The best part about getting older is I have more patience for my patterns and seasons and shit. I’ve had a rough couple of days emotionally. The people in my house tell me I’m not freaking out at them so that’s good. Internally I am completely fucking freaking out.

I’ve been wanting to mutilate myself a lot. I want to remind myself that I don’t deserve anything and I am not important and I need to just shut up because no one fucking cares what I think.

It’s kind of hard to maintain those thought patterns in this house though. My family thinks I deserve everything. My family thinks I am super ridiculously important. My family wants me to talk and they like hearing what I think.

Sometimes they inadvertently do something that doesn’t land how they mean it and I get upset and I feel like maybe they don’t feel about me the way they do.

But they really do and it’s not ok to force them to jump through hoops to prove it. I have to just believe it.

That’s hard.

I have to grow up to be a nice white lady and except for glowing in the dark I’m not a great candidate. I’m an asshole and a monster and I’m not interested in being nice for you. Only due to racism and structural problems and the fact that I’m a rich motherfucker…

I have to be aware of power differentials and *I* have to be nice. Or I’m the problem.

It’s funny how that’s always been true but now I care more. I don’t want to be this problem. I want to not be this problem. I don’t want to hurt people and that means I have to soften my affect and I have to learn how to communicate without scaring people and I have to compromise.

Fuck all this.

Art. Video games. Respect. Worthiness. Time. Appreciation.

It’s complicated that I have several jobs that take up an enormous amount of my time and brain but folks think of me as just sitting around not doing much.

What does it mean to value someone?

I want to be able to set these boundaries without kicking and screaming and being nasty. I did a fairly good job of backing out of the house deal. I expressed that it wasn’t going to work for me and I needed to back out and I stopped responding.

I don’t need to tell them that I feel like I was punched in the gut and spit on so I want to get nasty. They didn’t punch me in the gut nor spit on me and I don’t need to get nasty. They want what they want and that’s ok. It’s not what I want to offer. That’s ok too.

No one needs to be nasty. It just didn’t work out.

But my insides want to be nasty. I don’t even have anything good to be nasty about. It was a possible deal that didn’t work out. We started out as friends but distant ones and I suspect we will be as close as we would have stayed anyway when I move. Which is to say… we won’t be close and that’s ok.

I am allowed to need color. You are allowed to need cream walls. Totes legit. All cool. Paint any other house, k?

My family wants to be respectful of me with video games. They’ve been doing great at meals on their own. I noped out of a conversation with Eldest Child where she wanted to extensively detail what she wants to do on a video game. I patted myself on the back. I was civil and calm and shit.

And the baby is starting to fuss again.