You know what? I’m feeling proud of myself right now. I had a bad weekend emotionally. All I did was sit quietly and read and cry. That’s pretty fucking awesome. I had a lot of desire/impulse to hurt myself and I just let it be. I was not capable of letting these feelings just be ten years ago. I had to hurt myself.
Even three years ago.
I take this “modeling” thing seriously. I’m home schooling for reasons. Some of those reasons are so that I am forced to proactively deal with my mental health because I have genetically susceptible children and they need to be taught coping methods as easily as they are taught to tie their shoes. It’s just necessary for our genetic material. If you proactively handle your problems… they don’t turn into problems.
The funny thing is: I’m covered in bruises and I have no idea how I got any of them. So maybe I’ll dissociate a little and get in a tiny bit of self-harm. It doesn’t count though. I can’t remember it.
I played with the kids a little but not a lot. I participated in meals (that Noah made because he is so ridiculously nice). I didn’t spend the whole weekend ranting. I snuggled people. I wasn’t completely avoidant.
I just made sure that I spent time sitting in the sunshine enjoying my plants and bugs. Holy shit we have a lot of bugs in our back yard. I completely didn’t notice until I sat out there for a few hours. Then I realized that there were hundreds of bugs on each planter bed. Lots of different kinds! I need to figure out how to get more beneficial insects into my yard. Ladybugs, oh ladybugs… where are you? I saw a butterfly! My garden is attracting butterflies!!!!!! /me happy dance
(That’s an IRC reference; the /me thing. IRC is a chat room program. I’m kind of a nerd.)
I’m in a lot of pain, but it is an amount of pain I can work through. I will probably try to run when the babysitter is here today. I have been feeling yucky stiff. It is weird how much better I feel when I’m exercising more consistently. My foot is finally feeling better.
I made a DMV appointment to process the trailer. I’m plugging right along on getting ready for the road trip.
I have made most of my Disney World reservations. It’s kind of funny that I pushed Disney World further back date wise to accommodate other peoples needs. Now they don’t want to go. So I’m not going to be there on my birthday like I had originally planned because instead I wanted to be with friends. But now the friends don’t want to go. I didn’t want to be there in October. October is more expensive points-wise.
Yeah, that’s how scheduling goes.
Hell, I scheduled Calli’s birthday around being in Boston with the Godmama. Maybe I should just fucking change all of the scheduling again. I’m feeling shitty about scheduling around people who dump me.
I have feelings. I need to stop acting like people are ever going to be a significant part of my life. It is folly. I am going to do my shit alone. Why is this so hard for me to accept?
Because I know a lot of people who are part of tight friend-networks and I am so jealous I can’t see straight. I don’t even know how to follow a group to be part of events like that. I’ve tried. I just… never make it.
It’s a good thing I’m not the kind of person who requires other people to go do interesting things.
I feel sad in the same way I felt sad when I stopped hanging out with the people I knew at Los Gatos High School. I feel like I wasted a bunch of time and energy on people who are never going to think I am important. I feel stupid.
I’m taking the no-shows very hard lately. It is especially hard that the home school group is amorphous and I have a lot of very different experiences with the families in it. There are consistent, dependable people. But they are busy. The people who are eager to make plans are the same people who just don’t show up and never remember that they had plans in the first place.
Each no-show, unfortunately, balances out against 10 successes. It’s stupid. I should try to count them in the other direction. I should try to emotionally feel like each success balances out 10 no-shows but…
But I’m digging out of a big black hole anyway. I don’t have that kind of slack to give.
Outside of parks I have two home school events on the calendar between now and the road trip. That may be good enough.
I don’t think the people in the group are doing something wrong or terrible. I think they are living their lives as if I am not important to them… which is simply literally true and accurate.
Sometimes I can handle it and sometimes I can’t. When I can’t, best I stay home. No one is interested in feeling guilty or ashamed because they are not prioritizing me. They shouldn’t prioritize me. It would be kind of weird and fucked up if they did. I’m nothing to them.
That’s the problem. I’m nothing to pretty much everyone. It’s a lot of why I feel like I am nothing.
But I have three people. And they were so nice to me this weekend. That has to be good enough. It is what it is. It is all that I will ever have.
It is three people more than a lot of people get. My mom has never in her life had three people be nice to her the way my family is nice to me. I shouldn’t be so ungrateful.
Actually, I specifically feel “guilty or ashamed because [I am] not prioritizing” you. I know you said you didn’t care about reasons and no was enough, but it was important to me to express that I felt really torn and conflicted.
I don’t think you should want to do Disney stuff because I do. 🙁 I don’t think it should have to be important to you. I don’t think you owe me a justification of why you don’t want to hemorrhage money and vacation time on something you won’t have fun doing.
Thing is, if you want to prioritize me… you could suggest alternative things that *do* work for you in other time frames. “I would HATE Disney… but what are your dates for being here because you ARE a priority… just not doing shit I hate.”
I don’t want to drag you to things you won’t have fun doing. That would not be fun for anyone. But I offer the things I think to offer and if it’s not the right thing… I don’t have many other options. I can’t just play a deck of cards offering things until people say yes. I have to take “no” and keep walking.
I really don’t want you to feel guilty. I don’t want you to feel shame about me at all. You have been a ridiculously good friend to me. I like doing stupid shit. You don’t have to share that love. Or want to spend many thousands of dollars on it.
I don’t get to act entitled to that.
Is it worthwhile to compare yourself to people that don’t have relationships?
One interesting thing my ex said: you know how when we say someone doesn’t have any friends, we don’t actually mean that – we mean they have an atypically small number of friends? – well, his claim was that my father has literally no friends. (I dispute this; he has one friend, who lives on the east coast, so he sees him maybe once a decade, but I think they might email once in a while. Turned out this didn’t count for whatever reason.) I try to remember this when I feel alone or undersocialized or whatever: to me, my father’s friend is a friend that counts. Other people might say it’s not a real relationship, but it’s real in a deep and meaningful way, and perhaps its rareness makes it that much more precious. I don’t have any friends like that; relationships longer than two (contiguous) years make me deeply uncomfortable.
I know a high number of people you’ve known for more than two years. 🙂
My ex was like that. He went long periods in between seeing his friends. I thought it counted. Different kind of intensity though.