Recently I was noticing that I felt great. Better than I can remember feeling in a very long time. It’s not that I have no pain (owowowowowowow) but I am increasing in strength and competence. I am feeling less like a pathetic, worthless burden. I am feeling less sick. So this is loaded and complicated. This plays into “are disabled people worth supporting”. Because sometimes I am disabled. I am not able to get up and do my chores. I literally did nothing in my yard for more than six months. I would look out the window and cry because I couldn’t manage weeding or watering or pruning or… anything. And it’s not like those jobs are so hard.

There are times when I am unable to carry my workload. I have been picking it back up and feeling better about myself.

I don’t think this is an entirely positive dynamic. I don’t think people actually have more value if they work more. Only I want to kill myself when I can’t work because I’m useless. This is a problem.

What does having value mean? Value to whom? In what way?

So much of relationships is having a person around to project yourself onto. How many people maintain toxic relationships because “they are family”? You feel like you don’t exist without these people to be in relation to.

I can so clearly see how I have been doing this with my friendships. I notice that I value myself in part based on how I can be in contact with them. It’s mixed. I will probably do this more as my kids get older. Right now they aren’t opting into relationships with me so I feel like I need to limit how much I define myself based on their approval. I ain’t their friend–I’m their mother. They won’t always like me and that’s my job.

And yet… I change myself so much because I need to be a certain way for them.

One of our neighbors commented the other day that we are such a happy family. I am not sure folks thought of me as just being so happy 15 years ago.

I am happy because I am allowed to be here. Because I am allowed to have a family and be part of a family and take care of people and be taken care of. If that isn’t fucking defining yourself based on your relationships I don’t know what is.

At least this will work for a little while.

But today I feel exhausted. It’s physical and emotional. Yesterday we walked so far. Today I’ve barely hit 2 miles. I’m trying hard to keep a minimum of 2 miles per day for a bit here. Seems prudent. In a few weeks my daily minimum will be 3 miles. Then 4. Ugh. Next week I hope we can do 4 miles once, 3 miles once, and every other day 2 miles.

The 6 mile spike was an outing. We don’t have them every week like that.

Realistically, because Noah won’t be here on Friday…We should try for another outing and that might mean another 6 mile day. Ouch. Which museum should we go to? Anyone want to meet for dinner somewhere? If we go north we will take public transit. If we go south we will probably drive.

So many things in the bay I want to do with the kids before we go.

• Alcatraz
• SFMOMA (I know about your membership, Sarah. I’ll be poking you when we go.)
• The Walt Disney Museum (no, I have never been)
• de Young Museum
• Asian Art Museum
• Legion of Honor
• Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Museum of the African Diaspora
• San Jose Museum of Art
• Computer History Museum
• Rosicrucian Museum
• Oakland Museum

…. I’m sure there is stuff I’m missing. Things like the Discovery Museums and Exploratorium… we’ve been a lot. If we go again, ok, but I don’t care that much.

I’m not sure if I’m feeling less “ok” because I’m tired. I feel kind of overwhelmed. I want to do so much and I want someone else to do it for me and I want it to never be done.

feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings

A few friends have moved away from California and come back for various reasons. When I say that *I* might fail and slink back with my tail between my legs I ain’t talking about y’all. None of you spent months writing pissy things about why it sucks here and you want to leave. None of you made a big production out of flouncing off.

I kind of am. Sort of. A little. Enough that if my grand journey flops entirely… it would make sense for folks to kind of make fun of me for it.

Coming back for access to jobs or health care isn’t the same thing.

Maybe I will come back because I simply cannot do without the health care I can get here. That wouldn’t really be failing and slinking back with my tail between my legs. If I just can’t find friends and I spend all my time crying about how lonely and sad I am… that’ll be failing.

It’s kind of like how it is hard to say that I LOVE FAT BABIES without it sounding like I’m dissing the less chubby inclined.

Sigh. All babies are good. All baby levels of chunk are good.

BUT I LOVE THE FUCK OUT OF MY FAT BABIES, OK.

I don’t get to enjoy tiny delicate squishes very long so nothing is perfect.

I am being paged in the direction of a party.  Bye. stupid space bar is sucking

Today I will live in video game hell. *sigh* My little girl is having a birthday party. What she wants is a party full of folks playing video games with her. I can see why she will have fun. Once again… I will sit around and talk to my friend’s mother. (EC’s friend’s grandmother.) It’s ok. She will coo over the baby she helped bring into the world and that’ll be nice.

I will be glad to see Ma. I’m not actually complaining. I will enjoy the visit. But… video games. Meh. To each their own.

My wonderful MC just woke up so I’m not sure how much I’ll get to type. Kiddo only slept 8 hours. I wonder how today will go…

If I keep YC off the boob between dinner and bed time she can sleep 8+ hours without a genuine wake up. She sleep nurses once or twice but no full wake up. That’s awesome. I am appreciating everything about this baby.

We went to the Cal Academy of Science yesterday on public transit. Holy shit that took fucking forever. This is why I don’t go more places. The bay area is fucking huge. It was seriously 3 hours round trip because there was a bunch of police activity on BART. I don’t know what was happening and frankly it’s not my business. I hope it wasn’t an officer shooting someone but frankly I don’t have the spoons to check.

I am so tired. Being in this country is so tiring. Feeling like I really should check to see if this was another government sponsored murder fucking sucks. I want to know and I don’t want to know. I should protest everything. I should work against the people who have control.

Or I could run. Like a fucking coward.

I have fought so much. I am so tired. I fought for myself and that’s not enough. That’s not right. But I don’t know what I have to give.

I am trying to learn how to be less of an asshole. My kids are the reason I am trying to learn to be a better person and frankly nobody else is worth the effort. Either I’m good enough for a relationship or I will walk away and be alone. I can’t/won’t do that with my children. I have to be good enough which means I have to change absolutely anything necessary. My babies are jet fuel for me.

The museum was fun and the kids did great. We walked six miles through the course of the day. I feel vindicated that we need to be ready for six miles as just a part of our lives. We have to be that fit. It must be something that doesn’t wear us out extra.

Want to hear something funny? MC spent the train ride home buzzing with energy and driving me nuts with bouncing. They asked to pick up a third sport again. They asked to drop their third sport a few weeks back because with the walking they were feeling worn out. Now that they have acclimated they want a third sports class again. Not gymnastics again, ballet. This kid has energy to burn. I don’t know how a body can move so much. I mean. Clearly they get it from me. lol. I was like this as a kid but I had no money so I couldn’t go to classes. And playing outside was dangerous because I ran my mouth and ended up with folks hating me and wanting to beat the crap out of me.

Good times!

I suspect that if my kids were as unsupervised as I was… people would want to beat the shit out of them for running their mouths too. They both have exactly that much tact.

Oh, side note. It won’t be all video games all day. EC is awake and has reminded me. Instead she has come up with an RPG system for Warrior Cats and we have all been assigned characters. I am Mud Spot. Because I am the one who is always playing in the mud. Sure, sounds good. That’s accurate. Ok this part will be silly and fun. She comes up with good stories.

Another note of clarification. I have apparently been unclear about travel plans because folks are asking me “Wait does that mean x or y?” Upcoming travel: September we are going to Mexico for a week long vacation. October is Sarah’s birthday at Disneyland. October is when we are putting the house on the market. Whenever the house sells we are heading to Washington DC for 3-4 months then the UK. Of course we will mostly base out of Inverness so that I can see Jenny’s family.

So October is Sarah, November-February (if we sell the house this quick) is Pam, and then I run off to Jenny.

That’s so much blessed luck and love I feel like my heart will burst. Ok fine. If my favorite people won’t all come to me… that’s ok. I’m portable.

Noah… you really do tolerate something close to polyamory. But the sex is a bridge too far. Ok.

Speaking of sex! Dang it’s been nice lately. I think there is something to that sexual maturity thing. Sex is easier now than it used to be. Easier emotionally. I’m feeling less of the fuzzy burning anxiety about how I don’t get to back out or change the deal. Having the experiences of the mutual masturbation lately has been so good for me. I don’t feel like if things get uncomfortable I should just go blank. It’s feeling a lot more ok to ask for change/things to stop. I don’t know why it is shifting now and it didn’t shift 10 years ago.

I’ve been with Noah non-consistently for 15 years now and married for almost 12 years. Why is it changing now?

Dinno. It is.

I even asked him to spank me last time because the kids were all solidly asleep and we in the garage and they couldn’t hear us. It was kind of old-person-funny because I kept having to be careful to not fuck up my back. lol. Hit me! Ack! Not at that angle or I’ll throw out my back! *giggle*

I amuse me.

breakfast beckons

When I think of leaving the bay one of the things I wonder about is how technology actually works for people outside of this bubble. Everyone is in a bubble. But what color and flavor varies. I have traveled since tech became a thing… but I’ve not lived outside the valley in 20 years.

I wake up and reach for my God-box, my externalized brain, my friends. Most mornings I wake up to a message that a friend left after I went to sleep. My community lives in here. I don’t see my community in person much.

If I flew back to California for a week a year I could probably schedule as much in person time with most of my friends as I get living here.

I wonder how Noah and I will do at making friends together when we leave. Here we don’t really share friends. That’s complicated. I’ve tried and it didn’t go that well. My friends mostly like him fine. His friends mostly don’t care for me. I don’t know what we are going to do when we meet new people. I have this chip on my shoulder that is going to make everything hard. I assume that geeks are going to judge me and think they are better/smarter/more worthy and I’m a bitch to start with.

I can’t get over fucking K telling me that I should expect to have people think I’m stupid because I am a woman and I don’t work in tech. That was what, 15 years ago?

I still hate you and everyone in your profession for that comment. Woo.

Will I do better with geeks outside this bubble? Will I feel more like tribe for them because I know all the stupid references even if I don’t care about them? Or will I feel hostile?

I don’t know yet.

Youngest Child has outgrown the last of the newborn size diapers. She’s just shy of 14 weeks old. That seems right. I’m going to miss them. They were so adorable. One more step. One more thing to move on from.

Oh hey, EC did get another box from her grandmother. She got a bracelet and a necklace. I’m not sure why the grandmother thought they needed their own box… that’s odd. See, it’s good I didn’t do anything with my pissiness. Another box came. I feel like an ungrateful piece of shit but that’s not it.

It’s that on Eldest Child’s birthday it’s crappy to send things for her siblings (and the box came for her dad before hers as well) before her so that she feels like everyone but her is getting a present for her birthday. That part isn’t kind.

I’m trying to present this to EC as lessons in patience and the vagaries of the post office. Even if she put all the boxes in the mail on the same day there is no guarantee how they will arrive.

So I can have my feelings in my head and shut up about them and that’s fine. I can wait. I can send a perfectly polite thank you card in the end that doesn’t acknowledge that I felt ungrateful and bitchy. She doesn’t need to know that.

I do still wish she wouldn’t have sent so much more for the baby than the birthday girl. I mean, really. I will feel the same on each kid’s birthday.

I am enjoying fantasizing about packing. How to organize. How much is necessary. Why things might be a good idea and what things why not. We do a lot of food prep on the go. In the normal course of things I carry around a ridiculous amount of shit in my van.

ack. must stop dithering and take baby

I keep trying to figure out why I have this intense burning need to go.

Didn’t I make a beautiful house and garden?

I did.

But you know what? Uhhh… I made them. If you think I can’t do it again you can fuck right off.

My home is Noah and my kids.

The bay turned out to be too big. I wanted to find a way to make my friends my family. That was not something I could figure out in a sustainable way that worked to fill my needs. That makes sense.

I wish I didn’t feel like a failure for that. I have really wonderful friends. They are friends. They are super awesome as friends.

I created a network that exceeded anything I had any right to hope for. And it’s not enough. That’s about me. This need inside of me is too big.

I don’t think I’ll find it with friends somewhere else. That’s not it.

I think I will be a great community member somewhere else. I will not be looking for family. I mean, some day we want to foster. But I don’t think I have it in me to trust any friends to get all that close though. I’m scared.

The Quiet One told me that I may have broken… but I broke open.

I don’t know if that is allowed to be true. It’s complicated.

I can’t be that open. I mean, I will probably always have my intense friendships. But I don’t know that I will ever permit anyone to ask for a family designation/title again. That well is poisoned.

We have the aunties. All of the uncles have opted out or been expelled for good reasons. My adopted Dad is still grandpa. He’s been really kind to my kids. He visits us and we visit him and he spends time with my them. I’m really grateful that he cares enough to reach out and try to see my children.

But… all the others have fallen away. That’s ok. But I’m not going to be able to stay here and slap a happy smile on my face and pretend that I never tried and failed. I am not good at playing that game.

I am capable of resetting the board and not having the history.But I can’t keep doing this over and over forever or I’ll do to my kids what was done to me. And I won’t actually cut contact with everyone. I have neat friends and my friends live on the internet anyway.

I want to go back to just being grateful when someone spends 30 minutes talking to me once or twice a year. I don’t want to feel like all the moments in between are a rejection. They aren’t. I tried too hard here. I poured too much of myself into the begging. I didn’t pace myself for the marathon of living here.

I didn’t even know what it might mean or that it might really happen.

Doing the marathon that is. I’m 100% in uncharted territory with this whole forever family thing. I am rapidly on my way to having been a mother for as long as I was a child. My mom didn’t treat life like a marathon. She’s sprinting until she dies. And some of that is kind of her fault and some of it is the consequence of a really shitty life.

My life is so easy. I will never be able to understand my mother.

And if my kids turn out to suck maybe I’m a worse mother than my mother after all. We’ll see.

For the first time in almost twelve years of marriage I hope my mother in law sends another fucking box of presents. She sent a box of presents for Eldest Child’s tenth birthday that happens next week. (Woo! Big kid! So Exciting!!!)

Guess what she sent? She sent clothes for the baby. She sent two identical boxes (one for EC and one for MC) that are intended to be memory boxes for the infant period. It would be an appropriate gift for Youngest Child because I’d stand a chance of still having most of the things for this box… but uhhh…. ten years later I don’t have a lot of these things. I didn’t save the first bib or first binky. So uhm…

And another dang blanket. Clearly baby sized.

This is the first time I have ever hoped she’ll send another box. Not one thing in there was an appropriate/nice birthday present and she’s not usually a complete failure in the gift department.

The third time is the charm is this delightful baby. We went for a walk yesterday and she hung out cheerfully in a stroller for an hour. Not a peep out of her. She smiled at the big kids while we were walking. She seemed to like that each big kid took a turn pushing her and she was excited.

My Youngest Child is such a glorious person. Getting to spend time with her feels like a present from the universe. I’m so happy about hanging out with her. Even though it is also exhausting.

That’s life, buddy.

We are going to try the stroller a few more times before I make any sort of commitment there. We currently have one that a neighbor left out on the sidewalk free (my favorite reason to try something new) but it’s a terrible design. By the time we got back all three of us had very sore wrists. I know that better/more ergonomic handle set ups exist… but it’s not worth investing in until I know the baby likes a stroller so much that we might actually use it.

I hate strollers in general… but my back hurts so badly right now I feel like someone slammed me backwards into a wall. I hurt from neck to hips. It burns. I saw my chiropractor yesterday and my massage therapist tomorrow. I should go back to acupuncture. I could probably also benefit from trying to see the personal trainer again.

Where is that money tree when I need it.

How in the world am I going to manage when I leave all my medical support? This is going to be terrifying as fuck.

I had an interesting chat with the kids last night before bed. Middle Child asked me about why I yelled earlier in the day. Because it hadn’t been necessary. I said, “Well. Let me tell you a story.” I told them (as if it weren’t me) about a little girl who was moved around a lot and learned to be very nasty to people because people always say, “If you are good enough you can stay” but they never mean it and there is no way for her to be good enough. She always has to leave every home. After a while she was just mean to people to start off with because that way she doesn’t hope and get hurt extra anymore. I talked about why she would learn to hate herself and be very very mean to herself every time she makes any kind of mistake. Those are the only kind of words she has really heard.

Then what do you think would happen if she grew up and had children and had to learn how to talk to herself and other people as if they all loved each other.

Would there be bumps in that road as she learns how to love herself and other people?

I learn how to love myself by interacting with my children. I replace my inside voice with their voices over time very carefully and deliberately.

I fucking love that my children tell me not to call myself or my mistakes stupid. They are silly.

So I said, “Notice how the mistake you made was the exact same pattern of mistake I do?” Middle Child being the plucky soul they are said, “YES! That’s why it seemed so mean!!! You mess up just like that all the time!”

“I do. And what you don’t know is that inside my head I am always screaming at myself the way I screamed at you. Sometimes in my head I get confused and I forget that you aren’t me because you are my me-not-me and inside my body when you mess up the same way I do… I get agitated. Because my body freaks out when you mess up like it messes up when I mess up. I shouldn’t. It’s not fair. It means I over react. I yell because I’m treating you like me. And that sucks.”

“Oh. Wow. That really sucks. You shouldn’t ever talk to yourself like you yelled at me.”

“I know. I’m working on it. It has gotten a lot better… but it’s hard to unlearn everything you learn as a very young child. It’s why I drill you so much on habits you want to have as a grown up. Changing as a grown up sucks so much.”

Separately, Middle Child asked me to take a week off the forums and spend more time with them. That sounds like a lovely “End of school” present.

I love that my children love me. They show me how to love people. They show me how to forgive and work harder. Because they deserve every speck of energy I can muster for them. Someday I hope I will really be the mother they deserve.

Noah, I wouldn’t have absolutely any of this without you. I wouldn’t have these people without you. I wouldn’t have had this privileged walled garden experience without you.

And, randomly… it’s nice that every single person in our network locally is talking about how much they will miss us from the neighbors to the grocery store clerks to our car mechanic. They all say they understand and they hope they won’t fall off the Christmas card list.

Oh I won’t forget you wonderful people. I hope you will write back and tell me about your own adventures. I love you and I want to know how your story continues. I know it will.

Got rid of two dressers today. Packed several more boxes. Shifted around books and clothes again. Other than books we are very close to having all the kid stuff in the play room. That helps the kids visualize how much they have. With it spread through the whole house they can’t keep doing the “Oh I’ll just bring this with me” dance. They are looking around and feeling a bit overwhelmed.

We have serious art supplies. We should have an art party this summer. We have soooo many kinds of materials.

I think I have either packed or gotten rid of half of our books so far. I’m leaving out the ones I want to encourage the kids to read before it goes into storage.

Tomorrow I’m going to shift the pantry. Open up the garage a bit. Be ready to get rid of one of those shelving units.

I have a vision in my head of how I want the house to look for staged pictures. I hope to take them in September. Rather, I hope to hire someone who is talented at taking pictures and have them come take a bunch of pictures of my house and yard.

The yard is absolutely beautiful. It has finally started arriving where I wanted it to be. I have made magic. I’m a god damn good gardener. *pat self on back*

Right now for science the kids are drawing detailed pictures of the plants in our yard. We are going to make a series of drawings to show how they change this summer. We are carefully labeling the pictures. I am going to have the kids write information about the plants. By the time we move the children will be able to instantly name all these plants forever.

In our heads these plants will mean Wonderland.

I should take more pictures of the plants. The hanging baskets are blooming and they make my heart sing. I will miss this yard.

In my head there is a picture waiting to happen. It will be taken from behind the bench swing in the back yard. It’ll be the back of mine and Noah’s heads. We will be looking through the window at our children playing in the house.

The view I love the most is my front porch looking in.

I have so much tidying and organizing left to do in the yard. I’m looking forward to it.

I feel like I should shave off the blue potato vine. It’s eating the patio area. It’s hard to have enough sunlight for the pots of vegetables.

So much in the ground. We have permanent: apple (3 kinds), plum, cherry, orange, blueberry, strawberry, sage, grape, spearmint, chocolate mint, asparagus, oregano, and tons of non-food plants. This season we have bell peppers, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, a few kinds of beans, sunflowers, and artichokes.

I will miss our little harvest.

Time to brush teeth and go to bed with my baby. Gosh I like her.

Pam was here on Thursday and I stayed up very late because I wanted to hear all the words she was willing to say to me. I haven’t slept well since. I just… I feel like I’m doing that vibrating with energy thing. I want to separate from my family and be an individual person. Not be a milking machine. Only 2-4 years to go…

I feel like I’m very overly focused on negativity. I want to complain about every one and every thing. Even though I feel pretty happy. It’s like being happy makes me more irritated by the things that aren’t perfect yet.

How very very codependent I am with my friends is bothering me. Many of the people I spend time with are abused or traumatized people. Many of them are not that great at adulting. I let these friends take up a lot of space in my head and then I waste hours and hours and hours being frustrated by the steps these folks won’t take to change their lives.

As if I have room to talk.

BUT THAT DOESN’T STOP ME FROM JUDGING IN MY HEAD. BECAUSE I’M A FUCKING ASSHOLE.

One lady I like a lot. She’s so nice and kind and gentle. So nice and kind and gentle she is letting her kid walk all over her. I’m deeply worried about both of them.

Another lady I like a lot. She’s deep in grief. I worry a lot about how she is balancing what she owes the dead with what she owes the living.

Another lady I like a lot. She’s struggling to cope with her grief over losing a connection she never ever thought she could even want. I worry that she is going to fall into that hole and not ever be willing to try again.

Life is nothing but trying again.

I think I frequently make wrong choices. I think I waste so much time and effort and energy on stupid things I shouldn’t do. I am sitting in a glass house with a big pile of rocks. Does it make it any better that I’m not saying almost anything to these people about what I think they should do?

Dude I know that my opinion ain’t worth nothing. Nobody ought to listen to me.

Except my kids. And that sucks for them. Ha.

I wouldn’t want control over these peoples lives if I could have it. I am not actually wise enough or omnipotent enough to know what they really should do. I don’t have Noah’s hubris that I can think through all the possible repercussions and make the Right Choice. I think I’m going to make the wrong choices over and over and stumble towards a path that is right enough for me.

I see my friends hurting and I want them to hurt less. Sometimes the ways in which they are hurting are ways in which I instantly feel and believe that I know something that might help. I’m mostly wrong. I’m mostly lying to myself. I’m mostly keeping these thoughts in my head and not sharing them because fuck me and my stupid ass advice.

Seriously dude. Fuck me.

But I can’t get my brain to shut off. I don’t want to have these elaborate thoughts about other peoples lives. I don’t want to strategize someone else’s divorce. I don’t want to be constantly weighing and measuring in my head what kinds of services my friends should be getting for their kids.

It’s exhausting.

I hide at home partially because the weight of “keeping an eye on people” wears me the fuck out. What do I do with this keeping an eye on? Mostly nothing. But it feels like what my inner child requires of me so that I won’t turn out to be one more piece of shit who just didn’t notice some egregious problems.

I’m not calling CPS left and right so clearly I think people are doing well enough. But I’m always scared. Who is going to go off the rails? I don’t trust that anyone is so awesome they could never fuck up.

I don’t trust anyone. There’s a piece of me that feels so grateful that CPS came to check on my family. I get my kids evaluated by Teh Authoritays pretty frequently because I want to be checked up on because I’m totally capable of going off the rails and abusing the shit out of my kids. I don’t want to though. So I put tons of checks and balances in place so my babies don’t have to be at the mercy of my kindness. I’m not that kind. What I have instead is an incredibly well developed Super-Ego and the desire to keep my forever family.

I dislike this negativity in my head.

I want to think about the good parts. The parts I admire. The parts I am striving to emulate. There’s not one person I want to give advice to that I don’t try to copy in some way at some times. Generally speaking I think they are all much better people than me. But good people don’t always think strategically about their own benefit. Sometimes they care too much about the feelings of assholes.

I want to teach my friends how to be bigger assholes like me so they won’t get kicked so hard. But it doesn’t work like that. My schtick works for me for complicated reasons that won’t work for other people and I know it. But it still hurts to see my friends be hurt and I’m a selfish piece of shit and I want to hurt less. So I want my friends to get hurt less. But I don’t have much control over this since I’m not the one hurting them to start with.

So I inappropriately think controlling thoughts in their direction. WITH THE POWER OF MY MIND I WILL HELP YOU TO BE A BIGGER ASSHOLE SO THAT YOU GET SHIT ON LESS BECAUSE YOU ARE AN AWESOME PERSON AND PEOPLE WHO PICK ON YOU DESERVE TO HAVE A RASH THAT MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO EVER SIT DOWN AGAIN.

I am at my absolute limit for how much control I can exert over Noah and the kids. The kids are getting old enough that I need to start backing off more seriously. In some ways I already have. So to replace the codependent relationships I want to be having with my mother and my cousin and my aunt… I think too much about my friends.

I’m trying to both curb my codependency and forgive myself for the impulses. I limit how much time I spend with the friends I want to “take care of” on purpose because I get inappropriate. I don’t need to go clean anyone’s damn house. I don’t need to get into another situation where I’m providing respite/therapeutic care to special needs kids to help their parents out. I love and miss the Bonus Kids but my stress levels have gone down so much it isn’t funny. Trying to learn what I needed to learn to help them… that was hard. And I was fighting their mother’s impulses the whole way because helping them would require her changing and she didn’t want to.

I can’t do that any more. I need to stop fighting other people to change. It isn’t my place. It’s wrong of me. And it’s ineffective and I don’t have time for ineffective behavior. It’s hilarious to me how much “being effective” has become a more important metric than “being nice”. Fuck nice.

If someone else wants to sit still with their mental illness and not fix big glaring problems in their life… I have enough shit of my own to fix. fuck.

ugh

At dinner I commented that I couldn’t actually remember… but I think this has been my best Mother’s Day ever. EC said that she remembers that last year was… not good. I said I don’t remember and I don’t want to. Moving on! Today was great!

Noah and EC both gave me cards. EC and MC both gave me little presents of stuff… I bought and they gave back to me. Sure. Why not. It’s the thought that counts. I’m happy. Noah did his normal breakfast/lunch cooking, We had Thai takeout for dinner. Lovely day. I bought myself flowers because I wanted them at the farmers market.

Noah and I had an interesting conversation today. I am… probably closer to what I understand as a political progressive than Noah is. Noah notices things like most revolutions don’t work and not thinking through the long-term consequences means that when you do things sometimes they blow up spectacularly.

I can’t get past the example of my own life. If I had done the things other people called “smart” if I had “gone along” I would be dead. I am breaking all these rules and refusing to think through the consequences in a country where a successful revolution was fought because a bunch of folks who were mostly 17-22 decided to blow some shit up.

If I had “thought through” the consequences of my brother and father killing themselves would I have prosecuted? Would my current life be possible if I hadn’t?

It isn’t that he’s wrong.

Depending on how you define “success” there is no human culture or belief or way of being that has ever been successful because everything has changed. What we are doing today is no more permanent than slavery under the Roman Empire.

I’m still trying to figure out how/where I am going to grow with regards to sex. Coercive sex that hurts me is not something I can keep doing forever. I tried. I really did. I tried to do what I was told. I tried to do what was wanted of me.

There turn out to be consequences that neither I nor Noah could predict super well when we got married. We were both trying to make considerate choices. But I was negotiating from a very broken point of view. I was actively negotiating and pushing for things that were abusive to me. I’m not in any way saying it was all Noah’s fault. It wasn’t. *I* hurt me.

Why didn’t I just negotiate for something different, something healthier…

I negotiated for what I was told I was supposed to get from when I was a toddler. I’m sorry that I’m not as healthy as someone who had a different life. I’m trying. I’m improving. But the progress is slow and uneven and fucked up.

Did Noah and I really think through all the consequences of our sexual choices?

Maybe it’s really hard to think through all the possible consequences of anything.

I don’t have very many answers today. But I’m glad I get to keep talking to Noah about it.

My only complaint is the day would have been smoother if the kids had unloaded the dishwasher last night.

That means it is a great day. My family has been lovely and kind.

I went to the funeral to support my friend. I need to visit her again this week. She’s really struggling. Her boy was 23. It was an open casket event and I can’t get the smell of death out of my nose. I’ve showered a few times to see if that would help. I even went outside and smoked some pot even though I don’t do that very often these days because I want to stop smelling that. Even over the pungency of pot… I can smell it.

Death waits for us all. It is stronger than any other force.

Yesterday I think the baby started hitting a growth spurt. She barely made noise all day except for when she had a direct need. Mostly she just slept. When she sleeps that much and is so quiet I check her constantly because I’m afraid she could slip away. I want to know her so badly. You never know how much time you are going to get: a few hours, a few months, a few years, a few decades, a whole life. I don’t want to get to the end and feel regret about not spending enough time. So when my baby sleeps all day it is hard to leave her alone and just let her rest.

But I do it because that sleep time is when she grows and internalizes what she is learning. Don’t fuck with sleep, yo.

She’s so fat and jiggly and alive. I am so enchanted.

It’s lovely how my tenderness with the baby is still being extended to my big kids. We are snuggling a lot. They adore their sister. They are both learning how to interact with her and it fills me with joy. They both firmly address her as “My baby”. This baby belongs to all of us. I can imagine other circumstances where such an assumption of ownership would bug the crap out of me. But when it is my children feeling possessive of one another within the context of our family?

Heart exploding with joy.

My siblings hated me and desperately wished I had never been born. My children are deeply attached to one another and spend time every day saying they love each other and they are glad to be together so much. I’m allowed to be part of this.

I’ve run into more of the home schoolers recently. There is a core group from the community we used to join a lot that miss us. It looks like our summer will involve some touching base with people. Folks are sad we are leaving. My former neighbor is really upset. She is talking more seriously about going back to India because without me here… she truly has nothing. I’m her one friend here and her ex-husband is a nightmare.

It’s interesting finding out where people have depended on me and I didn’t know it. I am sorry to let you down. But I really need to travel. It’s like if someone were doing a Mentos/Diet Coke commercial with my insides. I feel absolutely bursting with the need to go. To find out who I am in different spaces. To find out how much I am capable of growing and expanding to meet new needs.

I have loved the bay area. I have found friends, lovers, and family here. I have met 100% of the most important people in my life here. I will always have ties to the bay. I wouldn’t be surprised if we came back every year or two for a visit. It will be different and a tiny fraction of people will still see us when we visit… and that’s ok too.

I can’t be all that important to all that many people. Monkey spheres and all that.

There are a lot of people here that I would prefer to never see again. It’s time to go. I feel eaten alive with the desire to avoid my fucking sister. I haven’t made an appointment with my pain doctor for a follow up partially because running into my aunt there is so distressing.

So much pain and there’s not a god damn thing I can do about it. Not for anyone.

EC still feels like my idealized self. What I wish I could have been if things had been better. MC still feels like a closer match to the reality of what I would have been like if things had been better–I still would have been a rocky person and MC is an emotionally tempestuous person. I wonder so much about YC.

Yesterday she was waking up from a nap and I knelt down next to her. She gave this gorgeous giant smile. I felt like I would melt into a puddle of goo. Yes oh my daughter, wrap me around your finger. I’ll do so much for that smile.

I love all of my children’s smiles. I feel like the older two inherited this quality from Noah of softening when they smile. They relax and lean in at the same time. It looks like they relax into visibly feeling safe.

Do you know how good it feels that someone can feel like that around me? I often make people feel alarmed, tense, threatened. I see people get rigid in my presence. I feel bad every time.

But not my family. My family relaxes and treats me like I am here to keep them safe instead of hurt them.

Even if I am a monster… I am their monster and that’s ok then.

My arms are on fire. My hand is spasming so much that holding a fork to feed myself is sometimes painful.

Baby skulls are fucking heavy.

I love my massage therapist and chiropractor. Losing them will be some of the hardest part of leaving the bay. Not only are they very effective, but we have excellent rapport. We are friendly enough to exchange spontaneous gifts. The conversations are fun bright spots in my week. I have a great community.

The baby is waking up from the larval state. It’s a lot of fun. She’s more purposeful by the day. She still mostly only complains when something is wrong. She’s a very chill person. I am not sure where she came from, surely not from me. I’ve never been so relaxed in my life.

I’m obsessively thinking about sex and bdsm and how to negotiate differently and what is it I actually want as opposed to feeling like I must do it? How do I learn to take out the compulsive self harming behavior? How do I learn how to actually know what I want instead of what I can take?

How do I learn how to advocate for myself in a useful way? I’m still trying to find out.

I can advocate for myself. Poorly. In useless ways much of the time.

It’s funny how watching my children teaches me so much about myself. I get what my therapists mean about I bring too much of myself to every situation. But I also see a big chunk of ableism in the commentary. Part of the reason I am so paranoid and controlling of my environments is because I do have a bunch of issues that need accommodation. I have disabilities. If I don’t advocate early or forcefully enough my disability issues are totally ignored and I suffer.

But there’s a balancing act.

I see this so very clearly when my children walk into every room and feel free to demand that everything in the world must conform to them. *cough*

Oh. Yeah. Ok. I see what y’all have been complaining about. *cough* Ok. I think I understand a bit more about how and why to reign that in. Ok. That makes sense now.

I learn so much from getting to sit near my children all the time. I like them so much and I am so enthralled with their development.

YC is glorious and grunting more forcefully and waving with more intention and she very nearly has head control. This is exactly where she ought to be.

MC is fierce and intense and so loving even as they struggle to master their inner impulses towards treating everyone like a mean attacking figure. They feel victimized a lot of the time… even when good things are happening. We are trying to figure out how to work on this, but it’s complicated. Perception is… hard to change.

EC is trying so hard to be a dependable peace maker and her ADHD means that she’s always going to struggle to be the person she wants to be in her head. Her follow through sucks. She has a tremendous amount of desire to follow through… ooh shiny squirrel! It’s a process. When I watch her behavior I understand with great intensity that she would need to be medicated in order to handle school. She can barely handle home schooling. Mostly… she doesn’t and I handle it for her and walk her through the process and that shit’s gotta stop soon. I tried to transition this responsibility with the points system and that failed abjectly. I need to find something else to try and I am not sure what.

I honestly want the moving to fill some of these roles for me. My kids rise to the challenge of change really well. Like me… they aren’t people who sit around and do the same thing well. My follow through isn’t exactly stellar. If I really wanted to live in one house for fifty years and work the same job for thirty years… I would need a lot more medication than I am currently on. I am not wired to do that.

I’m wired to learn something new. So is my daughter. How are we going to learn how to stay the course more together?

I feel like Noah could do more keep-on-keeping-on than I can. He doesn’t have the restlessness.

I feel so restless it is like I itch. But I have to stay here and deal with all the crap in a responsible, kind way. I can’t dump the responsibility on Noah or the kids. I don’t want to just trash it all and walk away. I want thoughtful culling. Which takes a rather lot of focus and work because Jimminy Christmas we amassed a lot of shit here. Even though I purge all the damn time!

Sarah is coming today. Maybe part of our date will be hanging out at Half Price Books together as I take a big batch in. Maybe. Sigh.

I got to see a friend yesterday I haven’t seen in a while. I originally met her when I was 17 and going to junior college. We worked in the theatre together. I feel so grateful that these threads of my life continue. She’s grown up a lot in a variety of ways. Yes, she still has troubles because she is still alive. But she’s changed and deepened and not softened… but relaxed into herself? Her presence felt much more certain now than it used to. She used to feel-to-me like she was almost afraid of herself. Now she fully lives in herself. I love watching people grow up. This is such a glorious gift.

Hey K–before I move… can we get together? I don’t think I’ve seen you since middle school. My last concrete memory of you is when you signed my 6th grade year book. Santa Cruz isn’t that far away. Maybe I could be silly and take a room in a hotel down in Santa Cruz for a weekend in the next few months so I could have a proper visit with all the Santa Cruz folk before we leave. I will miss you all so much. K is there. R is there. I wouldn’t mind going to Kiva and walking the main drag for a while and going to the Boardwalk with my kids….

That should happen.

ack bye

Eldest Child and I had a nice chat and cuddle this morning. She doesn’t consider the weeding experience a punishment. She talked about all the steps that happened, all the ways I tried to avoid having this crash down on their heads… “But we just refused to help until the job got so big that it was a mess. Then we got to clean up the mess. That happens.”

She is so… level headed and tolerant.

She also said that the fact that they came in from weeding and got to use the screen then have their dessert like normal really helped it not feel like a punishment and instead feel like just hard work that needed to be done.

*pat self on back*

I also woke up and did their chore for them (emptied the dishwasher) because I was antsy and awake and I wanted to clear the counter of dirty dishes. She appreciated that too.

I swear I wasn’t trying to punish you. Err, not this time. I did use weeding as a punishment a few months ago. They didn’t mind that time either because our friend M was here and that time it ended up feeling more like a party for them.

It’s hard to punish children who experience most things as fun adventures.

And my back yard is clear of weeds and ready for the next stage. I mean, there’s a bit more clean up for me to do… but they dealt with the grass such that what is left can be mowed and it’s fine. They cleaned it up enough that we can actually clear up the toys and the garbage and that was the point.

I’m not sure weeding/gardening is ever done.

But we are ready to put the veggies in for the season. I should probably go to the nursery today. I think the yard will photograph better for sale if the boxes are full of pretty vegetables. I’m going for an aesthetic this year. I’m showing my kids manicured yards and gardens and explaining the difference between what I have been aiming for over the past 10 years and what other people want. They find it fascinating that anyone would anything other than the meadow effect.

We agreed that we will enjoy a break from gardening but we will want another garden some day. This girl is so lovely to live with.

The baby has her first best friend. I can’t tell if it is the towel bar or the butterfly decal on the wall but she smiles and laughs and has a gay ol’ time on the changing table looking that way.

Noah was a glorious, kind, lovely husband last night. He walked the baby when she wouldn’t settle at bedtime. So when the baby needed a diaper change this morning at our normal wake up time I told him to just stay asleep.

These moments of help feel so tender and loving.

EC has spent the last few days creating an enormous bird army out of construction paper. These birds have clans and histories much like the Warrior Cats book series she is currently obsessed with. I love her imagination. She’s better than tv.

MC is enjoying the lovely lie-in. They are the longest sleeper in the house. I should probably get up and start making breakfast soon. I’m hungry.

I had one of those experiences yesterday where someone uses a describing word in a way that feels neutral to them but it’s loaded with trauma for me because of my family. She really didn’t mean anything. If only my family didn’t live in my head ruining perfectly good words.

Tonight sleep is hard. I feel like it isn’t helping that Her Cuteness is nursing every hour because she had multiple epic naps of not eating yesterday and she needs to make up for lost time. I feel like as long as these nights are occasional they are kind of special and wonderful. I love listening to her breathe.

I forgot about the field trip happening today. Oh that’ll be rad after testing this week. Lots of car time and being out all day. And not sleeping much. I got what–5 hours?

Follow through is hard. I’m great at making plans. Following them is tough.

We are now down four bookcases. A fifth was almost picked up then not so much. I’m ready for my second trip to Half-Price Books. I’m going when I have six cubes worth of books to unload. I think I have one, maybe two more to fill.

I’m so grateful that a huge chunk of my library was free. I take cast-off books from everywhere.

Tired. Want to talk. Oh hey! I get to chat with Jenny today! Oh that’ll be lovely. She has such lovely stories about the kids.

I keep finding myself randomly crying about my friend who died. His death feels like such a big loss to the world. And it’s tied up in my feelings about parenting. He would have been such a good father. But since he was going to die young from cancer… uhhh maybe it is better that there aren’t kids in the world missing their great dad. But these things can’t be known in advance. So it’s just a waste that no one got to benefit from his kindness.

And I’m so grateful that Jenny found her lovely husband and she got to have the kids she wanted to so much. And L got to have her baby. And R and L get to bring home their baby today!

There is a lot of joyous parenting in my extended community and I’m so grateful to witness it and get to learn from it.

And there is heartache and pain too. People with years of painful losses. People who have tried and failed to become joyful parents. It is so sad. There is no justice or fair or deserve. Life hurts so much. Some folks never find the right partner and they don’t even get to try and fail.

There is no. fucking. fair.

My Sweetness is sleeping on my arm as I type. It hurts. I don’t care. I don’t want to put her down and risk waking her up. She needs her sleep so she can grow up big and strong. So she can be feisty and challenging like her Sissy and Sibby. So she can backtalk and sass.

Just like all of us.

I feel like the internet was my first relationship and now I’m deep in NRE with my new side chick and I’m just flaking all over the place.

This is why I do not get jobs that depend upon my math acumen. I FREAKING KNOW THAT 400/20 SHOULD NOT BE 100. WHAT IN THE HELL AM I THINKING.

But the hilarious part is I bet a dozen or more women walked past my two math mistakes. (Meaning I bet chicks noticed.)  My guy buddies can’t do the same thing. That amuses me to no end. I love you both. Thanks for the corrections.

EC is doing state testing this week. (Maybe her math will be better than mine. Maybe not. We’ll see!) Her feeling about this experience is that she is very glad she doesn’t go to school because this is horrible. Seems legit.

I just sucked ass at scheduling this week. I thought ECs test was a one day thing on Monday. Nope. It’s a two day test going from Tuesday to Wednesday. Well that fucks up all my planning. Damnit. I am just… not on the ball right now. Fudge.

My Sunday plans have changed and I am so very happy for the reason. Some dear ladies have been trying to adopt a baby for a few years now (it’s a complicated process) and their baby is with them now! YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY I am so happy for them both. What a lucky baby to get such fantastic mothers. I hope I get to know this kid at least a little bit. It will be complicated with moving away, but technology is wonderful. And I already know I love the baby’s mothers. So that makes the effort easier.

I will get to go visit them during their fourth trimester. That’s glorious, joyous news.

I’m trying to figure out how to dig a few more spoons out of the back of my drawer. Sigh. A buddy had her oldest child die this week. She is in the process of collapsing from grief. She has five children still in the home and she needs help. I’m not sure what all I will be able to do between time and energy constraints but I need to do something,

Sobonfu taught me a lot about grief. The best way I can honor her memory is to step up and use that knowledge when it is relevant. I can’t fix everyone. But I can be part of a community and help carry grief. This lovely mama has been really good to me for years. She’s one of the people who kept me when we left the home school group. She’s worked hard to stay my friend when I was actively pulling away. Those bonds mean something.

I can help her make lists and organize how to delegate work. She does not have to carry this tragedy alone.

Joy and tragedy. Minor irritations. That’s life in a nut shell.

But any minute here my beautiful baby will wake up and need me. It’s worth getting up every day to see these glorious faces.

I wish I could set systems in place and just execute on them forever. I read that when it comes to activism personalities there are three basic types: the dreamers who can come up with an idea, systematizing people who can set up a whole path to execution, and maintainers who can sit on top of someone else’s system and keep it running forever.

I’m somewhere between a dreamer and a systematizer. I am shit for maintenance.

For a year or so we’ve been doing a point system for chores. Why? I could explain the goals around dependability and tracking and self-awareness but fuck it. The kids never got better about tracking their own shit. It was just one more job for me. And if I have to make you do every step of your job I am not going to also stand over you and force you to have “autonomy in tracking” because if I am standing over you it isn’t autonomous. It’s more fucking work for me.

So yeah. I bailed on points. I told the kids that if they are going to act like impulsive little kids who refuse to be responsible then I can’t go through the charade of them having responsibility right now. If they want to be immature then we need to go back to me micromanaging control for a few months so that I can say “No” to everything all the time when you are pissing me off and being rude.

Instead of saying, “Have you done all of your chores? Have you written down your points? I will now wander around the house and check your work and go over to the point sheet and tap my toes as you actually write down the stuff you claim you already did.” Notice how many steps of work there are in that exchange for me?

Fuck it. I don’t care right now.

When they ask me for screen time for a few weeks my response will be, “You were not polite this morning. No.”

If I have to ask you more than once to do your chores the answer to whatever it is you want is going to be no. I can’t keep rewarding you for half ass work. It is resulting in me having to chase you harder and harder for each scrap of productive work. Fuck this.

I’m too tired and I’m feeling too mean. I can’t give you what you would want in the system we have been trying for. I’m tapped out. I need a break from doing that much tracking for you.

I have tracked their chores and allowance for years. I have extensive records. Because I feel like what I am doing “doesn’t count” if I can’t go back and produce paperwork documenting what I have been doing with my time and energy.

I am so tired of begging for people to do what they have agreed to do. I understand that the kids do a lot of “forced agreement” which is to say they don’t really want any household chores and they agree to a certain number because of coercion. But fine. If I have to be a dictator I’m just going to go all the way on that for a few months. So that hopefully next time I ask my children if they want to be more responsible in trade for more autonomy… they will appreciate it more.

I hope.

Oh god. Parenting is so hard.

It’s not that the number of chores the kids do is going to change. We just won’t be tracking them in the same way. Because it was too dang much work for me.

What will we do next? I don’t even know.

The math mistake I made is bugging me all day long. I’m going to hand wave the math a bit and see if I can get closer. ~4,000 miles (because there will be day trips on the way). I get ~20 mpg. So that means about 100 gallons of gas. (4000/20= 100) If I say $3/gallon (even though that is high, just to make the math easier) that’s only like $300 for gas. Not more like $10,000. Sometimes… I make silly errors.

Oh my god Krissy.

In good news: my baby is a rolly polly tub of lard. When she lays on her side the fat and skin pool on the surface she is laying on because there is so much of it that it doesn’t stay tight on her body. I love this stage. I also love the way she squeaks. She’s trying so hard to communicate already. I also love that this baby will take naps not on me. Thank you sweetie. I do have stuff to do.

Two bookshelves are gone. Three others are listed on the internet. I’m making progress on getting rid of stuff and packing. It’s visible. We can’t do any structural work until I get all the shit out of the way. I am shocked by how much stuff we have and I’m thrilled by the fact that I purge regularly so this isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could be.

We are reading the Ramona books and watching Anne with an “E”. The level of conversations we are having are so cool. I’m thrilled by how MC in particular is articulating a lot of interesting layers of analysis. “So and so did x because of y. But I think z was part of it too. I think I would do a because of b and c.” I am being talked to full stream right now (MC woke up early) so I can’t give an example.

Oh man. Spectacles. Not testicles. Oh man. That’s a hilarious mishearing on MC’s part. (In Ramona she draws spectacles on her owl. Not testicles. hahahahahaha)

“Nobody likes a copycat” we are going to be processing this from the book for quite a while now.

Well my time alone is up. See you later, internet.

I am tired of repeating myself with my children. I went on a walk alone this morning because the idea of trying to herd the squirrels in my house was too much. I was going to explode. So I went by myself. I ran into a bunch of my retired buddies. I expressed my frustration with repeating myself. They both laughed their asses off at me and told me it’s totally normal.

Fine. It’s normal. It’s also normal for me to be fucking irritated.

Am I being “fair” in my frustration? Uhm… how many times a day do I have to repeat the same chore list that was established years ago in order to be “fair”? I’m going to fucking explode soon. I don’t know what that will mean. Mostly it is meaning that I am sneaking fucking ice cream at bed time because it is eat some ice cream, shatter my teeth from clenching (my dentist is so irritated with me), or scream at my kids.

I’m eating the fucking ice cream.

I’m so tired and sad. They expect so much cheerfulness and joy and work from me. On no sleep. While I’m begging them to do their share of the work from when I wake up till when I pass out.

I don’t have it to give right now. I feel like shit.

It’s still the fourth trimester and I’m completely exhausted because I have been doing more like a normal work schedule on top of nursing all night and day. Noah and the kids all promised me that they would help me have an easy fourth trimester. Instead we got to week 8 and everyone got done and now I’m kind of expected to be back to normal and I’m flipping out.

I’m tired. I’m angry. I hurt. And now I am going to take advantage of the only baby-free hour I am going to have today to go work on the yard. Because no one else is going to do it but everyone wants the money from selling the house.

I’m sad.