Sometimes I read on the internet about how it is beneficial to have a daily routine. My problem is there aren’t enough hours in the day for all I would “like” to do.

One thing that is becoming a set part of every day is drinking tea. I like to think of it as my morning bonding moment with the women in my life. Even though I know that men drink tea too I think of women. I think of Jenny and Paula and the other formerly Miss so-and-so friends (all of whom are now married and thus no longer Miss anything) and Patti and Sarah and I remember gleeful moments we have shared over tea.

I drink every morning and I say a prayer for all of their good health and continued strength. Whether I see them or not I think about them. I have spent most of my life believing that if I just want something bad enough it’s like magic. I can make it true.

I want these women to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled. With or without me. So I drink a cup of tea and think about them and pray for their benefit. If anyone is listening I hope my karmic experiences weight my begging. Clearly I’m owed some favors for dealing with shitty stuff.

Judith. Kerry. Debbie. Stacey. Kira. Anna. Brittney. Marina. Elora. Erin. Michelle. Andy.

I sit down and cycle through women in my head. I’m not going to get through the full list in this entry and I won’t try. I’d leave someone out and they’d feel butt hurt and that isn’t the point. The point isn’t who I think about *today* because the list changes so much over time.

Remy. Rose. Marcie. Mo. Wendy. Ali. Deborah. Lauren. Denise. Chris. Amy. Talia. Angela.

I think and think and remind myself that even if these people are mad at me, they probably haven’t stopped loving me. They may not express it in ways I see or in ways that “feel” like love to me but that doesn’t mean anything about their feelings. I can’t judge what they feel. I remind myself of that over and over.

I can’t judge what other people feel.

But I enjoy sitting down to my tea and thinking about the women who have shaped me. Some of them did so on purpose. Some of them probably never realized the degree to which I have consciously patterned off of them. Many of them probably have no idea just how much time I spend sitting around thinking about them. What choices do they make? Why do they make them? What can I learn? How would I do it differently? What would it take to make me behave the way they behave? What differences would have to come up in my life to change me?

Not because I think they are wrong and I am right. Anything but.

I tend to be able to see other people as more grown up than me in a wide variety of ways. I want to grow up. I am envious of how other people manage. I need more tricks.

So whereas there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to put my life on a routine (painting, writing, editing, playing with the kids, reading, cooking, cleaning, seeing people–all of these things combine to need a 57 hour day if you want to do all of them every day) I try to start the day thinking about the many women I know who inspire me.

I try harder because I can tap into, “How would ______ handle this problem?” How would someone who was more patient solve this? How would someone who was kinder model this? How would someone with an inherently higher level of lovability manage?

It’s like having the pictures on my walls. I have lots and lots of pictures on my walls. I tell myself that these are the people who would be sad if I killed myself. (There are guys in the pictures too. The tea ritual is about my ladies. My life is not just an all-girls event.)

I’m not very good at feeling connected to people. I’m trying to learn to feel bonds. Mostly I have spent my life thinking that I am a worthless piece of shit who could only improve the planet by no longer being a waste of resources. Changing is hard.

Shanna is making my mothers day present already because there is a Berenstein’s Bears book about the topic. A scrap book of pictures about the experience of being a mom. She picks pictures off the wall and then has me pre-screen them.

We can never get another copy of Talia’s senior picture from high school so we can’t use that one in the scrap book. I can never get another copy of the picture from my junior high school dance where my friends Iris, Jenny, Kira, Yvette, and Nikki are posing.

Anything we have taken on a digital camera–go ahead. I can have more prints made if I miss a specific one on the wall.

I am increasingly sentimental as I get older. I’m trying to believe that things continue on. It’s all part of a longer story. I’m not over yet. It has been weird to grow up and realize how much my ability to organize and my lack-of-attachment to “stuff” has been about my constant feeling that I will die soon. Or that I should die soon. It’s not nice to leave a mess for someone else so get your shit together.

I have too many books to read. I can’t die yet.

Every morning I sit down and think about the women who guide me whether they know it or not. I don’t feel like a “church” would work well for me. I’m not willing to follow dogma of any kind. My karma ran over your dogma and other such “intelligent” *cough* humor.

A wise woman told me I would have to build my own community. I really have. They are spread out. They show up sporadically–more like a rural community. But they are there.

I see them. I see them in my mind and in my heart and sometimes I get to see them in person. That has to be enough. It is all there is.

Sometimes I feel bad about the way attachment works in my brain. I wish that I could turn it on or turn it off and stop futzing with it. But I think the only way I could do that is to just turn it off. And I don’t want to. I want to be able to love and be loved. I think it matters that I have relationships with people who don’t live in my house so I can model what that looks like for my children. How do I teach them to feel loved?

Part of it is just not breaking them. Humans normally have the ability to feel loved. But it feels like more than that. Noah and I *both* struggle with attachment issues. We both have family issues and we both feel intermittently loved by our friends. (No slam on anyone in our life.) But we have similar issues. If we want to have kids who have a larger emotional range than us then we need to figure out how to facilitate that whether we join them there or not.

No pressure.

I feel fairly confused by how it works in other cultures. Attachment, that is. On one hand Buddhism talks about detachment, but I think I’m missing a lot of the point. Pam’s mother expects her to call all the damn time and that’s not very detached, you know? More research. Talk to real people instead of reading white-people versions on the internet. What the hell do white people know about Buddhism? (Not that I’m converting. But I’m interested in how they solve this problem.)

Yesterday was kind of rough. I expect the kids to get all of their stuff off the floor every other week so I can vacuum. I didn’t finish till 7:30 last night because they totally didn’t want to cooperate. I’m glad that their “uncle” showed up to help them because if I had to do it… oh man. I was running out of not-screaming-strength. *phew* This is why they need a tribe.

Sometimes someone other than mom needs to patiently show them something. Sometimes mom is about to flip out and she needs to go in a dark room alone. Yay quiet.

I feel shocked that one of my former lovers is the most consistent person in my childrens’ lives so far. He has consistently shown up for longer than anyone else at this point. He’s here to see me and see my kids. If I’m being bitchy he doesn’t talk to me much and he just spends time with the kids–which is a wonderful thing.

I don’t trust anyone. I carefully weigh and measure if people are doing as they say they will. Most people don’t. I’m so grateful he is consistent. He’s very careful to promise less than he thinks he might be able to deliver on. That’s a lot of why it works. I’ve known him for more than thirteen years. And he has been coming every week–sometimes more than once a week for over a year, I think over a year and a half at this point. He hung out with the kids more sporadically before that. (He wasn’t great at the baby phase.) But he has been in their lives pretty consistently for their entire lives. He took all of the pregnancy pictures when I was pregnant with Shanna. He showed up in the first five days of life for both kids. He wanted to imprint on them. He has continually made time and space to just show up.

I honestly didn’t expect it and that’s a lot of why I didn’t have kids with him. He asked me to co-parent and I didn’t think he had it in him to show up consistently. I was wrong about him. I think I was right that we wouldn’t be the best co-parents (I’m too much of a cunt) but I dramatically underestimated his intentions and consistency. I’m sorry I so undercut him. He’s been really great. If I had turned out to want more like the single-parent thing he would have been a good ally for that.

He’s acting like a big brother. He had a kid brother and he tells me that he’s doing what he saw done in his family when he was young. You just show up. Yeah, sometimes people are assholes–you tune them out that day.

I’m not very good at that. I’m grateful to be near it sometimes. (I am learning to tune out a lot of what he says in similar ways. We have Very Different Opinions About Life.) I want him to be allowed to live. I want to be allowed to live.

It’s working for now. See, I’m not just focused on the ladiez. I’m willing to take whoever shows up. If you are willing to love me we can find a way.