Category Archives: brain dump

Ok, it’s time.

I am probably going to drop the blog entirely for a month or so. I need to write the next book and I am going to take advantage of NaNoWriMo again. Today my kids burst into tears because they realized they know so little about me. I need to tell all the stories from the next 20 years. It’s going to be another hard book to write but for very different reasons. And it’s going to be hell on my arms. I am going to drop the blog, not go on the forums, ignore my support group, avoid Slack, and all idle web browsing. I will be allowed to check email once a day but I will only respond to emergency stuff.

My personal goal is at least 4,000 words per day. This story is long and fucking complex. I will need every ounce of typing ability I have to tell it in a month.

Just in case I die. These are the stories I need my children to know. I hope they can learn from my mistakes and go on to make new mistakes.

Sick babies are so much work.

2 Replies

Welcome to Scotland! Here is your first illness. It’s predictable. But I would sure like a full night of sleep one of these nights. Between general discomfort, getting kicked in the head, nightmares (mine and other peoples’), waking up to change underwear because I can feel the OH MY GOD GUSH OF BLOOD, and a baby with a fever who wakes up crying while needing to nurse…

I am so tired. I could really use a solid week to just sleep through life. But I have three little kids so suck it up buttercup.

The head teacher (basically the principal for the USians in the audience) for the school we are going to will be leaving at the end of this term and then the school starts the search for a new head teacher so the school suggested we probably should get started now instead of waiting and trying to enter amid the chaos. Fun! We went and toured the school yesterday. I will bring back the filled in paperwork on Monday and the kids will start on Tuesday.

I have to say: the school sounds super fun. There are a ton of community-building programs that to my ear sound like “We know that not all of our kids have all of the support that might be ideal at home so we just provide this to make sure everyone has what they need.” Awesome. I’m happy to be part of it and I will be eager to see how we can donate/contribute/volunteer to help these programs go well for everyone.

We were sent home with three free school shirts so we don’t have to go buy them. That was quite nice.

We met the teachers the kids will be with (well, 2/3 of them because Middle Child’s class has two part time teachers) and briefly waved at the upcoming classmates. I’m excited.

I’d be more excited if I could sleep.

I am still elated to be here but I’m really really weary.

The house continues to come along. I now have 30 baby locks installed. I should have bought 40. We have agreements in place about what will happen if you lock your sibling into a room with a baby lock. (Lines. Lots of lines.) I was pretty harsh with the kids this morning about my feelings about how they have been only doing chores under great pressure lately; it makes my life suck tremendously and then I have no desire to spend fun play time with you. Is that what you want? No? Then don’t make me ask you ten times to do your chores.

The kids have fewer chores right now than they have had in years so I’m feeling pretty cranky about how hard I have to work to get them to do anything. This is not working for me.

I have a bank account. I learned things about Scottish banking and how it differs from the US. We had a really fun chat with the lady at the bank about credit and investments and politics and technology. She says she wants to get in touch with us outside of work and have coffee because she is a recent immigrant to this city too. I think she is also looking for friends. She is from Poland and she had a really refreshing point of view about the world. I’d love to hang out with her again.

I have been pleasantly surprised by how many immigrants I have run into already. This is a vibrant city full of imports. That’s fun.

I am spending so much time talking about the nitty gritty of Silicon Valley company politics. This is my tired face. Lots of folks want to talk to me about Facebook and Google and why social media is complicated. I understand now why my brother told me 20 years ago that I was a very advanced computer user then. I know so much more now. I have these gut level panic reactions to a lot of computer security conversations.

That was a good thing I got from Sarah. I have to acknowledge how much that woman taught me about how to keep myself safe. Life is so complicated.

I am tired. I want to hang out with Jenny but I am exhausted, snippy, bitchy, and this baby won’t get off my boob. (Plus I am super against sharing illness if it can be avoided.) This is one of those times when parenting is not convenient.

Mattresses will arrive in 4 and 6 days. (Two separate shipments.) My super comfy wonderful chair for my bedroom will arrive then too. This chair is awesome for reading and I intend to use it for that as much as possible. (If I miss deleting random periods I apologize; I don’t know why they are happening.)

Internet is still flaky and inconsistent. No video chats yet. We aren’t on proper wifi. Thank goodness for the Skyroam.

I am strongly considering a dog. This is a massive change for me. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy you might. ask. A few reasons: I could seriously use an exercise buddy, sexual assault is just about the only crime on the rise in this country and I do not feel secure that if I kicked someone like I did my old neighbor things would go well for me, also Her Sweetness tries to follow every dog we see home. She is utterly enchanted with dogs. Additionally: a dog can’t be left for travel. I’d have to stay home! My kids are separating from me in a way they have not done so in the past and I have to stop micromanaging them; it is considered good dog ownership to control a dog. Cats won’t put up with that shit. I literally would have to go outside every day, which would be good for both physical and mental health.

Lots of reasons. I’m still in the considering stage. Not this month. Not next month. Maybe not this year. But it’s on my mind a lot. Maybe after Her Sweetness potty trains? I don’t know. Feelings.

For now I am curled up on the toddler bed with my sick baby. Bless the strong slats.

Well this sucks; ok not everything sucks

2 Replies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I spoke too soon.

5 Replies

Well dinner sucked. Fucking grandmother. So grandmother didn’t order enough food. And then grandfather was encouraging everyone to take as much as they wanted! Eat more! And then I realized that everyone who was supposed to eat… was arriving staggered. So I ate the last fucking burrito approximately 3 minutes before the last person arrived.

So I looked like a huge selfish asshole. It was my second burrito. I really would have preferred to eat three because they were small. I’m fucking nursing a baby and the only lunch they had around during the day was cheese, bread, and greens. Oh, and cookies. So by dinner I was fucking hungry.

Then the room mate was helping to clean up after dinner and he and the grandmother stood around and loudly talked about how rude and disrespectful my children were because they didn’t offer to clean up the kitchen and do everyone’s dishes.

Oh, side note: I did everyone’s fucking dishes after lunch.

So I was expected to clean up after lunch and my children were expected to clean up after dinner.

Other fucking note: we had intended to come into town and see the one brother. It turned into a fucking family reunion with alllll the siblings and their entire families expected to show up. Oh. So it was a lot of people in a small space and everyone is super touchy about shit being messed with. But they also encourage the kids to touch things. But then they get mad at the kids.

This is such a head fuck and I am so god damn angry.

My kids do a fuck ton of house work. But no, they don’t show up at other peoples houses for a meal and offer to do all the cleaning. That has not been part of their home training.

That’s not something that most of the people we visit would allow or want. BUT HOW FUCKING DARE MY KIDS NOT SHOW UP AND WAIT ON THEIR FUCKING GRANDMOTHER. DON’T I KNOW THAT THEY NEED TO BE TRAINED TO BE A WOMAN IN THE KITCHEN GETTING ALL THE GOSSIP. THAT’S HOW FAMILIES ARE FORMED. THAT’S HOW CHILDREN LEARN HISTORY. CLEARLY I DON’T CARE ABOUT THEM BEING PART OF A FAMILY.

Fucking woman just pissed me all the way off. I am so tempted to ask her to step outside with me before breakfast and tell her, “If you can’t keep your viper’s tongue quiet for the few hours you see my children you will never see them again. Do you understand me?”

But we are here for someone else’s tragedy.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I fucking hate this woman and I fucking hate Texas and I am so fucking pissed that I am fucking here.

Oh, and my cousin called me this week. I returned the call yesterday. She asked if she could travel with us to be our au pair. Uhhhhhhh that would blow up. That would explode and go poorly and then I would lose the only tenuous relationship I have with an adult relative. No. No. No. I can’t do that. I’m too fucking old to pretend that something like that has a chance at success.

I can’t see a way for us to recover from that mistake. I couldn’t live with Sarah or Jenny. If I couldn’t get my asshole into check to live with either of them…. I don’t see a way of it working with my cousin. Not with a bunch of international travel. Not when she is flakey and undependable and couldn’t get on a fucking plane to see me for Christmas. No.

So I feel like an asshole for understanding these limits. But holy shit they exist.

I feel so full of rage and hate I want to explode. I want to punch that fucking bitch in the face. We came out here to be nice. And this is your response. Why in the fuck are we nice to you?

I am going to have to say something to her. I am going to have to say, “We will not be back for many years. Because of your mouth. If you open it again, it’ll be forever.”

Home. And Petty.

1 Reply

I’ve spent most of the last week grateful I didn’t have a computer. I would have written some incredibly unkind things. I wanted to stoop to a level of petty that would be darn near epic. Why?

Because people get all twisted up in my head. I’m never responding to one thing at a time.

I’ve spent the last few years in therapy doing a tremendous amount of work around the fact that the Bonus Mama triggered all of my “like my sister” buttons, minus the sexual assaults. She has quite a few of the same problems and in my ridiculous codependency I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix her problems.

It is a gift from the universe that I am now done with that set of behaviors. I never need go clean her house again. I never need try and help her children emotionally cope with neglect. I never need try and pretend that I am unaffected by the physical violence in her marriage again.

I am free.

I think this is a positive step in my life. I need to stop trying to cover for broken people. It’s a real problem I have.

I need to stop investing my life into trying to make up for people who won’t even admit that I’m doing a back breaking amount of work for them. It’s stupid. It’s self defeating. I have spent a lot of time and energy and money over the past few years trying to do something for the ephemeral child self I still have. Other people helped me so I helped her kids.

But I’ve given what I can and it’s time to move on.

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Part of what this relationship came into my life to teach me is that when my children say, “I don’t want to associate with this person because she is mean” I need to never overrule them again. I need to never ignore such a signal again. I feel deeply ashamed of myself for telling my children to cope with behavior that made them feel diminished because I wanted weekend babysitting. That was wrong of me. My behavior was selfish and disgusting.

I was wrong.

I will never deliberately send my children to the home of someone who speaks to them with contempt again. I. Was. Wrong.

Hopefully I have learned the lesson I needed to learn and in the future when someone triggers my “like my sister” buttons I will run like my tampon string is on fire.

No more hoarders. No more people who refuse to acknowledge that they are literally physically, emotionally, and mentally unequipped to take care of their children while they brag about how great they are. No more people who are in a marriage that involves domestic violence, gaslighting, stone walling, and screaming matches that the children can hear only to turn around and tell me that if the marriage is destroyed it’ll be my fault. Sure. Because y’all had none of these problems the day I arrived. Right. Who is the one with the convenient memory? I write down all my bad shit so I can’t claim it didn’t happen. Remember how I’ve begged you to document your DV for 7 years because shit like this comes to a head and you always said, “But I don’t want to remember.”

Sure. If your marriage is destroyed it’ll be my fault. Yup. Right. Because I’m the one sitting there filled with contempt. Yup. That’s me.

Take your guilt trip to someone who is stupid enough to be buying. I’m fresh out of money for such bullshit.

I am free.

Do you know when I freaked out and started demanding that your kids be put in school the fuck away from you? When you took them to Moana and came home crying because you believe your children are incapable of understanding and appreciating the story. Guess what? Your kids are capable of understanding. You are incapable of teaching and your children need to spend time with competent teachers who can teach them. Stop fucking over your children because you are fucking broken and you want your children to be as limited as you are so you feel comfortable. Your children have more potential than you do. Let them go be taught by someone with actual ability to teach and they’ll be ok.

The worst thing that ever happened to you was someone telling you that your IQ is high. You use that number as an excuse for why you are better than people as you cannot fulfill basic life functions. It’s sad and pathetic and your fucking children need to be educated by people who have the humility to say, “I don’t know everything so I’d better study.” You think that if you buy all the books and don’t read them it’s just as good.

Your children deserve better than to be locked in your company all the time.

And after this I need to never ever write about your family again.

I’m done.

Something has to give.

1 Reply

I can’t keep all these balls in the air forever. I’m going to lose my mind. I’m tracking so many disparate things with regards to the remodel, like how many people I have to keep track of and talk to: new contractors, old contractors, lawyer, engineer, evaluator for arbitration, roofing company and companies for ordering parts. That’s a lot of keeping folks organized. We should sit down and write up more for the lawyer this weekend. Sigh.

My medical stuff sucks. I’m tracking a lot of appointments and a lot of kinds of medication. I start first thing in the morning and have a growing-in-intensity night time routine and stuff I have to do in the middle of the day. Taking care of my body is kind of a job and this isn’t even including exercise, meditation, or eating/bathing/general body care. Oh god.

Death sounds so restful.

Homeschooling continues on. Both kids are making dramatic progress scholastically lately. Eldest Child has erupted onto the reading scene and Youngest Child said, “Hey I don’t want to be left behind” so I think that the kiddo will be caught up soon. Handwriting is improving in a variety of ways. The form is neater, the lines are straighter, and the content is growing so fast I can’t keep track of what she knows.

Younger Kiddo doesn’t want to write yet. I’m told “I’ll start when I’m seven.” Ok. I’m down.

I sure as heck didn’t make your sibling start before she was ready and look at her go. She has caught up on years of school work progress in about three months. I would guess that at the beginning of seven she could write on par with the average kindergarden graduate. At this point her writing looks second/third grade. I think she caught herself up. I haven’t tried to formally evaluate her to count the word rate or anything and I’m not an elementary school expert… but based on the standards and her content… she’s plugging along.

It’s really cool to watch.

Noah and I are touching a lot all day long. We are trying to reestablish our bond. I can feel why he was so anxious. No, I didn’t really do this when I came back from the road trip. Yeah. I am just coming home. That’s gotta suck.

Who am I and what can I be? I don’t know.

Who am I allowed to be?

I think I figured out the last bit of transportation I was worried about with regards to the upcoming trip. I found a very economical way to get the ten of us around. No problem. I think I was sorta hoping someone else would do the scouting but they are busy as fuck too. So I did it because I wanted a better idea of how to handle this.

I’m not going to show up in Florida with a group of ten and try to wing it on transportation. We’ll end up spending an insane amount of money. Nope.

I’ve had an interesting thought lately about why folks don’t like white men. They pay for everything. They have the money. So everyone resents the shit out of them. Because when someone is paying for you, you don’t generally appreciate it you resent the fuck out of it. It’s not just white men though. It’s anyone who pays. But in terms of overall society… white men have the most money. Period. So it’s mostly them. This is occurring to me as I am the one who can pay now. I’m hated for it too.

I think that has to be ok.

I have reached a point in life where I have an obscene amount of privilege and money. It’s ok that people hate me for that. I understand. It isn’t about me. It is about how fucking unfair this life is. It is that I am a fucking bitch and I don’t deserve to have an easier/better life than anyone else.

It’s ok to hate me because things are easier for me than they are for someone else. That’s ok.

Even if it hurts me. Clearly I am not the person who matters in this exchange. I get that. I actually do. There are ways in which I can lean into that and ways in which I need to just stand still and let you do your thing. Because I’m not going to fuck up my life such that I lose the money and power I’ve acquired. Oh hell no.

I’m as selfish as the next.

I’m going to squirrel that shit away. I’m going to get more of it if I fucking can. I’m going to continue to invest. I’m going to continue to try and accrue a fortune that will keep me and Noah safe come what may in the future. I owe my provider that because he has provided so god damn well. I could squander the money. I could give it all away and damn us.

You know who won’t help me in the future? The folks who fucking hate me because I’ve had this period of time having more than them. I’m going to be on my own.

That’s ok.

I won’t be on my own. I’ll have Noah. And…. yeah that boy was born with fucking privilege and an attitude and an ability to acquire more privilege. God damn white men.

I swear I didn’t pick him for that. I didn’t know where he really came from until after he asked me to marry him. He’s smart.

Noah started off in a better-than-average place and then he had ten years of being married to me with me kicking him to do better. He’s tripled his salary in ten years. Our net worth has… I think more than tripled. We are a good damn team. Neither of us could do apart what we do together. We work very symbiotically.

I don’t stay because of the money though. I just want to be realistic about it. I want to figure out how *I* think I should behave because of the money. I don’t want to be unthinking. I’m ok with being an asshole. I just want to do it on purpose instead of through unconscious behaviors.

I stay because of how he listens to me. I know that I get very angry when the talking doesn’t create the changes I want (ahem) which isn’t… fair? Appropriate? I don’t think I explode all over the place when I don’t get my way on minor matters. I am pretty darn sure I’m flexible about most things.

Not my cunt. Not ever again.

It’s so complicated.

Shiny change of topic: my garden is gorgeous. This is by far the most beautiful year my back yard has ever had. I fall more in love with my sanctuary by the day. And I’m not spending very much time out there because I’m working inside. Life is Not Fair.

Apparently being told I’m not allowed to direct energy outside the house is what needed to happen to get back to reading. In the past threeish weeks I’ve read six, seven books? Fiction and nonfiction. Some rereads, some new.

Three on ADD. I’m convinced my whole house has it. Why has this never hit my radar before?!

I’ve typed this super slowly. I shouldn’t be typing at all. Not being on Twitter sucks. I feel existentially lonely. But also relieved. I took Hangouts off my phone so I’m only sms typing. That’s helping.

I have a gorgeous milkweed plant this year. So I’m sharing seeds with neighbors. My neighbors all seem to be very happy I’m back and they wish I was feeling more sociable with them. Ugh and urf. I love you all.

I’m so tired.

Why can’t I sleep? My body just felt icki. Anxious and fussy. I’m sad and I’m not.

I am thinking about my sister all the time. I saw her in a restaurant recently. Both of us had prepared plates of food before we saw one another so neither of us walked out. We just carefully looked at the floor instead of making eye contact.

She lives in an RV and rides a motorcycle. She’s aged a lot. She looks 20-25 years older than me instead of 13 years older than me.

Do I really get to complain in any way about the hand I’ve been dealt in life? My sister has had it much worse.

As an adult, I mean.

I guess this settles the question of what I will do if I run into a family member: look down.

I didn’t start a conflict. I kept my mouth shut and didn’t draw attention. I was a grown up.

I hope that counts for something. I am not trying to cause a big scene. I just want to get through my life without being abused. I am beginning to hate this word. What does abuse mean anyway?

It means my sister telling me I was unwanted and my life makes the lives of everyone around me worse. And then her telling me again. And again. And again. Until I believe it like I believe my eyes are brown.

Noah and my kids wrap themselves around me like clinging vines. And still I cannot shake this pervasive, permeating belief that I should die because I hurt everyone near me just by existing. I do not know what could change this feeling in me.

Over and over in my life I have evaded this feeling by falling backwards into the arms of a new person to see if I damage them. It has got me far. It has gotten me to here. It is how I try again and again and again with people.

But doing it now hurts Noah. So it isn’t doing what I want it to do. The well is poisoned.

Shit.

I don’t know how to change this feeling and I must if I am ever going to break the suicidality I live with.

I don’t think this is something a pill can fix.

Latuda is the current anti-psychotic I’m taking. After four? nights of taking it I would say that it is making it so that I have less energy to do anything about my suicidal/self harming thoughts but they are sharper and clearer.

Yes. I am a disgusting whore who hurts everyone. But folks knew what they were getting into so fuck ’em.

I’m not sure this is improvement?

I feel more numb. Woo.

Love. My. Brain.

I kinda feel like I don’t deserve the relief of cutting. It would distress other people and I’m not allowed to be selfish like that.

I’m not sure this is an improvement.

The last several years of medical treatment attempts all seem to be aimed at schizophrenia. Are a series of doctors trying to tell me something very slyly? How many schizophrenia medications have to make me sick before doctors stop acting like that is the way to treat me? Apparently all of them. And they are always coming out with new ones so it’ll never stop.

Wheeee

27 days until we leave for the cruise. I now have bags that are exactly the right size for carryon for this airline. We are bringing clothing that we recently paid an arm and a leg for. We aren’t checking tens of thousands of dollars of stuff. Not with the TSA. Oh god no.

We don’t live in a world where such a choice is smart. I’ll keep my stuff on my person or in my sight, thank you.

It really isn’t like Noah and I to spend this kind of money on clothing. It’s downright out of character. But we are going to look ever so cute and now we have impetus to do enough exercise to be able to wear these clothes for the rest of our lives. I had mine made so that I can wear most of it through a fifty pound increase from where I am. Hell yeah.

I’ve been in this body a while.

We will have to find places to wear this shit. I will plan the rest of my life around getting to wear pieces of this dress.

It’s kind of ridiculous. But whatever.

I guess we’ll have to learn Regency dancing?

I’m down. We can be terrible together.

Noah wants me to get all of my feeling of love and acceptance from him. He gets it from me and I’m enough. I feel really bad that I don’t… get enough from him. This feeling is so so so so much bigger than him. I feel like if I tried to use him to fill this hole I would consume him and he would die and then where would I be?

I like Noah. I like being around him. Except when I need to go talk to myself. Hi, self. How you doing? Better than when I started, thanks for asking.

Thankfully today is Saturday. Fewer people I should pester. I’m so tired of this forking remodel. It is so depressing and demeaning to keep pressing on. But we really have to. The permit expires soon. Have to make progress to extend the date. Shit.

The kids said since we have unexpected days with them we should have dates. Sounds lovely. We are, once again, Team Virgo. Kiddo wants to pick up Subway (“I haven’t had any Subway in so long“) and go to the park. Sounds like a lovely date. I can do that.

Team Gemini will be eating sushi and playing Minecraft. I like my date much better.

Eldest Child spends a lot of time drawing pictures of all four of us sitting at computers and writing impassioned pleas like, “My dream come true would be all of gaming together.” Snort. I don’t need new computer hobbies. No.

Ow. Must stop on that note.

Chasing and being ok

7 Replies

I should be sleeping, but I’m awake. I’m thinking about how much I’m shoving on my friend while she’s here. So here’s the sitch. I met this woman on Twitter during my road trip. Towards the end the kids and I realized we were going to have a miserable time camping at the snowy Grand Canyon and decided to detour. I asked the universe (and Twitter) where we should go. This woman popped up and said, “Pick me! Pick Phoenix!” So I did.

We spent a few days together and it was lovely. I think she is great. I think her kids are rad and super smart and really engaged in life. I honestly don’t meet that many public school kids who are that good at asserting themselves. I was seriously impressed with these kids. They are just… there’s a lot of there there.

So I asked my friend to come visit. Thing is, the entire time I’ve known this family they’ve been on my monthly donation list because of disability issues. The mama hasn’t worked in a while and that is indefinite. So this trip is horrifyingly prohibitively expensive.

So I said, “Can I bring you to California. You and your family. You need a break from life.”

We are going all over the bay area and down to Santa Barbara with a stop in Monterey on the way home. We will spend close to a week driving into San Francisco to see the museums.

These kids showed up at my house and with glowing faces they said, “Can we homeschool every day?!” They are so excited they can barely speak. Only they talk just as much as my kids do so this is a hilarious time. Oh so much volume. But fascinating! The opinions! The independent thought going on!

One of the first questions was: “Does your little boy still wear dresses?” Answer: “That question is more complicated than you think. My kid wears dresses sometimes. But I only sometimes have a little boy. Let’s talk about the gender binary and people who do not fall on it at either end.”

It was lovely.

I sat down after dinner and started listing off the cool things to do within an hour of driving… we filled the trip days fast. We have a full itinerary.

I am 100% convinced my friend never would have asked for something like this in her life. I’m spending around $1200-$1500 for them to have this vacation. Folks I don’t know that well that I met through the internet.

Why?

I am ruled by my impulses. Because it breaks my heart that my children get to have the life they have and children this god damn smart and talented don’t get to have as much opportunity. Yes, I’d love to bring you out here for three weeks for as much information as we can pack into your little skulls. It would be an honor.

I do these things to pay back the child I was. The child who felt so bad that everyone else got to go do fun things and take classes and go to museums. I got to move again.

Part of what is helping is that I’m not having to chase this family. I offered and she accepted… but I didn’t have to chase her and keep offering.

Being able to accept a gift this big is hard. Pride is a big deal. Accepting this much love and help from someone is hard to feel ok with. People can only take so much then they need to give. Not necessarily back to the person they received from… paying things forward is more important

I am running into asking rev limiters within myself. I can ask different people and it isn’t scary. I can’t ask a small group of people for things repeatedly. That’s too much hard; I feel too much like I’m hurting people.

Unless I get asked back. I need to be asked for things in exchange. Do you know one of the reasons it is easy for me to help this family have this trip? They are kind of assertive about how things need to work for them. “I need _____. I can’t do _____.” Even if receiving a gift they are directing it to be more useful for them. That melts my butter. I feel like they seriously are trying to get what they need from this gift.

I have probably asked many hundreds if not over a thousand people to spend time with me in my life. I don’t ask everyone for sexual attention. Unless I feel an energetic push back… I feel like I am hurting people by sticking around.

If I initiate all of our, “Hey let’s hang out” it will get more and more sporadic over time. My give runs out. My ask runs out. I wish I still had it in me to ask you over lots… I don’t. I don’t think you care. I think you’d rather do something else.

I think you’d rather not put your pants on and walk three blocks to see me after I drive multiple thousands of miles. That’s what I’m worth.

That’s from someone who has been publicly calling me “family” for over a decade. Yeah. That’s what I’m worth to my family.

But not Noah. And not my kids. They would do a whole hell of a lot to see me.

Noah crisscrossed the country chasing me. It was glorious.

Even though they live with me every day. If I start getting distracted by life or people they do tricks until I stare at them again. Please look at us. We need your attention. Yes my loves. I will give you my attention too.

Yes, I like pushy. Yes, I want people who say hey I’m here and I want your attention. Yes, that is risking rejection. Welcome to my god damn life.

It occurs to me that I could create a calendar for the house hold and share that with folks who are interested. Dates when people are free to invite themselves over could be clearly marked.

I can’t keep inviting the way I have for years. I’m tired and it hurts.

Noah says I’m just ditching my friends for lovers. I don’t think that is true. I can list off lots of friends talking and visits in the past few months. It is true that I’m putting less effort into my friends.

But I think I was there anyway. I think there was just a brief surge for dating. I think that is going to… change as time moves on anyway. I’ll run out of ask there too. I don’t get the impression that most of the folks I date are going to feel ok being pushy with asking for dates. My submissive. My glorious submissive. Thank you for being so brave so far. I know I’m busy and asking me means risking me being overwhelmed and kind of a twerp on a given day. I’m grateful you ask. Thank you. I’m sorry I’m not always good company but I’m so glad I get to know you. Sometimes when I say I’m not good company it isn’t about me not liking you it is about me wanting to keep my nasty moods away from you. I know you are comfortable with getting the less than sweet parts of me, but I don’t want to take my feelings out on anyone like that. I don’t want to start using you for that kind of thing.

I love you too much.

I’ll hit you; I’ll carve my name into your flesh with a scalpel; I’ll kick you as hard as I can in the testicles. I do not want to hurt you. I want you to feel loved. I can’t be nasty to you when I’m having a bad day. That’s not cool.

I need to be nasty to you on good days when it is a positive, loving choice for both of us.

I’m going to run out of chase on dating for the same reason I always do. Most people… aren’t as into me as I want them to be. They like me ok, but they don’t really seek me out. I seek them out as much as I can… then I can’t anymore.

Usually that’s about three months.

The people who have gone longer than that… my first fiancé, my Owner, Puppy, Spot, Noah… they always act like they are drawn to me. I don’t think my first fiancé would have fallen out of love with me. I think he wanted to marry me and he was going to be ok being that person forever. I think I could have had that. But he needed me to not change very much. He needed me to calm down and not be so crazy. He needed me to be very conservative sexually. I couldn’t do that for him. I think I could still be with my Owner if I hadn’t wanted kids so much. Puppy was the only one who dumped me. He has some serious issues and that was for the best. He would have been very abusive. Spot… that one did run its course. There was no more there for that relationship. But we are still friends.

Noah came back when I shoved him away as hard as I could. He was still my friend even though it hurt because not knowing me was more painful than dealing with me rejecting him as a boyfriend. Then after a while of being my friend he noticed that I was single for five minutes and he took a chance on offering me the best deal of my whole damn life. Would I like to marry my best friend and have the babies I’ve been dreaming of? Yes. Yes I would.

I like sudden intense protestations of devotion that I end up being able to count on. That works for me.

And Noah has chased me ever since. I do not always honor his efforts as I should. But I take breaks to admire just how forking nice to me he is. He chases me. He feels like he would die without me.

It makes it kind of hard to keep chasing people who are not that enthusiastic about seeing me, who do not push for time or attention, who do not make it clear that they want to know me.

I’m spoiled as fuck.

My submissive chases me à la Pepé Le Pew. Slow and patient and just there for my entire adult life.

You know who else chases me? Sarah. That’s why she is My Sarah. Because she has chased me and pushed and offered and grabbed chances to see me for over twelve years.

Lots and lots and lots of people can ask me once or twice a year for a visit. That’s so wonderful and sweet and generous. They give me what they have to spare. They ask for how much of me they want. I’m grateful for every person who gives me a three hour visit a year because they want to know me and that’s all they have spare. That is a gift.

It is so glorious having people in my life who want more and more and more of me. The number of people who feel that way is growing and I can’t help but think that is so wonderful. One of the women I look up to most described knowing me as being like watching the birth of a planet. I’m developing my own gravity.

So this ADD book I’m reading keeps saying, “There is something special about a lot of people with ADD. You can’t put your finger on what it is. It’s just there.” I find that hilarious.

When you look at comorbidity things: ADD is highly correlated with trauma which is highly correlated with being targeted which is highly correlated to being something that attracts notice.

Being special/different/weird is threatening as fuck. Lemme tell you.

Hey, is that a self love moment there? Did I just admit that I know I’m special?

Whoa.

I am. I always have been. I do radiate energy like the sun. Either I freak people out or I draw them in. I pay attention to people. I want to know them and love them. Just looking at people as hard as I do is special. Not many people are even capable of really looking at everyone around them and paying attention the way I do. It is some trick of attention and hypervigilance and empathy.

And where in the hell did I find the well of love I seem to have for people? Despite everything. Recently someone said I didn’t break; I broke open.

I need to be needed or there isn’t a lot of point in me. I think that the majority of creatures who are ever born live and die not having a point. I think that the creature has to make their own point, their own purpose, their own meaning.

Am I doing it?

So far people in ten states and a few different countries have told me that knowing me has changed them for the better. It’s a start.

I can say with great certainty that the three people who live here, my submissive, and My Sarah will chase me just about to the ends of the earth. Jenny has flown out to rescue me when I was in danger even though she isn’t by nature a chaser.

I still call her Jenny because I’m the only damn one who can. To you, she is Jennifer. You do not have leave to address her familiar. I think the only reason I can’t mature into the grown up name is because it was a very young person who first opened her heart to me. It was a very young person with intense wounds of her own who learned how to put up with me. When I cry and think of how very much I miss my friend I am dimly aware that we are grown ups now… but I miss her from that place of being very young. Because that is where she first touched me. I met her when I was twelve. I feel like twelve was for me the absolute last gasping breaths of my childhood. That was right as I started seriously dating.

Jenny managed to catch the last bits of me that could love as a child. And I love her with all the intensity of a child for their best friend still. Thank you.

Despite how not chaste I am… I am still chased. I am deemed worthy of love. And by people I respect and love in return. People who absolutely thrill me to my toes that these people think I am worth enough of their energy to chase me. People who are impacted by my gravity pull and just have to be near me.

Oh I love you I love you I love you.

That’s at least six people who will… chase me pretty fucking far. Blacksheep has jumped enormous hurdles to be my friend. DSH has gone waaaaaaay far past her comfort zone for me even though she isn’t one to chase people like me.

I could keep going.

I am blessed and blessed and blessed. My Bonus Family. It would take a few pages to go through all they have done for me. Even though I’m god damn difficult and sometimes they need some boundaries. That’s healthy.

Most of the people who love me with great intensity have rev limiters of their own. They have lives. Part of the reason I love them so much is because they are intense people with a lot going on. They give me what they can. Even if they can’t chase me the way I like to be chased…

Really, how spoiled can someone be? I get chased. I have three people chasing me 24/7. Quit being so greedy.

And yet I’d still kinda like to set up a calendar that says when folks can invite themselves over and see what happens.

I don’t want to decide who it is and how many people. I just… want to see what happens. I assume not much. I assume a few people sometimes but not much. The key to happiness is low expectations.

I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks. I’m nervous because this is a lot of time to be “on” with folks I don’t know that well. But I know this mama through mental/physical disability support. At least we are both very understanding of our mutual shortcomings. Ha.

I am so grateful that they accepted my invitation. This is going to be a lot of fun for me. I can’t wait to homeschool her kids. I feel like a walking encyclopedia and that is one of my favorite feelings. See how useful I can be. I am a good tool!

One of the things that makes me special is how fast I can access disparate topics in my brain and explain them in simple or complicated ways for just about anyone. I can make connections between things that seem unrelated… until I explain… faster than the vast majority of people I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of people. I am not an expert in almost anything. Instead of going deep I go wide. That allows for a different kind of thinking, a different kind of intensity.

Ok, reading this book on ADD is making me question something about my long term mental health diagnosis: depression. I don’t do the torpor kind of depression. I do the head-down-keep-working-as-you-hate-yourself-and-want-to-die kind. Apparently that is a pretty standard ADD thing. Oh. Huh. That’s supposed to be one of those things they kinda look for. I hate them and their not looking.

If you loathe yourself: you are depressed. Sorta. Maybe.

I made Noah listen to this song. I can’t find it easily on the internet so you get lyrics. The thing is… I need to be loved. And I need it from lots of people because I’m trying to push past a whole lot of not being loved.

There is some interesting research out there on preverbal trauma and early formative trauma. I feel like I still need to be filled with as much love as an infant. I was not wanted. Not from conception. I only exist because a bad thing happened. What do I have to do to make up for that? What do I have to do for the world to make up for the harm I caused by coming into being. For declaring, “I don’t care that this hurts you. I need to be here.”

It’s not like I think I really deserve to be punished for choosing to be born. It was an accident. A surprise.

To be fair, my mom told me over and over I was a surprise. She didn’t know she wanted me till she had me. Sissy is the one who told me over and over that I was an accident. My mom just admitted it was rape. My mom tries to make sense of her life given the stories she has been given. God wanted her to have that child. Me.

I have been crying for my mother for over 31, almost 32 years. My mom was 32 when I was born. I might be 35 or 36 if I have another child.

Am I a grown up yet?

When my mama was 35 years old she had four children. She locked her abusive husband out of the house and sued for divorce. On the grounds that he had been raping their children. He was still given partial custody. He refused to pay alimony or child support so my mom lost the house and we ended up living in the car. Well, he would pay it. In exchange for sex.

Sometimes I think I judge my mother far too harshly for surviving a world of horror.

Sex. Sex. Sex. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it neither? Is it both? Does it depend?

I think that if I don’t have that much pull… I should probably just be ok with that. It is probably healthier that way. Maybe. Who knows.

Yes. Yes, I want pushy.

I think people misunderstand suicide prevention. There is a lot of shaming. “Don’t do it because it is selfish. You hurt people.” I hurt people by living too. I promise. It’s always complicated. It is always about the balance of hurting people vs being hurt.

I think it should be framed as enlightened self interested selfishness. Someday I will get to the point where I am out of good days. I’m not there yet. I’m trying to construct a future so fantastic that I absolutely want to stay alive to see it.

I know we are giving up the WWOOF year I’ve always wanted because of a baby I want more. You know what? I bet I will still go to Africa with Sarah someday. I bet I will still go to Taiwan to see Pam someday. I bet I will still go to South America someday. I don’t know who will go with me or who I will see… but it’s probably going to happen.

I’m like that.

I go do things.

No more travel for a long time though. I need to save money. We don’t really travel cheap.

The kids and Noah have promised to veto all requests for travel in 2017 even if I say, “but we could…”

Ha.

I love my reminders.

My Eldest Child likes to say, “You should listen to yourself more, mom. You are a smart lady.” But I don’t listen to myself. I need to hear it from you. I need to hear it in your voice. I need to have you replace my inside voice. Do you know why? Because when I talk to me I’m so god damn mean. When you remind me of something I just said a few minutes ago… you usually sound so nice.

I know I sounded nice when I said it to you. That’s because it is easy to be nice to you. No, I can’t remind myself in that same nice way. I need you on a tape in my head. Because my tapes are all so bad. Thank you for reminding me.

I never mean that sarcastically.

Well… maybe once in a while but I’ll make it obvious with a funny voice.

Shiny change of topic. I feel like it is wise to restate a thing about voice in my blog. I talk to “you” a lot. That’s a moving target. I often consciously create sentences so I’m addressing multiple situations and multiple people at once and I phrase it as a singular. So if you feel paranoid that I’m talking to you… maybe…. inclusively…

Or maybe you’re the one. Noah gets a lot of direct address. Ok, other people do too and I hide behind the group thing. Let’s be honest. But I do the group address thing too!

I’m just tricksy.

I sat here for a while and just went through some visuals of stuff I’d like to have happen in my life. Oh let it be so.

What does “dating” mean anyway.

4 Replies

I kinda had this epiphany yesterday.

“Hey Noah. Have you passed up chances to play with Beautiful?”

“Not really.”

“Meaning you take them any time they come up.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s been happening for eight years. Yeah. You’re dating.”

But not dating in a way that scares the shit out of me and causes me to have panic attacks and freak out. Because it’s very low key.

It was just funny to think about. Because if I’m dating my submissive… I have only had like two more dates with him than Noah has had with Beautiful and I’m definitely dating him.

WHY DO WE HAVE TO USE THESE WORDS. FUCK ALL THE EVERYTHING.

But I don’t think this idea that Noah isn’t going to date is tenable. It’s a nice idea. But yeah. It’s not going to be uhhh accurate. Right now the person he is dating is comfortable with it being at the whim of my mental health (thank you, thank you, thank you) but that’s a messy thing. I don’t want to be the weather vane controlling everyone’s lives as I go up and down the roller coaster.

Oh fuck everything.

The more honest with ourselves we are about what we are doing the less likely it is to blow up.

WE AREN’T DATING WE ARE JUST VERY GOOD FRIENDS WHO HAVE VERY INTIMATE CONTACT. FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS.

Yeah. You just tell yourself whatever the fuck you need to say to get through today. The truth will still be sitting there.

Dating.

What does dating mean anyway? I used to get so mad at my Owner when he would say he hadn’t dated someone. I was all, “You had a three month period where they were at your house three nights a week. You dated for a brief period.” “Oh but it wasn’t serious dating so it’s not dating.” That conversation made me want to break glass.

Thing is, Beautiful is mostly happy with group dates where they just split off to play for a while and otherwise we are together. I like that. I like that a lot and I’d like to see if anyone could fit into a similar sort of role in my life. If these people want to come hang out with us when I am pregnant and miserable or in the babymoon year…

I wouldn’t be alone this time.

I mean, I’m not going to be alone this time. I have the big kids and Noah works from home. It is going to be different from top to bottom. But the kids aren’t company and… Noah still has to ignore me for a large chunk of the day. That’s fine. I miss talking to more people.

Ironically one of our children said, “We should name the child (Beautiful’s real name) because that is a beautiful name.” I think this person is in our life. Ya’know…

I loved working retail. I was good at connecting with people all day long one right after another. Being home is…. hard.

And begging friends for play dates is hard work. Mostly everyone is too busy. Or they only want to get together under some narrow parameters outside the house because they don’t want me in their house so they feel uncomfortable coming to my house. Sigh. I’m totally ok with always hosting. I don’t feel imposed upon. I feel catered to.

I feel really really guilty asking people to drive to me all the time. The road goes both ways and I should offer to reciprocate. But I really don’t want to. So I’m asking people less. Because I’m feeling bad about asking.

What is dating? Dating is an extra layer of “It is ok to inconvenience me as you ask me for something.”

Why do I think things with Beautiful aren’t just casual play partners? Cause when I ask if things will escalate when I’m pregnant and not interested he does that head duck thing where he doesn’t want to admit I’m right.

I guess it is good I haven’t managed to chase off every woman who was interested in Noah. Sigh. I swear I wasn’t trying.

I wonder if ADD meds would help with my urge to self harm. A quick search says it is inconclusive. I’d be happy to give it a go.

I don’t know if I want to continue Abilify. I still am not convinced it is doing enough positive. An inch of improvement isn’t worth it. And the kids say I’m getting crankier.

Ok, here’s some blatant honesty. One reason I have always harshly rejected the label of poly is because I have known some extraordinarily bad parents who happened to be poly. It is more important to me that I nail being a good parent than that I nail any other role. If I’m a bad wife, girlfriend, friend, whatever. I can live with that.

I don’t think I could live with myself if I really believed I was a bad mother. I’m a harsh critic. I work really hard on my behavior for my kids.

I’ve seen people do poly really wrong. I’ve seen it hurt kids a lot. I’m scared of that. I’m really really really scared of that.

I like nonmonogamy. It means that our lives aren’t just sexually exclusive. It doesn’t really make any promises about the size or shape or definition of what anything inside of that means. It can mean a lot of different things and a lot of different levels of friendship and love.

What does love mean anyway?

It means I want Noah to be happy and not depressed. That means that when my body goes completely to shit when I’m pregnant… either I encourage him to see Beautiful more (he slept with a different friend during other pregnancies) or I deal with him getting increasingly depressed. These are the options. We’ve been through this dance. I know what the choices are.

But what about the absolute freaking out I do when he comes home? Meh. Even that is muted when I’m pregnant. I don’t give a shit about much other than how much pain I’m in. Bitch come here and rub my back. And my arms. And my feet. Just don’t stop rubbing till tomorrow, ok?

My shrink said she didn’t know if I could get over my fear of Noah dating in this lifetime. But if it has already been kinda happening for eight years… (I actually have a specific brain hack plan in place for how to deal with moving through some of this fear and we have a phone called scheduled on Friday to find out if we will be able to do it.)

Where is the threat?

What is the threat?

What is there to be afraid of. Other than that he will be too god damn enthusiastic when biting my neck.

When I come out of feeling asleep from the breeding period, I wake up with a vengeance. Noah doesn’t do that. If he falls asleep again… waking up would be hard. He’s going to get very habituated to his depressed habits and that doesn’t suit my lifetime goals.

Where is my enlightened self interest here?

I woke up after 6 hours of sleep, and ended up painting by candle light starting at 3am. I’m tired. But I think well in this kind of tired. I read that is an ADD thing too. Deliberately exhausting yourself before you can focus. If this is a lot of what the problem is… I’m going to be so bitter it hasn’t come up before now.

I’m almost 35 fucking years old. I had problems all the way through school because I was a disruptive little snot. Why didn’t anyone ever suggest this?

Ugh. Anyway.

I’m going to add to the data form for the Stanford folk that I think Eldest Child has it. Both she and I only skip one to two markers per person. Different markers. We both kinda scream it. If you sit and read books about case studies that is. That whole super high needs baby thing? Yeah.

Eldest Child doesn’t look like me but she has a lot of my personality and physical weirdness. A lot of extreme sensitivities and fussiness about needing things to be just so. She gets overwhelmed, but I manage her overwhelm so well that it is practically invisible at this point. I would not want her on medication. She is learning to cope with her body and she’s doing great for the life she has now.

But I bet I could learn some tricks to help both of us.

And you know what? Adding people into our lives will be adding people who might know more about this disorder than I do. People who can help me so that I don’t have to be the expert on everything.

I’d be ok deferring expert status on a whole lot of shit. I don’t need to know everything in the world. Ain’t my job. I have enough jobs. I’m tired.

I’m told it isn’t my job to meet everyone’s needs. Believe me I know. But I still feel like what I have to offer is so very inadequate. I am so high maintenance. What do I offer that is worthy of such effort?

Inclinations

3 Replies

I’m running into a problem in my sex life. I’m closer to a vanilla bottom a lot of the time and that’s some serious mixed signals in my little world. I like sex. I don’t need it to be that harsh. I don’t need to be hit all the time. I really totally don’t fucking need to get pinched a bunch. My body lives in a lot of pain a lot of the time. I spend a lot of time trying to manage my pain levels. Getting hit is complicated.

But I’m a masochist. I really am. Sometimes it is the best thing ever.

I’m not that much of a sadist either. I have times when I get really super duper in that mood and when I’m in that mood absolutely nothing else will do…

But if you look at the last 15 years… I’m not a serious sadist. Lots of years involve no sadism and only a little bit of missing it.

And I’m heading back into another breeding period. My masochism and my sadism went on walkabout last time. I still like sex. And I want kissing like I want air. I want lots of gentle touch because my whole body is going to fucking hurt for nine months. I am not an easy pregnant person.

I’m even more weepy and sad and isolated feeling. I want my mother and I can’t have her and that hole in my heart eats at me so badly when I’m pregnant.

It has been hard for me my whole life that when I feel worst I am the most isolated. It happens over and over. If I’m sick… I’m usually alone.

I’m looking forward to a pregnancy with a work-at-home partner and older children. I hope it won’t feel so sad. I’m kinda hoping that we can find a way to have people come over that isn’t a problem.

I don’t know what the future will hold and I’m feeling like a huge selfish asshole. I’m worrying about my needs and I’m being really ungracious and fussy about other peoples needs. I’m not being generous or loving. I’m such a fucking asshole.

Part of the problem is I have a very long list of people who want me to consider their needs and feelings. They conflict–I promise you. I have to kinda prioritize and then where in the hell do I fit in?

I don’t know. But I’m sharp and difficult when I say no because I hate saying no. I feel like such an asshole. “Hey you are being brave and wonderful and asking me for this thing that is really important to you. OH MY GOD DO YOU KNOW HOW FUCKING TIRED I AM!?”

I can’t remember the last time I got more than six hours of sleep in a night. It’s been a bit. I’m dealing with 2-4 hours a lot of nights. What can be done about it? Well I see a whole bunch of doctors and I try what they tell me to try and…. here I am.

My shrink wants me tested for ADD because in her opinion it is not fucking normal to go on 2-4 hours of sleep a night, hold together (mostly) my normal life and have sex for an hour or more most days of the week. She says that is an excessive amount of energy. Really outside the range of normal.

I wouldn’t fucking know.

I am not as toppy during sex as some folks would like.

The other night with Sweet Boy he really wanted me to top all the sex. I could for a few minutes then I untied him and said, “No I can’t do this anymore.”

I don’t like running the fuck very much. I really don’t like it much past the first or second time of having sex together. I get it the first time… I’m weird to fuck. Past that, I’m seriously a bottom when it comes to sex. And that passivity goes on turbo when I’m pregnant. I’m receptive but initiating feels so awful.

And if I have to tell you what to do and how to do it? Shit. I’d rather pick my nose.

No offense. It’s not about you. It’s about me.

When I quit my job when I was pregnant with Eldest Child I had severe nausea (I was puking multiple times a day) and I was falling asleep at work, in traffic… everywhere. I could not stay awake. A friend who was a nurse asked me what job I would go get instead because “gestating isn’t a job.”

Many other friends were… happy to share with me their opinion that pregnancy isn’t a disability and I should buck up.

You know what, motherfuckers? If you don’t live in my body…. shuddup. I god damn start out disabled. Pregnancy is a nightmare.

Pregnancy is horrible. And I’m looking at it again. I was kinda thrilled by the idea of never being pregnant again.

But baby.

I want the baby. I want the baby of my body. But I hate pregnancy. I am so sick when I’m pregnant. I am in so much pain. It is such a difficult process. According to natural selection I should already be dead from this.

But fuck natural selection. Science.

When I started looking for people to date I wanted play partners. For very sadomasochistic sex. Then Noah changed his mind about a baby.

That’s seeming like a dumb thing to hunt for at this point. I can’t live up to that. I… will really not be able to live up to that starting in a few months and it will probably be years before I’m back up to speed again. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I feel like I’m jerking people around and being a terrible person.

I went and had lunch with Daddy James. I wanted to touch base with him in a I’m-not-just-in-your-life-to-use-you-for-sex way. He told me it was ok to keep changing what I’m negotiating for because life keeps changing what I have to offer. Thank you Daddy. He also told me it is ok that I am difficult to put up with. People get other things in trade and it is worthwhile for them.

I don’t see how what I have for trade that could possibly be enough to justify putting up with me.

Especially as I’m about to revoke a lot of what makes me a fun toy. I’m not so fun when I’m not up for play. I’m… a lot more boring. Hey, let’s garden or watch Netflix. woo.

Noah wants me to take a month and date as much as I want so that he can experience the full terror and find out just how bad it is going to be. The kids are asking for us to be home 4-5 days/week with no visitors.

How the fuck do I balance that? I’ve got easily dozens of people I’d like to see who’d like to see me. Some of the activities they want to see me for are high energy and some are low energy and I’m kinda flipping out about both kinds equally. “Hey drive to my house and sit around” is just as intimidating as “Let’s do x super high intensity activity.”

OH MY GOD I CAN’T RIGHT NOW.

I want to I want to I want to but I haven’t got it to give.

What I have to give is very narrow and particular and time limited. Like, why in the fuck am I up at this time of night? Because three hours of sleep is enough, apparently. Fuck.

I feel so sad that I am so inadequate to meet the needs of the people I love.

I am inadequate. It’s funny how nonmonogamy is just a chance for me to feel inadequate with more people. Wheeeeeee

I can’t do/be what Noah wants and I can’t for anyone else either. I’m feeling really sad about that right now. I can’t ever be good enough. I can’t ever do enough. I will never be able to satisfy people or make them happy. I will never be enough.

I feel like I’m in a weird transition. I thought I was transitioning out of intensive parenting into more independence and abruptly… I’m in reverse going back into the most restrictive part of this job and lengthening my time of indentured service. What the fuck am I thinking signing up for thirty god damn years of home schooling.

Twenty years sounded awful enough.

Holy shit.

I was really enjoying the expanded freedom of the Bonus Family. That’s not really a thing for a few years again. I hope I will still get my Bonus Kids sometimes. I hope that maybe the older kids can go for a night or two a month still just a way of having “their” time and space away from being in baby-land. But I won’t want or need a couple of weekends. I’m sitting here with a baby anyway. I’d rather have all my babies around more.

Fuck. This is a huge change. This is a massive upheaval. Why are we doing this?

Because I can deal with transitioning back into the world in ten more years. If the IDB (incest data base) takes me a little longer… oh fucking well.

I want this baby. And Noah keeps saying, “Two?” I don’t know. I can’t commit to that till I get through a third pregnancy. But more than likely if Noah asks me in two years if I want another baby he won’t be able to keep me off of him.

Because yeah. I get quiverful. I get wanting more babies. I get it. I get it. I get it.

I’ve already had one person who is not-breeding say it’s ok if I replace them in the population. Anyone else want to volunteer as well to justify my second kid?

I’m not even joking very much.

Parenting is the one thing I genuinely feel like I am excelling at doing. I’m far from perfect but I adapt and I grow quickly. I see problems and I address them.

I think I could handle four kids just fine. I think it would be wonderful. No Pam, I don’t want to hear your negative Nancy shit. I’m aware that you are now a voice of dissent. Ok. Heard. Now don’t bring it up again.

I feel like such an asshole for being mixed when a friend told me she wanted a fourth baby years ago. Fuck. See, the ways in which I am an asshole always come back to bite me in the ass.

I should have said, “I support you.” I’m sorry. I did that wrong.

I know there will be problems. There will be problems with or without another baby. I asked the magic 8 ball and it is never wrong.

There will be problems with or without two more babies. That fucker was consistent in its answers.

Yes.

“Will there be problems if we have a baby?” Yes.

“Will there be problems if we don’t have a baby?” Yes.

“Will there be problems if we have two babies?” Yes.

I’m telling you. The magic 8 ball knows.

I don’t feel confident in the choices I’m making. A lot of what I can see is that each of my choices hurt other people for a cascading list of reasons. I’m not going to be available for what they want…. and I don’t even know how to say what I need.

I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t know how any of this will balance out. Between the kids, Noah, me, and all the god damn people I care about how is this going to balance?

WHY DO SO MANY OF YOU BASTARDS KEEP LATE HOURS. THIS WOULD BE EASIER IF Y’ALL WERE AVAILABLE AT MORE LIKE 7-10AM!

Ahem.

Why isn’t everything all about me? Because it isn’t and it shouldn’t be. Even if I am the main character in my story… I’m not the center of anyone else’s story. Not even Noah’s. Not really. I’m his wife. That’s an accessory to his life and story not the point of the story.

I gotta be honest with y’all. When I think of what I’d like it’s not that much one on one date time. I’d like more people around and carefully managing people one to one… is a job. Especially within the framework of 4-5 days/week are just not options I wish that there were a bunch of people who said, “X day works for me. Are you free?” And it’s ok for me to say yes to three or four people because… quite frankly… that means that there is a lot of kinds of attention to give and get all at the same time.

That feels like Auntie’s house when I was a kid. Only no one checked if it was ok to come over in advance. They called and said, “You home?” then they came over. Auntie knew a lot of people. I loved my Auntie and of the people in my family she’s the only one I’d want to be even a little bit like.

She’s honorable. She takes care of people. She gets shit done.

She’s enabling as fuck and that’s something I struggle with emulating too much.

I’d like to have open houses on Friday’s. Some people can bring their kids with laptops and sleeping bags and the kids can have a LAN party before going to sleep. The adults can talk or play games. I’d like to not have to be careful about managing invites or treating it like a “party”.

I like to keep the house company-ready just as a matter of course so that having people over isn’t extra work. Then it is less stressful. Cleaning up for people feels bad.

It’s interesting reading this book on ADD my shrink gave me. Driven to Distraction. Reading it is making me cry because it sounds so much like me. Bits and pieces and here and there. But… it would make a lot of sense. My list of flame outs is long and inglorious. My self esteem is shit (at least in part) because I spent my whole life being told I was bad for the ways I deviated from normal.

My shrink is calling my psych to say, “Instead of an SSRI (which has a proven problem history) how about trying a stimulant?”

I’m excited to have someone case managing me like this. She’s known me for years and her feedback feels very useful when dealing with a prescribing person. I’ve always wanted a case manager.

Really I’ve always wanted a knowledgable pushy mother. Kinda like I am. Deep sigh.

Go be what you want to see in the world.

This biology shit is hard core. I want to be a parent. It’s the most important thing I do. I learn the most from it. I grow the most because of it. I have to or I will be a shitty parent.

I don’t want to be one more shitty parent.

I owe them more than that. Because I made them out of pure selfishness. I owe them every ounce of work I can put into being a good parent.

And I have a lot of work in me. How do I focus it more? What do I want to focus it on? My kids. For a lot of years to come they get the lion’s share. They deserve more than I have to give. That’s a lot of why I want to add other adults.

Beautiful tells me she will feel more free to invite herself over. Fuck yes.

I guess I did something right for once.

The Quiet One is an increasing factor. I don’t know what the fuck. But not saying anything here at all feels like lying because this is part of how I keep accountable with Noah. Fuck. I feel like this miraculous available during the week day, local, oriented towards care taking of children person just fell out of the clear blue sky and I don’t know what the fuck.

I really don’t. Because he has some boundaries that are going to make him tricky as heck to negotiate with in particular ways. It is none of the internet’s business because he’s going to be one who doesn’t want to be written about in the same way as a lot of other people I see. Some folks ask for more explicit reports. Some folks believe they deserve privacy. But there is a balance for me.

I don’t want to be a liar about what I’m doing. For good or for bad.

That road is straight to hell.

Kisses. More kisses. More kisses.

I go through waves of needing to not be hit because I need to not think I deserve to be hit. It’s complicated.

If you couldn’t hurt me I wouldn’t be interested. Danger. Danger. Danger.

Sadomasochism, mental health, chronic pain and calibration.

Leave a reply

I am a hard fucking pet to own. Noah and I discuss this in detail. He has spent ten years trying to learn how to properly feed me, exercise me, get me to sleep, and take care of me better than ever before. It’s been hard for both of us.

I am an emotional and physical masochist. Does it turn me on when my back hurts? No. What that means is I have learned how to eroticize kinds of sensation (physical and emotional) that other people don’t experience as sexual. This is good and bad.

Within certain contexts I enjoy being hit fairly hard in the scheme of things. Within certain contexts being degraded will make me orgasm like a geyser. But these are not all the time fun things for me. In the wrong times these sensations can be highly damaging. Only the right people get to tell me I’m a good whore. Preferably after role play when their cock (bio or not) is inside me. Then, it works great. If someone random brings that up… the fur’s gonna fly.

I have been suicidal and self harming for almost thirty years. When I talk about my problems, they are not in reaction to my current life. They did not form in context to what is happening now, but I have to deal with them now. PTSD, for me, means that I have a hard time telling what is past tense and what is current tense and what is future tense a lot of the time. I’m just… trying to be a version of me that won’t be too problematic in all times. That’s rough because what was needed from me as a child is different from now.

I don’t think it is possible to over state the impact of my early childhood sexual abuse on my personality formation. I know I lived with my father until I was three. I know the abuse was frequent before he was kicked out. I know it was every time I saw him after that until about twelve.

My father telling me over and over that I exist to get men off and I don’t have the right to say no…

That has absolutely shaped my life.

Noah and I were talking tonight about “What he can get away with” now vs when we got married. I’ve learned to say no. I used to not say no to anything he wanted no matter how much pain it caused me. It really never seemed important that I was in pain. I was going to hurt anyway. He might as well be getting what he wants.

Fibromyalgia fucks all of this up too. I’m in pain a lot of the time. As I age my joints are on fire more days of the month. PMDD complicates my life. (That’s premenstrual dysphoric disorder for those who don’t know.) It means that for roughly 3-10 days a month my brain would kind of like to kill me. I feel useless, worthless, and like I should die. I feel like I am bad. I feel like I hurt people by existing.

This isn’t about reality or rational thinking. This is pure hormonal/chemical hell. And I’ve done everything that I can do about it. I keep trying new things. It does improve over time. But it is pure shit when it is happening.

I live in a kind of chemical soup that doesn’t want me to be alive very much. I live in a chemical state that doesn’t see much purpose for me.

But then there are the happy chemicals. Oxytocin. Endorphins. Serotonin. I can get them. But it’s hard hard hard hard hard.

Something that is complicated and hard and not fair…

I can do the spike up and down thing pretty easily. Ecstasy and despair are easy for me. It’s being ok I suck at. Noah has helped me make more progress on being ok than anything and everything else in my life. But doing so has worked a lot like a standard antidepressant in that it makes the ecstasy part harder. Not impossible, but more complicated.

Noah and I have very deeply connected sex. There’s a lot of “I see you as a whole person with flaws and merits and I love you for being more than one thing.” It is wonderful and life affirming. It helps me feel like I can climb into a box and be safe. Desafortunadamente (why is this word so much better in Spanish?) that box isn’t able to be everything.

Why do I need more?

Why does a Porsche need more maintenance than a Toyota? It is the result of engineering.

Why am I so complicated? Why am I so hard? Engineering.

I need a lot of connection with people. I need lots of people in a way that is hard for Noah to understand. I think Noah is an actual introvert and I am actual extrovert who behaves like an introvert because of trauma and avoidance.

I fucking need people. I need to talk to them. The kissing and sexing is awesome, but I’d say they are part of less than 1% of my relationships. I need connection. Mostly it isn’t sexual. But good golly the sexual connection is so good at making all of those chemicals I suck at making on my own.

Why do I want to date? Because I want massive injections of oxytocin. Because I want to see you and feel so excited you are alive. Because I want you to look at me the same way. Because I need to see that look on your face because there will probably be minutes between this time and next time I see you when it is very hard for me to remember at all that anyone is ever happy to see me.

What I feel right now is what I have always felt and will always feel. Until it changes. Then that is what I feel and have always felt.

You can see how I might try to stack the deck with experiences that land me squarely in the happy brain chemicals column because when I’m there I don’t have to deal with the depressive and anxious symptoms in the same way. It’s like they went on vacation and forgot to write.

So I had multiple possible kissing opportunities go by without kisses. Internally my narrative around this is melodramatic, stupid, and whiny. “See. They’re done.”

I feel like I should stop bothering them.

I feel like what I am is a bother.

Incidentally: shiny change of topic to drop a cryptic comment at someone from yesterday. When I say that someone is giving me “reminders” I don’t mean that in any kind of negative way. My kids and I give each other reminders. It is a way of noticing someone and saying, “Hey do you remember this thing you want to remember?” Because…. most people suck at that. It is a loving thing to do, in my mind. Let me remind you about who you want to be because that makes it easier to stay on track. Let me remind you that I see you and what you are doing is real and has impact on the world so I remind you of what you need to be thinking about.

I sure didn’t mean it as a complaint or as a criticism or an attack or anything negative. Reminders are intensely positive in my life. But I had two hours of sleep and my ability to explain is uhm compromised at such times.

End of shiny change of topic.

I like to be hit. I crave it like other people crave… whatever the fuck they crave. It’s a powerful force in my life. My absolute favorite is hitting with hands. Punching is such a vicious, visceral, vivacious connection that I feel like it makes me more alive. Punching helps me stop dissociating. Punching helps me feel the muscles and the tendons and the bones in my body. Punching helps me feel alive.

I can enjoy being hit with toys but it is a lot more difficult for me. I don’t process it as connection. It tends to increase my dissociation because mostly it hurts more in a way that I have to escape my body in order to tolerate very much of it. I don’t feel connected that way. I feel like I am a thing that a tool is doing a thing to. Sometimes that is hot too. Sometimes I do want to be beaten until I go away. It is like a vacation from the tyranny of living in a brain that hates me this much.

It feels like atonement for being so bad all the god damn time.

But atonement needs to be a sometimes treat or it means that I am shit and I should spend all my time apologizing for being shit.

Constant atonement means I am constantly bad enough that I need to atone.

That hurts.

That hurts my soul as much as it hurts my body.

I don’t always need to atone. Mostly I need to connect with people who want me to be alive and who aren’t shy about telling me so. Because I’m not so sure I want to be alive. But I don’t want to hurt people in this web more than I want to stop being in pain. Right now the balance is very much on the side that my pain doesn’t matter. I need more reason to believe that. And I need less pain.

The happy chemicals make me feel less pain. Less emotional pain and less physical pain. It’s a virtuous cycle.

I feel so very guilty that even when I’m having sex with Noah basically every day and sometimes several times a day… that isn’t enough chemical in the soup to push me over the rim of the pot and out of the boiling water that wants to kill me.

But adding more people… well… it’s variable… but it does more than anything else.

I have managed to long since get the soup down to a simmer from a hard boil, but I haven’t been able to get out of the pot.

Thank you Noah. That is mostly because of you. It is because of the children you have given me. It is because of the life you have given me.

But yeah. I need more relationships. I need people I can talk to and connect with and feel like I matter to them.

Because being a wife and a mother is not enough for me.

Do you know why I think that sport fucking isn’t going to work out for me the way it used to? Because these days even when I fuck someone at a swing party and intend to not really see them again (and hell they gave me a fake name anyway)…

They end up telling me their real name and coming over for lunch with their whole family so we can talk about life balance and problems and how to deal with different life issues and… we are turning into friends.

Noah I know I kinda wanted to just be fuck buddies with people. I went out looking for that.

FUCK ALL OF YOU FOR BEING SO AWESOME.

But I feel small and scared and ashamed. Because asking for support, asking for connection with these other people feels like it is almost specifically designed to be about hurting Noah. I don’t want to hurt Nah. He is the air I breathe. No, he isn’t every ounce of chemical I need… but he is the basis. He is the start. He is safety. He is the love that reminds me to take care of myself when I am failing at doing so.

I feel ashamed of how much I need him. I would be willing to sacrifice other parts of myself for that safety. But I’ll be down in the simmering soup forever. That’s just… true. One of these days the soup is going to finish boiling me and I will die.

I need more chemicals to raise the water line and get the fuck out of the pot.

I am so sorry I need an amount one person can’t supply. I have no idea what is enough.

I am feeling really scared. I want to reach out and I don’t. I am so weary of being a bother. I feel so much like people “put up with” me.

I’m so sorry that I am so horrible.

I want to be good. I want to be just a source of happiness. But the truth is I’m not. I’m full of sadness I don’t know what to do with. Mostly I try to get enough when I feel it is ok to touch people and can access more of those fucking chemicals I can’t produce on my own.

If I walk in wearing makeup and I walk out with a bare face that means I removed it all because I didn’t want it to be obvious I was crying. Part of the reason I have been wearing more makeup is because I’m trying to control the crying. I know I can’t cry without it being obvious and that’s too public for me. I can cry without people seeing with a bare face. I do it a lot.

I want to stop crying some year. Stop crying. Stop crying. Stop crying you fucking baby.

Why do I want to date? Because I had to marry someone as broken as me. I had to marry someone who has so many pieces chopped out of him that he has huge gaping wounds where we can grow together and meld and heal into a new shape that is one thing instead of two broken things.

But how in the mother fuck do we teach our kids about a happy or healthy or normal childhood? By saying “Be grateful you aren’t getting what we got?” Oh goodness no. So I go date (in very small part) because that way I can find people who aren’t broken in the same ways and ask question after question after question. I get the impression people think I’m weird. Tell me how you turned out the way you did. I like you just fine and if I could manage to interact with a mini human to help them turn out like you… that would be a positive in this world.

I can’t make babies with everyone. But I can take the example of what kind of life experiences someone would bring to parenting and try to bastardize that onto my life. It is variably successful piece by piece. Overall it has been wildly successful.

I learn things from Cupid and Deity about a quieter happiness than I have known. They are very different men but they both come from backgrounds they are basically happy about. Do you know how fucking weird that is in my life? Dating them is almost like getting to have a koala bear accidentally fall out of a tree on your head and so see you’ve proven drop bears exist.

Whoa

My submissive inspires me with his passionate devotion to things. He has picked just a few people in his life to pour devotion into and I admire him. I both love and struggle with the fact that his core kinks are around degradation and “dirty” things. I absolufuckinglutely love that I get to do these things… I wish they weren’t degrading or dirty. I think they are fun. I do them from love. I do them out of service because you want to be treated this way and so ok I’m happy to be in that role for you.

So where does the sadism come into all of this? I am a sadist… but I am more of a service top. I do things because I think the person I am playing with wants/needs to experience them. I like being a guide on a journey. Even more I love being lead on a journey but with every passing year I intimidate people more and I get fewer offers.

The sadists are going to be happier with the people who aren’t physically and emotionally damaged at the beginning. I can’t take what a lot of people like to do on a regular basis. I can take it sometimes. I can take it when I’m doing well. Then I can’t for a while.

And the bubbling of the soup has a huge impact. The more emotionally dysregulated I am the more my entire nervous system flares up.

That’s why I want the kissing so much. It calms my central nervous system down. It distracts it from feeling pain.

And when there are chances to do the kissing and someone doesn’t want to… that feels really super out of proportion huge for me. I’m not saying anyone is obligated to make out with me for hours. Hell. I’m not saying you have to spend fifteen minutes kissing me.

But if you tell me you are romantically interested in me and you have a chance to kiss me and you’d rather not….

I feel that in my body and I feel it for days and I feel so sad.

All of this is complicated by the fact that we can’t kiss in front of my kids. So if we see each other a few times when kisses were possible but didn’t happen and then we see each other around my kids… that’s complicated torture. That’s a complicated thing that feels a lot like how I couldn’t hug or kiss or be affectionate around the kids when they were very small. I could do some but I would freak out if I heard them. It took a long time before I decided it was more appropriate for them to see that folks do those things when they like each other.

I have been good about slowly developing these boundaries and I’m going to keep being good about them. That’s important to me. I came from a place of severe inappropriate connection. I have inched my way towards letting my kids see different actions. But my kids have always seen me hug my friends. That’s just a standard thing. Even long hugs. So whereas kissing feels like it is a big boundary for me… my kids aren’t dumb. They will figure things out.

All of this is also complicated by my general problem with time distortion. I mentioned that in a few ways up-post: living in more than one time at once, feeling like how I feel in this moment is how I feel in all moments… but there is also the problem that when I’m really happy, time flies. I feel like I am getting so much input I can barely take it in. I struggle with feeling like hard packed clay soil. If you dump a deluge on me, it’s mostly going to just run off and not impact the plants. When I am depressed and/or anxious time drags on and on and on and on. It feels like there will never ever be a cessation of pain and god I can’t do this.

I have seriously been hurting most of my life. It’s hard to keep carrying that load.

But I have so much good that sometimes I am able to just sling all that hurt into a rucksack, toss it on my back and say, “It doesn’t matter how you feel it matters what you do.”

I think it is a problem that I associate not wearing makeup with a need to hide crying.

When I’m riding high in the pot and I feel relatively happy for me, then I want to beg someone to hurt me.

Why was it at such a sharp edge when I started hunting? Because I have been so safe for so long. I need the sharp and the soft. I got so much soft. I know it wasn’t fair that I didn’t know how to talk to Noah about being the sharp.

But it’s getting better pretty quickly, I think.

I need to not do anything melodramatic around this kissing thing. But I need to have some conversations. I need to talk about some pieces of this in real time with people.

The not kissing when the kids are around: kosher. The not kissing when the kids aren’t around? No. Not ok. I can’t think of you as someone I want to be kissing and deal with feeling like you don’t want to kiss me.

I had to turn off thinking about the Professor like that. He feels whatever he feels and I have no window into that but his behavior is that we had opportunities and there were no kisses and I need to treat that like “We are not people who will be kissing” and move on with my life. I have to compartmentalize like that or I get my feelings hurt.

He’s still my friend though. I still like him a lot. I will… poke at him less for a while because I’m still in the sticky he doesn’t like me that much stage.

I’ll get over that bit. I always do. It’s ok for people to like me how much they like me. But sometimes I have some sad that I am only liked as much as I am. I need to deal with that sad. I need to stay friends. Because that’s dealing with your shit. Because good grief I’m dealing with a lot of people and if I got bitter about everyone who doesn’t want to kiss me I’d have a shitty life. It’s ok.

But I’ll poke the Professor at a slower rate for a bit. I’m not going away;I enjoy the conversation too much. I just need to do some self management.

Even if I stop feeling like I have the right to look for kisses… I don’t want to stop being friends. I went hunting for friends with benefits. I want friends. I want benefits. Largely, apparently, in the form of kissing.

Wouldn’t it have been god damn handy if I could have phrased it that way in like March.

I’m going as fast as I can.

I want more hitting and I want more being hurt. But I want it in between kisses from someone who very much likes me. That’s complicated.

And I want to write about Sweet Boy. Because that was awesome. But I’m closing in on four thousand words and my arms need me to stop soon. He’ll be a lengthy story.

In three and a half hours we leave to go see the doctor about Noah’s vasectomy reversal. Holy shit.

How is this all going to work? Fuck if I know. But I guess we’ll figure it out. It’s that or die and I’m not ready. Even if I want to. I’m not ready. There is so much left to do. I’m not one to sit around when there is work to be done.

Do you know what is the part of our family culture that I am proudest of? “We are workers not shirkers.” When my kids say this, when Noah models it and repeats it… oh my soul glows. Yes. I read this hilarious book called How to Raise the Perfect Children Through Guilt and Manipulation and it is as much a memoir about her childhood as it is written by a parent about parenting. I don’t want to do anything how the sports-fanatic-Catholic author does things in her life…. but I do want to set a strong family culture the way she talks about. I do want to indoctrinate with my ideals the way she talks about. Yeah. Like that. Only something different.

Cause that’s what I am. Like you. Only something different.

Today is the 18th anniversary of Tommy’s suicide. I can’t say I miss you. I am glad you don’t have to be hurting any more. Self immolation. What a way to go.

Busy busy

1 Reply

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and started painting. I did it by candle light because the breaker in the kitchen is turned off. I need to finish the ceiling today so we can turn the light on and put the fridge back.

I painted behind the fridge first. Both to get it done and so I could practice some techniques. God damn I’ve improved. I’m way the hell better at painting than I used to be. It’s a shame that tree will be covered. It’s gorgeous.

I finished the first layer of ceiling color and stopped at 6:30 for a break. My shoulders ache. This is going to be slooooooooooooooow because I have a lot of work on vines and leaves I want to do. Not to mention that Eldest Child wants me to go back over everything with glitter. We’ll see.

This project is going to take many days. I look forward to it. I want to finish the ceiling today. I want the light back on.

Which means I need to figure out where the trees are coming from on the walls so I can plan animals, and plants around them. Argh. IF ONLY THIS WEREN’T FUN.

With every passing year I like my painting more. The moss is downright eery and pretty.

Combine this with how much yard work I’ve gotten done this year… 2016 is a beautiful year of growth. And houseguests.

I bought the plane tickets for my friend and her kids yesterday. They are coming out for most of July. Originally I had kinda expected them to drive… with all the health problems involved that was a stupid and unsafe thought. I’m so happy she was brave enough to ask for plane tickets. I know it is hard to ask people to spend money on you. It’s hard to feel worthy. But I’m bugging her about coming to visit and there’s no way she can pay. So I bought tickets. I get them for 18 days. Sounds wonderful to me.

I’m just sad the house is in chaos. But oh well. Life is what it is.

Oh crap. I need to clean up the spare room for Dad today. Whoops. That’s kinda important cause he arrives tonight.

It will be fun. Maybe he’ll sit in a chair and talk to me while I paint. I will enjoy that.

Oh crumbs. It is the end of the school year. We need to go through boxes of saved materials for the year and cull for the portfolio. That can wait till I’m done with painting.

Side note: I feel good about life when I can look down and see paint splotches on my hand.

Other random thought: my Dad has met all of my Serious Relationships in the past 12 years. It sorta makes me think I ought to invite folks over for supper this week to meet him. I’d invite you-who-plays-with-Noah too. Cause I’m like that. Tuesday or Friday would work. What do y’all think? I’m only sorta kidding. Not really. I’d do it.

When I say “I’d do it” I really mean “How serious do you consider yourself to be?” Because no really, my Dad has met every even slightly serious relationship I’ve had as an adult since I met him. And he lives in Washington. So. How serious do you consider yourself to be in my life? This might be something worthy of direct conversations instead of passive aggression but whatever.

It’s a bonus that Dad already knows my submissive and Cupid. He’d like Daddy and Deity just find. I need a nickname for you Ms. You, the one I talk to so much in DMs on Twitter. You come up in conversation in our house at least four times a week… so you are totally in need of a blog name. Who do you want to be?

Sarah is just Sarah because she happened long before nicknames for me. And Jenny. And fuck Noah’s privacy. He gave it up with the marriage contract.

Really, if anyone in our sexin-web wanted to come, please do. We obviously want you.

Ahem.

Sometimes I stop and wonder why do I feel alone? I’m not alone anymore. Not emotionally, physically, energetically… not even spiritually. I may not be Dagora, I may not have my ancestors following me around like a flock of crows waiting to hear from me. I may not be a Christian who believes that Jesus will carry me when I falter.

But I have you. That’s enough.

Then why do I still have this keening alone alone alone feeling? Why am I so scared of myself? We are born alone and we die alone and I’m afraid afraid afraid of when I will make myself die. Please, not too soon. Don’t do it until I am completely out of good days.

Why am I so afraid of being alone? Because I’m not very nice to me. Alone means hitting, cutting, burning myself. It means the meanest words I know said over and over and over. Because I believe I deserve that.

But when I am not alone I know that it is not ok with Person X that I do that to myself. They love me and need me to at least pretend I love myself too.

I am so afraid of being alone.

I feel so lucky that I found people who want to be nice to me. I feel so lucky that I found people who, when I explain how I am being hurt by something, work to change problematic behaviors.

It isn’t that this behavior is wrong for all people. It is that it hurts me and I need you to notice that you are interacting with me.

I am not just like everyone else. I fall far outside the standard deviations in almost every metric. I have to be learned.

The trouble is that I do not believe I am worthy of such effort, time, and commitment.

My friends show up for the amount of time, with the amount of effort and commitment they have to give. Thank you. I appreciate your generosity. You don’t owe me the time of day let alone what you actually give me. Thank you.

I know I sound ungrateful. I’m not. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful.

Please don’t be mad at me for not being grateful enough. I’m trying.

On Wednesday I am leaving the kids home with Grandpa and daddy and I get to go help my friends for a change. Including driving (ugggggggg) I’ll probably take about six hours to go help them with a project that just exploded in their life.

I feel honored to be asked. They don’t ask for help much. They instead offer a lot of help. I am so grateful to not just be sponging off of them. Instead I have something to offer. This feels so good.

It hurts me when I ask people if I can help them with a project and they refuse. It feels like they do not trust me. It feels like I am not worthy. The quality of my work is too poor. I do not deserve to have that time with them.

I am sorry that I insulted you by offering you substandard, inadequate help. I will not trouble you further.

And that globalizes. It becomes hard to ask for other things. I am not good at asking for help. I am good at offering help. I kinda need people to let me help them so that I can get to a place where I am able to accept help in return when someone sorta bossily pushes it on me.

Oh I love bossy people. Love love love.

The satisfaction of people believing that my help is worth something…. that is huge. Whether it is a wood working project, organizing, writing, parenting, bdsm, whatever.

When people act like I hold wisdom and experience that is useful… I feel like my life has value. I should not die. See… I have things left to give. I am still a useful tool.

I need to be useful.

This isn’t a “healthy” part of my makeup but it’s there.

Ok, I’ve been writing for about 40 minutes. 1400ish words. Should I stop now and save spoons for painting? Yes I should. Future me needs these arms. I typed slow so I wouldn’t hurt myself too much. I was careful.

I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art.

Ok. Now I’m ready to stop resting.

Not productive enough

1 Reply

I didn’t get enough done today. I still need to sand and do one more scrub down. Shit. Instead my day was very full of other things.

I finished packing Jenny’s birthday box. So I’m not a complete loser.

I also had a long chat with some friends about the implications and difficulties of living with ptsd. It’s a roller coaster, yup.

Later I spent time talking to other friends I don’t see much. That was nice. I spent time in hot water. So much yay. I got acupuncture and scheduled more for two weeks out. My back isn’t happy, but it’s better.

I’ve had good reason to think about how lucky I am that Noah likes me so much. I don’t understand what I did to deserve someone being this nice to me, but I’ll take it. He allows me to fuck up. He allows me to make mistakes without ridiculing me or ranting about my failures (mostly). He only rants about my nonmonogamy fuck ups. He kinda glides right past everything else.

Thank you–mostly.

I was asked how life was going. I said “9’s and 1’s. No. That’s not true. 9’s and 3’s.” It’s only so low because the remodel stuff is sucking. As is realizing how limiting it is that I can’t handle having sex in places my kids go and I really can’t deal with Noah doing it either.

The 3’s really aren’t even that bad. Shut up, wench. You have a life of joy.

It was a good day. I got to watch Noah do his thing. It’s awesome to do. I feel lucky when I get to be part of it. He entertains me and I feel proud of him. He wasn’t actually this cool when I met him. I’ve been good for him and noticing that is good for me. Ha. Cocky much? Yup. Noah does that for me.

I’m thinking hard about finding the right words about dating stuff.

I want to talk about why I want it and why it is important without hurting Noah. And that takes dancing on the tip of the eyelash of a hummingbird. Fuck this “men aren’t emotional” bullshit.

We all want to be special.

What does being special mean anyway? Does being special mean that you cling to one person and that is all you have or need or want?

I uhh don’t think I’ll ever run out of want for other people. Whether that long-term turns into serious partnerships with a few people or if the people come and go is… yet to be seen.

My submissive has been hanging out an awfully long time. We will keep working on what that means.

Really I want to deepen and broaden a lot of my friendships. That’s what I’m doing. I pulled taut on the strings of my web and these are the people who said, “Jesus. Stop the fucking yanking. I’m here.”

I love you so much.

I love the way Cupid’s eyes twinkle.

I love Deity’s smile.

I love the way my submissive melts into me.

I love the way my Daddy calls me Princess and strokes my cheek.

I love that Noah is trying to allow me to have this even though it is so completely not fair.

These are people I’m used to seeing 1-5 times/year over the past few years. It is… kinda weird to figure out how to integrate them more deeply again. I want to. I want to figure out how to get past my fear of asking.

A friend pointed out that I hadn’t invited her and her partner to the cruise we are going on in August. That wasn’t because I don’t want you to go. That was because asking people for something I want very badly hurts. The more people I ask to spend this kind of money and this kind of time… the more people are going to tell me no because they have to. It’s not a cheap experience. I know that.

I didn’t think more people would want to come. I feel shocked we came up with 9 guests.

I didn’t think anyone else would want to go. I already had to deal with most of the people I did ask telling me no. They mostly have good reasons. (Not Noah’s parents. I think I focus on bitching about them because I have feelings about everyone who said no… but his parents are the only ones with shitty reasons so I feel a hair more justified in being whiny and they don’t give a shit what I feel and it doesn’t impact them whereas if I whine about my friends… See. My superego is developed.)

I have cried at all three confirmations that my friends are going. This is a huge deal to me. One of my friends said, “I would never forgive myself for having the chance to be there and choosing not to go.”

That….

That’s going to be a big deal. Forever. Someone thinks of me as family. More than one person thinks they really need to be there with us.

Oh wow.

People give what they have to spare and that has to be enough. Sometimes it even is. 69 days to go for a few more minutes. I don’t especially plan to post pictures or mail them out. I’m looking forward to this feeling private. If you come to our house, sure you can see. But I’m not doing this for the internet. I’m doing it for me.

One day of my life I am going to feel like it is ok for me to dress up pretty and be surrounded by people who love me. I’m not going to spend the day beating my head on concrete or sneaking off to cry or isolating myself. All of these things are tactics I have employed during various attempts to pretend it was ok to be the center of attention.

Maybe it is easier that it is only nine people. That won’t feel like an audience. They barely outnumber our family. And most of them are so short. If we stack them up, surely we only get like six guests.

And given that Jenny has gone radio silence and there are now travel advisory stuff saying maybe she should cancel this trip… I’m getting worried that we are actually down to six. Which will be sad but understandable. It’s going to be the most god damn understandable reason in the world to not be able to go. I will be 100% in support of whatever decision is reached.

And then I’ll cry. And that’s ok too. It isn’t the end of the world if I cry. I’ll stop being a petty baby at some point.

Ok, I’ll be sad and disappointed. Jenny was the first to say yes. The one I kinda counted on in my heart. But I really really understand the Zika stuff. We will have to wait 6+ months after getting back and I’ll probably want to get tested before we try to get pregnant.

It’s a stressful decision.

I am more concerned about the health of the babies than I am about playing dress up with Jenny. It would be fun. Maybe it isn’t meant to be.

That happens.

Life. It plugs along. It is happy. It is sad. It is life.

I am about medicated enough for bed. Goodnight internet. It is 68 days now. Sleep time.

Waves of feelings

2 Replies

I’m happy. So much is going well. I’m sad. How can there be such monsters in the world?

I have been sexually involved with people of all genders throughout my lifetime. I can’t imagine being targeted for that. No one has ever cared.

I live such an incredible life of privilege.

Yesterday I was reminded that some people think that segregation is dandy. They think their right to not want to be near people who aren’t like them is fine.

People like you. That is how I will think of these individuals. “People like you”. I have no more generosity in my soul. People who who think that their right to never smell a homeless person is more important than a homeless person’s right to eat.

I…

I’m not thinking kind thoughts. I’m thinking you are a bad apple and one bad apple can spoil a barrel.

Public school parents tell me that their children aren’t being taught to be more tolerant. They are being taught to fake it better.

My heart weeps.

I will hide in the false reality of my house. A reality where people matter. Where no one is disposable. A house where if the local homeless people walk by they aren’t told to move along they are fed and given something useful. Because I am not better than you I just happen to have more luck at this turn of the wheel. If it makes you feel better I’ve been on the shitty side of things too.

My life has not always been this magical.

I am waiting until I get my new medical insurance information. I need to schedule: a) a sleep study b) talk to a Dr about an appetite stimulant other than pot because at this point I’m still using it as much as I do because without it I can’t eat a normal amount of food and I get sick and c) a high risk OB appt to talk about my screwy periods over the last year and to talk about the possibility of a third pregnancy.

Before we pay for surgery for Noah, let’s find out if a high risk OB says “Sure we can get you through a birth. May involve a scar on your belly–but you’ll get through.” I will say, “Yes. Fine. Sign me up.”

Pam when you tell me that you are freaked out because of the medical concerns… I’m walking into this with the attitude that if a c-section seems smart, cut me open. I don’t want to risk another hemorrhage.

And that’s Ms “I must have my home water birth.”

I did it. I saw what that got me. Next option.

I believe that my different attitude about the birth is going to make a big difference. I’m going out looking for interventions. “Hey, what’s up, hello! Keep me from dying, yo.”

My second birth I was ok with dying at home as long as I didn’t have to transfer. In retrospect that was an asshole attitude to have for Noah’s sake.

But people are where they are. At this point I’m eight years into being a parent and this has been by far the best section of my life. I don’t want out. I want more of this. I want all of this I can get until my heart literally stops and I can’t have more.

Which is complicated with the suicidality, let me tell you.

I feel horrified by the loss of the queer poc in Orlando. No more. No more. No more mass killings. Why are we so focused on keeping the right of gun ownership and not focused on the fucking right to stay alive.

I hide in my bubble. Where people are ok. Even in the intolerant motherfuckers are ok here. They visit and spew their bullshit. It isn’t that my bubble protects me from knowing about the foul sludge in the world. I just… don’t have to live in it.

Mostly I fear that I’m doing everything wrong. I’m scared I’m a terrible person with no possible redeeming value.

Then I meet other people and feel like really maybe I’m an awesome human being. I’m overflowing with the milk of human compassion. I’m generous. I’m thoughtful. And then there are these other people. And they are loved. If they deserve to be loved, shit I should be almost worshipped.

Let’s get real here.

“good”

Leave a reply

Tonight I told one of my lovers that I was off from the party to go have sex with my husband. He replied that I was a good whore.

Hm. Am I?

I didn’t feel good tonight. I felt… empty of stuff to give. I felt like I was letting my submissive and his partner down.

I had no topping energy in me. I just couldn’t do something to someone. I don’t know why I hit as empty as I did. Part of it is tired, but it is bigger than that. Topping is hard.

Even though I know these two people love me and want to accept anything I want to do… there is something in me that holds me back. I don’t know what they really want. I don’t understand yet. And I’m afraid I was too assertive in how much I wanted to talk when we had a date. “Hi. I know you are here for hot sex but how about if we have an intense conversation about abuse and motivation and history and triggers and…”

What? That doesn’t pass for foreplay in your house?

How well you can roll with the intense conversations decides a lot about our future. That’s why I’m so fanatically loyal to Sarah and Pam and Jenny and Noah. So many hours of intense conversations.

Today someone I had a casual hookup with is writing me to ask me for advice dealing with mental illness in a person close to them. Damn. I don’t even remember telling you that I’m crazy. But here you are. Awesome.

Let me affirm for you that you feel alone but you aren’t. You reached out to me. Because you know you aren’t alone. You know that at least I’m here. I don’t know what it means that I’m here. I don’t know what I have to give.

Tonight I didn’t have a beating to give. I’m sorry.

Instead Cupid palate wrapped me to a board and suspended me. That was fun.

And you know what?! Cupid was all lovey and kissy. PEOPLE ARE SO FUNNY.

We all have off days and the fortitude with which others tolerate those off days makes a big difference in long-term relationships.

My submissive was sweet and tolerant and accepting of the fact that I just didn’t have a beating in me. He was disappointed, but he didn’t complain or criticize. He was supportive. One of the best parts of knowing him for fifteen years is I know that if I can’t do it on one day… another day will come. But I feel like I want to make up for lost time. I want to play hard with him while I can…

But that isn’t how energy works. It really sucks. I can’t just decide to have it.

A little bit I can. A little bit I can fake. Mostly… not so much.

My date with Cupid was not the most exciting date of my whole life.

There will be others, I think. It’s ok that we all have off days.

Is this part of what being a grown up means? We all get to be where we are. It’s ok to not be a perfect performance of the kind of relationship that people want to get. (It occurs to me that part of my trouble with monogamy is balancing what I feel I “owe” Noah and adding people makes that problem worse and not better.)

I feel like Noah and I have done so many shifts lately we are dancing not walking through life. What are we doing?

Alternating having fun with having sex and making each other cry?

I mean… what do you do with your time?

Tomorrow will be lovely. Drive up to get the kids. Then we throw a goodbye luncheon for our dearest Pam who has been claiming she’s leaving for a while now. This week is finally it? I am going to miss her like a phantom limb. This will be hard. I wish her luck on her adventures. I love you. Come home someday. Tell me stories.

(In my whispering voice but I can’t figure out how to make smaller text on wordpress)

Deity is coming over for dinner. I’m not saying more about that.

What is hope?

Leave a reply

Is it hope to slide the lock home every morning, knowing that it indicates interest.

Is it hope to whisper you are special.

Is it hope to whisper I want to stay.

Is it hope to say This isn’t working and we have to change. But how much?

Is it hope to say I don’t want to be a fleshlight again.

Is it hope to express boundaries when you do not know if they will be respected.

Is it hope to keep trying when you are almost certain you are wrong in every particular.

Is it hope to get up in the morning and smile when I don’t feel like smiling. Because if we fake it we teach our brains how to make it.

Once upon a time I told one man that the reality of him was not worth giving up the possible hope of a reality with children in it.

Now I tell a man that reality with him is worth more than the hope of the child I have wanted and dreamed about. Because I can never be sure I’ll really get that child anyway.

Is it hope to want this to be enough even when it doesn’t feel like enough. What is enough.

Is it hope to keep putting seeds in the ground year after year. Grow my little friends. I know I do a poor job of supporting you now. I’m learning and improving. Some year we will live together in harmony.

Is it hope to believe that cuts on my leg are ok as long as they mean I am here.

Is it hope to believe that maybe suicide was the best choice when I was 15. At the very least, it woke me the fuck up. It was change things or die. Change things or die. Change things or die.

Here I am.

Is that hope?

Burning

Leave a reply

My wrists are toast.

My heart is turbulent.

My head is full.

I feel scared.

I feel like I’m way better at predicting the future than I want to be.

I think tomorrow is another day and in approximately 12 hours I can go to sleep.

Briefly

Leave a reply

Today I have therapy. The kids are going north to my friend’s house and then I bring my Bonus Kids home with me.

I slept well. More than seven hours consecutively. That’s awesome.

Conversations continue. I’m feeling a lot better about where we are. Just one scary chat left. Two more days. Eeep.

There will be rules and restrictions. I… shouldn’t add a new partner any year soon here. No really, I’m fully booked. I have so much unfinished business that I don’t have time to start new business.

I feel like the reasons I initially went out and started doing this are not the same exact things I feel like I want to get out of it now. With my submissive and Deity and Cupid. I feel like what I want has drifted quite a bit. Not in a bad way. Not in a way that means I’m less interested. I feel less like “I want someone” and more like “I want you” and I do understand that is more threatening to Noah.

I went out looking for vague shapes. Then I found what I found and went, “Oh well this is interesting…”

How am I going to carve out the shape of life I want? What do I want?

Sigh. I’m not sure if I want to spend more time sucking their cocks or listening to their lives. I’m really torn about which is more interesting. I really am picking people where I want to hear their stories. I realized that some of what I’m trying to hear is information that is going to help me write Part 2. Because Cupid was part of the ambient crowd during my whole relationship with my Owner and I never understood the folks around me much. This is a fascinating way to learn more about the background stuff I didn’t understand then.

Also: I’m just really enjoying the sex.

I want more sex. We’ve been having sex every day. More than once a day by the count. I want more. Sometimes I feel like there must be something wrong with me that I go through months and months and months where there is no such thing as enough sex. I could spend five hours a day having sex and that would be ok.

I’m not doing it because my life is full and I’m responsible.

But I want it.

Oh the conversations I’ve had recently. Even I blush. Am I really asking for this?!

Yes. Yes I really am.

Even though I’m blushing now I promise I’ll be enthusiastic in the moment. I want you. I want you very much. Even if it is hard to say out loud how I want you.

Awkward.

Eat breakfast. Take a shower. Get dressed. Go to Oakland. Talk to therapist. Go to dispensary. Pick up kids. Come home. Try not to be uptight.

That’s my day. I may do more cleaning. Because I’m still not where I want to be. But I am catching up paperwork. Yay! I need to clean off the standing desk. Noah will need to work there in two weeks. Eeeep.

Love is infinite. Time is limited like a motherfucker.

4 Replies

Noah and I spent time working on the calendar this weekend.

I’m not seeing Cupid till June. May is just busy. That’s a bummer and yet… probably good on the balance? I’ll see him again. It may not be as frequent as I want, but I’m a big girl and I can be patient for an excellent good time like I’ll have when I see him again.

I have a Daddy date in May since he asked for one. That makes my heart jump. Usually he waits till I call him. We go months… almost a year between seeing one another sometimes. It goes on my timetable. This time he asked. Oh. I like that. Thank you.

I have a dinner date scheduled with my submissive for May. And I’ll see him at a party in May. That’s… probably a sustainable sort of rate. That’s not excessive.

Noah and I have carefully put dates on the calendar. Multiple in each week. Because I need to pay attention to him and act like he is my forever. If you have a fucktastically good deal… don’t fuck it up. Just… don’t. Be smart. Be long-term self-interested.

The professor told me with great emphasis that I do not know what he wants and he’s right. I don’t. But I haven’t gotten strong “Come here” signals either so… I love you. I’m so glad I get to be your friend. I don’t have enough chase in me for play. Once upon a time ambiguous was appealing, not right now. So I have no idea how much interest was there, but I know I haven’t been told “Come here”. So. I will redirect away from trying to change this relationship. Boundaries are awesome.

I have… told other tentative flirtations that I need to not add a new partner for a while. I feel that is responsible right now.

I think we are going to change the quota. It’s not working as is. We are talking about what it will morph into. It has worked for many years and I’m not sorry. I’m ready for something different.

I need to change the associations I have in my sex life.

Then we come to Deity.

(Isn’t it funny how I capitalize when using it as a name and I lowercase after an article like they are common deities or professors?)

Ahem.

Instead of talking about him in the third person I asked him how many dates he wanted. He said three. I felt my little heart go pitter patter. That’s… a lot but sane. Oh thank you. That’s like… awesome boundaries. Thank you. Three was probably the sweet spot for a lot but not inappropriate? It’s a lot. I know.

I feel weird and guilty and I’m going to feel weird for years over my submissive not getting the lion’s share of my extra time. There are a few reasons that is going to be hard and complicated. There are a number of factors involved here… not all of them I’ve put on the internet. So I’m just talking to myself.

It is easier to not wreck my life over wanting to see my submissive. He’ll be there when my kids grow up. If I don’t hurry up and see him all the time now… I’ll still have lots of bandwidth to be seeing him in many years. I… don’t feel that kind of assurance about Deity.

I trust my submissive to still be there almost as much as I trust Noah. Which… is kind of strange to realize. When I look around at the people in my life, the people I love… I spend a lot of time wondering who will still love me in 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

My submissive has already been around for fifteen years. He’s going to stick around. I can see the shape of his life. I can see the fault lines of his need. He won’t leave unless I’m truly awful and I have no intentions of abusing the gift I have been given. I appreciate the gift I’m being given.

Will I keep Jenny? What about Sarah? What about Kira? Pam? Daddy? What about any of the people I met through the home school community? What about the people I know in that community? What about Blacksheep? What about DSH?

I thought I would know Brittney forever. Alex. Chris. Marcie. Anna.

I love you still. Some of you can’t come back and some of you can. For some of you I screwed up beyond forgiveness. Some of you crossed my boundaries so badly I will not be inviting you back. Life is like that.

I have room in my schedule in April and May for playdates with children during the day. My date-time is filled, much of it with Noah and the kids. I need to keep my eye on the prize. This family is my lifelong goal. I need to preserve that. I will have tons more time to fuck around and play in ten or fifteen years even if things are as enmeshed and lovey-dovey as possible with Noah and my kids. If I hold the ship together and keep my priorities in line.

Ok, I can be smart.

I have gotten through almost ten years of this marriage so far. Noah is being incredibly flexible and supportive about how I can get through the next ten years. I should be gracious as I accept his leniency.

How many people would be happy about me picking up three regular-ish lovers overnight from nothing? The list is short. Be grateful. Be appreciative.

And holy tomato is he fucking me six ways from Sunday. I don’t feel disapproved of. I feel like Noah is thrilled to be married to me. Which is so nice because I’m thrilled to be married to him.

A lot of what I love about our marriage is how real it is. We don’t pretend for each other. We talk about the various ways we need to be selfish assholes. We are supportive of one another doing what we need to do to be properly selfish. That’s how we will make it through the long-run. If we both encourage one another to figure out what we need.

You can’t do that if you are always too worried about rocking the boat. You can only stretch your wings properly if you know you have a safe place to land.

I have a thing for mixing metaphors lately.

Trite! Predictable! Other people have had every thought already! Yeah… I know. That’s the thing about writers. We take words other people have used and we recycle them. Such is life.

I am feeling… ridiculously happy right now. I’m going to have a two week window where I gasp don’t have a date outside my house and… that’s… feeling really ok. I’m not bored. I’m not dissatisfied. I’m good. My bruises are healed but I don’t feel the need to replace them now. I’m ok.

Ok, I did ask Noah to cane me yesterday. But it was only a little switching. Not hard enough to cause me to make noise. So it barely counts. It was perfect though.

I like the way Noah’s face lights up when I ask him to do things. Any thing. Even after almost twelve years of knowing each other. “Me? You want me to do that with you?! YES! THAT SOUNDS GREAT!” He’s not subtle.

I love my subtle-as-a-brick-through-your-window-husband. We match.

Noah performs delight-with-me. Because I like it. Because it makes me happy and helps me feel secure. He does consciously work at it. He has changed in his displays over time and at this point he has just about exactly nailed my preferences. I feel so lucky to be loved this way. He looks at me. He has stared at me so long. He knows what I want in such intricate detail. He thinks about me.

I want to do the same for him. He is harder to know. He doesn’t volunteer as much. I have to probe harder. I have to snoop into the rare times he writes down his private thoughts so I can say, “Oooooh. Now I get it.” I’m not sorry, not even a little. I want to know Noah. I want to know him inside and out, the good and the bad.

Noah can be a right son of a bitch. But he’s mine. I can live with that. I am a complete fucking asshole pretty regularly and he loves me to distraction.

Noah has supported me through the most incredible journey. Everything I’ve wanted to do in the last ten years the answer has been, “Ok how will we make that work?” The answer has never been “No.”

That’s…

That’s fucking amazing.

Ok I’m sure there have been no’s in there. But they’ve been small and easy to forget.

I think he’s told me no for sex maybe six times in our marriage? I’m probably up to turning him down ten or so specific times? (Pregnancy sucked. Sometimes I turned sex down. Healing from birth sucked. I refused sex for months.)

We don’t like saying no to sex requests.

Money is complicated. I feel he maybe should tell me no on money more often but he doesn’t. As a result our debt is currently intense (it was planned for in advance… then I bought way more tile than I expected) but I’ll pay it off fast.

I feel guilty not increasing his wealth. If I’m going to be an expensive pet I need to earn my keep. I need to make it worthwhile to keep me around. If I’m going to be expensive I need to pay that back with wise investing of money every single month. I am trying.

When I feel guilty I go look at the fact that the investment stuff I started a few years after having kids is up to over $65,000. I am investing money and I’m doing ok.

That is my attempt to make sure my kids and Noah are taken care of long-term. It’s not close to the bulk of our investments. Those predate me or are 401ks from Noah’s jobs. Those are much larger.

But I am helping.

I am not just a drain. I am not just stealing to be selfish.

When I think about what I want to get done over the next few years financially… I kinda sweat. I have such big goals.

Guess what, motherfucker? I’m going to reach them. I’m going to find a way.

I mean, some of these goals are going to change. The kids are saying a year of travel is just too hard and they don’t want it. (We’ll keep talking. They don’t understand I mean four long-term locations with a couple of shorter week or two trips in between long stays. Not the constant travel of the road trip. We are talking. 2021 is still far away.)

So much to do and so little time.

Life is so big. There is so much I wish I could take in and there just isn’t enough time.

It occurs to me sometimes that I could probably take more in if I could forget more of my past. And then I listen to songs like this on repeat. For days.

I don’t regret my life. I don’t want to forget it. Not the good parts and not the bad parts. I wouldn’t be who I am without all of those pieces.

What does broken mean?

I’m feeling… freaktastically good. Not manic good, even though it is the middle of the night and I’m not asleep. That’s… that fact that I have 6 nights of sleeping pills left and 11 nights to get through.

I am strangely excited about this psychiatrist visit. I’m ready to try something else. My attitude is in the right place.

Let’s see if we can slash my medical expenses. Ha. Pot is expensive.

Can we make it easier to travel?

We’ll see.

I am starting out from a place of feeling pretty happy, not sad and desperate. That increases the likelihood of success. I need help staying up, not helping getting off the floor. That’s a different experience.

I dragged myself off the floor. With the help of my friends and time and gradual building of connections. And money. So much money.

As I’m thinking about nonmonogamy and how I feel about it. I reflect on the messages I got as a child. Stuff like this. I’m not a homewrecker. I want you to have a happy home. Ahem. And I’m supposed to want to beat women off of Noah? Uhm. How about if I just leave the room till you are done and then we can have snacks afterwards? Is that ok?

I don’t hate you. I don’t think you are going to wreck my home.

Do you know what would wreck my home? Me acting like a giant bitch.

Let’s be real here, motherfucker.

Noah can handle a lot of insecure and scared and sad. He can’t handle me being mean to him. He got enough of that with his mom and I think that’s just fucking fine. I don’t need to be mean to him.

I’m supposed to be really sad at the idea of sleeping with other people. But then I think “It’s been just over three days since my date with Deity and my throat is no longer actively sore… yeah I’ll handle the three dates in eleven days in May.”

But but… my sleeping around is more like this. I already have my degree. I’m doing this to have a connection with new ways of thinking outside my family. But I don’t want to go.

Reba was the first three concerts I went to. She has been formative on my life. I’m not sure she means to encourage me to be a big slut but I’m not sure she’d care either. She divorced her first husband after ten years. Her second husband left her after twenty-six years. I hope she’d tell me to do what I need to do to be happy.

Also: I bought pants from her clothing label. Please be ok with me, Reba. I’m loyal. I’ve loved you all my life. You give me reasons to think about what I want.

Would I do it the same as I did back then? No. I do it different now.

“I don’t need any more accidents in my life.”

You know… something like 1/2 of all children are “accidents”. That’s a fucking loaded line in that song.

I’ve had four planned pregnancies. Two that didn’t complete. It’s interesting thinking about what it means to be adapting to accidents and choices in life. What kind of grace do you need to handle different life events?

“I learned more from the stains than I learned from the paper.”

Life is like that.

The way you handle the things that just come up decide who you are.

Noah says I’m a lot nicer than I used to be. I’m not getting upset at small bumps the way I used to. I’ll say, “Oh that sucks. Ok.”

You made me a lot safer. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel insecure. I don’t feel like I’m going to be homeless or hungry any minute. I have a lot more nice to offer. I feel nice. I feel happy.

Reba reminds me that I need to make things work or I won’t like the results.

This came after I was an adult, but it was a remake of a song that came out when I was younger. I think of my family. I used to think of my mom. Now I think of my kids. But I didn’t learn to play it safe. I learned to jump into any pit of vipers because it would be better than where I was starting. Now I am trying to consciously learn how to stay safe because I have learned what it feels like. My heart has been put back together piece by piece. I need to stay safe because my kids don’t need to experience me being traumatized. It feels like a lot of pressure. I can’t come home and flip out. I just can’t.

This song is why I left so many other partners. That’s why Noah talks to me. Noah does show me what I mean to him. I need a lot of display of emotion. Noah has learned quite a bit of that over the years. I’m frankly impressed. He has listened to feedback and changed. I’m a feral cat. I stay if I have a good deal. I have such a good deal.

I gotta say Reba, I think I do better than you at some of these topics. We had a good chat with the kids this weekend about pornography. What it is, why it exists, why it isn’t sex and how to think about it as a thing that is neither good or bad as itself.

I mean… it was simplistic and not graduate school discussion. Solo sex is awesome sex. It isn’t training for sex with a partner it is to be enjoyed for it’s own sake. Porn is often part of that for many people. At this point in time… you can’t act like folks don’t use porn. You need to teach them how to do it in a way that is respectful.

And I won’t have trouble with kids who are partying. “Baby I can forgive you for anything. I love you. Thank you for trusting me enough to call.” I will never do what my sister did and hang up on a teenager who calls saying “I’m at a party with drugs and I’m scared.”

That’ll be easy.

Eldest Child is in a cute phase. When we ask her if she did something she says, “Yes. That’s true. I do not want to tell a lie. I did that.”

I will earn her trust by reacting well hundreds of times to little shit. Then when big stuff happens… I will have a full trust bucket.

I love this job.

I like this one. I may be nostalgic about all the people who didn’t want me the way I wanted them. But I fucking love where I am. (Ok the dancing in that video is just more proof that white people can’t dance. Whoa.) Puppy told me that he wanted to break up with me because I would spend my whole life bitter and angry and vengeful.

Guess he should ask for his money back on his Magic 8 Ball.

On the shallow front, it occurs to me that a fun bathing suit would be really awesome on the cruise. Some folks are campaigning for a two piece but I like this one and this one. Opinions? It isn’t that I dislike my midriff. It’s that I don’t see any options that make me go “Yeah that’s me.”

I think waiting until 12:30am on Monday to start typing is like my subconscious’ way of saying “I sorta did what I tried to do.”

Can I go back to sleep yet?

I spend so much time feeling so shitty. I’m feeling… really good.

I had help this weekend on the mosaic. It was a regular work party. It felt so good. I had so much fun. Thank you friends. And I should sleep cause I’m picking one of them up again later today for more help. (She needs to be out of her house for fumigation reasons. Yay me!) And another friend is helping later this week. This project may actually get done this month. Ha.

This is good and bad. If I finish… before they are getting close to tiling in the bathroom… I’m totally going to paint the kitchen ceiling. I have mixed feelings about that right now. It is bugging me so much that it looks bad. And I can’t keep remodeling shit this year. So it is get it done before the end of the bathroom or don’t do it.

I’m trying to have some boundaries.

So yeah. “Can have playdates” means people can come over while I remodel my house. Cause I’m fun like that. Hi. Uhhh… at least it is artistic?

Yeah. That just makes it slower.

Although… no… I won’t make that dig. Ahem.

The canopy of the autumn tree is gold and green and red and orange and purple. Blue shines through for sky to help shape the branches. It’s beautiful and I’m proud of it. I have posted some pictures on twitter.

Ok Reba. I’ll look at people. But I won’t stop at one. Oh. That’s not what you meant? Oh well.

Noah reminds me that I should go back to bed. He’s probably all responsible and such.

Sharing complications

3 Replies

I am… a tremendous asshole. I know this. I know this so terribly well. Noah and I have been talking a lot. I wish I had the spoons to record lots of it but I don’t. Ow.

This is the very first song I ever stripped to. There are things I’m still not going to discuss that have me singing this song to myself lately.

I gotta say, sex with Noah has been off the hook lately. We’ve been playing with erotic hypnosis stuff. As a result he is grinning so widely he looks like he is about to split his face. It’s going well. I am, uhh easily suggestible. I also have lots of experience in my background of what was essentially hypnosis orgasm training. Because my life has been awesome. So I’m physically capable of orgasming repeatedly on command. And we’ve been playing with erotic hypnosis.

*fan self*

It’s going well.

WHY AREN’T WE INSPIRED TO DO THIS SHIT WHEN WE ARE MONOGAMOUS?!

Neither of us know. And we feel sad about it. Because even though the sex has been intermittently good throughout the monogamy…

Sustaining heat like this is hard and it… mostly happens when I’m off fucking other people and I come home ready to sit on fire hydrants.

I want sex.

It isn’t because I’m not getting it at home. I’m getting it at home. I’m getting it fucking awesome at home. But it’s a symbiotic thing. We’ve been together a while now through several cycles.

Heh. This isn’t our first rodeo.

But I’ve clearly changed in what I want and in what I’m looking for and what this is going to mean. I’ve done a flat 180 on a whole bunch of things just about overnight.

WTF?

I don’t know.

I don’t want to miss the fun I could have in my 30’s. Being alive is so awesome.

I could work harder. I could work more.

My body is tired.

I don’t just “relax” very well. I never have. I’ve been working really hard for a really long time. I mean, I build a lot of playfulness into my work so I have fun being a workaholic… but that doesn’t mean I relax well and my body really needs me to relax.

I need to be able to do it without the pot.

No. I want to not need the pot. My lungs hurt. Other methods are so expensive.

I don’t know what I want from the future. I don’t know how much involvement in the bdsm community I want. I feel so conflicted about dragging Noah. He doesn’t feel much need for community around his sex life. He doesn’t feel weird. He doesn’t feel like he needs validation. And he’s less drawn to hunting.

For the rest of my life hunting is going to feel…. different. Now that I have cut someone open as they fuck me so I can suck the blood…

Holy fucking shit.

Cough

Sweet Jesus what is wrong with me? I have no self control lately. Things that have been off the table forever are just… interesting. There was a hot 24 year old. But he deleted his profile so I’m phew not going to get more pushing from there. I was having a hard time saying no.

Thank God he deleted his profile.

I wasn’t that temped only I was. Cause holy shit if you saw the pictures. But he deleted them.

I’ll just keep fucking my delightful old man. No hardship.

Why isn’t it enough?

It depends on what you mean by being enough.

For a long time now sex has been kind of a chore. I had a quota to fill and I put in my time meeting it whether I was interested or not.

Honestly I think it is kind of hot that I really did that for years. Just like I think it is hot that I did a whole lot of things that I genuinely didn’t want to do when I was a slave for years. I specifically like doing sexual things I don’t like to please my partner.

But there’s a cost. And a weird balance to find. Because I have to be pleased too or… I wilt. It is harder and harder not to cut.

I can clearly look back and see how how it is promiscuity or cut. That’s been a huge pattern for me. It is like I can choose to do what I need to do to stay small and shut up or I can go symbolically choose life. (Err, let’s be preventing those babies–shall we?)

This has been true since I was in grade school.

It’s complicated.

Noah told me he doesn’t do more cutting on me because he is worried about it taking the place of me cutting myself.

I wonder what cutting my submissive will mean in a grander scale. So far it makes me feel like a hyena, not like someone who should be small and quiet.

I mean, I’m manifesting this by being nice to little kids and making art in my house. I’m not acting more vicious anywhere else. (Err… I don’t think. I’m getting specific feedback that I’m doing well by a variety of observers. Forking everyone is commenting on me looking so happy.

Goodness gracious I’m getting laid well. You don’t know what it means.

So I’m not getting it everywhere I’m invited. I’ve been saying no. But I’m feeling more able to feel adored. Which sucks. Why can’t I get this from Noah? It’s not like he has changed how he feels.

Daddy and my submissive are both my friends when we aren’t fucking. Why is this so much more validating? It just is.

So much for once a month. So much for once a month per person. I’m having four dates with the deity this month and uhhh I should *cough* admit that.

I can see why my shrink is yelling at me. Yeah. Daddy and my submissive have both stayed in their boxes. I do see them more, but not in a way that is inconsistent with a very long relationship. In consistent settings.

Oh fuck.

Ok Noah Ok Noah Ok Noah. Yeah. That. Nervous. Yeah.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Yup. That’s what I’m going to go do. Fuck him. Yup.

Not my normal type. Nope. That’s why it is so dangerous. Yup. What the fuck is my type now. I don’t fucking know.

But I’m going to go do some fucking and find out? I’ll report back. I promise.

And then Cupid is writing me dreamy stories about where he is going to put his hand and I just can’t stop squirming.

It is about the expression in their eyes. I pick people for how their eyes come alive. That is what I look for. That connection. I want that. I’m getting it in spades and I feel… so very much. I feel so alive.

I’m not drowning in the river of want. But I’m not sated. I recognize that I’m being shit at boundaries and that can’t continue. Noah’s right that six months of this would be a problem.

What is sustainable?

I want to find out.

What is respectful?

I want to find out.

What is fair?

Oh get the fuck over that shit. Life ain’t fair. There is no fair. Fuck fair with a 2″x4″. (*phew* I did it right that time.)

If I am doing these things in service to loving myself, which I… rather think I am… I need to think about sustainability from the point of healing. I’m working on healing a whole bunch of different things. What does it all mean?

On that note my arms burn and my neck is sore from looking down. Goodbye oh laptop of doom. I love you. Kids are waking up. I get to go be present with the vanilla reality of my life. I choose this. I want this. I have fun with this.

It’s festive dealing with my Bonus Kids as they grow up. We hit speed bumps. They don’t like me every moment. I hold a lot of lines they don’t like but I’m happy to explain why I have the principles I have. “I put these things in front of you and tell you to do them because I have put a lot of work into knowing what is good for you right now. Please cooperate darling.”

They don’t always like me. I make them eat chard. Clearly I am from the devil.

You’ll live, beloved. And you’ll grow up feeling better in your body than I do.

Love is complicated. Sharing traditions and beliefs and desires is complicated. We all want different things. How can we get along? What is fair? Oh don’t even start.

What do we want? Since there is no fair. What do we want? Because there is a we and an I in this. I don’t even mean me and my intestinal parasites. I mean that in order to have what I want I need to have people in my life who want the intensity of connection I want.

I’m really kinda done with casual for the now. I mean… ok I’ll fuck people at a swingers party because that’s fun. But it’s a different kind of intense. First dates with strangers suck.

I’m spoiled as fuck. I’m good.

I have such lovely options available to me.

By the way, Deity and I were really good last night. I don’t think I let myself flood with oh god I like you when the kids were around. We didn’t kiss at all until the kids were asleep and we didn’t do anything even vaguely raunchy. We talked.

I’ve been wanting to talk to him like that for a long while. I uhhh doubt we will talk quite like that when I go over to his house. I think our mouths will be more distracted. And I am interested in these topics. And I need to god damn stop typing.

How can someone feel so lucky and so stupid and so happy and so nervous and so giddy and so relaxed at the same time? Well I kinda think anyone would feel relaxed after how much I came last night.

Holy shit, Noah.

Thanks.

I’m well done.

These are a few of my favorite things…

3 Replies

Lest I sound like a one trick pony… My Bonus Kids spent the night! As usual, this is thrilling and wonderful. I’m doing my best to smile pretty at their parents and say, “Wouldn’t split custody be niiiiiiiice?” Not 50/50 custody… but couldn’t I have them like 10% or 20% or 30% of the time?

It’s rather awkward to be all, “Hey I’d like to have more kids but I would die… can I borrow yours?”

So far they are willing to share somewhat. How much we will find out in the fullness of time. I’m thrilled.

Part of what I love so much about my Bonus Kids is that I am not the mama so problem solving is an entirely different process. I have mad respect for their relationship with their mama and I can see how she is the best mom in the world. She knows them to the marrow of their bones in I way I just can’t. They are foreign to me.

But it makes me think of my kids differently. Oh. That’s why things are so easy. That connection.

I don’t think that having biological children is the be-all/end-all of all of life… but I’m having a lot of fun.

My kids validate my existence in a way nothing else can or will. They needed me for survival. They have a lot of my weird/wacky traits without having lots of complex trauma stories behind them. That’s fascinating to watch.

My kids don’t need me for survival any more. They still need me, but it’s different.

A friend was over helping me with tile on Monday. All four of us got hungry. I asked the kids to make lunch and they did and it was good. (My hands were doing gross things.)

Tile plugs along. I probably have 15-20 more hours of removing backing from tile. I’m working on taping spring down. Then I want to finish winter. Then autumn. Then I have to figure out summer.

Oh goody.

Four more hours of taping spring? I think the mountain will take 4-8 more hours. Autumn is probably 10 hours away from done.

So that’s like eight days of work before I get to summer. No… closer to two weeks with how slow I’m going. Depends on how much help I get unbacking tile. Fudge. Uhm, at least the remodel is stalled and I don’t have to hurry. Ugh. This Friday I’ve been waiting nine weeks for a letter.

Once they move back in to start work they have about three weeks to go. So… I need to get my butt in gear. I need to be only working on summer when they get back started. Or be done with summer.

I think summer is going to need to be a different style of mosaic. I am looking at different techniques and options. It is so much fun to not have any idea what the hell I’m doing and just… make something cool.

Fuck yeah.

My garden is coming right along.

Last night I only got 7 hours of sleep, but I still feel better after two nights of sleep. I felt much better by yesterday afternoon.

I appreciate when I can misunderstand something and get over it in a 24 hour period. That was quite literally not possible 10 years ago. Progress is awesome. Noah patted me on the back and said he was really surprised how well I handled it. That’s nice of him. Thanks Noah.

I really have worked hard on mellowing out. It’s a process. You need to be safe to be mellow.

Thank you, Noah.

Oooh, another sweet point. Two wonderful friends asked me how I would feel about them asking Noah to play. Awwwww aren’t you the sweetest things? I feel charmed and delighted. You asked me first. Nobody is asking Noah first. But my friends ask me first before they go slide on up to my husband.

That was not required but hot damn you managed to slide into my magnanimous zone. Now you were so awesome that I’m going to put a lot of pressure on Noah to handle things right and be deserving. “Do you know how lucky you are to get women like that?! BE NICE.” Or not nice. Whatever y’all negotiate. Have fun!

Slutty women deserve to be treated like the angels of mercy they are. Be grateful. Or I’ll be pissed all the way off.

All hail slutty people of all possible gender configurations. Huzzah!

I love you all.

Not just because you are slutty… but that does make you feel like kin and I like that feeling.

What makes me happy? Noah. Noah is handling me hunting better than I am. When I over react and want to flip out over something he patiently reels me back in and explains why my feelings are out of proportion and I really should be giving people chances.

Maybe the reason I am more calm now is because someone is intimately aware of my thinking process and he helps me manage it. “Ok so you read this in an upsetting way. Let’s talk about that.”

For the record, folks, I don’t have a lot of privacy from Noah. Partially because I just don’t desire that kind of privacy but mostly because I need help managing my disordered thinking and Noah is willing and that requires access. So I give it to him.

If I keep secrets from Noah I will need some way of color coding that information in my brain so I can keep it from Noah. That sounds hard. I have enough hard in my life. I’d rather keep letting information pass through me like a sieve when it comes to Noah. That is the most comfortable part for me.

So that when I screw up and don’t tell him something right in the first place it’ll still come up because I have complete diarrhea of the mouth and I tell him everything so even if I do it in a dick way… everything is coming out and we can process it. Sometimes part of the processing is, “You told me that in a dick way.” Yeah. That’s true. I did.

I remain convinced that no one on this planet could love me like Noah does. Thank you Noah. I am so grateful for you.

Other happy news! We are going to be house-guest central. (Finish the bathroom, damnit!)

In April Dad is coming down to spend a weekend. This will be entertaining because he wants to see his bio-kids a fair bit too and they are having big feelings about me since my kids were born. They can ignore the slutty daughter-girlfriends. I’m… something different. They aren’t so sure they are ok with him adopting an adult child and being a grandparent. That is stepping on their toes. But it also looks somewhat like I may be the only one of the three of us to have kids. So yeah. Complicated. I’m trying to be as nice and accommodating as I can there. I like his bio-kids and I hope that we can long-term get more friendly. I hope. *cross fingers*

In May a friend from the Bay who moved east then moved west (but way the fuck north of here) is going to stay with us for a weekend. I’m excited about that. I haven’t seen her since before the kids were born.

Also in May we have a fun overnight adult-only camping thing I’m wicked excited about. I don’t know how it will go. When I used to go to these events, in the dim recesses of my memory, I remember lots of bdsm and fairly little sex. Some, but not a lot. These days… I’d uhhhh… yeah. I’m no longer content with a weekend of bdsm and no sex. I’ve changed. So yeah. I have no idea how this will go.

I had this really slutty idea about how to handle play at that party. Maybe I’ll write about it separately. Maybe I’m not quite that brave. Ahem.

Ahem.

Then in May I’m going to the grief ritual with Sarah. I’m so grateful she wants to come with me. I anticipate a full weekend sob/hug fest. That’s going to be magical. At the other grief rituals I have attended, I always went alone. The organizer always encourages hugs/physical support and… I’m me. Don’t fucking touch me who the hell are you? Especially when I’m freaked out and feeling vulnerable. Strangers just shouldn’t touch me. That’s not safe for any of us. Don’t do it. Sarah is safe. This is going to be a night and day different experience. It’s a full weekend retreat instead of going to and from a college campus every day on bart.

I’m looking forward to this. We have so much to talk about. So many different levels of wounding. We’ve already looked at a lot of this together over the 12ish years we’ve been doing whatever it is we are doing. But this is going to be super intense and heavy. In a way we both need. Thank you my friend. I am so grateful.

June is blissfully unscheduled and I think it should stay pretty close to that way.

July I get to host my friend and her two sons for three weeks. They are coming in from Arizona. I’m so excited. I met her on the road trip and we’ve talked a whole bunch since then.

I am really proud of how well I’m keeping the house up despite the chaos of the remodel and the amount of work I’m getting done. This is remaining a good work space. It feels accessible and functional. *pat myself on the back* (Let’s be real here: the kids are amazing these days. The road trip was worth it.)

I haven’t been gushing about the kids lately. Mostly cause my arms hurt and I’m obsessed with my sex life. But the kids are knocking my socks off. They are making such tremendous progress.

I’m happy that both kids say, “Can we take a break from classes?” It isn’t just coming from me and financially motivated. *phew* We could all use a break from trying to become something different and just… be for a little while.

August/September is the cruise. Looks like another family might be joining us after all. I am completely fucking thrilled and surprised and happy. I think that all four families might stay in Florida for a week after the cruise to see stuff. 7 grown ups and 6 kids sounds way more like a party.

My life is so ridiculously good I just don’t understand how I got here.

A child is waking up. It is time for the day to begin.

You just keep going

Do the best you can

Category Archives: brain dump

Ok, it’s time.

Sick babies are so much work.

Well this sucks; ok not everything sucks

I spoke too soon.

Home. And Petty.

Something has to give.

Chasing and being ok

What does “dating” mean anyway.

Inclinations

Sadomasochism, mental health, chronic pain and calibration.

Busy busy

Not productive enough

Waves of feelings

“good”

What is hope?

Burning

Briefly

Love is infinite. Time is limited like a motherfucker.

These are a few of my favorite things…