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.