Tonight I’ve been working on editing the book.  Reading this makes me feel like I have been kicked in the stomach.  It’s hard to wrap my head around these things happening to me when I am not sitting very still and concentrating on the story.  I dissociate so well.

Sometimes Noah says things to me that really bother me.  He said that it isn’t actually surprising that things started so bad so early because otherwise I never would have adapted.  If you are treated well at all you can’t handle being hurt like I was when I was older.  You just don’t have the instincts for it.  I feel rather mixed.  Ok, that’s not what he said word for word.  But that is as close as I remember.

As I’m editing this book I’m thinking hard about what the next book will be.  I think it should be a children’s book.  I want to find a way to explain me to my kids in a way that is appropriate for very young children.  Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry is a good book, but it doesn’t feel all that applicable to my kids.  If I want them to have a story I think I have to write it.  I want to find a way to introduce the issues around my anger and defensiveness in a way that clearly lets them know it is never their fault and never about them.  It really isn’t.  I have issues.  That happens sometimes.  How do my kids grow up understanding that not everyone is like me?  Mostly they will meet lots of people and just notice on their own.  I don’t want to excuse my behavior.  But I do want them to have a chance of understanding.

I don’t take it for granted that I will have a relationship with any of the people I know today in twenty years.  Not Noah, not my kids, none of my friends.  I am still in contact with very few people I knew twenty years ago.  B.  That’s it.  Our contact is kind of tentative and nebulous and often absent for months or years.  I hope I deserve to still have a relationship with my daughters in twenty years.

I’m struggling emotionally with the vast array of things I have no control over.  Right now I am appreciating my therapist.  She’s good at kind of smirking at me in a way that lets me know that I am over-extending my desire to control.  There is so little I have actual control over in this world.  It’s hard to admit that out loud.  It’s galling.

I’m not sure if I am getting sick or if I am just having physical symptoms of stress.  I fell down today after a lovely dizziness episode.  I wish I hadn’t done it outside on a gravel bed, but oh well.  After that my abdomen was so sensitive my pants felt horribly tight.  I felt like I was very pregnant trying to wear too-tight pants.  That feeling seems to have stopped.  I have had a blinding headache since yesterday.  The muscles in my neck are locked up tight and spasming.  Good times.  I think I’ve been remarkably chipper.  I won’t be taking the kids to Fairyland tomorrow by myself.  Holy moly am I not up for that right now.  I didn’t even run today.  I’ve been managing three days a week of running pretty well but I am having a nasty transition to running four days a week.  I also feel kind of weird about my continued weight loss.  Today I dropped below 150 pounds.  That’s thinner than I thought I could maintain while actually eating food.  As I sit here about to polish off half a box of cookies… I’m just not concerned.  I primarily eat locally raised organic vegetables and fruit, local pastured meat, and a mildly excessive amount of noodles.  It’s ok that I eat cookies sometimes.  I’m dropping weight like I made a New Years resolution.  I swear I’m not trying to lose weight.

I feel really weird about how my body is changing.  I feel like I have lost any right to ever talk about my body experiences as a fat person.  I’m not fat any more.  I can’t use the terms for myself I am used to using.  I have been this thin as an adult.  The last time I was this weight my stomach was concave and you could count my ribs.  That isn’t at all what I look like this time.  I don’t understand bodies.  I’m not even eighteen months postpartum.  I still have a fair bit of belly, though it shrinks by the day.  I have had these firm beliefs most of my life that I simply couldn’t be a thin person.  My German-peasant-stock body just wasn’t going to do that.  I was wrong.  Apparently it just takes 10+ miles of running a week.  No wonder I never bothered doing this before.

I am finally getting to the point where I can attain runners high.  I’ve never pushed myself that hard before.  It’s an interesting experience.  I don’t think I am going to ever be passionate about running.  I’m doing it because I want to know that I ran in the same race as my brother.  I did it.  I can do this with him.  I am really and truly part of that piece of shit family.  It hurts to feel like you are never going to be allowed to think of yourself as part of the family.  Even though I don’t want them.  Even though I am going to avoid contact with my family for the rest of my life.  I love them and want them so much.  I wish they wanted me.  I wish they saw me and were proud.  I wish that at the end of the marathon my brother would smile at me and hug me.  I’m not going to hold my breath.

My brother believes that the only way for people like us to be good parents is to keep our fucking mouths shut and just not pass on the trauma to the next generation.  I disagree with him.  I think that part of being a good parent is talking about things.  I also think that part of being a good parent is going out and doing very hard things and showing your children that it is possible.  Anything is possible if you want it bad enough.  Even though I feel like a piece of shit now, I can change that.  I can find a way to have worth in my own eyes.  Eventually I will be able to feel like I am a good person.  Anything is possible if you want it bad enough.

Ok, I actually only ate two cookies.  But they were hella good.