This is the hard part of the fourth trimester. I’m already getting bored. But I believe in this. We are only 11 damn days into this mess. Well, once she can handle being in a carrier a little better so we can get off of sitting in a chair it will be a little easier to move around the house and yard. This tiny fragile person needing us to sit still phase is rough. I feel like a whiner for thinking it is rough. But it is.

People are coming to visit us. It’s not like we are just watching the grass grow through the windows…

Still. It was a long pregnancy of feeling awful and I’m super antsy. But I’m also exhausted and physically recovering still. Ugh.

I went for a walk on days three, six, and nine. Today on day eleven I feel like I’d probably enjoy going out again. That’s a good sign in terms of energy and physical recovery.

Noah is currently holding the baby for the longest stretch he has managed in a few days. I’m so grateful. It’s hard that early on the babies only want mama. I get weary. But then later they like him better so it all evens out.

I’m feeling like the most boring awful person lately because I’m trapped in the house with three video game addicts and I’m not being as nice as I ought to be. But the only way to have less of it shoved in my face is for me to go sit in a bedroom with the door closed. It would be like if I lived with someone who was completely obsessed with sports and I had to go hide in a closet to get away from it.

I feel small and petty and bad because I feel bored and so uninterested in trying harder to care about other peoples interests. I’m feeling ungenerous about listening to information about other peoples games and books and movies.

I don’t want to fill my head with your interests. I want to be allowed to have my own.

But then I feel like I am not even sure what my interests are beyond “moving around and people being there to talk to”.

I am glad I got to see two friends over the past two days. That was nice.

I’m scared that I’m doing that thing where I spend so much time being silent that when a grown up comes over and wants to talk to me I am really bad at listening because there are so many words trapped behind my teeth that I’m never allowed to speak. Because my interests aren’t interesting or ok.

I feel boring and bored.

I asked my family about going to see Jenny’s family this year and my whole family kind of deflated. They really really really want to go sit on a beach somewhere warm. They don’t want to go to cold Scotland so that I can see people I care about that they barely know. I get it. And I pick almost all of our travel so it seems sporting for me to not demand that yet another trip be all about me. But I’d like to go see Jenny. I don’t get to have everything I want. So we will go to Mexico. Which seems weirdly awful because we had to be selfish assholes who didn’t go the entire time P was there (was it selfishness or pregnancy…)

Why do I think that travel is mostly about seeing people.

Because people are my entire motivation to live.

That’s complicated because I want people to want things from me in order for me to feel like I get to have them. And that’s fucked up.

Sometimes I wonder if I resent the fact that Noah really doesn’t care about my appearance so I have no reason to ever feel like it is a good idea to try and look pretty. That was a real problem in my relationship with my Owner. He was intensely focused on how I looked and I am not a pretty girl so I constantly felt like I was letting him down. I was a failure as a trophy girlfriend. Too many things are physically uncomfortable so I can’t be bothered to do them. The idea of spending money every week or two on my nails makes me want to have a panic attack. What a fucking waste of money. I’m not actually judging other people doing it… I don’t care.

It’s just… not for me.

I am not the kind of pretty girl who should have a cared for body. It takes effort and money and time and… no. It’s not for me.

That was true before Noah so it isn’t like I think my issues are about Noah. But he doesn’t care about me looking nice so when I have the vague flickering barely there impulse to try I simultaneously want to cry because no one wants that from me. They want it from other people and that is not for me.

It’s hard that what he would prefer to have is me playing video games. So I go from something I barely have an interest in to something I have a complete negative interest in and I feel like I’m failing to be what I should be. I’m not really interested in trying to be a pretty girl but I feel sad that I fail at it. I would love to never hear about video games again in my entire life and I can’t go an hour without them.

So yeah. The words get dammed up behind my lips and they come out in this flood. “Am I ok? Are the things that I want to have define me allowed? Is anyone interested in the person I would like to be but I feel like I need permission?”

It’s weird to me how often people tell me that they admire how myself I am.

You don’t see how much I cry because I feel like everything about me is wrong and not permitted and I am bad. I do not conform how I should. I don’t even know what I should be conforming to.

But I feel wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong.

I am very burnt out on doing almost nothing for the pregnancy. Everything about my self identity cracks when I cannot do much. I feel like my personhood stops existing. Now that most of what I’m doing is being a chair/nursing service for a baby…

There is so little me in this situation.

I’m sure Noah isn’t feeling much “like himself” but at least he is playing video games, which he likes.

I’m looking at online shopping shit I won’t let myself buy because it is all too much money. But it’s something to do while I’m trapped and bored. I’ve read several books. I’m bored. I feel frustrated and trapped and incompetent.

I feel like I want to be mean and mean and mean and mean. So mostly what I am is quiet.

Sarah–North Face looks better than Duluth Trading Company for the heavy long johns. Since we were talking about it. But at $100 a pop… yeah… my mid-weight long johns from REI will have to be enough. They are waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper. Maybe if I move somewhere with weather I will get desperate. But for the frigid California 50 degree winter… It’s ridiculous.

Overall Duluth Trading Company pants look fun though. I am not stylish.

I have found exactly one nursing dress I like. Apparently what I like in a nursing dress is hard to find? All of the previous dresses I had that were nursing compatible have died an ignoble death. I have a maternity dress that is nursing compatible (Thanks R! I am seriously living in your hand me downs.) and a dress that Ma gave me that has a loose neckline and I can just lower it. It wasn’t intended as a nursing dress but I have no modesty.

Otherwise I had retreated firmly into my overly modest what-do-you-mean-do-I-have-boobs sort of clothing. I expected to gain a lot more weight so a bunch of the maternity/nursing stuff I got second hand… doesn’t fit. I am not an XL. Apparently.

I’m so god damn bored. I don’t care about this shit. But it is something to think about when I would otherwise like to do mean things to myself because I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so bored.

I have even been productive. It’s disgusting.

I want people. I want socialization. I don’t want to reach out and risk rejection. I want to crawl into a closet and never come out. I feel so wrong today.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy is my mood so shitty.