The thing about this strike today is: I don’t think me sitting on my butt would impact people beyond me. My family would smile at me and go on about their day. I would only abdicate a few minutes of work to them because I’m otherwise caught up on house chores. If I did no work on the remodel that means I’m not painting this week at all because tomorrow morning I have to take Eldest Child to the dentist and then my neighbor is coming over and Friday is hella busy and Saturday is booked…
I kinda need to make some painting progress this week. I cleaned and puttied and did that fuss. Today I should paint the hallway ceiling and work on magnetic paint. I really should. But my house is cold and my painting clothes require some ambient warmth so dressing for painting sounds heinous.
It is below 60 degrees in my house. I’m hella cold.
Layers! I love layers.
I have a red sweater on right now. I have a medical appointment at 11. That’s kinda like supporting the strike by going to a small business run by women….
Fuck. How am I going to get painting done when I have an appointment at 11 and the kids have class from 3:40-4:30? That’s going to suck.
I’m feeling really cranky and overwhelmed because of interruptions. I never have a day where I do a thing. I always have to do six or seven things (that think I kinda twitched and freaked out at blacksheep because she’s like super DO ALL THE THINGS and I just can’t) in a day and it is causing me to hate everyone and everything. There is no flow.
This is why I work in the middle of the night. So no one fucking interrupts me. I have the hardest time getting into and out of work mindset. Killing 15 minutes kills hours because switching gears is starting to feel almost physically painful. I can’t just switch what I’m thinking about easily over and over. I flip out. I can’t do seven periods a day with after school activities.
I fear I’m causing my children to have problems because they are like me but more so. My kids feel unfairly disrupted by three hours of class in a week. Shit.
I had a great conversation with Eldest Child last night about our current schedule and how I’m pushing the kids physically and why I’m harping on the stuff I’m harping on. It blows me away that my child is able to utterly glow while expressing that she knows that everything is better now that she is here and I drive her so hard because I love her and I want her to have a better life than me. This kid is secure. She doesn’t always like how I push her but she knows I’m doing it because I love her and I want what is best for her.
If you can’t be a good example be a horrible warning. I struck the jackpot because I’m kinda both. I have a whole bunch of things where I can say, “I have this problem and that problem and this other problem because of x and I’m trying to make sure you don’t have these problems and that’s why I insist on y and…” My children believe me. They eat their god damn vegetables (while grumbling) and say, “I don’t want to have to take all those pills when I grow up so fine I’ll eat healthy food….” My kids are normal and they kinda resist exercising until I talk about how much pain I’m in from being sedentary for years and then all of a sudden they are super happy to come exercise with me.
I tell them: “See what I have done since you were born. Look at how much more healthy and strong I am. Because I want to be here for you. Because you are worth any amount of work I have to do. I want to see you grow up and get old.”
Then they get excited and explain in detail about how happy they are that they will have healthy eating and exercising on autopilot when they are adults because they’ve been practicing so long and they are glad they will get to focus on something more interesting.
I love you. I live for you. I will change anything about me I have to change for you.
I won’t make that promise for anyone else in this world. Just you, my children. You are special.
You can tell me to stop cussing. Anyone else will be told to go fuck themselves.
I love you. You are everything.
It has been good reading your posts again. I missed them when you were taking a brake from writing them. I think you might have already done this but just incase you have not I thought this might be of use to you. https://oneome.com/
Good luck on getting the work on the house finished up.
Thank you for suggesting that. It looks like a slightly expanded and deeper version of the test I did. My testing only concentrated on specific psych meds and the one you are suggesting sounds way more general. I will look into that, thank you for telling me it exists. 🙂
I had big sad mixed feelings about the strike.
I didnt strike, big time. I used Lyft for the first time which was a horrible experience (half hour religious doomsday conspiracy rant) because I could not find any other way to get to Physical therapy without harming my dog, I went out to eat twice, I helped set up my folks bible study. I wore red, I wore a “pussy hat” lovingly knitted for me in calico colors.
Bible study prep in particular felt so complicated, right? But also such a strong symbol of “women’s work” because I was doing it to help my mom who is away caregiving for my grandpa who is still recovering from the pneumonia. So if I skipped that Id be harming my mom.
If I skipped PT I would have been harming me and if I hadnt taken Lyft Id be harming my dog etc.
I felt especially left out of this one and like all choices led to harm. Im not sure what to do going forward.
I am amused that I am having the opposite problem as you re house temperature. Now that temperatures are climbing over 50? 60? Its getting harder to sleep, but its still too cold in the coldest part of the night to ditch all my blankets.
This all makes a lot of sense to me and sounds incredibly stressful. How do we all recognize one another and help one another without shaming each other?