Category Archives: appreciation

Christmas, mom, and grief

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We have been talking about whether or not we want to keep celebrating Christmas or whether we want to switch to celebrating Winter Solstice more. The kids and Noah are more pagan than I am. I stopped feeling… safe/comfortable/drawn to paganism in the same way when I was kicked out of the family property when I was 16 for doing rituals. That damaged me in a core way.

I don’t really feel like I want to be part of the Christian aspects of Christmas and it’s uhhh pretty hard to ignore. But it’s interesting how deeply ingrained a lot of it is for me culturally. I will miss holiday songs. I’ll miss the movies. I will miss some of the aspects of decorating.

I really don’t know what we will do. I have far fewer aspects of Christianity in my Christmas at this point anyway because that boyfriend I had from 18-23 told me so often that anyone who believed in G-d was braindead that I got rid of most any overtly religious symbols. That’s a lot of why my house had Christmas By Disney. That was what he wasn’t mean to me about.

But as I think about ditching a lot of the Christmas traditions I realize how much of it is about ties to my mother. So many of our traditions from what we eat to the kinds and types of presents to specifically what movies we watch… I got them from my mother. I keep feeling waves of grief.

I keep feeling like right before I take out my US sim card I want to send a goodbye to everyone in my Do Not Answer call list. But I won’t. You don’t text people who are dead to you.

But it hurts. I miss my family. I miss the things about them that feel like “normal” and “comfortable” that other people just don’t feel like. I know how much abuse is wrapped up in that normal though and I can never expose my kids to it. So I won’t contact anyone. I’ll just keep crying. 35 years and counting of crying for that woman.

Youngest Child is doing really well with sleeping in a separate toddler bed at the foot of my bed. When she goes to sleep she murmurs “Mamamamamamama” and wants me to keep a hand on her face until she is asleep. (She alternates this with Daddy and he has to be touching her too. That is the most heart warming part.) Her wanting me like that connects in this primal way to how much I want my mother.

Every so often it will come up in conversation with the big kids just how much they were wanted and longed for and they are appreciated and liked now that they are here. It’s amazing watching them straighten their spines and they puff out their chests and their faces just… glow. They feel such an assurance about their right to exist. That’s what I wanted to stand near. That’s why I have parented how I have.

I feel bad when I can see a shadow cross their face and they reach out a hand and say, “Mom I am sorry you weren’t wanted so much.”

I wish that wasn’t part of it.

A kid in one of their classes (who is often a behavior problem) announced loudly during class “My mom says I was a failed abortion.” My kid came home that day really sad. “I understand why he acts out now. That’s something that hurts a kid so much. I still won’t let him hit me, but I will try to be more patient with him when he’s just being annoying.”

I am always impressed by how compassionate my children are. They are, of course, feral, self absorbed narcissists as well (which is appropriate and necessary developmentally!) but they notice other people and they care. They are capable of great consideration and understanding. They are sensitive to how other people feel. I have always found it interesting that when most people say someone is sensitive they mean that the person is highly controlling about what people do to them. I think sensitivity is more about the ability to notice things about other people. My children pay attention to what other people feel and they care.

I admire them so very much.

I also admire that they have great tact around this subject. They talk to me about what they see in other people, but they are already pretty wise about not just announcing what they see. It’s really cool.

I want to be like them. I will keep growing in that direction.

I swear I am trying.

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But sleep deprivation is a bitch to catch up on. I went back through my activity tracker (I know it is not perfectly accurate for stuff like sleep) but between travel and anxiety and overworking I am down about 8 full nights of sleep over the past month. This is why I am currently struggling with paranoia, negative thoughts about myself, irritability, and frustration. I also hurt really badly.

But I am trying to reverse the flow. The past three nights I’ve gotten nine hours of sleep. Yesterday while walking home from the community center I just about fell down from exhaustion and dizziness. Trying to catch up is showing me just how deep the reservoir of sleep deprivation goes. I need to try to spend all of this school holiday sleeping as much as I possibly can; my health requires it.

A full night of sleep for me is ~7.5 hours. I’m down over 64 hours of sleep over the past month. That’s a lot.

This move is the hardest of my life and I have moved waaaaaay more than average. Folks in the military are usually dumbfounded by how much I have moved because they feel a lack of stability in their lives and I’ve moved many multiples of times more than them. Not so much recently, but over the long run. This is my first international move and I can’t understand people who do this repeatedly. This is so hard.

We moved into a house that was more than twice the size of our old house with no furniture coming with us. We have had to acquire everything from scratch and mostly build it because we can’t really afford to buy nice stuff, we are buying flat pack. Which means I have spent multiple full days just on building furniture. Noah has helped with this way more than he usually does with building furniture and for this I am deeply grateful. Noah has spent at least six, maybe up to eight solid days building furniture if you add up all the hours. I’ve done at least as much maybe more. It’s all getting fuzzy.

We finally have consistent, good wifi thanks to Noah’s continual efforts at handling the bureaucratic mess. It is still a mess with regards to electricity. All of the advice “Just do A, B, C” has failed entirely. I think Noah is handling the stress of people lying and being deceitful far better than I could. (The main electricity company keeps saying they have done what they need to do for us to move on with the process. When the other company we want to work with checks… nope hasn’t happened. It takes eight weeks before we are allowed to complain. We seriously suspect the first company is going to drag their feet for seven weeks and five days.)  Noah has been on the phone and filling out paperwork just about daily trying to handle the electricity/internet/bank/credit card situation. Now that we have internet and we found out we literally can’t get a credit card until we’ve been here six months and we have a (JOINT) checking account and three savings accounts (grown ups + kids who are redepositing their stuff from the states) we can chill on figuring out financial stuff for a few months.

Oh, also we had an appointment with a couple of truly lovely accountants and that’s going to be a whole messy process that will take many hours of labor over many weeks. The UK tax year doesn’t run their cycle from January-December, they run April-March so we will be trying to sort out tax stuff for like six months straight. Hopefully after the first year it will get a little more clear? At least our California accountant used to work at the IRS handling international taxes?

Trying to acquire stuff for the house has been endless frustration. Between not having a car, not having reliable internet, and our US credit cards getting constantly denied for fraud… everything is taking two, three, four, five times as long to get done and the hand strain is absolutely unbelievable.

And I keep hearing my fucking mother’s voice in my head saying that you don’t go out and socialize until your house is company ready. Thus long working days and not sleeping.

Last night I made a list on the whiteboard of the chores the kids hadn’t gotten to this week. I told them they need to finish by bed time. They got it done. I supervised and didn’t help. I’m trying to reduce my arm strain.

They did a great job and they are currently playing with Her Sweetness so Noah and I can each have some quiet down time in our separate rooms.

We have a house phone number and an actual physical phone will be delivered in a few days. I have a sim card in the house for a UK phone number for my mobile and I will be setting it up once I can put the UK house phone number down on forms. I will be going through and replacing my US phone number on all of my accounts. I will be shutting down my US phone number in December after 19 years of service.

I am having so many feelings about that.

The plan with the accountants is to start moving our money out of the US. I don’t feel super ethical investing in a country that moved its slavery from the cotton fields to the prison industrial complex and is currently running concentration camps. Where freedom means the freedom to get shot at school. Where freedom means that thousands of people can be homeless so the uberwealthy can hoard a little more. Where freedom means ruining your entire future if you get sick. Where freedom means eternal debt if you want an education.

I know getting out isn’t an option for everyone. I know it is cowardly to run instead of fighting to change the system. I know.

My children are already walking to school and home from school alone sometimes. It’s so safe here. I spoke to a mom who is terrified of her kids being alone and that’s why she pays for them to have cell phones from really young so they have to text her all the time to prove where they are and she tracks them on her phone.

We will have a house phone. I’m giving up full service internet on my phone and downgrading to a pay as you go plan that I don’t want to use much. I will be deleting most apps so I’m not tempted to be idle on my phone out in the world.

My kids will be fine here. I am not worried about their safety. We have an agreement: you ask before you take off and you are given a time to be home. You have a watch (without the ability to receive phone calls on) and if you are late, for every minute you are late you owe me a push up.

That’s as much enforcement as I want. That’s as much control as I want. They are big kids. They are responsible. I trust them. The neighbors aren’t going to call the police if they are out walking to the park. I have anxiety about stuff. I am overly controlling in some ways, but I’m trying hard to back off. They will be ok. And frankly the push ups won’t hurt them.

EC forgot her school computer at home one day this week. Noah asked if we should bring it to her at school. Nope. She can accept the consequences for her behavior like a big girl.

It will be good for her.

I went to a couple of activities with Her Sweetness this week aimed at her peer group; these are the kids she will know in school. These are the kids in our neighborhood. It’s good to start getting to know them. She will make friends over time and I will get to know the mothers.

This move is the hardest of my life. Let me write down just how painful this is so that hopefully I remember and never want to do this again. Some day as an empty nester I might want to move to the downstairs apartment with Noah and rent out the big house, but that’s different.

Solstice is going to be interesting. EC has a bunch of needs still. MC has a bunch of wants. YC (I should shift to this at some point soon here because goodness Youngest Child is more fair than just always referring to her as the sweet one–not to mention that she is sassier by the day) has few needs and can’t speak any wants. I am going to start wrapping presents soon just because we don’t have many good stash spots in the house where unwrapped presents won’t be seen.

Oh, and to put the cherry on top of the moving process, we are all learning how to ride bikes as our mode of transportation. This has resulted in at least one, often three or more major crashes per person. We are all sore and wincing and moving slowly. My knee still hasn’t healed from my crash and every time I get up or down to help YC with something I hiss because it forking hurts.

At least MCs lip has healed and they no longer look like an abused child.

It’s a process…

Hardest fucking move of my life. But the house is basically company ready. I want another couch for the down stairs apartment before guests come. I want a real kitchen table for the main dining room with actual chairs we don’t fall off of on a regular basis. EC still needs a bed frame. Then we are done acquiring stuff.

Mostly because I found a tutorial on Pinterest for making bookshelves out of uniform moving boxes and that’s what I’m doing with the books that arrive. I’m not buying bookshelves any time soon. I want artistic fancy-pants book shelves and I don’t want to pay for them now. So I won’t really get all of the boxes out of the house by the end of November, but the stuff in boxes will be out and in use and the boxes will be semi-permanent (until they give out) furniture.

I am struggling with the fact that I need to give myself approval for how hard this move has been because I won’t get it from anyone else. No one but Noah can see what I’m doing and I’m an asshole about not accepting his approval as much as I should. He will give me approval whether it takes me a month or five years. He isn’t judging me based on what I care about. His priorities are different. (He wishes I would slow the fuck down and rest more.)

I have a ridiculous drive to get this done. This is important to me. I need to see this progress so I can sit in the mostly finished house and dream about the art I want to add. I can’t start painting until after my next birthday, but I can make sketches. I can figure out what kind of mosaic backsplash I’d like to make for the kitchen wall where we keep splattering the shit out of it with food. (Did the previous owners cook?! How in the fuck did they keep the wall so white?!) What would I like to do in the upstairs bathtub bathroom?

Art will come, but not until all of the other pieces are in place and I can dream around them.

We still have a few entirely empty cupboards in the laundry room and main kitchen and the downstairs kitchen is basically empty. But we have the stuff we need finally. Those bits will fill in over time as we figure out what other things we want or need.

Realistically it is going to take me many years to finish this house. But I feel moved in now. The art will come. The guest kitchen will come. It’s ok that it isn’t all instant.

I needed to feel settled. Those bits are extra. And I have my name on a bank account so that I can build my own credit. That’s a big deal. Being dependent is hard enough without also being vulnerable.

And proper locks are on the way for every door in the house.

An absolutely glorious meeting

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I met with both teachers, the classroom support worker, and the deputy head teacher (basically the vice principal). Everyone was upbeat, positive, and complimentary. The general verdict is that my children have incredible social skills–they are settling in shockingly well. They have seamlessly joined the pack of kids playing games and the teachers expected more culture shock. They are extremely appropriate in class and have not been asked to settle down once. All of the things that could use some extra help are things that are basic differences between the US and Scottish school systems so nobody is batting an eye.

As I have long told EC, she is far above grade level. Her math skills exceed the school’s ability to test and the teacher was quite surprised by just how fluently she is able to explain everything she knows. Her reading comprehension is untestable by their standards. She could probably move into secondary school level one and be at grade level or above. (That wasn’t explicitly stated, just repeated mentions of “We can’t even test her level.”) I want her to have a year of primary school. Her handwriting isn’t perfect but it is average. She is enjoying the fact that she is already the first one done with math assignments and she is turning around to explain things to other kids. The teacher says it is clear her reading comprehension is much higher than she chooses to express in writing at this time. I said wait until she has a computer in front of her; she types like the wind. (She will be assigned a Chromebook tomorrow.)

MC is already sharing at school that they doubt their abilities because they are not at ECs level. I said, “Yup that is a constant struggle and it has been lifelong.” For math they are a couple of months behind where the dead average is, but given that we abandoned math entirely six months ago… that’s dandy fine and no one in the room doubted that they will catch up super fast. For reading comprehension there is a drastic difference between what they can express verbally and what they can write. So for homework they are going to focus on writing and skip most of the otherwise assigned stuff like spelling. The teacher knows that for reading ability and general comprehension MC is very much at the top level but thinks it is wise to put kiddo in the middle group for now so that kiddo can finish the reading lightning fast and spend the extra time working on writing.

I did bring up some of the gender stuff. I said that MC is very gender fluid and that’s an adventure we are fully on board for. The whole staff said that sounds great and they will support that in every way possible.

The staff expressed that my tour of duty of educating the children is over. (Not their language at all. I am paraphrasing because it is going to take a long time before I can mimic Scottish cadence.) They expressed that the best thing I can do is listen to how their day is and encourage them to keep trying their best at school. The staff will handle all of the support they need and they want the kids to just relax and play outside of school. I’m pretty sure my relief was palpable. Homework will be very minimal compared to US standards and it really is up to the kids to do.

I am absolutely in love with this school. The staff is kind, supportive, and enthusiastic. I feel like it will be easy for us to be successful here. I think my kids are going to do well. They already have a few kids in class they think they would like to develop friendships with.

Awesome.

Today is the day.

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In just over four hours my kids will be walking onto a school campus as enrolled students. They will be P5 and P7. Here P7 is the final year of primary school before being sent off to secondary school. There is no middle school here.

I am already enjoying some of the differences in Scottish schooling. We were having trouble finding some of the supplies I consider “mandatory” for school in stores. Jenny told me that schools don’t ask families to buy them after we went to three stores looking. The schools provide what kids need.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Wut? Schools provide pencils and paper and notebooks? I… You are using words but I am not understanding you.

Schools here do not give parents any contact information for teachers. If you want an appointment you call the office and the office negotiates with the teacher and they get back to you to let you know when you can come in. As someone who used to get calls and emails from the parents of 150 students that sounds amazing! Good for Scottish teachers!

The kids are going to start with half days as they acclimate to school and the teachers slowly learn where they are academically. The school is literally incapable of giving them placement tests to just see where they are because such things don’t exist here. There are occasional national tests but the school doesn’t have access to them and my kids are in the wrong grades anyway. So… there just aren’t big evaluations for their current levels.

I’m telling you, I’m excited.

Middle Child was crying at bed time. They were trying to be quiet about it, but they are super nervous. I pulled them over close to me and I talked to them until they fell asleep. On a fairly repetitive loop I told them that when they don’t feel they have enough faith in themself they can borrow some of my faith in them. I told them that they are strong, brave, hard working, competent, smart, funny, creative, thoughtful, kind (which is not the same thing as nice!), friendly, fun, interesting, adaptable, sweet, loving, patient, and really good at learning new skills. I interspersed this list of adjectives with saying, “And you know I am judgemental and critical. I don’t give praise unless I believe it to be absolutely accurate.” The first time MC giggled when I said that. After that they just relaxed. I would pause sometimes and say “When your belly starts to hurt because you are anxious, remember to smell the flower (pause for big inhale through the nose) and blow out the candle (slow big exhalation through the mouth). You can’t control other people. You can’t control the world. You can control your breath. If you control your breath you will be able to control your body even if your feelings are being rough. I have faith in you. When you don’t have faith in yourself, listen to these tapes in your brain and borrow my faith in you. I know you are….. (long list of adjectives).”

Eldest Child was already asleep or I would have talked to both of them.

And Her Sweetness only had one middle of the night wake up. That’s almost like a full night of undisturbed sleep…. She is feeling much better. I am in a lot of pain.

The kids will start waking up in about 45 minutes, maybe more like 60. I am going to hurry through my shower in the meantime so I can spend my morning on “cheerful cheerleader” mode. You can do it! You are going to succeed at this new life stage the way you have done well on so many others! I know you can!

I am their inside voice. That’s what mothers become for their children. I have not been doing a great job of being relentlessly upbeat for a while here because I am worn down and exhausted. This morning is a (very short) sprint, not a marathon. I can do this for them. Then I can take a few hours to slow down and just be in toddler mode.

When toddler mode feels like a fucking vacation you might just be living your life wrong. Too much work and stress, yo.

Yesterday we bought several more table cloths at the discount store. This is so when Middle Child makes a huge mess on the table they will just change the table cloth and I can stop being a critical brat about their absolute lack of table manners. My kids definitely know that I am critical and judgmental. So when I say positive things, it’s not because I enjoy blowing sunshine up your skirt. We have a handheld dustbuster so that the mess on the floor is not a big deal.

I need to stop being an asshole about messy eating. No really.

Life is a balancing act.

At the end of the positive speil I told MC “You will make mistakes. You must make mistakes. Mistakes are how you learn. Mistakes are part of being human. When you don’t understand something, write your question down in your notebook. Questions are good. You are good. You will mess up as you learn this new process and that’s ok and necessary and part of the process. Don’t be afraid of messing up. It’s like crashing your bike. You learn more from the crashes than you do from always getting it right. You learn what too far means. It’s ok to screw up. You will do better next time.”

After like 10 minutes of this repetitie loop of adjectives and blather about mistakes kiddo wasn’t crying and their body was relaxed. They finally stopped clutching my hand like a life preserver.

Ok, based on the noise from upstairs I don’t have 40 more minutes. Hurry up and shower, Krissy.

What I’ve been looking for

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I have spent a lot of time reading forums about abusive families over the past few years. Reading back over my old journal entries from 13 years ago reminds me… I basically coaxed myself through the process that many people need help with. Reading the emails between my siblings about my father’s will (oh that was gross and scary), reading about how my mother treated me as I was becoming a mother myself (hello complete lack of healthy boundaries), and all of the ways I tried to create family out of friendships…

I am so very textbook. I know that. I have known that for a long time. But skimming the oldest entries I have as I lock things down behind a new password… phew.

Picking friendships with people who try to control me by telling me I need to behave how they want me to behave or I have a personality disorder? That is utterly, perfectly textbook for someone with my background. I will abase myself and beg and hurt myself doing labor if someone reminds me of my family because that was my role.

Seeing this in the context of moving on from the bay is so illuminating. Mostly because Jenny is providing a level of support for us moving that I never would have asked for, never would believe I deserve, and frankly it makes me feel uncomfortable. But in that good healthy growth sort of way. I have put 25 years into chasing Jenny and mostly she let me chase her and she didn’t chase back all that much. Now she is returning the full force and whoa. Is this how I make her feel?

I wouldn’t expect this from Jenny because she is very reserved and she doesn’t make big promises.

Frankly, this is what Sarah promised and never delivered.

It’s not fair to say Jenny hasn’t done things for me in the past. When I overextended myself taking care of Sarah (driving to a different state to help her with packing and unpacking because she couldn’t/wouldn’t do it for herself due to mental and physical health reasons) Jenny is the person who flew out to drive my van home. Because she loves me and she didn’t want me to get hurt.

When I needed a place to go when I moved out of my ex’s house, Jenny figured out how we could live together. That didn’t work out because I am a ridiculous control freak and Jenny is not going to adapt how she lives for anyone. She knows her limits in a way that I deeply admire.

I feel like I am heading for a rebirth. I am no longer going to be chasing people who will watch me drain my life blood for them while giving me a flippant thanks and not living up to the promises they make. Jenny under promises and over delivers.

I need to not create any of the same patterns with Scottish folk. I will make friends slowly, gradually, with a lot of boundaries. Jenny and I will be able to have civil, adult conversations about boundaries and needs and what is ok to ask for. Jenny has never had a hard time (from my point of view) with telling me “No that doesn’t work for me.”

I know that I don’t have to show up and start performing a bunch of labor in exchange for the help I have gotten in the past few months. Jenny knows better than almost anyone that I need to slow down and not take on new big tasks for a while. She will sit and wait, like she is coaxing a cat to like her. She knows I am drawn to her like a magnet. I will absolutely find ways to spend time with her and share love that work for both of us. And maybe for the first time in my recorded history…

I can slow down enough to let my body heal from everything that has happened to it. I am going through old blog entries. My body has endured so much. My soul has endured so much. As my dear friend said to me, most people are broken down by what happened to me and my soul broke open. I have had a hard time not flooding people with love and affection hoping they would return it. I have provided acts of service and labor long past when it was healthy for me because I wanted to be worthy of love.

Jenny loves me even when I am not doing labor for her. If I go back through my blog I can see just how much labor I have put forth trying to buy love. Having kids has changed this dynamic so much. Children need that kind of labor from their parents. It is a requirement for building healthy attachment and safety. Children need a flood of labor and attention and affection.

Healthy adult friendships do not. I do not need to flood Jenny for her to know I love her. She tells me to back off.

I feel like I am tarnishing everyone with this brush and it isn’t fair. I have friends who love me and support me without me having to do tons of labor for them. The friendships that have endured for decades and I feel like they still support me… honestly they aren’t the people I flooded. J in Portland did so much to support us landing there that I was stunned. I have not done labor for J since I braided her daughter’s hair for her wedding nearly 20 years ago. A in Portland helped even though the only labor I have provided was helping her load a truck 12 years ago one time. A has flown to another state to support me in large endeavors.

I was accused of scanning for signs of betrayal. Well, sort of? I am scanning to see what are the results of my behavior. I am scanning to see if people respond to me how they say they will. I am scanning to see if people are treating me like my family or not. I am scanning to see if people are safe for me to pour my love into. I am scanning to see if people are healthy to introduce to my children.

Many of the people who have volunteered the hardest to be in the lives of my children are some of the least appropriate people I have had relationships with. I only see this in the rear view mirror.

Maybe you think I should be able to figure this out without looking at these people and matching up their words and their actions over and over and over again but I am not smart enough. I do not have enough self love to move towards safety instinctively. I have to work at it. I have to put time and effort and mental work towards trying to evaluate if I am making good choices or not.

Given what I have reread in the past couple of days… my choices are improving but I am far from perfect. I need to exercise a lot of caution as I integrate into a new community. Instant family feelings really… yeah. I can’t do that again. When I think of the number of people in the bay who told me I was “chosen family” within a year of us meeting…. well, that’s a red flag I will never miss again. I will never say that to someone again.

Jenny is chosen family because for 25 years when I have had a crisis and I appear on her doorstep she lets me come in and cry until I am done. When she needs help or support I will do what I can to provide it. I will shower her with attention because she fascinates me and she has for most of my life.

Jenny is who I went to when my father and brother suicided. Jenny helped me get back safely when I was stupid enough to strand myself. Jenny is helping me move continents.

I believe her when she says she will do something. I can count on one hand my adult friendships who I trust to the degree I trust her.

In the bay I had a vast shallow network. I could ask the whole network and someone would probably show up on a given day but I could never predict who and many of the people would show up once and never again. That’s not evil. That doesn’t mean any of those people were doing anything wrong. But it isn’t what I was looking for.

There were people who promised me the moon and didn’t come close to delivering and that hurt. There were people who would have been more stable and consistent support in exchange for me letting their other, more important to them, friends treat me like dirt.

Is it scanning for betrayal if I am willing to examine the truth of someone’s behavior in comparison to their words? I can live with that. I must live with that. I will live with that.

I am trying to figure out what living with integrity means for me. I am trying to figure out how much I have to give while maintaining enough energy for me to give to myself so that I can be healthy.

It’s kind of funny thinking about it in terms of the threads on these forums. I can see my growth curve the way I can see the growth in people who come back to their own threads for years and years.

Even a stunted tree reaches for the light.

We fly out of Bangkok in 39 hours. Nearly time to go find what I have been looking for.

Ride or die.

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Jenny wants us in Scotland. I feel utterly gobsmacked by how much she is doing to make this process go more smoothly.

Today was funny. I emailed the school we want to go to. They said according to the map we need to go to school #2. Emailed school #2. They said according to the map we need to go to school #3. Emailed school #3. They said according to the map we need to go to school #1. So Jenny went to the office of school #1 to show them a screen shot of where our house is on the map.

She also had all the stuff we were storing in her garage delivered to our house; that means we have warm clothes waiting in the house so we won’t be shivering in our Bangkok gear. She is giving us a whole bunch of stuff to start setting up house: dishes, a bed, extra warm things she knitted so it will be warm and love all at once.

She is bringing groceries over before we arrive.
I’m crying, but it is for joy. I feel so lucky that I get to follow Jenny to Scotland. I have followed Jenny all over the place. I am basically her stalker only she likes me. I used to follow her home in middle school. I followed her to g-blog then livejournal then facebook then twitter. She is the reason I learned how to dance. I went to Renaissance Faires because of her, and Dickens Fair. She introduced me to some of my favorite books and tv shows.
I am lucky. I am happy. Our flight leaves Bangkok in 73 hours. I feel less like death.
I was looking through old blog entries today. I have been exhausted and depleted and run down since at least 2006. I can’t wait to slow my life down. I can’t wait to follow Jenny again. She makes such lovely choices.
I don’t know what is up with the formatting right now.

Well this sucks; ok not everything sucks

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We were just about over jet lag. Then illness strikes. Her Sweetness has a fever and she is super cranky; I assume she is in pain too. Eldest Child is having intestinal problems. I have full body pain (as someone with chronic pain this is enough pain to make me want to sit very still in a chair and cry–I am medicating for pain with tylenol and ibuprofen alternated), a low grade fever, and I am producing a river of snot with the associated coughing, sneezing, and sore throat. If you have followed me for long you know it has to get BAD before I medicate with these drugs because I am so afraid of my tolerance level going up.

I don’t think we will see much of Bangkok and I am very disappointed.

The food has tasted great. The garbage is omnipresent and overwhelming. The traffic patterns are reminding me of Kuala Lumpur only they are very different? It’s closer to KL than Japanese traffic patterns. The gridlock is massive. I can understand why the advice around driving here is don’t.

We are right next to RCA (Royal City Avenue) which is the designated clubbing/entertainment/tourist area. It’s a short walk down a relatively safe stretch of sidewalk. Relatively safe because the motorcycle taxi service has a stand in front of our building so they have to go back and forth on that stretch of sidewalk. If you pay attention and get out of their way it’s ok. And all the motorcycle drivers love Her Sweetness. They want to cuddle and hang out with her.

Her Sweetness is my most reserved child. I used to think Middle Child was incredibly reserved because I compared them to Eldest Child. Holy sauce buckets was I underestimating the amount of reserve a child of my blood can display. When people try to touch HS she cries. She wants her people and that’s it.

I am going to have to stagger downstairs and do laundry today because I am about out of hankies. Dude. I travel with more than a dozen hankies. Hankies are life. (We also have a full laundry basket. But the hankies will be the motivation.)

I was a serious bitch yesterday and I feel kind of embarrassed. I am sick and the kids were pushing me for attention and to do work for them. I blew up about how unfair it is that when they are sick I let them lie still and do nothing until they feel like doing things and I am not allowed any rest. I sort of feel like I “should” have found a nicer way to express this. But I tried a variety of “I’m not feeling well” and “I can’t do that” before I started getting harsh. There is this complicated balancing act where I try to be as nice as I can be to them until they just refuse to recognize that I have boundaries too and then I’m really not so nice. Because fuck that. I get to have rest when I am fucking sick and you can go in your room and play and stop bothering me. No I don’t have to pay attention to you today. You can bloody well cope with me taking care of myself today.

It’s weird. I feel guilty and proud of myself? I need to set these boundaries. I set them as softly as I could. I escalated ,when they completely refused to allow me boundaries, to being more forceful in my language. I did use the word fuck a lot. “I am fucking sick and I need to fucking rest. You don’t fucking need me to play with you. You can fucking play by yourself.” That was after a couple of hours of using soft language and having MC continue to head butt me and be rude and demanding and aggressive about wanting to play.

MC has asked me to use the word fuck less and I’ve been doing pretty well so this flood of fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck was definitely a sign of degrading ability to communicate. But I feel like my head is in a vice and if you don’t leave me alone and stop talking to me I am going to literally melt down and start screaming which would really suck in this tiny apartment. I have limits. I don’t talk to you like this even once a year. But I am sick and I need to be left alone to take care of me.

My kids genuinely think I am a river of love and support and work and they can’t understand when I can’t do that. It’s a weird dynamic. I feel both good and bad about it. I am not sure I am presenting them with a healthy, balanced view of what parents should be like. My mother under-responded and neglected me. So I half kill myself doing the martyr schtick so they never know a minute of boredom or want. I am hurting myself so they never have to be bored. That’s not healthy either.

I really can’t wait to have my own bedroom and for them to go to school. We need to start separating. I feel like a mother bird who is exerting more and more pressure to get the baby birds to get the fork out of the nest. I need some space, kiddos. I love you. I need some space for me too. I matter too. I am not the most important person in our family but I am not the least important person either. We need balance. If we sacrifice my health on the altar of “Happy Family” then this family is going to fall apart soon. I have to be healthy enough to carry my side of things.

I suspect this is related to just how hard I pushed my body over the past few months culminating in the last week. I have done a lot of work. We leave Bangkok on the 9th and we arrive on the 10th because it is another 30 hour travel day with getting to and from airports. Today is the 5th. So close yet so far.

The former owner of the house and Jenny’s Super Spiffy Husband (JSSH) both sent us long explanations of how to set up utilities and services. We are so incredibly lucky that we are following Jenny. She has helped in ways big and small that blow my mind. I feel like we are sliding into Scotland on greased rails. This could have been a nightmare. Instead it is a series of steps. Yes, we feel tension and stress as we go through the steps because lots of things are out of our control… but things are actually going as fast as they possibly could. We made the decision to move to Scotland, got absolutely everything done, and now we are returning in less than three months. That is miraculous in terms of government bureaucracy. Greased. Forkin. Rails.

And once we arrive… we have no deadlines to hurry up and get anything done. There are no foreseeable sprints in my future. We don’t need to hurry up and get anything done. We need to get things done as quickly as we get them done. I mean, utilities getting set up might be the most “Uhhh do that now” step. But furniture and cookware and all that stuff can trickle in. We will probably go shopping on the 11th to get some things, but not a lot. Realistically we will go to the store every day for a while and we will get what we get. Sometime in the first week we will probably hire a van and clean out the charity shop of anything we can use and do a massive grocery shop but it’s not a big rush. If it happens on our second day or our fourth day or the seventh day… whatever. We are right between three stores that are all dandy for supplying us with food we can eat without stress. I’m just not worried. It’s a lovely feeling. I will slowly acquire the things we need to keep house. Drips and drabs. It will be easier to do most of this shopping after the shipment of our belongings arrive so I have the big double stroller.

I got a double bike trailer that can be used as a stroller so that I can pull the baby AND groceries. This is my compromise on not having a car. I am already aware of how awesome Tesco’s delivery service is (THANK YOU JSSH!) but I really like going to the store. And I want to experiment between Tesco and Aldi and Asda. I will get a little notebook for comparing prices. We are going to be trying to be that tight with our budget.

I’m not sure if I told y’all this. Noah’s current obscene California salary is going to last till January. Then he’s going to work on books, teaching, and maybe a wee bit of contracting on the side. We have enough money in petty cash for 2-3 years of run time if we are very conservative and we hope we can figure out him working for himself. This is part of why we decided Taipei is not wise at the moment. If we are trying to live on £40,000/year all of a sudden spending $6000 on a trip to Taipei seems… uhhh not in the budget.

I have lived on much less. While snowballing our debt we lived on a similar amount of money at the beginning of our marriage. We will see!

On the money front: I was watching a session of Scottish Parliament yesterday and there was a lot of hand wringing over how they can’t get enough people to work with mental health care for children. The waiting lists are long and they are incredibly stressed out about it. Do you know what I have a unique background on? Helping kids with mental health problems. Sure, I’ll have to hit up the local university for some specific training and degree hoop jumping but that doesn’t scare me. Maybe when Her Sweetness starts nursery in a year and a half we will have four people in school in the house. That would be kind of cool.

I would like to have a job. I would like to have a job specifically because I dream of a conservatory added to the house and if I don’t figure out how to earn the money for it myself Noah will feel like he needs to get a remote job from California for ridiculous money and then he will work 60 hours a week and I will be very sad.

I don’t need to earn the money in the first couple of years. In my head I wouldn’t be ready to start that kind of project for at least 3-5 years. That gives me time to go to school and get started in the field. I will be 100% hiring out the work and the former owner gave me the name of the person who could probably build it for me because he did all the other remodeling in the house.

This is not abandoning the idea of IDB (Incest Database) but it is helping to keep me busy until then and helps me gain qualifications that will help with the research and it helps pay for retirement stuff so Noah doesn’t have to supply 100% of our retirement safety on his own. I still think I couldn’t really get going on IDB for almost 20 years. Not the way I want to. 20 years is a long time and I could do a lot of valuable work between now and then.

I want to be part of the community. This would be a really great way for me to meet people and find a place for myself.

I don’t have a plan yet. I am not rushing. I am waiting to see how things shake out. I am coming up with ideas, potentials, hopes, and dreams.

And nothing is in a big rush. No sprints. Settle in slowly. Exercise. Establish house. Help the kids adjust to school. Wait for HS to be old enough for nursery. Enjoy the next year and a half of extra alone time with my precious last baby. I feel lucky and blessed.

I won’t be doing much today. Noah has a speakers dinner tonight. We have instant noodles in the apartment that will probably be most of our food while he is doing his conference. I should go down to the 7-11 (holy shit these things are ubiquitous internationally) and get some yogurt and juice and maybe other snacky foods. Maybe I’ll do that run while I’m dealing with laundry.

I feel so bad. I did more yesterday than I probably should have. Today I can’t. As I plan to go to the laundromat and do grocery shopping. I am such a twit.

These things have to get done. It’s not optional. Being the mom is not always fun. But it is always worth it. I did not have children because I wanted convenience. I am so very loved. It’s worth it.

Even if sometimes I have to say fuck fuck fuck fuck to be allowed to rest.

I think it is kind of useful that EC is reading these Warriors books because the mama cats take no shit and that is causing her to change how she views me. It’s hilarious.

I have been dizzy on and off for days. My body is so unhappy. Her Sweetness is waking up every two hours to nurse and I don’t feel like it is fair to complain given how sick she is.

Miss Jenny picked up our keys. The solicitor has been paid off. We have a home to go back to. A home that pretty closely matches drawings I’ve been making about my dream home for years. I am so lucky.

We are going to be highlanders! We start this next phase of our lives on the day I turn 38. Seems like a good time for a rebirth.

You need to get the chip off of your shoulder

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I have gotten this same advice periodically throughout my life. I need to not be hostile. I always have mixed feelings when someone tells me this. It feels like “I don’t like this personality trait so you shouldn’t have it.” Because it sure isn’t true that having this chip on my shoulder will prevent me from having a happy life or friends or a very positive set of relationships. It may absolutely true that I will not be capable of having a positive relationship with you while I have a chip on my shoulder but that’s the price of doing business. Or being alive. You can’t please everyone.

But I am going to have to change. I have absolutely no idea how my personality will need to change to fit in where we are going. I mean, I know that. I know I can’t say “I am who I am and you have to just put up with me.” I also don’t activate the chip on my shoulder quite as readily as I used to for all kinds of good reasons.

But I feel absolutely sick at the idea that I should give up all of my sharpness because I have a partner and that’s going to protect me. First: I don’t wear a ring (my god damn hands hurt) so when I am not with my children and obviously part of a family unit I lose the Mantle of White Motherhood that protects me most of the time now. I know it’s a thing. I know that it is a privilege rarely afforded to mothers who are not white. Second: I don’t want to be dependent on someone thinking a man is going to come after them if they hurt me. Noah has long been clear that we are not in that kind of relationship. If I am going to be protected I need to do it for myself.

Why the hell do you think I went and took classes to learn how to beat the hell out of people? It wasn’t because I thought it was fun. It was because next time I am going to ensure someone crawls away from trying to hurt me.

But if no one starts nothing won’t be nothing and that’s what I hope for. I don’t initiate violence. I really don’t. Sometimes I am quite shocked by how gentle I am in most of my life. I expected to have a more violent life. If I had stayed living with my family or in the communities I grew up in… there would be more violence. Money is my escape path.

No one wants to hit someone who can afford a lawyer. Honestly that is more protection at this point than being married.

But I don’t want to depend on either factor for being safe. Frankly I rely on Glamour. Not in the sense of being pretty or beautiful and dressed up. More in the sense of being able to go from seeming very inviting and non-threatening to being overwhelmingly intimidating and terrifying with just a switch of my emotional state. I haven’t had problems in a long time. I believe this is part of why. The Mantle of White Motherhood has been the rest of it.

Also, I stay home a lot.

We spent this morning talking about how we are going to approach independence for the kids in Scotland. We talked about schema and navigation and trust and mental maps and exploration and time management and money and safety and strengths and gradually increasing competency.

Middle Child asked if the kids will have to buy their own bikes. I said that I believe that transportation should be a parent’s responsibility when possible until a child is grown. However, if they want a new bike because they want a new style instead of needing a new size that’s on you. I think that is fair. So far kids are in agreement.

It was neat trying to explain schema. Noah tried to talk about it in terms of video games and I could tell that it was going over MCs head. I switched to makeup. Kiddo perked right up. What you need to know to put on eye makeup is different from what you need to know for putting on lipstick. Those are both little subtopics, little schemas inside the big schema of putting on makeup. That clicked. Of course we had to have a detour to get a mini-lesson on the differences between eye makeup and lipstick and why it matters (I did not give the lecture). Just to prove concept and all.

I had an interesting night the other night. I tried to wait until late enough that the kids wouldn’t really hear me but Eldest Child is really enjoying Twilight right now so she was up till like 11:30 reading. I was ranting at Noah about my feelings about a whole bunch of things. I don’t have a therapist right now. I haven’t been writing. I haven’t had a Skype call with a friend in a while where I could talk/process/organize my thoughts… I needed to talk.

EC heard me. She of course thought that when I said “fucking brat” I was talking about her. She said she went to sleep with her stomach hurting. We talked about it at breakfast the next morning. I explained very very loose outlines of about 19 different situations that I am coping with and why I am upset with some people and why I need to be able to talk about it sometimes. It is not healthy to shove all of your emotions into a box and put it in a closet and never deal with them. I waited until late at night and I was in my bedroom with my partner. It has to be ok for me to have feelings and to talk about them without hurting anyone.

She relaxed and said she understands. I asked if she has ever heard me talk about her like that. She said not like that, no. I told her that if I ever feel that strongly about her she will hear about it. She relaxed a bit more.

It’s nice being trusted.

We are all talking a lot about how hard it is going through this many transitions at once. We are all struggling through our feelings about relationships changing and our lives being different and what it will mean.

We keep coming back to why we are doing this: we want to be there. We felt better there. We think we have more potential to be healthy and happy there. We want to feel safe. We want to feel like there are not people with guns potentially all over the place.

We want to be in a place where people think that the best way to protect children is not to inflict PTSD on a generation.

Also, we are really over heat. We want water. So much water. I’m sure I’ll get waterlogged at some point but it is going to take years.

I want to live in a city that was designed to be at scale for walking, not a car. We believe that we can create absolutely no end of stuff to do without having to have it provided by other people. We don’t need to pay for entertainment. We like to make and we like to do. We like to walk.

We are so excited.

I am having mixed feelings about all the doors that are closing. They need to close for a million good reasons. But good things can hurt.

Growth hurts. I tell my children that we go through periods of disequilibrium where everything hurts because that is how we brace ourselves for how hard it is to change. It has to become more painful to stay the same before you really want to change.

I’m turning 38 in two weeks and one day. I am a grown ass woman, but I am still becoming who I want to be. I am still turning all of the different skills and traits I have into the person I wish I was instead of being a reaction to things that have happened to me. I’m a lot farther along the path than I thought I would be.

I am reacting to things more in line with my values. I like that. It’s not that I never mess up an interaction, I do. But it’s more rare and the infractions tend to be smaller.

I am happy about that.

I really appreciate the advice that goes “What I would do is….” then I can decide how much I want to be like this person and how much I like how their life is going so I want to try to emulate it. There is so much respect in such a suggestion. It in no way places any sort of assumption that the logistics of one person’s life applies to anyone else.

I told my kids that we should not expect to feel like we have *friends* in the first year. (Outside of Jenny’s family and my kids have been clear with me that they do not yet feel like they know Jenny’s family… it’s still a growing connection for them.)

I am friends with Jenny. That connection is solid. Everything else is still growing. We know that. If you are honest about your starting place it is a lot easier to figure out what to do to change it. We will put our roots into place slowly and carefully.

Some of my roots will have big chips. That’s ok.

I get to go home in fifteen days. Even though it is a very Christian city I am literally moving into a place where my address includes the word Druidh. I feel like we will grow more witchy.

Do no harm but take no shit. Give all respect and show no fear. Find a way or make one. Only boring people stay bored. We are workers, not shirkers.

We will be fine.

Tapping toes

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In 4 days my middle child turns 9.

In 6 days we leave the country; Noah has plans to come back for work… the rest of us don’t. Hello Bangkok!

In 9 days we legally own a house in Scotland and my wonderful, sweet, helpful friend will be collecting keys from our solicitor so there is no delay!

In 16 days we arrive in Inverness and the fun truly begins.

Jenny really wants us there. I can tell. She has offered to let us borrow (possibly keep) a very large number of items, including: dishes, a kid bed, an adult mattress, duvets, a crock pot, sheets… It’s like this woman wants me to stay and feel comfortable!

She’s got a 10 year head start on me, but we get to learn how to be Scottish together. This’ll be grand.

I slept meh last night. If I hadn’t missed the night before it would have been plenty, instead I’m still tired.

Ikea then a housewarming. Wake up, Little Susie.

Noah sent out a goodbye email to pretty much everyone we have ever sent an email to. Now folks are coming out of the woodwork wanting to say goodbye. Uh, we left the state already. You missed your window. Where were you all those years we lived there? Busy? Ok. We will take one more possible obligation off your plate.

I want chill. I want green. WHERE IS ALL THE DANG WATER FROM THE SKY!? My body hates this heat wave so much.

Noah and I are making plans. We are going to be living on a much reduced income so we can’t spend money the way we have learned to in the valley. Our food budget is getting cut in half. Really… a bit further than that. It means cakes, cookies, candy, and drinks are going to be very rare treats. Bath stuff and random things can no longer “sneak” into the grocery budget. It’s going to take us a bit to start properly having a tiny savings so that we can make more interesting purchases.

Fitness stuff is going to be a lot of what we do. We are definitely people who like to spend time on our computer but we are also keen walkers. And our house has lots of space for the exercise equipment we favor. I have a TRX set up (it’s a strap system) that helps me through all of my PT and Noah heavily favors kettle bells. We can set these things up in the lounge as a permanent installation and then we won’t have the excuse of “there is no where to do the work”. I’m up a good 25 lbs since we started on this journey and I’d like my clothes to be more comfortable again. Given that I do not intend to waste money on a scale that means I want to start exercising so that I fit my clothes better and I have no idea where I will end up.

Health at every size. Right now I can’t do my exercises (both logistical reasons and strength reasons) and that’s bothering me.

Besides we have more fun fucking each other when we are in better shape. We both hope that with all of the increased access to privacy our sex life might reemerge as a fun hobby we share.

Sex has come a long way. Right now we don’t have sex very often. Like, once or twice a month has been our average for a while. We have no privacy and that’s a big barrier for me. But I’m thinking about sex more than I have for a while. I am not sure it will take a full five years postpartum this time for me to be really interested.

I am 99% certain that my next period will be in my own house. That sounds really wonderful. If it is not too freakishly cold (we’ll see!) I sort of intend to spend several hours on my “Oh my god is that a period or a hemorrhage” day sitting outside with no pants (or trousers!) on. I’m going to bond with the earth, yo. I hope it will be the most relaxing cycle of my life. And less laundry. Bonus.

I am going to get family cloth and a little bucket for every single bathroom in the house. Septic systems are no joke, yo. (With some supplemental paper for getting poop.)

Her Sweetness is absolutely talking up a storm. She tells us “no!” and “stop!” when she doesn’t want something. She says, “Help!” and “please” and “mine”. It’s so funny. She is starting to get colors. She can talk about her getting dressed and clean process in a combination of words and signs. She is super keen to communicate and be part of the pod. She likes carrying a bag when the rest of us are doing so. She loves to laugh.

I am so very grateful I got to have a third child despite the challenges. She is a really wonderful person. It’s so lovely to break the “my kid/your kid” assignation of behaviors and traits and personality bits. She’s like all four of us. She’s completely herself. We all have to work on our petty jealousies and pissiness because she’s a baby and we chose to bring her into this world. We need to be nice about it.

Middle Child has confessed they didn’t know what they were getting into and sometimes it is hard to not be the baby anymore. That makes a lot of sense. They are still so wonderful with their sister. They try hard to be gentle and helpful. They play together. Kiddo is trying so hard and I am so full of love and respect for the efforts.

My kids are growing up and it’s pretty amazing.

The kids are in a funny place with money and chores. They are still doing chores but they keep forgetting to write it down. I tell them that they can work for free or they can get paid for keeping track of their work. Lately I’ve been getting a ton of free work. So they are sad that they are not accumulating more money. Dude! WRITE DOWN YOUR STUFF ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS AND I’LL BLOODY PAY YOU! We sat down yesterday and priced out a basic back-to-school-kit and uniform selection. Now they feel nervous. They kind of slacked off over the last month. They would have been in a great place for all of these purchases but… they stopped writing anything down. Whoops.

It’s a learning experience.

School won’t give you credit for doing your homework if you bring the math worksheet home, do all the work on the separate piece of scratch paper then throw away the scratch sheet and try to turn in the blank worksheet. “But I did the work!” Yeah… that’s not how it works. If you have a job and you neglect to clock in… you can’t just go back at the end of the week and say, “Yeah I was totally ontime every day; you should pay me all the monies!” “But surely I did all of my hygiene this week, pay me.” “I clearly remember you skipping it on day A, B, C, I had to yell at you 7 times on day D…”

Write it down on the day you do it. That’s why you have a day planner. Are you choosing to skip that step? Then you are choosing to make the work free. Cheers and thank you so much for all your hard work. You are definitely working.

It’s a process! Follow through is hard for a bunch of unstable ADHD folk.

Thus Eldest Child is on Pinterest trying to learn about organization systems so she can get one started right when we arrive. It’s glorious.

I am tired and the day is just beginning. That’s ok. I don’t have a lot of proper work to do. I’m day dreaming lists of stuff I will want in the house. Here is a possible list. (We will not show up and buy all of these things instantly, I expect we are going to be Good Customers at the charity shops and we will buy things new as we have to.)

Obviously we have a long way to go.

Kitchen Dining room Family bedroom Bathrooms Noah office Krissy bedroom Shanna bedroom Orion bedroom Lounge Jennabeth bedroom Laundry room Miscellaneous Hall Garden Studio Kitchen stuff
Refrigerator Table and chairs mattresses toilet paper Kettlebells Bed Bed tumbling mats Detergents and soaps Kid school uniforms baby gate Seating? 2 large frying pans
Cleaning tools (sponges, mop, broom) Additional silverware/dishes Blankets soap Monitor clock alarm clock alarm clock couch Shoe rack Lunch boxes Shoe rack Grill 1 small frying pan
Dish soap, dishwasher soap, hand soap Pillows Printer coat rack bars for the wall. chest of drawers chest of drawers Personal water bottles Coat hooks? nanny cam 1 wok
Food storage devices Clock Plungers Caffeine brick Bed Tables and chairs Vacuum Replace fence along burn drafting table 1 large stock pot
child safety locks Sheets Toilet brushes Standing desk Desk w/ ergonoic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Projector bed Replace driveway gate easel 1 medium stock pot
Knives whiteboard for calendar Toilet paper holders? Monitor stand or swing arm WiFi Router etc. paper 1 small sauce pan
tea pot, sugar bowl, milk pitcher Towels whiteboard dresser electric drill art supplies 1 large roasting pan
Clock black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains 4 cookie sheets
shampoo/conditioner 2 bread pans
rice maker?
insta pot?
eggcarton and curtain soundproofing cutting boards
Crock pot Lighting for video potato masher
Big soup/stock pot grater
Roasting pan for turkey veggie peeler
collander
KitchenAid Mixer mixing bowls
Ice cream machine measuring spoons/cups/pitchers
Deep-dish pizza pan

Obviously I have not accounted for everything. It is going to take many years to accumulate this stuff at the rate we plan to spend money.

It’ll be ok. We have time and patience. In my experience it is a lot easier to do without if you are living with joy in the meantime.

Yay Noah

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Today Noah turns 43. I was with him when he turned 27 and for most of the birthdays in between. I like him more and more as the years go by. He’s a truly good man. He cares a lot about what he can do to make the world a better place. He doesn’t go nutty trying to do ALL THE THINGS but he consistently and kindly keeps putting his nose to the grindstone in his areas.

He is consistent. He is thoughtful. He is generous. He’s even funny. He’s pretty. He’s gentle and sweet.

I feel very lucky I get to spend my life with him. He is an absolutely breath-takingly wonderful spouse.

I’m looking forward to seeing another year of his life.

Homework (what do I need to work on)

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This morning I am waking up feeling gooey, schmoopy, overwhelming love for my family. Ok. Time to think about the stuff I need to work on about myself.

What are the whack a mole problems that come up? Many of them are problems in me and related to my thinking as much or more as they are rooted in anyone else’s behavior. Like: I really struggle with feeling like I want/need my kids to be more self motivated than they are. Then I get these reminders that they are actually really doing exceptionally well for their ages and developmental levels and my expectations are almost certainly out of whack. My kids have different things they struggle with: my son tends towards passive aggression and my daughter tends towards executive function failures. Ok. That’s not out of line with fairly normal stuff for kids. What I need to work on in myself is feeling more patience with the fact that they struggle in these areas and I have chosen to not put them into school where there would be teams of other adults teaching them how to manage these issues. I choose to be the one who must solve these problems or it is my fault they still exist. Sometimes I struggle with feeling overwhelmed about the magnitude of difficulty of work I have assigned myself. But it isn’t my children’s fault that I assigned myself this role.

The thing is, even though I struggle with some of their behaviors sometimes… I truly like my children and I feel like I have done well turning them into little people to be proud of. It has been the result of massive, overwhelming work on my part. I watch my children night and day and give them little course corrections, assistance, reminders, and help. NO FUCKING WONDER THEY TREAT ME LIKE THEIR EXTERNALIZED BRAIN. I can look at my Eldest Child and tell what she is thinking about with a greater than 90% accuracy rate. “You are having x feeling about y thing. Do you think maybe you should do z?” Her response is always “HOW CAN YOU DO THAT?!?!?! That’s a good suggestion…..”

I only guess my Middle Child’s thoughts and feelings with a more like 40% accuracy rate and he and I both feel a sting because of that. He consciously and deliberately shields his thoughts more. He works on having a blank facial expression. He works on projecting feelings he is not having. He got that from me. I feel like I am letting him down by not being able to read him better. He feels misunderstood and less appreciated. But he works on making it hard. He wants me to find a way to work harder and still read him so that he can feel as understood as EC. That’s complicated.

He got in trouble this week. He set his assignments on Monday. I didn’t add extra shit. He picked what he wanted to do for the week. He needed to get his work done on Thursday so we could go have a visit with the cousins. He didn’t get his work done. I was pissy and impatient because he really didn’t come close and he spent the whole day dawdling and I lost out on a visit too. (I can’t just leave him home and go without him for a list of reasons.) So I told him that since he wanted to just sit around and not get his work done during work time that he could just sit around and do nothing during play time and he could do it in his room without toys. He didn’t have a fun day.

The next morning when he woke up he had a fire in his belly because he didn’t want to miss out on any of his plans or on EC’s birthday fun. He got up super motivated. He got a bunch of his chores done before I even saw him in the morning. The first time I saw him in the morning was when I was waking up and still sitting in bed. He came in timidly and I smiled at him and invited him into the bed for morning snuggle. (We have much better days as a family when we start out with everyone snuggling for at least a few minutes.) He talked about his plan for getting everything done early so that he had a buffer in case he planned poorly and it took longer than he intended.

He got everything done with time to spare.

We walked over to Jenny’s instead of going on a family walk and taking a taxi. On the way we had an hour to talk to each other. The conversation was wide ranging and interesting. I asked him what he thought about the day before when he was in trouble. He said he spent most of the time trying not to think. I said, “So kind of an extended meditation practice?” He said yeah. He didn’t use the word, but he was trying to not catastrophize. He said (barely paraphrased), “I was so grateful that the first thing you did when you saw me this morning was smile at me. It showed me for sure that I was right to try not to think all the super bad thoughts. I made a mistake and I’m going to be able to get over it and you will get over it and we will move on.” I told him that yeah we will move on. He’s a great kid and I love him very much and I need him to trust me. So when I say “Do x so you can have y” if he doesn’t do x he can’t have y.

He said, “I know. It’s part of why I respect you a lot. I know you work really hard at being someone who is honest with me every day.”

I have a lot of fear that part of his passive aggression is an attempt to get back some control from just how controlling I am. It’s not a healthy way to try to get back some of that control. He has a lot more control over his schooling now, but I think he needs to have just a little bit more. I think that when we get a house again he and EC are going to be allowed to shut me out of their rooms for a full year so they can figure out their own tidying habits without me needing to be so fucking controlling because we are packing over and over.

I truly literally have to be this controlling right now or we won’t be able to get packing done with the travel. It’s rough.

When this is no longer necessary I need to give them a bunch of space to try things for themselves and fail.

I really struggle with the fact that they don’t have much in the way of long-term planning skills… but that’s my problem because they are age appropriate or a bit above. I need to control *myself* more, not them in this area.

We have done a lot of work on getting them to see me as an independent person. Frankly, having Her Sweetness has helped. They can see when I need to not take care of them because I have other obligations and both of the big kids are super mature about understanding that they got to be the whole center of my universe for many years and it is wildly uncool for them to not let Her Sweetness have a similar amount of time and energy. We are still struggling on getting them to let me rest without interruption, but they are better than they used to be and if I were willing to set more boundaries I think they would fall into line.

The struggle is I hate setting boundaries with them because that feels like I am doing a mean/punishing thing. I’m not. I’m valuing myself.

I really struggle with valuing myself. I really struggle with saying, “I need to not do anything for anyone because I have to take care of myself.” I think I went to so many doctor visits because every time I walked into an office the medical practitioner would freak out about how badly my body was doing and give me a tiny little bit of support so I could go back and do more work than I am truly physically capable of doing. I’m not going to have that medical team keeping me on life support here.

I have to value myself enough to say no way more and that’s hard. I get so much of my self esteem from doing things for people. From doing work and supporting people I gain the sense that it’s ok for me to keep taking resources for myself because I am sharing as much as I get or more. But this isn’t sustainable.

I don’t actually think the problem is with my kids behaving badly. They are really amazing children. I think the problem is me valuing myself and my need for rest. I absolutely literally require more down time than I give myself. I have to exercise in a fairly regimented way and I haven’t been doing it because I am exhausting myself providing emotional care for other people. That’s not healthy or a good way to be a role model.

I don’t want to teach my kids to be how I am. Which means I need to change.

I need to spend more time resting. I need to spend more time with just adults not taking care of children. I need to turn down opportunities to do labor (emotional and physical) for people. Not because I hate anybody. Not because I am angry and throwing a tantrum. Because I need rest. Because I need to love on me the way I love on my children. Because I need to spend as much time paying attention to my needs as I do to my children’s needs.

I learn a lot from my kids. They work to set boundaries for themselves. They understand that limits exist in their lives for their benefit. They do better and feel better if they exercise and eat healthy food and turn off the screens at night and get good rest.

I need to learn from my children.

I have an 11 year old.

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I am grateful every day for my daughter. I like her very much. I enjoy her company. I enjoy watching her grow and develop and separate from me. She has her own personality and interests. She gets to enjoy the things she wants to enjoy that I do not enjoy.

She also appreciates that I put a lot of effort into trying to please her. I appreciate that she notices my efforts. I appreciate that she is very sensitive to the feelings of other people. She doesn’t need to share the mood someone else is having, but she notices. That’s a really cool thing.

She’s gracious and kind. She’s thoughtful. She will go out of her way to try and help other people feel special.

I feel honored that I get to know someone like her. I really admire her and when I watch her behavior I learn a lot about who I want to be.

On one hand I want to list off all of the things that are going on for her… but it no longer feels appropriate in the way it does to list the milestones for my toddler. She’s a person who deserves a greater level of privacy. If she chooses to announce her height, weight, or favorite things on the internet she has the right.

I don’t have that right any more. She has grown beyond being observed in those ways by me.

I am really grateful I get to have this relationship. I am learning a lot. I look forward to getting to learn more from her over the next many decades.

15 months and what do you get?

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A cute little toddler, that’s what. Her Sweetness is 15 months today so I thought I would write down some milestones. She says mama, baby, hi, nigh nigh, sometimes dada/daddy, and no. She signs more, food, all done, milk, up, and yes (sometimes). Am I missing any, Noah?

She started walking this week and she is really enjoying that process. Her first attempt at walking up a hill resulted in her falling backwards in slow motion first onto her butt and then all the way onto her back. She was smart enough to keep her head up so she didn’t get a head bonk though! That was well done.

Like all of my children have done she has a big bruise on her cheek from slamming her face into something when falling. It’s a right of passage.

She is starting to try to help me dress her. She can use a spoon or fork if we help load it, otherwise she is still eating with her hands. She loves showers.

She is usually taking one nap a day and most of the time it lasts two hours. Sometimes if she goes to sleep early (by 10) then she will only sleep for an hour or an hour and a half and take a second nap later in the afternoon. If she doesn’t go to sleep till 11 or 12 then she gets a solid two hour block and she’s good till bedtime. She usually naps in the stroller which is the best.

She usually goes to sleep at 9pm which… I feel is way too late. She sleeps till 5:30, wakes up to nurse and then sleeps again till 7:30 or 8 depending on when we get up for breakfast. We are all skewing later here.

She truly loves to color and I find that kind of incredible. At this age her older siblings had no such inclination at all.

She likes cuddling her dolls and she hands them back and forth so everyone can get a cuddle.

She wakes up first thing in the morning and reaches for her toy phone if she can’t get her hands on an adult phone. I find this hilarious.

She is not big on meat but she will eat some if it is well covered in beans or fruit goo. She loves bananas, raspberries, blueberries, oranges/tangerines, watermelon but she’s sometimes not interested in strawberries or pineapple. She loves baked beans. Loves them. She is iffy on bread but she loves oatcakes. Rice is the best thing ever, she will gorge on it till her tiny little tummy is super round. Pasta is sometimes good and sometimes she picks at it–she is totally happy for it to be covered in sauce. She likes apple pieces and not so much apple sauce. She prefers breakfast cereal to be wet and fed to her over eating dry pieces on her own. She will drink whole cow milk (out of an open cup) and she drinks a lot of water (out of an open cup or from a camelback water bottle). She is very excited when she can occasionally bat her eyes long enough and I give her a sip of tea or juice but that doesn’t happen even once a week. Ice is great fun. She likes most veggies we give her but she’s not big on them cooked into eggs. She’s not super into eggs in general and will generally only eat any if they are covered in… baked beans. You are sensing a pattern here, right? She will eat anything if it is covered in baked beans: bacon, sausage, crumpet, toast, eggs, grilled tomatoes… even if she is highly dubious of those things separate. She loves yogurt with fruit and granola. If we eat a cookie in front of her she is adamant that She Gets Some.

She absolutely adores her siblings and will gently stroke their faces and nuzzle them. She likes to lean in and pat them. (She does this with her parents too, but it’s way cuter with her siblings.)

She is still incredibly prone to diaper rash so we change her at the absolute tiniest sign of wetness. We go through so many nappies. But it is better than her poor little but being irritated. She really couldn’t handle cloth diapers–she’s too sensitive.

She is still in 12-18 month clothing. I am not sure if she will still be solidly in them enough that we should take them to Portland or if she will bump up to 18-24 month stuff. I will definitely be leaving all the colder weather stuff here because Portland will be a massive increase in temperature for us and she’s not that cold here. (We are going from 2-12C in Inverness to 14-27C. That’s a big jump. She’ll only need sweaters if we are out at night and during the day she’s not going to need outer layers at all.)

She likes looking at her board books but she doesn’t have the patience to be read to from them. She loves chasing balls and rolling toys around the room.

If I scold her at all she closes her eyes and looks sad. So I try to keep that to an absolute bare minimum and follow up any boundary setting with kisses and cuddles. I can tell you not to throw your food on the floor and still love you and think you are the best thing ever.

When the big kids and I roughhouse at all she gets very upset and tries to make us stop. She does not think fighting games are ok. She wants everyone to be loving.

I have fully night weaned and I’m grateful for the sleep. She still nurses quite a bit during the day and I will keep it up for quite some time longer. She needs the stability and comfort.

She’s great.

And this morning I got my first postpartum period. I’m actually happy about that. I can start doing more mood tracking. It’s very useful to know my hormonal cycle.

That was it. That was exactly it.

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Sarah asked me what I wanted from her. I couldn’t put it into words. I just wrung my hands and felt stupid and rejected. Today I got it.

I wanted to feel like you loved me like family and you would deliberately seek out my company instead of rejecting me for people who are better than me.

In no way shape or form am I ever going to take up a majority of Jenny’s life. She’s married. She has kids. She lives in a different country. But when she gets the chance to be in my company she turns and faces me fully and wants to hear me talk and she wants to tell me about herself. She doesn’t go in her room with her partner after agreeing to see me and then shut the door.

There are people in this world who not only love me, they act like they love me. That’s what I wanted. I wanted Sarah to act like she loved me instead of acting like I was a path to a highly subsidized trip to Disneyland.

In the future when people treat me like I am an atm I need to stop acting like that is a reflection of me not working hard enough to earn their love.

Maybe they aren’t worth the effort.

What an ending.

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We had such a fun dinner. I spent the evening talking mostly in Spanish to two glorious women who have lived in Japan for 30+ years. Well, three women but one was working and wasn’t a big part of the conversation. We talked about our children and work. One teaches Flamenco dance and the other is a graphic designer (and obviously the third runs a restaurant). What a privilege. I felt so happy. The ladies had a great time playing with Her Sweetness and they were glad the big kids were trying to talk to them. Keep studying they said.

This is the kind of thing you get from travel. Magical nights spent going between three languages as everyone says how great the other people are.

The other ladies had 0, 1, and 2 kids. They were impressed I want to do the work of having 3. Ha. It is a lot of work.

But I was very unhappy without them. Even though my anxiety isn’t gone, even though my depression isn’t gone… this is what I want to be doing. I am grateful for my life even as I bitch about not getting a break. I get to belong. I get to have four people who think that spending time with me is amazing and they want to do it every day.

I know how lucky I am.

I had a great time here. I never wanted to come to Japan. I thought I would be miserable. I wasn’t miserable. There was some stress and extra work… but it was tranquil and peaceful and beautiful in a way I have never experienced. I feel blessed that I got to feel this in my bones. I leave feeling like this is a wonderful country and I hope I get to come back some day. Thank you, Noah.

I feel stupid for needing to write so much about what I am thinking. But it does help me. Thank you for not being mad at me writing to you in my blog and Twitter and Slack and IMs and Discord.

Thank you for liking me.

If you are here cause you are a hate follower my life is cooler than yours so go ahead and hate me.

If you are not a hate follower: my life is not cooler than yours. Your life is awesome in ways mine is not and I deeply envy you. I can’t be you. I can’t have what you have. But I think you getting to have it is glorious. You get to have family ties I don’t. You get to have an established life I do not get to have. You get to have a career I do not get to have. You get to have a partner I do not get to have (ok, Noah is the perfect partner for me… but your partner is probably really fucking cool too). You get to have a mom and a dad who love you; that is not my story.

It’s ok that we get to be different. I like you a lot how you are. I am grateful you share your time and your thoughts with me.

I wish everyone had diarrhea of the mouth blogs so I could know how they process every day. But folks don’t feel comfortable. Sometimes I wish I didn’t feel so damn comfortable blabbing all this shit. I kind of wish I were more private. But I don’t do well when I try that. I make bad choices. I hurt myself. I don’t want to hurt myself anymore. I want to feel joy and contentment and relief because of the excellent life I get to have.

I am having a really fucking cool life.

I started out trash. I started out expendable and unwanted and rejected.

And here I am. Tomorrow I get on a plane to Scotland to see one of my very favorite people in the entire fucking world. I am blessed. I am lucky. In June I get to go to an area that has at least a dozen people I love tremendously. In September I get to go somewhere with the best food and cheap massage in the world. In December I get to go see one of my very favorite people in the whole world in her home with her glorious family that has been so nice to me even though I’m a weird ass white person.

I am bringing presents for Pam’s parents, you bet your ass. I should write Pam’s sister and tell her I hope she comes in December too. Getting to see that whole family at once would be quite a Christmas present. Thank you for allowing me to stand near your beautiful family. I don’t feel worthy. I don’t feel deserving. But that’s not my call. You do.

I love you so much.

In 2020 I want us to find an immersion Spanish school that will take my whole family. I want us to stay there for a while. I want us to leave pretty close to fluent. Speaking Spanish makes my heart soar. I feel more human, more warm, more joy. I love the language. It feels like love. It feels like happiness. I want more.

Even if we don’t end up in a Spanish speaking country permanently, I want this in my brain. It brings me so much contentment and joy.

I feel so grateful to have this life. Fuck yes. Let’s do this.

Not dreaming, chores, screens and friends

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Apparently the way my brain decided to handle “I am sick of fucking nightmares” is “I am not going to let you get into REM sleep because I am going to wake up every half hour.” It was a rough night for me.

Yesterday was mixed. It was mostly good with some frustration in the middle around fucking screen time. I hate computers. (Yes, I recognize the irony that I am typing on one and typing is basically my inside voice.) Yesterday Middle Child and I got up early and got on a bus to go downtown to rent a car. On the bus we worked on homework and snuggled and it was fun. It was frustrating on the way back because Google Fi has decided that I get phone service everywhere…. and data when I am on a wifi network and that’s it. Noah’s phone has data all over the island. Urgh. So I had to call Noah and have him talk me through getting on the freeway. Luckily he is a patient man.

Middle Child and I stopped on the way home and had a snack. Eating together on dates is like a thing.

I dropped him off, picked up the baby and the laundry and headed to the laundromat for two hours. Woo. It took so long because only one washer was available while I was there. That’s ok.

When I got back… it got frustrating. With the recent introduction of Parental Controls… a lot of websites aren’t working anymore. Netflix isn’t working because it is tracked in so many ways that Parental Controls blocks it. (I am sorta unhappy about Google and Facebook tracking my Netflix usage anyway now that I know it is happening. Fuck Google. Fuck Facebook. Evil motherfuckers.) I started getting loud and Noah told me this wasn’t worth yelling about. He was right.

I decided it was better to make the kids go outside for a while. Noah and I looked at the controls again, decided that because the kids get 4 hours and that’s long enough to whine about not getting everything I will let them have 1 hour a day on weekdays (it will mostly be used for school time) and 2 hours on weekends, which will let them play a game or two but not long enough they will demand movies.

Because I am god damn sick of fighting over their computers.

I waited until I chilled out. Then I went outside and talked to each kid separately about why they lost unfettered access. At the end of these conversations they both hung their heads and said they agreed with the restriction because they have not been polite at all about their computers. (They were supposed to set their own timers and limit their screen time. Never happened. They were supposed to do school stuff…. that was mixed.) They both agree that they have not been responsible and I need to take that responsibility away from them. They also understand that me standing over them to monitor them while they are on adult accounts isn’t fair either. So here we are.

I mixed in talking about things I was frustrated about in other areas (each kid got very different feedback because they are frustrating in such different ways) and how I am off my medication and I will be for the foreseeable future and let’s talk about how that is going to impact my body and my mood. Phrased that way they both said, “I’d rather be limited and deal with that frustration myself than keep making you track my screen time. That will go poorly.” Yup. It will.

After that Noah was done with work for the day and we drove up to explore the western edge of the end of the highway on Oahu. We played there for about an hour then drove down to Pokai Bay so Noah and the three kids could play in the water while I talked on the phone to one of my friends. (No data= no video chat. Dangit.)

I don’t have consent to talk about her in detail so I won’t. I will say that we have been friends since the 7th grade. When I talk about how Noah’s friends are rich and mine are poor…. she’s on my mind. She is someone who I think about a lot. I don’t write about her for lots of reasons around her privacy and people being judgmental pieces of shit. But it’s really nice talking to her. She asked why I don’t call more often. I said, “well… I do this thing where I find people who are really crazy like me and I try to enmesh with them and then I get really anxious about bothering my less crazy friends and I withdraw.” She said, “Well I’m a little bit crazy so you should call a little bit more often.” Then she laughed. It was nice. She has a tremendous amount of experience with kids and I learn a lot from her. She’s one of the most giving people I’ve ever known. Her kid has had some interesting life experiences and she has told me she was really glad she’s always known me because she learned about a lot of things from me and when it came up with her kid she felt calm and collected about going with the flow.

I am grateful for her perspective and time. I will try to call more often.

I need to schedule a call with my other buddy in Salt Lake. He completes the trio of my middle school friends I’m still in touch with. His mother in law hates me and he finds that delightful. Ha.

And I get to see Jenny soon. I am trying as hard as I can to put my intensity in a box because I can’t explode all over Jenny and her family. They are all very reserved people. It is overwhelmingly important to me that I create a healthy connection with her kids and they are sensitive souls. I have to meet them where they are. I am the adult. That feels like a lot of pressure. It’s self imposed! Mostly? I want this meeting with my namesake to go better than the first one. I feel pathetic about it, but I want her to like me. I was too assertive the first time and she was like “Fuck you stranger lady” and that was fair… (She was under 2. The fuck you was entirely body language.)

I earn people pushing me away when I am too intense. But I am really fucking intense. That’s just a fact. How much can I put that intensity in a box and still be an authentic piece of me? I struggle with that balance.

You know, like how can I diplomatically talk about my feelings so I order my brain versus how much do I get to the point of screaming “Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you. Who’s next?”

Sigh. Balance. I continue to lurch towards it.

Last night I had a chat with Middle Child about his allowance savings. He said he feels like he doesn’t deserve to have it because we are walking past so many people who have nothing. I talked about how sometimes he uses his allowance to pay for things he breaks, sometimes for things he wants and I will not buy, sometimes just for splurges and if he gives all the money away he won’t be able to meet any of those needs he has for autonomy.

I talked about trying to find the middle way. (Thank you Buddhism. I am not a true follower, but every faith/religion/cultural path has some value for me to learn from. That’s what California Woo means to me.) I talked to him about trying to find the balance between saving up for yourself so you can meet your needs versus sharing what you have extra. I asked him what would happen to our family if I gave away 80% of his father’s income every month because I don’t feel like I deserve it. His eyes got big as he processed what that would mean in terms of housing, food, medical care, everything changes. So instead I share 10%.

We can meet our needs with 90% and we don’t have to stockpile the last 10%. We can share it and help other people have lighter loads. I can’t really give away more because I have a lot of medical expenses that are going to go up as I age. I have to prepare for that or I am deciding that I need to die early.

But it’s not about giving it away because you don’t deserve it. It’s about recognizing that our life is really good and we have the ability to share…. so we should.

He’s working on writing up his feelings about the values in a book called Islamic Values for Children. (DUDE! It’s online! Oh that’s awesome!) It’s neat helping him process what he agrees with and disagrees with in this book. Like, he said that we need to pursue (I’m paraphrasing slightly) understanding creation because if we don’t we make bad decisions and we hurt ourselves and the people around us: like killing off 80% of bugs in the world. Humans have used pesticides for a long time and now we face the possible extinction of our species because food is going to have a hard time growing.

I love hearing where his values differ from mine. But he has been raised hardcore in an environment where “Enlightened Self Interest” is a big deal. Being selfish isn’t wrong, but you need to be selfish in the concept of helping yourself be ok loooooooooong in the future.

It’s neat seeing how that plays out for him.

One of the hard things about Noah’s job is that he always feels like he isn’t quite doing enough to earn all those buckets of cash and all the conference invites so he works… constantly. Today and tomorrow he is taking off work! We get to go play on the island. I’m happy about that. I don’t have a plan for what we will do. I want to take the kids all the way around the island because then the kids get into these intense chats about how the plant life and rocks change. They are observant in ways I never was as a kid. Yesterday Eldest Child was talking about what the rock formations mean in terms of lava because she learned about it in one of her books. That’s so awesome.

“Hey, the plants aren’t so brown. That means this side gets more rain. Hm, I wonder why this is the line where that changes?”

This kind of thing didn’t occur to me as a kid and I love standing near this. I like them so much.

But first… we should pack 90% of our stuff this morning. In 48 hours we go to the airport.

I need to spend most of my time focusing on my family because I need to feel what that means. But I won’t forget my friends.

Oh, by the way: the place in Longview fell through. The AirBnB host said that we couldn’t have the independent apartment that long but we could rent two bedrooms in her house and share her kitchen and living room for the same price! Uhhh… no. That’s not a good deal for us. My kids are essentially nudists. They need to be able to have their own space where they can unwind without having to perform certain behaviors for a host. So I found a place closer to downtown Portland that is actually about $600 cheaper for the whole stay. It is in a much more crowded neighborhood, which will be mixed. Less ability to just “GO OUTSIDE” and more ability to walk to grocery stores. That’s a balance I will cope with. The house is sparsely decorated and one floor. That was shockingly hard to find in the region. The houses on AirBnB available for a long stay are mostly multi-story or decorated to within an inch of their lives. Yeah, I’m not dealing with that shit with a nearly-walking-baby.

Last night we had pho for the third time since reaching the island. We are really on a kick. I ordered the spiciest one on the menu then added three heaping spoonfuls of chili because it just wasn’t spicy enough. I wanted my lips and tongue to burn. It was awesome. Afterwards we had our first dessert since reaching the island: shaved ice with ice cream on the bottom. I added mochi balls to mine. We all had very different flavor profiles and it was funny how much the differences really are indicative of our personalities. EC had caramel ice cream with mango shaved ice, MC had coffee ice cream with cherry shaved ice, Noah had gosh I can’t remember his ice cream but he had guava and passion fruit shaved ice (with coconut sauce). I had cookies and cream ice cream with vanilla/pineapple/pina colada. The other three of us had mochi balls instead of sauce.

The baby went nuts trying everyone’s. She thought it was the best thing that’s happened to her in a long time. She is starting to understand “We look at a menu, then people go away and bring us good things to eat.” It’s fun to watch. She does a lot of intently looking at the menu then pointing at pictures. We often order what she points at. She is certain that the world is working as it should. Ha.

D–you didn’t do something terrible when you left that comment. The timing and the phrasing were not my ideal. But that happens in relationships. I am almost done being an exploding asshole. I am so sorry you got swept into all the upset about other things and other people.

Some of my grief is legitimate and real and totally deserved. That doesn’t mean I should lash out at everyone. Sometimes I do though and that is really fucking shitty. I try as hard as I can to limit my explosions to being here. I love you and I appreciate that you have tried to share what you have spare over the years. That wasn’t a lot and that’s ok. I don’t get to demand more from anyone who doesn’t have it going spare. Really I don’t get to demand more from anyone.

My black hole is not your job to fill. It really isn’t. I know that. It’s why I try to retreat when I am being inappropriate. Sometimes that retreat involves inappropriate yelling in my space. I imagine that is not easy. You don’t want to feel like you are hurting me. You don’t want to feel like you did something wrong.

I try to withdraw when all you have to do to be wrong is be near enough to hear me as I am screaming about being in pain.

Trying to find the right mirrors.

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I have a lot of people in my life who will tell me what is wrong with me and why I am fucking up. There aren’t very many people who spend enough time with me to be able to give me serious feedback on what I do right.

The mom of our former babysitter is an evangelical Christian. She’s seriously interested in converting people to her version of love and light and all that. She tries really hard to be positive even though she has a lot of anxiety and depression issues too. We’ve seen her a bunch of times already. Every single time we see her she comments on things she sees that are positive. “Wow y’all are really good at compromising and negotiating.” “It’s so nice to see siblings getting along so well and trying to be kind to each other.” “You are all trying so hard to get through work even as you are distracted and tired; that’s not easy and you are doing really well.”

I feel like a plant getting water. And I feel like I am a terrible energy vampire because I want more. More. MORE.

I feel my shoulders coming down. I feel less defensive and sad.

It’s not instant. I’m not going to get over this in a week. It’s been a bad two years for me since they left. I miss this family like an open, bleeding wound. And I feel like I’m starting to get a transfusion.

I love them so much. I am so grateful that they embrace us even though we are not like them and we do not share their values and we do not have the same life goals.

I feel accepted.

This is how all fucking Christians should fucking act.

Notice something good

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I am not sleeping well this week. I’m anxious on turbo. But I’m staying up late and taking care of myself. I’m taking baths. I’m doing my exercises and meditating. I’m trying to get myself prepared for the next stage. It’s going to be intense.

Everything in my life is intense. That’s just how I roll.

My sweet baby is crawling well and is trying to adjust to not nursing at night. She remains the sweetest baby I’ve ever known.

My big kids are trying so hard. We are all scattered and disorganized but they are trying. I need to recognize and respect that.

And Noah… he’s so nice to me. Even though I’m totally not putting out.