Category Archives: coping mechanisms

Procrastination and longing

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I hit 44,000 (and some) words then I haven’t written in two days. I feel overwhelmed and sad. When am I going to hit the point of feeling like “See! I am awesome! I have done all of the things! It’s amazing that I’ve done so well!”

I don’t know.

I feel sad and small and insufficient. I don’t think I should because I’m rather sufficient. Is there any advantage to being amazing or awesome? Sufficient is how I get through. Just barely good enough, that’s me.

The next chapter I write has to be about the screaming. It has to be an abject apology to my children. An admission that it has absolutely never been their fault when I lose control and I am so terribly sorry. I didn’t know how to create better boundaries so that I would have enough space for me so that I would have a more adequate amount to give to you. That was a huge failure on my part and it is entirely my fault. It is never ever ever ever your fault when I scream.

I love you and I am sorry I have failed you. I have.

This is going to be a rough chapter. I’m not writing it for you the readers of the blog; I write it because someday when my children struggle with feeling like the bad parts were all their fault I want them to be able to read it again. No, my darlings. It was not your fault. It was mine. I am deficient and that is a horrible burden you have had to bear.

It was never because I didn’t love you. It was always because I ran out of cope and that is a terrible, horrible truth.

Today Youngest Child demanded outside time as we waited for yet another package to be delivered so we went out in the yard. I took advantage of this time and got about 1/3 of the grass cut. I am a hippy so of course I have a push mower instead of an electric or gas one. I am having fun with it but I’m not sure the lawn looks “neat”. It would not pass muster if one were intent on a uniform lawn. To be fair I think this is either my very first or my second time ever cutting grass and the previous time might have been more than twenty years ago. Learning curves are real. I will improve, but it will take some time.

I am trying to figure out what I am going to do with the yard as I look outside the window. On one hand, I want to put up large trellises to block view and on the other hand, I worry about making the yard feel more closed off. I think that before I am allowed to plant anything I want to get some string and try to limit the walkways through the grass to start playing with how much grass I want to leave for running on. I want to be able to plant food in the yard. I sort of want to put planter boxes covering the driveway area, we don’t want a car after all, but I think I might regret that. I don’t know yet. It will take me a while. I don’t have to decide today. Or even in the next year.

I’m trying to put boundaries in place so I don’t fuck things up in the same way I have in the past. In the process I might just fuck things up in a whole new way.

Life is thrilling.

Ten days till I go in for my next doctor appointment. She probably won’t be the one to cut more out of me, but it’s still important.

Our boat stuff won’t arrive for another month. I am feeling pretty upset. Our Christmas decorations aren’t going to arrive until a week before Christmas. I may leave stuff up until February.

I’m drinking too much. By which I mean I’m having a drink a day. Well, somehow I need to find the self control and never buy another bottle of whisky. Because alcohol contributes to nine kinds of cancer and I have to be here for people.

All the mother fucking feelings. Oh well. Shut up.

Ok, it’s time.

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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.

Continuing on a theme

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When I say I worry about too frequent contact there are a couple of folks I am thinking about.

There’s this really nice lady in my life. She used to be my next door neighbor. She’s going through a traumatic divorce (her ex is a real shit weasel) and she’s now dealing with his bullshit from India. So when we talk we spend a lot of time with her asking me questions about the legal system. In the past I have had to explain a lot of stuff about the DMV. She’s not super big on answering her own questions with internet searches because she doesn’t even know where to begin. (Frankly, now that I am searching from outside the US I see how much harder it is from a distance. My ignorance is vast.)

It’s not that I get nothing from the friendship. I get a lot. I like her quite a bit and she teaches me about things and I really like being a helper.

But she keeps asking if we can talk every day because she could really use the support. I… call every three months. That’s what I can handle. I feel like a shit weasel because she needs more support and she wants to get it from me but… I would flip out if I tried to talk to her for over an hour every day. I just can’t. It’s a lot of thinking and work on my end to solve her problems for her and she only occasionally does anything to follow the advice she spends a lot of time asking me for. That’s hard. It drains me. I feel exhausted by the end and then I am a less good mother. That’s not fair to my kids every day.

Another friend is an oldie-but-goodie. He was my boss from 16-19 and we’ve stayed in touch over the years. He’s often told me that I’m one of the few people on the planet who is allowed to tell him what he should do because I’m the only one who a)knows him well enough and b)gives good enough advice. He is currently living with his folks because he is retired and his parents require hospice care. He doesn’t know how much longer this will go on because their bodies are failing fast.

He’s super depressed. He’s isolated. He has had a whole career focused on culture and the arts and he is absolutely despondent to be back in this one horse small Texas town. There’s barely a movie theater and absolutely no real theatre. There isn’t a good bookstore or library and frankly he doesn’t have the money to buy stuff online. He’s not doing well. I talk to him every couple of weeks for a few minutes at a time. If he wanted longer chats… I couldn’t do it so often. He wants to talk for half an hour or less, but he needs contact. He needs to feel like he was not forgotten. He needs to process how hard and sad and traumatizing the work he is doing is for him and there is no such thing as a support group or available therapists where he is.

I love these people. My old boss with great intensity–he was an important mentor to me at a crucial time in my life. He taught me everything I know about carpentry, electrical work, rigging, and painting. I love this man. I don’t mind offering him support.

But I only have so much to give.

As a dear man has said to me, I’m more of a foul weather friend. It is hard for me to be present for the best times of peoples lives. I am someone that people depend on when everything is going wrong. That’s not all bad, but it is hard. It means I feel less like setting boundaries is a good thing because my friends are hurting. I know I can help alleviate pain.

Because of posts I make on public forum I have a whole bunch of folks who are sending me private messages essentially asking for therapy.

This is complicated! I’m good at it. I do help people feel better. I tend to have a few month cycles where a given person messages almost every day then they move through their crisis and I don’t hear from them much anymore.

I often feel like these dynamics are my fault. I feel like I create a crisis if none exists. I feel like people not wanting to share good times with me is my fault. When Sarah wanted me to be there for her good time (at my expense so she could focus on other people) I kind of made that not go well. I didn’t want to just help her have a good time while I saw her for a few minutes a day. Not given how hard it was for me.

I will put that much effort into helping people through trauma without expecting anything back but I can’t put that much effort into helping someone else have a good time without me. I just fucking can’t.

I feel… broken. I feel selfish. I feel cruel and mean. I don’t know if I actually am or not. I don’t expect people going through trauma to focus on me. I deeply resent when someone wants me to be furniture in the room while they have a good time without me.

I don’t know how to perceive this in myself beyond my default that I am wrong and of course these people I love are better/more right than me.

My old boss could go six months at a time without talking to me when his life was going well. I was never invited to the parties or events. I could have invited myself to some of them… if I found out about them in advance, which was rare.

I don’t know if I have the right to feel used.

I don’t know what to do about always putting myself in these kinds of positions. I am trying to have more boundaries around it all.

Why do people only want to talk to me when their lives are going to shit?

I suspect it is because I emote for people. I also expect people to be working on shit all the time. Most people, when things are going well, don’t want to change at all. They want to hold their breath and stand very still and hope things continue. I can’t do that. To me change is as inevitable as breathing and if you try to crystalize in the “good part” of your life you will cause yourself great pain in the future when you need to know things you don’t already know. You have to keep changing and growing or learning or you are going to create a problem at some point coming up.

What don’t you already know? Hurry up and learn it. Or you will experience pain because of that lack.

My kids and I have been watching documentaries all during their school break. We have a lot to talk about. Netflix has some great ones out at this point! We don’t watch casual, fun things. We try to learn more about what we need to do in the future. How are humans creating problems and what do we need to do about them? What can we do about them?

Don’t stand in one place assuming everything is fine or the ship will sink while you are on the dance floor.

Incidentally my kids want break to be over so bad. They want to go back to school. Ha. They want kiiiiiiiiiiiids.

People don’t often reach out to me to say “Things are going great for me! I’m happy!” I feel like this is because I am such an asshole and I might rain on their parade. I am quite an Eeyore. I feel like this is appropriate. And it makes me feel rather sad about myself. I don’t know exactly what I need to change in myself to be someone that people want to talk to about good things too.

Ugh. I’m up early catching up on the only vlog I follow. I’m making tea to go with it. Time to stop typing.

PS- after watching the vlog for a while I have to smack myself in the forehead. Yes. Sometimes people do put a bunch of effort into sitting around and telling me about the good in their lives.

It’s complicated.

Like Ursula I am wasting away

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I have lost a solid 10 lbs since I left California. I am eating cake when I want it, candy bars, daily massive quantities of tea with 3 teaspoons of sugar in every cup. I am not on a diet. But even with days that I barely move from exhaustion I am up to averaging 4.5 miles/day. As my tolerance builds that average will go up and I will have fewer collapsed from exhaustion days. I am working on meeting the neighbors. I have now met a few houses down the road (no one up the hill yet) and I have chatted with several of the folks who walk past our house for exercise or to commute.

I got to the school super early yesterday and talked to several parents/grandparents. “Hi I’m Krissy and I’m new here.” It’s like old times. Only now I follow up with, “What should a new person know about this community?” I am getting some fascinating answers I won’t write down because if people find my blog and see themselves quoted it could go sideways. But the answers are great.

The general consensus is that yes I should get a dog if I want to do a lot of exercise on my own because no it would not go well if I defended myself like I would in California. But a dog is allowed to attack someone on my behalf. Social mores, yo. I am happy that I was reading that right. I am a bit freaked out that it is true. I will be getting a dog. But first: cats. I want the dog to come into a house with cats so that the dog adjusts to this being the norm. Which means we should get cats soon. Our house is going to be pretty insane for a while as all of the humans and felines and canines adjust to one another. I am going to need to spend a fair bit of time at home helping everyone learn appropriate behavior. Everyone involved will need to understand that I am the alpha. Mama sure wears the pants in this family. I wear them under my skirts.  (Noah gets to wear pants too. Trousers as well!)

Noah is working on meeting people for his purposes as well. He is less focused on neighbors and more focused on computer nerds far flung around the country. The kids are having a great time meeting kids at school. One of ECs new buddies suggested that if we (ECs parents) are willing to pay for the airline tickets that EC could go to Spain with them for school holidays. I declined that gracious offer. But I think the kids are sliding into place at school just fine. My kids are really unhappy that there will be two weeks off of school after this Friday. They want to be in school. It’s hilarious and wonderful.

I am diligently working on getting the recycling out of the house now that I know where I can walk it to. I would like the back log of recycling to dwindle before the boat stuff arrives because then I am going to be swimming in a sea of cardboard. I will be advertising that lot on freecycle because they are all lovely standard sizes and super sturdy.

I think we will use the school holidays to start seeing about getting cats. And to practice bike riding. And to rest and read books. Excellent. For once I am not sad at all about the Christmas creep. Given that we want to go slowly with our budget we bought four pieces of garland and two strings of lights yesterday. We have a huge house and no decorations. It will be fun to have stuff trickle in. Time to eat.

Grace and grabbing

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Yesterday I was chatting with the head teacher for a moment as I picked up the kids. She is in the process of packing up because she is leaving the school after next week. She has had a 35 mile commute for years and it is wearing her down. I was generally encouraging in that way that I am, “Go for it! You have a life to lead. Don’t wait for the things you want.” She said, “I want to be like you. I want to grab life with both hands.”

It’s kind of amazing that people perceive me that way after one week of acquaintance. Yes. I do.

People keep asking us if we are settled yet. My response is, “Our stuff hasn’t even arrived from the boat yet.” Their eyes go wide in shock. We don’t have electricity figured out yet (here in the UK they don’t shut off your electricity between registrations they just charge you triple, which is fun) and our internet is a travel unit that’s horribly expensive and doesn’t work very well and causes a great deal of frustration. The real internet company keeps “losing” our requests to get service. I just got a bank card yesterday. Everything about applying for credit cards is a nightmare (there is no transference of credit history between countries… it’s like we have no credit history at all) and the US cards are being awful. Yes I have travel notices with them. Doesn’t help.

But last night Her Sweetness slept in a toddler bed and the big kids slept in their own rooms. Can I really complain?

We all make mistakes. We all say things wrong. We all trip and knock into someone. We are all stunted trees leaning towards the light. If we don’t give each other grace and patience on that journey we will not be able to have love. I am going to make a lot of errors as I integrate into this culture. Despite the fact that people look like people I would see in the US they don’t act the same. Their expectations of me are quite different. I am going to fuck up. I need forgiveness. I will need forgiveness from myself and from other people. That means I must forgive people who mess up towards me.

When my kids fuck up and feel really bad sometimes I tell them that I forgave them on the day they were born for every mistake they will ever make. I will be cranky sometimes because fixing mistakes is hard, but forgiveness is not in question. You are forgiven.

It’s harder and more complicated with adults. For one thing, you aren’t my crotch dropping and they get a level of grace no one else will ever get from me. Sorrynotsorry.

And I have to be honest with myself that Sarah burned me hard. The frequency with which she used accusations of having a personality disorder if I behaved in a way that made her feel bad about herself (you know… noticing that she made promises she wouldn’t keep…) means that a lot of the grace I want and need to give to other friends is… not there at the moment. It will grow back, but it’s going to take time. Healing from burns takes time. As I’m working on healing it is not ok to hurt other people.

When I’m having big feelings it is ok to say that I’m having feelings. It is not ok to name call or retaliate or be nasty.

It does not make me bad if I am upset or sad or angry.

My feelings do not mean that I am bad.

Angrily packing does not make me bad.

Kicking the cabinet door off the wall… that was bad. Calling someone names is bad. Breaking something that belongs to someone else is bad.

Having the feeling does not mean I have a personality disorder. And someday I will get to the point of not hating myself for having feelings when a friend does something that hurts me.

We all fuck up sometimes. We say things poorly. We are vague in a way that causes pain. We choose words that may have an impact we don’t intend. This is where grace comes in. If you are going to grab life with both hands and chase your dreams sometimes you will grab too hard and leave a bruise. Sometimes your hands will slip (fucking greasy lotion) and you will drop something important. Sometimes you will be trying to grab with both hands and the damn lid of the tea pot will break on the counter.

Shit happens.

That is where grace comes in. Love. Forgiveness. Try to sleep it off then get up and try again. Life is an adventure. Sometimes adventures make you cry.

Today is the day.

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

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

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

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

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

I’m telling you, I’m excited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life is a balancing act.

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

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

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

Well this sucks; ok not everything sucks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Traveling is eventful.

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First: it was an a small adventure figuring out how to dispose of the expired car seat I was borrowing. Portland does not make it easy. They wanted us to drive over half an hour to a transfer station to pay like $28 to throw it in the garbage because they don’t recycle them. Instead we found a dumpster behind a hotel.

Then when we got to the airport I learned that Her Sweetness and I were not able to have our boarding passes printed for the whole trip. We got boarding passes to Hong Kong and then we got to cross our fingers everything would work out from there. That’s an anxiety producing situation for me. Holy cheese toast. But I tried to stay cool and calm and in the end it just meant an extra 15 minutes of processing in the airport. No big deal. China just has slightly different rules about traveling with a lap infant.

American Airlines website said they would only give us 1 meal on the flight. Instead they served 3 and we got to throw away a lot of food. That could be worse. But the AA flight was… not amazing. It felt budget and unfriendly and not very helpful. I have dreams about the kindness of Philippine Airlines. Such a lovely airline. I mean: AA expects you to go back and self serve on snacks and drinks instead of them coming by and offering them to you. But they also don’t want you out of your seats unless you MUST. So that’s not a fun situation for a 14 hour flight.

No more 14 hour flights in our future!

I liked the Hong Kong airport. The shops were top notch and folks were very patient and low key. That’s a relief after the US. It felt a little bit like the DMV only nicer? Like, people were just doing the thing and it’ll get done and you can wait… it’ll be fine…

The Bangkok airport was fine. Getting the taxi was fine. Then we got to our apartment. I looked 9,837 at the confirmation information I had and… no information about how I was to get into the apartment. So I started calling the host and sending her messages. This continued for an hour in the blistering heat. I had been awake for most of the previous 48 hours (If I got 6 hours of sleep added up in cat naps I’d be surprised) and I was not really feeling patient.

Eventually she woke up and asked why we didn’t call the guy who was waiting in the apartment. THE GUY YOU NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT AND YOU NEVER GAVE ME HIS NUMBER? THAT GUY?!?!?!

Then it turns out that the guy DIDN’T GIVE US A FUCKING FRONT DOOR KEY, JUST THE ELEVATOR PASS.

So that sucked. Noah was dispatched a few times to acquire food since we couldn’t all go. We ate. We rested. We bitched.

Eventually the lady had someone bring us a key and she gave me phone numbers for local people who can help with problems. I told her, “May I suggest that in the future you send an email 24 hours before check in with the name and phone number of the person a guest is supposed to meet?” She thought that was a good idea. Oy.

The apartment came stocked with 1/4 of a roll of toilet paper. Good thing there is a convenience store down stairs. But we are back in the land of bidets so my hemorrhoids are feeling better than they have in months.

Apparently my time in Kuala Lumpur was not real indicative of Malaysia in general because I didn’t see almost any garbage. Here in Bangkok I feel like garbage is raining down on us and flooding the pathways. So. Much. Trash.

Folks in Fukuoka would have a heart attack. Then get up from their hospital bed to start cleaning.

God damn different Asian countries are different. I am such an ignorant fucker. I didn’t realize it would be quite this dramatic.

When you drive into the city from the airport there are large signs telling you that speaking ill of the king will result in jail time. Also: being disrespectful of the Buddha or getting a tattoo of his image will result in jail time. They don’t fuck around.

Fair enough.

I come from a crazy ass country where every man, woman, and child in Texas owns 6+ guns and that’s not including the rest of the fucked up states. We never get to judge another country negatively for having…. views.

The food. *Fall over drooling* the fooooooooooooooooooooooooood. We are a 5 minute walk from a night market that serves absolutely amazing food. I could live happily forever on the variety of offerings they have. Middle Child and I had different types of tasty noodles in soup. Noah and Eldest Child had rice dishes from a different stall. Her Sweetness ate off of everyone’s plate until she realized how spicy Noah’s food was. Ha. We had fun drinks. They weren’t as sugary as we are used to from home but they were intensely fatty in a way the US doesn’t favor and frankly it tasted way better. MC had a “unicorn” which was sugar, condensed milk, two kinds of coloring, and flavors of I don’t know exactly what sort. Then there were a bunch of candies shoved into the top with sprinkles. I had a more plain caramel drink. It wasn’t a lot of caramel. But it was super good? Noah and EC had Thai iced teas with boba. Mmmmm.

Our lunch at a perfectly decent restaurant was around 900 baht. Our fabulous, wonderful, over the top good dinner at the night market was about 350 baht. Then this morning our breakfast at the grocery store cost around 600 baht just for the food (we got other staples and paid more like 1400 baht overall). 1 baht = .033 US So the lunch was around $30, the dinner was around $11 and breakfast + staples was around $45.

The night market is just so gosh darn cheap.

The traffic pattern is a bit intimidating to us: it is reminiscent of Kuala Lumpur but slightly less terrifying? Fewer motorcycles running up on sidewalks to go around cars. Here the motorcycles mostly only go up on the sidewalk if they are parking or dropping off passengers?

I am finding it fascinating that Her Sweetness is Not. Fucking. Interested. in being popular with all the local folks who would love to pick her up and chatter at her about how cute she is. She is getting a very effective “Fuck off” face. Good for her.

Sleep. Oy sleep. It’s all over the place. None of us are sleeping well. The AC helps, but it is still uncomfortable and jet lag is a bitch. Resetting a babies sleep pattern is not the same as an adult just “toughing it out”. You can’t do that to her. She melts down. She starts wandering back and forth screaming about all the things she wants but she doesn’t really want because the second she has it she is screaming about something else she wants. Sleep is the only remedy. She was super upset when Noah decided to stay downstairs and work in the common area so we don’t all have to be quiet. She wants her Bigs with her all. the. time.

Once we got through the fuss, I quite like this apartment. It is small but well laid out. The couch is awesome (it is pretty rad that I wanted to buy this couch from Ikea for our new house, I made everyone go on a pilgrimage to Ikea to sit on it in Portland. Now that we have used it for a few days everyone is fully on board with this being an awesome couch for us. This one.) and we are glad to have it here. The bed is pretty comfy. I am not sure when I became such an intense devotee of firm mattresses, but I am. Firm is great.

I am tapping my fingers waiting until Noah is done with work for the day. There are 5 or 6 Thai massage places within a 10 minute walk. Hell yeah. They all cost 300 baht or less. So… less than $10/hour. Can I have like 11 hours straight?

I had my last dose of pot on the plane. My intention (If I put this in writing, maybe I will stick with it) is to not buy alcohol at all until I genuinely feel like I have a small surplus of money in the food budget and that could not happen until October or November. I’m almost out of Ativan and I don’t intend to get more.

I’m about to be cold turkey on all of my drug dependencies.

Did I mention I plan to run a lot in Scotland? Like, when I am having feelings and I want to reach for a chemical crutch… go run instead.

I am going to learn how to be a healthy role model if it fucking kills me. I have made a tremendous amount of progress but I am not where I am going to get. Tea is going to be my big vice and I need to reduce how much sugar I put in it. (Jenny’s eyes got So Big when she watched me sugar my tea… yeah… I use a lot.) I should probably buy cubes and I get one per cup.

I am not going to buy soda again to have in the house until I also buy whiskey because I like drinking them together. Or maybe I will learn to drink my whiskey neat. We’ll see. One way or another I don’t plan to have the money to buy whiskey often enough to be a big influence on my life. Luckily I live with someone who thinks that alcohol should be served in roughly 1/2 a shot glass portions.

Yesterday was our anniversary. 13 years of marriage. I am glad we have had these adventures together. I am even more glad we are about to settle down for the foreseeable future. I want to be chilly. I want to exercise. I want to stop fucking packing.

Had a chat with EC about how much it costs to maintain cats. She wants to have two. She started panicking when she heard how much Puff used to cost me. And she wants two. We negotiated that she can do 5 hours a week of babysitting to pay for her cats. Seems like a good trade to me. We are starting with mothers helper work (she is NOT responsible for MC) and we will go from there.

It is neat hearing her strategize how she wants to do her room. She is highly cognizant of how expensive her plans are (she wants a custom built loft bed that looks like a treehouse) and she is trying to figure out which parts she can do, which parts she wants to ask me to help with, and which parts she will need to have the £ to pay someone else to help her. I feel so proud of her. Her planning skills are still nascent but she’s going to be fucking bad ass as an adult. She thinks things through. I mean, she’s still impulsive as fuck because she has ADHD like whoa but she can also plan. It’s amazing.

MC is more focused on the school part of moving. Setting up a room is not really on the radar yet. School supplies, uniforms, how to make friends, how to write in cursive… kiddo really can’t move past those details and that’s totally ok.

Her Sweetness is learning words at a blistering rate. She is going to be closer th ECs curve with talking than MCs. Doesn’t matter, they are all fine and normal and doing what they ought to be doing. But holy cheese she says a lot. People keep asking me if she is 3 or 4 based on her size and talking. Nope. 18 months. And she’s my smallest baby. Cue the bug eyes.

Folks have asked me if I am pregnant more than once. I laugh it off and tell them I am just fat. If I got upset I think the interaction would be tense but instead we all have a good laugh and move on about our day without strife. I am trying so hard not to let other peoples judgments of me impact how I view myself.

I am pretty fat at this point. I’m riding the 200 lb line and on my frame… that’s not small. The lightweight pants I have that zip off into shorts are so tight they are really uncomfortable. No bueno. My dresses barely fit. I am not going to fit into my flannel lined jeans unless I lose some weight.

It’ll be ok. My body does this. I bounce between the 150’s and the low 200’s. I have done this over and over and over since I was 16. This is my range. It is all normal for me.

I hope I can go to bed early tonight and I hope I actually sleep through. I sure could use it.

We go home in six days.

Our house is paid for and legally ours. Miss Jenny will be picking the keys up this week for us. I am elated. I feel really glad that she gets to be the first one to take possession of our house for us. I feel so welcomed. I feel so wanted. She is being super awesome about telling us to go ahead and start ordering things to her house and we will get it over to my place lickity split once we are there. She wants us to feel comfortable and happy.

I know there will be days we struggle and feel home sick because that is part of the journey of change. But I want this change with my whole being. My entire family wants to be there for a wide variety of reasons. I have great faith we will figure this out.

We figure a lot of things out. We are pretty cool like that.

You need to get the chip off of your shoulder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also, I stay home a lot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s nice being trusted.

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

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

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

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

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

We are so excited.

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

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

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

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

I am happy about that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We will be fine.

PT

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I did it. I haven’t done the dilation yet. It takes privacy. I should have done it in the bath tub but frankly I am feeling overwhelmed with all the “must do” stuff. I made seven phone calls today. Only four of them turned out to be useful. (Two important confirmations; two appointments with solicitors.)

I feel on the verge of tears. I go through cycles of dealing with my feelings around disability. But the plain truth is I have been in pain for almost 30 years. I need to give zero fucks what anyone else thinks about how I live with that. But I’m not there. I feel ashamed. I feel like I am stupid and pathetic and I should shut up and just work harder.

But I would be this degraded if I had stopped working harder years ago.

It’s a Catch 22.

When Her Sweetness wakes up we will walk over to Jenny’s. I will put one, maybe two plants in the ground because that makes my soul feel better. I will decide after the first one how my arms feel. Middle Child will get to play with his cousins. We will get in our daily walk going one way and we will take a taxi back. We shouldn’t stay very many hours. Tomorrow will be an incredibly long day going to Aberdeen to meet a solicitor. But, this is the process.

Do it.

This is why I hired her

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“What makes you so special as to not need the same care and consideration as other people? (And I don’t mean the experiences you have had, I mean what do you think is intrinsically so special about you that you don’t need care and consideration. I don’t so much care what other people have told you as what you tell yourself at this point)”

Well, fuck. Thanks for putting me on the spot. Hahaha. Uhm, err…

Ok, this is actually kind of hard to admit and I feel awkward and stupid and silly. I do actually think I am special. I do actually think I am tougher and stronger than other people. I keep going and I keep working long after other people stop because they “can’t” any more. I mean… other people have phrased this in ways that I like and that I agree with, “You have all the force of personality as a star being born.” Yup. I mother fucking do. (Sometimes people say nice things to me in addition to shitty things.)

I believe I am capable of working no matter how much pain or distress I am in. There is a point where I slow down and there is a point that I stop but that point is long long long past the point when all medical tests say I should have stopped months or years ago. I am absolutely freakishly strong. It’s not that I can dead lift more than other people (I can’t) it is that I have a single minded focus and ability to put aside all care for myself and WORK. I am not always a nice person when I do this.

I believe this is part of how my ancestors, who were frankly despised folk a lot of the time, kept surviving when lots of folk wished them dead. We can put our heads down and work and make it through and fuck you very much.

My medical support team (there are a lot of people in it) have been trying to talk me into doing less for literal years. They have been pointing out the growing irreversible damage and hoping that noting this will slow me down. It has had… some effect on my behavior. But then I pick up a project and blow through things like you wouldn’t believe.

Some folks have asked me if they could hire me to do art in their houses. I said no. The way I work is extremely deleterious to my body and you can’t pay me enough to cover the medical care I need to survive it so I can’t give that labor to you and put the strain on my family. It’s not fair.

Why do I take such pride in cleaning my own stupid house? Because when people walk in and gasp and say “Oooooh, I can’t believe how clean and tidy and inviting your house is” I swell with pride. I did that.

I feel like if I am paying someone else to do the cleaning I don’t have as much right to the pride. I want that pride so badly.

My mom spent a lot of my childhood crying because she didn’t have the time or energy or money to have a home she could be proud of. That was a major wound for her. In some way I feel like I take so much pride in my space because I am trying to heal that wound, that isn’t even exactly my own.

But you and Jenny and Pam are right. Paying house cleaners is cheaper than paying for physical therapy and massage and chiropractic care and acupuncture and therapy for my kids after I have hysterically screamed at them to clean their shit up.

This sense of pride really has to evolve. I am struggling with that. It is hurting me and my family at this point.

I can hold on to being nice when my pain level is consistently above a 5. It’s hard and it takes effort, but I can. When my pain levels are higher than that [meaning a lower number on this scale] (I like this scale: https://www.theacpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Life_Scale_3.pdf ) I don’t hold on to being nice very well. I don’t do very well when I can’t do work. I feel bad about myself.

Like, I should have tapped out of the road trip long before it finished. I was at the point of having a black ring around my vision because I was damaging my body so much that it was impacting my ability to see. I was a bitch. I had no patience. I slapped my daughter when she sat down to rest and I thought we needed to finish work before I got to rest so her sitting there casually was an absolute affront. I am not saying that to be prideful. Slapping her was wrong. But I don’t hit my kids on the regular. That was a major department from my normal control.

I need to change my perception of my ability to work because I need to not get to that point again.

What do I tell myself that makes me so special? Why do I deserve less care and consideration? I tell myself that I am a tool. A tool with an absolutely absurd ability to accomplish work. And you don’t love your tool. You use them up and throw them away. The trouble is that my family really does love me. They don’t want me to be thrown away. They want me to be around for decades. If I continue to damage my body like this… I won’t be. It’s just a simple, literal fact.

“In my own struggle with ADD I’ve learned that sometimes wanting to change the system is just a distraction from whatever I’m trying to actually get done. It’s a handy distraction I can really get involved in and suck up all my time instead of just doing the other things. I consider it a red flag to get too bogged down in reworking the system. Not that l don’t ever change it, but I try and wait to work on the system till after I’ve pressed forward on the thing I’ve been avoiding. If I still want to change it, I will, but often I don’t want to any more”

I know what you mean. My problem is that a lot of things are falling through the cracks right now because for years I had an excellent white board system that kept me from forgetting up coming stuff and currently I am trying to write things down on paper and then I never look at that piece of paper again and… that’s a problem. I do need a system. I am not able to have a wall system while we travel.

I am trying to set up Omni Focus (a computer based tracking system Noah loves) because I am on my computer and this lets me set up things with greatly delayed notifications so everything doesn’t feel like “Do it today or it will never get done.” Yes, in some way it is a distraction but it is also solving an actual problem I’m having right now. I’m struggling with keeping all the various levels of schtuff in a place where I go back and look at it. It’s been a problem for the past six months since we took the white boards down. A lot of things have fallen through the cracks. The kids are doing ok with their level of commitment on paper, my task lists are really complex and have many sub layers. I need a new system. It’s not a distraction it is important.

Also, I am an organization nerd and I am having fun thinking through whether things are parallel, sequential, or single action. That’s a useful way for me to process the things that are going on for me. It’s also forcing me to think through things like: physical therapy isn’t “one more stupid thing to do” it is mandatory for me to feel good and be happy. It is solving a major life goal because I can’t be a good mother or a good wife or a good friend if I feel bad and I am miserable.

Cleaning the table after meals is one more stupid thing to do.

Getting shoes that don’t rub me raw and give me terrible blisters in the rain is not one more stupid thing to do. It’s part of making sure I feel good so I can be happy.

It’s useful to try and tell the difference between these tasks? I’m trying to think about tasks in terms of what goals are they serving. I don’t think I have done that in this way before. The web copy on the Omni Focus website is absolutely nauseating in how it phrases things but it isn’t wrong. Mind mapping my goals in life is really important. Thinking through how my behavior enables or supports or inhibits different goals is really important.

Like: I truly want to rewrite Outrunning Suicide before the kids start school. I would like to co-write it with them. That means I have 14 months. So I’d better figure out how to schedule that work now. Or I will run out of time and never get around to it. I want to write a book that is teaching life and coping skills for kids in their current age bracket. I can’t think of better co-writing partners. (I briefly mentioned to them quite some time ago that I would really appreciate doing this and they said they would really want to help me do this. Both kids want to help with the phrasing and with illustrations.)

I have a lot of things I get distracted by in my head. It’s useful to be able to map it out, put a due date on it and stop thinking about it until it is time to think about it. Right now with the paper method I am having to keep thinking about it or I will forget entirely and never do it. So we’ll see.

Thank you for challenging me.

Homework (what do I need to work on)

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

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

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

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

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

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

He got everything done with time to spare.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need to learn from my children.

Things I need to write about.

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I fired the online therapist who was not working for me. I asked a buddy if she was willing to do some coaching for me because she gives outstanding advice and she said that sounds like a fun project for a bit. She gave me some stuff to think/write about. I can’t get into it fully tonight but I am going to collect her current questions for me.

She asks/says:

“We need to explore what needs to be different about the kids for the long run, so that can be addressed. Make a list, word vomit, whatever feels good about what you struggle with them on, especially if it feels like whack-a-mole- always popping up.”

“On the “I’m a changing, fluid person and people find that hard to cope with” there are a few things to explore about that.

  • One, if a person has unclear boundaries (like we’ve talked about on the general board in regards to the attacking you) sometimes you suck up things that are actually not fine, and sometimes you get upset. This makes it hard for people, especially if you bring up the times they were wrong and you didn’t tell them. They get confused. So- the lines are the lines, and pushing on them should always be noted. (Boundaries can absolutely change over time too)
  • Two- if people have a wife/mom/employee appliance concept of a person, they can’t cope with changing needs on a day to day basis. Rosie the Robot maid doesn’t live here.
  • Three- anyone who score keeps, even a little, even in a very deep down place, will have trouble with changing needs. It’s too hard to add up if they are getting what they are giving (or more, depending on the selfish bend to it). So it’s frustrating for them to have you constantly need different things.
  • Four- of course people with certain types of a-typical neurological patterns will have trouble, but that’s not the majority of the people we are talking about
  • Five- children can have a hard time with a parent’s changing needs, because they don’t always recognize their mother as a separate person from themselves. Coming to terms with this is part of the developmental stages.
  • Six: “guessers”, from the ask vs guess culture have trouble since if you change all the time they have a hard time getting it right.
  • Seven: the opposite of ask vs guess might be declare vs expect. So if a person isn’t taking responsibility for declaring their needs, and instead expects people will just “figure out out”, that is confusing for people because they can’t get that right.

:point_right: I might even think of some more later, but that’s certainly a start for you to chew on as far as thinking about some past relationships and what patterns they might have had that need to be changed for better future relationships.”

“Are you aware of your needs as they come on, or only as they become urgent? Basics like food, toilet, water, sleep? Others like privacy, quiet, time for self, relaxing, rest, connecting to Noah? if the answer is yes, are you speaking up in the moment it starts? Or at least acting on it yourself? Or does it need to become urgent in order for you to act?”

I will try to get some sleep tonight and come back and more fully answer these tomorrow. But if I fail to get to them tomorrow… they are here and I know I need to be respectful of my friend’s time and energy. It is very kind for her to do this when it isn’t her job. (I offered to pay her for her time, but this isn’t her career. She’s being nice to me. Like when my friend asked me if she could pay me to listen to her and give her advice. The circle goes around.)

That’s how I feel about you.

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My kids and I were talking about negative moods yesterday. I spent a lot of the day crying and when I wasn’t crying I was mostly grumpy. I’m depressed. I fucking hate Mother’s Day. I am over extended as a lifestyle and there are consequences. This is normal cycle for my shitty brain. Negative moods are part of life.

They said that they have each had thoughts wondering if life would be better if they were dead. I said, “Well–do you feel like your life would be better if I were dead?” “NO NO NO NO NO” “Well, that’s how I feel about you. I feel like the world would turn dark and grey and I would never be fully happy again. I made you because I wanted to see you have a different childhood than mine and I wanted to see you grow up and I wanted to be part of your life events. Losing out on that would basically mean the end of hope for me. So no, it would never ever be better if you were dead.”

They both got that deep thinking slightly pained face.

Life is hard. Life hurts.

I talked to them about us having a family history of suicide and how that means we have brains that are oriented towards hopelessness and depression and we have to find bulwarks against those feelings. We have to find ways of coping on our dark days. We are not in the same position our relatives were in when they gave up hope. They asked me questions about the people who died and I told them about the lives of the family members who suicided. We don’t really know for sure if my grandmother suicided or if it was an accidental over dose the way it was for Grandpa’s wife, the lady Eldest Child is named after. We know that those two women were in tremendous pain and they felt empty and lonely and like nobody cared very much about them.

I asked my kids if they feel like nobody cares about them and if they spend their days alone and hurting? They said sometimes they hurt, but they know they are liked and they can barely find a few minutes to be alone. We talked about how I effectively ended my pre-kid life to ensure that they didn’t feel alone or abandoned. That got a little smile of acknowledgment.

I am there for them in a way I have never experienced and will never experience. They know I struggle with needing a few hours a week away from them and not feeling like that is an ok thing to need.

I told Middle Child that part of the reason I am so militantly supportive of his trans stuff is because I don’t want that to be part of why he gives up hope on life and I know it can work that way for a lot of trans folk. I accept you. I love you. I approve of you being whoever you are in this life.

I can’t make everything easy for you. I wouldn’t if I could because someday despite my best efforts I will die and you will need to be ok without me and I need to prepare you for the fact that life is hard. Life involves a lot of suffering. That’s just… life.

But for every single day that I am alive there is at least one person who desperately hopes you will cling to the tendrils of hope and keep trying.

They said they feel that way about me too.

So I’m still here.

They asked me how my mother responded to me having bad days as a kid. I told them she would say terrible things about what a burden I was. They said I have never told them that they are a burden; I say they are a lot of work and I am tired… but they don’t feel like it is the same thing. I said I agree. I don’t think they are a burden. I think they are a gift.

Happy Easter

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In a completely secular way Easter has always been big for us. In California I hid hundreds of eggs. Way too much candy. I only buy my kids toys for their birthdays, Christmas, and Easter… so they usually get a pretty noticeable basket.

I told the kids yesterday that they need to not expect much from me for this holiday. We don’t have the ability to carry much crap; we leave this country tomorrow and we don’t need much candy. There isn’t enough space to hide a bunch of eggs if I wanted to. Also: I did not find one plastic fill-able egg in this country. So.

They each got a present bag with some stuff. A pair of earrings (pierced or screw on, depending), a headband (they have both declared that they are growing their hair out and they are complaining about the intermediate length), a tin of chips (an interesting Japanese flavor), a packet of candy I don’t recognize for variety, one Kinder egg (I ate the third one for fairness–ha), two little Lindt chocolates (exactly like we always had at home for memories sake), and a LOL little sister doll (they are about 1.5″ tall). I found tiny little eggs that hang from string and I put 6 of them up in their room.

I also got a lovely strawberry cake for us to have with tea.

My mom would lie and say she would do things that she wouldn’t do. I will strongly imply that I can’t do anything when I have already done something so you don’t expect me to do 10x’s as much.

The secret to happiness is low expectations, yo.

Her Sweetness didn’t get anything and she won’t be sad about that. She got one toy in this country, an activity book I plan to lean on heavily on the plane. She will share the cake, of course. Next year I can’t leave her out. And next year I will try harder to hide eggs. I don’t yet know where we will be, but I’m a resourceful bugger.

My children will have magical memories of me ensuring that they feel special. Because they are special to me. I don’t forget about their need for ceremony and tradition. It’s important. They need to feel like they can predict that things will happen and that they can know what is coming even though our lives have a lot of chaos.

I owe them all the stability my chaotic brain and body are capable of delivering. They are largely flexible and adaptable and capable of accepting dysregulation, but every child needs touchstones.

This is one for us.

So I sit here and watch my beautiful husband and baby sleep and I wait to hear the gasps through the paper thin walls.

Happy Easter.

I need a god damn break.

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The friends who said they were itching to spend lots of time with my kids? Yeah. *cough* The big kids had a single three hour visit. Now folks are sick or their work schedules are difficult and they aren’t sure if they are going to be able to take the kids again. After years of begging us to come here.

Or rather, she wants me to bring one kid at a time for an hour long visit so she can enjoy them. But I will have to walk 3 miles for each of these nice visits for her and entertain the other two kids while she makes one kid at a time feel special. That sounds like a lot of fucking work for me.

Typical.

So. We are checking into Aulani for one night (time share points, no money) because my big kids can go to their club house for 10 hours the day we check and the day we check out. Sounds fucking perfect. I’m paying for 4 hours of in room babysitting for Her Sweetness.

There. I can have a break. Motherfucker.

I just need to act like I don’t have any friends and I need to go pay for it. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t.

And the day before we go check in I am getting a 3 hour Thai massage.

I may not be able to find friends who want to spend time with me, but I can pay money for medical services. It’s… almost like being cared about.

The funny thing is when I get off the island my buddy is going to go back to texting me about how lonely she is and she can’t find anyone who wants to hang out with her. Cry me a river.

Trying to find the right mirrors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I feel accepted.

This is how all fucking Christians should fucking act.

Perspective is hard.

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I struggle with receiving advice from people who have kids in the same age range as my kids. It’s kind of like how I don’t think anyone should write a parenting advice book while their kids are under 18: you don’t know how your methods work out in the long run.

Today a friend who has an adult daughter just a bit younger than me wrote to me about her concern. She didn’t phrase it at all as if she was criticizing me. She said, “This is what I did wrong and these are the long term consequences for me and my child.” I really appreciate that.

I need to have course corrections from outside sources. It’s important. It’s mandatory so that I don’t fuck up entirely.

Some days I am making the best bad decision I can because I do not have the ability to make a good decision.

That is absolutely shitty. My children will pay for that.

“All that I wanted from you was to gimme
Something that I never had
Something that you’ve never seen
Something that you’ve never been
But I wake up and everything’s wrong” – “Work”, Rihanna

My friend says she is afraid I am regressing (because she does) and I’m lashing out at my children (like she did).

I cannot imagine a kinder way to criticize me.

I live in abject terror of ignoring my kids, because my mother was severely depressed and she paid almost no attention to me, positive or negative, for months or years at a time. So I give my children negative attention when it might be healthier to take space from them. Because of my wounding.

There is no fair here.

And most of the people who told me they would help my kids by showing up…. they didn’t. And I don’t feel like it is ok to demonstrate my disappointment to them. I have to assure them that they are fine. Even though I am not fine partially because people keep fucking lying to me. Then I flip the fuck out and my kids bear the brunt of that.

It is not fair.

Today the plan is to do two hours of academics then the kids are going outside to play, whether they are done or not. I need down time. I need to rest. They don’t NEED me to pay attention to them all day. If they get their stuff done they can go spend time with their friend. If they don’t, they can choose being alone.

That is the best bad decision I can make today.

And I feel like this is so much crueler than soap in the mouth or kneeling on rice. Because that is my perspective. But folks are arguing with me. Folks I respect.

I don’t know the right thing to do. I went from one form of abuse to another to another. But I’m supposed to know the right thing to do. Even as people tell me that the right thing is boundless energy and give… and they will support me so I can do that…. then they don’t and I have to keep giving no matter what I am or am not receiving.

Ok.

Growing pains and mistakes

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Many of my friends are traumatized people. When they respond to me or give me feedback… they are not taking careful stock of what I am doing and reacting to my actions. They are responding from a place of wounding. That’s not wrong and it’s not bad and it’s not always irrelevant… but it’s important for me to keep in mind so I don’t flagellate myself to death because they are upset at what I am doing. Their reaction is more about them than me. But I take it hard.

I try hard to ask a lot of different kinds of people about my behavior for that reason. I try to ask people with a wide range of backgrounds and experience. I try hard to regulate myself more strongly off of people who have actual relevant experience in whatever issue I am trying to deal with at the moment.

Sometimes I really fail at that and I spend days raging at myself and feeling like there is absolutely no hope of me ever being better because I have triggered a traumatized person. That’s not very useful for me, my husband, my kids, or even my friends.

I’ve been reading more psych books. Because I’m trying to find the middle path.

No, offering my children a variety of not-so-comfortable inducements that they can try and reject at will is not the same thing as spanking them for being bad. It just isn’t. We are trying things because I am out of cope and some of the things we try are going to be less than optimal and they will fail.

That’s fucking life and it isn’t the same thing as child abuse.

We tried it. The first day they thought it was very useful to them and they wanted to try again. The second day they didn’t like it and they felt kind of bad about it and they said they didn’t want to do that again.

Ok. We won’t do that again. My goal was not to inflict pain or punishment on them. It was to create a less comfortable environment.

The fact that folks would be totally ok with me drugging the shit out of my kids to have a similar kind of behavioral impact is utterly bizarre to me.

I am trying to figure out what lines need to be held. I am going to mess that up sometimes. We renegotiated academic goals about a month ago. We halved the work load. I tried to hold the kids to what they agreed to because that is my job. But it may be that once again the goals we set are not the right ones and we will have to adapt.

I am freaking out partially because I have not stood next to people who did this well. I am faking it. I don’t know what the hell I am doing. All my classroom experience did not prepare me for this part. In a classroom, the standards are arbitrarily set by the state and the students measure up or they fail. I am not setting arbitrary standards for my kids. I don’t have “You must be x proficient” goals for them and thus we are flailing really hard as we figure out what our goals should be and how hard I should insist on meeting the goals the kids claim they want to reach.

This is a process.

But I need to stop screaming.

I don’t have rest. I don’t get much support. Almost everyone who says, “I will help you by doing x” has turned out to be fucking lying and I need to stop allowing anyone to claim they will help me with my kids. It just results in me hating my friends with the fire of a thousand suns because almost no one follows up on what they say they will do.

The people who have absolutely rigorously met the standards they set for me are rare. I can pretty much count them on my fingers. I think that the fact that they go off of one hand is something that I should be celebrating instead of being so upset that the number of people doesn’t reach my toes.

But people keep making promises and not keeping them and that hurts me.

I don’t feel entitled to that hurt and that’s part of the problem. I don’t let myself admit to myself just how much these people are hurting me until I am exploding with rage all over the place because I can’t suppress my feelings anymore. I try hard not to get angry about people saying “I will do x with the kids” and then never doing it because I want to honor that people mean well. They want to be helping me. But the reality is that most of the time they want to feel helpful not be helpful and I need to stop looking to those people. Really almost any people.

We need to find a way to balance this so we can be self sufficient. That is not what I have been trying for…. ever.

The psych book I’m reading right now Born To Be Good talks about how in the US people define themselves as individuals (I’m an artist, a runner, a dancer, a writer) and people in other countries tend to define themselves through their relationships (I’m a daughter, a mother, a wife, a friend, a cousin) and a lot of my problem has been that I have been trying as hard as I can all of my life to define myself through my friendships because the daughter/sister/niece roles failed so abjectly for me.

But my friends have not been able to turn and be stable for me the way that family relationships do for other people and that’s been really destructive to my entire mental health.

Leaning this hard on my friendships for my identity and my self worth has resulted in decades of feeling worthless and like I should kill myself because no one is ever going to prioritize me like I do them. I hurt myself showing up for friendships when I should be selfish and care for myself and that’s stupid.

For the last couple of days I have been trying to process for myself that 50% of all people who hit grade 12 in school are below proficiency. My 5th grader is already writing essays that rival many of the 17 year olds I taught.

Maybe I don’t need to be so worried about them being “at grade level” and doing all the busy work of going through school. My kids have a very solid grasp of grammar and math. They are approximately at grade level. They would probably be B students if they went straight into school right now for the last few months of this school year.

Why am I so freaked out every moment of every day about failing them as a teacher and not preparing them for what they need to know? Because nothing I did was ever good enough to make my friends show up for me in the ways they constantly claimed they would so how can I know if what I am giving my kids will be enough for their future so they can show up and do what they want to do?

Maybe that isn’t entirely my battle to fight.

My kids have been digging in their heels and doing less and less. They were told weeks ago when we reset the metrics that they had to be current in order to go hang out with the babysitter. They then messed around on the boat and did nothing and got a week behind. They have not been interested in catching up since they got here.

Why am I wearing myself out trying to force them through the work necessary to earn the free time they want to have? This is so stupid.

I know that they can get all of their work done in 2 hours a day with time to spare. Maybe I need to give them two hours to do it then kick them out to play outside by themselves while I have down time. If you don’t get your stuff done so you can go with your friend, sucks to be you. Play by yourself and get out of my face. I act like I owe them constant stimulation and entertainment and so do they. And it is turning me into a psycho harpy. This is not working. I can’t be 24/7 stimulation for 3 kids and have anything left for my own health.

I don’t think we should lower the standards to nothing and completely unschool. But I also think that if they want to fail and not earn rewards…. I should let them. I have not been letting them. I have been hurting myself dragging them to their rewards.

Why. What am I teaching them?

That I care way more about their happiness than they have to. I care more about their happiness than my happiness or Noah’s happiness or my health.

Why.

Because I am afraid that if I don’t they will treat me like my friends.

You know what? I am leaving the fucking country because I am so angry about how my friends treat me. I have chased people for years begging for their love. I’m doing the same thing with my kids.

This is stupid.