Recently I was noticing that I felt great. Better than I can remember feeling in a very long time. It’s not that I have no pain (owowowowowowow) but I am increasing in strength and competence. I am feeling less like a pathetic, worthless burden. I am feeling less sick. So this is loaded and complicated. This plays into “are disabled people worth supporting”. Because sometimes I am disabled. I am not able to get up and do my chores. I literally did nothing in my yard for more than six months. I would look out the window and cry because I couldn’t manage weeding or watering or pruning or… anything. And it’s not like those jobs are so hard.

There are times when I am unable to carry my workload. I have been picking it back up and feeling better about myself.

I don’t think this is an entirely positive dynamic. I don’t think people actually have more value if they work more. Only I want to kill myself when I can’t work because I’m useless. This is a problem.

What does having value mean? Value to whom? In what way?

So much of relationships is having a person around to project yourself onto. How many people maintain toxic relationships because “they are family”? You feel like you don’t exist without these people to be in relation to.

I can so clearly see how I have been doing this with my friendships. I notice that I value myself in part based on how I can be in contact with them. It’s mixed. I will probably do this more as my kids get older. Right now they aren’t opting into relationships with me so I feel like I need to limit how much I define myself based on their approval. I ain’t their friend–I’m their mother. They won’t always like me and that’s my job.

And yet… I change myself so much because I need to be a certain way for them.

One of our neighbors commented the other day that we are such a happy family. I am not sure folks thought of me as just being so happy 15 years ago.

I am happy because I am allowed to be here. Because I am allowed to have a family and be part of a family and take care of people and be taken care of. If that isn’t fucking defining yourself based on your relationships I don’t know what is.

At least this will work for a little while.

But today I feel exhausted. It’s physical and emotional. Yesterday we walked so far. Today I’ve barely hit 2 miles. I’m trying hard to keep a minimum of 2 miles per day for a bit here. Seems prudent. In a few weeks my daily minimum will be 3 miles. Then 4. Ugh. Next week I hope we can do 4 miles once, 3 miles once, and every other day 2 miles.

The 6 mile spike was an outing. We don’t have them every week like that.

Realistically, because Noah won’t be here on Friday…We should try for another outing and that might mean another 6 mile day. Ouch. Which museum should we go to? Anyone want to meet for dinner somewhere? If we go north we will take public transit. If we go south we will probably drive.

So many things in the bay I want to do with the kids before we go.

• Alcatraz
• SFMOMA (I know about your membership, Sarah. I’ll be poking you when we go.)
• The Walt Disney Museum (no, I have never been)
• de Young Museum
• Asian Art Museum
• Legion of Honor
• Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Museum of the African Diaspora
• San Jose Museum of Art
• Computer History Museum
• Rosicrucian Museum
• Oakland Museum

…. I’m sure there is stuff I’m missing. Things like the Discovery Museums and Exploratorium… we’ve been a lot. If we go again, ok, but I don’t care that much.

I’m not sure if I’m feeling less “ok” because I’m tired. I feel kind of overwhelmed. I want to do so much and I want someone else to do it for me and I want it to never be done.

feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings