Noah wasn’t happy with the fact that I can’t sleep and I was crying all day after taking this pill. So he told me to stop. I slept 9 hours. After taking the pill I could get a maximum of 6 hours. I feel less suicidal. I don’t have that whining, keening, “I should die I should die I should die” feeling that I’ve had for the last few days.

My brain chemistry is a funny place. The smallest amount of tweaking fucks me up. But I need massive doses of drugs before they are properly effective. That’s just not fair.

Today is a magical day. Today is the day of the… duh duh duh… final inspection! Which… doesn’t mean we are done with this company because they put the moldy board back around my window pane and I’ll need them to take that off and put a fresh board. It’s not cool to replace everything else in the walls then put something moldy back up so that it can spread again. That’s dumb.

But otherwise!

Sigh. Always one more thing.

There is a nice lady (a friend of the tile guy) who is coming today to start helping with deep cleaning. That feels magical.

I can stop hemorrhaging money now that the remodel is over. Time to hunker down and save money. I’ve got all kinds of stuff I want to do in the future. I need to focus on that bit.

I’ve gotta say, my kids continue to be fantastic. They like me so much. I don’t know what to do with the fact that if I walk outside the house to garden for half an hour they follow me because they miss me and don’t want me to be so far away. They seriously want me to hear their voices every hour of every day so I never feel lonely.

I feel like interacting with my kids is what gets me to recognize things in my behavior that I want to change. I can look at them doing what I do and think, “Oh. That isn’t effective.” Then I have this sheepish moment where I recognize how ineffective my behavior often is. “Oh. I’m not very effective in that way. Shit.” It isn’t that I’ve completely stopped yelling (heh) but I have cut it back so much. It’s that I’m much better at choking myself off and explaining what I need instead of just shouting.

When you yell at someone they sit with fear and can’t learn. It’s not an effective tactic. It inhibits learning.

Shit shit shit. So I have had to cut back a lot. I’d love to be a full time shouty person, but that won’t meet my long-term goals of having fantastically educated children. Shit shit shit.

I can tell I’m doing better than I did a few years ago, even under stress, but I want to get to a better place still.

I’m thinking about downloading one of those productivity trackers that block websites. I need to get off Twitter and self control… I already use so much of it. It isn’t a happy place for me a lot of the time and that’s no ones fault. I just… probably should step back for my own mental health.

I can hang out on Twitter and listen to POC say that every white person is a worthless piece of shit or I can walk around my neighborhood and hang out with POC who seem to be fine with me being around. Maybe Twitter just isn’t the best cross over territory for me. That happens.

No one on the internet owes me kindness. No one does in any manner of interacting with me. White people do genuinely suck as a class. I’m not going to say that anyone should stop bitching about their experiences with white people. It makes sense to need to process all the abuse that happens. That’s legit.

But maybe that’s processing that should happen where I’m not present. That’s not a negative statement on me or them. They need to process. It is healthy for them to deal with their rage. I’m not sure it is healthy for me to read.

I am not personally responsible for each atrocity a white person has committed and spending a lot of time feeling like I should die as a scapegoat doesn’t really help anyone.

I have probably gotten the positive learning out of this dynamic that I can get. It’s time to move on to learning from people in a different venue. The folks who are expressing their feelings… I really don’t want to argue with any of them. They are doing what they need to do and I support that. But I’m not the best listener.

Most people are not physically able to sit and really listen to my story so I’m not feeling like I have to be The One who listens to everyone’s story. Sometimes only people who have had similar experiences are capable of hearing what you have experienced. I’m glad the folks who have been so hurt and abused by racism can find each other and process how to deal with the hell they live with. I don’t have good advice so I can shut up and go away. It’s not my process.

Cause I can’t be on Twitter and limit myself to listening to white people so I feel less bad about the anger that many POC feel. I just can’t do that. Yes, there are non-angry POC. The people who sit there and spend hundreds of hours explaining history with tons of references to prove that they are telling the truth… they are often angry. That’s what drives them. They are magnificent teachers who explain really advanced concepts on Twitter… for free. That energy has to come from someplace and if it comes from rage at injustice, I’m not going to say a word.

Sometimes rage is the right reaction to what happens to you. Defend yourselves. You are totally worthy.

If I were in a better place myself I could handle listening to it. I can’t for a while.

I’m processing endings. Grief, anger, acceptance. I’m skipping denial. It’s over. That’s a fact.

We aren’t done painting the bedroom. We did two-ish hours of work on Saturday and Sunday and I couldn’t handle doing more. My arm is toast. Noah has to paint the ceiling because I literally fucking can’t. Luckily the kids are super excited by the Electric Mayhem theme and they are handling most of the fun painting for me.

I feel so very grateful for my family.

I get why other people are so loyal to their families. I would walk through fire for these people. They are the reason I smile. They are the reason I feel good about continuing to try things. A lot is working out these days.

It is the shared culture thing. I have never shared a culture with someone in my entire life. I have always been on the outside of other peoples shared cultural experiences. I’m an occasional drop in visitor… not one of the group. Until now. Noah and I still have a hard time occasionally with not being the same culture exactly, but I have taught my kids what my view of the world is like from birth. They are so indubitably shaped by me that they comfort me that I am a result of shaping not the freakish non-result that no one can understand.

My kids are a strange mix of religious and non-religious, much like me. They are bold and talkative and friendly to a degree that shocks people and has mothers commenting, “Your children have no boundaries.” Uhm, they have boundaries. All they did was walk up to your kid while we are standing in line and say, “Hi. My name is ______. While we are waiting around, would you like to play? I have some toys.” That’s not a lack of boundaries. I could explain lack of boundaries to you… That’s being hella social and outgoing with good manners. If you say no or turn away my kids will walk away and not pester you. They understand a brush off.

But they believe they have the right to try and see if they can kindle a spark of friendship with anyone.

I really admire that about them. My kids reach for connection like a plant reaches for the sun. They have no shame about this desire that they feel to love people. They don’t believe that other people are too busy to want to deal with them. They believe that some people will want to know them and some people won’t and you don’t find out who is who until you ask. And so many people say yes that it is really awesome to keep asking.

My kids are my social strategy writ large without a base layer of trauma to cause weird pockets of explosions. It feels magical to watch. They are what I could have been if someone had actually loved me and protected me and talked to me.

My beloved Youngest Child doesn’t have a base layer of trauma and that’s a good thing. That’s a kid who is clearly vulnerable to a lot of mental health problems. That kid needs a lot of help learning how to process every feeling. They need a lot of support in talking through things to figure out what action on their part is likely to provoke the right response in other people. They are really prone to uhhh demanding and shouting as a way of getting their way. It isn’t very effective. We sit down and say, “Baby… is this going to be an effective way of getting what you want? What do you really want to have happen here. Let’s talk about it.”

I know that other people think manipulate is a dirty word. I totally don’t. People are always going to have reactions to your actions. You can make conscious choices about how you want to act to provoke the reactions most likely to give you what you want. Like: if you want mom to be sympathetic to whatever it is you are asking her to do… run around and do your chores without asking. Then you can show up looking like a helpful, innocent angel and say, “I finished every single one of my chores without asking. You didn’t have to repeat yourself. Is it ok if I _____?”

Presentation of your wants totally fucking matters.

I have no shame. Your behavior impacts how people treat you. Think about it.

I’m on day 22 of my cycle. I’ve been doing ovulation testing since day 12. No sign of ovulation. There are a bunch of things that could be going on there. Sigh. I can’t help but think that because I’ve been taking a pill that flushes folic acid for a week… maybe that’s not the worst thing this month. Even though I’m starting to not like this missing-a-month thing. It’s starting to feel bad. I had previously felt like it was just kinda unfair how easily I get pregnant when I want to. I have so many friends who struggled and I’m this fucking asshole who just falls pregnant when I want to. Now this. I’m only up to four months of trying. I don’t get to be upset yet. I’m not upset yet. But I’m starting to feel a little nervous.

If I don’t manage to get pregnant again this is going to be really rough. Because I had given up hope of a new baby and I had mostly processed that. Then we spent a fuck ton of money to try and revive that hope. If it doesn’t happen now because I missed my fertility window…

I’m going to have a sad forever.

But don’t freak out about that yet. Shut up, wench. Many of your friends started having kids at your age.

I’ve been working like a dog and not sleeping right for a year. Maybe my body says I need to rest first before I am able to hold a pregnancy anyway.

Now it is time to start actually changing my focus. Home schooling and healing my body will take up my time for a long while here.

I can’t join the church. I don’t have anything to give them. If I join the church then a huge chunk of my charitable giving for the year will have to switch to being for them. I will have to stop doing the direct donating I do to women across the country. Nope. They will also want me to do a lot of work. I know they say that people “don’t have to” but the thing is… I have a breadth of skills that would make them pester me all the god damn time. I’m good at a lot of things. I am perceived as being So Energetic so why don’t I just help a little more. And I believe that the reason I earn my right to keep breathing is I do work for people. That’s not a healthy relationship for me to step into at this stage.

The kids aren’t real motivated to join. They liked the pagan kids meetup more than they have liked the UU church even though they think they will never be pagans. Noah may take them back to more meetups.

We are California woo. It’s good enough for us. We don’t need a label that will let us join your community. We won’t agree with your spiritual beliefs anyway.

I don’t feel like I will be joining the pagan community. My wounds there are deep and not the fault of anyone in the community and I don’t want to take out my issues on someone who had nothing to do with my anger.

And I would. Let’s be honest.

I like being around my kids because they are the only people on the planet with whom I don’t have to work hard at not projecting my issues. I know my kids are innocent of the things that hurt me. I’ve been with them most of the hours of their lives. I know what they have and haven’t done. It’s so easy to be nice to them.

I have two hours to finish cleaning up the living room.

I’m half tempted to keep wearing my pajama pants today. But I’ll get dressed and pretend I’m a grown up or some shit. I WANT MY HOUSE BACK. I WANT A PAJAMA DAY.

Soon. Soooooon. Soooooooooooooon.

We met some new-ish to the neighborhood neighbors this weekend. They were super friendly and thrilled to be meeting neighbors. I’m looking forward to talking to them a lot more. They are also new to gardening and trying to figure it out. So we spent a while talking about ways to manage their beds and the weeds and the neighborhood cats and… It was fun. We will talk to them more.

I’m starting to hang out with the neighbors more again. I’m not doing as much as I wish I was doing yet, but I’m still transitioning. I want to hang out with the lady on the corner soon. I have fun talking to her. I’m going to miss the family that is moving away soon. We’ve had a lot of fun together.

I keep telling my kids that life is about endings and beginnings. When something ends in your life it creates space for something new to appear. That’s not bad. It can hurt sometimes, but it isn’t bad. Life is about change and growth. That can’t happen without creating space for the growth.

Sometimes a relationship traps you. You can’t change until you get out of it.

I really hope I will get to find out what forever feels like.