Category Archives: birthday

In the midst of birthday season.

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Our birthdays kind of bunch up. End of May, beginning of June. End of August, beginning of September. Then I have a blissful eight months to stop talking about them. Probably more like seven months.

Anyway. It is birthday season. So my birthday is on my mind. The kids are already telling me they don’t want me to go. I hear you. I want to go. I want to go off by myself.

I was thinking Harbin. But now I’m not. I looked around at other options. I think I am going to go to Calistoga. I think I will sleep in the van. I will splurge on body care awesome stuff. Because I get a personal budget and I’m allowed to use it. Noah buys video games. I buy access to mud. We are allowed to be different.

Looking at these websites is more fun than looking at porn. And I don’t twitch when my kids walk in the room.

euphoria and bouncing

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Last weekend was great. This week has been kinda rough. Euphoric weekends tend to mean that I have slightly less energy the week after. So I want to do more retreating. Combine this with Calli going through some extra-needy period and whoa. Yesterday I probably spent five hours throughout the day cuddling Calli. Because she needed that much contact with me. She was pretty upset that I didn’t hold her more. I’m looking forward to the arrival of a back carrier that can handle her weight. My arms are numb.

I think this week has been kind of rough because I’m trying to shove Shanna through doing actual work. She signed up to send Valentine’s to all of her friends in the home school group. Great. That doesn’t mean I’m going to sit there and do 30+ fucking Valentine’s for you (including relatives). If you want to do this, then do it. But that’s a lot of work for a five year old. I have my part to play: I will do the envelopes and I will help when something is genuinely hard, but mostly if you want to do this then you have to do it.

I wrote all of the names down on her little white board and when she finishes copying the name onto a Valentine she erases it. She’s both enjoying and loathing the process, as life goes-right? But I am not being as patient as I could/should be. I’m working on it. I did screech once on the first day when she spread everything from all the craft boxes all over the living room and then left the room to go play dress up in a different room. I don’t f’in think so. Get your behind in here and clean this up before you move on. (Err, I don’t even say “f’in” in front of my kids much. I feel mingled horror and pride about the fact that I don’t cuss in front of my kids almost at all. I will rarely swear in front of them and I do not swear at them. That’s a boundary.)

So I snuggle Calli and hope that her development is doing what it should do. I alternate encouraging, nagging, and ignoring with Shanna depending on what I’m trying to get her to do/not do.

Mostly it was a good week. I don’t feel bad about my kids having the odd clingy week. It isn’t our norm and it makes me feel good about myself and so very loved and useful. It’s great as long as it isn’t every day for a month. If it’s five or six days a month then I can show up and meet the need and we both feel good about our relationship by the end. It’s nice.

I’m struggling with money feelings. I hooked up our investment accounts with my Mint account. So now I have a more real time picture of our net worth. I almost hyperventilated. We are more than likely going to be millionaires. We will have a net worth of more than a million dollars some day. If you hit one it is a lot easier to get higher than that. We will reach that point probably in the next decade. I don’t think it will take until I am in my 50’s.

That just blows my mind. In my head I’m still a dirty little street kid inclined to steal my supper. But I’m not any more.

I have enough assets that I could pay off my mortgage, remodel my house, and pay for all of the trips I have planned in the next ten years and still have money left over. I’m not going to touch those assets but I could. The money is there. Only it’s not really there. That money is about my future. Noah’s future. Forget the kids. That money is about Noah and I not having to eat cat food when we are in our 70’s. And more than half of our net worth is the value of the house which isn’t so useful in terms of preventing the eating of cat food. So I have a long way to go before our old age is secure and provided for.

This is a very different kind of self control. I have always had unusually good self control but this is different. Many of the people who have lauded my self control didn’t realize that I had self control because I knew that I didn’t have enough money to actually cover what I wanted and I’m not a big fan of buying on credit. There is one kind of “self control” associated with being poor and not digging yourself into a hole and there is a very different kind of self control associated with growing assets.

The middle ground is rough.

I mean, oh poor me now I have money. Err, or something. That’s not quite what I mean but it was the first thing I leapt to mentally after that last statement.

This is what people are talking about when they try to say that “there is no such thing as privilege there are just different life experiences”. Things are hard at every level of socio-economic privilege–they are just hard in different ways.

But I call bullshit. This may be hard but I’d pick this hard over my old hard every day of the week and twice on Sunday. That means they aren’t really equivalent. I see the privilege. I’m grateful and grateful and grateful for it.

And I’m very hyper aware that I didn’t earn this money and I would not be able to duplicate the earning of it. I could earn more money than I do but my max salary would always be somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of Noah’s potential max salary.

That means I feel much more impetus to save some for later. If something bad happens and I have to support my family we are going to need a buffer like mad because backing off our life expectations from this income bracket would be hard. I could get used to eating cheap shitty food again but my kids would rebel. They are spoiled entitled little things. I did that on purpose. My kids believe that they should have access to a wide variety of high quality food. They get kind of bitchy when they don’t have it. Their bodies don’t feel as good. Yeah, welcome to the life of a poor person. Suck it the fuck up. You will never feel “good” again.

But I want my kids to feel good. So I feed them well. Because I have the privilege. I don’t believe that people who have less money love their kids any less than I do but I think there is a real difference in how a body feels after eating a diet of high quality fresh produce and grass fed meat vs. mostly ramen and canned vegetables. That’s not about the love or caring of the parents. That’s the reality of food access. I have the privilege to provide my kids with better than I had and I want to so very badly. I prioritize spending obscene amounts of money on food because I want my kids to feel good in their bodies.

Maybe it matters less than I believe but I doubt it.

It’s going to be a fine day. We have some work to do. Noah is working from home. My mother’s helper is coming later.

I need to send an email to my potential editor. I’ve been thinking hard about my next response to her. I want to say it right.

I’ve been keeping up with my running. Tomorrow is 8 miles. I’m looking forward to the half marathon in March. I need to schedule the one in Portland. Haven’t done that yet. Bleh.

I’m having trouble figuring out when I want to go up there this year. Shanna vetoed her birthday weekend (which is when a cool unschooling conference happens in Dad’s town so *I* thought it might be a great time to head up there) and I don’t know that I want to be gone for over a week around my birthday. And if I went up to Portland around my birthday Noah wouldn’t be able to go and I wouldn’t be able to get 24+ hours off from the kids. So probably not early September.

Consult more calendars. Talk to Ms. Blacksheep. Figure it out.

I’m really looking forward to my birthday this year. My layers of disappointment and frustration and difficulty around my birthday are not the fault of a single solitary person in my life right now. But I still have the feelings I have. I can’t wish them away or successfully pretend I don’t have the feelings. I have them. They are shitty. I’m looking forward to being alone and not having my disappointment land on people who have not earned any disappointment. My kids and my husband are so unbelievably nice to me that I don’t want to be upset with them even a little bit for stuff that isn’t their fault.

If I could just fucking figure out what I wanted or needed from my birthday they would jump through hoops to provide it. This difficulty isn’t really about their failure. This is existential angst. I’m looking forward to keeping it to myself this year.

 

Stupid body.

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I suppose I shouldn’t call my body stupid just because I didn’t get pregnant this month. I have proof. And it hurts. It hurts so much it woke me out of a sound sleep in an agony of pain. Yeah, fuck you too uterus.

Today is my sister’s birthday. She is 45. I’m going to cry for a while about that.

Today is park day. I’m not looking forward to it because one of the moms has described me as whiny. I take this as my hint to not come within 20′ of her. I don’t want to go to the park. I want to stay home and cry.

I suppose the only part that matters is I’m not going for my sake any way.

Happy 2014.

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I don’t really want to write a retrospective of the year. It was a better year than most for me. Maybe one of the happiest of my whole life. My PTSD symptoms continue to be challenging but I don’t think I got dumped by a long-term friend. I didn’t have to move. I got to buy anything I wanted. I did get support even if it didn’t feel like “enough” (that’s not really anyone else’s fault–I’m not even sure what “enough” would mean) and that is a big step up from most of my life.

We had dinner last night with my current “bestie” and her family. She’s the only person I talk to almost every day who doesn’t live with me. That person changes over the years. I try at this point to not hold on to attachment to a specific person needing to be there for me forever. I will never have a BFF. Britt decided she didn’t want me and that’s fine. My Jenny loves me and will love me forever but she’s far away and I won’t ever get to spend a lot of time with her again. That’s ok. I still love her with all my heart and soul. It is what it is.

My bestie told me she doesn’t think going cold turkey off pot is a good idea. She watched me cycle emotionally a lot yesterday and she flat told me that she thinks I am doing a self-hating thing. This is why I pick opinionated people as friends. They tell me what they really think. Even though sometimes I’m an asshole in response. I’m way better about the asshole thing than I used to be.

I am trying to let go of feeling sad about all of the relationships that have ended. People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime and you will never know who is in which category until you die. That’s when you finally have perspective on the story. It will all be ok in the end.

2014 needs to be a year of not spending money. I need to take the long term financial planning stuff seriously. I have some expensive goals.

Otherwise I think that mostly I need to work on being more brave. And kind. I need to yell less.

I happen to love a lot of other people who also have psychological challenges of their own. I’m not the only one with anxiety and panic disorder and PTSD and depression. If I want those people in my life I am going to have to consciously and deliberately keep inviting them in or they won’t be in my life. They can’t invite themselves in. Or they won’t. I don’t know which and from where I am sitting it doesn’t matter. It all comes out the same in the wash.

People are never going to be “all I want” from them. I have to manage that. It isn’t anyone else’s fault. It isn’t my fault either. It isn’t anyone’s fault near as I can tell. It just is. I can either be kind and loving or I can be nasty and alone.

I don’t want to be alone. I really don’t.

I’m looking forward to 2014. I have so much to look forward to. I love spending time with my kids so much. I am deeply grateful to the friends in my life. Noah is the source of all my safety and security. I cannot begin to express how much I notice that. I need to treat Noah as well as he treats me. I’m really grateful that I get to have someone who loves me this much in this lifetime.

I won’t keep everyone forever and ever. I need to not feel that it happens because I am a worthless piece of shit. That’s not it. Sometimes the people who can’t be in my life do truly love me… but sometimes love is not enough. I am hard. That will always be true. I need to transfer the bitterness about losing some people into gratitude for the people who can stay. It isn’t anyone’s fault that some people have to go. It’s just life.

Part of the challenge for this year will be to get my body to hurt less. I hope to get my brain to stop chanting that I am a worthless whore. It’s a goal.

I’m really looking forward to my birthday this year. I was talking to Noah about it this morning. It looks like I will take off for nearly a week alone because my birthday is on a Wednesday and I think it may be a good idea to schedule the half marathon in Portland the weekend before or the weekend after. I will check with blacksheep and race schedules and decide for sure. Shanna says she is not interested in going to the Unschooling conference in Washington the weekend of her birthday. She wants to be here with friends.

I’m looking forward to waking up alone on my birthday somewhere far from my home. I will have no one and nothing to take care of except my base bodily needs. That sounds like the best birthday ever right now. Maybe I’ll go dance in the trees all by myself.

Just another whinging Friday

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It isn’t that I think my kids are bad or anything. They are just excellent boundary pushers. I want them to push boundaries. I flat encourage them in that direction. I want children who are tenacious, stubborn, and sure that their idea is A Good One. But. But sometimes I wish I could say, “I know I’m willing to argue/negotiate with you all day every day but can I please have a friggin break on my birthday.” They just aren’t old enough to understand.

We did have good moments. I feel really bad that it seems like all I do is complain. Doesn’t anything make me happy? Am I ever satisfied? Is there any point in reaching for satisfied or is that just not something I can feel? I feel really guilty for not being able to turn this into a fun trip. It should have been a fun trip. I hate that I am such a downer all the fucking time.

But it felt really bad getting yelled at for what I wanted to order for lunch. I fucking told them four days in advance, “On my birthday I want us to have gumbo and papas fritas and beignets for lunch. That’s what I want.” They were enthusiastic and supportive until we got to the park. Then I was a mean and terrible person for not letting them have popcorn for lunch. Or ice cream. Or a Dole Whip. Or…

My kids rarely have extreme cases of the gimme’s. I don’t buy them things all that often on our outings and I’m kind of nasty about being pestered to buy stuff. Holy.Fucking.Shit. This trip was the most gimme-gimme-gimme I think Shanna has ever been. She actually sat on her ass in the middle of the store and started yelling at me because I wouldn’t buy her a FUCKING SECOND MUSIC BOX. SHE HAS ONE AT HOME THAT SHE BOUGHT WITH HER ALLOWANCE ON OUR LAST TRIP.

I almost lost my shit. If we had been within an hour of home I would have left the park fifteen minutes into the day.

The really funny thing is the DMV portion of the trip was the best natured and happiest all three of us were on the whole trip. We played games and met people and it was a really enjoyable 3.5 hours. Hell, I’m talking to a lady via email after that. She’s nice.

I think it is that whole kicked puppy thing. I was acting like a kicked puppy. I was begging them to please let me have a turn. When you act like a low status person you get kicked like a low status person. So my kids kicked me (only literally a few times figuratively much more often) all day.

It all feels like my fault. If things go badly it is because I planned wrong or anticipated wrong or… something.

Having them both scream at the top of their lungs that I was mean and nasty multiple times before 10am felt really hard. I know this is a current tick. I know that the best way to handle it is to not engage. At this point in time I am having trouble not bursting into hysterical tears or hitting them. I have strong impulses to do both. I’m not doing either but I want to.

Just breathe. This moment will pass.

I have spent ~15 hours over the past week and some working on scheduling. I’m getting close to knowing the shape of my days all the way through the end of the year. If I stick with my schedule. Ha.

In order to make it so that I can potentially accomplish what I want to accomplish I need a schedule with a lot of rest time scheduled. I need to not be booked all day every day. I have to have multiple days in a week where what I do is hang around the house and putter. I need to have scheduled “sit on the couch and read books and snuggle” time with the kids just about every day.

I have to run more. I just have to. Not running is feeling a lot worse than running. Which is hella funny. We have gone out all four of us a couple of mornings in a row. We hope to get the kids used to going for a morning jog. Noah and I take turns doing sprints up the block and back to the family because the kids are a lot slower.

Outrunning Suicide is starting to take shape. I have mostly written several chapters. I have a skeleton. This one is very different than No Secrets. The entire writing process feels different. This will feel more like a collection of essays than a story, but there needs to be some sense of story in it as well. I am trying as hard as I can to be conscious of the fact that I want this book to be appropriate for twelve year olds. Even though the mothers of twelve year olds will say that it is too mature. The mothers are wrong.

I need to start working on painting in the back yard. All of the stuff that was built this year needs to be painted so it doesn’t rot quickly. Oh man.

I don’t want to go out very much over the next few months. I want to get work done. I want to home school my kids. I need to stop looking outward for a while. We will go to park days. I will continue to try to make time for Noah’s friends who have all had kids and the few people I have hanging on who had kids.

I need to stop looking for new people. I don’t have the bandwidth. My monkey spheres are full.

I like having a lot of… I’ll call them third tier friendships. People generally don’t want to think of themselves as third tier, but oh well. At this point the only person I have near daily contact with who I don’t live with is K. Thank goodness for her. That is the first tier. Second tier are all of the people who have kept contact with me for long-stretches of time and they know real things about me and I know real things about them. These are people who very consciously schedule with me and make sure that I know that they think about me. The third tier are the people I don’t see a lot of and they know very little that is real about me but I want to feel acceptance and love so I try very hard to maintain Appropriate Behavior around them and I know there are consequences if I slip up.

The third tier is where you get into the idea of Community. These are people I want to know. They add value to the world and to my life in particular but I don’t think they actually like very much about me so I have to carefully construct what they see or I will be shunned again.

I can’t overload my second tier. When I overload my second tier then I see the ending of nearly-decade-long relationships and the backlash hurts me for years.

The third tier is where I spend most of my time. I carefully dole out just small bits of my personality to people. It all tends to feel very artificial. I know I need to be careful not to be too real. I need to not saying things that will upset people. Good fucking luck guessing who is sensitive to what.

Why is the third tier so important? Because I have absolutely stressed the first and second tiers to the limits of their ability to support me and if I have free-floating miasma of need and I get it met in bursts of random kindness from the universe. I depend on a lot of Pay It Forward. Mostly this has worked out fairly well. Humans in general are loving, kind, and they want connection.

But then we get to this punishment thing. I think that most people have trouble understanding that they are punishing people. I know that I struggle with understanding how and where I punish people. I do it but it is hard for me to understand the mechanism of it. It is hard for me to understand that I have the power to punish people. I don’t feel like I have such power. I feel weak and powerless.

My second tier has worked very hard to step up since I had kids. As much as I am still in a place of great hostility towards the idea of “chosen family” (given that most of the people who have emphatically told me that I am their family no matter what no longer speak to me I think I get to be hostile to this concept) I… feel conflicted. Clearly I have friends who have moved into family roles.

I feel like I am understanding how other peoples limitations work better as the years go on. Like, I’m not inviting people on trips. It isn’t that anyone wants to hurt me (I don’t think that the desire to hurt me played any part in people not being able to go on the trip–major health concerns came up for everyone) but I am still here hurting. How do I move towards hurting less?

I have been asking for help with things where I can’t handle the answer “no”. That is always where I get into trouble. This is consistent for me. I wait until the lack of support will be crippling then I ask for support then I get told no because other people don’t have the bandwidth and I crumble.

I need my life to require fewer spoons. I need to not need help.

Having children has been humbling and humiliating. The amount of help I have needed has been really hard. Things like going to the doctor for an ultrasound of my abdomen. That turned into a huge long lecture at Kaiser about how I need child care or I can’t get health care. I understand why my dentist pushed me to get the dental implant I needed while I was pregnant even though the pain meds aren’t optimal because “Mothers don’t take care of their teeth when they have children under ten.”

It is kind of weird and hard to talk about but since having children I am more house bound than I was before simply because of how my bathroom habits changed. I have always had a small and urgent bladder (common problem with early childhood sexual abuse) but after the kids my life-long diarrhea problem became urgent and explosive too. And then there is how my periods have changed. Having a body sucks.

Having kids is hard but I did not anticipate the specific ways this would be so hard. I anticipated getting sick of laundry and wiping up poop and being screamed at. I didn’t understand that after having children it would be a rare thing for me to be able to handle three hours between bathroom trips–I get a few freak days once in a while. I normally go to the bathroom every half hour or so. I don’t think I would physically be able to teach right now. I used to have 110 minute class periods. I can’t hold my bladder that long any more. And it is illegal to leave in the middle of a class to use the restroom. I did it anyway but you aren’t supposed to and there are severe potential punishments.

You want to know why I have so much anxiety about neglecting my children when they are playing in another room and I can’t see them but I can hear them? Because I went through teacher training and discovered just how much trouble I can get in if I don’t “properly supervise” other peoples kids. Apparently properly supervise means sit on top of the child and physically prevent them from ever breaking the rules. Good luck.

I swear this all ties together in my head.

I have historically depended heavily on the third tier. Why do I consider them third tier? What I can ask of them is much smaller and more limited and I have to be careful of watching how often I ask. The tiering is how much of my need they have demonstrated an ability to handle. It isn’t about me judging them negatively or thinking they are bad people. I’m intense. I hurt people without trying. I need to be careful to notice when I am hitting stress points for people and withdraw so there can be a next time. If I push third tier people too hard they eject me from their lives.

With children this is different and difficult. At this point I feel like a user if I ask people for anything. I try hard to bully K to let me come do work at her house because I feel like such a user all of the time given how much support she gives me. It isn’t actually a better dynamic.

I have a hard time knowing that at this point in my life I need more support than I give. It has been true for years. Maybe for all of my life. This totally plays into being financially dependent. I feel ashamed of myself. I look at the women in my life who are not dependent and I feel pathetic. This is part of that defining myself by being not-like other people. It isn’t good for me or anyone else.

I don’t feel like the things I do are good or worthy. And yet I really really really want to do the things I am doing. With fervor and intensity I want these things in the world and I don’t think anyone but me will do them. I take that as a sign they probably aren’t worth doing and I am just a waste of resources.

Part of the problem with an extensive third tier is someone always needs help. People are always struggling and I wish I could help more. I wish I had more to offer. I wish I had more energy. I wish I had more time to give them.

But instead I will stay home and weed my garden and write a book and paint. I am selfish and small. My life is limited and unimportant. I totally struggle with that Gen Y thing of, “But I am SPECIAL”. No. I’m really not. I don’t have anything unique and special to offer the world.

But sometimes I feel like I do. Sometimes I feel like I am good at helping people see their own value. Because I think so little of myself I view basically everyone in the world as higher status as me. When I explain to people all that I see about them that is good and wonderful they tend to be surprised. They are not able to see themselves that way. Isn’t that ability good and useful? Is that enough? What is enough? Enough of what? Enough for what?

I don’t know.

But I need to pull back into my little shell. I need to count my spoons and carefully lay them next to tasks. I want to read more books this year. I want to look out my back window on New Years Eve and see a rainbow castle. I want to finish writing the book that I really needed to read when I was twelve. I want to teach my children the daily habits of picking up after themselves. Even though it is hard. Even though you would rather do it later. If you do it now then you are free to go do anything you want on a whim. It takes practice to learn these habits.

I want my children to think that physical activity is just part of life. So I have to model it every day.

I want to not be fucking screamed at. I have already made a lot of progress on my own screaming. I will figure this out. It is going to be hard and it will take patience. We will figure this out. Without anyone getting beaten. There may be a fair bit of time out in our future.

I don’t think that anyone did anything wrong per se on my birthday. But I think that at this point my birthday is such a thing that I’m not sure anyone can do right. I don’t think it is anyone else’s fault at this point.

Rope bridges last a long time but eventually decay. You aren’t doing anything wrong by jumping up and down as you go across a rope bridge. Sometimes a log may break and you could plummet to your death. No one actually did anything “wrong” but there are still end results that suck.

I don’t know how to feel special. I want that feeling so bad. I want to feel loved and appreciated and like people are really really glad I am alive. I don’t feel that way. I feel like people tolerate me so long as I can fill their needs and not be too annoying. I know that people don’t actually feel that way about me. I don’t think I offer enough trade to actually justify that belief.

It isn’t that I believe that Noah and Shanna and Calli secretly hate me. It is clear that they all love me with great intensity. But something inside me is broken. It is like pouring boiling water into a tank of liquid nitrogen so that you can warm it up. That just isn’t going to work how you hope.

I feel raw. I know I am “over sensitive”. I know I “shouldn’t take things so personally”. But I am. I just am. Maybe I shouldn’t be. Maybe I shouldn’t exist. But I do. And this is how I feel. And I can’t make it go away just because it is inconvenient for me or for other people. The only thing I can do is try to stop being in a room with anyone else on my birthday so that it is very very clear that this problem is in me and not because of anyone else.

My birthday is really hard for me. I’m afraid it always will be. I desperately desperately want a kind of feeling loved and cared for and appreciated that I’m not getting. I don’t know what it is or how to get it. Everything I have tried so far has failed miserably. I really and truly have tried to change this pattern.

I wish I could stop feeling like it would be better if I was dead. Then I wouldn’t be so fucking inconvenient.

I know it isn’t “true”. I had kids so that I would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that my labor is necessary for a few decades. Nothing would be better right now if I was dead.

But I don’t know how to feel loved. I feel despised. I feel unappreciated.

Which is ridiculous. Noah couldn’t work harder than he does. And he clearly is doing it for me–he didn’t work like this before me. My Owner was a workaholic. Noah was kinda lazy when I met him. He was certainly unfocused–that is probably a better word than lazy. He works like a dog, largely because he is doing it for me. He wants to make all of my dreams come true.

And I reward him by crying and crying and crying and feeling like a worthless piece of shit. He is very confused. If I knew what to ask him to do he would do it. I don’t know. I don’t know how to stop feeling this way.

I mean, in the abstract I know how to deal with this feeling. Feel it. Cry while you have it. Wait. It will end.

That’s the awesome thing about feelings. They change.

Sometimes I do feel that Noah loves me. Sometimes I do feel that my kids love me. But somehow when it comes to my birthday that is broken. There is this big brick wall. I don’t feel attached. I don’t feel love or loved. I feel worthless and stupid and pathetic and bad and mean and unwanted and like I should just die.

And god I miss my mother. I miss my mother so much I want to curl up into a ball and never eat again. I am not worthy. I dishonor the woman who bore me. I am a piece of shit. I am not protecting her and taking care of her. I know she needs it. She has always needed it. She has always needed to be taken care of more than I need it.

And I think my kids need more taking care of than I need. Except for one day a year. Where I think I am going to need to have different boundaries.

I have started grieving really hard for the apology I was told I would get and I didn’t get. That guy in the scene I went and talked to who said he would write an apology. I’m sorry I made myself vulnerable to that.

I’m even more grateful for talking to the guy who made me uncomfortable at the wedding.

I know that I have to keep trying with people. Every relationship is unique. Every dynamic changes over time. I need people to jump over hoops for me. I need it. I’m pretty clear and direct about how and where I need it. I try not to be too demanding of any one person. But I do ask people to jump through hoops for me.

I want people to show me with their actions that I am actually as important as they verbally claim I am. I want my body to matter. This is a really dangerous kind of validation to want. Because I am not going to get it. People will say they will do ______ and not do it.

Do you know what makes people happy? Giving help to other people. Do you know what makes people feel shitty? Needing help. I hate my neediness as much as other people resent me inflicting it on them.

The kids are slightly sick. Runny nose on elder child, both are coughing. Younger child keeps telling us she needs a bucket but she isn’t vomiting. I’ve been crying so much I don’t know if I am sick or not. I scheduled a potentially light weekend because I am S-M-R-T.

I am looking forward to fall and winter. It will feel really nice after the frantic work pace of spring and summer. It is a puttering kind of day. I will go grocery shopping. I should wash the windows. Then they can color on them again. Ha. Right now they are too full to be fun.

I should stop typing. Annnnnnnny minute here……

Well, I’m older.

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I learned a few things on this trip. I will never again plan a trip around someone coming with me. I need to assume that I will be alone and I need to make my spoons cover the whole time I will be there. If I plan around not being the only adult and then I am stuck being the only adult things don’t go very well.

We were gone for 60 hours. I drove for 14 hours (traffic was heinous). Slept for 16 hours. ~6 hours of the kids yelling at me at the top of their @#$#%@#% lungs that they want to go into Disneyland NOW when they wake up 3 hours before the park opens (times two days–see how that works?)

3.5 hours in the DMV. That was entirely my fault for not doing better planning.

So that leaves ~20 hours to be in our hotel or in the parks. We made dinner in the room each day. The kids were very angry with me that I would not take them swimming at the exact same time as I was cooking dinner. It turned into two hours of Shanna yelling at me about how it wasn’t ok to bring bathing suits and not use them.

I think this is the worst set of behaviors I have ever dealt with during a short period of time from my kids. By the end of the trip I felt no love at all. I cried for five hours on the last day including about three hours of the drive home.

My kids were not nice to me. They both screamed a lot. I got hit multiple times when I said no to buying things. I don’t know what the mother fuck happened.

Well, I asked them to please let me pick what we did for one day. Please, just one day. Apparently that wasn’t reasonable to ask for. (The developmental books talk about all of their shit being right on target. Calli is right in the middle of the stage where my FAVORITE AUTHOR EVER says, “Put them in daycare and get a lot of babysitting because no one likes their kid at this age.” It is a rough stage. I remember it with Shanna. She outgrew it. She is currently in a different annoying phase but it is very very different. Give them credit and all.

But it was a rather shitty trip. A long ass time ago when I thought I was going alone I planned for five days in a studio. (Not a lot of points and I would get three days in the park without driving.) Because I asked people to go with me I ended up booking a one bedroom for three days because other people have obligations. Then I got cancelled on. Then I hunted hard for another person and got cancelled on. Then I asked dozens of people and was told, “How about the week after?”

I don’t think I will schedule with other people any more. I keep hoping that I will have the kinds of friendships where I can do that kind of thing. I don’t have them. Wanting them is hurting me very badly and I need to stop wanting that. I need to stop thinking I will ever be someone who is part of a group.

I feel pathetic for how jealous I feel of the big families at Disneyland. I’m not that jealous. I understand that a family that size comes with a dogmatic religion I don’t want to follow. But it looks so nice to have a bunch of people who love you and want to do things with you.

I need to assume my travel is alone and just for myself. This is a tree I have to stop beating my head against because I just flat don’t handle it well when people back out. Then I’m stuck with a reservation that I can’t handle very well. I didn’t plan around my spoons. I planned around someone else’s spoons. I shouldn’t have. That was stupid.

Most of the drive home pretty much all I heard in my head was how stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid I was for thinking that the trip would work out and be fun. Instead I spent the whole time being yelled at and feeling like I was about to burst into tears because no matter how much I do for my kids they yell at me and scream at me and tell me I am mean and nasty for not doing EVERYTHING they want RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. I know it is developmental and all. I think I deal with it ok most of the time.

It sucked golf balls through a tennis ball to have that happen on my birthday at Disneyland. At one point in the day when Shanna was being really snotty I started crying. Then she backed off. She said, “Oh, is this a big deal? I guess I don’t need it.”

I didn’t do very well with having to be the heavy mean person. I just wanted to be allowed to decide what we did on one day. My kids steer the vast majority of our days.

Next year I have every intention of waking up alone on my birthday and spending the entire day alone. Preferably hundreds of miles away from anyone I know so that I have no expectation of anyone being nice to me so that I won’t be disappointed.

Every year after my birthday I feel sad. It always feels like this sadness is all my fault. If I just chose to be happy everything would be fine. It is all my fault I am sad. Shut the fuck up you self-involved, pretentious, selfish bitch.

It really doesn’t help that driving down I-5 is a trip through my hellish past. “I was raped in that town. I was sexually assaulted but not raped in that town. I was beaten up every day by a group of six kids in that town. I was raped in that town. That is the town where my father held a gun to my head after raping me. That is where I was born and where my father started raping me.”

I don’t especially enjoy driving that freeway. It is very innately stressful for me. I have so much bad history there. And it all feels like my fault. If I hadn’t been so stupid…

I really don’t have a lot of respect for my intelligence right now. Right now it feels like there are lots of nice people in the world who like me and things don’t work out better for relationships because I am stupid and I want inappropriate things and I don’t know how to be nice enough so I just flat don’t deserve to have better relationships with all those nice people.

I want to cut so much. Still haven’t. Still not modeling it as a coping method.

People said happy birthday to me and I appreciated it. Thank you. I don’t actually think that “no one likes me”. I think my friends share what they have to give. Unfortunately sometimes I try to cobble what they have to give into what I need and it falls short. It isn’t my friends fault. I’m a black hole. I’m not sure there is “enough” anywhere in the world. So I have no right to complain about any of my friends.

But I’m still a black hole. And it hurts. It hurts.

I don’t know how to stop feeling like I should die because then the world would be better for everyone else. They wouldn’t have to hear about me and my stupid whining. I would finally shut the fuck up.

Assuming I will ever be anything but alone is stupidity. It is hubris. Stop being stupid, Kristine.

I’m not alone. I have Noah and the kids. But you know what… for the life of me they don’t seem to have much collective interest in being nice to me on my birthday.

I think that next year being literally alone is the right call. Less disappointment. Less being reminded that no, I’m not remotely special and people have absolutely no need to be nice to me on my birthday. It’s just another fucking day.

That gratitude stuff.

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Today I feel lucky to have so many people who love me even though I am so broken and so difficult. High Maintenance they call it.

My husband is going way above and beyond the call of duty lately. He has broken concrete, made breakfast every day, made dinner most days, swept and mopped the house, and moved over 500 lbs of sand so I didn’t have to. These are all things he doesn’t especially like or want to do. But he is helping me. And he did all that outside of his work hours, where he earns enough money to support me in a lifestyle I never previously imagined. (Jenny said she would show she loved me by paying someone to do this labor rather than doing it. It’s a love language thing. I can’t pay someone to do work how I want it done–this is something I learn over and over again. Having Noah just help me do it is really a big thing for me.)

I do not feel like I deserve this. I’m grateful anyway.

Many of my friends are finding ways to hang out and talk to me or be supportive. I am grateful that people stare at me hard enough to say, “You are clearly in a depressive state. I can tell based on ____ and _____ and ____.”

Holy shit. You care. That’s… that’s… whoa. Ok.

It is hard to believe that I am a piece of shit and have people treat me this way. It feels wrong. It feels like I should hurry up and do something awful so they recognize that helping me is the wrong decision. I am not worthy. Self-sabotage is kind of my MO.

That’s part of why my therapist wants me to stop socializing for a bit. When I bounce between lots of people I feel like I am supposed to be trying to figure out how to please all of these people and that takes a lot of thinking and emotional energy. When I am consumed by feelings of worthlessness it is much harder to figure out what is “appropriate” behavior.

Yes. I have to work on my behavior all of the time. You have no idea how much profanity and nastiness lives in my head. I consciously choose what I say or I say things that are really mean and critical. Even if I like something very much I can always tell you 4,920 things that are wrong with it. Whether that is a person, a place, or a thing. Or an idea. Just to cover all the nouns. It doesn’t matter how strongly positive my feelings are there are still more negative things I could say. I have to consciously choose to not be like that. It’s hard.

Right now my friend is reading to my kids. I’m going to have a hard time when she leaves California again. I know she loves me no matter where she is but having her nearby feels like such a blessing. I don’t have to try to please her. I can sit still in a chair and she pays attention to my kids and loves on them and I don’t have to worry about my behavior.

I feel grateful for friends who put up with how loud we are. I know that the volume in our house is very challenging for a few of my friends. (Oh.Forking.Man. The last place we went for a playdate [K-babysitting is different] had hardwood or tile floors throughout with very high ceilings. I no longer think my house is loud. My house is awesomely sound dampening. YAY MY HOUSE. I no longer want hardwood floors or high ceilings. I would lose my fucking mind. I like my house more with every year. <3

I need to go out back and tack down the landscaping fabric. Then I will fill the sandbox. Then I will take a shower and get ready for teaching. After teaching I need to come home and start preparing food for the party tomorrow. Oh man.

I feel very lucky to have the people I have in my life now. I know that I am crazy and all, but not everyone has as many people who love them fiercely as I do. Even if I don’t feel loved I know that I am. I see the actions of the people who show up in my house.

I’m trying to see you for who and what you are instead of the projections from my broken brain. I’m trying. I’m trying.

Tomorrow will be a kick-awesome party. Just sayin’. Not many kids coming, this is the “grown ups who show up to see the kids all the time” party really. Calli listed the people she wanted to invite. Only one person who visits regularly isn’t coming and that is because he doesn’t like the noise much. He and his wife were invited but not pressured to come. They don’t like crowds.

It is really neat finding out who Calli feels attached to. She has a varied and dear family whether I understand it or not. I’m really glad that my daughters feel so loved in this world. I’m doing something right.

Waves of grief.

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My nephew turned 24 two days ago. I’ve been thinking about him since. I wonder how he is doing.

I feel intense sorrow that I am not doing more to support my friend who just lost her life partner. She hasn’t asked for more, but I think I should be there and I’m not. I feel very ashamed of myself.

I feel like a petty, pathetic, moron for caring so much about how clean my house is before a party. But I’m still forcing everyone in my family to clean.

I’ve had sex twice this month and I don’t know that we will be doing that again. I don’t really feel good about sex right now. Being touched makes me freak out. This is a huge slump and I feel really bad about it.

People are being very nice and soliciting spending time with us. I feel like a piece of shit because I am staying home and working on cleaning up my yard. I feel vapid, narcissistic, and stupid. But I don’t want anyone to get hurt and there has been a lot of debris. I wish I didn’t feel so bad about doing this work.

Construction is always stressful. I don’t know anyone who has construction on their property without stress. It is almost over though and all of the work is beautiful. I am going to be very happy with my yard for the rest of my life. That is nice anticipation.

I feel like I am failing on homeschooling lately. I have too many hours of the week booked. I’m just requiring my kids to entertain themselves while I work. That said, they are incredibly helpful. And because I have not been reading to them much Shanna has been “reading” to Calli a lot and that is really cool on its own.

I continue to feel waves of shame over yelling at my neighbors for being racist. I feel like there should have been some constructive way to deal with it only I am a nasty harpy bitch. And yet… I’d much rather be a nasty harpy bitch than keep my mouth shut when someone says things I believe are wrong. I feel very guilty about choosing to be this person. I’m not nice.

The goody bags are packed for the birthday parties. Not that all of the kids have RSVPed. I should probably email those two moms and find out if the kids are coming.

Cakes are ordered. We will be delightfully cake-ified.

Today we have a playdate with some folks who invited us over to their house before I started canceling everything this week. I don’t feel that guilty about canceling group participation but when someone invites me over to their house I try like hell not to cancel. If I invite myself over I’m ok with rescheduling when something comes up… but not if I’m invited. I know how hard it is for people to invite. I don’t want to fuck that up.

I miss the Leather community. Noah doesn’t understand why. The flaming perverts don’t hold within them the potential to make my life very hard for the next few decades. I’m painfully aware that I can’t fuck things up with people who are involved with my kids. The Leather community is not about my children. If I fuck up there it is something where only I have to pay the penalty. That sounds so freeing right now. I miss having only me pay for being me.

I’m so grateful that my children wake up every day ready to jump into my arms and exclaim that the missed me last night! They are ready for some snuggling!

This is the best period of my entire life. I am so grateful I get to be here. I’m learning that “being wanted” isn’t something that you necessarily feel. Because I am wanted. My children and my husband want me fiercely. And I still don’t feel it. That’s not their fault. I’m trying.

I shouldn’t be typing. But I feel so lonely and sad. I’ve been crying on and off for days. I miss my mom so much. I wish I could stop missing her. I’d give almost anything to not miss her anymore.

Today is bad.

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All I can think about is getting a razor blade and driving to the beach. Several big deal cuts from wrist to elbow and then I would swim out until I couldn’t swim any more. I promised myself I would raise my kids so I’m not going to do it today. I want to. I want to stop hurting.

I have been sobbing and wailing and whining that I miss my mother for almost thirty years. Yesterday during EMDR the thought loop that kept getting stuck was, “Honor thy mother and father” and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I am bad. I do not honor my mother or father. I am bad. I can’t even follow G-d’s rules.

During Calli’s nine day labor from hell my doula and midwife were both very irritated with me. They both had children who were under a year old whom they didn’t want to leave. I was inconvenient as a client. So they were snippy and would come and go and didn’t want to be with me more than they “HAD” to. And I almost died. And I lay in bed for weeks because I couldn’t stand. I crawled to the bathroom because I could not walk the four feet. Thankfully Kira brought us food or we would have been in a difficult spot.

I am going to die alone. I am going to die feeling unwanted and unloved and unappreciated. I don’t really see any other ending for my story. Some days I am more sanguine about this than others. Everyone is alone in the end–right?

I have no interest in being alive at the end of today. But I promised I would raise my kids. So I will be anyway. It doesn’t seem to matter what I want in this lifetime. You get what you get. It isn’t about “right”. It isn’t about “fair”. It isn’t about “deserve”.

Noah told me that he is trying to give me freedom. I’ve been free since I was five years old. No one has known what I have done unless I have chosen to tell them. I have done whatever I want. I traveled. I met people. If I didn’t have the money I found a way. I have had more freedom than pretty much anyone I know.

Someone has to care about you before they have expectations of you. No one knew what I was doing.

I want to slit my wrists so bad. I have no interest in completing today. I don’t want this pain. I’m so fucking done. The last few days have actually been pretty good. I was in a great mood this weekend.

Honor thy mother and thy father. Sometimes it comforts/haunts me that because I am an American I am allowed to exist. In other places my disobedience against my parents would probably end my life.

Honor thy rapist. Keep him holy. Do as he says. Keep your mouth shut you stupid whore.

If I could get these things out of my head I would. I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to stop feeling like I should die because I am bad. I am poison. I am going to infect other people with my badness.

In my adult life I’ve had big celebrations for my birthday for 21, 23, and 30. Tom did the 23 birthday party technically after I broke up with him. He loved me but he didn’t know how to show it and a lot of things that I asked him for–a lot of kinds of attention that I needed–came in the month or two after I broke up with him.

I hosted my 30th. I spent the morning before the party beating my head on the concrete floor in the garage. I spent the day feeling like, “Why don’t these people want to see me unless I am offering food and drink and lots of other people to talk to?” I’m not actually sure I should try again.

What I want, the way I want to be seen does happen for some people. It’s not my lot in this life. Somehow I have to stop caring.

Instead I want to die. Then no one will even be bothered by a cursory glance in my direction.

I hate me so much right now. Fucking loser. Really the best thing my body could be used as is fish food.

How it becomes enough

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I have this user icon on a website.  It says: Everything is always okay in the end.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.  I have a doctors appointment for the 14th.  I need to get a physical and get a referral to a psychiatric doctor.  I need to get the manic cycles under control.  I did not sleep for over a week of June.  I also did not sleep on five nights in August.  On nights when I do sleep I often only get four hours of sleep.  This isn’t healthy.  I broke my manic cycle in a burst of body depletion at the party.  I don’t want to do that again in that way.  I don’t think it is awful that I did it.  It was actually wonderful.  I did get what I wanted out of it.  I know how it is enough.

I would like to have more tools for dealing with my anxiety and PTSD.  Refusing to ask for a doctors help is part of the bad message stuff from my family.  It’s ok that I need help sometimes.  Everyone does.  Cue defensive language.  The party was really great because my only goal was to let go of the anxiety and I not feel responsible for anyone and I not steer the bus.  I had a lot of post-party jitters and I ranted heavily at one of the participants about how I should have manipulated the situation more to control more about what other people experienced.  He was great about patting me on the head but mostly ignoring me.  The ritual portion of the evening went about as fantastically as it could have, actually… on reflection.  Over the course of the evening I had a really hard time staying in headspace.  I am horrified by how strong my anxiety was even though I had taken heroic measures to overcome it.  That is absolutely the limit of my ability to self medicate for my anxiety and it wasn’t enough.  I need to try something else.

Every single person in my house this weekend likes me.  Many of them love me.  I was able to move through that crowd and feel intense irritation from more than half of the people there.  That’s not rational.  That’s not real.  That’s me having trouble perceiving what people are freely offering out of love.  Which is not to say that I didn’t have fun!  I did.  I had a wonderful time and I metaphorically smacked myself in the ass and ignored my anxiety and interacted with people even though I felt anxious.  I wasn’t defensive.  I wasn’t aggressive.  When I started to try to control what people were saying/doing/thinking I tried to back off and just listen for a while instead of projecting onto other people.  It was a very conscious effort and that’s not something I can sustain.

I loved my party.  I had a great time.  It felt so good to connect with people who love me so much.  I’m going to have to rest a lot to recover from this though.  And my anxiety isn’t lower despite that much love present in one place?  I need some help.  That’s how it becomes enough.  Because life is what it is.  If I am a gaping maw of need I have to figure out how to deal with it on my own.  I cannot ask for any more of the people in my life than they already give.  I am very supported.  This is about me and the chemicals in my brain.  This is about a lot of years of being abused.

Everything is always okay in the end.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.  I’m spending a lot of my current anxious cycles thinking about how the ritual worked for me and why I’m having so much internal pushback on wanting to present it properly to the world.  I feel very vulnerable about it and I’m struggling with it.  The obvious answer is to just not write about it, right?  If it causes me anxiety to think about writing about it then I shouldn’t do it.  There is no need to write about it.  The only problem is, this is being me.  The writing about it is as integral to the process as doing it.  I don’t know why, but it is.  Thus the current massive anxiety.  I don’t believe in the pit of my stomach that what I did was ok.  Do you know why?  Because like all things in life it was a mixed bag.

The sex was good, I’ll say that unreservedly.  I shouldn’t have tried to do that specific flavor of sex in a group environment.  I did it because I wanted to do it in front of other people… I don’t know… to prove that they would still love me and want to cuddle me when I am that person?  I think that one of the best parts was when a very sweet man told me in the morning that he is still interested in me.  It was this interesting validation.

I tried as hard as I could to engage in self-harming behavior.  Oh that’s melodramatic.  I tried to break taboos.  That’s more true.  I engaged in unprotected sex before having a medical procedure done to ensure my own sterility.  I think breaking that bit of my worry around extra-marital sex isn’t worth it again.  I don’t have space in my life for the extra processing time it requires.  It makes things more complicated.  By that I mean, I’ve sat here thinking for at least several minutes each day freaking the fuck out about a vasectomy failing and not knowing who the father is.  I’m not comfortable in my body right now.  I feel like I violated something sacred.  My baby machine is one user only, damnit.  That part of me feels monogamous and kind of freaked.  It’s not particularly rational and is not a negative reflection on any one else.  But that takes up space in my emotional life and I don’t have room to give it.  So I feel increased anxiety symptoms all the time because I would really love to start having a period again any second now.  That was a life lesson.  I like condoms.  I have to get better at condoms.  Practice.  Practice.  Practice.

I will probably be lame and buy a dollar store pregnancy test in three weeks just to end this cycle of worry.  And I’ve learned an important lesson.  I had fun.  I’m glad I did it.  I learned a lot.  That’s enough.

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Today is the day.  Party time.  I went to bed early, thus I am up at 4.  My body mocks extra sleep.  My body thinks that extra sleep is for lesser mortals.  You know, people with less adrenaline.  Holy moly I have a lot of energy coursing through my body.  I’m trying to bank it because I don’t want to be toast before people arrive.

I have thought so hard and for so long about this day.  I’ve been working towards this event night and day for four or five months.  It’s kind of weird to be here.  My goal today is to drown out the cacophony of voices in my head that tell me I’m bad.  I’m really not.  There are supposedly 69 people coming to my house today to tell me they love me.  My life isn’t half bad, you know?  And the only reason the party is this small is because of Burning Man.  Ok, that made my grin huge.  Holy shit.  That’s a lot of people who like me.  I don’t feel like I deserve to be liked.

Today is not about the bad tapes though.  Today I am going to plaster the biggest smile I can manage on my face and I am going to let my friends hug me.  I worked very hard for this party.  Now I get to enjoy it.  Noah, Sarah, and Kira will be the people who handle actual hosting.  They are all very happy to do so.  I prefer being a guest at parties.  To entertain and spread things out I’ve made fun play areas in the front and back yards.  The sand box is tented (I hope it didn’t fall off over night–heh) for maximum access without sunburning.  There is a secret room under the blue potato vine.  I have a cool yard.  There’s a secret room under a bush.  Yay!  Uhhhh just make sure your kids don’t eat any of the blue potato vine.  Apparently they are toxic.  The plant was here before me.  I yelled at a neighborhood kid yesterday for stealing one of my roses out of the front hedge.  It was kind of awesome.  I think that is my first “Get off my lawn” moment.

Yesterday I had therapy.  She seems thrilled with me.  She’s delighted with the party.  She is starting to direct sessions a little more and I think that’s a good thing.  I appreciate it when a therapists hang back and get the lay of the land before making suggestions.  Then I feel like they are making suggestions based on things I’m saying rather than their biases.  I feel like my therapist’s job is to listen to me tell my story and help me make connections between the various bits.  I’m too close to the pattern to see it without an outside participant.  Noah isn’t always available.  Not to mention that I have some inner conflict about a lot of things in our marriage.

This relationship is fucking work.  It’s good work.  I’m happy to be doing it.  I really and truly don’t want to be doing anything else.  The last two days were good examples.  I was uhm pretty difficult to live with this week.  I stress out about things.  And I don’t have anything that feels important in my life so this party is pretty over inflated for me.  We tried hard on all sides to really ask for the rest and help we needed.  I’m really hoping we all have enough energy to see everything through today.  Adrenaline and caffeine are my two best friends today.  I will have lots of adrenaline.  Holy moly this is a lot of people in my house.

It’s kind of funny.  I feel like I’m becoming weirder and more eccentric by the year.  I am twitchy about people in my house and yet I really want to show off all my hard work.  There.  I said it.  A big part of the reason I’m doing this is because I think my house is a fun play house and I want other people to know that too.  I want people to come play with me.  And my kids.  This is a great kid house.  Maybe it’s even a great home.  Maybe I have an actual forever home.  That thought makes me cry.  What does “forever” mean with regards to where you live?  I feel like an unrooted person.  I have few ties to a particular living situation.  That sounds weird.  It has never changed my life to live in one house or another.  It would now.  I am developing patterns and routines related to where I live.

I think it is funny that having Sarah’s stuff here makes me feel like, “Oh!  Now we have actual taste in the house!”  She’s a lot more into classic literature than I am.  Think about that. (Me: graduate work in English lit; her: space science and linux sys admin.)  Hilarious.  People arrive in five hours.  I pleaded with people to be punctual.  It’s a thing.  When people are late I have panic attacks.  I feel lame about it, but it’s a fact.  And if it is true then I should treat it as true and let people know that it is a big thing to me, right?  It’s not that I actually need all 69 people to show up on the dot of 10.  But if no one showed up by 10:30 (a pretty common occurrence) I would be in the bathroom crying and I wouldn’t perk up totally all day.  I don’t want that for today.  It’s been a draining few months.  I want to eliminate angst wherever possible.  And now I cross my fingers and pray.  I think it will be a wonderful party.  I have really good friends.

I should try to rest more.  Five hours.  Oh man.

Real life carries on

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While I have been processing loudly here I have also been continuing to slowly make progress on the house. It has been going at a turtle’s pace lately because I am just not up for frantic right now. Low stress is awesome. Yesterday we had a birthday party for Shanna. I asked her who she wanted to invite and she listed the people she wanted to come and I asked them over. It’s interesting because she did not invite everyone I would have invited. But I realized that I am trying to project my “family” bonds with people onto her. If I believe in Chosen Family, then Shanna gets to choose her own. She is not stuck with mine.

We nursed for the last time. I asked a friend who is an amazing photographer to come over and take pictures. Shanna and I have been talking for several months about how it was the last time. Previously I was committed to child led weaning, but now I am committed to not abusing my children. I will ensure I reach my goal by lowering my physical expectations of myself. I have body issues with too much contact. This “touched out” thing is painfully anxiety causing for me. And Shanna’s mouth has changed. Nursing hurts. So every time she wants to nurse I experience this rush of panic because it will be painful. Calli seems to have improved her latch a bit, but I think Shanna is kind of beyond fixing. Biology says she needs to stop. This is why other animals wean by kicking their children away from them. I’m not going to kick her, but I am going to pick the weaning date.

Shanna astounds me. Her verbal precocity is odd to live with. I obsessively do research about “age appropriate” topics because she asks me questions that lead to topics more appropriate for a 10 or 12 year old. I’m not sure if I am doing her a service or not in how I am raising her, but holy cow is she an awesome person so far. I really like my daughter. I love that when we are having a snippy day she can turn around and tell me, “Mom that tone of voice sounds mean. It hurts my feelings when you use that tone. Can you please ask more nicely?” And I say the same thing to her and when either of us say it the response is, “Oh! I didn’t mean it that way! Let me try again.” And we do. And there is a hug. And we move on with our day. She is excruciatingly aware that I am not ever trying to hurt her, sometimes I just sound harsh when I don’t mean it. Thank you God. Thank you for letting my daughter feel in her soul that I never want to hurt her.

Which isn’t to say we don’t have stormy days. I talk to her about hormones. I talk about the fact that you have these chemicals in your brain and some times in your life they are more active so you have big big strong emotions that are hard to learn to deal with. I told her that this kind of thing will happen again at puberty. It’s ok to have these strong emotions, you just have to learn how to handle them. Sometimes handling them means looking at a clock and realizing you are probably over tired or over hungry and that is why you are having them and dealing with those problems so you can go back and solve the original problem. She likes to ask for a handful of nuts right before going to sleep because then she wakes up a lot more cheerful and I think that is a fabulous work around. I’m glad she figured it out.

It’s amazing watching her grow. Right now she is in that phase where she is putting concepts together. Like she will all of a sudden observe that an object is brown plastic. Then she will wander around the room labeling the materials and color of all the other objects. She just noticed that “things” are made of other “things” and those other things have names! It’s neat. She knows so many words that daily she uses dozens of words that shock me.

Her play is very intensely imaginative. She uses characters from her favorite movies, primarily, but also themes from all the books we read to fuel these intense stories that can go on for days. She is just starting to construct play fort type things. This year will be rad. She loves going swimming in the hot tub. She is lack luster towards sand. Mostly she wanders around the yard from hiding place to hiding place telling her story games. I am deliberately trying to create ways to have wild “hidden” places in the yard. Unfortunately that will take a few years to come to perfect fruition, but somehow I doubt this urge will go away. 🙂

All of a sudden she has discovered intense fear. That is new. She has always, at least occasionally, had nightmares, but these are different. She told me yesterday that she needs her nightlight back because her room is terrifying in the dark. To be fair, I’m not sure she understands that terrifying is more intense than spooky. This of course lead to a conversation about how the nightlight left her room because she ripped it out of the wall and did drywall damage… so don’t do that again.

I live with this vague terror that I am a bad mother, but my daughter shows no signs of it. She really is a shining example of humanity. Her empathy and intuition and verbal abilities combine to make an uncanny kid, but in a way that makes you believe in past lives. She doesn’t feel like a three year old. She feels like an adult who just isn’t up to speed yet. But I guess that is how I talk to her. I am teaching her how to be an adult, not how to “be a kid”. I think that kid culture in America is brutal and nasty and I hope she misses it basically entirely. Because right now it is obvious that nothing bad has actually happened to this child. Even her stormy days are marked by her lack of trauma. When she is truly upset and sobbing about my treatment of her what she says is, “It hurts my feelings when you tell me to go play.”

I’m doing pretty well.

(Picture copyright: Denise Cicuto)

Attention Whore

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I struggle with my need for affection and love.  On one hand I know it is a perfectly normal, perfectly healthy urge.  So I just sent out a mass invitation to my birthday party in September.  I’m practically having a panic attack about it.  I am completely overwhelmed with terror and anxiety.  I’m terrified people won’t want to participate.  I’m terrified that me asking for people to put out effort is just not ok.  I feel like if only 4 people show up I will feel let down and like it just isn’t enough and that makes me a bad person.  Why aren’t those 4 people enough?  On my birthday I will have Noah, Shanna, Calli, and Sarah all living in my house.  They love me to distraction.  They would walk through fire for me.  They can and do shape basically every single day of their lives around me if I ask for it or need it.

But it’s not enough.

I need magic.  I need a ritual.  I need to be seen.  I need to say to the universe that I am here and I am good and I am wonderful and I want to see that affirmed in the love and faces of the people around me.  I want to go through the rabbit hole.  I want to wander in  Wonder Land with my friends.  I want to make my house fantastical and inviting and have many people come have tea with me.  I want to play.  I want to be a little girl.  And I want everyone to come and tell me how wonderful I am.  And I feel pathetic.  And I feel like I am loser for wanting that.  I feel like that is proof of my inadequacy as a person.

Why can’t it just be proof that having people like you feels nice?  Why can’t I let myself ask for this without such self contempt?  This is agonizingly hard.  Asking for support and love means risking having people be busy.  It means risking knowing for an absolute fact that you aren’t the center of peoples lives.  Knowing that *hurts*.  But you know what?  It’s true even if I never say it.  Even if I never confirm it.  Right now I am orbiting out here in space alone because I can’t handle the fact that if I want attention from my friends I won’t be their everything in the universe.  God.  That fucking sucks.  I don’t want to do this.  I don’t want this life.

I want to throw a great big party.  I want to invite everyone in the universe.  I want some of them to come.  I want some of them to genuinely want to come and not be able to due to conflict in scheduling.  I want those people to make some token for me.  It doesn’t have to be big or expensive.  I want these to be fairly permanent, useful things.  It could be something artistic to go with the mural (I will finish the house project as quick as possible and get more pictures posted) or a neat random lamp you think just *fits* in a room.  I want to fill my house with love.  I want to look around my house and see magical tokens that will help me fight off the demons in my head.

I’m scared I’m losing the battle.  No.  That’s not true.  I’m not losing the battle at all.  I’m just not making progress at the rate I want to.  I’m god damn tired of this inching progress.  I need something that will help me rewire my system.

I need help.