I strongly dislike medically mandated rest. I get prescribed rest every few years. Usually by doctors who are greatly exasperated by my work load. To them I say: STOP JUDGING ME.

But when I get told to sit on my ass or else I try to listen. So I’m up to day four. I was told this time that I should sit for at least a week. The surgeon would prefer longer but I whined.

This means having a baby is put off by several months. It’s just not on the table yet. Feck. Like, don’t think about it till December or January. From October. That makes me very sad right now.

Other things I can’t consider doing right now: painting, gardening, cleaning out the shed for the remodel (the construction workers are going to to move it but it needs to be emptied first), cleaning my house (luckily Noah did this part yesterday so I feel less twitchy on this front), typing all that much (my arms are enflamed like a motherfucker), exercising, sex at all for a while, masturbating, driving, socializing…

I’m feeling very fussy right this minute.

But I’ve sat still through Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Where is my fucking medal.

I wasn’t still for a solid three days after the first surgery. This may be part of my problem. I’m trying to do better after this burst artery business. That was kinda scary.

I think I’m up to four near death experiences. Three medical one psychological. The first was the pit bull bite. I could have died from blood loss then if I hadn’t been near a good hospital. I’m a truly lucky bitch. The second was when my father held a gun to my head and asked me if I deserved to live. Psychologically… that fucks you up forever. That’s almost dying. Third was bleeding out during my second labor. That was really scary. And now the fourth was having an artery burst in my nose.

The doctor said: “No way can you go to Las Vegas this week. Imagine what would happen if you started bleeding in the middle of the desert.”

Oh yeah. I’d die. Because this isn’t a game. Oh.

I’m kinda like a cat, counting up my lives.

Only five to go. Time to stop fucking around with this mess. The near misses will be scarier later. And that’s not including the times I’ve done stupid things like letting someone hang me with a noose.

I haven’t traditionally had a lot of care with my life.

But I have these kids now. Things have changed. I really want to see what kind of grown ups they become. I’m endlessly fascinated with them. I get tired and need time off, sure, but I don’t get sick of knowing them. I didn’t think parenting would be this wonderful.

It’ll be more wonderful when my house isn’t being forking remodeled. But progress is being made! They are more than four weeks into the work now. In a supposedly 6-8 week project. Windows arrive in ten days. I’ve had no windows in the front of my house since February. It’s getting cold again. Which makes six weeks unlikely but eight weeks possible. I’m crossing my fingers.

Hey, that means I can’t consider getting pregnant till the remodel is over. Sigh.

One of my friends sent me this link to a private island for sale in Scotland. If I sold my house I could probably cover half of it. Holy fucking shit. That’s… kinda mind blowing.

Sex is so weird. I’m transactional with it and I’m getting to the point where that is a serious problem for me. So I’m teasing my friends about something and not writing about their situation because tact but it made me think about myself. If I wanted something and Noah told me I could have it if I blew him every day for a year… he would wake up with a mouth on his cock every morning for 365 days. If I wanted something and that was the price…

Price. Should things have sex as a price? Everything has a price. For years now I’ve paid the price of sex for Noah’s good humor. And just recently when I stopped having sex with Noah (mostly for medical reasons) he’s… had trouble in the ways we predict. So I feel like I’m being derelict in my duties to provide sex. And I’m feeling bitter that I must. So using sex to pay for things is complicated.

Will I do it? Sure. I’m a pragmatist. Will I be long term happy about it? Well that’s a different question. It kinda sounds like I’m joking about the pragmatism thing, but I’m not. I’ve had a crazy lot of sex for pragmatic reasons. A long time ago I overheard a sex worker saying, “Every woman is a sex worker, but only some of us are smart enough to get paid.” I’m not sure if she was quoting someone else. I…

I don’t understand how sex works for other people. For much of my life sex was currency. I’ve used it for lots of things. These days mostly to keep Noah happy. That’s mixed.

What did I find out during my slutting around this year? I discovered that I still have oceans-deep wells of desire inside of myself but they are not accessed when I am having sex for someone else.

That’s useful to know.

It isn’t that I don’t desire Noah. I want to spend my time with Noah. I like Noah very much. But we have a lot of sex for him when it doesn’t work for me. That’s… psychologically damaging. It means I partition off that the sex I have with him isn’t for me. I’m not saying it is his fault; I’m saying it happens.

Do you know what else I learned about slutting around this year? I can’t keep doing it. It’ll fuck Noah up in a way I’m not ok with being responsible for. It won’t kill him. It may not even cause a divorce. But it would kill his spirit and I’m not going to do that. I owe Noah better than that this lifetime. He’s been very good to me.

I don’t think I can be monogamous. But I can’t do what I was doing. This is going to be tricky to work out and take years.

I hurt him. I hurt him in a way that is going to take serious repair work. I did that. I fucked that up. I am as big of an asshole as I sound when I say: “I didn’t think it would hurt him that much.”

Well, it did.

I did. I hurt him that much.

And he’s still all in. Because we don’t really get a second chance with someone else. We’re done for. This is our shot in life. This is the one chance we get to do this right. So either we ride the waves and figure out how to improve shit… or we give up on this fairy tale. This belief that we, fucked up people that we are, can be loved and completely accepted in this lifetime.

We are both hard. We are not people who would find a second replacement life and just make it work. I know people who have great second marriages. I know people who rebuild life into third and fourth marriages.

I can’t do that. I could be something different, but I don’t think I could ever try again. And with the whole kids thing… this is our one chance to have an intact family. We have high stakes. We don’t have families that love us to fall back on. Noah is closer than I am, but not that much.

I know. I’ve seen the last twelve years of his life. I know he doesn’t really have anyone to fall back on other than me.

I know.

I have good friends, the most amazing friends… but I’d have to figure out how to stand alone too. I don’t have a family to fall back on. My friends give me what they have to give. They are my friends.

I’ve seen the difference in the lives of my friends. They have families. My chance at that is with Noah and my kids.

And I did a lot to fuck it up this year.

I also learned that Noah is right. I will never run out of sex or dating opportunities. I just won’t. Whether I look for them or at them is a different matter. It’s kind of an interesting thing to try and internalize. I am attractive enough. I am interesting enough. I am educated enough. I am snotty and entitled about how I am treated enough…

I will always have a high market value. That’s… not something I expected this lifetime.

I will never seriously deal with an ain’t-shit-man again.

It isn’t like they will never hit on me. But I won’t put up with that kind of crap. I have too high of standards and that is Noah’s fault. I think I won the husband lottery. He’s an absolute pain in the ass who wouldn’t work for most people very well… but he’s god damn perfect for me. He is willing to adapt and help and give in a way that… most men really won’t.

But I get how he would be hard for someone else. Totally true. I’m no picnic so I don’t complain about him being work.

Even when I’m just looking around the house at the murals… most people wouldn’t have let me do this. Steve would have said no. My Owner would have said no. Puppy would have said no. They would have said I was “destroying the value of the house.”

Noah tells me to have fun.

I also learned this year that Noah isn’t much better at telling me no than I am at telling him no. That’s good to understand. He will let me hurt him. If I’m going to avoid hurting him I need to just know where the boundaries are. He isn’t going to enforce them.

I also pushed my luck enough to find out that a few things are ok that I would have assumed weren’t. It wasn’t entirely bad. There were things that worked out ok.

There were things that weren’t ok. Absolutely every step of dealing with the Quiet One was mishandled and fucked up.

I’m feeling kinda glad in retrospect that since I fucked up so badly with someone I made sure it wasn’t someone who was deeply entrenched in my life. I kept good boundaries with my friends. Noah isn’t upset with any of our long term friends over this experiment. I get why he had the feelings he had about the Quiet One.

He doesn’t have to veto.

In this process we also got to the point of understanding what “veto” actually meant. And why it exists. Because this year we had to revisit what it means and why I’ve done it in the past and god damn if I wasn’t right.

I’m a fuck up. But that doesn’t make me wrong every time.

Life is really complicated like that.

Today I am still stuck in a chair. Eldest Child is off with the Bonus Family. The kids asked if they could visit separately this time. It sounded fine to the adults. I’ll play more games with Youngest Child. Noah will probably read to us.

Luckily this isn’t a day where I can fuck much up. I’ll just… sit in a chair. Or on the couch. Maybe both at different times. Woo.