I don’t think we’ve had bad food here. I mean, even the spicy ramen that burned my asshole for three days tasted fantastic. Last night we went to the cat restaurant. We call it that because there is a picture of a cat on the door. What is the actual name of the restaurant? Fuck if I know, it’s only written in Japanese. But they actually have a resident cat who came out to greet us so I will lodge it in memory as the cat restaurant. The beef was dreamy. But let me back up.

It started with a fantastic soup that had a bunch of root vegetables, some beef, and some fish. Luckily Noah ate the soup the fastest so he found the fish and volunteered to take it from my bowl. Such a good husband. Then Noah and I got lovely large salads that were super delicious. Very well dressed and everything. Then came rice and miso soup. The kids also got the intro soup. Then the kids got plates of chicken. We found the word chicken on the menu with the app and the word beef and pointed at two random things. We had no real idea what we ordered.

The kids got a salt and pepper chicken and a basil chicken with a nice salad on the side, no rice. Noah and I got sizzling beef platter piled upon a bed of sprouts and cabbage with chunks of well cooked potatoes and carrots.

We shared this glorious bounty with no particular respect to who got what. It was great. I loved the food. That was some of the most glorious beef I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. It was also one of the most expensive meals we’ve had in this country, clocking in at $90. Worth every penny. But I can understand why the restaurant was empty when there are other restaurants right near by where we can feed our family to being stuffed on a mere $25.

Yesterday Noah had his first day of his conference. We woke up fairly early (we are waking up at about 5) and I nursed the baby so that she would go back to sleep for a while. I primped Noah. For Christmas he got a bunch of beard care fancy schtuff and I used most of it on him and I hand trimmed his beard because there is not a single plug in this apartment near a mirror. I also rubbed a bunch of lotion into him so that he smelled nice. Mmm pineapple. I applied deodorant because I am a nice person and he had a 45 minute walk ahead of him on his way to the conference. I have met my smelly mammal.

The kids and I had a pretty chill day. I went to the grocery store as usual. Her Sweetness is now demanding that we hold her hands and walk her around for large stretches of the day. Luckily the big kids like to help so we were tapping in and out of that job. We did that while watching a show together. It was fun.

The kids are doing writing stuff for academics and occasional loosey goosey math. We are finishing up notebooks so we have less to carry. I love that Eldest Child is mostly writing fanfic about Warriors (It’s about cat clans) and Middle Child is writing opinion pieces on where he thinks Girl Genius is going. He thinks Zeetha will win over Bangladesh Dupree and he had a lot of specific reasons in his essay. That was really fun to read.

He also drew a comic illustrating his most recent argument with his sister. I found it pretty funny.

I spent a bunch of time sitting with myself and trying to process how much I am over reacting vs how much I am having necessary feelings about different situations in my life. I am feeling a lot better about myself reading this CPTSD book. He stresses that the goal isn’t to feel joy all of the tme because that is unrealistic, unattainable, and a really stressful thing to put on yourself. The goal is to stop beating yourself up for existing and having a range of feelings.

He also talks a lot about regressing (he calls it emotional flashbacks) to emotional states from childhood as being something that can go on for months or years. That dovetails into what I am observing about myself during the early parts of my children’s lives. He talks about how doing the things you need to do the most will often trigger overwhelming shame and anxiety because you were trained as a child that you should not take care of yourself.

It’s like Sarah telling me that I can’t talk about the ways I felt bad about our relationship because I was publicly shaming her. That’s exactly like my mom telling me that I can’t talk about the shit in our family because it is airing dirty laundry.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

I don’t think Sarah is a bad person. I don’t think she intended to hurt me. She was protecting herself. We all need to do that, right?

But it’s kind of like how I need to stop treating other people like they are more important than me. They aren’t. I don’t need to keep showing up to help people who will drive past me to help someone else. I don’t need to keep hosting events so that other people can have a sense of community but people won’t show up to hang out with me one on one because really… they are just at my events so they can have the other people in the group.

I can’t do that any more.

I can’t keep contributing to the home schooling groups that are absolutely rigidly controlled by the leader, but everyone is welcome to work for her benefit as much as they want.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I’m not anti-work. I’m against people expecting me to always give for the joy of giving while not getting anything back because I am supposed to not need support. I’m a fucked up person with a lot of problems of my own. Most of my support comes from people I pay… but I’m expected to help other people for free.

I can’t do this anymore. I’m not a “Fuck you, pay me” person. But I wanted exchanges not being bled dry.

My shrink asked me to think about what I want to get from people in Portland and I have not been able to respond to her because thinking about that makes me want to throw up. I am not allowed to want anything. If I want something it won’t happen and I will be disappointed and then I will be a bad person because I will act disappointed. My expectations get me in trouble all over the place. I want to leave Portland with my friendships intact and not feeling bad about myself.

And I can’t write anymore because my kids won’t leave the room. ok.