Monthly Archives: June 2014

Who am I?

3 Replies

Today as I get dressed I stopped to think. I’m meeting my “niece” and my “nephew” today. One of them for the first time and one for the second time.

Wow. What do I want to wear? Who do I want to be in their memory?

Noah, you say I dress for comfort and not for style (or you did once and you will rue that day for eternity [I love you so much, thanks for putting up with me.]) but there are actually a lot of style choices in the whacky-ass way I dress.

I start out with the requirement that as much skin must be covered as possible. That narrows the field of my clothes quite a bit given the leftovers from my more festive life periods.

I’m pretty happy that my pants fit again. Yay for gaining weight. Ha. How many women do you know who say that?

Ok. I picked a dress I bought with Jenny in Inverness. Because I bought it while nursing (i.e. my breasts had to be easily accessible at all times) of course I have a shirt on under it. HA!! MY BOOBS ARE MINE. Ahem. Sorry. Got carried away there. Those were a long four years.

With the black and white dress I like to wear red pants. Capri’s? Long shorts? They cover all the way down to my shin bone but you can see my Hobbit-hairy legs under them.

Still haven’t shaved. This is getting more interesting.

You can tell I haven’t shaved with the shirt I have on under the dress. There are sleeves, but they are short and kind of flippy.

Cause I like flippy stuff in my clothing. It’s a style choice.

And of course I’ll wear purple shoes. Cause that’s what I own. And I have a red cowboy hat for my sun hat.

Tell me there’s no style there.

(Tongue in cheek.)

Visiting

1 Reply

Given that I cleaned my house on Monday I find it a little horrifying how long it has taken me to clean my house again. Maybe I should dust more than once a year. It takes me forever. Also: there is a very different kind of baby-proofing for one year olds than there is for 3/6 year olds. My house was not very baby safe. I don’t have babies any more! It’s ok! Only… I’m going to have a baby for the weekend. So I should probably make the house safe for her. And the other wonderful baby who will be here today.

Usually when babies come for one day I make the main room baby safe and just block off the not-so-safe bits. When I have a visitor for a whole weekend the house has to be safe. Period. There aren’t other options. (I worry.)

I didn’t finish dusting two book shelves. The chance that I will do them this morning is small and dropping. But my bathroom is shiny clean! Even for people who crawl! Luckily I think we have two newbie-walkers coming today. But hey–they are totally still in the floor candy stage. Now my house is less likely to choke them. Go me.

(I have older kids who have embraced the tiny choking-hazard-toys with a vengeance. Cleaning up enough to be baby safe is work.)

Sarah–this is why I told you that planned visits involve much more stress and anxiety than surprise visits. When I plan for a while around someone coming… I always add extra work to myself. Oh I should clean _____ before they come over. When I don’t know someone is coming and they surprise me then I have to just roll with my house being what it is and I don’t have the adrenaline surge of “Must. Not. Look. Bad. Must. Clean. Shit. Oh. No. Get. In Trouble.” It really is that choppy, thus the periods. I’m not sure why my thinking gets so choppy on that topic, it’s almost like a stutter.

I think I read too many threads on mothering.com about people getting harassed by CPS if their houses were just barely out of line. I am absolutely terrified of people finding out I don’t clean enough. Whatever “enough” means.

I clean enough. My kids aren’t living in squalor. CPS isn’t worried about me. I’ve lived in squalor. I know the difference. I have never lived in self-created squalor. I have always been too afraid, deep in my belly, of the consequences. I fucking clean. I have gotten myself out of a lot of trouble by being the one to volunteer first for clean up.

“If there is work to be done you had better get out of Lenora’s way. She’s going to do it.”

It remains one of the sweetest compliments I have ever received.

My shrink says I am “highly unusual” in the degree to which I use cleaning to get people to like me. I explained that my early relationship with Jenny involved a lot of me coming over to help her clean her room and I *still* go to my friends houses to clean on a regular basis. She had this weird shocked expression. “Do you understand that people just don’t do that? Cleaning the homes of their friends. That is very unusual. You are nice.” *shrug* I’ve been doing it all my life. How the hell else do people make friends?

Many of my relationships have been cemented by the fact that I don’t judge anyone morally for living in mess. I view it as a logistical problem. Most people who have more things than they know what to do with hit a point where their brain can no longer see the larger pattern and they can’t organize the stuff any more. I don’t view that as a moral failing at all. It is about the fact that most people have a hard time visualizing a large and complex system with many sub-pieces. I can walk into any house and immediately start visualizing how and where storage should go and which items should be stored how because of bulk and quantity.

Sometimes I feel like I think in store-display-guides. (I worked retail for a while.) I can organize fucking anything. And I’m quick too.

I have learned to appreciate that I have an actual gift in this department. Many people feel completely helpless and scared when they have to start organizing. They can’t see the system and they don’t know what to do. That’s hard. I don’t handle it very well when I feel like I’m in limbo and I don’t know what to do. Emotionally it is draining and that makes dealing with the situation incrementally harder as time goes by.

Life keeps happening. Cleaning can get overwhelming pretty fast if you don’t keep a handle on it. So when my friends get overwhelmed and they ask me for help of-fucking-course I help. This is a task that is easier-than-usual for me. Why wouldn’t I just do it to be helpful?

I think it is kind of hilarious how much cleaning is part of my identity. I want to be useful. When people invite me over and give me carte blanche to reorganize part of their house… my little heart goes pitter patter. Really?! I can! Whoohooo!

My shrink says I have to start charging for the service though. We’ll see.

Today I am feeling really lucky. Not only do I get my Jenny and not only do I get to meet my little niece FOR THE FIRST TIME we also get to play with another friend and her little boy. Us three moms have known one another for a long time. We were friends before the marriages and the boys and the babies. Now we get to show up each with our kids. It’s kind of crazy. Seasons of life or some shit. I’ve known Jenny since I was twelve. I met Miss L when I was…18? 19? 20? Something like that. Our lives are on similar tracts.

Only Jenny lives in Scotland now. That was NOT part of my plan. But, life laughs at my plan. She’s very happy where she is. So mostly I’m supportive. I keep my thoughts limited to my head or the occasional blog post where I’m not even that whiny. I miss her. I’m sorry we don’t get to spend more time together. But life works that way sometimes. This way my kids will get to have the experience of having a lodestone in Scotland. That’s cool too. We will get back to Scotland for more visiting. We talk online. It’s ok. But I miss her.

The house across from mine is for sale. Someone I love should buy it.

I still carry around a note from Noah in my wallet. “I have permission to be here”. He officially signed it and everything. It’s official. I have permission to be here.

Sometimes I acknowledge that it isn’t fair that I expect other people to invite me into their lives so hard. You can’t do it once and think that I will keep showing up. I assume people are better without me. I assume that knowing me just brings disruption and pain. I know that the things I talk about hurt people. And I’m not going to stop talking.

I kind of expect that eventually I will drive everyone away and I will find out that being alone as an adult is very different than being alone as a child where there are people who are legally required to check on you once in a while.

I think I clean so much because I’m trying to wash my sins away. Maybe if I clean enough it will make up for how bad I am. Maybe they won’t notice that I am not actually good enough for them. I clean enough to pass for a member of the middle class. Surely that means I’m good enough to stay.

I will probably never feel like I belong any where. Not a place and not in a relationship. I’m buying a temporary pass. It’s different than “belonging”. If I don’t work hard enough my pass will be revoked.

I want these people to like me so much. And I know that most of my social problems are my own damn fault. I have no one to blame but me for people disliking me.

I’m “aware” that most of the people who love me “wouldn’t care” if I stopped obsessing about cleaning. But it’s “most” of them. I don’t know who I would lose. I don’t know what the push back would be. I don’t know how the shaming would start. And I don’t really want to find out.

My friends who need help cleaning all have complexes around their cleaning stuff. It’s an emotional minefield. It seems harder to live with than my perseveration on cleaning. Yeah, I’m a dork. Yeah, I waste a lot of energy. But I get to feel more control over why people reject me.

People don’t get to reject me just for being “gross” any more. They have to have more of a reason than that. It’s important to me. When I was a child I regularly had other kids be told they couldn’t play with me because I was gross. I was literally physically dirty. I never cared for my hair properly–I didn’t know how. I had head lice over and over. That was when my mom started keeping my hair really short.

I clean because I have such vivid memories of those mothers yanking their kids away from me and saying clearly, “Ew. Stay away from dirty children. They have bugs.” Then they sneer.

Stay away from people like me. You might get dirty. You might get corrupted.

Noah is reading my book. He has positive things to say so far. But he’s very biased. He’d like to get laid again someday. (I’m teasing. Sorta.)

I need to write the bibliography. I haven’t started. I’ve been cleaning instead. See how this goes?

It will be a good day as soon as I stop crying. I’m not going to have problems today. I don’t need to be so afraid. No one will be showing up with their white gloves to get mad at me for not finishing the dusting.

It will be a nice visit. Hopefully some year I can get rid of this pervasive feeling that these lovely ladies should be spending their time alone together without me because I am just so difficult. Things are easier without me.

It’s not true. But I feel like it is true. Anything could be without me. Everything is better without me. I say that and think that and in walks my Shanna. She saw me crying and said, “Can I come in? I want to help you feel better.” I feel ashamed that she sees so much crying.

Time to run away. I need to hear about Shanna’s beauty sleep.

I think we’re funny.

1 Reply

At breakfast the other day Noah observed, “I don’t worry about your usage of medication because you are way more hostile about being denied Earl Grey.”

Apparently I don’t flip people off just because I can’t have pot but I will when it comes to tea. I did it under the table and the waitress totally didn’t see me..

But it was funny.

Who needs a title.

5 Replies

Even though I rarely split my random thoughts into multiple posts, today seems like the day. Scheduling can stand alone.

I am so excited about seeing Jenny that I can barely sit still. I haven’t seen her since her wedding and that was literally years ago. Scotland is pretty far and I don’t have the money to travel with two kids as often as I would like. Too many other trips I’m saving for. Damn priorities. I will make it back to Scotland. Just not that soon. This way I get to meet my niece! She is coming to my house! I am so excited. I am going to take many pictures. She won’t remember Wonderland but hopefully the pictures will inspire her to feel more comfortable visiting again when she gets older.

I fantasize about trading kids for a year when they are older. We’ll see. Not because I want to be away from my kids for even five minutes. Just because it’s an opportunity to live in a different place with someone who would be good at taking care of you. That’s not an opportunity every kid has. My kids are so lucky. They will never have any way to wrap their tiny entitled little brains around how lucky they are.

I struggle with that. I talk to my therapist about my jealousy. She says it is a good thing I can admit it because lots of people feel jealous of their kids and can’t admit it–that creates other problems. I know I’m jealous. I know I wish I could have had a life that was 20% as nice as their life is. But I can’t change the past. My life is pretty rad now.

I don’t have complaints about my life. I’m in one of those magical windows of time when even my fucked up brain can look around and register, “Yup I’m safe. And my life is fucking awesome. I get to do exactly what I want when I want. No one yells at me. People like me enough to let me get away with shit. I have totally nailed this ‘life’ thing.”

Ok, I’m still sad about not having a mom who cares about me. But that isn’t something that *I* can do anything about. Everything that I can influence is going well. It isn’t my fault that I have the problems I have. I’m doing very well with what I was served this lifetime. Most people who get the hand I’m dealt burn out long before now. Most people who grow up thinking they are a worthless piece of shit who should die never get past that.

I’m grateful for every moment when I don’t feel like that. It feels like a gift. It feels like a surprise. I don’t hate myself right now. I don’t feel like I should die so that I stop poisoning everyone around me. The absence of feeling is amazing. I don’t feel like I should die.

Dealing with being suicidal is very hard. It hurts physically and emotionally. The days when I don’t have the evil voices whispering that everyone would be better off without me are by definition Good Days.

Today I baby-sit and I clean. Because I’m a dork. Jenny and little djinn won’t give a shit if my house is cleaner than it is right now. Jenny won’t complain about the fact that my annual dusting day is months away. (Ha. I wish I were kidding.)

But I love them. I love them so much and I don’t get to see them very often. It feels like an honor thing. I want to welcome them into a nice-ish home. Ok, my house will never be a Nice House (imagine I know how to do the little raised TM thing like a trademark sign). I have a weird house. It’s small. I repair things and they kinda look like shit. It wasn’t a Nice House when I arrived. But it is a lot of fun. There is a lot to look at. There is a lot to do. If you are bored in my house it is because you are of a weak and inferior mind. And don’t fucking say out loud to me that you are bored because there is always cleaning or dusting. I don’t care if you live here or not I’ll make you work if you complain .

I feel weird pride in my house. It isn’t a Nice House but it is a really lovely home. I think that I was a big asshole to Brittney because I always felt insecure about the fact that she has lived in a Nice House her whole life other than her college co-housing experience. Her family just does that. Last I heard she was putting off kids kind of indefinitely because it was more important to be able to afford a huge house. She didn’t want kids until she could give them what she had. But when we were kids the Nice House didn’t require two parents working 50+ hours a week. So she isn’t giving her proto-children what she had. She had a mother who stayed home and took care of her.

I am insecure and petty. I am not very supportive when people talk about such goals. I shoot holes in the reasoning. I think this contributes to Brittney ending the relationship. I was not even vaguely supportive of her lifestyle. Really she didn’t dump me until I talked honestly about her dad–she has to pick him over me. He’s still a constant source of money and support. I don’t think he would tolerate divided loyalties.

I’m not even sure why I’m ruminating on her this morning. Because I contrast her in my head with the people who haven’t decided to ditch me? She had the right. Any one and every one has the right to not want to know me. I can be a serious asshole. No denial here.

Losing Brittney was as hard or harder than losing my family. And I lost all of them permanently when I wrote the first book. No one wants me to reflect on how they impacted me. Ok.

I developed the desire to NOT have a Nice House when I visited Brittney as a child. We weren’t allowed to touch anything. Her mom was very house proud and made sure that everyone knew that the house was HERS and we were there on sufferance so DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING.

I don’t want a Nice House. I want a nice home. I don’t want expensive things that can’t be touched. I want shit I can touch and break without having to scream and cry over how terrible it is.

So my house is full of shit from Ikea. And I’m pretty happy about that. When my kids draw on things I shrug. When things break my kids know to say, “Oh thank goodness that came from Ikea so it is easy to replace!”

I was exposed to Nice Houses as a kid. What I learned from that experience is that I don’t belong there because I’m not good enough.

So why do I care so much about cleaning my house just because someone is coming over?

Well, the traditional meaning of the word “slut” more meant “woman who is bad at house keeping”. I may be a slut (retired) but I’m not a slut. I know that women are judged very harshly on their ability to keep a reasonably tidy house. Yes, my house meets “reasonably tidy” in spades but I spend a lot of time feeling guilty about my annual dusting. I just can’t give a shit to do it more often.

But I might feel panic and do it before my lovely international visitors show up. Because neurosis is like that.

Jenny lived in a Nice House when we were kids. (Yes, I know that the pre-earthquake house was far less Nice but I only knew the post-Loma Prieta Earthquake rebuilt house. It was Nice.) Jenny had a mama who could cook, clean, garden, and work.

I felt so jealous of Jenny when we were younger. Now not so much. Not because her adult life has been bad (not even close) but because we have such different personalities that we want very different things. I don’t feel jealous towards her any more. I just like her. I just feel glad when I get to be around her. I know more of the cost of her life. I no longer begrudge her the way I did when we were in middle school. I didn’t understand then.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever could have gotten over feeling jealous of Brittney. I don’t want what she has. Not even slightly. I don’t want the asshole-liar-cheating father even if he is rich. I don’t want the narcissistic mother who cares about very little other than her looks. I don’t want the job that is soul crushing and terrible… but earns a lot of money.

I don’t feel jealous any more. Instead I moved on to being a critical asshole. Cause that’s so much healthier and shit.

Brittney was my first friend. I was born across the street from her five months after her. I’m very sorry I only had her for thirty years. Even if I am a fucking asshole who doesn’t appreciate her the way she deserves to be appreciated. I miss her like I miss my abusive-as-fuck sister. It doesn’t matter that our relationship was totally fucked up. You are what I had and I miss you. Even though I’m an asshole, you are such a huge part of me. So much of who and what I am came to being because of reacting to them. For better or worse.

I have been so blessed in my friendships. Brittney did love me. She just can’t deal with someone who is as much of an asshole as I am. Somehow I think that is a very healthy choice.

Maybe in another few decades she will forgive me and look me up. I doubt I will look her up. Just like I will never chase Anna again.

Some doors are slammed closed for good reason. People protect themselves for good reasons. I know I hurt people. I have to be supportive of them protecting themselves from me or I am just another monster.

But it makes me appreciate Jenny so much more. Twenty years of friendship now. And we started on such rocky footing. I haven’t always been as nice as she deserves. (To be fair I’m not sure she has always been as nice as I deserve…)

At some point you have to forgive people for their fuck ups or you don’t get to have relationships. Every one fucks up. Every one. There isn’t a person on this planet who is perfect.

I’m really excited about seeing Jenny. I may even splurge on energy and dust. Just because she is So Special. Not many people merit me dusting LetMeTellYou.

My house may not be Nice but I like it. When I look out the garage window I get to see a lovely garden. I get to look at the marigolds that started as volunteers in my friend’s yard. She told me to take some home. Now every time I see the flowers I think of my friend and feel happy and loved. My tomatoes are protected by love, motherfuckers. (Companion planting. Marigolds help chase off pests from tomatoes.)

I’ve spent a lot more energy than average on being sad that I am not “good enough” for people to love. I am not the kind of person that so-and-so wants. That was part of moving all the time and constantly dealing with the fact that I disappointed people everywhere for not being… something enough. It varied from place to place.

I’m never right. Not for any where.

But I’m right here. In this house I’m the right kind of me. I don’t have to be like anyone else. I don’t have to know how to maintain a Nice House. I’m not inferior and bad just because I don’t know how. I’m not bad here because my seed using skills are… limited. It’s ok that I need starts.

I spend so much time and energy being ashamed of my mistakes and inadequacies that sometimes I wonder if I could single handedly run a power supply plant with all my wasted energy. If I could take back that wasted energy and put it on the power grid I could probably power Fresno.

Lame.

Today will be good. Babysitting and cleaning and resting. That’s enough for a day. The next few days I will have to be on my best behavior. No crying. No slamming things. No shouting. The little one who is visiting isn’t used to someone as volatile as me. I don’t want to scare her. That means I have to reign in. I don’t as much for kids who get to know me over time.

In general I think it is good for little kids to know a variety of kinds of people–including volatile people like me. Life involves a lot of different coping skills–I’m a useful person to learn to deal with. But for short periods of time sheltered kids just hide from me if I don’t tone it down. If I know this in advance it is my fault if I don’t solve the problem. I can’t expect a freakin one year old to adapt to me. Let’s be reasonable here.

One of the moms in the home school group keeps saying that she thinks I’m meditating in secret and lying to her about it. This kind of confuses me. She perceives that over the time she has known me I have gotten a lot better at keeping a reign on the energy I put out into the world.

K-I think these fucking kid-lit books by Tamora Pierce are useful. And I feel lame for that.

I still don’t meditate (though it is on my checklist of things to start doing. Yes, I know I freakin should) but I do consciously think about reaching out and metaphorically grabbing my extra energy and putting it in a box. Not the same as meditation. But I am trying to conserve my energy more. I’m trying to scare people less.

I know that my frantic-self disrupts lots of people. Just by standing near me. I’m trying to be better about that. Being near autistic folk has made this…. more important. Sometimes I walk into an autistic house and get immediate comments about how I need to pull in my anger because it negatively effects the people present. I’ve heard this from more than one person in more than one place. So I’m trying. I think it is funny how it is mostly the moms of autistic boys who tell me this. “Don’t set him off.”

My existing too loudly in a room (while standing still and not saying a word) sets people off. It gets kind of annoying.

But you get the body and life you get. You can deal with it or you can be an asshole and expect the whole world to bend to you. I want to keep being invited back. That means I have to figure out how to stop radiating anger when I’m in those houses. It is hard. Sometimes I can barely even tell that I’m doing it. Nevertheless I have to gain control.

Just do it already.

Searching for a schedule

1 Reply

On Sundays I wish we went to the farmers market. In reality we go about once a month. Mostly we try to stay home and rest but sometimes we get invited to events. (Like camping.) Some weeks I blissfully get about four hours off. Oh! Shanna has asked that Sunday breakfast go on her list of chores as a six year old responsibility. Along with emptying the dishwasher, cleaning up her toys, and clearing the table (which she almost never does–sigh).

On Mondays I usually have babysitting time, but not for two weeks in June because my babysitter is on vacation. Either two or four hours depending on how fierce her school schedule is. I clean on Mondays and mostly try to not clean much the rest of the week. During the summer I will try to squeeze in an Aqua Adventure trip in the afternoon. Not sure I can do 11am when our friends want to be there. Monday nights are hit or miss. Lots of different things happen.

Tuesdays every other week are therapy days. They are also park days. I mostly go to park days but I miss one or two a month. Depends on how far away they are and how guilty I feel for dumping my kids on K for babysitting then whisking them away to the park immediately. Tuesday nights are usually (but of course, not always) my night off. I get two to four hours of free time where I am not supervising the kids.

Wednesday is more hit or miss. Often unscheduled. We frequently go somewhere. During the summer it will be a definite Aqua Adventure trip. Also, once it is summer and the school lets out we will be using the parking lot to practice bike riding every Wednesday. Shanna still sucks at riding bikes. She would prefer to run. It feels safer. She doesn’t fall as often. D has been coming over on Wednesday nights more often than not for a bit. She cancels when her family needs her for something but we probably see her 3/4 weeks a month on average.

Thursdays start with three hours of babysitting. I found a local stay at home mom to do trades with. Every other week I have her kids and every other week she has my kids. I asked originally out of desperation for finishing the book and it turns out she has a lot of work she needs to do and six hours a month is probably enough alone time for it. I’m in a similar boat so this is working out. Later on Thursdays we go somewhere to get out of the house. Thursday night is Noah’s night off so on a regular basis we don’t get home till almost bed time. This is the only night of the week when I habitually am ok with staying out kind of late.

Fridays are frequently unscheduled. Once or twice a month we have something on a Friday. A friend coming over to play. Tea parties for the home school group go then when I host them. (Need to schedule another one. I’m almost physically over the last one.) During the summer I want to squeeze in an Aqua Adventure trip. I really need them to get more proficient at swimming. Friday nights are usually family nights. Frequently we go out to dinner–sometimes we walk. Those nights are my favorite.

Saturday mornings I try to get up and run. Anywhere between 30 minutes and and three hours depending on how far I’m going. Then Noah gets a bunch of the day off. His timing is flexible around whatever else we have scheduled. Sometimes I take the kids out of the house to a park or some-such just to give him space and quiet. Saturday afternoon/evenings have parties once to three times a month depending on the month.

Going to the grocery store, other errands, and people visiting disrupt my schedule all the gosh darn time. But people are wonderful. Sometimes I feel like I live just because I want to see people.

Sometimes I feel lonely. Then I look at my schedule and notice that I couldn’t shoehorn in a lot more stuff. Like… when do I garden on that schedule? When do the kids take other classes? When do we “officially” home school? Oh man. All the time. We are never not-home schooling. We home school all the forking time.

I love unschooling. This lifestyle works for me. I’m so grateful that my schedule comes and goes with the seasons and my kids learn with me. Frequently I feel taken aback by just how educated my kids are. They pay attention when I talk. Which shocks the shit out of me because I don’t remember paying attention to adults. I didn’t respect adults much. My kids respect me and like me. My kids know that when I fuck up I apologize profusely and otherwise I’m pretty reliable for my information. So they listen.

It’s crazy.

That is as close as I am to a frame. That does not reflect writing time. Or painting time. This is why my schedule gets tossed topsy turvy constantly. I want to do so many things that are full time jobs that I can’t settle on a schedule. But this is kinda sorta where I am now.

Busy. Lots of people. Lots of love. I really shouldn’t complain about my life. I am very lucky.

Bounce (again)

2 Replies

Sometimes I feel weird writing about my good moods. I am, generally speaking, such a whiny bitch that talking about the up days seems… misleading? Confusing? Inconsistent? Whatever. It’s a good day.

The camping trip continues to give a rosy glow. I’m really grateful that it went so well. I am feeling much more confident about my plans with the kids.

Today was an EPIC park day. We took the yearbook picture so families who hardly ever come out were there. We stayed for four hours and I had to drag the kids bodily out of the park.

I talked to the mom I have been having the feelings about. The one who implied I wouldn’t be missed. She was horrified that I took it the way I did. She said (roughly–of course), “I meant that it is not unusual for you to stay home for periods of time. It is ALWAYS obvious when you aren’t there and you are missed quite a bit. I’m so sorry it sounded that way. If I ever sound that way again–ask about it immediately. I don’t want you to stew in feeling bad about something like this.”

So that went about as well as it possibly could have gone. For which I am extremely grateful.

It is very hard to know how much of my hand wringing self-hatred is just my brain hamsters and how much is that people genuinely have problems with me.

People have problems with me. That’s not in dispute. I am difficult and complicated and lots of other challenging stuff. That’s just a fact.

But as time goes on it seems that people are having fewer problems and my perception isn’t changing. Maybe people always had fewer problems with me than I worried about, but I had a lot of people react with great hostility so I don’t think it is all in my head. Parts of it, sure. Not all of it.

Things are changing as I get older, too. I am so glad I found this home school group. In general I feel like I am fitting in well. By that I mean: people seem to actively appreciate things I have to offer. Many women sigh with relief when I gather the children together for the group stuff. I have no problems screaming across the whole park to round people up. Other people really don’t want to do it. Yay for synchronicity.

In general today was really good. Multiple women extended “Hey we want to get together and do ____ when is good for you?” I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude it is kind of pathetic. Wait… you want to spend time with me? Really? You aren’t putting up with me because you have no choice?

Oh. That does change things.

Some days there is this feeling of, not exactly relief but a lower level of difficulty. I feel less like every body hates me and I should die in a fire.

This weekend at the camping trip one of the dads was being a dad about the topic of fire. I kind of tried to deflect it and said, “I don’t feel real comfortable with fire” and he kept on going. Eventually when he was still making jokes like four minutes later I blurted, “My brother went out behind the local grocery store and doused himself before lighting a match. I don’t really like fire.”

His eyes went wide and he stopped poking at me. He said something to the effect of “Wow. I’m sorry.”

I know I am over sensitive on a wide range of topics. I know I am a whiny baby. I know. I know.

I want other people to know too. And to know why. And to care. And for people to not have to walk on egg shells but not poke me on sensitive subjects either.

It takes time. It just takes time. And I’ve been part of this group for over three years. Things are a lot better. In general my life is so much better than it was.

Most of my recent flares of “OHMYGOD” drama that I go through have been resolved with calm conversations. I clear up my misunderstandings and someone apologizes for not being more clear and we move on.

This is still new to me. I’m still learning. I wish I were better at this already, but I’m not. I’m just where I am. I’m trying. Things are improving.

Sometimes I feel shocked that things continue to improve. When will I hit a big nosedive and do super shitty all of a sudden again? I did spend a lot of May crying and feeling really depressed.

The last four days have been good. If I add up all the minutes under an hour of crying. That’s really good.

I’m grateful that people keep giving me chances. I don’t think I deserve them but I understand that these chances are not all about me. Mostly they are about the fact that I have enough to offer and people have enough need that we match up. I’m really not as bad as I think.

We are all just trying.

Good weekend

2 Replies

We went camping with the home schoolers. I think this was the sixth? Seventh? Time we have been camping since we got married. Once or twice was pre-kids. So we haven’t been camping a lot. Before I got married I went camping with Daddy J a few times. He did 100% of the work before giving me drugs so it was a … different experiences. Otherwise not a lot of camping experience.

I’m getting better and more competent. Multiple times this weekend people expressed delight at how prepared I am. “Oh crap. I forgot ____. Krissy!…..” I always had whatever they forgot. It’s not because I’m so cool. It’s because I spent three weeks on Pinterest copying packing lists.

It was fun. The people were very nice. I didn’t feel defensive at all. That is pretty rare for me. I played with the kids a lot. Other parents are starting to refer to me as the cruise director. “You’re bored? I’ve got badminton rackets, frisbee, card games, decks of cards, chalk, play-doh, little random animal figurines, My Little Ponies, books, magnifying glasses….” the list goes on. I had a lot of shit for keeping kids busy. Thanks to Pinterest! And given that I will cheerfully suck at badminton in front of them to show them “how” to play it all goes well.

It was a really nice weekend. I medicated, but on the distinctly low end for me and it was ok. I didn’t get anywhere close to a panic attack. *phew*

Now my house is a huge mess and I bought this camping shit and I don’t know where to put it. I love first world problems. First world problems are so awesome. I am SO HAPPY that I get to have this problem. Just to make it clear to the universe that I don’t need a demonstration of worse problems. I’m good.

It’s awkward talking to people about my writing. Folks who knew asked about progress. So new people asked, “Oh what are your books about?”

“Uhm, shitty stuff. Scary stuff.”

“?? You mean like horror?”

(Everyone who is already “in the know” starts giggling.)

“No… not really. My first book is the auto-biography of the first eighteen years of my life. I needed to write it all down as context for the stuff I will write later. I can’t otherwise explain my life. It’s not pithy.”

“Oh, so what was your life like?”

“Oh the garden variety life. Lots of promiscuous sex starting in early elementary school, incest, rape, drugs, alcoholism, people lighting themselves on fire, lots of suicide. You know, a normal life.”

BIG EYES. “So uhm, what is your second book about?”

“My second book is the book I wish I could have read when I was twelve. All the information about sexual safety and drugs and cutting and mental illness I needed to know about. Oh, and lots of stuff about managing money and figuring out how to find adult allies. The stuff I cared about.”

“Wow. Those sound like intense books.”

“Yeah.”

Then they kind of walk away looking shell shocked. I need a better patter. But man. How in the hell do you soft-sell this shit? It’s really bad. But in this group after hearing what I write about no one has required that I stay away from their kids. I’m going to say I’m doing ok with my behavior as far as earning trust goes. *phew*

Just keep on doing what you’re doing.