Noah and I continue talking, like we do. I continue to believe that I am lucky to be married to him and I need to not fuck this up. He is being so patient and understanding.

I have been a serious asshole. I didn’t negotiate in advance. I started breaking rules and saying, “Shit shit shit I can’t follow rules any more.”

That’s fucked up. I’m not being good at all.

And he’s being patient with me. I don’t deserve this. I also don’t deserve having Pam come over to make me dinner and waking up to Noah making me breakfast and I get those things too.

Life isn’t really about what you deserve.

He’s my best friend. He is the person in the world I feel safest with. I think we can figure this out. I mean, is it really a bad thing that he’s not an evil sadist? Probably not. It is probably why he can take care of me and love me the way he does. The way I need him to.

Even though I have a hard time with the fact that I have to be directive during sex… if I do just a little bit of it boy is the best lover I’ve ever had. Ok, maybe I want some vacation from being directive… but it’s hard to argue with that kind of success. I get why he wants advice. I do.

I like being married to Noah. I like how we talk. I like how we cuddle. I like how he kisses me. I like how he makes me food. I like how hard he works at the things he thinks are important. I have mad respect for him. There aren’t many people who say, “I will do _____” and follow through on it like Noah does. I watch for that. He’s amazing.

He isn’t perfect and he isn’t everything. But what he is is so good.

Noah sees me in a way no one else alive has any desire to see me.

I can live with stepping out to get my ass beat.

I can’t live without Noah. He points out that I said pretty much exactly that about four days before I broke up with him the first time.

Yeah… notice how even breaking up with you that time didn’t involve me being able to stop climbing into bed with you? Or hanging out with you? Or cooking you food? Or wanting to work out with you so I could flirt and beg you to be inappropriate with me?

You haven’t been someone I could walk away from. Even when I tried.

No one else has ever given me permission to tell my story.

And shit, at this point it would mean split custody and dealing with dispersal of property… given that you’ll let me go fuck whoever when I get a little nutty…

I need to stay. This is the only route to happiness for me. I know it. I mean, if you die (please don’t) I hope I can figure something else out… but I really doubt I will ever be this happy without you.

No one else will ever want to go through years of experimentation to figure out how to feed me without making me sick. And honestly you know more about it than I do. You pay more attention than I do. You care more than I do about my health.

Thank you for forgiving me for breaking rules. Thank you for forgiving me for being shitty about telling you that I broke rules. This is part of why I compulsively log all of my fuck ups here. So that even if I can’t say it I’m not completely lying.

Which isn’t good enough. I need to stop it.

I am kind of ridiculously grateful that you have agreed to “no rules” for a while here. Yeah. I do need it. I need to be a free agent just deciding based on my whims and not based on what somebody else wants for a while.

I need to spend some time figuring out what I want. And that means not caring about what you want.

I mean… I have to only do stuff that is kosher for me and whomever I am playing with. Respect and boundaries and yada yada. I know. I’m trying for that. I’m trying to not be too pathetic in my begging for people to blow right past where they are comfortable and hurt me until I’m unable to walk.

I know that most people just won’t do that because yeah… liability…

I know. I’m trying to uhh respect some boundaries somewhere. I’m not sure how well I’m doing. Oh fuck everything.

Do I have boundaries right now?

I will discover them in the moment. I want to discover them in the moment. I want to find out what they are because right now I don’t even know and that is bothering me.

I have no idea where my limits are right now. I’ve been operating under other peoples limits for so long I feel like I don’t know who I am.

“In addition to being a hippy-dippy housewife Krissy also moonlights as a severe masochist. Details at 11.”

Who am I?

What about me is worthy of love? What about me is worthy of tolerance whether you love it or not? What about me is ok? What about me is wrong? Wrong for whom? Why does it matter?

I called it in January. 2016 is going to be a fucktastically intense emotional year. What about me is worthy of love.

I want to be able to talk to my mother someday. I cannot do so until I love myself completely without her regard. I have to love myself or I may leave that conversation and go drive off a bridge. (Side note: I am continuing to hand write a book for her. Progress. Not close to completion. God this hurts, emotionally. The handwriting process is fucking intense for me with all my issues around handwriting. Anyway. That’s a different processing thing going on. I’M SO TIRED OF PROCESSING. CAN’T I JUST CRY FOR A WHILE?!)

Because I don’t think she’s going to love me and that’s going to have to be ok. That has to be ok.

I can’t let that end me.

My children deserve better than that from me.

I’m still thinking about that thing that is weighing on my heart. A thing about promises and what I can really and truly be. I’m still not going to admit publicly what it is. I have told Noah what I’m thinking about because thinking about this makes me so frantic that he needs to know why I’m flipping out. He lives with me and has to help cope for the amount of strain I feel.

He cares so much about how our children are treated. He has been willing to jump through any hoop I put in front of him with regard to helping with the kids. He does monitor my behavior. He assists me in figuring out self care so that I have more patience to give. He makes sure I don’t get to be too much of an asshole. He will tell me my tone of voice is inappropriate.

(This isn’t a constant thing because I do well most of the time. But we don’t act like parents are perfect.)

There is no chance I could be the parent I am without the amount of support I have gotten from Noah. I won the lottery.

I don’t know that I am that good of a parent. But I know that whatever good I have been able to do has been because of the privilege Noah has given me and the support he has generously offered.

Maybe it is good he isn’t more sadistic and selfish. Really really really good.

Noah isn’t the first person to ask me to marry him. He’s the only one where I ultimately decided it was a good idea to say yes. I put him through hell as a courtship. Then ran away to get married in secret because I couldn’t handle having anyone look at me as it happened. Would I be able to keep this promise?

Who knows.

It’s been almost ten years. I think I have mostly kept the promises I made. Good thing monogamy wasn’t actually on the list.

I have a date tonight. And a date tomorrow. And another on Sunday. I’m going to go take a nap. I’m going to need my strength.

I’m sure I will tell you how it goes. At least a little. Maybe. We’ll see. Maybe all you’ll find out is “Will see again.”

Hopefully I live up to my advertising.