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Part 2

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I’ve been thinking a lot about Part 2. Meaning the next stuff after Part 1 of the autobiography. (Already available for sale here.)

Part 2 is really two books. Because there are two different things going on. There is, first and foremost, what I want my children to know about me so that if I ever get hit by a bus they can understand who I am, where I come from, and maybe they won’t take my crazy so personally. Then… If I’m honest at all I’d like to write a tawdry little one-handed reading story that really explains the useful things I got from bdsm.

I grew up in the bdsm community. I was there from 18-25. That’s what I did with my time and energy. I learned how to be a pervert.

The thing is… I feel like a lot of the lessons and interesting things I learned in the community are things that you really don’t have to know “my” whole story to get value from. You don’t have to know Krissy Gibbs to be able to learn from the lessons I experienced.

Really this comes down to the fact that I’d like to have a Part 2 I can hand my kids and one I can say never never read this book.

It’s not for you. Because you can never unsee what you have seen. You can never unknow what you know about your mom.

I sorta think that the not-for-kids Part 2 doesn’t even really need to be about me. It needs to be about what I learned. I’ve been thinking really hard about whether or not I want to write it as an autobiography anyway.

The lessons I learned were complicated and layered and took a very long time of being whacked in the head to really get to where I was going. A book will have trouble conveying that. A book needs lessons that happen with a frame and an arc.

I was talking to my friend Tay about why he isn’t getting into the Outlander series. It sounded like complaints Jenny has made about the same series. I told him to stop bothering. It’s not going to be for him. Outlander doesn’t have a point. She isn’t telling you a story so that you can learn about Scotland in the 18th century. There isn’t a point. It’s just happening.

If I wrote Part 2 about the bdsm community and I did it like I did No Secrets then it would be… weird and kind of boring. It really wouldn’t be hot. If I want the kinky Part 2 to work… I sort of think this will need a frame. This will need a narrative hook. This will need to draw in people who have never known me and who will never know me.

I wonder if I will have to leave the abuse out entirely. Not abuse by my Owner–I mean my childhood stuff. Which will… substantially change the story. If I leave out all the “why” stuff from my childhood… I will have to come up with entirely different character motivation. That’s kind of wild.

I asked Noah the other day how he knows I love my mother. He said that not very many people are capable of hurting themself the way I have since childhood out of a desire to not have my emotions be a problem for people around me. Clearly I have strong feelings. He says it is obvious that it is love. I am less convinced that it is obvious.

What possible motivation would someone else have to behave how I did in a Master/slave relationship? That’s kind of hard to come up with. I feel like if I leave out the cutting, self-mutilation, eating issues and various other self-harm stuff I deal with then it won’t make sense why I needed to learn the lessons I needed to learn. Why in the fuck else was bdsm so much better? Why was getting my boyfriend to slap me in the face better than what I had been doing?

I’m not sure how to tell the story without making it clear that what I did with my Owner was better in every way compared to what came before. And still make it hot.

This will really not be a book for my kids. Which means I’m thinking really hard about what I will say in Part 2 for the kids. I had a four year long relationship with a man. We lived together for three years. He was really nice to me and he encouraged me to finish college. Eventually I broke up with him because I wanted kids and he didn’t.

I mean… that’s what happened, right?

Don’t tell the kids that “very nice to me” included locking me, while naked, in a wooden crate on the back deck. It was raining and freezing. It included sleeping in a 3’x3’x4′ steel cage. Because he thought it was hot. I had atrophied neck muscles from the collar that was locked on me. I deformed my calf muscles wearing high heels. He broke my arm during a bondage scene. I had the casting technician put in attachment points.

No wonder I have back problems.

If you treat someone like an animal for enough years there are consequences.

Why in the fuck was this so much better?

It was. It really was. He was honest with me. How do I make it clear to my children that sometimes you have no good choices and a bad choice is a good choice. While not making it sound like a good idea to go try that sort of shit.

I got into an argument once over Moll Flanders. Someone was very critical of “how dare she make those choices”. I get it. I mean, the book was written by a man and I think it shows, but I get it. I get why people become hard and make choices that seem unthinkable to other people. I get it.

Moll Flanders is not respectable, likable, nor particularly good. She is instead heart-breakingly real. People suck.

My bonus kids have been here for almost 24 hours. I get to keep them till tomorrow. This is very exciting.  We are getting along really well this time. Last time was great too. We are learning how to be together. We are growing into one another. We can anticipate one another’s needs and quirks.

This time… Bonus Middle Child tickled me. I’m not sure that has ever happened before. His early visits involved a fair bit of him hiding behind my bed with a blanket over his head because we overwhelmed him like fuck. He was used to being the loudest one in his house. (Now he has a sister. Ha.)

He is so engaged. He has asked to play a bunch of games. He negotiates and talks. He can talk about things other than space. This is huge progress. When the girls are picking on him he says, “It hurts my feelings when you call me that. Please stop.”

My kids are doing better too. They are giving space better. They are less aggressive with, “Everything has to be my way.”  I’m not sure I have had to say “Who is the mama here?” even once.

I want four kids. I don’t ever want a baby again. I am so forking grateful that Bonus Baby is almost not-a-baby. She is talking so well. She has so many questions. She wants me to describe everything she touches. It’s a lot of fun. She lights up when she leans on me to say, “Krissy, what this?” She is so excited that I am happy to answer every question. She is annoyed that she has to enunciate. Life’s rough, kid.

She is very very upset with me about enforcing “Inside voice” but I can live with that. When a kid starts screaming I take them by the hand (or pick them up, whatever is necessary) and I move to the back yard. I’ve stopped negotiating or reminding. You aren’t in trouble. I’m not punishing you. I’m helping you build the body memory “I only scream in the back yard.”

By “very upset with me” I mean she cries every time I put her in the back yard for a minute. Maybe two. Then she gets over it and goes back to playing.

I like playing with kids so much. Today we planted milkweed because my neighbor gave me milkweed seeds. I sure hope they come up. I will give them to neighbors all over the area.

Let’s coax some monarchs.

It was really fun to garden with the Bonus Kids. They have eleventy-billion questions. My kids aren’t questioners. I remain convinced that my kids don’t ask “Why” because I already overwhelm them with information. I am sad and proud.

Chiropractor says I’m very enflamed. What are you doing?! Err… being me. Clearly this isn’t a good idea.

25 days to go.

This week we must go to the park with the home school group for the year book picture. I’ve been with the group for most of the school year, even if I’ve been kinda flakey. I want representation. I’m not opting out, yet. And Shanna insists that she wants to go to the park for the selling-things day. So we have a couple home school things coming up. (Selling things is in two weeks.)

We also have a birthday party with the group this week. I hope it goes well. The person hosting is completely unaware that I’m having issues with folks. So I’ll smile and nod, like I do.

This week I want to take the van in for more work. I have four spiffy new tires. They were not able to do the air breaks that day. I also want to get an oil change. Just because. During the oil change I will have my friendly, cheap-as-heck, super competent mechanic check absolutely everything else.

Next week I get a hair cut. Then Shanna gets a hair cut. She wants her hair dyed with pink and blue vertical stripes. Uhm, sure.

Some wonderful friends will let me hide in their guest room for three days at the end of May. I will have quiet time. Otherwise we have dinner with one set of friends, see Pam twice and that’s it.

We are almost done with socializing and checking in with people. We will miss a lot of people. We’ve made the rounds. I have lots of time for putting spoons in drawers over the next three weeks.

I am ~75% packed. I will be completely done by the end of May. My theory is: if all that shit can’t sit in my van in my driveway this trip just won’t work. And I don’t want the back strain of trying to pack in a hurry. I’m doing little pieces as I go.

I’m scared. This is probably a fucking stupid thing to do. But I want it so so so so so so bad.

Go slow. We’ll make it.

Only one more swim class before we leave. Only nine more visits with the babysitter. Boo hoo hoo hoooooooooooo. That is the hardest sounding one.

I fucking love our babysitter. But Portland is calling my name. I should probably call Aunt Cookie today. I wrote her a letter. Then changed the dates after I sealed the envelope and neither sent the letter nor wrote another one.

Mail sucks.

Ok, that’s all the kid-off time I will be getting.

Just one more day

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Today Shanna announced that it is sometimes appropriate to wear all black. That is a milestone sorta moment.

I’m thinking about the overlap of the movie The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio and failure. What does failure mean?

We are all small pieces in the stories of one another’s lives. I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. It seems to me that other people believe the past should be over and done. In thinking about the past I understand the present. Through perspective I get why I’m doing what I am doing. Why I will do what I will do.

Connect, connect, that’s what we all want. Whether it is through selling something or through buying big old big-ukkkie yuck well. Or something. What the fuck was that? I don’t even know.

White men help white men. White women help… I don’t fucking know.

Sometimes I feel like a race traitor. I don’t type that very often. But I think it. Often.

Especially when I watch movies like like “The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio” and watch how white men are supported without ever knowing the price of bearing them. No one ever says life is easy. This is true.

I think about the past because it helps me figure out why I want to do what I want to do. I want to forget. I want to stop thinking about pain. I want to stop hurting. I don’t know how. I’m told, by asshole men, that the path forward is just to forget. To stop thinking about the things that have happened to me. The things that shaped who and what I am. I am not a dumb grazing animal standing under a tree. I am a complex being.

I am not important.

Don’t get me wrong.

I’m just not stupid. To be fair I’m sure there are asshole women with the same opinion. They just feel less need to track down my Twitter feed to tell me how stupid I am.

“That’s not enough”

“It never is”

“How is Dad going to fill the freezer when he can’t even buy the milk?”

“I have no idea honey but at least he has a goal.” (From the above referenced movie.)

I feel sad. I feel disconnected. I feel like my bills are not the point of life. I pay my bills. Oh fucking well.

I feel happy. I feel connected. I feel like I am unusually well connected with friends. All along the way we toss out some of the most interesting, most enlightened people.

I think a lot about bravery. Why do we try the things we try? Do we have to see someone else do it first? Just try. Just try. What the fuck does autocorrect do anyway?

Violence, meanness, write it down. There is just a hole lot of mean in the world. This is literally just what is pouring out my head as my fingers hurt. Can’t type enough. My problems are many and varied and are never that I’m not happy enough. And all of the problems fall through the hole in the whole world.

End.

End.

End.

The end.

Didn’t sleep enough

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My stomach feels fussed. I wish I could stop thinking about a situation with a person. Maybe it would help. My sweet baby-cakes woke up to babble full-speed about Minecraft. It is hilarious. Right now she is cleaning the floor because she really wants me to play zombies with her.

What do I get out of liking someone so much that I stop liking me?

Ok, she decided tutorials were better than zombies. I see how it is.

I’m really tired. I stayed up much too late for the show. Otherwise I feel like things are going ok. I feel like I am pulling away from the situations where I’m experiencing actual distress. That’s for the best.

I am nervous about an interview today. It is for the campus newspaper where I graduated from college. It was put out on the Rape/incest network. Sure, I’ll show up for an interview. The last one didn’t go anywhere because the reporter went on maternity leave and just…. stopped working. Whoops.

Today will be ok.

Wistful bits

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On phone. Today I have big feelings. It was really nice to support a small friend through a growing up ritual. Now we are at a music show. They Might Be Giants. This is my 4th? 5th? Time seeing them over 18 years.

I feel reaffirmed in my view that a theatre career is not in my future because staying up hurts.

why such big feelings? It was a good day. I think because I keep understanding new layers about family. Families are hard even when they are easy. I remain overwhelmed with gratitude for my children. Even when they drive me nuts I think they are perfect.

not better than other peoples kids in an objective way. Perfect for me. I feel continually challenged to grow.

 

Should I stay or should I go now

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I leave in 32 days. On one hand… I’d like to leave tomorrow. On the other hand… I am scared. I’m scared of pain and failure. My hands hurt. Sometimes gripping things is a problem. Notice how good I’m being about not typing much? Trying to heal.

My belly hurts. I’m hungry. Dinner was light.

So many feelings. My shrink is pushing me to change how I interact with people. Make my plans and move forward. Don’t try so hard to get people on the same page. Don’t ask for specifics. Don’t try to nail people down to actual agreement. Either they show up or they don’t. Either their plans work or they don’t. She wants me to stop canceling a whole day of plans when someone in an inner circle speaks up and wants time. She wants me to reserve less time for people based on the emotional weight I give the relationship.

People will show up or not and I burn a lot of energy on planning and trying to get people to commit. Folks don’t like committing.

I feel like my shrink is being really fucking bossy lately. She’s given me more specific feedback on “X friendship doesn’t seem to be meeting your needs and you should step back” over the past few months. She’s pushing me to push people away. I have feelings about that.

She wants me to have more boundaries around me.

One of my lovely neighbors asked if I wanted her to come over so she can help me weed the garden. We will work on my abysmal Mandarin and her moderate English at the same time. Sounds fabulous. (Oh, Pam: she was sad when I said you were not available to join us. She wishes your grandmother a speedy recovery; she wishes more grandchildren were so dutiful.)

Splitting the kids into separate rooms was the right choice. As was coming down like a box of hammers over eating out. That stopped the fighting that was reaching a fevered pitch. Calli hasn’t felt the need to get in my face and tell me off since. Thank goodness. Having separate space is such a fabulous novelty that when I declare cool-off-time in separate rooms everyone is cheerful and excited. I’m aware that it will change over time.

We are going to have adventures with “I get to decide who is allowed in my room”.

We are still slowly dividing up belongings to figure out what gets stored where. It’s a process.

I think it is funny that Shanna wanted her bed flipped back into a bunk bed because this way it has sides and she doesn’t fall off the platform. A low bed isn’t safer for her.

Calli has been exhausted lately. She must be growing. She’s been napping more days than not for a week or two. Good timing. Outgrow your clothing now, before we leave on the trip.

I’m bleeding. This will be my last period using cloth pads until December. It’s disposables for most of the year. Ew, tampons. Owie, yucky, fuss, and ick. And yet the cloth pads hurt my tail bone.

32 days to go. I’m slowly getting the house cleaner. I’m not sure why I prioritize this as much as I do other than… when we come home it will be such a pleasure. I won’t have cubbies of delayed work waiting to crash on my head. I’m even doing my fucking filing.

My garden is wonderful. I have taken pictures. I should post them. Which means I should plug my phone in and transfer pictures. erk.

More doc follow up

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I’ve been seeing the chiropractor for a bit now. My arms burn like fire. I’m told that is part of the nerve regeneration/healing process after years of being pinched. God I hope so. My lower back is a web of pain non-stop. My neck feels better. My headaches are diminishing.

I like the doctor on a personal level. He has a great bedside manner. He always has suggestions and tips and explanations. I appreciate that.

I like changes.

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Things are moving around in the house. This is glorious for me. I love rearranging. Lots of furniture has left. Very little is going to replace it. We will get a small dresser for Calli. But the armoire and huge dresser are gone. This means Calli’s room and the garage feel much more open and spacious.

The van is mostly packed. Tomorrow I will probably get everything else out of the garage and side shed. Food won’t be packed and that’s ok. There are a few hanging details left to arrange, but things are plugging along.

I ordered Shanna a larger bathing suit because all of her size 6 stuff is getting ridiculously small. She’s between size 6 and 7–it depends on the brand and the style of clothing. It’s kind of funny, this is the closest her age and her size have been in her life.

Signed on for AAA. The ultra-woo-hoo version where they will tow you for 200 miles. Card is in the mail.

Emailed the travel itinerary to most folks. I’m sure I missed some people.

Because I’m a dork I now have Shanna’s birthday present, Santa present, Christmas jammies, and a new fun outfit. Most of these things have just kind of been sitting around waiting for her to get to this size. They are not new purchases. So I will have to look for Calli on the road. They both have ornaments for this year, barrettes, and a glitter tattoo thing for their stockings. I am not going to be willing to come home from this trip and do a lot of Christmas shopping. So I’m trying to be mostly done before I leave.

I have a bad habit of buying stuff WAY too big. Which means stuff sits around waiting for Shanna to grow into things. Then I scramble to have Calli get something. But, she actually gets stuff she wants. Shanna gets whatever I bought however long ago. Ha.

I’m resettling the school stuff. Only 12 more days in our school year. Things are going so fast.

+1

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Increased the spoon count in my drawer! This is awesome. I ran away from home and spent a day with Sarah. A day remembering that I don’t have to take care of everyone at every time. Sometimes I can just be with someone. Sometimes I’m ok, even if the things I talk about are intense.

Even when what I want to talk about is why we have had huge problems that blew up in our faces. I can trust you to have the conversation and still act like we had the conversation later. It is unique.

I fucking appreciate that Sarah can say that part of the reason she melted down is because as soon as she moved in I added things I was responsible for: writing, Occupy, Wicked Grounds and she couldn’t take what I was sloughing. It helps me see how I screwed up so I can behave differently next time.

I’m not perfect. I screw up. I just don’t necessarily see how my screw ups effect other people. Feedback allows me to tweak.

It’s funny how a few hours with Sarah leave me feeling like I can go accomplish a lot of things. Sarah believes in me.

Splitting the bedrooms is going well. I’m moving the house around again. More furniture is going away. Means more stuff needs to be rehomed or eliminated. I am wicked happy about that. It’s funny how we will have even more of House-by-Ikea after this.

The end of an era.

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The girls now have their own rooms. I have divided up their stuff. There are still a few layers of sorting… but basically we are done. No more shared giggles to sleep.

It seems way too soon.

But goodness it will be useful to have separate rooms for them to go to. Sometimes we need cool off space.

I pushed too hard. My body hurts.

Stuff is moving around

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This week I’ve been thinking about how people have very different things to offer and very different things they want. That’s for the best. The world would be boring if everyone was the same.

If you can take people for where they are and accept the best they have to offer, you can call that friendship. Even if what they have to offer isn’t very much. I have folks in my neighborhood I would call friends. We don’t have that much to offer one another most of the time, but we enjoy the conversations we have. We enjoy the interactions we have.

What are acquaintances then? I don’t know. They just don’t exist these days.

There are a lot of sombodies that I used to know. I wouldn’t say I know them any more. I would say I’ve met them.

One of my friends uses the word “pals” to indicate the people you spend time with but with whom you don’t necessarily feel safe.

Maybe I should adopt it.

I want community. I want to watch kids grow up. I want to support people and be supported. I have spent a lot of my life looking for my circle of friends a la The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Where are the women who will take my children aside and tell them everything about me so that they can repair the damage I will inevitably do?

It has never appeared. The window is past. It will never happen. No one has ever been able to see enough of my life. I don’t stand still long enough. People only know hearsay.

Which means I just can’t fuck up very much. Because there is no one who will fix it for me. Not with my kids. With everyone else in the whole world… if I fuck it up… I will move on. They will move on.

I can’t hurt my kids.

Noah has wisely suggested that I take a few days off between now and the road trip. I don’t have a lot to give right now. My attempt to put spoons in my drawer has manifestly failed so far. I only have 38 days to go. I need to change how I’m behaving fast. This is my absolute last chance to stock up.

Transitions

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I’m different than I was. What does that mean? Part of what it means is I don’t want to exist for someone else’s gratification. I want to get pleasure out of my own existence. For years now sex hasn’t been that great for me. It is hard for me to get off. I can masturbate, but that makes sex seem… kind of irrelevant. If I’m getting me off and you aren’t, what good are you?

But I haven’t had the time nor the energy to put into the kind of sex that does get me off. Which… sucks for Noah. Because I’m heading in the lesbian bed death direction.

I mean shit, I’m slacking off to 5-6 times a month really consistently. I’m getting bitter as fuck about the quota. We talked last night about how we should probably kind of back off on that for a bit. This isn’t working for me.

What does work for me? It’s complicated.

I am looking forward to a break. So I can stop worrying about his needs for a while and I can think about what I like and want.

It isn’t really that I want to stop having sex. I want to stop having sex that is taking one for the team. I’ve been doing that for six years, almost seven years and I’m done done done. I need my sex life to be about my pleasure.

And, mixing in with internal physical confusion I have so many external triggers going on. Shanna and I will be going through Texas when she is the same age I was when I was raped in Texas. I’m having feelings. Calli has been… uhm…. rebellious and difficult for a while. I am rereading the 4 year old book. I’m so fucking grateful for these books. The intransigence out of nowhere is common and normal. Respond with humor and not like the kid is misbehaving. Fuck. I’m really not naturally a “respond with humor” kind of person. That takes enormous physical and mental strain for me. I’m tired.

But, I can find a way. Because I want a relationship with this kid in the long-term. I have to get us through rocky stages with grace or I won’t get it. Because I won’t deserve it.

I feel really guilty sometimes because Shanna feels like my idealized self–if things had been perfect I would have been like that. Calli is… more like my real self. She reacts the way I do. Even though I’m very certain she hasn’t been traumatized. She’s been watched too carefully. But she is so sensitive.

Shanna can let things roll off her back. She doesn’t take everything personally. If someone is in a bad mood it is their problem. If I am in a bad mood Calli is in a bad mood. She’s like a weather vane. That’s hard for me.

I have to actually process my emotions in order to not feel them around Calli. I can’t act like I’m not feeling them and call it good. Shanna will tolerate me having feelings and she can still have a good day. Calli can’t. That’s really hard. It feels not fair. I’ve been having a lot of bad days. This means Calli is havig a lot of bad days and… I can see her modeling off of me. And I feel so ashamed. I don’t want to teach her broken ways of being.

Which means I need to work on many of my behaviors again. Frustrating.

Luckily the book says that I need to work on deep breathing and being funny to distract. I wonder if it will help me with my emotions or if I will just have to find a different way of burying them.

And Shanna needs more reminders. Because she is not looking outward the way she did. So, more patience. That’s what I need. More patience.

*beat head on wall*

I’m running dry. I need something. I don’t know what.

Fuck ups and growing pains

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When the things you want and need change, it hurts. It hurts because people still want to give you the things they previously gave you. There is an established pattern to the behavior already. Asking for a change is… complicated.

Mostly it doesn’t work. Relationships mostly don’t evolve very well.

Last weekend Noah did something that he has done many times before. It was ok before. It isn’t ok any more. That’s complicated.

We’ve been talking about it a lot. Like we do. Something needs to change.

Really, a lot of things need to change. I just don’t understand every step of how or to what yet. It hurts. It means Noah hurts me without meaning to do so. It means I need to step back from my feeling of hurt and look at intent and forgive. Even though that sticks in my craw.

I don’t want to be one more white bitch defending not-ok-behavior from a white guy.

Life is very complicated.

Is that a good thing?

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I have been to see a chiropractor. Someone my friend recommended. I’m having positive experiences! This is… wacky.

He’s super mellow and nice and considerate. He is a good listener. He is very interested in setting appropriate expectations. He is very willing to back off if I feel triggered at all and he knows some specific language around PTSD. Go him! He took his doctors coat off a few minutes into my medical history. He said, “You know what? Some people find this reassuring but I don’t think it will go that way with you. I’m going to just remove it.”

That was… a big deal. Thank you for trying to equalize our apparent “standing”.

He showed me a lot of x-rays of my spine. Well no shit I hurt. When things are supposed to be in a straight line they are crooked like a staircase. When something is supposed to have a curve I have the wrong curve. Sometimes all the way in the other direction! Numerous vertebrae have bone spurs and my spine is compacted in several places to such a degree that there is bone degradation.

My hips are 8mm out of whack. (Meaning one leg is trying to merge itself back up with my body. Apparently that’s not good.)

Given that Dr. Woo seems to have helped me quite a bit (I should probably send him a follow up email explaining why I haven’t come back) I’m feeling optimistic. Dr. Chiro has the potential to be a force for good.

I will take every positive association I can have with white guys.

I’m still in the same amount of pain, but he said that is normal after the first day. I’m having a hard time not rotating my neck.

So the top vertebrae in your spine is supposed to be stacked neatly on top of the one below it. Mine is off to one side. (Pushed towards my left ear.) Apparently that isn’t good.

I love validation.

Big feelings

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I didn’t sleep last night. Trying not to feel like I’m drowning in failure.

Why is it so hard to believe that I am capable of doing anything right? Why do I feel like I get everything wrong?

I feel so sad it is hard to find the energy to stir my tea.

Today is clearly maxing out the “depression” symptoms as opposed to the anxiety symptoms.

And I’m off smoking pot till December. Edibles it is. Oh man. They don’t do mood elevation. They level out anxiety but don’t cause me to feel more cheerful.

45 days until we leave. This minute it feels like the most mind-bendingly stupid thing I could do. I am too stupid to pull this off. I’m going to get stuck and hurt my kids and…

I’m very scared. My whole body hurts from fear.

Half an hour into baby sitting and I’ve barely moved. I haven’t finished a cup of tea. This much typing in that length of time is… barely moving. I can type 3,000 words an hour. 150 in 30 minutes means I’m mostly not thinking.

I think I’m going back to bed.

Identity

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I think a lot about being “nice”. I’m not sure why. I censor a lot of what I want to write because I’m afraid of the negative responses.

Thing is, I get most of the negative responses whether I carefully consider my words here or not. It’s kind of funny. Being paranoid about not saying much doesn’t change my experience of peoples behaviors. It just makes me feel shitty.

I don’t write so that I can try to win friends and influence people. I write so that I can try to create a complete and accurate picture of myself.

I’m not always nice. Sometimes I’m a big asshole.

I feel like maybe I need to be less afraid of that. I’m not sure why I have such a problem with being perceived as not-nice. There isn’t much punishment I can take for it any more that matters.

Not really. I am a privileged mother fucker. The folks I care about already know I’m an asshole. They accept it and tell me to not do it in their direction and things work out.

I need to not care so much about people outside the circle.

This is the Monkey Sphere. It’s shrinking. Maybe my Monkey Sphere isn’t as big as I thought. I can only care about so many people in a day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn’t looking good either.

Hurry up, now

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My overwhelming joy at adding Portland to the trip makes me feel like it is the right choice. I emailed folks with confirmation and received responses with lots of exclamation points.

I feel scared. Sometimes being scared means that I don’t feel brave enough to walk near people because I’m afraid that they don’t love me and really they wish I would just go away and stop bothering them. No, it’s not rational. Yes, it is very annoying.

I’m doing my best. I’m reaching out as much as I can. I am traveling as far as I can to meet people. If they want to meet me partway then I can find a way to include them. Partway doesn’t have to be in miles. It is emotional. If people let me know that I am important and they really want to see me…

I’m kind of like a stray dog. If you love me I am yours.

I am very happy we get to see Aunt Cookie. She has been a wonderful lady to me for years. I am very happy that blacksheep will be in Portland. Dad said he is going to take some time off work to spend with us. He apologized for being lame about writing.

I know that most of my friends have as many reasons to have psych problems as me. Ok, maybe not quite as many reasons… but enough. Plenty. A surfeit.

If I can’t love them where they are, how they are… then I get nothing.

I continue to struggle with the fact that people can only do their best. If it isn’t enough that isn’t their fault and you can’t punish them for that.

I get to see my friends. I will get loved on. I will get to hear stories. I will sit with people who have known me for all of the years of my adulthood. I will get to bring my children to the knee of people in their family for stories.

That’s a big deal to me. I want my children to find out about their family. Their aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. I don’t know much about my family and the bits I do know about I mostly won’t share with children this young. Noah’s family is what there is to offer. So I will travel far and wide to make it possible for my children to find out who they are and where they come from. This is as much of your story as I can make plain for you. I’m doing my best.

I have been feeling not ok about missing Aunt Cookie. I’ve been feeling sad about missing my friends.

It’s funny how sometimes making a decision lets you know that it is the wrong decision.

I feel so much gratitude that I get to go through this process. That I get to learn these lessons and see these people and have these experiences. I am going to have a lot of fun.

Today has been another emotional roller coaster. I’m glad it was a happy one.

Surprise

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When I woke up this morning I had 59 days left to prepare for the road trip. Then I spoke to a friend who let me know that she and her family are making sure they are available when I’d like to see them. After I’d counted on not being able to see them.

I’m making the trip longer. It’s not just them. I’ve been feeling really angsty and sad about missing Aunt Cookie. I’m very happy to add her back onto the itinerary.

 

But we leave in 47 days now. Because that’s just how things roll sometimes.

Good thing I ordered the plug in cooler thing this morning so it can ship in time. I had better go to REI today to get the stoves fixed. All of a sudden I have less than 7 weeks to go.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYY