Monthly Archives: August 2020

Scraping the bottom of the spoon drawer

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Well fuck everything. The last two ish weeks have been absolutely horrid. I mean, there’s all the things (*wave arms in the direction of the whole world*) and then my body is being a real nightmare. My PMDD symptoms this month have been utterly unreal. My pain levels have been sky high. My mood is in the toilet. (Or rather in the scalpel drawer–not that I did anything. But I thought about it. Hell I don’t even own a scalpel at this point.)

And then when I did start my period my mood got worse and the pain got worse and I passed some clumps that were the size of golf balls and that’s just not fucking ok.

I’m watching two very different communities go through growing pains. I’m learning a lot about myself as I watch them process. I’m thinking about Sobonfu. I will never find a community; I have to make it. What are my values?

I’m more than a little bit of a dick. So my line can’t be that people can’t be dicks. I can be a bully so that can’t be the line either. Ah shit.

I try so hard to lift people up but right this minute all I can see are my failures.

Coming full circle

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I will never forget when I said to a therapist that I felt like I didn’t have high self esteem and she burst out laughing and said I had the highest self esteem of any client she has ever seen.

Oh.

I come at it sideways. I doubt myself. I question my decisions and my beliefs. I do not believe I am always right. I do not believe I always come to the correct decisions on the first try. I think I need to keep trying and keep growing and keep changing because being correct is never a fixed position.

But you know what? I really fucking like me. I really like who I am. I think I reach a lot of correct decisions. I think I am an ethical person. I think I have worked really hard at becoming a person I could respect.

Two things can be true. I can be open to the idea that I am wrong and I need to change/grow while also believing that I am really fucking cool. I can believe that I make a lot of correct decisions while also knowing that I still fuck up.

As my beloved Jenny said in the birthday book (paraphrased) I look at myself and see how far I have to go and she looks at me and sees how far I have come. Those can both be true.

I feel like I have had several days lately where I have felt extreme doubt about my moral compass and about my coping skills. I moved to a new country and the rules are different. But I did what I do and I went and talked to a lot of different people about the mixed feelings I am having and what I heard consistently over and over and over from a variety of different sources was: don’t change everything about you because you are really great. Figure out what you want to add on to who you already are.

That is so much more attainable than “You are wrong and you have to change everything.” I don’t hold back. I will tell you how I really feel. Even if that isn’t the British way. I have always loved having friends who were immigrants because they challenged me to look at myself and my life through new eyes. Maybe I can be that here. I will change a little to adapt. And other people will change a little to accept me and we will meet in the middle.

Do you know what I have no doubt about in any way shape or form? I will make friends and I will build a community.

It’s what I do.

I like that about me.

All communities pick a side. No community is neutral. No space is safe for everyone. I am very clear about who I will pick. I am very clear about who I want to make safe space for.

I know who I am. And today that feels very good.

What does it mean to belong?

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I reach for your hand, your voice, your heart, your screen name.
I want to know who you are, I want to see if we are the same.
In you I see the echo of the love, the pain, the joy I feel.
With you I manage to feel like I might be real.

I wish I didn't need you.
I wish I didn't still want to see you.
I wish I could be with you.

No matter what happens you will always be mine.
We will be connected until the end of our time.

I have touched your soul and you have touched mine and that is all it takes to belong.

Life keeps plugging along.

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Today my toddler was so cute. Saying things like “Babies need hugs because babies get angry. Babies need hugs because babies get sad. Babies need hugs because babies get frustrated. Babies need hugs because babies feel loving. I love you. *big hug*” And: “I finished my cupcake, now it is time for chocolate!” Err, no kid. That’s not happening.

Eldest Child is, in my opinion, fully matriculated from home schooling. If the school goes on lock down and she has to distance learn through them it’s not my dog. I’ve been saying consistently that I am not withdrawing her from secondary school. Once she starts this school it is six years to the finish line. Today was the first day. She was elated. She should be along home… sometime soon.

Middle Child and I worked on their room today. The walls and trim are done. The closet is not done. The ceiling is not done. I cannot buy more paint for the ceiling because the paint store does not have any of the base in stock and hasn’t been able to get a shipment in a while. I cannot finish the closet until the wonderful handyman comes in and finishes the stuff he wants to add. So I’m relieved of painting duty for a while.

We started off the day with a walk to the park. We went out when EC left for school and the youngest two played for half an hour. Then we came back and I did laundry and dishes and we all had a snack. Then we painted. Then lunch. Then more laundry and dishes.

I need to sit down with MC and work out what her next “term” of home school will look like. I need to move most of the paint out of kid bedrooms and out to the shed.

I’m waiting for the handyman to put a backsplash in the kitchen because we are rubbing all the paint off the wall with our frequent cooking. The previous owners didn’t actually paint this house. They just used primer. Cheap fuckers.

Tomorrow we will go to the park when EC goes to school again and I told the littles we could stay longer. When we get home we are going to do a bunch of garden work. A lot of the plants inside the yard need thinning and I’m allowed to rip out grass and put plants along the edge of the road. I think I see a fun way to kill two birds with one project.

I need to figure out where will be the “paint clean up” zone in the future. Once we are completely done with this project I am going to scoop up all the fucked up dirt and put it in the garbage then keep working towards creating a pond.

I am really happy that all of my ongoing projects at this point feel tiny and/or easily contained/managed. They are all either a few hours at a time or they don’t create a cascading horror show of issues while they languish waiting to be finished.

I have a hard time when it feels like I can’t see the light at the end of the over-work tunnel. When I don’t know if I will be done in a week or a month or six months. I’ve been in that place for about a year now. Everytime I think I’m to the end of the big work push something breaks or there is some stall that makes things drag out forever.

I need a reduced work load. I need more rest. I can’t sustain what I have been doing. Not anymore. I’m out of spoons. I scraped the back of the drawer. I went to my neighbor’s house and borrowed all of theirs. I’m just… done.

Steaming pile of mom wrath

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This morning Eldest Child (who is now 12) started off a conversation with “You know how you think gacha videos are a complete waste of time?”

“I don’t think they are a complete waste of time. I think you learn things about youth culture and social interactions and music and video pacing and art technicalities and all kinds of things that I don’t need to learn at this point. So they are very useful for you and not something I want to spend my time on. That’s not the same thing as being a complete waste of time.”

“Uhm, well right now I’m trying to learn come backs for insults. Like if someone calls me ugly I can say ‘At least I don’t have an ugly personality.'”

She continued on with a few other similarly clever responses and I nodded along and smiled a little. Then she got to the humdinger.

“Or like, if the girl saying I am ugly is wearing a crop top I can say ‘At least I don’t look like a stripper!'”

There is this thing I do. If I freeze then slowly rotate my head towards you with a scowl on my face you know you are in trouble. She froze too. She knows. She didn’t know what was coming but she knew it wasn’t good and her whole body tensed up.

“Oh really. So at least you aren’t like my friends. Because you know I have friends who are strippers, right? At least you are better than those people who have jobs. Right? At least you are better than girls who are comfortable with their bodies and their sexuality, right? Those bitches should cover up and be ashamed of having a body and never have sex. RIGHT?” (If anything my volume got a lot lower than usual. This emphasis was all in intensity and not volume.)

She looked like I had slapped her across the face. She was stunned.

“You totally think girls and women should cover up and be modest and ashamed of having bodies, right? That’s your value system?” (For the record she has mini skirts, tube tops, and crop tops. She’s always too hot so she’s had these for years.)

“No… I don’t believe that at all.”

“Then why would you try to shame someone in exactly that way?”

“Oh god. It’s not even 8am and I have stepped in a steaming pile of mom wrath.”

“Well you tell me, what do you believe?”

“I believe that girls and women should be allowed to enjoy their bodies and enjoy sex. I will never say that again. I’m sorry.”

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Recently someone told me that they want to have kids who are comfortable with sex and sexuality so they have open and free conversations about their own sex life. I had a lot of trouble not reacting with repulsion and horror. You don’t have to talk about your own sex life to inculcate sex positivity in children. You don’t have to treat children like a peer in order to show how you live in the world. I am a freakily modest dresser. I cover up. There are a lot of reasons for it, none of them related to morality or shame. My children are not learning that scanty dress is fine by watching me.

But by golly I will go out with a pitch fork and defend someone else’s right to dress that way. I think we normalize and teach our values every single day by what we say and how we say it. I don’t flip out over every stupid thing my kid says (she’s at that age where about half of what she says is gob smackingly stupid) I mostly mildly redirect her or raise an eyebrow or roll my eyes. She will learn.

But in this house it is never ok to shame someone for having a fucking body and wearing whatever clothes they want. In this house it is never fucking ok to shame someone for having a job even and especially if that job involves sex work. Never. You don’t do it. Or yeah, you will step in a steaming pile of mom wrath.

(Note: my kids told me that they wished I was still writing about them in the blog because they want to see what I record someday. Ok lovies.)

So close and yet so far.

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I was done. My share of the project was finished. I had no more painting to look forward to. Then I noticed… Middle Child is really and truly not ready to do her own room. She tried. She did a lot! She did great! She can’t edge to save her life. And she takes the dark edging color and smears the brush all over the super light colored wall when she thinks she has too much paint on it. Insert head smacking emoji.

My hands are in a bad place. Holding a paint brush sucks. I’ve got about three hours of pinchy movement in my hands in a day before I have shooting pains. I did three hours of trim today. I will do three hours of painting on Sunday. And on Monday. Hopefully I will finish on Tuesday. I am both looking forward to and not looking forward to this process.

Eldest Child says she is done and her mural looks fabulous.

Now we get to wait for carpet fitting to be done. ECs room smells strongly of nicotine–that was part of the motivation for her paint job and the carpet is gross too. I don’t like the idea of her having to breathe that crap through another winter so we are making the room less nasty. Apparently the teenage boy who used to live in the room was a heavy smoker. Ugh.

MCs room had a shower/sink wash room taken out of the corner so there is a big patch with no carpet at all and that’s not going to work in the long run.

Neither bedroom has carpeting on the redone closet and they should have. The sub flooring is not meant to see the light of day.

In 34 days we have been in this house for a year. I’d really like to be done with the big fixing jobs. I’d like to spend a lot more time puttering in the yard but by the time I’m done with inside chores I’m so wiped out. I’m still trying to deal with the sleep deprivation I put myself through for the dining room. In 27 days I missed 8 full nights of sleep. That’s too much. Ah well.

I have new glasses! They are amazing! I can see better than I have in such a long time. I like the cool grey metal.

I’m having more interactions with young people here than I am used to. In California my friends group skewed noticeably older and here I seem to be finding a lot of folks in their 20’s. I suspect it is related to people my age being busy and not having time to go meet new people. This is leading to a lot of feelings. Some of the folks are really stellar–don’t get me wrong. I’m truly thrilled about some of the folks I have met. Ironically the ones that please me the most are the in person ones.

I’m having a fair number of online interactions that I’m struggling with. I am a judgy motherfucker. When I was 19 I had this interaction with a 39 year old woman who told me I shouldn’t be in the scene and I should go off and have normal people sex for a decade or so. Now I get it. These kids scare the hell out of me. They… sigh.

They scare the hell out of me. I’m not going to get into what they are doing.

I worry a lot about them as individuals and how their behavior will contribute to their community. I worry about the girls and young enbys in the community and what they have to put up with from the macho “lad” crew. I feel like I can watch this chat room for a couple of days and go “Ah. You either already have or will have a bad reputation because you are dangerous.”

These are instincts I totally lacked 20 years ago.

I have so many mixed feelings about myself these days. I have come so far.

Recently I pissed someone off when I said that I didn’t feel like 9/11, the 2008 financial crash, or this pandemic are going to be the central life changing traumas of my life. I was told that saying that meant I was rubbing my good luck and privilege in other peoples faces. 9/11 happened across the country and I was at least two or more degrees of separation away from people who were really effected. I would feel like a poseur if I said it really changed my life.

I mean, this explosion in Beirut isn’t going to be a formative trauma for me either even though it is absolutely a horrifying trauma. It isn’t mine.

Most of my friends were either above or below the 2008 financial crash. I was in the process of quitting teaching when it happened. Teaching was a career that was insulated from the results. Is that all luck or privilege? A lot of my friends were in marginal jobs or retail or child care and they weren’t impacted. Is that luck or privilege? I lived in a house that had been purchased long before the crash so my housing was secure. That was both luck and privilege.

I feel weird about having white people who started out in the exact same place as me at the brink of adulthood tell me that my life is different from theirs now because of privilege. I think almost everything that has happened to me since I got married has been about privilege. But there was this gap period that I have funny feelings about. I lived a hair above the national poverty line for the first seven years of being an adult in one of the most expensive places in the country. I definitely had times I went on dates in order to eat. Being told that everything that happened to me in that time period was because I was so privileged is complicated. I’m not saying it is wrong.

Sometimes I’m not sure what privilege means.

I’m ready for slower days. I’m ready for shorter days. I’m ready to stop with the fucking pinchy work. I am pretty sure I can finish the painting this week. When I do I think we are entirely done painting for a long while. That’s good. This year has been so slammed and I am so utterly exhausted. I feel half dead.

I want this toddler to stop waking up three times a night and climbing in my damn bed.

Oh, toddler sayings I want to remember: “I have a pooty” for I have a poopy booty. “Clean the pipes!” is emphatically screamed when I am cleaning her up after a pipe. It’s time to go to sleep.