I’m in a weird head space. On one hand, I feel remarkably zen. I feel peaceful and calm and even happy. But I also feel really really overwhelmed.

I feel like I can’t focus on what I’m doing or I’ll feel bad. But if I put my head down and just do it I’m fine.

Today will be kind of rough. We were invited to a party this evening. That means my kids are going to want to stay out later than I should be out. I’m not sure how I want to handle this. I see a midwife today for a check up. 11 weeks.

My therapist seemed to expect me to put her on hiatus. She was just set and explained her trailing off procedure. She’d like me to check in quarterly for a while. She specifically said she is comfortable doing this because I found a closer/more convenient therapist.

I delivered a mild smack down to the pain doctor yesterday. He tried to tell me that if only I exercised more often I would feel less pain. I said, “Yeah I don’t believe you and here’s why. I’ve already gone through the process of training for a marathon, which took me a year. It would not be healthy in any way to exercise more often. Yet I never stopped feeling pain.” He looked back at the screen and just started typing.

I’m at this point where I feel violently angry with doctors who assume they know how much you exercise by looking at you. I exercise a lot! God damnit! Just because I’m not skinny!

I’m really looking forward to book club this weekend. I can’t wait to hear what other people are getting from this book.

Of course I am also looking forward to celebrating a wonderful newly-minted-five-year-old in our life. But oh man book club. Because I’m boring.

I’m ollllllllllllld.

I think I have mentally packed for the Alaska trip approximately 30 times. I’ve memorized my packing list. Maybe if I wrote it down I would stop rehearsing it. I still haven’t tried on a pair of pants to see if they work. They are normally my extra extra fat pants. I have to wear a belt with them 95% of the time. The magic of these pants is pockets. I haven’t tried them on recently because they are heavy and it is too hot here! Why didn’t I think of this immediately! Sometimes, I’m kinda slow. But I’ll probably do it today. I don’t leave for 9 days and I might just start mother fucking packing today just because it feels like my happy place.

I emailed my friend and asked for specifics about their house. He said that they are food mellow and any type of food is welcome in the house. Phew. I can and am willing to adapt to my friends preferences in their homes out of love… but it makes my life easier if I just have to worry about my wonkiness. I’m hard to feed. I am capable of adapting to short term stints in gluten free/vegan environments… but I feel weird the whole time. My body is… out of sorts. I keep looking around for AND WHERE IS THE FOOD I WANT TO BE PUTTING IN MY MOUTH. WANT WANT WANT.

Yeah, it’s totally an addiction. I don’t think that’s a big problem.

My daughter asked me to please bring my computer so I can leave my Skype account open and she can video call me when she wants to. I… I feel like my heart wants to explode with joy. My babies do love me.

I haven’t fucked it all up yet.

I was a jerkface to Future Middle Child yesterday. Lately they have been requesting braids in the morning. No trouble. Happy to help. But then by like 11 kiddo starts unraveling the braids. Then by the time they get to their physical activity skill class in the afternoon I have to do something to get their hair back again. My hands have not been doing so hot. Re-braiding hair is pinchy work. Know how for years and years and years I’ve been ranting about pinchy work and how much I hate it? I do it once a day with a smile on my face. I can do that. I believe I owe you that. I will do it for as many years as you need help. Sure, I could braid my own damn hair by your age… but they just have no desire to learn braiding. And they want fantastically long hair. Ok, I can deal with braiding once a day.

But I’m not always nice about doing it a second time. Yesterday I was complaining and ranting about how irritating I find it that they undo the work in the middle of the day because THEN I HAVE TO REDO IT AND IT HURTS AND THAT JUST REALLY SUCKS, DUDE. I don’t feel bad about the grousing. I wasn’t picking on them and I wasn’t being mean. What I feel bad about is that at the end of the ranting, I tugged on a braid. I didn’t do it like super hard or anything… but I did it too hard. I was mean.

I have apologized. But when will I outgrow shit like this? When will I stop being mean? The ways I’m mean get smaller and more petty by the year… but that’s still shitty. That’s still mean. I don’t like it.

I’m way better with my words. And most of the time when I’m being pissy verbally I’m super duper careful to just not have my hands on someone because I do get rough.

I epically failed at the pinchy hair braiding plus rant combo. Well, epic may be the wrong word. I was a petty bitch. That’s not exactly an epic achievement.

And that’s the most physically mean I’ve been in a long time. The intervals in between fuck ups is growing. But I’m still not where I want to be.

I’m feeling calm and happy and I’m also feeling this weird piece of dissociation because I keep thinking about my mother and having this crushing feeling that I shouldn’t exist. That is what I want to work on in somatic therapy. This weight has been on me for most of my life. I can’t ever remember really feeling like I should exist.

I was born of trauma and it feels like that is all I will ever be. I will just be a source of pain for everyone who touches me.

Don’t start arguing with me. That’s not the point. This lives in my body. This isn’t a rational belief. This isn’t a “fact” I think I’ve arrived at based on a list of factors. It is how I feel. I mean, I can list the factors that contribute… but whoopie? None of those factors HAVE to cause this feeling. They just happen to be what I hang my hat on to describe pieces of the feeling I have anyway.

My mother and my mother’s mother and my mother’s mother’s mother all didn’t do a very good job of loving their children and their children all grew up damaged and broken and went on to seek out abuse in romantic relationships and within their family.

My children alone out of my entire extended family have a working vocabulary for their emotions. My children alone out of my entire extended family have a working vocabulary for how to express physical and sexual and emotional boundaries. My children alone out of my entire extended family have the glow that comes from believing you should be in the world. I know lots of other people who have it. But no one from my family other than my children.

Instead my white trash family are all mean and violent in the ways that people are when they believe that they are disposable.

My daughter says, “Generationally our family is improving a lot! I probably won’t have to fuck my kids up at all since you are barely doing it.”

My children do know when a well timed f-bomb fits.

But they do it so rarely and never when they are around other people. Their control is a marvel to me. They code switch better than me.

They like themselves.

I would like to do somatic work on how much it hurts that I don’t like myself and I don’t believe I deserve any of the good things I have. It really kind of sucks to go through life believing you deserve violence and so provoking it regularly.

Lots of cycles.

What is violence?

It occurs to me that I should look through the consignment sale and see if I can find one of those ugly huge Barbie heads where you can brush and style their hair. This kid needs to learn how to braid. I’ll do it once a day for you. But dat’s it.