Who am I at this intersection of my future and my past?

White trash. Upper class.

I will never be what you expect with my redneck mannerisms mixed with erudite speech.

I grew up with tacos and enchiladas and ramen and potatoes and meat.

You used to sneer like I was the ground under your feet.

What does it mean to be a waste person? What does it mean to be valuable instead?

Who decides. Who cares?

I will never be good; it is too late.

Do I always have to be bad? Is that just my fate?

People alternate between telling me how strong I am and how fragile.

I am a whiner and I cry too easily, clearly I only do so to manipulate.

That is how it goes with white women.

I cannot be something other than what I am.

I read on the internet that I should be very angry by someone pointing out that I am white. Oh.

Dude. I know.

I know how my whiteness has shielded me and revealed me as unworthy of camaraderie.

At some point it becomes apparent that I just belong nowhere at all.

I hide in my house. I try to make myself small.

I try to not take so much from people. I know that anyone would be more deserving of it all.

I want to hurt myself; it is how I atone for my sins.

I am told I must not. I must try to create a path for my children to step in.

Children mimic and copy, they cannot help but do so.

Do as I do my dears. Talk about your feelings. Write them down. Breathe through.

Maybe it will feel like enough for them. It never does for me though.

I am not enough. I never will be. I will always be too weak and small.

People who have suffered more than me do not waste so many years hiding and crying.

The world is too big for me. I feel like I am out of trying.

I am out of ways to try to be enough. To try to be good.

No matter what I do I never arrive. I’m not even sure if I could.

Noah  is gone for the weekend. He is visiting with his two best friends from college. I’m super thrilled for him. The last time the three of them went on a trip like this it was at my initiation because I made Noah schedule it. This time one of his friends suggested it!!!! I’M SO HAPPY.

Noah is a great guy but he isn’t doing a fabulous job of maintaining friendships. He’s doing that guy thing where he hangs with his family and his job and that’s mostly it. I’m glad he has monthly lunch with a group of folks he likes. I’m hoping that running off with the college friends becomes more predictably an annual thing. Noah needs friends.

I insist on my friendships. I prioritize them. I force space in my life for them because I will crumble without them. My friendships keep me ok. Noah is lovely and I’m glad I get to spend the vast majority of my time with him… I need my friends too.

Noah is afraid to talk to his friends about our marriage and ask for support. Because I’m such a shitty wife he is pretty sure anyone who cares about him will tell him to leave me. I feel really sad that a) Noah believes that is the only thing someone could think about me if they really knew about me and b) Noah doesn’t think he deserves such advice and support if it is really the best solution.

If Noah really feels that abused… he shouldn’t be married.

He says he doesn’t. But he also says he can’t tell his friends anything about our marriage or it would go badly. So.

It is hard that Noah genuinely believes he deserves better and that his friends would tell him so if they only knew so he lies about me.

I didn’t mean to grow up and be this bad. But I suppose given my background there isn’t much more that can be expected of someone like me.

It is hard that I tried to use my words and ask for Noah to stop using my cunt as a fleshlight and that didn’t work so I exploded and did my best to cope within the skillset I had and that means I deserve to be abandoned and alone forever. Because I am a bad wife.

I made my bed and I have to lie in it. But sometimes it really isn’t comfy. Oh well. It’s my own fault so I guess it is fitting.

My mama was right. You get married and you have to whore and there isn’t really a choice about it. If you don’t do it how you are supposed to you are a bad wife who does not deserve to be kept. But Noah is suffering through and he doesn’t want to hear that he should dump me. So he doesn’t ask anyone for support in dealing with just how bad of a wife I am.

I’m sorry.

Days when I wake up from sleep crying because I hate myself and I think the world would be a better place if I was dead are not good mornings.

I woke Noah up with my crying. He’s all “What happened?” I’m all “I woke up.”

That’s enough to justify sobbing. What?

I’m feeling intense shame because I feel like I don’t do anything for the world that justifies the resources necessary to keep me alive. It may not help that I saw some medical bills this morning. We are at almost $50,000 spent this year. Because I’m a fuck up with a piece of shit body.

I don’t feel that anything I have to offer in this life is worth what it takes to keep me alive. I am so fucking worthless.

I know I keep having children because that way I am not allowed to die because it would hurt them. But that’s a game. There are 7 billion fucking people on this planet. I’m worth approximately nothing to 100% of them give or take 4.

There is nothing I have to offer, there is nothing I have to give, there is nothing I do that balances out the load of my life.

I hear it is bad for a baby to spend the whole pregnancy crying but I don’t seem to be able to stop and don’t fucking suggest a god damn ssri.

I’m torn between really hoping I have a girl because I came up with the absolutely fucking best girl name and hoping I have a boy because I have wanted a boy for almost two decades.

Depression isn’t the same thing as sadness. It includes a lot of feelings. I feel intense self hatred as one of the dominant features of my depression. I hear that it may spring from internalized perfectionism. I don’t have enough to give; thus I do not deserve life.

For some reason I have internalized that if I am not carrying a relationship and supporting someone then I am nothing.

My baby just woke up. I guess it is time to stop thinking about how much I hate me and instead I need to convince them how much I love them. That’s my job.

My brain feels so fuzzy. I feel muddled and confused and only sorta mentally aware. I feel like I haven’t slept properly in quite a while. I wonder if any of it has to do with using Sativa during the day for the past two days? I don’t recall this happening in the past but I’ve been off Sativa for a few months. I doubt it is related. But I’m feeling so spacey.

The sleep study was interesting. I had a lot of lucid dreaming. I kept thinking I was the Diva from The Fifth Element because as I flopped back and forth in the bed I had to manage the weird bundle of cords coming off of my head. It felt like her hair or something. I felt like I was awake/aware all night and I also felt like it only lasted about 5 minutes.

The other person who was there for a sleep study arrived after me and left before me. I think he had fewer connections on during the process because if not I don’t understand how the employee had a chance to finish taking all his stuff off before I woke up. Also, his face didn’t have massive weird white blotches. I kept waking up pawing my face because the cords and wires felt awful.

I have a low amount of hope for my ability to get used to a CPAP. But I’ll try!

I don’t get the results for a week.

If I don’t feel better in a few hours I may wuss out and ask Noah to drive FMC to therapy because I’m not sure it’s a great thing for me to drive today. I feel… numb and cobwebby and confused.

The second trimester is kicking my ass up one side and down the other. I think I kind of remember this happening in previous pregnancies too? The first trimester is rough and the second trimester is worse. I’m nauseous all the god damn time. I can barely eat. I’m still not up to pre-pregnancy weight. It amuses me to think that all of the early baby growth comes from the baby and placenta eating me. Any day now every ounce the baby gains is an ounce directly stolen from me because I’m not gaining weight as a system. Really… it’s already true. But it gets way more pronounced as the baby grows faster.

I have rarely had the chance to talk to other pregnant people who lose a bunch of weight. I am curious if other people have weird feelings about their bodies being eaten. Like, it feels weird in my body as it happens. Like I can feel the parasite sucking me away.

I wish I could eat more. I’m not hungry. Food is horrible and I can barely choke it down without feeling ill. I feel really sick.

And the more sick I feel the more anti-social and unworthy of ever having a friendship again I feel. Which is why I’m grateful for the lovely friends who check in with me even as I do a crappy job of reaching out.

Most of my relationships rely on a lot of effort from me. I am ok with this balance in the main. I just have nothing to give right now and instead I am a bottomless pit of need. It feels different this time though, easier. I feel less like a bottomless pit and more like I’m just needier than usual. It helps that in this pregnancy the kids are being so damn nice.

I read on the internet that mothers who need/want help from their children are terrible lazy people. Ok. Sure. I’m terrible and lazy. But I want the fucking help. My daughter made her own damn bed this morning and I am not sorry. (FMC can’t make the top bunk alone yet and that’s ok…)

My kids can clean up their own stuff. I don’t need to do it for them. They can get food for themselves most of the time; they don’t have to but they are capable and I feel good about this. To be fair… food mostly comes from Noah so that’s not my trip anymore.

Noah and I had a really good conversation yesterday. We locked ourselves in my room while the kids played (loudly–we knew they were fine at every moment) for two hours and we talked and had sex because frankly… we need to. We talked more about M/s and bdsm and my cheating. We talked more about my fuck ups and mistakes and Noah’s projections and assumptions. I feel it was a slightly better conversation than we’ve had for most of the last year.

I completely blew up for a few reasons. The biggest one was really that I couldn’t absorb more painful sex “for the team” and I have complicated feelings about that. I feel like I made a mountain out of a molehill. I feel like I tried so hard to ask for that to stop and it didn’t stop. I feel like I have had so many decades of pain in my cunt that there is no way it can be a small thing ever again. I feel like if I am not allowed to cope with that in any of the ways I have usually coped with that… I need god damn something.

Traditionally I coped with being a hole for usage by cutting myself or burning myself or hitting my head on concrete. I am not allowed to do any of those things anymore and I can’t convinced myself that I am small and bad and I should be in pain without them. And that means I can’t deal with my cunt hurting like that.

Casual sex was… really the most gentle potential self harm I could come up with. And I picked people who genuinely care about me and who were united as a front in telling me to go home and get my shit together when they realized I was… not interacting with them in healthy or appropriate ways.

I feel like as far as going off the rails goes…

I made sure I didn’t damage my body in a way that was going to have long-term consequences because I’m supposed to not do that anymore. So I’m upset with myself and I feel like I coped as well as I fucking could.

Which doesn’t mean it is a way of coping Noah can bear.

Which also doesn’t mean that it proves that at my core I don’t want Noah and I’m not excited by Noah.

And that’s a lot of how Noah took it and continues to take it. Which is a real problem for my marriage. I made that bed and now I get to lie in it.

It’s all so complicated. Sometimes it is very hard that I have come so far that people expect me to be able to function like a healthy, whole person and I’m still not. I’m better than I ever was… but I still struggle with all these ways I’m just not ok. I’ve come a long way but that doesn’t mean I have the background other people have to lean on.

When I panic or feel scared… I still want to revert to programming. Even though I know that programming is going to kill me or wreck my life.

Do you know how hard it is that panic or fear has to be the trigger for the most intense lock-down control of my behavior? So I don’t blow up my life.

That’s not normal. That’s not how humans are designed to function. Fear and panic mean you lose control not that you have to be under way more control.

How come black belts still get mugged and raped? Because fear shuts you down. Fear makes it impossible to function in your normal manner.

But for me fear has to mean that I have much finer control than average. Fear means I have to consciously and deliberately slow down how I am thinking and think through the behavioral options much more carefully than normal and I have to triple check every thought I have to see if it is appropriate or if it is fucked up by the programming I experienced.

We are all programmed by our childhoods.

My programming tends to put me in danger over and over.

Realistically… I’m super happy with myself that when I went hunting when I was freaking out because I couldn’t figure out how to change a dynamic in my life… I picked people who weren’t all that likely to hurt me. In terms of the scale of my life… that was actually well done. I didn’t go hunting Craigslist. I met people from okcupid but in a coffee shop and that was it. I didn’t go looking for danger. I stuck with people who would hurt me in very safe ways. I picked people who have demonstrated for a long time that they want me to be happy. That’s… a huge step up for me.

Even when I’m doing something for mixed, probably bad reasons… I’m making better choices. That has to be progress.

I picked people who were kind to me instead of treating me badly. That’s still a sign of improving life choices.

My nods to self harm are less destructive over time. That’s something.

I still did a lot of harm to my life and to my marriage… but I didn’t shorten my life.

But now we are back to the point where I have to figure out how to get Noah to believe that I like him and I’m excited by him. That’s kinda hard when I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. I have poured out my lifeblood for him and that’s fucking exhausting. How do you exhaust yourself utterly and still have room for excitement?

I think we do have exciting moments. But they are mixed in with a lot of not very exciting moments because I’m fucking tired. Yes, I seemed more excited by dates in a minute by minute way… and I also spent very little time with those people.

Scale matters.

I’m so tired I feel like breathing is an effort. I want to spend weeks lying in a bed doing nothing.

How in the fuck am I going to make someone believe I am excited by anything?

Tonight is my LONG AWAITED sleep study. We are playing in an RPG today so we are going to drop the second vehicle at the clinic on our way to game so I can go straight to the evaluation at the end of the game play and still get home in the morning.

Since no one felt overwhelmed with desire to babysit tomorrow we will have a restful day post-sleep study. That’s probably wiser anyway. We collapsed on each other on Thursday when Noah got home. Another day of doing that would be lovely.

EC and I processed almost everything they want to sell at the consignment sale last night. The sale isn’t till next month but I told her if she waits till the last minute I’m not helping and she has to do all the frantic rushed work alone. She elected to ask for help early. Clever girl. We had a lovely date together doing the work. Noah and FMC had a date of their own.

Our kids are hilarious about the way they talk about how there are DIFFERENT KINDS OF DATES. They are really emphatic that they do not go on ROMANTIC dates with us, just friendly ones. It makes me giggle. As if I need them to let me know not to have romantic feelings towards them when we are out. Ok darling. I promise to put my romantic feelings in a box when I’m with you. *cough*

FMC got more forking dolls for their birthday. Grandma’s box arrived. A boy and a girl. FMC has decided they are brother and sister so “No kissing or nothing because that’s not ok between siblings.”

This life they are living… it doesn’t resemble the world I grew up in.

I’m so glad.

We are having a lot more sibling rivalry and I need to read up on how the fuck to manage it. I have done a good job of teaching EC to be patient with younger kids and generous with her stuff. FMC is a tyrant and spends most of their time talking about how much better they are than the people around them. I’m feeling some feelings about this.

I hope FMC turns out to be a better big sibling than they are a younger sibling. They still hit a lot. They still call names whenever they are thwarted. This is all directed at their sister and no one else.

EC is not a god damn punching bag. The only thing that slows FMC down is when EC punches back.

I’m at the point where I say, “FMC isn’t a baby. If they hit you… don’t take it.”

I have no desire to encourage fighting. I have less desire to teach EC they need to accept being hit without response. Oh fuck that. We start with our words. But if someone won’t stop fucking hitting you… flatten them.

You do not owe anyone the acceptance and tolerance of pain. Fuck. That. Noise.

We are talking about it in family therapy. This has been a consistent pattern for a while but I feel like it’s escalating and I’m frustrated. I need more books.

I was the shithead baby. I don’t know what to do about this. I never hit my siblings (they were 5, 8, & 13 years older than me… if I tried I was flattened) much but I did spend a lot of time talking about how much smarter I was. Because I was.

I’m a judgey piece of shit and I’ll say it is less clear that FMC is head and shoulders smarter than EC. They might be. But it’s close. My siblings uhhhh…. well maybe they might have been smarter than me if they hadn’t all started abusing drugs and alcohol in junior high. I didn’t. I ended up with a better working brain.

*shrug*

But yeah. The competitive spirit is real. Real fucking frustrating.

Sigh.

For the second pregnancy in my life a cherished friend came over and asked me Why? It came up in context of telling me how surprised they were that two of their friends share their values so little that they are willing to have a third child. Don’t we think that is a terrible thing to do?!

I understand population growth issues. I do. I understand that having fewer children in general is wise. I get it.

I also have a desperate need for family that just isn’t going away and there isn’t another way to manage this problem. I’ve tried the chosen family thing. Guess what? At crunch time… folks go back to their “real” families and I’m left on my own. Except now I’ve created my own real family and they really like me and want me with them on every single instance of those days when everyone else leaves me to go back to their families.

I know I am selfish. I want a family. I want a big family. I can’t tell you what it means to a dirty little unwanted street brat that I have this growing, extremely loving family. I have a home. I have a place. I am wanted here.

I mean… someday my children will grow up and create more boundaries. But all signs point to my children wanting to still know their parents some day. They won’t live in our back pockets forever… but we will talk.

I get the strong impression that my children are the sort who will enjoy coming home for holidays at least sometimes. And I’m the sort who would say, “If coming home sounds boring is there any way I can sweeten the deal for a visit?”

Bribery is awesome.

There are lessons about parenting, about being a mother that I desperately still need to learn. Like, so far I have two children with wildly compatible personalities. What are the chances of that continuing as a trend? Ha. Ha. … ha. Oh shit. At some point I’m going to get a child for whom I am going to have to drastically change and grow.

I look forward to that.

My children are a spur to my behavior changes unlike any other in the entire world. I brought them into this world and I believe I fucking owe them a relationship that accommodates where *they* start out. It’s not all about me. I love that mothering has no patience for self absorption, well… not the way I do it. This is why I lock myself into rooms sometimes so I can be as self absorbed as possible for a bit. When my kids are present… I’m basically not allowed. I have too much I have to focus on outside myself. I have to worry about their hunger as much or more than my own. I have to worry about their energy level as much or more than my own. I have to consider about their emotional state.

I require myself to see my children as autonomous people I don’t understand yet. It’s why I ask so god damn many questions. Because I don’t actually know you even though I’ve spent thousands of hours staring at you. You are still a mystery. A glorious, beautiful mystery I will spend my entire life figuring out. Thank you for being here with me.

I want more children because I walked into this relationship saying three…. maybe two children.

I’m terrified of the fourth. Fuck. I’m terrified of giving birth to any more. I’m not so talented at labor. It is really hard to contain my rude feelings when my dearest friends talk to me about labor. I want to be kind of all JUST DON’T TALK ABOUT YOUR SHINY LESS THAN 24 HOUR LABORS. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR SUCH STORIES UNLESS AND UNTIL I HAVE ONE OF MY OWN, CAPICHE!?

I don’t really mean it. But I’m feeling really scared of labor. My last labor almost fucking killed me after 9 fucking days. I’m allowed to have some big feelings, here. Can we talk about y’alls short labors after I am on the far side of this terrifying labor that may take who knows how many days because my body just doesn’t want to work harder.

I’m seriously ok with a c-section this time. I now believe that a c-section probably wouldn’t be much worse than my last god damn vaginal delivery. And I’d have good drugs. C-sections have a 6 week recovery period but you are supposed to be up and walking around as quickly as you can manage. I will probably be able to manage in less than the 2 weeks it took me to walk after my last god damn delivery.

I take it pretty seriously that labor used to kill half of all women. That woulda been me not many decades ago without question.

So I’m terrified of giving birth. But I want the people on the other side of this travail so bad I shake.

But whyyyyyyy don’t you adopt?

I hear this question so fucking frequently.

Do you not understand that I have a mother-wounding bigger than Alaska? In adoption… the baby has lost their birth mother for some reason. That’s a wounding. With the wounding I already have I truly believe I would be bad at centering the needs of a child with a similar wounding. I believe it would be hard for me to comfort someone for decades about the fact that I am not the person they want to have comforting them.

Which isn’t to say that all adoptions go badly. I know some families who have adopted and done very well together. The mothers are wonderful. I admire them deeply. But I believe they have a well of something inside them that I lack.

I am pointing out my failures. Not failures in the entire system.

I really need to be someone’s person. Not someone’s tolerated replacement. I can’t do that. The way my children love me? That’s a balm to my soul. That calms me down and gives me focus for changing and growing that nothing else has ever done. I’m supposed to be here with them. I’m supposed to take care of them. It’s not that I’m supposed to suffocate them forever with attention and smothering… but I’m supposed to be part of their constellation of support.

I’m also supposed to make sure they have friends and other adult support because let’s find a healthy balance here. This isn’t all about me.

But I belong here. I am an integral part of this dance.

No one in this house will tell me I’m not their real mother so fuck me. They will tell me they hate me. Some day a child will probably tell me they wish they had another mother.

But even that has less sting. I wish you weren’t what you are. But you are it.

Ok!

I’m allowed to take care of these people and it isn’t creepy and codependent. It’s necessary and appropriate! The overwhelming instinct I have is ok here. I’m not wrong.

Do you know how it feels to me to not be wrong sometimes? It’s kind of fucking rare. I assume I’m wrong in the vast majority of circumstances. I’m too loud. I’m too intense. I’m too needy and no one fucking cares. But however I show up to the role of “mother” is ok.

I’ve been reading stuff about Carrie Fisher as a mother. I’m not nearly so wacky. And that’s ok. Mothers have to be different. We have different kids and different lives and different capabilities.

I’m super interested in this third child. Noah and the kids who are here keep talking about a fourth. That’s where I get into my hemming and hawing.

I’m scared I won’t have enough to give. I’ll be 38 or 39 when a fourth child is born. That’s fucking old in my shitty body that didn’t like giving birth at 29. I know it isn’t old in the scope of women giving birth these days. But my body is shitty. These little factors matter. Not to mention that my pregnancies suck ass.

I believe with all my heart that I will do well parenting three. I’m nervous that four will actually hit my limits and I’ll fail. I’m scared that I will let my fourth child feel even a little bit the way I did as a fourth.

I do not want to create a child who will feel like a burden.

I keep saying we’ll see when folks bring it up. Because I don’t know yet and I’m afraid to guesstimate the capacity I will have in three more years. What will be going on medically? Not a fun thing to think about.

I’m 19 weeks pregnant. One more week till I’m halfway. I’m definitely feeling movement already and have been for a bit now during quiet moments. And given that I have IBS and constant abdominal pain from gas and shit moving around I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FEELING OF GAS BUBBLES AND THE FUCKING BABY MOVING AROUND–STOP ARGUING WITH ME.

Near as I can tell, I have more Come to Jesus talks while pregnant than anyone I know. More people feel free to tell me while I’m pregnant that I shouldn’t be pregnant than any of my friends. I guess that’s what being a train wreck in motion will do.

It is hard that it is always close friends I love and respect a lot. At least this time I wasn’t told I would be a failure because of my mental health. Just that I’m not considering everyone on the planet’s well being as I’m being selfish.

Ok that isn’t how it was phrased. But communication is a mixture of what you say and what I hear. I’m always going to turn your mild criticism/off-hand comment into a reason why I’m a disgusting monster who should die. Because communication is about what I expect to hear too.

My friends tell me that no one says things to them while pregnant. Even if they are having the child under very different circumstances.

I mean good fucking grief. I’m married to the same person I’ve always been married to and we get along really well and co-parent together like whoa. I’ve lived in the same house for 11 years. I’m financially stable and secure and my children all have substantial nest eggs for their future. My existing children are really happy and secure and well adjusted.

But I should still totally be talked to about how terrible it is to be pregnant. Because I’m me.

No, because my friend was marveling at the fact that they can’t understand how their friends have such different values about “living green”. (I’m not the only one in their  inner circle to have a third child and they just don’t understand us.)

Selfish twats. There’s your answer for why.

(Ok, I shouldn’t speak for this other mother. That’s rude.)

There has been one week of my children’s life when I was not coherent or capable of parenting because of grief/mental breakdown. I called in the cavalry of my extended community and my children weren’t alone for a minute.

I handle my shit.

I’m not perfect. I’m not the best mother in the world by any stretch of the imagination. But I’m not shitty. I’m not in competition for being in the worst 10% of mothers either. I’m doing ok. Why do I want more children?

Because I want there to be another child in the world who is wildly wanted and who is looked at from birth like they are a person of their own who deserves to be considered and I have exactly one way I can make that true.

Really I have very little power in this life to effect the lives of other people. But I can do this.

I believe that someday, when I learn the lessons I’m working on with my own children, I will be an excellent foster mother. But I sincerely believe I haven’t learned all I need to learn yet and I don’t want to make those mistakes with foster children who have already been hurt enough. My precious bubble wrapped babies can absorb a few fuck ups without losing resiliency. Their lives are pretty awesome. Mistakes that won’t make them flinch will derail someone else’s bonding ability. Perspective matters.

Why is fostering so different from adopting to me? I don’t know. In fostering there is way less implication that you are “getting your own kid”. You are helping to raise someone else’s kid. It’s just full fledged acknowledged. And that I can do. I’m good at that. As long as I know my place and I know it isn’t “mother”. But I am not ready.

I need to learn more about sibling rivalry and in-house fighting with people who more or less get along and love each other. What I know about sibling interactions is so fucking toxic and I’m trying to replace the information in my head. It takes time.

I never learn as fast as I wish I did.

I’ve read a lot of books about being in healthy families. I need to have these feelings in my body because otherwise it’ll be like me teaching that kid trig when I was a teacher. I can teach a thing I don’t understand and can’t duplicate myself… but it’s really hard and I leave feeling drained and worthless and stupid.

Even though Noah thinks I should feel proud and capable… I leave knowing I still don’t understand. I’m just reading it out of a book. I don’t understand in my heart and in my mind and I really want to.

A hollow parroting of what feels safe and healthy to someone else doesn’t feel good to me. I need to understand.

Something I have been noticing, that is a slight left turn. I’ve been noticing that I want more tactile interactions with friends. I’m not using my words and asking for them. But I feel the impulse to ask for snuggling during visits. This is a kind of weird impulse because I’ve spent a lot of time in the past two decades making sure everyone knew to keep their god damn distance except sex and brief greeting/departing hugs. But I’m feeling different. It’s weird. It feels like an interesting shift.

I don’t want to jump everyone. I just want to lean my head on their shoulders. I just want to snuggle the way I get to with my kids. I want to feel that more with adult bodies.

I’m pretty sure this is the strongest this urge has been in my life. I want non-sexual contact. That’s weird for me. For so long it was threatening. I had to turn it into sex or else.

But I’ve been doing this different thing for a while now.

I get to pick up Noah in about six hours. I’m looking forward to that a lot.