Category Archives: body stuff

My new cult: boring

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I mean to post links. But I’m so tired. I’ve read a lot about the HPA axis in the past 24 hours. Some of it even official-ish shit. I am eager to see the results of the blood tests. This does sound intensely interesting. This offers more hope than any other possible diagnosis and I’m going to grab on to that hope with both hands.

There is the chance I could teach my body how to stop being in pain.

It is going to be hard to do. It’s going to take years and it is going to come in painful inches. I need to become boring.

I need to start defending my sleep schedule with a pitch fork. I have dinner plans today and after today… I need to not accept plans this late at night… again.

I’m done partying at night. Completely. Invite me to brunch.

Speaking of which it looks like we are going to be inviting some folks to a brunch soon. Future Middle Child has birthday wishes.

Brunch brunch brunch. The only meal of the day I’ll be able to muster up social for. Maybe afternoon tea. Those’ll become my meals.

I need to stop raising my heart rate. Do you know what that should probably include?[redacted horrible epiphany I should share and can’t bear to.]

Exercise is going to be complicated. I shouldn’t really raise my heart rate when I don’t need to. Walking. Stretching. Walking around the lazy river isn’t so heinous.

But I need to stop pushing my body on exercise. And that’s… an about face. I’ve worked so hard to get to my current fitness level. I’m in really good shape. I could go walk 8 miles and not flinch. I’m not in running shape and I haven’t been in a while… turns out that’s good anyway. I need to be super gentle on bike riding.

I need to stop causing my body stress. Even exciting stress.

This system is connected to everything. Digestion, sleep, pain, depression, anxiety… the whole system.

I could stop being in pain. It is theoretically possible. After 30 years of pain.

I need to try.

I wish

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I wish it was politically possible to do a study of the outcomes of women who have mental illness during pregnancy that actually randomized SSRI’s & other medications vs pot vs unmedicated spikes of emotional distress.

I would sign up to be randomized. I would fully comply with taking heinous medications that I know hurt me if it would help people on a larger scale understand what happens.

I worry a lot about the emotional spikes I have because I feel ashamed of needing pot. One dose a day is… not the best thing ever. It means I come up and down every day. So I have these wild grief/sobbing periods and that doesn’t seem healthy.

Like this.

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I ate 5 times today. Every single time it involved vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, green peas, carrots, broccoli. Sometimes only vegetable, sometimes mixed with protein: eggs, a little ham, and chicken. About half a serving of fruit: a handful of raspberries and some apricots and apple cooked into the chicken . Some of the vegetables were a little starchy but I really don’t want more starch.

This is… not normal for me.

Walked 2.25 miles.

Did lots of chores.

Not a pathetic loser who should die. I hope

Food

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This is distinct enough that I’m going to write it down. I want vegetables. Like, crying with wanting vegetables. Meat sounds a little appealing, I want protein. I don’t want starch. The idea of eating bread sounds really disgusting and bad. I feel like it would make my body unhappy. Fruit is… I know I should eat it. But I don’t want the sugar.

This is a weird fucking pregnancy.

I want vegetables in soup so they are mushy and soft and filly my belly with a gentle caress of fulness.

An interaction

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Holy tomatoes on toast I hurt. So this’ll be brief.

I had an interesting interaction with a dude today. So I found a guy through my massage therapist who specializes in personal training to help people with injuries/problems. I figure that if I can’t get a doctor to prescribe honest to fucking god physical therapy for me so that I can heal some of my injuries… I can hunt on the outskirts of the system. I can find someone who doesn’t really mesh with the gate kept, abusive system.

Sure, I can try this out.

Thing is, he’s a white guy. You know how I am about getting my hackles up with white guys. Especially athletic white guys. I am hostile until I have a reason not to be.

But I desperately need someone who can do what this guy advertises. So I gotta put my personal shit in a box and shove it in a closet and see if I can handle dealing with him.

Sigh. Fuck being a grown up.

So I gotta say, he has an aura. He’s pretty clearly an orphan. The loss of all family came up several times in the conversation. He’s got that… edge of “I have to be cheerfully polite in order to earn money to survive because there’s not a person in the world who values me enough to support me but I’m so sad.”

I mean, he seemed genuinely sweet and caring. I’m not denigrating that at all. He seems incredibly sincere. He wants to help. And he wears grief like a mantle. He advertises his loss openly on his skin. He is reminded all day every day. Grief, even if you smile, leaves tracks on your face.

But he did something that crossed a boundary and it was interesting. I didn’t call it out. I didn’t assert the boundary so in one sense… he didn’t cross a boundary he nonverbally negotiated a boundary change and I didn’t rebuff it to indicate where my boundary actually was.

To be more clear: he asked me about my arm tattoo. I explained it and started tearing up, like I do sometimes. Suicide is sad, yo. And… he leaned in and gave me an incredibly respectful, incredibly gentle, incredibly touching hug. It was the hug of someone who works with bodies and knows how to make touch 100% NON SEXUAL, OKAY?!?!?!

He reminds me just a tad of Taylor. One of the few men I trust almost as much as Noah.

It was absolutely incredible to realize that in a moment of indecision of “should I panic and fight or should I accept this as connection?” in my head my brain wrapped around a man who has loved me as a friend for a long time.

I didn’t feel scared.

I felt uncertain. I felt like I needed to make a decision. I felt like I had a chance to… figure out how this is going to go. Is he allowed to touch me?

I desperately want this man to help me learn how to hold my body in ways that will hurt me less. I need to trust him. I need to trust that he is going to touch me in appropriate ways or this just isn’t going to work.

This, now that I think about it, is scary as shit.

I wasn’t scared in that moment. I just felt it as a moment of choice, “Am I going to surrender to this process or not?”

I used to lash out at dance teachers who wanted to correct my form. I wasn’t there to look perfect I was there to have a chance to talk to people for 2-4 minutes while I did something more healthy than be a slug staring at my god damn computer.

This is different. I know what my goals are here. I need this process.

I need to figure out how to be in less pain.

So maybe he didn’t cross a boundary. But maybe he and I will have a funny conversation about how I normally react to people in a few weeks and we will laugh. He will probably apologize and feel embarrassed. He strikes me as that sort.

It felt like Joey. The 7th Day Adventist boy who was best friends with my brother Tommy and with whom I later lived. (We were both boarders in a house owned by someone at the church–it wasn’t like we were romantic or anything. I was 13.)  He was the one who took me to church and taught me to sing about Jesus loving me no matter what.

I know I have a lot of issues with hating white men because some of them have been complete motherfucking pieces of shit.

But some of them genuinely don’t suck. #Notallmen and all that.

I really hope I’m not making a mistake. But here I am documenting it so that in the future I will have to remember: I made a choice.

I’m trying to surrender to a process.

Please, if any deity exists, let this not be an awful thing.

I’ve stacked the deck in my favor by receiving this personal training with my kids in the room and my husband in the house.

I know how the patriarchy works.

Fuck.

Do you understand how much of my childhood people denied? Something huge and dramatic would happen and folks flat denied it. I need to make sure I can never rewrite history.

I did what I did. Here, I wrote it down.

Randomly

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I haven’t been greasing my hair properly in months. It takes time. It’s a regime. So my curls have been frizzy as fuck and delicate and less curls and more fuzz. But I have now approached optimal grease level again.

Meaning I washed my hair two days ago, braided it, finger combed that bitch out today and I have gorgeous curls.

I just needed moar grease.

Coconut oil, you are my friend. Thank you.

So tired.

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I should have gotten up and started painting. I didn’t.

I should have gotten up and did a bunch of work on the end-of-year-financial-post. I didn’t.

I should have gotten up and folded laundry. I didn’t.

I should have gotten up and cleaned the living room. I didn’t.

Instead I read about peoples lives on the internet.

My body hurts so much. I’m at the point where I’m probably damaging myself again. I’m working long past “acceptable load” for my body.

I want this remodel over with and the only way to get to that point is to do a fantastic amount of work. But I hurt. I’m taking Ibuprofen at a fantastic rate. Usually I suffer through not taking it. I can’t right now.

But the remodel work is on top of home schooling. And washing god damn dishes all fucking night and day. And my Bonus Kids are here for a few days. Lemmetellya having kids around… is work. Even if you get nothing done. Mediating arguments and fights. Helping them divvy up spoils of war. It’s work.

Teaching children how to be civilized human beings instead of feral animals is work.

I’m tired. I feel like no amount of work is enough and I’m drowning. And I’m too fucking cold to take my pajamas off to put fucking painting clothes on. My bones hurt. So I sit here and cry because I feel lazy and pathetic because I’m whining about why I’m not working instead of just getting some god damn work done when the kids are asleep and distracted.

I want my pain levels under a 3. Right now things are banging between 5 & 7 and it’s going to get worse before this project ends.

I’m having a hard morning and no one else is awake yet. That’s not a great sign. I should medicate. Now. Then…. I don’t know. Probably more crying.

 

Ok, I did almost two hours of work on the end of year review. I’m not a complete waste of oxygen. Now to deal with children who are whining because they don’t get to be first every time.

Sex and fucking up

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I had a great chat yesterday. It made me think about a lot of how I’ve screwed up this year.

Sex is complicated. We have sex for so many reasons. For connection, intimacy, orgasms, bonding, feeling-not-alone-in-this-minute.

The thing is, that’s complicated. Why didn’t I pick Noah for every time I wanted sex this year? Because that’s complicated. Sometimes sex with a particular person is loaded with implications across your whole life you can’t handle and you want the ease of sex with someone else. Sometimes I wanted to feel like I still had the ability to connect with new people.

New people have been very instrumental to my survival. I get that it isn’t something that is a big deal to everyone. I know that lots of people have been safer in the known communities of their lives. I have survived by over and over again throwing myself backwards into the arms of strangers and just praying they would catch me. At this point it is no longer a survival mechanism but it is an ingrained habit. That’s complicated.

I don’t think I chased sex as self harm this round but I have certainly done so in the past. Sometimes the choice is, “Do I hurt myself in a known and predictable way because I don’t like myself very much or do I take the risk that this person will be nicer to me than I am able to be to myself or maybe they will hurt me more than I would hurt myself. Roll the dice.”

That’s a choice I’ve made many times in my life. If you haven’t had to deal with the cognitive load of poverty plus severe traumatization… you probably won’t understand. It will seem baffling to you that someone would make such a choice.

I’m glad you’ve never been there. That’s awesome for you.

I’ve been there a lot. I’m not there lately, but I have zero judgment for someone else finding themself in that position. It happens.

There have absolutely been nights when I’ve picked up a stranger and fucked them instead of hurting myself because I didn’t think I could stop until I put me in a hospital.

Was that a bad choice? I really don’t think so. I think I made the best choice I could given all the circumstances of my life in that moment.

It is hard to keep the larger picture in mind when you are judging one particular choice. Choices that were completely reasonable for me at different points in my life shouldn’t be judged the exact same way at this point in my life. I’m in different circumstances. I have different options.

To put it bluntly: I can have an emergency “weekend trip to relax” at this stage of my life. If I feel like I’m going to freak out and do something drastic… I can make it a very safe kind of drastic. Because I’m rich.

But that was literally not available to me before marriage.

Money. Money. Money.

If you have enough money, time, support, fill in the blank to have better options… who the fuck are you to judge someone doing the best they can!?

Get off your high horse.

But I’m really not in the same position as I once was.

How in the hell is any of my behavior this year justifiable? Hunh, hunh?

I’m not sure I can “justify” my behavior. I think I can explain it. I don’t think my explanations are “good enough” from many points of view and there’s not much I can do about that.

I learned things I needed to learn. I was able to find words for problems I wasn’t able to find words for until I processed all the way through some extreme emotions. I was able to change boundaries that were a big problem for me.

Could I have found a way to do it without freaking out and breaking a lot of rules?

Maybe. I tried. I failed.

I succeeded when I blew the boat up.

Things are going a lot better in a variety of ways. Was it worth the cost? Yes. To me. Was it to Noah? He’s still deciding. He’s still raw. That’s fair.

Sometimes we don’t do things to people and they hurt anyway. I didn’t go out and fuck people to hurt Noah. That’s not why it happened. We are all autonomous beings running our own stories and our behavior is not always about our partners. We have our own narrative running. It isn’t about you.

Even if we love you. Even if there could be negative consequences for you. We can’t make every single choice only about you. That’s not a way to be a person.

Would it be nice if our choices didn’t hurt you? Yes.

Yes.

I played a very careful line this year. I didn’t actually do stuff that was that risky to my life. I mostly went out and spent extra time with my friends. People who have been good to me for a long time. I had a tremendous amount of fun. It will help keep me warm for years to come. Was it worth the price I paid?

Probably. Does that mean I can do it like that again? No. I really can’t. It would break Noah.

What does that mean? Our relationship functions based on a lot of trust and mutual worship. If I kill that then I’m kinda destroying both of our reason to live. Whether or not I’m doing something at Noah… I need to pay attention to the impact. My life is completely intwined with him.

If I rock the boat he feels every wave. There is not a lot of separation there.

I’m not sure we will ever get to the point of being “polyamorous” even if we are allowed to discuss it in ten years. But it is ok to have sex with our friends sometimes if we do it together. Is that my ideal? I don’t know. I don’t think my ideal is more fair so I guess it will have to be ok.

There is no fair.

I get why we are both so possessive. I see the holes in both of us that we use one another to fill.

Sex with friends is different than the anonymous sex I also like. They scratch different itches. Sex with friends is safer and more predictable (not in a bad way). Anonymous sex allows me to feel like I am touching the core of connection between strangers. It is both intimate and distant in a way that feels like a spiritual practice to me. The trust and risk are intense rushes.

But my life is wrapped around Noah. So whether or not I’m doing something at him… he will feel it.

Noah doesn’t feel so awesome about my having sex with other people. He wants me to keep my worship at home. When we are having sex with other people together, that’s ok. That’s not scary or hard. Well, sometimes it is logistically hard or a position is hard or… but it’s not threatening in the same way. We are having an adventure together. No one is left to sit with their imagination and fear.

Noah really doesn’t want me to go off alone any more than I want him to. Seems fair. Annoying, but closer to fair than most things ever get.

Why annoying? Because I am selfish selfish selfish selfish selfish. A lot of the reason I have sex is for the orgasm and changing partners increases that like a motherfucker. Sigh.

No life is perfect.

(For the record: Noah has been working hard on this and has had a pretty fucking outstanding success recently. There’s an A for effort and result.)

I know he’s trying. I can see it. I don’t think it would be possible to look at Noah and not see that he is trying as hard as he possibly can for me.

I’m so annoying and hard.

He works far harder than anyone can ask for; that kind of effort is a freely given gift. I know how lucky I am. My physical and mental health issues have not been easy. But Noah considers my companionship worth the cost.

How in the hell did I end up here?

I auditioned hundreds of people and Noah won the part.

I think we are much better and more interesting together than we ever were apart.

I’m looking forward to pregnancy. I get so exhausted that our pace of life will utterly collapse. Yeah, yeah, pregnancy isn’t a disability yeah yeah pregnant women should carry on as if nothing was happening…

I can’t. Gestating is fucking hard in my body. Remodeling and resettling the house has to be complete by January. Next year I’m going to work on academics with my big kids, sit around, sleep, exercise, eat and go grocery shopping.

I’m probably not going to get much else done, to be honest. And that’ll continue for at least 3-6 months after the baby is born.

I’m toast. Breeding is hard.

I’ve completed the cycle and come out the far side more than once so I’m very aware of what it looks like for me.

I’m really excited about the possibility of a pregnancy where I am in much better physical shape to start with (hello marathon and half marathons, you have halo effect I still feel) and I have my IBS mostly under control and I can breathe through my nose. This will be a different experience. I’m also older. This will also be a medicalized experience (hiya bleed out problems) which is kinda terrifying for me.

All the feelings. And my back is giving me trouble. I need to finish this damn remodel. But bending over really kinda sucks.

I’ll get through it. Put a corset on and get your work done, woman.

It’s kinda funny how we all adapt to the tasks life puts in front of us. This art shit weighs on my soul. I really am more calm in my home because of the art work. It is so easy to ground in my house. When you are here you are really in a particular, individual place. That’s a big deal for me. In other peoples homes, in most of the homes I’ve ever lived in… they all kinda blend together. Sure the knick knacks and furniture are sorta different… but the white walls meet the white ceilings and I want to crawl under a table and cry.

No, it’s not rational.

I do not want a fancy “nice” bathroom that looks like it could be in a hotel somewhere. And I’m willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money for the experience I want to have. Every doctor I have wants me to take baths as often as I can. I spend time in my bathroom. I recycle the water too. To deal with my hippy guilt. (The internet tells me that epsom salts, baking soda, vinegar, and sugar are all fine for plants on a small scale so my bath water is fine  for my plants. Woo hoo.)

We’ve had a broken toilet for a long time. We’ve been using the grey water to flush the toilet. I’m thrilled that with the increased bath capacity of water I will also be able to use the water for more plants. I’ve always used some of it sometimes… but never for plants if someone has used shampoo or soap.

Why am I so tolerant of my friends having quirks or needing accommodation for their mental health needs? Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Uhm, err, just because I’m a nice person?

*cough*

Because I fucking obsess over what to do with my bath water. I got no stones to throw on people needing to do their thing.

Oh man. I’m going to go through a pregnancy in a bathtub big enough to roll over in. Oh the glory.

Spoiled rotten motherfucker.

I really like my house.

Did I mention I’m having candle holders permanently installed on the walls of the bathroom? And there are skylights above it?

The walls are going to be glittering scenes of autumn and winter. I’m working on them.

My house is a very particular place. I like it so much.

I need to clean it. But that’s a problem for a different day. It won’t be really cleaned until the remodel is done. Too much dust and dirt is being generated every day. Not worth a deep clean. I’ll probably splurge on professionals in January at the start of the pregnancy.

Then I’ll spend a year basking in my family. In 2016 I was supposed to learn how to love myself. I don’t know that I managed, exactly. But I’ll spend 2017 hanging out and letting my family love me. That’s… almost the same thing?

Today will be a Zen sorta day. Noah has a dentist appointment. I’m watching a neighbor’s child in the morning and walking them to school. It’s kinda funny. Then I get to come home and get the kids onto chores and academics while I work. I will have to find a way to do work that is right next to them so we can talk while they do their stuff. They always have questions, which is very appropriate.

Tonight we are going to trick or treat with friends we haven’t seen much in the year since we’ve been back from the road trip. We’ve been really bad friends this year. I’ve dropped everyone and everything on the floor for this remodel. And I do it when I’m doing the breeding thing too.

Uhm, I’m sorry. I will crawl out of a hole again in the future. I hope you still like me then.

But yes. Touching base with old friends. Longevity is a big deal for me. A dear woman I know is deeply associated with a phrase: “Friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.”

I’m really curious which threads are deep enough in the weave that I will know them for most of my life. I am made up of the people who know me. The people who carry my story with them when they go. I am made up of the people who sometimes ruefully think, “What would Krissy do?”

I am a creation in your mind as much as I am anything at all. And the fact that you think about me. That fact is enough to mean that even when I fuck up, I am maybe not beyond forgiveness.

Oh hey

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I last wrote early in the morning on Tuesday. Later that day, around 10:30am I started bleeding from my nose. Gushing blood. I lost probably a cup or more of blood in a couple of hours. This estimate is approximate because for a while I was going through wads of paper towels before I ended up leaning over a large measuring cup and letting it drip because…. it wasn’t stopping with the pinching. I couldn’t lean my head back at all because I was drowning in the blood.

Luckily our wonderful babysitter was here. She went and got her mom, who is a practical, lovely woman. The mama took me to the hospital. I stayed there by myself. Want to know how you get priority treatment in an ER? Walk in with a large measuring cup full of blood with more blood rapidly falling into it. My ass didn’t hit a waiting room chair. I walked into triage and then into an exam room. No waiting. The lovely doctor tried a few things and ended up shoving something called “rhino rockets” up my nose. Basically balloons that put pressure on the inside of the nostril to stop bleeding. I was there until 3:30ish. I was barely not bleeding at that point, but I had an appointment with my surgeon at 4:15.

I went to the appointment with my surgeon. He took the rhino rockets out, looked around with a scope and declared he couldn’t see why it happened. He put a different kind of packing into one nostril (not both nostrils like at the hospital) and sent me home.

Around 8pm I started bleeding again. I lost 1/2 a cup of blood in the 15 minutes that Noah tried to call an advice nurse and I said, “Fuck it. We are going back to the hospital Right Now.”

Once again I got VIP treatment in the ER. They are sure nice about blood loss.

The new ER doctor said, “I’m calling a surgeon. Now.”

I think I went into surgery around 10:30? I was completely done and dusted and in a room by 12:30.

The surgeon cauterized an artery in my nose. He put a bunch of dissolvable packing in there too to help seal things up.

I was discharged the next morning. I was told I could go around 7:30. Of course that means it took till 10:30.

I’m home. I feel like warmed over shit. This surgery feels more awful than the original septoplasty in many ways. I’m exhausted. I hurt. I think the flu vaccine as I was leaving didn’t help.

I feel completely horrible.

But I now have a roof on the addition to the house. I’m not dead. I still have a future.

And things plug on.

Moms and art and adoption

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I’m saving my hand spoons for other work; that’s why I’m not writing much lately. I’ve made progress on the kitchen painting. Last time I guesstimated I thought I had 20 hours of painting left. Then I did 6 hours. I think I have 14 hours to go. There have been a bunch of times over the years when I’ve sized up a project and thought “24 work hours” or whatever and I’ve been right to within an hour. I’m really good at guessing how much work something will take. *pat self on back*

I have finished the monkey. I think. Maybe. I’m not in love with the face. I still need to fix the banana tree as per the criticism from my submissive. He’s all, “Let me tell you about banana trees.” He used to work on a banana farm. Mine isn’t done yet apparently. Ok. I’ll fix it.

My pot consumption is way the hell down. I’m thrilled. My taper plus abstinent periods have had a major impact on my tolerance. Yay! At this point I’m using 1/4 as much in a whole day as I used to use in my first smoke of the day. That’s a massive decrease. I’m using at the rate of less than an 1/8/week. That’s a huge drop for me. That’s… that’s pregnancy sustainable.

Do I like the fact that I use drugs during my pregnancies? Well… I use less harsh drugs than other doctors would really prefer I be on. I get through my life with a lot of sheer force of will. Doctors would like me chemically regulated so that my emotions are not so extreme and every single medication these fucking doctors suggest is significantly worse than pot for a pregnancy. I don’t have a great option here. But I’m using at a rate that isn’t particularly problematic again. In my judgmental as fuck stoner opinion. Uhm, I’m not judging someone else’s tolerance. I’m saying for me.

I’m using at a rate I will feel comfortable with for myself. Other people are totally allowed to have their own acceptable rates based on their needs and preferences.

I keep coming back to “Well at least I’m not increasing my drug usage during each pregnancy like my mom did…”

My mom used to joke that with her first pregnancy, she didn’t even smoke cigarettes let alone another drug and no alcohol. During her second pregnancy she smoked cigarettes and had alcohol. During her third pregnancy she smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, and smoked pot. By her fourth pregnancy (me) she did all that plus speed. She would follow this up with, “And you are the smartest kid I had! So see, drug usage isn’t all that bad.”

I’m not being like my mom…

I will admit I don’t 100% abstain from alcohol with my pregnancies. But I have like 5 glasses of wine per pregnancy (not within a week or anything). That’s well within acceptable tolerances based on research.

Fuck. I’m not good at this whole abstinent life thing.

Guess what else I forking do? I eat soft cheeses. Nyah nyah.

I’m seeing my nasal surgeon today. I got a massive nosebleed this weekend and I called his office to see if they thought I should come in. The nurse started off with “His notes say you probably don’t need to be checked.” “Let me describe how much blood came out of my nose on Saturday.” “You should come in tomorrow.”

Oh, thank you.

I suspect we shouldn’t try for pregnancy until I get my nose under control. There is a substantial change in blood volume in the body during pregnancy and right now… my nose isn’t doing so hot. I don’t think a surge in blood volume would be awesome.

Damnit. And Noah is no longer shooting blanks so we have to…. use condoms for a while. Wheeeee.

It’s like the good old days.

I’m hopeful we can get started trying in November. *cross fingers* Don’t worry. I’ll tell y’all more details than you want to hear. Maybe.

I will definitely keep updating the tally: 7 months of trying, 4 pregnancies so far.

I may have a lot of problems, fertility isn’t on the list.

I’d kinda like to be done with remodel stuff when I get pregnant. This work is hard on my back and body. I don’t want to do it while pregnant very much. Oh god. Especially because all of my body work will pretty much go away in the first trimester. It’s too risky. Massage can absolutely trigger miscarriage. Both of my miscarriages were right after massages (I doubt they were related) but that history means my massage therapists say they won’t work on me till I’m about 16 weeks. Sob.

I watched Poverty, Inc on Netflix. It’s a documentary about how foreign aid is keeping people in poverty internationally. It covers things like up to 80% of all children who are internationally adopted have living parents and they are in orphanages due to poverty.

Adoption is fucking complicated. I’m not saying it shouldn’t exist at all. I’m saying… it’s really complicated and fraught. I’m saying it’s not like buying a car where it is “yours” now. There are people who make wonderful families through adoption. There are people who are adopted who love their adopted parents and never feel any lack in life. There are lots of other less pleasant endings.

I get through life through sheer force of will. I don’t know that I could manage to extend that halo to a child who had serious problems. Serious attachment disorder problems in particular and when you adopt… it’s a roll of the dice. I am great at teaching children who have a wide variety of mental or physical health problems… as long as they attach. It’s something I’ve noticed about myself. The kids who don’t attach… I keep my distance and I’m not that much help for them. I saw it in school. I saw it with my students. The children who attach… I can help. The ones who don’t… I completely fail them.

There are people who work well with kids/adults who have attachment problems. I’ve been blessed to witness some of these exchanges. I fail.

Why do I feel so drawn to fostering then? Because it feels different. If I fail them… it’s… kinda more expected that some foster parents fail. You can try a different foster family if one isn’t a fit. If you adopt someone and they no longer have a fall back position… that’s fucking traumatizing. A failed foster family placement isn’t awesome but it isn’t quite as damaging as a failed adoption. I say as someone with many failed foster family placements.

I feel I could foster a kid and be present with them for how much they miss their mother and how unfair life is. It would break my heart to adopt a kid and never be enough to fill that hole.

I am selfish.

I miss my mother so much. No surrogate mother has ever done much to fill this terrible hole in my heart. I’ve god damn tried. But everyone… fades away. I’m too much. Too demanding. Too needy. I was too hard as a kid and I’m an adult now and I need to take care of myself.

I’m 35 years old and I’m still waking up at 4am to cry about missing my mother.

I want to be seen in a way that only my mother would have been able to see me if she had actually known me throughout my life. The way that the parents of my students see them. (We went to a party with former students and their entire extended families. Their families are so thrilled I’m still around. I’m even in tight with the grandparents.)

I want my mama to see my art and feel proud that I came out of her.

I want my mama to see my children and feel proud that we came from her.

I can’t give her that.

Yesterday Eldest Child asked about writing a letter to my mom. I would send it. I don’t think I am in a place where I can write to her yet… but I won’t prevent a letter from my kid.

I will actively prevent contact with my sister. She participated in the rapes of her children. She is not allowed near my children. Period. But my mother… sending her a letter isn’t a problem. Especially if I don’t write it.

There is a part of me that is sad that I passed up the opportunity to ask my sister if she’d like to step outside for that fist fight she wanted to start when I was pregnant. I am not a mature or adult person.

Instead when I saw her I looked at the floor and treated her like she wasn’t present. Like she was a non person.

Maybe I’m a little mature.

Post-surgery update

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I had surgery on Monday and it is now Sunday. I just took my first narcotic pain pill of the day because I had to drive this morning and I didn’t think it was wise to go on the freeway on narcotics.

I took the pill because my head felt like it was in a vise. It alternates hurting at the top of the bridge of my nose and at my temples.

Sleeping on the couch is jacking up my back. I’m at the point where I sorta wonder if half the usefulness of the pain pill is helping me ignore how much my back hurts.

I can breathe more easily through my nose but I’m still dripping goo and need gauze taped to my face for absorbing the yuck. The gauze means that my hot breathe is reflected up onto my glasses and that bit is getting highly annoying.

When I clean my nose out I get barely any blood clots. Teeny tiny ones and I have to flush a lot before I get any blood at all. I’m clearly healing… but not done.

I’d say my headache is at a five. Enough that I notice it and it is bothering me but I could work at this point if I really had to. I have actually been doing a little bit of work every day. The demolition of the bathroom starts tomorrow.

Oh this’ll be fun.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

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It just bleedin (hahaha) occurred to me… I shouldn’t smoke for a while. Like… quite a while. It could fuck up my healing from surgery.

I JUST GOT DONE WITH A DAMN BREAK THAT ISN’T FAIR ISN’T FAIR ISN’T FAIR.

But I really want to heal properly from surgery. I’d like to have a nose that works as well as it can given all the other factors of my biology and life and whatever. That means… I should seriously take a month off of smoking to heal. The information I’m seeing online stresses anywhere from 3-6 weeks off.

I want to be able to breathe well so so so so so much. So much that I was willing to let this dude carve my nose like a pumpkin.

Given what I went through with the forking elimination diet…. I should take this massively seriously. Like, whoa shit massively seriously.

Sob. Rend garments.

LIFE ISN’T FAIR.

That said: doing the nasal rinse thing tonight was epically gross. Blood clots and mucus and whoa. So gross I sorta wish I had taken a video of it because I’m that awesome. The funny part is that afterwards my throat hurts much more and I’m spitting out big wads of blood. Having a body is awesome.

But! I have a septum that is basically straight (I hope) and smaller turbinates and less other-sorts-of-mass in my nose! And I didn’t have a problem with anesthesia!

Stop bitching, Krissy.

But but… I like pot.

Sigh.

Fine.

(There is some mixed data on switching to edibles for the time period but given that our country has RIDICULOUSLY CLASSIFIED MARIJUANA SUCH THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO STUDY there isn’t solid reason to think it is safe and a good idea. Which makes me sad.)

This here feels like a solid case of #firstworldproblems.

Bossy friends, sleep, and the big D

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Do you know what I hate about blacksheep telling me to do stuff? I pretty much always listen. I stopped using the Afrin. (@#$#$@$#$ bossy friends)

I am happy to report that with Zyrtec and saline nasal spray (to irrigate and moisturize, naturally) nightly I’m still getting 8-10 hours of sleep. Like fucking magic. I haven’t slept this well… ever.

(I wouldn’t listen to blacksheep so much if she weren’t usually fucking right.)

I find it funny how my initial response is always I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU then two days later I’m doing what she told me to do. I’m so mature.

Things with Noah are… rocking back and forth in a gradual upswing. God damn that was some unfun conversating we did this weekend. (Yes I know that isn’t a word.) But it was important and useful and we said stuff we needed to say. There were moments when I asked questions about divorce, but suicide wasn’t the answer. This still needs to be considered progress.

No we aren’t getting a divorce. But I’m scared that I’m so bad for him that he really should get away from me. He doesn’t want to. We are both… crazy attached. Is this good? I don’t know. But I know I like Noah more than I like anyone else.

This is so complicated.

Sober sucks.

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I’m gritting my teeth. I’m grumpy as fuck. Controlling my voice inflection, tone, and volume is a nightmare.

I want my pot back.

Stupid cruise.

Stupid baby.

I take it back. You aren’t stupid, baby. You are worth suffering for.

BUT THIS STILL SUCKS ROCKS.

This morning has involved quite a few minor mistakes and every single time my response is to start ranting about how stupid, pathetic and worthless I am.

I’d like a break from being in my brain.

Five weeks till we get back from the cruise and I can figure out a usage level that can be appropriate for the next few years. This is going to hurt so much.

I’m not out of pot. I just think I shouldn’t use it all up right now.