Every life is a mixture of blessing and burden. Sometimes when I hear about the blessings that other people have I feel such envy. I dislike myself for feeling that envy. It is petty. I feel like I am going through life having one long series of pity parties for myself. My life is not like other peoples. When I found out I was pregnant with Shanna more than one person sat me down for a long earnest lecture about how someone like me (with mental health issues) has no business having children. I feel like I was essentially told to abort Shanna because I could not possibly be good enough to her.

That is not how other people experience the journey into motherhood. I am very glad that my friends have such different experiences. I feel very guilty that it is hard for me to listen to. I feel terrible about how much self pity I have. Get over it.

I feel kind of like a fraud. My family was fucking thrilled when I got pregnant. I paid for us to go to a conflict mediator. I tried to work things out. Then my sister loudly boasted about being able to kick my ass at my baby shower. Then my mother refused my request to come to Christmas because it “wasn’t worth it for her yet because the baby wasn’t interesting enough” because I am not interesting enough. Then it was “this is a loan not a gift. I will send you $20 every month until it is paid back.” She sent one nasty $100 after I told her not to buy any more cheap shit for my daughter until she pays me back. Then it was my sister telling me that the death of my father and brother were not allowed to count as significant to me.

If I want to know people I have to be very ok with the fact that nearly everyone I speak to is having a much more pleasant experience. I can’t be bitter. They are having troubles I am not having. I do not give proper weight to the difficulty of those struggles. I need to just love people if I am going to have relationships.

It’s ok if I cry about never really having a mother. That’s ok. I didn’t have a mother. I get to cry about that. No one ever really tried to meet my needs. No one volunteered or cared. I can cry about that. I can’t get mad because other people got more love than me. That’s not fair.

I don’t understand why everyone else deserves this love and I do not.

You know how I ate ramen for years? I started cooking it when I was three. All those years I was making the only food I really knew how to make. It felt comforting to have hot cooked food and we couldn’t afford frozen microwave food.

I have not been cared for in the ways that humans expect to be cared for by someone since I was an infant. When I was sick I was left alone to deal with it. I have dealt with post operation care alone. I was five. My mom didn’t want to look at my gross face after the dog attacked me. She told me that looking at that was my punishment for being stupid with the dog. She said I would learn not to stick my face in a dogs face. I had major reconstructive surgery with 117 stitches.

I am very glad that my daughters will have a different experience. And fuck you to the people who said I would be bad at this because it was inevitable.

I’m really glad that I am lucky enough to know people who have had completely different life experiences so they can tell me what it is liked to feel loved by a parent. I want to produce people who feel that way so I need to know what that kind of parenting was like. Thank you for sharing your lives with me.

(PS- I’m aware that I make a lot of weird typos and word substitutions. I don’t really have time to edit. I apologize.)

But then I came home and found out that my in-laws decided to send us a check for $15,000 out of the blue. Well, because a deer jumped on our car and because they still provide financial support to all three of his adult brothers. They feel bad for not helping Noah more. So they sent us money. Because they can.

I feel floored. That is seriously fucking with my world view. I am standing next to someone who benefits from enormous privilege. I get to borrow that privilege in substantial ways. It doesn’t come with a mother–I will never have any kind of relationship with my mother-in-law. We are non-compatibly crazy which is quite unfortunate. I don’t get to have a family but I get money.

I have a family. I have Noah and I have Shanna and I have Calli. Not everyone is so blessed.

Many years ago I had an intense fling with someone who was studying ayurvedic medicine. He did my natal chart. I had not told him much of anything about myself. He said I would always be lucky with money. Any time I needed it somehow it would arrive. I kind of startled. He laughed and said that anyone who challenged me in court would be sorry.

It’s not like I live my life trying to test that out but I have been really weirded out how much that has worked out. When I am not sitting at my pity party I am shocked by how much money just appears for me in a way that it doesn’t appear for other people.

The dog bite set me up for the first big chunk of my adulthood. Completely. I’m not sure it provided the lesson my mother intended. I run towards danger. The payoff is often well worth the damage I incur. I am ok with the results of karma in my favor. I had to deal with horrifying post-operative care when I was five years old and that was fairly traumatic. But it put me through college. And bought me three cars (they were all very good deals). And completely supported me for ten years. In a mercenary sense that was a good fucking deal.

Other people don’t have lives like mine. I don’t understand what it is like to be other people. But I’m very curious.