Yesterday we spent a while watching Billy Gilman (he was famous in Nashville for about 5 minutes when he was 12) as a grown up do covers of songs by women. Then we watched his self-written adult song debut. Dude, stick to singing songs for women. You do them better.

I also spent a bunch of time watching random covers of Adele’s music. I sorta feel like other people do her songs better than her and I feel guilty for thinking that. Like this one, this is danceable and beautiful.

Also: I’m bleeding and maudlin. I’m hyper-aware that a lot of what is going on in my brain is bullshit. Of all people I don’t get to feel like no one loves me. That’s ridiculous. I’m very loved. But recently I’m having a hard time with there being a background track reminding me how terrible and bad I am.

I hired a lawyer when someone was fucking with me. Clearly I’m just so mean.

I don’t think this is logical or reasonable. But it is where I am.

This period is raging. I skipped a full cycle and I started bleeding at 12:03pm today. I knew exactly when that motherfucker started this time. There was a sudden ohholyshitthat’snotgood feeling. And now I feel like someone is stabbing me in the lower back. I hurt and hurt and hurt. Whine. Motherfucking whine.

But I feel weirdly lonely. I don’t think it is lack of contact with people. I feel like I’m doing pretty well on socializing lately all things considered. I’m not sure what this feeling really means. I’m grateful that my kids are so snuggly. It helps. Ok, I don’t know what it means but it is probably connected to my mom. I miss her.

I’m more grateful for the family I have with every passing year, but there is still this ache. It isn’t just my mom. It’s my sister and brother and niece and nephews and aunts and uncles and cousins. It’s all the rest of my family not wanting me.

I do have friends who love me. I know. It isn’t fair or right that I feel unloved. That’s bullshit. But it is also true that my family did not love me. It is possible for more than one thing to be true.

Why why why why why why why why why why does this matter?

Ok, maybe losing the Bonus Mama is hitting me harder than I want to let on.

I went from hearing, “Let’s plan family trips together in perpetuity” to “You aren’t safe” in a very short period of time.

It feels like a continuation of last year’s “You are the same as police officers who shoot black children.”

I am all the evil. I am all the destruction. I am all the bad.

I am why we can’t have nice things.

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Next morning. I woke up kinda feeling less irritated. Then Eldest Child started complaining about how her life is too overwhelming because she has three whole hours a week of classes and Noah defends how horrible it is.

I’m like, “The alternative minimum is 35 hours a week. Shut up.”

And Noah doesn’t like that. And Shanna doesn’t like it. And I resent the fuck out of both of them acting like me wanting someone other than me being responsible for teaching three hours a week is excessive.

Because I understand that Noah stepping up to help during the remodel is a fluke and we are going to go back to how “real life” works for us when this is over. It’s me doing all of it. Noah’s cranky about taking the kids to classes lately when I’ve done every other class in their lives.

How dare I want to not be responsible for teaching them every single thing they ever learn every minute of the day. Why am I so lazy?

Because even though I love home schooling I don’t know everything. I can’t teach everything. I don’t have the patience. I don’t have the experience. And you know what? I need fucking down time.

I miss teaching in a school; I had 7.5 hours a day where I worked with children and then many hours where I prepared for dealing with children while no one was around. Now I have constant children on top of me and I’m supposed to prep full speed while they demand information.

Home schooling is filtering back on top of me while I move back towards painting. I’m interacting more and directing more and I’m already feeling so overwhelmed I want to cry for months.

AND HOW DARE I WANT THE KIDS IN THREE HOURS A WEEK OF CLASSES. HOW COULD I BE SO MEAN.

Given that the babysitter is moving in May… Soon those will be my only hours in the whole week when I don’t have to be in charge.

But three hours are too much. It’s not fair.

It’s half an hour of swimming and 2.5 hours of martial arts spread over three days.

The only fair life would be sitting in front of youtube all day. Duh.

I’m fucking cranky. It doesn’t help that my back pain is definitely at a six on this scale. I am taking a lot of pain medication. I don’t forget about the pain for a second. It limits my movement. It limits my activities. My arms are bouncing between four and seven. My sleep has been negatively impacted by pain for a long time. If I roll over I hit my shoulder wrong and I wake up to stabbing pain.

But why don’t I do more work? Why am I so fucking lazy?

I don’t know how to cope any more. I am not physically capable of doing more work and the amount of work I’m doing is a real problem. But why am I not done yet? Why am I not working harder? Why do I want my kids to have a few hours a week where someone else directs them?

Because I’m a selfish, lazy asshole. That’s why.