewhat expensive: it’s an all inclusive in Mexico. The second is taking Sarah to Disneyland for her birthday. I bought into DVC for Sarah and her birthday trip so it seems like a good thing to revisit that again 8 years later. Sarah is my favorite person to go to Disneyland with. We have similar tolerances for crowds, distance, and time spent in the park. We like having a kitchen in our room because Sarah loves to cook to show us her love and I am ok with cleaning up after people who make me tasty food. She is so close with my kids. Even though she and I have had ups and downs… she has consistently shown up for my children. Almost 10 years into this parenting gig… Sarah is who she says she is. She is their Aunt and she takes that seriously.

I’m a huge nerd and I love that my second and third children will both be with their Auntie in Disneyland for her birthday before they turn one. She makes these trips magical and fun. Sarah just does Disneyland in a way that helps me feel safe. And once in a while she even brings her brother along and dude he’s fun in the parks. He runs off with the children to do silly things. I don’t think people are fun based on their willingness to do childcare for me. I follow along more slowly and do the silly things too… It’s about being willing to initiate.

I’m excited that I get to spend about 7 months showing Sarah menus and saying “Hm, should we add this to our itinerary?” This time I’m getting bold and looking further afield in the Anaheim area. What things could we potentially go get or have a nicer meal out…

I feel like I do owe my family the quiet, no other people, sitting and doing nothing experience they want. I keep them on a hamster wheel and they are all fucking exhausted. But I’m glad no one will begrudge me wanting to plan the trip with Sarah too.

And because of DVC and the kitchen… this week long trip won’t be that much money. The all inclusive isn’t cheap but it isn’t that expensive. And we don’t drink alcohol so we won’t be adding to our bill that way.

We will spend somewhere in the $7,000-$9,000 range for both trips. Mexico alone will be $6,000ish.

A bunch of that money will be for things like shoes appropriate to the conditions, hats that fold up + have a strap (kids outgrow theirs and my hats… are not in good shape any more), bathing suits that fit… So it is an extravagant amount of money but it will also help us in general this summer. I just…. might not get as much or as soon if not for the trip coming up.

I’m also thrilled about things like: putting a Disneyland trip on our calendar causes my children to take a deep breathe and say, “Ugh. We need to start training for the walking.” They know that we walk 6-8 miles a day when we are at Disneyland. I asked them, “Would that feel good right now?” They both adamantly stated that it would hurt so they are interested in planning out the exercise regime necessary to make it fun.

This may not be the best way to motivate fitness… but it is pretty effective for us. We are planning our year around this. (Eldest Child is about to graduate out of swimming class. She’s at the end of what they teach and that’s feeling really fun for her. Middle Child asked if they can drop gymnastics while we work on the walking great distances project. That means the kids will be doing three days a week of martial arts, plus MC would have half an hour a week of a swim class on top of walking a lot every day. I think it is both fair to drop gymnastics and it’ll save me $120/month. Sure.)

My kids have 0 interest in fitness for competition. Fitness so they can accomplish something, sure that makes sense.

I love my kids. I would have a hard time with a super competitive child. I’m grateful for the personalities my children happen to have. It isn’t that being competitive is always bad–it isn’t. But I would struggle to parent someone who was very competitive. That’s an evaluation of my own abilities and not a commentary on how awesome someone else might be.

What other things am I planning… I think that might be what I’m cycling between. School (the awesome part of home schooling is I get to plan something different every year), Mexico trip, Disneyland, and exercise for the year. 2018 is going to be a pretty ridiculously good year. And then the house goes on the market next year.

The kids are already suggesting stuff we really don’t want to pack and maybe we should just get rid of it now. So cleaning the house is going to be almost as much about thinning out our possessions as it will be cleaning this year.

Also: anyone want to come over to dinner and take away a few bottles of alcohol? We can’t drink it anymore…

I might long term have a bottle of whiskey that I can drink in the house but I doubt it. I can go out and buy a drink 3-8 times in a year and be as satisfied with alcohol as I need to be. Maybe we’ll still keep some wine around for cooking… but not much.

I didn’t expect to grow up and be quite this… weird. Tee totaler pot head. Sure, why not. Only I take pills so I don’t even smell like it much. Are you still a pot head if you don’t get the cloud of smoke making you smell like it?

Questions for the ages.

Unrepentant vanity

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For reasons passing my understanding, every time I walk past a mirrored surface I stop and have this moment of “God damn I look good.” My hair is weirdly cooperative. My skin looks lovely. I appreciate my current figure very much.

I date girls who look like this. Or I did. My ex and I looked a lot a like only I thought she was prettier than me.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a streak of vanity immediately post-birth before. It’s weird.

I’m finding out that I don’t remember shit very well. Sarah is rereading my archive (for what, the fifth? sixth time?) and she is amused as she corrects my recollections of how I felt in the past.

I feel so very known. Thank you for pointing out how my memory drifts. She says I was a lot more ok with two and done after Middle Child.

I can’t remember that. I can only remember the years of crying as I bled every month. This is why I write shit down. No one is actually dependent on my shoddy memory. I wrote down whatever I was feeling in the moment. And when I misremember and someone says, “Actually what you wrote was…” I don’t argue and I feel melty inside.

Thank you for insisting on consistency. It’s part of how I know you love me. You want me to tell the same story. You don’t want me reinventing the past. The story is what it is.

Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for wanting to. Thank you for being my friend.

I think a lot about friendship and what it means. I’m feeling a little worried/guilty about T&t, friends who are a big deal in my life. T in particular is having big feelings about us wanting to move. It’s going to be a major loss in his life. We are very good friends and he spends more time with me getting emotional support than he does with anyone else. When I leave it is going to create a giant cavernous hole in his life and he’s feeling anxious. We’ve been hanging out a lot for about 12 years. It will hurt to lose that contact.

But I need to go. My family wants to go.

It’s not because there is no one in the bay we love. We love a lot of people and we have been carried by your beautiful friendship for so many years.

My neighborhood is changing and the new people have no interest in the structure I helped create in the past ten years. The people we built relationships with are moving or dying. My friends are flung all over the bay area and the driving to maintain relationships hurts my body. I can’t keep up with a bay area lifestyle. I can’t drive to San Jose and Oakland and Palo Alto every week for socializing. It hurts. Being isolated in this little town while our friends are always 20-90 minutes away… that’s hard on us.

We’d like to move somewhere smaller. Somewhere less spread out. We won’t have as many friends. We won’t have the history.

I am eager to find out what it is like to walk into a room and not run into people I’ve known for decades. The expectations people have of me, for good or for ill, are hard to carry. I was a professional new kid for so long that being as established as I am is hard.

The kids and I are already talking about the stuff we don’t want to pack and we just want to pass it on. It is kind of weird to me how much the kids want to go. They both seem to feel like they don’t really want to go through puberty and their teenager years here. I’m not sure I understand their motivation, but they want to move. Noah is happy about the idea of getting out of a metropolis but otherwise he isn’t as motivated to leave. He’s a lot more content with hiding in his house full time to deal with his unhappiness with the area changing.

And that’s all the typing I can do in this horrible position.

Why don’t you take some vitamins?

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As a person with chronic health complaints I get stupid comments from people about what I should do to fix my body. Trying vitamins is always high on the list. Well, today I finally got the bill for allllll of my treatment last year with the pain management doctor. I paid well over $4,000 fucking dollars for fucking vitamins last year.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up. With. Your. Stupid. Advice.

I paid more than that for the doctor visits. But that’s a low ball estimate for the shots plus all the god damn pills I take. I supplement all the things.

I will say that I noticed a difference from the magnesium when I was pregnant. Holy tomato that made a difference. Otherwise… I’m not sure I can feel it. But I’m bouncing back incredibly quickly.

Ugh. I’ve still not been given my blood results from November. Crank. Whine. Fuss.

Blame the mother

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A baby is sleeping on my chest, supported by one arm. The time between typing and hitting “post” changes with a newborn.

I was reading something on the parenting board I’ve been codependently hanging out on. (I want to feel like I can “help” someone and I’m physically incapacitated. I know! I’ll go give advice to internet strangers!) One of the ‘known names’ (i.e. people who post so much that everyone knows their story and references them between threads) made a comment about her mother rugsweeping her father’s physical abuse and my response was that I wish I could slap the shit out of her mother.

I didn’t have the reaction that I wanted to hurt her father.

That’s a thing. That’s a whole societal thing.

(Break for poopy diaper and outfit change and now we are nursing.)

Whether the mother is the main instrument of abuse or the enabler… we blame her first, most, and often only her. Mothers are responsible for protecting their children. A child being hurt is the fault of the mother. No matter who does it.

I think about this a lot. Do I blame my mother most? This dynamic is on the gigantic list of reasons I homeschool.

It’s not really about whether I physically, mentally, sexually, emotionally, or spiritually abuse my kids… It’s about whether I can keep it from happening at all.

The funny (to me) part is I have agreements with Noah around him intervening in *my* behavior. I am monitored. He has told me things I needed to change. That’s good. If I go off the rails I have to leave for the good of the kids and we’ve skirted that before. He warned me I was heading that way.

I got the fuck back on the rails.

I’m not sure I’m actually temperamentally suited to the job I chose. But I’m going to force myself into that mode if it kills me. But instead of killing me it is healing me.

I woke up overwhelmingly cranky and with a long list of complaints. Noah suggested a walk. I’m less bitchy now. Over a mile this time! And it didn’t hurt! We’ve been doing just under a mile and it’s been real slow and hard. This felt better.

Noah doesn’t get mad at me for my moodiness. I don’t know what I did right to get him. I know that saying yes was important. (Technically I didn’t say yes I said “Yeah, I could do that.”) But what did I do to make him want me so bad?

Just stay

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I had forgotten what it feels like to have a baby who can sleep through any disruption as long as my skin is 1″ from her face. If I move away from her, she wakes up within minutes. I do not know how other people get their babies to sleep alone. I suspect those folks have a higher tolerance for screaming than I have.

I do not let my babies scream for a minute longer than I am doing other work with my hands. Then I snatch them back up again. Most tasks I simply do one handed in this stage.

I do not speak of this because I am trying to play Mommy Wars. There are many ways to raise children and many reasons to make the choices a person makes. I make the choices I make because I am trying to reset *my* internal clock and I am trying to change the patterns that have been set in my family for generations. This is not about what someone else should or shouldn’t do. This is about learning to set aside my hypervigilance. This is about learning to calm down the panic I have lived with for decades.

Hearing my baby scream is one of the most activating sounds of my life. When I respond to it easily, naturally, instantly my body feels better. My body feels the full effects of, “You are safe now and it’s ok to take care of problems. You don’t have to ignore something. You don’t have to pretend the scary/overwhelming/bad thing isn’t happening. It’s ok to react and soothe. Nothing bad will happen.”

I don’t do all of this because it is “best for my baby” (although I do think it is good for her) I do it because I am selfish and I want this satiation and safety in my body.

It is hard dealing with how mentally bored I am. I hit the end of pregnancy and my brain was all, “OK! Disability period is over! Move around! What the fuck! Why are you sitting, motherfucker!??!?!” But I want to give this period of time to my baby so bad that I will learn to deal with almost any amount of frustration.

I just said it wasn’t for baby it was for me. Then I said I will give it to baby. I’m inconsistent. It’s complicated.

I want to have given this to baby so that I have given it to myself. I want to have had this period in our development. I want our relationship to have had this period of being instantly taken care of because I want her to have the same internal sense of “My needs matter” that my older children have.

My big kids really do have this basic safety and happiness that comes from knowing that even as they don’t get all of their wants they have never had a need go unmet. It has not happened.

I want that for my new daughter, too.

Do you know why my children are so convinced that their needs are of utmost importance? Because from the day of their births I have set myself aside to look at them. Is this the most psychologically healthy way to raise children? Oh I assume not. But it’s what I’m doing. Because it is healthier than what I experienced and giving “better than I got” is what most parents can do. We can’t be perfect. We can’t hit the ideal. But if we can give better than we got… that’s kind of shooting the moon, isn’t it?

Know your place

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For nine more weeks my primary job is nursing and snuggling. For ten more weeks my secondary job is homeschooling the children and following the charter school guidelines.

I can get through most anything for a set period of time.

We are going to have a month of summer vacation then get started on a year round cycle for next academic year. We agreed that we want to try three months on, one month off for next year because three months of summer vacation is too much.

But first to get through the fourth trimester without exploding from boredom.

An evil kind of magic.

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I don’t know what it is… but this child likes to empty the pipes in big volleys. We hear a big poop (she’s so loud) and we wait 1-5 minutes before getting up to go to the bathroom because there is always more. Sometimes we stand at the changing table and get her undressed in slow motion because more is coming.

We wait for the second big volley. It arrives. Ok. We’ll try changing you.

We get the diaper off.

I swear to cheese at least once a day she pees on our hands as we are putting the new diaper up to her. It always lands on the new diaper. Ok, so there’s two diapers and a full change of the changing table so far.

We get her cleaned up (a task) then get a fresh diaper on her then set her on the floor. Proceed to change the cover and everything on the changing table. Get everything ready to go again. Poor Noah usually has this festivity rain down on him (ewwww) while he is changing the baby. I get it too though…

Pick her up and put her back on the changing table and start the process of getting dressed again. Finish. Pick up the baby.

She poops again.

This. Is. Daily. (or almost daily. It’s freakin constant feeling.)

I do not remember my first children being prolific in this manner but it is hilarious as it frustrates me.

Every. Single. Day we have a diaper change that involves a minimum of three diapers. Sometimes she gets to a fourth diaper in a half an hour period without me leaving the bathroom.

Given that when she was born we had some concerns about kidney function I will choose to just be grateful that all the plumbing works so well.

Oh, and every single time she gets put on the changing table she instantly spits up and soaks the entire front of her clothes and creates a puddle around her head.

Cheers.

Naw, no shame

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I’m going to write this up. Because it seems important.

CPS came to our house yesterday. They were checking up on that incident I’m being cagey about from last summer. First: the fact that it took them 8+ months to follow up is a sign that the system does not have time for low hanging fruit.

The caseworker was a really nice dude. He had a soft spoken voice; he was incredibly non threatening and warm. He is clearly someone who works for CPS because he wants to be able to help kids who are in trouble.

He asked us a lot of questions and he liked our answers. He closed the case and agreed with the person I spoke to on the phone way back when I self reported this incident to CPS last summer: “Sometimes kids do things we wish they wouldn’t and then we have to educate them as to why they can’t ever do that again.”

My kids were scared to talk to him then confused and relaxed after they did because “I don’t understand why he cares if I like X grade…”

The questions weren’t scary or intense but the questions for us as adults were thorough. I feel he asked questions that should be asked for the protection of children and I don’t feel upset at all for being monitored in this way. I’m glad there are folks to check up on kids how he did.

It was kind of funny how he relaxed a little after we explained about our non-binary kid.

I want to relate more details about the questioning because I feel like it was well done, but that would be skirting the privacy of my kids and that’s the barrier I’m trying to stick to.

But I’ll say that as a parent, CPS was absolutely lovely. They were checking up on the safety of my kids and they were not threatening in any way. I do actually feel glad that there are people in this world who will just show up to make sure my kids are ok. Given my background that seems so wonderful.

It’s not a bad thing to be monitored. I’m not ashamed of how I’m handling issues. I feel very proud that when I’m asked about discipline I can talk with great detail about how I handle issues and I feel confident that I’m doing the best that is available to me. We talk. We do time ins more than time outs. Outside voices go outside.

It’s not that we never fuck up. It’s that when we do… we do intensive education about why it needs to change next time.

This is the best we can do. And it’s not terrible in the scheme of things. The fact that I self reported the issue and put both of my kids in therapy (we actually had the appointments scheduled before the incident! It wasn’t a reactionary choice! It was proactive but it happened at exactly the time when we needed it to) and family therapy and worked more on education stuff…

What the hell else can you do?

Hilarity

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Yesterday I was gazing in adoration at the baby, like I do, and I was talking to her about how much I am looking forward to getting to know her. She had one of those frowny moments (oh she has a good scowl in the making… the lines between her eyebrows are already etched) and I said, “And with a frown like that I hope you are going to be judgy as shit! I could use some company.”

She opened her eyes from a dead sleep to side eye me, glare for a few seconds, then she relaxed back into sleep.

Oh I can’t wait until you can talk. This will be so much fun.

smks: hug edition

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I haven’t used Shit My Kids Say in a while.

Yesterday my big girl asked me what I want for Mother’s Day. We are planners in this house. I told her that what I wanted was to be a mother. She squinched up her face at me. She asked me what I want to get. I said hugs and kisses.

She sighed and said, “We give you hugs and kisses every day. They aren’t special.”

This is one of those moments where my heart isn’t sure how to respond. Wow. I can’t imagine having that kind of hubris about physical affection. It is just so expected and standard that it isn’t special? I’m still grateful for every single day of morning snuggles. I don’t take it for granted. Some day my kids won’t be little and they won’t want to start every single day with touching me. I need to appreciate the fuck out of this while I have it.

And my daughter… she just can’t perceive a future where things might change or be different. Being loved is just… life for her.

On one hand I feel like I have done something wrong by not teaching her to value this more. On the other hand… I taught her that love is so plentiful and common and constant that you should expect it every single day.

I did that. Noah certainly helped and I don’t denigrate that. But…. I did that. Noah would have skipped days. Noah wasn’t with us on the road trip. Noah has absolutely filled in the gaps when I wasn’t available (like my Alaska trip) but he wasn’t the one who created the absolute assumption that the kids would be loved on daily. Partially because back when he worked out of the house things were just more catch as catch can. I think he could provide it now.

My kids can’t imagine a world where they feel anything for me other than complete adoration.

I did that. Even on days when I was pissed at them. Even on days when they were grounded or they received some punishment that infuriated them. They know with all of their heart that they can’t be so bad that I will stop loving them and hugging them.

I did that.

This ache I feel inside about how I will never be good enough to deserve being loved? It is a foreign language to them. They can’t imagine having this feeling.

I did that.

I’m so excited about this third journey through motherhood. What will it be like to parent a baby and a toddler when I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I can dig deep and find the patience to do this right. The first two times I was so riddled with self-doubt. I was always afraid that I was going to absolutely fail them and be their monster instead of their mother. Instead my kids have no desire to be away from me and they think that spending their days with me is the absolute best way they can spend their time.

I don’t know for sure that my third kid will end up liking me as much. But I no longer fear that I will completely fail them. Maybe we will end up having non-compatible personalities. I feel pretty ok about our ability to figure that out.

We have already figured out a lot of things together and I don’t see that trend slowing down.

We finally negotiated food stuff yesterday. The kids were… surprisingly plucky about it. They were almost delighted to decide some of their own restrictions. Like, we are cutting back on how often we have dessert and sweet breakfast because the kids can admit that we have assigned “sweets” 6 days a week and we get random treats and… that’s too much. That means sugar is not a sometimes food it is… the food we eat and that’s bad for us. And when they get to listing off the fruits and vegetables they like to eat… it doesn’t sound so bad. They have plenty of stuff they like to eat.

We agreed to a pattern of eating and they said they will try to manage it for themselves without parents having to police it. Breakfast and dessert we should each try to have a piece of fruit so we feel like we are getting the sweet burst we like to have. For lunch kids are going to try to have two vegetable servings and for dinner we will try for one vegetable serving. I know that isn’t a lot in the scheme of things. But the kids trying to be responsible for eating their vegetables without reminding is kind of new for us.

I’m really tired of asking them every day what they have eaten and if they have gotten enough food groups. I just… I need a break. So we agreed to a pattern of eating that won’t require as much thought on anyone’s part or as much negotiation on my part. They said this is how they want to manage their dietary needs. Other snacks should lean heavily towards protein. We have a great many options in our house.

We’ll see how long this negotiation lasts. *sigh*

If I got a month of not having to nag I’d be happy.

Support is amazing.

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There’s a thing going on with my child that I haven’t written much about because it isn’t my story to tell and I’m worried about their boundaries. But I want to express gratitude for part of it in my records so that in the future when I feel like stuff is hopeless I will have to acknowledge that hope does exist.

That thing that happened last summer. Between my big kids. The thing that wasn’t cool and one kid ended up feeling upset but not permanently wounded and another kid ended up feeling like they are a monster in training.

My child isn’t a monster. But a serious mistake was made and learning from it and growing past it are part of life’s difficult process.

We’ve been struggling a lot with the growing past it part. Kiddo is still feeling like they are bad and there is no redemption for them. Dude. There’s so little in this life that cannot be redeemed. Especially something you do as an under ten year old child. That’s just… life… Just about all of us fuck up. How do you internalize that and integrate it and become a better person?

That’s what life is? I think?

But the support I am giving my kid is insufficient. I reached out. I emailed my shrink, the kid shrink, our family shrink and I said, “I don’t know how to help my kid through this. I am failing them and that means we need to find new tools because it is not ok to fail them on this topic.”

I feel so grateful that we have these folks in our life. Hey L, you recommended a great shrink for me! And they have been able to recommend a whole string of useful people! This has been the best therapy rec of my life! Gosh I owe you for this.

So the three therapists talked to one another. They came up with a couple of layers of strategies and they emailed back. They are going to help us as a family create a ritual to release the shame. We are so woo and this absolutely right up our alley.

I feel overwhelmed with gratitude that I found support folks to help my family learn how to grow together towards health and love without shame.

We are so fucking lucky.

Sitting is hard

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This is the hard part of the fourth trimester. I’m already getting bored. But I believe in this. We are only 11 damn days into this mess. Well, once she can handle being in a carrier a little better so we can get off of sitting in a chair it will be a little easier to move around the house and yard. This tiny fragile person needing us to sit still phase is rough. I feel like a whiner for thinking it is rough. But it is.

People are coming to visit us. It’s not like we are just watching the grass grow through the windows…

Still. It was a long pregnancy of feeling awful and I’m super antsy. But I’m also exhausted and physically recovering still. Ugh.

I went for a walk on days three, six, and nine. Today on day eleven I feel like I’d probably enjoy going out again. That’s a good sign in terms of energy and physical recovery.

Noah is currently holding the baby for the longest stretch he has managed in a few days. I’m so grateful. It’s hard that early on the babies only want mama. I get weary. But then later they like him better so it all evens out.

I’m feeling like the most boring awful person lately because I’m trapped in the house with three video game addicts and I’m not being as nice as I ought to be. But the only way to have less of it shoved in my face is for me to go sit in a bedroom with the door closed. It would be like if I lived with someone who was completely obsessed with sports and I had to go hide in a closet to get away from it.

I feel small and petty and bad because I feel bored and so uninterested in trying harder to care about other peoples interests. I’m feeling ungenerous about listening to information about other peoples games and books and movies.

I don’t want to fill my head with your interests. I want to be allowed to have my own.

But then I feel like I am not even sure what my interests are beyond “moving around and people being there to talk to”.

I am glad I got to see two friends over the past two days. That was nice.

I’m scared that I’m doing that thing where I spend so much time being silent that when a grown up comes over and wants to talk to me I am really bad at listening because there are so many words trapped behind my teeth that I’m never allowed to speak. Because my interests aren’t interesting or ok.

I feel boring and bored.

I asked my family about going to see Jenny’s family this year and my whole family kind of deflated. They really really really want to go sit on a beach somewhere warm. They don’t want to go to cold Scotland so that I can see people I care about that they barely know. I get it. And I pick almost all of our travel so it seems sporting for me to not demand that yet another trip be all about me. But I’d like to go see Jenny. I don’t get to have everything I want. So we will go to Mexico. Which seems weirdly awful because we had to be selfish assholes who didn’t go the entire time P was there (was it selfishness or pregnancy…)

Why do I think that travel is mostly about seeing people.

Because people are my entire motivation to live.

That’s complicated because I want people to want things from me in order for me to feel like I get to have them. And that’s fucked up.

Sometimes I wonder if I resent the fact that Noah really doesn’t care about my appearance so I have no reason to ever feel like it is a good idea to try and look pretty. That was a real problem in my relationship with my Owner. He was intensely focused on how I looked and I am not a pretty girl so I constantly felt like I was letting him down. I was a failure as a trophy girlfriend. Too many things are physically uncomfortable so I can’t be bothered to do them. The idea of spending money every week or two on my nails makes me want to have a panic attack. What a fucking waste of money. I’m not actually judging other people doing it… I don’t care.

It’s just… not for me.

I am not the kind of pretty girl who should have a cared for body. It takes effort and money and time and… no. It’s not for me.

That was true before Noah so it isn’t like I think my issues are about Noah. But he doesn’t care about me looking nice so when I have the vague flickering barely there impulse to try I simultaneously want to cry because no one wants that from me. They want it from other people and that is not for me.

It’s hard that what he would prefer to have is me playing video games. So I go from something I barely have an interest in to something I have a complete negative interest in and I feel like I’m failing to be what I should be. I’m not really interested in trying to be a pretty girl but I feel sad that I fail at it. I would love to never hear about video games again in my entire life and I can’t go an hour without them.

So yeah. The words get dammed up behind my lips and they come out in this flood. “Am I ok? Are the things that I want to have define me allowed? Is anyone interested in the person I would like to be but I feel like I need permission?”

It’s weird to me how often people tell me that they admire how myself I am.

You don’t see how much I cry because I feel like everything about me is wrong and not permitted and I am bad. I do not conform how I should. I don’t even know what I should be conforming to.

But I feel wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong.

I am very burnt out on doing almost nothing for the pregnancy. Everything about my self identity cracks when I cannot do much. I feel like my personhood stops existing. Now that most of what I’m doing is being a chair/nursing service for a baby…

There is so little me in this situation.

I’m sure Noah isn’t feeling much “like himself” but at least he is playing video games, which he likes.

I’m looking at online shopping shit I won’t let myself buy because it is all too much money. But it’s something to do while I’m trapped and bored. I’ve read several books. I’m bored. I feel frustrated and trapped and incompetent.

I feel like I want to be mean and mean and mean and mean. So mostly what I am is quiet.

Sarah–North Face looks better than Duluth Trading Company for the heavy long johns. Since we were talking about it. But at $100 a pop… yeah… my mid-weight long johns from REI will have to be enough. They are waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper. Maybe if I move somewhere with weather I will get desperate. But for the frigid California 50 degree winter… It’s ridiculous.

Overall Duluth Trading Company pants look fun though. I am not stylish.

I have found exactly one nursing dress I like. Apparently what I like in a nursing dress is hard to find? All of the previous dresses I had that were nursing compatible have died an ignoble death. I have a maternity dress that is nursing compatible (Thanks R! I am seriously living in your hand me downs.) and a dress that Ma gave me that has a loose neckline and I can just lower it. It wasn’t intended as a nursing dress but I have no modesty.

Otherwise I had retreated firmly into my overly modest what-do-you-mean-do-I-have-boobs sort of clothing. I expected to gain a lot more weight so a bunch of the maternity/nursing stuff I got second hand… doesn’t fit. I am not an XL. Apparently.

I’m so god damn bored. I don’t care about this shit. But it is something to think about when I would otherwise like to do mean things to myself because I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so bored.

I have even been productive. It’s disgusting.

I want people. I want socialization. I don’t want to reach out and risk rejection. I want to crawl into a closet and never come out. I feel so wrong today.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy is my mood so shitty.

Trying to find our places

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We are experiencing growing pains as a family. We are struggling with how to communicate around our current needs and limitations. It’s not just me who is short tempered and sharp. I am probably the sharpest but I’m not sure my temper is the shortest.

The big kids want to be helpful. They want to be responsible for their sister. They want to feel competent. This is tricky because there are pieces they can help with… but those aren’t the times that feel most satisfying to them and I get it. They want to comfort the baby and it feels really bad to them that the baby screams until she gets mommy. That feels bad and I get it. It is also hard that when the baby is distressed and screaming I am not good at patiently saying, “Please move so that I can do what I am doing to help the baby.” Instead I am irritable and I want to just nudge their head the heck out of my way.

We are trying to talk gently about these things when everything is calm, but this is hard. None of us have experience with this kind of thing. When MC was born EC was only two. She didn’t push hard to be helpful in the same way. She was still nursing and wearing diapers. Now she is on the verge of being ten and she wants to be allowed to sling the baby over her shoulder and carry her off for a diaper change.

Can we have a couple of weeks to let the baby get more sturdy first? Newborns are so terrifying in their fragility. By the time she is three or four months old I will probably be comfortable with that. I’m still not going to direct/demand such behavior. You are not a little mama who has to be responsible for the baby. But since you want to so bad… I will let you… soon…

But right now when her hips could dislocate so easily if you just lift too hard… I’m scared to let you. Newborns are terrifyingly vulnerable to me.

EC is struggling with the mix of responsibility, limitations, and privileges she has. She wants more and less. MC is struggling in different ways. They are feeling overwhelmed by not being older/more competent already. They are really upset about the things they can’t do yet. The stuff might be minor.

We need to find ways for MC to feel competence right now. They have to be allowed to try at things. EC needs to have access to a little more time to feel smug and delighted over her privileges.

They are both running headfirst, as fast as possible, into their limitations and that sucks. I have so much sympathy.

MC read me a book today!!!! They read The Gingerbread Man and they only needed help with half a dozen or so words! That was super exciting!!!! EC has been a little bit of a punk with making fun of MCs reading mistakes. I pointed out that at this exact same age EC couldn’t read a board book let alone a long picture book so just shut all the way up. Don’t you dare mock someone who is younger than you for their growing competence not being exactly the same as yours. This is my grumpiest face of all.

MC has actually made waaaaaaaaaaay more academic progress than I expected this year. They are doing great. EC continues to resist making math progress but has otherwise made fantastic leaps and bounds of progress in writing, storyboarding, research and documentation, science, reading, grammar, spelling, javascript, and general logic. She is working on a whole bunch of stuff and I’m impressed by her dedication to every subject other than math. Math is pissing her off. But math is improving now that we bought a whole bunch of manipulatives and I’m making her sit down to work on making math visual instead of just in her head. I’m also forcing her to work with scratch paper to write down the entire process of doing problems because just doing it in her head is not adequate. She got far that way and now she needs to see how far she can get with the proper support of seeing the steps worked out.

I’m actually kind of weirded out by how well she does with doing math in her head. I struggle to keep some of those concepts in my head the way she does it. I have to write stuff out or I can’t manage some of the problems she can just do. I think that giving her a few more ways to visualize and a little practice writing the steps out will be all she needs to leap frog through the areas she has struggled. We’ll see. I’m really looking forward to quitting the charter school so we can go back to block units. Doing everything all at once is so much harder for us.

MC’s shrink is excited we are getting them screened for ADHD because the shrink has seen definite signs even in one on one non-stressful settings and they are happy that MC will get support/recognition for how hard focus is for them.

We all learn best when we can fully immerse ourselves in a single subject for a few weeks or months at a time. We can cheerfully spend 4+ hours a day on something we are trying to learn but we really struggle with covering four or five subjects in a shorter amount of time spent every day. We struggle with getting our attention to shift. We struggle with feeling like we get tired and we don’t want to think anymore after the second or third subject. When we do one subject in a day we can spend a looooooong time enjoying it and we don’t get tired in the same way. The transitions wear us out. It wears out our patience and focus and attention and we just can’t absorb very much if there are more transitions.

I feel so grateful that my children ended up with brains like mine so that I am not failing to provide the kind of change/stimulation that someone else would need.

The kids did like 80% of the work to make a cake today and I bet they will handle all the decorating. We have mixes that are kind of old so I’m thinking this will be a nice trick to play a few times over the next few weeks. MC got to practice splitting egg yolks from whites, which is tricky and gives a sense of satisfaction of mastery as they learn. EC got to feel hyper-competent as they read all the directions and bossed the shit out of the process. And then we will eat it for dessert over the next few days. The kids feel so happy when they are able to provide for the table. They do a lot of other types of food, but making a dessert feels like a reward to cook and then eat.

I’m trying to think of tasks to set them that will allow them to learn something and feel happy about doing it.

Making another damn savory food… isn’t quite as satisfying in this moment. Because MC isn’t as motivated to cook and EC is already so good at making so many things.

They don’t want more responsibility for cleaning. They are both actively resisting a lot of the out-of-the-house social opportunities… they like hanging out with me and Noah more than other people.

I never anticipated this. My children just flat like me more than they like other people. Being with Noah is awesome. Why would they want to go hang out with children who will inevitably get on their nerves?

It’s fascinating. I really didn’t think it would work like this. I thought they would be irritated with me. I thought they would be demanding more social opportunities and classes and maybe school by now just to have more freedom. They feel like they have as much freedom as possible being with me rather than risking being under the auspice of any other adult.

I didn’t think I would be so cool to anyone ever in my life.

It’s interesting how EC is talking about moving. She has pretty much decided that she’s not going to hunt hard for new friends in our area. The people she likes the most are GU (Geographically Undesirable) and she doesn’t get to see them much. The neighborhood friends she has made have all moved away and we’ve lost contact because their parents are not interested in maintaining contact. All the other moms work and don’t have time to facilitate a relationship and that’s totally fair.

EC is looking forward to independent teenage/tween friendships and she has flat stated that it isn’t that good of an idea to hunt hard for people like that when we are getting ready to move because then moving will hurt too much.

She is so wise I can barely stand it.

MC is still holding on to a few local friends who have mothers who will still do play dates. That’s continuing to be good for them.

I’m thinking almost constantly about why I want to move. I’ve written up a few long posts and shoved them in my draft folder and they will never see the light of the internet proper. Pieces of this thought process are disgustingly petty and about running away from problems. I think way the fuck too much about people who probably don’t think about me at all.

Other pieces… I feel like there are layers of petty on top of real stuff and I’m trying to figure out how to handle the real stuff moving forward.

How do I move into having real friendships that are less codependent? How do I teach myself to pick friendships based on factors other than people needing me to do a kind of work for them? How do I learn how to feel like I can be part of a community?

It’s really bullshit that I don’t feel like I belong in any communities here. There are a bunch of communities where 90% of the people involved either enthusiastically welcome me or are 100% neutral because I’m a stranger. There are only a few people in any community that don’t like me much. It’s not really about those people.

Those people might be lenses through which some of my issues are magnified, but those people have no power over me.

How do I teach my brain that before I go meet new communities?

How do I teach myself to not be such an asshole? People don’t need me to fix their problems. They need me to accept and love them. I don’t need to clean someone’s house for them to be worthy of a friend. I don’t need to teach someone how to do something in order to be worthy of friendship.

I don’t have to buy friends, not with money and not with time spent working.

Hanging out with my family so much really does make it easier to understand that people don’t just value me for how much work I can do. There are long stretches where I’m a useless motherfucker and my kids and Noah still want me around even if I’m just sitting in a chair and being kind of a butthead.

It’s really weird.

This is such a healing experience.

I’m trying to figure out how to have this experience be healing for all the deep inherited wounds my kids have. Sometimes when they get upset about something, I feel like I can see the edges of ancestral guilt coming out. Sometimes when I explain why something works the way it does and I see the kids visibly relax I feel like I am doing the only work that can be done to heal my family line.

Even though I feel very guilty about not “having a job” and “doing something useful for society” this feels useful too. Learning what being ok feels like and learning how to talk about it… that feels useful and like I will never be able to help anyone else until I learn this in my bones.

I have never been able to learn this at the speed of life while doing other things. I’ve tried. This family is the most healing experience of my life. In ways big and small I struggle with fully articulating. These people make all the suffering worth while. I am glad I am here so I can feel this good.

Even as my back hurts like a motherfucker. Let’s not discuss my arms. It’s bad.

There are many kinds of pain. Physical pain is really not the worst thing that has happened to me. I’m conscious that other people have had far more physical pain than me and maybe I shouldn’t have so much hubris about my insignificant bone breaks and maulings. I could experience far more physical pain.

But when I felt the ring of fire my internal response was, “Awesome! Now this is real!”

I was so glad to have that pain. It meant my baby was almost earth side and I wanted to meet her more than anything.

I’m not so good at the emotional pain. I have been in a loving family for almost 12 years. Almost 1/3 of my life. I feel so lucky that I get to be here with these people.

This is my dream come true.

And I want to move somewhere with my favorite people and build connections to new communities. Communities that I did not join when I was desperately broken and I felt like I had to earn my place with sex and pain and work. I want to know what it would be like to not walk into parties and be able to count off my lovers.

I want to know what it would be like to interact with communities from the point of view of coming from a family unit instead of being perceived as extremely expendable.

It’s going to be a whole new world for me.