Oh golly gee wiz. We don’t have a lot left in our house. We moved back into the kitchen because the staging is over. It’s weird seeing the cupboards. We have more food than we will be able to eat in 19 days because it’s a slightly weird hodge podge.

Corn chips, rice, oatmeal, flour, nuts, and condiments. We have too much. But the kids and I want to go to the park for a picnic today (weather permitting) and that will be a good opportunity to eat a bunch of the random stuff. I have these lime and sea salt pistachios that are outrageously good. I will cheerfully burn holes in my gums eating these because they are so tart.

I should make scones today. We have three more mixes.

Whatever. Time to go hang out with kids.

It’s really weird how much stuff is breaking. My laptop is being repaired right now. A replacement watch is on the way, because my Christmas present already broke. Most of my socks are wearing out. They aren’t getting one hole, they are getting 4-8 holes all of a sudden. There has been a little bit of anxiety around Eldest Child going to see grandpa. As of this moment she is going. We leave for the airport in 12 hours. No pressure.

She has a prepaid gift card and $260 in cash. I hope that is enough money to buy her food in the airports and groceries and the admission she will need to pay for when she does stuff with grandpa. He does not intend to pay for anything. He can’t right now. His girlfriend just got laid off. He would like to borrow $25,000 from me. I’m having really big feelings about that right now. I’m pretty sure I need to say no just because I am not feeling stable in friendships right now and I feel used. This is a really bad time for me to do a loan like that. This break up is hurting.

I have done my PT exercises at least three days in a row. Some of them are getting easier. I can do a wall sit for a full minute. I am struggling with that mindset problem where I want to get ahead. I want to give myself some kind of slack. So I want to do tomorrow’s homework today. But doing two rounds of PT exercises in one day does not actually work like that. I’m feeling deep frustration.

I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping. I’m so anxious. My thumbs hurt. I’m tired of feeling sad.

I want my computer back. My phone is not really an acceptable substitute. Although I will say that the talk to text function of the phone is way better than I ever gave it credit for. It’s better than dragon on every level.

I’m staring at this new layer of growth in my hair. I have these curls going straight up around my face. They look really funny. It’s almost like I had to Santa Cruz wave logo coming out around my face.

I am thinking about my body in ways that I have mixed feelings about. I have been binging on sugar for the last few months to deal with my feelings. I don’t have a lot of vices left; the sugar is awesome.But I’ve gained a couple of pounds. We have also not been walking as much as we really should be. We are working too much. As a result I’m getting softer and thicker around the middle. I am feeling very unhappy with myself for noticing. I don’t want to care about gaining weight. I want that to be OK. But my clothes are starting to not fit and I’m not really at a good place to go replace my wardrobe. I feel positively allergic to the idea of going on a diet. I don’t wanna ever diet again in my life and I feel angry at myself for thinking about losing weight. I don’t really want to lose weight. Maybe three or 4 pounds? I want my clothes to fit. I don’t really want to be smaller.

I saw my massage therapist today. Actually, I’ve seen her three times in the last four days. My body feels better than it has in months. My jaw feels so much better, even though it is swollen from all of the digging. My massage therapist has come along way. When I started seeing her the level of bigotry that she would casually display while talking was really hard for me. I have spent a lot of hours arguing with her. Today it was kind of funny listening to her talk about how most terrorists in this country are American citizens and they’re white men. Most of them are even Christian! That was a huge jump for her. When we first started working together she believed that most terrorists were Islamic and I’ve spent years bringing in statistics to argue with her. It was really wonderful seeing evidence that she has actually listened and take in the information in and she is spontaneously volunteering the information when it is relevant in other settings. That’s good. I feel like I did something with my time. I’m going to take her out to lunch soon because it is coming up on the anniversary of her mother’s death and she’s not coping all that well. She’s not allowing herself to reach out for connection in anyway and I’m worried about her. I will be kind of bummed when I lose out on that relationship. I have been very lucky in my medical providers over the last few years. There’s gonna be a lot that will be hard when I’m gone.

I’m thinking about my friends all day every day. I feel like I’m flipping through a Rolodex in my head of people. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I don’t have the ability to reach out to you right now. I’m really glad you’re in the world though. I really hope that things will work out such that we will be able to hang out again. I hope I will get my poop in a group and I won’t be annoying on the visit. I’m trying to get better about only visiting people for really short periods of time so that I don’t bother people. I don’t know how to change this absolute paranoia in my chest that if I overstayed my welcome I’m going to be finished permanently. I wish I felt more secure in my relationships. I don’t.

I am trudging through all of my adulting tasks.And both feel overwhelmed and like things are getting better. The end is in sight. We really are to the point where we are almost down to the possessions that fit in suitcases. I think we will bring four or five boxes to storage? Maybe? It depends on how much space the blanket fills up. We only want to keep a couple of blankets but they are bulky.

I feel like I am a different person than I used to be. I feel quieter. I know that part of it is how tired I am, but it’s bigger than that too. I feel like I am a growing mix of confidence and insecurity that’s really hard to pin down. Like, the fact that I’m taking off on this trip at all it’s kind of amazing. But I don’t feel worthy of love or relationship still. Even though on many stages of this journey we’re going to be seeing friends who really want to see us I still feel insecure. I still feel like people don’t actually like me. I really thought that by this point in my life I would feel more secure in myself but I don’t. I think that the fact that I am always working on things that I need to change contributes to why I always feel like I’m bad. There’s always stuff that feels not good enough. Like working with the vaginal dilators. I’m clearly doing stuff. This is necessary and important work that might improve my relationship with my pussy. But it’s hard. It feels overwhelming and scary. It’s weird hitting a tiny little bump inside my vagina and all of a sudden I have triggered feelings of existential terror. Then I have to calm down and try to make it boring so that the muscles relax so that I stop tearing and ripping and bleeding.

I am feeling really crowded inside of my head. I feel like I don’t have very much opportunity to talk. I am engaging in the least therapy of my life. This is the longest stretch of not consistently seeing somebody. I’m coming up on years of not having really consistent therapy at this point. I have somebody I see occasionally but they are not really a talk therapist. They work more on somatic stuff. So I haven’t had a talk therapist since I fired the lady who lives in Oakland. And that was three years ago? I don’t remember. I feel like it would be good for me to be processing with someone but I’m not at a good place for finding a therapist and I’m not feeling very confident about reaching out to my friends. What I want is so specific and structured and hard but it’s not fair to ask of anyone. And that hurts. Because I just can’t ask anybody for help right now because I am too hard.

I feel like we are coming out of the disequilibrium period with the kids. The last few days have gone better than things have gone in a long time. It helps that the kids are more or less caught up with school. It helps that I have less work on my plate so I am less overwhelmed and irritable. It helps that we’ve had some intense non-yelling conversations with Middle Child lately about what kind of relationships he wants to have with people and what kind of person he wants to manifest in the world. He’s doing a lot of really interesting work on himself. Like, he’s really interested in being a person that he wants to be friends with. That’s kind of fascinating for me to watch because I have never liked myself very much. I have never believed that I would want to be friends with me. If I could get away from me and never talk to me again that would probably be my first choice. But he really likes him self and that’s so neat to watch. He worries a lot, he is my son. He’s really cool. And my big girl is making me really happy lately. It’s weird feeling happy about my children. I feel bad about it like I am doing something I shouldn’t do. But they are so much of my life and my time. It’s hard feeling like I am being bad just by enjoying them as much as I do. It is hard feeling like my feelings about them are just about me and just about them and are not about all of these other people and situations in the world. It’s hard feeling centered in my own narrative.

I am struggling with the great influx of overt racism around the globe. I feel like the problems with white supremacy and patriarchy and white men are coming to some kind of feverish pitch. Where will it go? What horrible event is going to change this flow of hatred? I don’t know but it’s really scary. Also, Cardi B can tell me who to vote for in the next election.

My stomach hurts. I feel like my anxiety is on turbo again. I don’t feel like I am making choices that lift enough people. I don’t feel like I am doing enough for my species and I also feel like I do too much for people and I’m hurting myself in the process. I don’t understand balance.

I am really tired. I should probably try to sleep now. It’s feeling really hard.

The last couple of days have gone just a tiny bit better. I’m trying so hard to get some more pause in my brain so I’m not getting upset at the kids. I have been wearing the airbuds and telling my family that I can’t hear them sometimes. It helps.

I need space inside my head where I am not on duty. I need to have time where I am not required to be listening to and responding to my children. I need it or I’m going to fail. I need space to just be me and not a mommy-unit.

It’s hard not having childcare. I have mixed feelings about asking the big kids to play with the baby. I feel like I am… cheating somehow. I won’t leave them alone in the house but sometimes I get to go to the bathroom alone. Tonight I went and did the vaginal dilation with the big kids watching her. That goes really well.

Sometimes I feel like the big kids feeling competent enough to take care of her is the best thing that could have happened to our dynamic. They both love feeling mature and responsible. I feel like this is so good for all of us. I hope I’m not screwing it all up.

I’m trying a new thing with the kids and school work. I have not managed the last academic term well. I was….overly influenced by my pedagogy training. I forgot all of the unschooling perspectives I have worked so hard for. That year with the charter school messed up my priorities like whoa. “This is mandatory.” “Yeah you are the only family who complied.” WHAT IS THE POINT OF PUBLIC  SCHOOL. What is the point of learning? What is education?

So the kids are being given more freedom with the screen and I am saying, “Have you gotten everything done you want to get done?” at intervals and the kids are doing more playing than they have done in a very long time. More than six months I’d say. And they are making forward progress at a better clip than they have managed in a long time. They need to play. I have been so dogmatically focused  on work that I am creating problems.

What I love about home schooling is this is my fault. My responsibility. If it goes well, go me! If it goes poorly: Krissy… get it together….

Sigh. We all need to play more and I feel like I am having such a hard time making play the priority again. I feel like the kids hit academic age and I practically want to shove them in the equivalent of an academic sweat shop. WORK HARDER. WHY DO YOU PAUSE. YOU MUST LEARN MORE. Uhhhh that’s not going to work very well. But it’s what I’ve been doing for over a year. Shit.

It helps that we have just a little bit of time left. 32 days till we are out of the house. It’s sold. That stress is over. The amount of stuff we have left is just not a big deal. We got two postcards in the mail today announcing thrift pickups on our street. Two of them in the next two weeks. What excellent timing. I think that’ll be most of what is left.

We have seven pieces of furniture left to get rid of: metal shelves, coffee table, armoire, standing desk, and the last three Ikea pieces (the glass cabinet holding our dishes, the dresser, and the last cube bookcase). The mattresses will go in the bulk garbage pickup that’s happening the day after we leave. We don’t have much kitchen stuff left. It’s going in waves.

I did practice packing today. All of our clothes, toiletries, school supplies, art supplies, kitchen stuff, and games. 208 pounds split between 7 bags. Not too awful because they’d be willing to let us have 400 pounds of stuff in 8 bags. I will be packing two big sturdy maximum-carry-on-size-that-can-still-be-checked so that if we want an 8th bag we have it. (And an extra carry on option for the future.) It’s a lot of shit and a fair bit of it will be used up and not replenished any time soon. I think we literally have about 20 pounds of art gear. And that’s a winter and a summer wardrobe for all of us. Including big jackets so that we don’t die in Scotland.

Carry ons are not packed yet. We each have a backpack. Eldest Child has a small purse that she tucks into her backpack. Middle Child has a rolling backpack (his school books are way too  heavy for him to carry) and a cute satchel we can’t bear to give away. Her Sweetness just gets a diaper bag. I carry my backpack and purse. Noah gets his backpack. I’m debating if we want to bring the stroller. We do use it a fair bit and it saves my back. There are other bags we bring empty just in case.

That’s 14 bags when we are permitted 17. I will have the extra 3 with us. Two big totes and a backup back pack that packs down like a grocery bag.

Of course I travel with reusable grocery bags as well.

I carry so much shit. But I can fix so many situations. My medicine cabinet is fierce. I can handle a lot of problems on no notice.

Still a daunting list of tasks in front of me. But the only thing I have scheduled for this weekend is massage so I should be able to knock a lot of it out. Work work work.

Ok. It’s past 8. I need to get my butt in bed.

There are two sides to every story. I don’t want to make it sound like I think I was endlessly giving and perfect and she sucked. That’s not true. I was not healthy with my boundaries and I gave more than I should have hoping that it would cause her to get crappier with her boundaries so she would give me more.

That’s complicated.

Was I really hoping that she would get crappier with her boundaries? I don’t know. I wanted to be more of a priority.

Like the precipitating event that caused us to stop living together. We negotiated extensively that she would have dinner on the table at 5:30. I worked my whole day around getting home for dinner. She was in bed and had done nothing because she didn’t feel good.

When do I get to start the part of my life where I don’t have to do anything for anybody unless I feel good enough? Because let me tell you if I am supposed to wait until I feel good to do things for people…. y’all are fucked. I never feel good. Maybe a handful of days in a year I feel good. Mostly my body is a nightmare. Headaches, back pain, hand and arm pain. My neck hurts all the time. My feet are struggling with the adjustment to hiking boots (I’m probably lacing too tight) but it’s clearly helping my ankles and knees.

I need to learn some lessons here. I want to handle my shit better in the future. I want to have healthier relationships. So how do I need to change in order to make situations like this go better in the future? It’s going to be subtly different but I will be the consistent element. How do I not encourage people to treat me badly because it is what I expect?

I need to find a way to convince my brain that “You should do _____” is not actually an order and I don’t have to start complying. That’s hard. I do that. It’s worse with women than men. Things like, “You should teach sex ed to the kids in the group” so I went home and wrote up a full lesson plan. Then she said she was kidding. Why did I waste my time?

Because I’m waiting for other people to tell me what kind of tool I am. I’m waiting for other people to tell me how I am valuable to them so I can double down on those behaviors in order to be more pleasing.

I want to please you. I want to be loved. I want to be important.

But you put me on your calendar only to drop me anytime you don’t feel very well.

You hardly ever feel well, too.

This sucks.

I don’t feel entitled to anything so I don’t like to ask for support. So when I do ask and you let me down it feels like an absolute betrayal instead of like a person just not getting everything done. It feels like you are telling me that I never deserved the support I asked for.

You were really happy to be the person who did X for me. So I told you I needed X by Thursday. Then you forgot. Then you yelled at me that I didn’t tell you when I needed it. Ok sure, you went back and checked records and apologized later because I DID TELL YOU but that doesn’t save me on Thursday when you didn’t do the thing and you are yelling at me that it is my fault it didn’t get done because I wasn’t clear enough. When I was clear enough.

But you were effectively my free therapist holding the thread of me together for over ten years. You gave me purposed. You allowed me to love you. What is that worth in trade?

A lot. But I don’t know how much.

What is the part I need to not do again?

I need to stop putting myself into caretaker positions for disabled people. I am not well enough. I damage myself because you are more important than me. That will result in me not making it into old age for my kids. I have to stop.

I made these kids. I owe them; not you.

I am enjoying this baby so much. She’s feeling like such an important member of our little crew already. We all pivot to her. We all have to check our behavior with her. We all have to stop and decide if the way we have been unconsciously behaving is good enough for her. That’s feeling lovely. I can’t have another kid in ten years to restart this pattern, but this is feeling good.

Ok. Have to run.

I feel like I’ve been pulling back from writing since I cheated. I feel ashamed of myself. I feel dirty and bad and like I am not a good person. Things with my relationships haven’t helped. I do so  much looking to my friends for permission to exist; permission to do things and feel things and want things. When my friends stop giving that permission I feel like I run down like a clock.

I looked to Sarah for permission in an outsized way. And that mechanism totally failed. Sarah is not reliable. She asked me what she was supposed to be protecting in our relationship. I don’t know how to explain it. I wanted her to actually prioritize me. I wanted consistency from her to prove that I deserve consistency. She’s really literally unable to be consistent. It’s not me. I am deeply comforted by the people who have contacted me to say, “Seriously dude. This is not you. She does this to everyone.” It’s not that I’m unworthy and pathetic and awful. It’s that Sarah is not consistent for anyone. She is inconsistently wonderful and amazing and astounding. But it’s inconsistent.

The inconsistency makes me crazy. It completely destroys my sense of self. I stopped getting mad at people for being late for dates because I stopped feeling like if I did that I would have anyone left.

I wanted Sarah to prove to me that even though my mother couldn’t be consistent…. someone thought I was worth it.

But I’m not.

Things like: we tried to have monthly in person dates and weekly Skype dates. I cancelled the Skype dates after a few months of trying because I was always waiting around and she couldn’t make it. I felt like I did something inappropriate when I asked to stop having the Skype dates because it was really hurting me to always be not important enough. And then the in person dates… yeah. That sucked. Those didn’t happen consistently and I ended up doing an awful lot of the carrying of the load. Because obviously with multiple children it’s way easier for me to do the work. Duh.

It’s like driving to Arizona to help her. Where is a similar level of support in my direction? Yeah. Right.

It’s not that she did nothing. It’s that I poured energy into her unstintingly and the end result is I am drained and bitter. I’m barely talking to my friends because I’m afraid I will take my bitterness out on everyone.

I don’t want to feel like this.

My neighbor tells me that he’s sad I’m moving. I’m the best neighbor he’s ever had. But we talk for like 2 hours in a whole year. Maybe you could have fucking appreciated me more actively and made me want to stay?

I feel so very lonely and disconnected. I’m barely talking to friends even when they are in the literal room with me. There is no point in me trying to use my voice. My children will just talk over me and drown me out.

I feel less and less like I have a self to exist.

I am so tired. I feel so hateful and worthless and stupid and sad. I want to leave. I am so tired of being reminded that I am not that important to any of these people.

Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.

I need a break. I won’t get one.

I need to feel like I’m important or I’m not going to live that long. Because taking care of me is hard. It feels so stupid to waste time and energy on me.

I feel so sad. I feel like dying would be so much easier than continuing to try and fail at being a person.

I miss Sarah so much that I ache all the time. And we hurt each other constantly. And she is literally incapable of being consistent or dependable and I need to stop looking to people who are inconsistent. This is one of the most toxic patterns still in my life.

I want to be good enough to make someone like that love me and treat me like I’m important. It’ll prove that maybe I was good enough for my mom it was just bad timing.

Just bad timing.

Noah wants to be enough. He wants to give me all the permission and acceptance and tolerance and love. And he’s a white cis dude. That’s so complicated.

I will wipe my ass and go to bed. Because there is nothing else to be done.

I am nervous about having to keep the kids out of the house all day tomorrow. I don’t want to go to the park. I don’t want to see anyone or do anything. I want to crawl into a dark room with no windows and not come out for a week or 50.

There is a scene in a Tamora Pierce book. The mage is trying to spin pure magical energy into a thread so that it can be dealt with. She talks about feeling through the air trying to catch the ends flying in the wind. I feel like that but I’m trying to catch myself.

I am feeling so anxious and insecure. The reasons are many and varied. I am doing too much and there isn’t enough time in the day. I feel judged and I really don’t need to care about anyone’s opinion. These opinions have no impact on my life. But I still feel bad.

My  physical therapist is a really nice lady. I’m enjoying talking to her. She has been the first person who really wants to talk about the physical mechanics of my body AND she wants to hear about how I’m doing emotionally. Maybe not the first person…. but this is weird from medical providers. Especially with the vaginal dilators. She wants to hear a lot about my emotional experience. She says that over and over again I am proving to be a special case. She is telling me to do the exact opposite of what she tells a lot of her clients because I’m just wacky. Things like: when it comes to having better posture she wants most people to start adjusting in their hips/low back first and then move up the spine. If I do that then I crunch myself into a really bad position. I have to imagine a string pulling the top of my head to create space in the spine to allow it to get back into the normal position. If I try to adjust from the bottom I never get the space I need. With the dilators, most people who use them are counseled to have zero distraction while using it; I need as much distraction as i can manage. I’m using them for different reasons. I don’t need the emotional presence to do the work I’m trying to do with my cunt and it actually makes my work harder. I’m trying to break up scar tissue and get used to a casual presence in my vagina. I’m not working hard to create space.

Got distracted. Of course.

Yesterday a lovely lady from Task Rabbit cleaned my bathroom. It has never been this clean before. It gleams. She is not available to come back again this week. Fair enough.

I still need to clean the kitchen: oven, fridge, and I really should do a solid wipe down of everything else. We will sweep the house again on Thursday. Outside I think the kids have gotten most of the little bits of trash picked up. (I hope.) I need to go get more mulch today for the plants. I think I’m about two hours of yard work away from done and I have a dude coming tomorrow. He can do the lifting work.

At this point in the garage we have one 5×5 black shelving unit with all of our food and toys and books on it. We have the dish cabinet with dishes and bathroom stuff and kitchen frou frou stuff. We have the bathroom metal shelf in the garage with computers on it. Computer desk. The armoire will be taken outside today because we haven’t been able to get someone to pick it up for money.

The room is looking pretty empty. I’m almost salivating about the extra floor space. Oh thank goodness we have more room to move around instead of standing in one place rotating.

The house goes on the market in 6 days. We hope to be out of here permanently in 52 days. That’s my goal.

I’m looking at marketing materials. I think we are going to have to start at $825,000 and pray that we get several bids to drive the price up. When I look at what is selling now in our neighborhood…. we missed the peak. Dangit. Oh well. Get out.

And really, if we don’t clean the fridge or the oven before the staging…. no one is taking a picture inside them on Friday.

We are basically at “go”.

That feels so good.

The kids had a moment of panic yesterday when I pointed out “Those cubbies you keep expanding into more and more of? All of that stuff has to fit in your backpack.” They did the cartoon eyes bugging out of the head thing,. “But that’s too much stuff!” Well… you know how I’ve been after you to cull for six months now…. it’s closer than it was!

I read about other slow travel families. One family travels with like five different gaming consoles. We will travel with kitchen supplies. We like to cook. It’s a big deal. Missing out on key cooking pieces sucks. We will have knives and some fat and some containers and portable silverware…. I’m dorky. But goodness I love these collapsible silicon containers. And bathroom stuff is still a lot. And I haven’t packed our daily use stuff! We have too much stuff. And we should all be using mouthwash 5x’s a day until we move. Good grief.

I’m feeling both hecka anxious and really happy. It’s 2019. It’s time for a new adventure. A huge adventure. The biggest adventure of my life.

In 2018 at least someone in my family went to: (domestically) Boulder Colorado, Los Angeles, Austin Texas, Santa Barbara, Nashville Tennessee, and (non-domestically) Japan, Mexico, and Malaysia. In 2019: Nashville again, Minneapolis, probably DC, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Scotland, possibly Netherlands, and England.

Dang.

Mexico sure was amazing. I want to see the other side of it. And the middle. We’ll be back.

Today I need to work on cleaning up the kitchen slowly. I need to hang out with my kids and snuggle. I need to exercise. I really should sort through the mass of screen shots I took right before midnight. Money last year…. ouch. We spent a lot. We aren’t broke but things are tight. I got us right up to the wire of selling the house. Frankly, I wouldn’t have let petty cash get so low if we weren’t selling. The latest remodel wiped me out. I’m feeling quite anxious and bad about myself. I allow us to go out to eat too much. But it helps, it really does.

Ugh. We live within our means. But I wish we were living within 50% of our means and I’m mad at me that we don’t. Because we always pick the more expensive higher quality choice. Ugh.

WHY DON’T YOU PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE ON MCDONALD’S. (my kids would)

Ugh.

But these are good problems to have. I’m not pressed. Just trying to figure out how to do better next year.