Noah made the comment that our nonmonogamy rules are based on polite fictions. I did not yell or scream or hit or punch or any of the things that went through my impulse queue. He just called me a liar. But he did it in one of those civilized ways you can’t really argue with. He can get away with it.
He’s not calling me a liar. He’s pointing out that my emotional experience and the actual real experience often differ and we planned for my emotional experience. He’s kind of a fucker that way.
We originally said we wouldn’t date until Youngest Child (whoever that would be) was five. We think that little kids need a lot of attention from their parents. I’m starting to realize that I overestimated how much I would be able to give to my kids without getting anything for myself. I planned on seven to ten years of me not getting any attention. Maybe that was poor planning.
Noah points out that I’m being unfair and dishonest about how I’m representing the breakdown of our respective time off. Maybe. I’m not going to say yes to that yet. I have too many years of him having a lot more time and space than me. I’m still dealing with being completely overwhelmed and unable to function. I’m trying to figure out where the happy medium will be.
The class he signed up for? The one we thought was six week? It goes till March. So much for carefully figuring out how our reserves of energy will be spent over the next few months. Not how I have been planning. Ok. I can regroup. That’s fine.
Noah is going to want to go out on a date. I don’t know when. Not this year. It will probably come up some time next year if I’m even vaguely honest with myself. With how much time I have spent on okcupid lately I understand why women will line up to date my husband. I don’t like feeling like part of a group. I have trouble with being out with my family of five sometimes. If I wasn’t so clearly a huge needed constantly necessary part of the group I wouldn’t be comfortable. Parties are hard. I feel like I never fit in. If I go to a party and I feel awkward and uncomfortable from the time I arrive but Noah looks like he fits in I feel like I should leave. I should let him have this space he is comfortable in. It’s his. Not mine.
That’s kind of how I let Tom have the south bay bdsm community. If I am attached to someone and they disengage from me in any way when we are out with a group I feel the instant need to panic and leave. I can’t be there. I’m not wanted any more. I have no place. No identity. I’m nothing. I vanish once the identity I have in the group leaves.
I can’t be one of Noah’s girls. If I am one of Noah’s girls I don’t exist when he is not with me any more. I feel like I am watching someone else live my life. Someone else gets to be Noah’s partner. I guess that means I stop existing as his partner. When he was dating W. I sat at home crying and cutting. I didn’t tell him about the cutting much. Everyone knew about the crying. I wanted to have as much physical pain as emotional pain. I wanted to see how big of a wound I had inside. I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell how big, how destructive the pain was until I saw how much of my leg I had to sacrifice to it. I had to know how big it was. Do you know why I stayed? It was never more than a two or three slice date.
I think I’m done with writing about when I started cutting, for the book. I haven’t continued to bring it up because it seems weird to do so. For about seven years I cut more days than I did not. Do I really need to say that over and over through the story? Should I talk about the fact that I learned to measure my emotional pain by how many cuts it took to get me to calm down?
I am nonmonogamous and deal my intense jealousy and emotional break downs around Noah dating because it is only a two or three cut activity. That’s not that bad. I didn’t need to cut every date. I established how much pain it was. There were times when I used to make cross hatches on my thighs that were five or six inches long. I would make hundreds. Two or three cuts that are only an inch or so long? Psh. This really isn’t so bad.
It’s hard when Noah says that are rules are based on fictions. What he is saying is that I was making up a part of me. Or making up what I thought I should say. I was lying. I don’t want to be a liar.
I don’t want to be a liar. But I can’t figure out how to explain what is going on with me. I’m saying the closest thing to the truth I can at any given moment. Sometimes, when I’m dealing with my emotional experiences, the truth is like water. It flows wherever it wants to paying no attention to previous course corrections.
I’m dating. I shouldn’t lie about it. I haven’t found a boyfriend, but I’m dating. Maybe I should stop trying to set rules about how long we have to endure any given state of life. I keep fucking up my guesstimates.
I said five years because I was hoping that by then I would feel secure enough with Noah that I wouldn’t feel so threatened every time he looked at another woman. So scared of losing him any minute. I don’t think time is really going to give me that though. I would feel just as paranoid in twenty years. And I can’t seem to be monogamous. I’m not ok with being a hypocrite. That’s a lot higher in my personal scheme of sins than almost anything. I’m acting like a hypocrite. Shit. I don’t wannnnnnnna stop.
I didn’t ask for monogamy as part of our marriage. I specifically excluded it from our wedding vows. I knew I didn’t want it. I have to let Noah figure out what he wants without dealing with temper tantrums. It’s not fair. It’s not the kind of marriage I want to have. I can’t freak out in front of the kids when he is out, either. Luckily it will be a smooth transition for them because they already don’t see him several nights a week.
Speaking of appropriate topics, I won’t be able to make fresh references to Noah’s whores. That uhh won’t go over well. Maybe I’m going to have to work on that whole thought process a lot over the next few months. I doubt he would try before the end of the class he is working on.
I’m weaning at eighteen months. I’ve decided. That’s the end. I’m gradually working her down. I’m only allowing her to nurse twice a day right now. It will be once a day for the last while. There are things I want to do with my body that I don’t want to do while nursing. It’s time to stop. I want to be able to make choices based on what I want rather than on what I have to do. Do I get tossed out of the crunchy mom club for not doing child lead weaning? I’m not making it to two years either. Calli is fifteen months tomorrow. I feel like I will lose my mind in the next three months. I hate nursing. That’s all I’ve got in me.
I’m going to try stopping the pot in December. I am going to start actually training for running. I need to stop coughing. Eek. I’m nervous. I’m going to talk to my psych about that and using Ativan more than I am. I was given six pills for a month and I still have two left. But I’m still smoking pot every day because of the writing. I’m going to stop writing on the 30th. I’m going to switch to using Ativan instead. With the goal of not needing anything at all in the next few months. I’m already cutting the Ativan in half and I may need to cut them into quarters if I use them more. Right now they make me fall asleep. I really and truly am not safe to drive within four hours of taking one. That limits my life.
So I need to be able to cope if I want to go off and do the things I want to do. It’s time to get off the crutches. That’s going to be explosive for a while and I’m scared. I smoke pot because I have a temper problem. Because it’s hard for me to be calm and patient 24/7. I just don’t have that naturally. I’m going to need to find other ways of dealing with my anger. Running is going to be a lot of it. But I also seem to be using dating to fill a lot of my energy input needs. I feel deeply conflicted about it. But I am.
I fucking need something. I don’t want to just sit here and eat and try to convince my brain that I’m happy that way. It’s a false association. Being fatter doesn’t actually make me happier even though I have this really strong self-belief that it is true. My weight is pretty irrelevant but the other circumstances in my life matter. I have usually been happier while I was fatter. It wasn’t because of the weight though. I need to stop feeling bad about not being fat. Yeah, that convoluted.
I’m bigger than my mother. I’m not fat. I need to let go of her endless lectures about what a cow I am. I’m not. I’m a fairly average sized woman. My mother is extremely petite. Let it go Krissy.
Tonight we are going to spend money we really shouldn’t be spending this month on an over the top luxury meal with my lovely Complication. She’s worth it. I’m going to enjoy every fucking minute of it. Later I will have a panic attack at the AmEx bill. Then I will stop, breathe, think of the sight of my Complication eating good food and pay the bill without complaint.
That’s what you do as a rich person. You facilitate life being good. For yourself. For other people. Because you can. Because why the fuck not. There is no deserve. There is no “right” to these things. I’m not bad for spending this bonus money on an over the top good meal. I’m not wasting it. I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying every bite. I’m enjoying every minute that I can of a life that is full of a lot of ups and downs.
When you have much greater lows than normal it only seems fair that you get to have better highs, right? I’m about to go to the French Laundry for the second time in two years. I am a lucky bitch. I have a husband who loves me tremendously and is willing to spend most of his spare time on figuring out how to earn more money so he can pamper me more and more. Because he wants to. Because he thinks I deserve it. Because he thinks it is great that he can do that for me. Because wanting to give to me makes him want to go out and conquer the world so that he can give it to me.
I think I will need to be ok with him sleeping with other people once in a while so he can come back and appreciate me more. I really am unique. When I sleep with other people I come back and tell Noah what they did wrong. He does the same. It’s a very bonding experience for us that we match perfectly for pretty much every part of sex. The rhythm is ideal. No one else quite gets there. Those other people are fun and awesome, don’t get me wrong. But Noah is home. And I am that for him.
These irrational feelings are hard.