Nights/mornings like these are the reason I tell people not to worry about my “triggers”; you can’t possibly figure them all out. No one can.

Someone I barely know on the internet posted about how her mother died years ago and left a bunch of quilting projects in process. She sent the pieces to her mother in law (because she is a master quilter) and now the woman I know talked about the joy she feels getting these pieces back finished. It’s like more love arriving postmortem.

It has made me cry and cry and cry. Why don’t I get to have a mother who wants to take care of me? Why did that pass me by this lifetime? My mother didn’t want me from conception. She was raped. She gave me the bare amount of care necessary to keep me from dying for a lot of my life.

I like to look at my children when they are sleeping. I like to think about how much I want them. If they disappeared my life would be over. It’s not exactly a healthy response. I think that I love them with all the love I couldn’t give anyone else in my life as a child. I love them as my daughters and my sisters and my friends and my mothers. I don’t have anyone else of my blood and I never will. Well, they could grow up and have children. But that is decades away.

Babysitting makes me think of my mother. He’s adjusting, slowly. It’s hard for him. He is to young to be able to understand what is going on and my girls are being kind of jerks to him. They are young enough to not be able to be sympathetic. They are playing the “Hey if we scream in his face he cries and that is funny” game. It’s not nice. They are also both wildly jealous of this interloper touching theirMama. This sweet little boy was left in my care because his mother trusts me. I don’t want to fuck this up. I cuddle him when he wants it even though it bothers the girls. They can adjust too. It doesn’t make me love them any less because I am rocking an interloper on my lap.

To be honest it makes me think it is highly convenient that my kids are on the smaller side because I can still rock both of them on my lap at once. With the boy I am babysitting it’s a one kid ride. It was weird cuddling him as he fell asleep. With my kids I can’t put an arm on their body as they are falling asleep. Shanna says it hurts. My arm is too heavy. This little boy held on to my hand so that my whole arm stayed on him. He didn’t want to be alone so he held me hostage. It was quite wonderful. I’m not Mama but I’m ok. He is starting to trust me more.

He got a huge goose egg last night. He and Shanna were running around as usual and they slammed into one another before bouncing off of separate walls. Of course I feel like a horrible child abuser. I let them get hurt. I honestly think it is better for them to run and get hurt so I will have this feeling again before too long. Free range parenting is not for the feint hearted. I think they collided because it was right before bed time and they both had slower reflexes than usual. They have to learn how their bodies work. I can’t teach them that by lecturing them and controlling their movement. I have to let them figure it out. That will be painful. For everyone.

I wonder if I will ever stop missing my mother. Somehow I doubt it. I think I will miss her on the day I die. I don’t understand Noah not feeling connected to his mother. I could understand breaking contact because you have to. God I miss my mother. It feels like this ache will never go away. But she hurt me so much. She would hurt my children. I can’t allow that. It doesn’t really matter that I would like to still be on the roulette wheel of abuse with her. It would be something. My mother does love me.

I can’t handle the lying. I can’t handle the stealing. I can’t handle being told that I should be grateful for all that people do for me as I serve them. No one else gets to set the terms of my reality. I can’t sit there while my mother and my sister talk about what good mothers they are. No. You cooperated when your children were being raped. You are by definition bad mothers. My mom at least kind of gets a pass on the fact that she was never in the room. She got to always say she wasn’t responsible. My sister actively taught her children oral sex. She is going to straight to hell on a bullet train. My mother was at least classy enough to only give me verbal pointers. My sister taught her children by modeling and direct instruction. I can’t prosecute and the victims would turn around and lie to a police officer to defend their mother. The only thing I can do is keep my kids away from them.

It hurts and hurts and hurts. I feel like I am not good enough. I wouldn’t be able to protect myself from them. I want them and miss them so much. I want to cuddle up with my mom. I slept with my mother till I was a teenager. I miss her smell. I miss brushing her hair. I miss…

I don’t know what to do with this ache inside of me. I don’t know how to stop crying. I smile during the day, as much as I can. The sun isn’t up yet. The kids are still asleep. I cry.

My stomach hurts. I have this horrible physical sensation of impending horror. Something bad is going to happen. Something terrible. I don’t trust that feeling. That feeling is a liar. Who is going to leave next? Who else is going to stop loving me?

I really want to hurt myself. I want to be in pain right now. I know I deserve it. I know I am bad. I know I am not deserving of good feelings. I don’t really care how I do it: cutting, beating my head on concrete, burning myself. I don’t really want to keep listing the things I have done to hurt myself. It’s fairly humiliating. I know this isn’t normal. I’m not going to. I’m going to cry because it is sad that I feel like I deserve to hurt this much. That’s enough. I don’t need more pain. This is enough.

When I went to the grief ritual a woman invited me to join her support group for people who were adopted or grew up in foster care. I sent her an email a couple of weeks ago. She wrote back asking me to explain my family situation before I could come, didn’t I grow up with a single mother? I can’t tell you again about my fostering situations. I just can’t. You enthusiastically invited me and then ask me to justify myself? I can’t do that. I can’t. I just know that again I’m asking for support I don’t deserve. I need to stop trying to find a support group. I have me. I have what Noah has going spare. That’s it. I can’t try for more. I can’t believe that more exists. Even if it exists for other people it doesn’t exist for me.

So what if I’m sad. Life is hard all over. Suck it up, Buttercup.