Right now I feel like I am being batted back and forth between “shoulds”. I should be working on this part of my life or that. I should be more patient. I should be. I should. I should. It’s hard to be ok with just being. It doesn’t really matter what I should be doing it matters what I am doing. Is what I am doing good enough? Why do I feel like there should be more? Why do I persist in feeling unworthy, bad, inadequate?

I don’t know but I’m kind of sick of it.

Kids go through periods of disequilibrium and then they get back to equilibrium. Both kids are off kilter. There is a lot of screaming in Wonderland. Not very much of it comes from me. I feel like my ears will bleed soon. My patience runs thin. My screaming is usually at the fifteenth time of saying, “I said stop kicking me” in a fierce and slightly escalating objectionable volume. Then I get smart and get up and walk away. Parenting is hard.

I spend a lot of time thinking about perspective. And about the plotline of the book to come. And myself as a character. And about sex. I think about sex with lots of different people in lots of different ways and I wonder about the sex that other people have. What is sex like for most people? When I read pornographic stories I have to wonder. What is this biological urge we have?

I’m thinking about how I feel about projecting my version of the truth on events that other people perceive differently. I have to deal with the potential outcome of people being mad at me. Far easier to not speak.

But I can’t. I really can’t. I finished editing my friend’s book.. I need to do some editing on NS, NS, NS so that it can move towards a paper edition. I also need to start doing the storyline for the book. Because I want to combine people and have a few composite characters it means choosing events from my life and figuring out how to tell them and when and how to integrate all of the supporting people. One of the big difficult-to-understand parts of the first book is the lack of explanation of other characters. They just came and went. That was how life felt. Things were different once I became an adult. I have many relationships that date back to my teenage years. I am experiencing development from my friends. It’s actually kind of weird. People are changing. I’m having to adapt to that. It’s probably all healthy and shit. I’m not sure I believe it.

For the last several days I’ve been simmering in my own bile. I’ve been seething. My jaw aches from clenching. Today when I was running I tried to put it into perspective. I thought about my day. I asked myself what parts of it I would take away and why? I don’t want to change what I am doing. So why do I feel so hateful? Because I can imagine someone else feeling very resentful. Because I know that a great many people feel above the work I do and think of people like me as being beneath them. Oh, but I’m different because I spent more time in college.

The arbitrary reasons people decide that other people are better or worse than other people are interesting to me. On one hand I have a number of traits, skills, attributes, qualifications, whatever of “high class” people. I’m still white trash. It doesn’t matter. I can still offend the shit out of you in five minutes flat if I want to. Just try me. I can find your buttons, motherfucker. I want to get in a fight. I want to be hit. I want to hit back. I don’t think I want to lose this time but I’m ok with it as a risk. I want to hurt someone. I want to damage someone. Luckily I married someone who doesn’t like to be hit so I don’t have to worry about being all “safe” or “sane” as I beat the shit out of someone. I have to just sit on it. I have to just be with this anger and hatred and rage over… nothing.

I’m kind of tired of being told these horrible generalizations that totally include me and then being told, “Well you’re different.” Most homeschooling parents are abusing/neglecting their children because they aren’t qualified to educate their kids but I’m different. Enh. Whatever. Maybe. I don’t know. It depends on what you think people need to grow up and be capable of doing. The whole point of education is to teach children how to be adults. Everyone grows up to be something. Why do we have a meritocracy where we only value people who attain “higher education”? Is that the only kind of life worth having? Really?

I hate that I feel like I am failing strangers by not being all that attractive. I make up for it by being friendly and personable when I’m in the mood to get along with people. I hide behind it and my towering hostility when I’m not in the mood. Regardless people comment.

Sometimes I wonder about the freedom of hijab. I wonder what it would be like to not feel like I have to live up to expectations of my appearance. Noah and I talk about the invisibility, the feeling of completely being unwanted in the world he experienced as a teenage boy. As a teenage girl I didn’t know how to keep them off me. Saying no didn’t matter. Now I avoid people and flash my big shiny wedding ring. Taken. Not looking. Not available. Safe. Really. I am. I believe it. I hope.

Reading Mo’s book made me think a lot about M/s. What I have sought from it. What do I want from it? How does it work?

Today I talked about my feelings about G-d and connection and universality and the purpose of figureheads. I don’t usually have the balls to talk about my way of living in the world.

Lately when I start running I listen to Dolly Parton tell me that I Better Get to Livin’. When she gets to the part about falling on your knees to pray every day I think about the fact that I don’t really kneel before anyone’s idea of the Christian G-d. I like to kneel in front of a mirror. The only person who is going to be with me every day is me. If I feel like I can’t walk then I had better start crawling. I’m it. If I’m not ready to roll over and die then I need to get the fuck up and go. I have to. No one is going to rescue me. I don’t think there is some omnipotent force that is going to save me. If I don’t get up every day and work on my attitude and do what I believe is fucking right then there isn’t much point in anything.

Right now the right thing is getting up with a smile. And doing laundry. And dishes. And playing games. It really is. Learning patience and humility is part of learning to be stronger–it really is. I need this. I need to find it in myself to have the perspective to understand that the people in my life now have never hurt me I need to rely on the safety and certain truth of that statement to learn how to stop acting like a wounded animal.

Running is starting to feel good again because it is starting to feel hard in a way that makes me have to decide many times to put my head down and go. Just don’t stop. That’s what you have to do. Put your head down and go. That’s all I have to do in order to log the miles I need on my body. I don’t have any time goals. I don’t have any other commitments. I just have to move my body over a given distance. That is my only obligation now. I’m doing it slowly and proving to myself that I can. I am strong. I am more capable than I ever dreamed.

Even as my psyche tries like hell to find a way to make me feel bad and hurt myself and feel sick. Noah didn’t tell me to eat the fucking muffin. He just said eat the muffin. But I heard it with more harshness. More negativity. More anger. Because I hate myself for being hungry. Because I hate myself for having needs.

Right now what I need is to go to bed. I need to be up and out the door running in eight hours. I need sleep.