I’m struggling with all the stuff around identity and self. I’m feeling really ashamed of myself for not having made more progress. I have not managed to turn every person I poured tons of energy into a lifelong friend. Some faded away and some told me to go fuck myself.

I’ve had a fair number of people break up with me after I give them an opinion they don’t want to hear. Whether I am objectively right or not is… meaningless. Sometimes I have been proven right in the long run. Sometimes I don’t find out.

Either way… I have lost my friend.

And it’s my fault. Because I can’t keep my fucking mouth shut.

Because I have to share my stupid piece of shit opinion.

Where the fuck do I get off? Why in the fuck do I try so god damn hard to control everyone?

Because I want people to look at me the way I look at other people and give their opinions. I don’t expect people to act on my opinion. But yeah… I do let people know when I have judgments. Because I’m an asshole.

My closest friends tell me I’m fucking up. They tell me when my actions are out of line. They do it privately and tactfully. I get called to the carpet. And I listen. I don’t always agree. Sometimes I respond with a long, spirited argument where I explain why their advice sucks because of these dozen factors they didn’t consider…

But I really like that dynamic. That dynamic can’t exist until I know someone well and they know me well.

And you know what? My experience of life is that most people get horribly upset if you tell them they are fucking up. People want to be told “You Are Awesome” without earning it, without working for it, without deserving it.

I ain’t got time for that game.

So I’ve burned through some relationships. And I’m feeling incredibly, intensely shitty about it. Because clearly it is all my fault because I am such a shitty person. Who is the common denominator in all these failures: me.

And it becomes more clear with every passing month just how badly I damaged my marriage last year.

I’m feeling like a failure at pretty much everything.

Our ES (Education Specialist) with the charter school homeschools her kids independently because she doesn’t want to mess with the charter rules. She was kindly and gently curious why I’m using a charter this year as clearly I have more her personality type. I felt really ashamed of the fact that I want the oversight so I know I can’t fall into a rut and stop doing any schooling for months around the end of the pregnancy and after the birth. We will have to keep working. We have deadlines for turning in materials. We can’t fuck with that. I can get in actual legal trouble if I slack.

And I need that insistence this year and I feel really dirty and bad because I know I need that.

I’m feeling really weird and guilty and ashamed of falling really far behind on gardening. I haven’t touched my yards in 4-5 months. They look like it. I have a collapsing hazard right in my front yard and I just…haven’t dealt with it.

I’ve been sitting on my ass in between driving to fucking doctor visits. I walk some, yes, but Jenny can vouch for not much in the past couple weeks. Not before I went to Alaska and not since I got back. I just…

I’m so tired.

But the tired is partially that walking up a hill through a river of molasses in January feeling. I’m weary. I’m feeling the depletion. I’m feeling Lightning suck the life out of me. At 15 weeks pregnant I’m not back up to pre-pregnancy weight. Barely down, only 4 lbs to go till I’m back to where I started. And the doctor I met yesterday was lecturing me on how I need to make sure I’m only eating the extra 300 calories a day I’m supposed to eat. Oh fuck you motherfucker. I’m lucky if I can eat an adequate number of calories for a non-pregnant day. So shove your fucking condescension where the sun don’t shine.

And the midwife in the practice, who spent a lot of time looking at my records, had in my previous visit told me, “EAT. Eat. Eat as much as you want. Eat anything. Eat constantly.”

Everything is feeling like nails on a chalkboard.

Folks are clearly trying to be nice to me. I can see the gestures. I can see the thoughts. But like… I’m running from mentions of my birthday and I’m crying and wanting to freak out. I don’t really want a birthday this year. It’s not about turning 36, whatever.

I miss my mother. It has now been half my lifetime since I spent a birthday with her.

Maybe that’s part of why I’m tanking. This is a huge milestone and I haven’t been thinking about it as I’ve been rapidly multiplying my tasks.

I’ve almost been out for as long as I was in. Just a couple more weeks.

Do I feel proud of what I’ve done in those 18 years? Yes and no.

Do I feel proud of me? Yes and no.

I wonder if my mother would feel any pride if she knew what I’ve done.

Many of the people who have sworn up and down that they were my family… that bond turned out to be incredibly severable. 

I know Noah is proud of me.

I am a selfish piece of shit and I wish that my mama thought I was her most successful child. I am the only one of my siblings to graduate from high school or college. I’m the only one who hasn’t been divorced before 21. I am a fucking better parent than my siblings because I have neither raped my children nor used corporal punishment as my primary means of discipline.

But how fucking shallow.

Being the scapegoat means that no matter how far above expectations you come in… you’re still out.

But I divorced her. What the fuck.

Yeah… but I divorced her because folks were fairly actively covering up for ongoing child abuse. I had just cause. It went past our generation. That’s so heart breaking.

And the fact that no one in my family thinks they should “get involved in other peoples business” it just keeps happening. Generation after generation.

Thus I share my opinion whether you want to fucking hear it or not. Because I’m not going to act like your actions happen behind a fucking wall. I see what you’re doing.

Most of my opinions are positive. Folks get done with me when I get to the point of voicing a serious criticism. Given that I know how poorly most folks take such efforts I don’t really do this sort of thing until someone has been in my life a long time.

I wrote that B’s dad cheating had an impact on me. I told A that given that she just had back surgery she really ought to prioritize a real mattress over getting a new iPod given that she was sleeping on an RV mattress laid directly on cinder blocks. Among many other similarly none of my damn business opinions. Like what I thought of everyone in her family just glossing over the fact that her father had completely financially ruined his family by maintaining a series of pre-teen Peruvian sex worker companions. He would fly down several times a year. He bought a house and would let them live there.

People don’t want my opinion.

I get that.

Don’t worry, I know that my diarrhea of the mouth makes me a piece of shit. But not being this flavor of piece of shit would mean that I had to be a different flavored piece of shit and I’m just not up for the effort of that kind of change. I mean who has time for that.

That would be a lateral and perhaps a slightly downward move by my moral code.

So I’m a bitch.

Don’t worry. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

I really should go to bed. I can hate myself tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day…