Category Archives: travel notes

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.

Tapping toes

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In 4 days my middle child turns 9.

In 6 days we leave the country; Noah has plans to come back for work… the rest of us don’t. Hello Bangkok!

In 9 days we legally own a house in Scotland and my wonderful, sweet, helpful friend will be collecting keys from our solicitor so there is no delay!

In 16 days we arrive in Inverness and the fun truly begins.

Jenny really wants us there. I can tell. She has offered to let us borrow (possibly keep) a very large number of items, including: dishes, a kid bed, an adult mattress, duvets, a crock pot, sheets… It’s like this woman wants me to stay and feel comfortable!

She’s got a 10 year head start on me, but we get to learn how to be Scottish together. This’ll be grand.

I slept meh last night. If I hadn’t missed the night before it would have been plenty, instead I’m still tired.

Ikea then a housewarming. Wake up, Little Susie.

Noah sent out a goodbye email to pretty much everyone we have ever sent an email to. Now folks are coming out of the woodwork wanting to say goodbye. Uh, we left the state already. You missed your window. Where were you all those years we lived there? Busy? Ok. We will take one more possible obligation off your plate.

I want chill. I want green. WHERE IS ALL THE DANG WATER FROM THE SKY!? My body hates this heat wave so much.

Noah and I are making plans. We are going to be living on a much reduced income so we can’t spend money the way we have learned to in the valley. Our food budget is getting cut in half. Really… a bit further than that. It means cakes, cookies, candy, and drinks are going to be very rare treats. Bath stuff and random things can no longer “sneak” into the grocery budget. It’s going to take us a bit to start properly having a tiny savings so that we can make more interesting purchases.

Fitness stuff is going to be a lot of what we do. We are definitely people who like to spend time on our computer but we are also keen walkers. And our house has lots of space for the exercise equipment we favor. I have a TRX set up (it’s a strap system) that helps me through all of my PT and Noah heavily favors kettle bells. We can set these things up in the lounge as a permanent installation and then we won’t have the excuse of “there is no where to do the work”. I’m up a good 25 lbs since we started on this journey and I’d like my clothes to be more comfortable again. Given that I do not intend to waste money on a scale that means I want to start exercising so that I fit my clothes better and I have no idea where I will end up.

Health at every size. Right now I can’t do my exercises (both logistical reasons and strength reasons) and that’s bothering me.

Besides we have more fun fucking each other when we are in better shape. We both hope that with all of the increased access to privacy our sex life might reemerge as a fun hobby we share.

Sex has come a long way. Right now we don’t have sex very often. Like, once or twice a month has been our average for a while. We have no privacy and that’s a big barrier for me. But I’m thinking about sex more than I have for a while. I am not sure it will take a full five years postpartum this time for me to be really interested.

I am 99% certain that my next period will be in my own house. That sounds really wonderful. If it is not too freakishly cold (we’ll see!) I sort of intend to spend several hours on my “Oh my god is that a period or a hemorrhage” day sitting outside with no pants (or trousers!) on. I’m going to bond with the earth, yo. I hope it will be the most relaxing cycle of my life. And less laundry. Bonus.

I am going to get family cloth and a little bucket for every single bathroom in the house. Septic systems are no joke, yo. (With some supplemental paper for getting poop.)

Her Sweetness is absolutely talking up a storm. She tells us “no!” and “stop!” when she doesn’t want something. She says, “Help!” and “please” and “mine”. It’s so funny. She is starting to get colors. She can talk about her getting dressed and clean process in a combination of words and signs. She is super keen to communicate and be part of the pod. She likes carrying a bag when the rest of us are doing so. She loves to laugh.

I am so very grateful I got to have a third child despite the challenges. She is a really wonderful person. It’s so lovely to break the “my kid/your kid” assignation of behaviors and traits and personality bits. She’s like all four of us. She’s completely herself. We all have to work on our petty jealousies and pissiness because she’s a baby and we chose to bring her into this world. We need to be nice about it.

Middle Child has confessed they didn’t know what they were getting into and sometimes it is hard to not be the baby anymore. That makes a lot of sense. They are still so wonderful with their sister. They try hard to be gentle and helpful. They play together. Kiddo is trying so hard and I am so full of love and respect for the efforts.

My kids are growing up and it’s pretty amazing.

The kids are in a funny place with money and chores. They are still doing chores but they keep forgetting to write it down. I tell them that they can work for free or they can get paid for keeping track of their work. Lately I’ve been getting a ton of free work. So they are sad that they are not accumulating more money. Dude! WRITE DOWN YOUR STUFF ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS AND I’LL BLOODY PAY YOU! We sat down yesterday and priced out a basic back-to-school-kit and uniform selection. Now they feel nervous. They kind of slacked off over the last month. They would have been in a great place for all of these purchases but… they stopped writing anything down. Whoops.

It’s a learning experience.

School won’t give you credit for doing your homework if you bring the math worksheet home, do all the work on the separate piece of scratch paper then throw away the scratch sheet and try to turn in the blank worksheet. “But I did the work!” Yeah… that’s not how it works. If you have a job and you neglect to clock in… you can’t just go back at the end of the week and say, “Yeah I was totally ontime every day; you should pay me all the monies!” “But surely I did all of my hygiene this week, pay me.” “I clearly remember you skipping it on day A, B, C, I had to yell at you 7 times on day D…”

Write it down on the day you do it. That’s why you have a day planner. Are you choosing to skip that step? Then you are choosing to make the work free. Cheers and thank you so much for all your hard work. You are definitely working.

It’s a process! Follow through is hard for a bunch of unstable ADHD folk.

Thus Eldest Child is on Pinterest trying to learn about organization systems so she can get one started right when we arrive. It’s glorious.

I am tired and the day is just beginning. That’s ok. I don’t have a lot of proper work to do. I’m day dreaming lists of stuff I will want in the house. Here is a possible list. (We will not show up and buy all of these things instantly, I expect we are going to be Good Customers at the charity shops and we will buy things new as we have to.)

Obviously we have a long way to go.

Kitchen Dining room Family bedroom Bathrooms Noah office Krissy bedroom Shanna bedroom Orion bedroom Lounge Jennabeth bedroom Laundry room Miscellaneous Hall Garden Studio Kitchen stuff
Refrigerator Table and chairs mattresses toilet paper Kettlebells Bed Bed tumbling mats Detergents and soaps Kid school uniforms baby gate Seating? 2 large frying pans
Cleaning tools (sponges, mop, broom) Additional silverware/dishes Blankets soap Monitor clock alarm clock alarm clock couch Shoe rack Lunch boxes Shoe rack Grill 1 small frying pan
Dish soap, dishwasher soap, hand soap Pillows Printer coat rack bars for the wall. chest of drawers chest of drawers Personal water bottles Coat hooks? nanny cam 1 wok
Food storage devices Clock Plungers Caffeine brick Bed Tables and chairs Vacuum Replace fence along burn drafting table 1 large stock pot
child safety locks Sheets Toilet brushes Standing desk Desk w/ ergonoic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Desk w/ ergonomic setup Projector bed Replace driveway gate easel 1 medium stock pot
Knives whiteboard for calendar Toilet paper holders? Monitor stand or swing arm WiFi Router etc. paper 1 small sauce pan
tea pot, sugar bowl, milk pitcher Towels whiteboard dresser electric drill art supplies 1 large roasting pan
Clock black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains black out curtains 4 cookie sheets
shampoo/conditioner 2 bread pans
rice maker?
insta pot?
eggcarton and curtain soundproofing cutting boards
Crock pot Lighting for video potato masher
Big soup/stock pot grater
Roasting pan for turkey veggie peeler
collander
KitchenAid Mixer mixing bowls
Ice cream machine measuring spoons/cups/pitchers
Deep-dish pizza pan

Obviously I have not accounted for everything. It is going to take many years to accumulate this stuff at the rate we plan to spend money.

It’ll be ok. We have time and patience. In my experience it is a lot easier to do without if you are living with joy in the meantime.

Ok, it’s a plan.

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We leave here in 6 days. (Less than that because our flight is early.) Luckily the airport here is tiny so for a 10:55am flight I think we should arrive by 9. It’s less than a 20 minute drive so we’ll be out of here at 8:30. Not bad at all. It’ll be about 22.5 hours of travel door to door. And I get to drive on the far side after installing a car seat. Festive!

Maybe. We’ll see. Emailed buddies to ask for help with the car seat. We’ll see if they agree.

We’ll see. That’s kind of my life mantra right now. How will things work out? We’ll see!

5.75 days until we leave. We all feel so sick. This is going to be… something. Ugh. I feel like a horrible person for getting on a plane within a week of feeling this bad but I don’t see what our other option is. We won’t have a place to sleep if we just stay here until we feel better. Changing the flights would be horrifically expensive. We will wear masks.

And wash hands. And use hand sanitizer. The world is a horrible germ infested place.

As bad as I feel about all the things I haven’t gotten done yet… we are getting an absolute ton done.

And the kids agreed to the reading/exercise challenge for the summer. And they like the idea of planning, doing, and reflecting as their writing.

Ok. I’ve got a few months planned. Now just do the things.

Of course I will need to reflect later.

Can you tell I am absolutely simmering with anxiety? Next on the agenda: order some pot to be delivered to my friend in Portland.

Countdown already.

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142 days until we will come back and do the beginnings of setting up house and paperwork and all that fuss.

The road trip was 167 days and we were so done with that. To the best of my knowledge we will only be separated from Noah for a 3 week stretch and a 4 day stretch. So 25 days alone with the kids in that 142 days. That’s not so bad.

Looks like the former owners are not up for the fuss of renting temporarily from us. They have a lot going on and that makes a lot of sense. They want 8-10 months in one rental without more issues. I totally understand.

That means that we will try to have our stuff shipped directly to the UK from California because we will take possession of the keys (our solicitor will at least) and when we have to come to the UK to handle paperwork in October we will spend a month starting to set up house. I won’t cry about this. (Really 3.5 weeks.)

207 days until we get to move into our house permanently and we won’t be traveling for quite some time.

We will get to go see Pam and her family in Taiwan for a month at the end of traveling there.

So many things keep changing. I feel like keeping track of the plan is hard. That’s because the plan keeps changing.

Luckily, when we go to Taiwan we will only need to bring the bare minimum of stuff we need for a month in warm weather. Golly that sounds so restful and light.

The plan has changed a lot as we have had to look at the realities of dealing with laws and visas and processes we don’t control. I’m a bit sad that we aren’t going to be traveling for the 18-24ish months I had hoped for.

I AM NOT THE TINIEST BIT SAD MY CHILDREN WILL BE ENTERING SCHOOL A LITTLE EARLIER THAN PLANNED.

I mean, things have gone ok for the past couple of weeks. And we have set up a summer full of Outschool classes that will mean I don’t feel like I need to do almost anything for their academics for a solid two months. I won’t be on vacation but I will have a reduced load. Ahhhhhh.

They have a bunch of classes set up in Minecraft where they will be doing a variety of learning activities through the game (it’s actually incredibly well done, we have tried such classes before and they learn a lot) as well as classes on healthy boundaries in relationships, being savvy consumers and ad aware, how to socialize with new people (kiddo said he really wanted this class–ok), and cyber safety. The kids will keep up with their Duolingo too because they like it and that’s on the list of chores they earn money for and they really like that part.

Middle Child never has more than one class scheduled in a day and Eldest Child only has two classes scheduled on a day for a couple of the weeks. I told them that I want them writing notes for the classes as their academic writing for the summer. What do you plan to do, then after the class write up how it went, what you changed, and what you think you might like to change in the future. Then get up and try again with the next day.

Plan, do, reflect.

And they have unlimited time on their kindles so they will hopefully go through a lot of books. I bet I could do some sort of reading challenge to encourage them to each be reading more. (EC doesn’t really need the push, but MC might benefit. He’s a fairly standard little boy–he’d much rather be doing than reading.)

MC will be receiving a pedometer watch when we get to Portland. It’s already arrived.

I think our summer challenges will be: whoever has the highest step count for the week gets to pick a family movie over the weekend. And for reading…. maybe for every 10 books you read I will add… £20 to your start of room budget? (I was going to give each kid £500 to start with for furnishing their rooms.)

We’ll talk about it at lunch.

Illness and packing and life oh my.

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This is a sick house. Which means so much laundry I am losing my marbles. The tiny washing machine can wash a twin sheet + a twin comforter cover or a twin sheet + 2 towels. Or about a day of everyone’s clothing at a time. This means I am doing 2-3 loads every day right now. Each load takes about 5 hours. But when folks are having to wash bedding nearly every day + going through a week of bottoms in a day… it adds up fast.

I am trying to feel gratitude that my kids got sick like this with over a week to go before we left. Now we are at 6 days to go until we fly and I am biting my nails with worry. Oh, and I’m on day 28 of my cycle. Cheers. Just waiting until my malaise turns into bleeding. Just my luck that is when I will get my turn to start vomiting with terrible diarrhea at the same time. Two thumbs up, would bitch about again.

My kids are trying to maintain a positive attitude, but feeling like this sucks. We haven’t had a proper fall-like-dominoes illness in a very long time so I guess we were due. I think one way or another we are traveling with breathing masks on so we don’t infect other people. Ugh. ALL THE HAND SANITIZER (in addition to washing our hands hourly). I am hoping Her Sweetness misses the worst of it. But I ordered carpet cleaner from Tesco because she had a diaper leak because she’s not in a perfect place right now in terms of her functions. I think this is her first poop diaper leak… maybe ever? My older kids had them but she’s been so normal and regulated it just hasn’t been an issue. Illness sucks.

I caught up on ancient emails from my inbox. I’m down to 10 emails and the oldest one is from May. Huzzah! I feel embarrassed about how far behind I get, but that’s life.

I am so glad I mostly packed stuff up already. I feel like a wound down clock. I’m still ticking but its coming slower and slower. Being sick sucks. I don’t have a fever, but I’m weary and depleted. At this moment our household stuff bag is around 40 lbs (a little bit more will go in here, like the laundry basket) and I think it will absolutely max out at 45 lbs. Maybe even more like 42 lbs. My personal checked bag is 33 lbs and I only have a little left, I think it will be around 35/36 lbs. Noah’s bag is sitting at 33ish lbs too. Eldest Child’s bag is about 25 lbs. Middle Child’s first carry on bag is under 20 lbs. Her Sweetness’ carry on suitcase is under 20 lbs. Noah’s backpack is greatly reduced in weight/objects but I haven’t checked it yet. I suspect it is going to be in the 15 lb range. My back pack is still going to be annoyingly close to 20 lbs (I have all the kid electronics). Middle Child’s rolling backpack is practically empty, it weighs under 5 lbs. Eldest Child is just carrying a purse onto the plane. I am shoving my purse in Middle Child’s backpack for the sake of not carrying anything more than necessary in my hands. And we have a stuffed diaper bag.

THAT’S SO MUCH LESS STUFF. Thank you for the loan of your garage, Jenny. This will be so much easier. Also: we will have room to get some stuff in the States where prices are lower. Yayyyyy. Such as: the thigh seam in my long johns gave up on me last week. I have been wearing them for like three years almost constantly. We picked up some Keen walking/waterproof sandals through the REI sale because walking in Bangkok in monsoon season is going to be festive. (My leather sandals hurt like a motherfucker in the wet.) I should probably leave them here to wear on the handful of days when they will work out. Ok, maybe I’m going to find another backpack worth of stuff to leave. I am trying as hard as I can go lighten the load. Every ounce counts, yo. 3.5 months of maxing out the weight limits has gotten stressful. Now I will KNOW that I don’t have to spend time frantically crying trying to rearrange where everything goes. I have space. I have 10-20 lbs of space left in a bunch of bags. That’s so easy!

I am happy that I have a waterproof heavier coat, and a warm baby-wearing coat in storage for when we come back. We have a coat that will probably be inherited by Middle Child by then in terms of size. Noah has a mid-weight coat that is not at all good for rain.

Eldest Child, Her Sweetness and I already have lightweight rain coats that are coming with us to monsoon season.

I think we need to acquire: a proper set of rain gear for Noah and Middle Child that is lightweight for the heat. Noah could use a jacket that is a bit heavier that will keep rain off him, but Inverness rarely drops below freezing so he isn’t going to need a super heavy coat almost ever. He’s just not the sort. We will need a slightly heavier water proof coat for Eldest Child for when she comes back. Long johns for everyone except for Her Sweetness? Luckily we have gotten/will get so many more hand me downs from our little cousin that Her Sweetness will mostly be set. I don’t think that will remain an option long term because my children are huge and Jenny’s children are fairly petite. But she hasn’t quite passed up the little cousin yet.

I might look for a pair of serious rain boots in Portland. I suspect my children should wait and get them after we see what size they are come next winter here. When I can talk Noah into wearing shoes at all it is a victory so he will probably not get real boots for walking in the rain. He just likes to leave me things to worry about. He’s kind like that.

I am sorta hoping that buying things off season means I’ll find some deals. *Cross fingers*

A bit less than 7 months until we move into our next forever home. Will this one actually last forever? I don’t know. Jenny is already talking about moving away for retirement. Maybe I’ll have to follow her again. But this is going to be decades of peace and security.

I’m tired. I’m going to go lay down again.

 

Coming to California

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I have already scheduled appointments with: dentist for Noah and me, chiropractor, haircuts for all four of us, and pediatrician for all three kids. I have emailed and am waiting for responses from the pediatric dentist.

I have requested medical records from everybody and I’ll be picking them up all over the bay.

Check all the boxes.

I need to message massage therapist too, but I’m waiting until some other stuff falls into place first.

We need to find out what day we need to go to San Francisco to start the visa application process. Apparently we must do it inside our home country and that means we have to do it in August. Then we will bebop over to the UK in between Bangkok and Taipei to process documents. We won’t land in our permanent home until January.

Things shift, yo.

Seems wise to do all the basic maintenance stuff in the US with our old providers so that we have a runway of not needing any services for a while as we figure out a GP and all the other providers here.

And more logistics are incoming. Woof.

The light at the end of the tunnel is not a speeding train.

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H’okay. Looks like I have a way to wrap my head around how this is working.

Now- June 16 Inverness, Scotland

June 16- Aug 31 PDX, USA

Aug 31-Oct 30 Bangkok, Thailand

Oct 30- Nov 26 Wellington, New Zealand

Nov 26- Jan 3 Taipei, Taiwan

Jan 3- Feb 20? Uruguay (city TBD)

Feb 20?- May/June in the US while we mail our passports off to apply for a UK visa. Figure out shipping our stuff to Scotland.

June/July- move to Inverness, buy a house, enroll the kids in school (to start in August) and figure out starting to get household stuff.

The kids think this sounds like a plan.

Finding things, passing things on, and filling in the gaps.

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I brought a bunch of boxes and bags back from Miss Jenny’s house yesterday instead of getting more groceries. I found that 3/5 boxes were full of stuff intended for her family (yay for me not having to figure it out–mostly hand me downs for her kids but also a bunch of presents) and we now have some of our books and toys that my kids have been missing. My big kids almost wept with joy at seeing some of their beloved toys. They were wise to send these things on to Scotland for reuniting. I also got a whole bunch of baby clothes for Her Sweetness and that feels super fun. She hasn’t gotten to have a big wardrobe and I have felt pretty bored by the lack of variety. This will be fun. Also: these clothes are more appropriate for the weather we will be having for a while. Yesterday was unusually warm (a whopping 20C!) but it’s dropping back to 12C over the next few days. (With the nighttime low going to 6C.) She will be grateful for the extra warmth.

But I was utterly exhausted after that and was not able to make a second trip to the grocery store. This is annoying because now I must go today/later. I got a lot of fruits and vegetables and bathroom necessities on the first trip. But I didn’t get helpful things with calories like cheese or meat. Whoops. We could not have carried more weight. I barely made it up the hill pushing the fully loaded stroller with the baby on my back. (We are staying just about exactly a mile up a somewhat steep hill from the grocery store.) But there is a closer co-op with less variety. I will probably try there today.

I did get eggs and one can of beans and butter and oil so it’s not a complete calorie wasteland.

I did not make dinner last night. I shared a banana with Her Sweetness and passed out super early because I could not physically keep moving. So I’m up super early. If I thought Her Sweetness would stay asleep I might run down the hill right now; the store is open 24 hours. But I don’t think that’s wise.

Erf.

Maybe I will make some food and wait till the big kids wake up and then leave them here while I run down the hill. I trust the big kids to take care of her for an hour and a half and that’s all the time I need. It’s a 40 minute walk roundtrip. Closer to 30/35 minutes if I hurry. I don’t need a full hour to shop, I don’t have enough ability to carry weight to need that much time. I mean, it’s always a risk. But I can go much faster with less pain if I don’t have to bring the baby. Ok, the food co-op is a 6 minute walk away. That would be much wiser, but it doesn’t open until 7am.

Oh wait! I got a packet of scones! Ok, I’ll start cooking for myself soon because I am famished then I can handle waiting until 7. That will be fine.

If it’s less than 15 minutes round trip walking I am very comfortable leaving the kids here. The big kids play with her very well and they have both snacks and toys to keep them busy. I won’t be gone an hour. I might be able to get back in 45 minutes round trip. And Eldest Child has her phone so she can text me if there is an issue and I will drop the groceries and run home.

It feels really fun to get back some of our books. None of these will leave Scotland so I need to read them fast.

We aren’t getting our luggage back for another 10 hours. Not so bad in the scheme of things. I did a load of laundry already and I slept in my clean long johns so I was able to wash my underwear and pants. The kids have extra underwear they don’t love but it will be a benefit to own. They can both wear the same size now but they are slightly different shapes about it.

Time to go cook for kids who have woken up. At 3:!0am. Ha.

The good, the bad, the exhaustion.

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Howdy folks. Last time I wrote to you we were in Fukuoka Japan. We then briefly bopped through Seoul and London on our way here to Inverness. Unfortunately our baggage remained behind in London. Whoops. Oh, and they can only find three of our four checked bags in their system so far. Double whoops. So we went to Tesco and got a couple of things for the kids and Miss Jenny has hand me downs for Her Sweetness.

So that’s the bad.

The good: fuckin’ A this apartment is great. We went on a bigger grocery shopping trip this morning than we have done since Hawaii. And we are going to go again on our way back from lunch with Miss Jenny. I FEEL SO FUCKING HAPPY. I GET TO STORE OVER A WEEK OF GROCERIES AT A TIME!!!! This is my happy place.

We are absolutely adoring our first contact with Scotland. Folks are very friendly. Like: if we don’t nod or smile or say hello to someone immediately… they do it first. Oh glory be. Not to mention there are fat people everywhere. I had not understood how slightly uncomfortable in my body I felt in Japan where I saw tons of beautiful clothing… that I could not possibly buy because I was about 8 sizes larger than they carry in stores. I could have bought pretty clothes today. But I didn’t because my bags will be here soon and I have too damn many clothes already. But I COULD HAVE.

My kids each found a pair of pants and a shirt that fit better than anything they’ve been able to buy for a while.

My fucking ancestors lived here. I can tell.

Deep sigh of happiness. Not to mention that the slightly bracing air is glorious. It’s not cold, but we are happier in a hoodie with our tshirt. We have been over heated for a long time now.

The selection of produce was fabulous. I got so many kids of produce. Spinach and tomatoes and Brussels sprouts and cabbage and grapes and raspberries and strawberries and blueberries and bananas and apples and carrots and broccoli and potatoes and cauliflower and garlic and bok choi and… I’m sure there is more. That produce drawer is packed. I didn’t get meat or cheese or any such. We will definitely need a second trip today before I feel like we have the full variety we like to have on hand.

And all of our devices are on the wifi network. The kids have already downloaded more library books. This week is their spring break. I told them I am not going to monitor their screen usage beyond the parental controls that are already in place (which means they can read as much as they want on their phone/ipod).

It was a bitch pushing the baby-car/stroller/buggy up the hill with all the food in it, but the view is absolutely amazing. I love being back in the hills/mountains. (These feel like rather small mountains to me, but I love elevation.)

This is showing promise to be a glorious two months.

We found a restaurant just over a mile away for breakfast. It was all you can eat full English breakfast. I was stunned by how much Her Sweetness put away. We were all really hungry. The last day of travel really took a lot out of us.

We are the first guests in a brand new apartment. The host is super nice and she asked me if I could suggest anything that would make the place better to stay in. She said she will go pick up everything I suggested today so I really couldn’t ask for better hosting. (Tea pot, wash cloths, second frying pan.)

The apartment isn’t really decorated to my taste, but it is very modern and chic Ikea stuff. It’s kind of funny to me. It’s white on white with a little bit of grey and tan. And lots of stags.

I am looking forward to staying here. I feel like I just slid into a perfectly sized glove. I mean, if I lived in this sort of house I would absolutely paint it to look different… but this is a luxury apartment. It wasn’t going to be wacky. And I don’t think I’d be permitted to have a large wild garden by HOA standards right around here. So it’s not long-term perfect. But this will be incredibly comfortable and appropriate for a while. And there’s a lot of potential.

Gosh I am appreciating the cold. I mean, it’s not cold. But when we left the house this morning it was 45F. After sweating like a pig for months that felt so nice. And it’s not California cold where you have no insulation in the houses so you freeze 24/7 all winter. It’s snug and nice inside and then when you step out to walk it feels lovely chilly. I like it.

Wellington is 50ish-70ish year round.

Hm.

We are going to leave to go meet up with Miss Jenny in about half an hour. I’m super tired but it’ll be nice. We are going to do a second grocery run on the way home. Then I intend to hide in this apartment for 3-4 days without leaving. I am weary.

I continue to be shocked by how well my children handle travel. We had a couple of moments of whining/fussing in a travel day where they were awake/in motion for almost 26 hours with a few cat naps. Her Sweetness even slept in the airplane bassinet for about three hours.

Can’t complain about that.

What an ending.

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We had such a fun dinner. I spent the evening talking mostly in Spanish to two glorious women who have lived in Japan for 30+ years. Well, three women but one was working and wasn’t a big part of the conversation. We talked about our children and work. One teaches Flamenco dance and the other is a graphic designer (and obviously the third runs a restaurant). What a privilege. I felt so happy. The ladies had a great time playing with Her Sweetness and they were glad the big kids were trying to talk to them. Keep studying they said.

This is the kind of thing you get from travel. Magical nights spent going between three languages as everyone says how great the other people are.

The other ladies had 0, 1, and 2 kids. They were impressed I want to do the work of having 3. Ha. It is a lot of work.

But I was very unhappy without them. Even though my anxiety isn’t gone, even though my depression isn’t gone… this is what I want to be doing. I am grateful for my life even as I bitch about not getting a break. I get to belong. I get to have four people who think that spending time with me is amazing and they want to do it every day.

I know how lucky I am.

I had a great time here. I never wanted to come to Japan. I thought I would be miserable. I wasn’t miserable. There was some stress and extra work… but it was tranquil and peaceful and beautiful in a way I have never experienced. I feel blessed that I got to feel this in my bones. I leave feeling like this is a wonderful country and I hope I get to come back some day. Thank you, Noah.

I feel stupid for needing to write so much about what I am thinking. But it does help me. Thank you for not being mad at me writing to you in my blog and Twitter and Slack and IMs and Discord.

Thank you for liking me.

If you are here cause you are a hate follower my life is cooler than yours so go ahead and hate me.

If you are not a hate follower: my life is not cooler than yours. Your life is awesome in ways mine is not and I deeply envy you. I can’t be you. I can’t have what you have. But I think you getting to have it is glorious. You get to have family ties I don’t. You get to have an established life I do not get to have. You get to have a career I do not get to have. You get to have a partner I do not get to have (ok, Noah is the perfect partner for me… but your partner is probably really fucking cool too). You get to have a mom and a dad who love you; that is not my story.

It’s ok that we get to be different. I like you a lot how you are. I am grateful you share your time and your thoughts with me.

I wish everyone had diarrhea of the mouth blogs so I could know how they process every day. But folks don’t feel comfortable. Sometimes I wish I didn’t feel so damn comfortable blabbing all this shit. I kind of wish I were more private. But I don’t do well when I try that. I make bad choices. I hurt myself. I don’t want to hurt myself anymore. I want to feel joy and contentment and relief because of the excellent life I get to have.

I am having a really fucking cool life.

I started out trash. I started out expendable and unwanted and rejected.

And here I am. Tomorrow I get on a plane to Scotland to see one of my very favorite people in the entire fucking world. I am blessed. I am lucky. In June I get to go to an area that has at least a dozen people I love tremendously. In September I get to go somewhere with the best food and cheap massage in the world. In December I get to go see one of my very favorite people in the whole world in her home with her glorious family that has been so nice to me even though I’m a weird ass white person.

I am bringing presents for Pam’s parents, you bet your ass. I should write Pam’s sister and tell her I hope she comes in December too. Getting to see that whole family at once would be quite a Christmas present. Thank you for allowing me to stand near your beautiful family. I don’t feel worthy. I don’t feel deserving. But that’s not my call. You do.

I love you so much.

In 2020 I want us to find an immersion Spanish school that will take my whole family. I want us to stay there for a while. I want us to leave pretty close to fluent. Speaking Spanish makes my heart soar. I feel more human, more warm, more joy. I love the language. It feels like love. It feels like happiness. I want more.

Even if we don’t end up in a Spanish speaking country permanently, I want this in my brain. It brings me so much contentment and joy.

I feel so grateful to have this life. Fuck yes. Let’s do this.

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.

Not ready to leave, don’t want to stay.

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There’s a lot that’s great here. If I had a real kitchen I think I could handle the other inconveniences of being in a really small space here. I’m not ready to leave because I haven’t gotten a massage in four weeks and I’m in a lot of pain. I am exhausted. The night wakings are slowing down a little, but I’m going to jump time zones again and poor little Sweetness is going to not appreciate that.

I am worried about almost 22 hours of travel right now. But, we’ll get through it. It is going to hurt. I am going to have to take some Ibuprofen whether I like it or not. I am going to have a rough two days because when we arrive we truly must get provisions. And then I think we will sit in the flat on Wednesday and do virtually nothing. I mean, change diapers and eat and all that. I will have to cook, but that is going to feel like a relief at this stage. More familiar food sounds lovely.

Wonderful Miss Jenny is helping me figure out how to get groceries delivered so that maybe we won’t have to leave the apartment on Tuesday after all. (She doesn’t have a car so she is familiar with this pickle.) That would be really rad.

I am a bit apprehensive about being separated from Noah for two weeks. It started out this way because Noah and Eldest Child were going to be taking a side trip for a week to deal with teeth stuff. That got jettisoned once I started looking into the fact that going in and out of the bay for a retainer would be more expensive than doing braces again and probably be more frustrating and difficult for EC. She has lost several retainers and that experience is making her feel bad about herself. Whereas she did great with managing her braces and she came out feeling super self confident.

Wherever we land, Middle Child is going to want braces. His mouth looks just like mine. Ha.

Beautiful had a good thought about my fear of rejection/people saying no to things I ask. I already tell myself no for a lot of things. I don’t ask for 10% of what I want because I don’t feel entitled. So when someone tells me no… it feels like a much bigger rejection due to me having already rejected myself. It feels like my friend is agreeing with my internal dialogue that says I shouldn’t be asking at all.

My brain is an asshole.

NOT FAIR

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I just looked more closely at the baggage allowances for the airline we are taking out of this country. Because Noah’s destination is the US he is allowed TWO CHECKED BAGS THAT EACH GET TO WEIGH 50 LBS.

Oh fuck life.

H’okay. What can we live without for a week or so as he brings it with him to the US and then back across the damn pond to Scotland?

Sorry Noah. You get to carry a lot of shit you won’t use. I assume you won’t even open the second bag.

Fuck nursing

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Ok. The minute I get to Scotland where I will no longer feel as bad about baby girl screaming I am night weaning. I. Cannot. Do. This. 10, 11, 12, 1, 3:30, 4:30 and 5:30 wake ups to nurse are not. fucking. ok. Hell, I turned her down the last two times. If my down stairs neighbor objects I don’t fucking care. I barely get back to sleep and she is waking me up screaming in my face or kicking me in my face.

I am so fucking enraged.

Why don’t you act niiiiiiiiiicer to everyone. BECAUSE FUCK YOU. THAT’S FUCKING WHY.

I am up to over 3 years of my life lost to this bullshit. My pain levels are back up to a 6/7. I hurt. I am exhausted.

But be more giving!

Be kinder!

Be more gentle!

No. I have nothing to give. Today I am going to sit still until I go do everyone’s fucking laundry then I will sit still again; I ain’t taking care of any other shit. The big kids can get away from me.

I can’t deal. I can’t be patient. I feel like dog shit.

And I think I am getting sick based on the volume of crap coming out of my nose.

I have already started working on packing. The airline we are flying to leave here has much tighter restrictions than the one we used coming here. We can’t check as many bags. We can’t have as many carry ons. So I am already working hard to pack and figure out what to get rid of. Luckily all three of my children have grown so maybe their bags will get lighter and I can shove a bunch of stuff into their bags. It just occurred to me that the pants that EC has outgrown might fit MC and I should have him try after I do the laundry. That would be hecka smart. He’s outgrown so much in the past few months. He looks much thinner than he did when we arrived in Japan. He was deliciously pudgy in Hawaii and now he’s stretched again.

Growing like consciously planted invasives.

We each get one checked bag and one carry on. The “personal item” can’t be bigger than a purse. Fuck. We arrived here with 6 checked bags and 8 carry ons. I will probably pay to check one extra bag. I don’t want to but I might need to. Noah will be carrying more crap to Minneapolis and then Scotland than is strictly necessary for him to have and I don’t care. He is carrying the maximum weight limit for his bags, not what he needs. I get to carry the absolute maximum when I travel by myself with three kids. Nothing is fair. Nothing is easy. He will cope just bloody fine.

I will be moving very very slowly and using a lot of trollies.

I get to have three 50.5 lb bags that we check, four 22 lb bags that I *think* all need to be carried on, and the stroller. I suspect we will all be wearing extra layers of clothing that we don’t really need to wear and we will take them off and put them in a grocery bag on the damn plane. Ha. Tell me I can’t have an extra carry on, will you? I’ll get around that nonsense.

I am already packing all the grown up clothes we won’t wear in the next week. I will just do laundry slightly more often, that’s not a problem. I just about flipped out in Hawaii trying to pack because getting it all done in the last few days when we wanted to be “having fun” sucked. I can’t do that again.

I’m hoping ECs knee heals fully so we can explore in the last few days we are here. That means everything else needs to be ready to go.

The biggest suitcase currently weighs 36 lbs with the high chair inside it and most of the big stuff I would want to get packed in there. That’s promising. I will find more clothes to shove in the nooks and crannies. The kids are getting rid of clothes/books that already total like 8 lbs so far; more will have to be culled. Several of the baby toys are ready to go but they need to be washed first. I have used up many bottles of bathroom stuff so the volume is greatly reduced. I am ditching all of the medications that will expire in the next three months because I will need to replace it soon anyway. I am considering combining the very different looking kinds of vitamins into one bottle so I have less to carry.

I will get us there.

Frankly, this will be easier anyway. I have been trying to reduce weight and volume. This is an excellent spur to truly get that shit done.

I may decide that it is better to ship gifts to the US from Japan instead of sending them in Noah’s bag for him to ship from Minneapolis. That may be important. This is why I am starting to pack nine days in advance this time.

Now it is eight days in advance. I am going to do laundry today and I am going to put all of our extra cooking stuff in bags. We aren’t using all of it here. We will be more likely to use it in Scotland. I think the kitchen alone in Inverness is bigger than our entire apartment here. Then there is a living room bigger than the second apartment here. Then there are multiple bedrooms.

Space sounds so nice right now.

And the house in Portland! It will feel FUCKING PALATIAL! (It’s a fairly small house. It’s about comparison.) The first thing I will need to buy there is a baby gate so that baby girl does not fall down the stairs into the basement. According to truly the house is 892 sq ft. So it is almost as big as the house in Fremont minus the third bedroom and expanded bathroom. Awesome. It’s really funny that we started this journey partially because the house wasn’t going to be big enough for the long run. (None of these temporary lodgings are for the long run. But my kids all want to have their own bedrooms by the time they hit high school. Ok.)

The refrigerator in Bangkok will be three times the size of this one. There are many more kitchen cabinets. The counter space still isn’t extravagant, but at least they have a rice cooker (up on a shelf so it doesn’t dominate the counter), a convection oven, and at least twice the prep space as we have here. I will make it work. We have a separate living room there. The kid room is much smaller and they will just have to deal. We will be in Bangkok for three months. The entire booking will only cost $3,138.

Portland for 2.5 months is $6,731. Inverness for two months is $5,850. Fukuoka for three weeks: $2,820. Thank goodness for Bangkok bringing the average down. And Japan is by far the smallest, most difficult to live in space. I suspect folks will be more friendly to us every where else too.

Not that everyone in Japan has been unfriendly–that’s not true at all. But this is not a multiple cultures promoting place. I miss seeing a sea of different kinds of faces. Kuala Lumpur was incredible for that. But their government is persecuting LGBTQ+ folk. Can’t go back.

I want to go to South or Central America. Asia has turned out to be way better than I imagined; pero yo quiero hablar español.

Pienso en español. No todo, claro, pero mucho.

Noah really is heading towards New Zealand in his heart. Turns out he has cousins there (through the queer/trans branch!!) and getting work visas would be a cinch. He has already been approached by a tech company that would be happy to sponsor him while he keeps his current job for US dollars so he can start the immigration process. Their goal would be for him to ultimately found some sort of company there.

He’s thinking a code school. I can’t think of a better thing for him to do with his personal goal of helping to “build the railroad”. He wants to help people learn. He wants to help people get into the ability to work with computers. Opening a code school in semi-rural New Zealand sounds pretty fucking rad towards that goal.

But maybe it would work in South America too? Let’s go find out.

If we move to New Zealand I want to learn Maori. There is an interesting cross cultural psychology program at one of the universities that requires knowing Maori. Hmmmm.

But first… I need to fucking sleep. *glare at baby who is once again nursing*

fuck my life.

Trying to find a groove.

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After my freak out yesterday morning we had a nice day. And this morning I got up early and prepared breakfast before the kids came over so that I didn’t get bitchy about them making a mess while they prepared their own breakfasts. It seemed S_M_R_T. We cleaned up our beds from the floor before they got here. So when they arrived we started with Good Morning Yoga and then while the tea steeped we meditated.

Then we ate a breakfast consisting of bell peppers, carrots, pineapple, grapes, apple, orange, tomato, buns, rice with mushrooms, and some sweet bready stuff. 2/5 also had kiwi. That was a fun breakfast. I won’t bitch at the kids later to eat fruit/veg. Everyone had 3-4 servings of raw produce and that’s great. It’s hard to get produce here. They just don’t seem to eat a lot of veg. We got salads from a convenience store yesterday because we truly require veg at a level the folks here don’t seem to need.

We are talking a lot about emotional regulation and being in control of our bodies because the entire atmosphere of this country requires a level of regulation we normally don’t attain. It’s dramatic.

I am walking a lot, more than everyone else but everyone is walking more than we did in California. I think Noah is walking more than in Hawaii but I don’t think the kids are. The kids and I usually exercise more than him because he works for a lot of hours a day. I’m hitting 6/7/9 miles a day.

I WAS A FUCKING GENIUS TO INSIST WE WORK UP TO THIS.

EC keeps playing and being silly and injuring her joints. Yeah. I think this is going to be a lifelong problem combined with puberty/growing making this a vulnerable time. I am happy that I had us screened for EDS before we go. I have a language for looking for ways to help us build appropriate strength for our bodies given our abilities and limitations. *pat prior self on the back*

I took their flips away and told them they don’t get them back until we are somewhere that we need to go swimming. It’s not ok to try to walk 6+ miles in flip flops. They fall and hurt themselves more than they don’t. Wear. Shoes. Oh. My. Cheesetoast.

Hi. You have walking shoes for a reason. Also: socks help prevent blisters so that you can stop complaining about how much your damn feet hurt.

We had a conversation about Confucianism last night at dinner. We talked about respect and listening and honoring the experience that your elders have. We asked them if we have raised them to show respect for us and be obedient. They said no. I asked how well that is going for them. They said mixed.

It was an interesting conversation.

We don’t require listening or obedience. That’s complicated.

I asked them if they feel that their normal blasé attitude is serving them well in adapting to the very different attitudes and behaviors they see here. They said not so much. I asked if maybe we want to slow down and pay more attention to listening.

They didn’t look at me. Ha.

They did listen when I said it wasn’t a good idea to take off running for the park we saw after dinner last night. By the time we got back to the apartment EC thanked me because her knees were hurting quite badly and it would have been worse if they had run a bunch.

I’m not always wrong.

I think she should have a couple of days of walking less and resting. I brought her in some Ibuprofen at bedtime, after we had each been in bed for a while because I forgot to give it to her before she went to her apartment for the night. The way her face softened and relaxed and “Oh you love me and take care of me”…. I fucking live for that shit. She said thank you. The words were far less important than seeing her entire body go soft with feeling loved. That was my favorite moment of the day. Yes I see you. Yes I want to take care of you. Yes I love you.

MC has been sleeping hard since we got here. Most of the time he resists sleep and we all pay for it because he needs more sleep than most of it and he has FOMO so he undersleeps and is grumpy a bunch. He’s trying to work on his moodiness and his self control though. So he’s trying to go to sleep earlier. I am impressed with how hard he is trying.

We had a very harsh chat about how him hurting his sisters has to fucking stop. He isn’t a baby anymore. It’s not ok for him to pinch, hit, punch, and kick his sisters. It’s just not acceptable on any level. Having a baby in the house is incredibly beneficial for him in some ways. He can see how things are different for him and Her Sweetness and it is starting to make sense to him in a way that he just never grocked with the Bonus Kids. Those kids weren’t enough younger than him for him to really feel like the standards deserved to be different.

I feel a little bit bad for shaming the shit out of him…. but it’s not ok for him to keep hurting the baby back when the baby hurts him. Babies will hit and kick you because they have no language and no self control. You can’t be at their level.

We are all learning so much and I am really grateful we get to spend the time together talking about what the lessons mean and what we want to get out of these experiences. We have time to talk about what we wish would happen and then debrief on what actually happened so that we can amend our behavior in the future.

I feel so grateful for the time we spend together even though there are hard moments.

I am still feeling less anxiety here than normal. The tranquility in this country is phenomenal. It’s interesting that EC is having anxiety spikes like whoa. She’s really struggling. MC is kind of oblivious to the opprobrium so he’s having a great time.

Also: I have taken a few doses of Imodium and now my bowels are less cranky. *phew*

We are trying so hard. We are trying to be nice to each other. We are trying to show patience. We are trying to learn how to find food in a place that does not prioritize our dietary needs. We are trying to learn how to take care of ourselves with different items available for support. We are trying to learn academic skills. We are trying to figure out how to read signs in a language that has no recognizable to us letters.

I am actually astounded by how well we are doing. We are eating well and having fun.

*pat self on back*

Pam linked an article about procrastination being more related to avoiding negative emotions in the current moment because feelings are hard and most people feel like their Future Self is more like a stranger and most people aren’t as kind to strangers as they are to themselves. I laughed and laughed and laughed. That’s why it is so easy for me to be nice to Future Me because I have a much easier time being nice to strangers than to myself. I am still giggling days later about how funny I find that.

Future Me is less of a fuck up and deserves better treatment than Current Me. That has been true for most of my life. “If you can’t look back on yourself 18 months ago and say wow I really sucked you aren’t trying hard enough” and all.

I back slide sometimes. And the first year of having a baby is fucking brutal every single time it happens. But the trend really is upwards towards greater health and stability and happiness for me.

It’s not what I expected for myself.

I did most of my PT exercises this morning before the kids came in. I will finish them before the shops open and I can go buy toilet paper. We have forgotten 2 trips in a row. Grrrrr.

I did about 1/3 of them yesterday. I am trying to get back to having a routine. But jiminy this shit is hard. I took my Chinese herbal medication stuff this morning. I am supposed to take it 3x’s/day and I am lucky if I remember once. I am trying though. I took my vitamins.

I am trying to take care of me and the people I love.

I am so glad that I don’t know a single person in this country. I get to focus on myself and my family and I don’t need to worry about what I should be doing for anyone else. I also don’t feel like an evil colonizer. I’m just a traveler coming through. It feels different. I don’t think I have ever been in a country that was not either white-dominant or colonized by white people before. This is… fascinatingly different. I am enjoying it.

The fruit is larger, prettier, and so clean but it tastes less intense. I think it is interesting that they don’t burn food almost at all. The potatoes are all still very white when they are done cooking. I am not used to that. The flavor profile is very subtle and I am not used to that. I haven’t added salt to anything.

We are eating more sweet bread than is strictly ideal. Balance is tricky.

(Not the internal organ kind of sweet bread.)

We are all dry as fuck. I’m rubbing lotion into everyone in my family because our cuticles are cracking and bleeding. I’m trying to get the big kids to stop picking their dang noses because they are bleeding all over stuff. UGH. The air here is super fucking dry. If you scrape the inside of your nose you will rip a hole in yourself. I know that it is “impolite” to blow your nose here. Go in a damn bathroom and do it anyway. We are not adjusted to this. We need to take care of ourselves. If the appropriate place is in a bathroom GO IN THERE AND GET IT DONE.

The bleeding all over things is inconvenient because when we wash the blood out of the sheet it takes over 24 hours to dry in our tiny little bathroom with the fan working hard. This is not ideal.

I may take it to the laundromat later and dry the sucker.

Her Sweetness is standing independently but still not taking steps. I am impressed she shifted back to her normal nap schedule immediately. We adjust time zones within 48 hours. It’s wild. The stroller is breaking and that freaks me out. Goodness she is so heavy.

Japan: the good, the bad, the frustrating

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The first two days we were here I felt such a reduction in anxiety it was startling and odd. My family commented on how very calm I was. The trees help. The intense politeness and helpfulness really impact me. It’s beautiful here. Japan was never on my list of places to visit and now I feel like visiting here again would be ok. We are really enjoying the food (even though I have violent diarrhea).

The bad is that this morning I woke up and freaked out at the kids for being my kids; they are messy like whoa and this is a place that has basically no tolerance for that. When we eat they spill food everywhere and I’m having panic attacks as I watch them drip orange juice all over the place while they peel fruit. When EC dropped food on the rug (after I asked them 15 times NOT TO EAT ON THE RUG) I just about flipped my shit. These are not our possessions. You don’t get to ruin them.

I have been incredibly patient with how destructive my kids are. I haven’t punished them. I haven’t shamed them. I don’t treat them poorly for being clumsy and rough with stuff. The house in Hawaii was not well maintained so if we made a mess you couldn’t tell the difference from when we arrived anyway. Here it is different.

We are only eating one meal a day in the place we are renting because I think I would freak the fuck out if we tried seriously cooking all meals here. And we can get incredibly tasty well rounded meals for 4 people for about $15-$20. Why cook in a tiny space when that is the alternative? It’s not as expensive as we usually spend on groceries…. (So that’s good.)

When we went out yesterday and had to walk across the city we did our normal greet everyone thing. Holy tomato sauce was it different. Probably two dozen or so people acknowledged us with a smile, nod, or return greeting. One notable guy stopped in the mall (we needed warm baby clothing) and said a very excited “Hello!” I think he was thrilled to speak English and I get it, man. Most people treated us like we were ghosts. They didn’t acknowledge that we exist. That was hard on Eldest Child in particular. She felt very upset by being ignored. She’s not used to that. And then there were the 15-20ish people who were hostile or mocking. That was hard for her. For me it felt like a blast to the past when I was visibly white trash moving all over the place. I have had a lot of people sneer at me. This wasn’t more severe than I’ve had in the past. It wasn’t as bad for me as when we were in Virginia visiting friends on the road trip and neighbors called the police on us for being vagrants. Awesome. At least here they just give me a dirty look and move on with their day.

I broke down and bought ibuprofen because my head has been hurting so badly. Back pain, hand pain, arm pain, hip pain, knee pain, leg pain, foot pain…. I can ignore. I am a masterful dissociator. When my head hurts so badly that I can’t think or see properly… I don’t do ok. I feel vicious and mean and unable to cope. So I got some pain meds. Ahhhh blissful relief from headache pain with a normal dose. That’s why I don’t use pain meds almost ever. I need them to work when it is an emergency. I do wish my neck would relax a bit more. That’s not helping my head.

I need a massage and I’m not sure when I will be able to make that happen.

I completely reorganized our room today to make it easier to deal with the bedding and stuff. I think it will be easier going forward. *cross fingers*

I also had a long chat with the kids (hissed with venom because yelling here would be so embarassing) about why the food needs to be contained in the teeny tiny claustrophobic kitchen. It is not easy to eat here. But this is what we have for now.

Maybe if I put the camp towels down on the floor over the rug while we eat? Maybe in multiple layers?

That’s probably worth investigating.

I need to do laundry. That’s the afternoon task.

I figured out that if we put our bed mats on the floor… the heated rug makes quite a toasty bed! Well… it’s warm enough that Her Sweetness sleeping in socks, a long sleeved onesie, flannel jammies, a blanket over wrap, under a blanket next to me is only chilly to the touch instead of feeling like an icicle. I am sleeping fully dressed in multiple layers. The big kids are sleeping in a full set of day clothes and their jackets under a comforter. We are forking freezing in the 40F weather. I lost my long johns and one of my long sleeved shirts and I am so pissed at myself. I went through every bag looking. There is no chance of replacing them in this country where my 10 year old is bigger than most adults. Thank goodness for my flannel lined jeans.

Her Sweetness is in that stage where she can’t be kept off of electronics so we got her a little Fisher Price phone to play with. It will teach her Japanese, which feels fun.

There’s a lot to appreciate here. I am enjoying it a lot. But this could never be home.

Not dreaming, chores, screens and friends

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Apparently the way my brain decided to handle “I am sick of fucking nightmares” is “I am not going to let you get into REM sleep because I am going to wake up every half hour.” It was a rough night for me.

Yesterday was mixed. It was mostly good with some frustration in the middle around fucking screen time. I hate computers. (Yes, I recognize the irony that I am typing on one and typing is basically my inside voice.) Yesterday Middle Child and I got up early and got on a bus to go downtown to rent a car. On the bus we worked on homework and snuggled and it was fun. It was frustrating on the way back because Google Fi has decided that I get phone service everywhere…. and data when I am on a wifi network and that’s it. Noah’s phone has data all over the island. Urgh. So I had to call Noah and have him talk me through getting on the freeway. Luckily he is a patient man.

Middle Child and I stopped on the way home and had a snack. Eating together on dates is like a thing.

I dropped him off, picked up the baby and the laundry and headed to the laundromat for two hours. Woo. It took so long because only one washer was available while I was there. That’s ok.

When I got back… it got frustrating. With the recent introduction of Parental Controls… a lot of websites aren’t working anymore. Netflix isn’t working because it is tracked in so many ways that Parental Controls blocks it. (I am sorta unhappy about Google and Facebook tracking my Netflix usage anyway now that I know it is happening. Fuck Google. Fuck Facebook. Evil motherfuckers.) I started getting loud and Noah told me this wasn’t worth yelling about. He was right.

I decided it was better to make the kids go outside for a while. Noah and I looked at the controls again, decided that because the kids get 4 hours and that’s long enough to whine about not getting everything I will let them have 1 hour a day on weekdays (it will mostly be used for school time) and 2 hours on weekends, which will let them play a game or two but not long enough they will demand movies.

Because I am god damn sick of fighting over their computers.

I waited until I chilled out. Then I went outside and talked to each kid separately about why they lost unfettered access. At the end of these conversations they both hung their heads and said they agreed with the restriction because they have not been polite at all about their computers. (They were supposed to set their own timers and limit their screen time. Never happened. They were supposed to do school stuff…. that was mixed.) They both agree that they have not been responsible and I need to take that responsibility away from them. They also understand that me standing over them to monitor them while they are on adult accounts isn’t fair either. So here we are.

I mixed in talking about things I was frustrated about in other areas (each kid got very different feedback because they are frustrating in such different ways) and how I am off my medication and I will be for the foreseeable future and let’s talk about how that is going to impact my body and my mood. Phrased that way they both said, “I’d rather be limited and deal with that frustration myself than keep making you track my screen time. That will go poorly.” Yup. It will.

After that Noah was done with work for the day and we drove up to explore the western edge of the end of the highway on Oahu. We played there for about an hour then drove down to Pokai Bay so Noah and the three kids could play in the water while I talked on the phone to one of my friends. (No data= no video chat. Dangit.)

I don’t have consent to talk about her in detail so I won’t. I will say that we have been friends since the 7th grade. When I talk about how Noah’s friends are rich and mine are poor…. she’s on my mind. She is someone who I think about a lot. I don’t write about her for lots of reasons around her privacy and people being judgmental pieces of shit. But it’s really nice talking to her. She asked why I don’t call more often. I said, “well… I do this thing where I find people who are really crazy like me and I try to enmesh with them and then I get really anxious about bothering my less crazy friends and I withdraw.” She said, “Well I’m a little bit crazy so you should call a little bit more often.” Then she laughed. It was nice. She has a tremendous amount of experience with kids and I learn a lot from her. She’s one of the most giving people I’ve ever known. Her kid has had some interesting life experiences and she has told me she was really glad she’s always known me because she learned about a lot of things from me and when it came up with her kid she felt calm and collected about going with the flow.

I am grateful for her perspective and time. I will try to call more often.

I need to schedule a call with my other buddy in Salt Lake. He completes the trio of my middle school friends I’m still in touch with. His mother in law hates me and he finds that delightful. Ha.

And I get to see Jenny soon. I am trying as hard as I can to put my intensity in a box because I can’t explode all over Jenny and her family. They are all very reserved people. It is overwhelmingly important to me that I create a healthy connection with her kids and they are sensitive souls. I have to meet them where they are. I am the adult. That feels like a lot of pressure. It’s self imposed! Mostly? I want this meeting with my namesake to go better than the first one. I feel pathetic about it, but I want her to like me. I was too assertive the first time and she was like “Fuck you stranger lady” and that was fair… (She was under 2. The fuck you was entirely body language.)

I earn people pushing me away when I am too intense. But I am really fucking intense. That’s just a fact. How much can I put that intensity in a box and still be an authentic piece of me? I struggle with that balance.

You know, like how can I diplomatically talk about my feelings so I order my brain versus how much do I get to the point of screaming “Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you. Who’s next?”

Sigh. Balance. I continue to lurch towards it.

Last night I had a chat with Middle Child about his allowance savings. He said he feels like he doesn’t deserve to have it because we are walking past so many people who have nothing. I talked about how sometimes he uses his allowance to pay for things he breaks, sometimes for things he wants and I will not buy, sometimes just for splurges and if he gives all the money away he won’t be able to meet any of those needs he has for autonomy.

I talked about trying to find the middle way. (Thank you Buddhism. I am not a true follower, but every faith/religion/cultural path has some value for me to learn from. That’s what California Woo means to me.) I talked to him about trying to find the balance between saving up for yourself so you can meet your needs versus sharing what you have extra. I asked him what would happen to our family if I gave away 80% of his father’s income every month because I don’t feel like I deserve it. His eyes got big as he processed what that would mean in terms of housing, food, medical care, everything changes. So instead I share 10%.

We can meet our needs with 90% and we don’t have to stockpile the last 10%. We can share it and help other people have lighter loads. I can’t really give away more because I have a lot of medical expenses that are going to go up as I age. I have to prepare for that or I am deciding that I need to die early.

But it’s not about giving it away because you don’t deserve it. It’s about recognizing that our life is really good and we have the ability to share…. so we should.

He’s working on writing up his feelings about the values in a book called Islamic Values for Children. (DUDE! It’s online! Oh that’s awesome!) It’s neat helping him process what he agrees with and disagrees with in this book. Like, he said that we need to pursue (I’m paraphrasing slightly) understanding creation because if we don’t we make bad decisions and we hurt ourselves and the people around us: like killing off 80% of bugs in the world. Humans have used pesticides for a long time and now we face the possible extinction of our species because food is going to have a hard time growing.

I love hearing where his values differ from mine. But he has been raised hardcore in an environment where “Enlightened Self Interest” is a big deal. Being selfish isn’t wrong, but you need to be selfish in the concept of helping yourself be ok loooooooooong in the future.

It’s neat seeing how that plays out for him.

One of the hard things about Noah’s job is that he always feels like he isn’t quite doing enough to earn all those buckets of cash and all the conference invites so he works… constantly. Today and tomorrow he is taking off work! We get to go play on the island. I’m happy about that. I don’t have a plan for what we will do. I want to take the kids all the way around the island because then the kids get into these intense chats about how the plant life and rocks change. They are observant in ways I never was as a kid. Yesterday Eldest Child was talking about what the rock formations mean in terms of lava because she learned about it in one of her books. That’s so awesome.

“Hey, the plants aren’t so brown. That means this side gets more rain. Hm, I wonder why this is the line where that changes?”

This kind of thing didn’t occur to me as a kid and I love standing near this. I like them so much.

But first… we should pack 90% of our stuff this morning. In 48 hours we go to the airport.

I need to spend most of my time focusing on my family because I need to feel what that means. But I won’t forget my friends.

Oh, by the way: the place in Longview fell through. The AirBnB host said that we couldn’t have the independent apartment that long but we could rent two bedrooms in her house and share her kitchen and living room for the same price! Uhhh… no. That’s not a good deal for us. My kids are essentially nudists. They need to be able to have their own space where they can unwind without having to perform certain behaviors for a host. So I found a place closer to downtown Portland that is actually about $600 cheaper for the whole stay. It is in a much more crowded neighborhood, which will be mixed. Less ability to just “GO OUTSIDE” and more ability to walk to grocery stores. That’s a balance I will cope with. The house is sparsely decorated and one floor. That was shockingly hard to find in the region. The houses on AirBnB available for a long stay are mostly multi-story or decorated to within an inch of their lives. Yeah, I’m not dealing with that shit with a nearly-walking-baby.

Last night we had pho for the third time since reaching the island. We are really on a kick. I ordered the spiciest one on the menu then added three heaping spoonfuls of chili because it just wasn’t spicy enough. I wanted my lips and tongue to burn. It was awesome. Afterwards we had our first dessert since reaching the island: shaved ice with ice cream on the bottom. I added mochi balls to mine. We all had very different flavor profiles and it was funny how much the differences really are indicative of our personalities. EC had caramel ice cream with mango shaved ice, MC had coffee ice cream with cherry shaved ice, Noah had gosh I can’t remember his ice cream but he had guava and passion fruit shaved ice (with coconut sauce). I had cookies and cream ice cream with vanilla/pineapple/pina colada. The other three of us had mochi balls instead of sauce.

The baby went nuts trying everyone’s. She thought it was the best thing that’s happened to her in a long time. She is starting to understand “We look at a menu, then people go away and bring us good things to eat.” It’s fun to watch. She does a lot of intently looking at the menu then pointing at pictures. We often order what she points at. She is certain that the world is working as it should. Ha.

D–you didn’t do something terrible when you left that comment. The timing and the phrasing were not my ideal. But that happens in relationships. I am almost done being an exploding asshole. I am so sorry you got swept into all the upset about other things and other people.

Some of my grief is legitimate and real and totally deserved. That doesn’t mean I should lash out at everyone. Sometimes I do though and that is really fucking shitty. I try as hard as I can to limit my explosions to being here. I love you and I appreciate that you have tried to share what you have spare over the years. That wasn’t a lot and that’s ok. I don’t get to demand more from anyone who doesn’t have it going spare. Really I don’t get to demand more from anyone.

My black hole is not your job to fill. It really isn’t. I know that. It’s why I try to retreat when I am being inappropriate. Sometimes that retreat involves inappropriate yelling in my space. I imagine that is not easy. You don’t want to feel like you are hurting me. You don’t want to feel like you did something wrong.

I try to withdraw when all you have to do to be wrong is be near enough to hear me as I am screaming about being in pain.

Well, therapy isn’t an option. Try to talk it out.

4 Replies

Why am I so depressed? Well. I built a lot of my sense of self worth around my value to people. Quite some time ago Sarah said that she was tired of having me publicly humiliate her when she made mistakes so I didn’t write as much about how she was treating me. I gave too much. I hate feeling like I am one of those assholes who justifies treating people badly or stalking by saying “I just love too much”.

But I went and did physical labor for her when it was literally causing me physical damage. I spent thousands of dollars helping her. Because I was trying to give her the kind of support I wish someone wanted to give me. She had me block out lots of time for her on my calendar and she showed up when she had nothing better to do.

Dad only offers help (that I have to pay hundreds of dollars for because I have to buy the plane tickets and send food money for my kid and send money for activities…. why aren’t I just sending her to sleep away camp–that costs less money?) when he also wants to ask me if he can borrow $25,000. But he doesn’t invite me to Thanksgiving or Christmas unless it is an Orphan/Leather Friends event. When he has holidays with his family I am not invited. I might be able to crash it… but he doesn’t invite me. Years ago when I asked him if he was willing to have a relationship with my kids he told me that I needed to know that all of his investment properties, all of his ability to help in this life is going to his kids. But I should loan him $25,000? Uhm. No. That kind of loan is for family. And you are letting me know that I am a Leather Family member… not a family member.

The folks we came to Hawaii to see talked about how much they missed us and how much they wanted to spend time with us. They have been begging us to visit for two years. And the daughter has totally flaked (she’s 20 and going through some shit… I get it) while the mother is manipulative, whiny, and cruel to my children all while asking me to fund her lifestyle. “I want to throw you a vegan feast to show you how much I care about you… but you have to pay for it.” Well a vegan feast is only welcome if it comes from t&T because their household is the only vegan household I fucking trust to make me food that will taste good. Your offering sounds like I am going to leave hangry and mean. And I get to pay for it. You will hang out with my kids and tell them that if they are not demonstrating enough gratitude that they don’t deserve to have as much food or money from their mother for play. WHAT THE FUCK? She mocked the size of my daughter’s ass because it didn’t fit in a climbing unit designed for fucking 5 year olds.

But I feel this terrible, overwhelming shame about cutting off people who treat me this way? They are willing to be my friends so how dare I judge what they have on offer?

Being really upset about these bigger boundary violations mean that smaller things feel more threatening. I *know* the CPS comment wasn’t intended as a threat. I *know* she didn’t mean to hurt me. But CPS is a deeply triggering topic and I am already wild with upset and I don’t have the ability to process that kind of thing without flipping out on top of everything else.

I don’t feel entitled to demand better treatment. I feel like these “friends” are treating me this way because this is what I deserve. Because I deserve to be treated like an ATM. If I don’t buy love I don’t deserve to receive any.

I deeply believe that my children don’t owe me anything. It is supposed to be a one way trip of support but that means I feel used all of the time by a lot of people and that’s hard.

I am still grieving Marcie. Her wife would not allow me to visit when Marcie was injured. Marcie felt abandoned. Marcie broke up with me because she couldn’t cope with feeling abandoned. I get that. I hope her wife is treating her better now. I will never know.

I am not blameless in any of this. I wanted too much from Sarah. I could watch her patterns and guess that she wouldn’t keep her promises and she would continue to want/take money and never think about how she was impacting other people. She is consistent with lots of people. I kept making stupid choices.

But I hurt. I feel like my hurt is stupid and I should just get over it and how dare I act like I have problems when I am not poor any more.

How dare I act like I ever deserve any support at all now that I have so much fucking money. I *should* have to pay for all help I get. And if people treat me badly as they take my money… isn’t that what I have always believed rich people deserve? Isn’t that justice?

I never meant to get this rich. I really didn’t. And now I don’t know how to view myself.

I don’t feel bad about the financial help I give to a lot of people. I bought Y a car and I don’t feel bad. I gave M a car and I don’t feel used. I have paid for people’s schooling. I have helped people start businesses. I loaned a friend money so she could get an apartment when she got her first corporate job and she couldn’t afford a place in the city she got the job in.

I don’t feel used by any of those situations at all.

I feel used by Sarah. I feel used by Dad. I feel used by the lady here in Hawaii.

Feeling bad about these people does not entitle me to treat other people badly. But I’m not coping well. I feel like I have to pretend I am not hurting and I am not capable right now. I don’t feel entitled to be sad about how these people treat me.

I abandoned my mother and my aunt when they needed help. I left them with a bunch of users, abusers, and takers. I feel like that means I deserve all the bad in the whole world. That means that Sarah treating me like shit feels like justice. And I hate myself for being someone who deserves this.

When I got my accident settlement when I turned 18, my sister told me that I had to use it to buy her a house and she would let me live with her.

How can I teach my children how to be in relationships without being users if that is all I understand?

It isn’t that all of my friends are users. Not even close. And it isn’t that I think I deserve endless support or financial help or…

I babysat for a lot of people hoping for trades. I was told that it was “easier” for me. They couldn’t handle having more than their own children in the house. But me providing free child care was so nice. It worked with the Bonus Family until it didn’t. Then my kids told me that a lot of her discipline was threatening to hit them and putting them in time outs for hours. I already knew that she expected my kids to come clean up after her kids because my kids are “more mature”.

I feel like almost every child care situation I have found has turned out to be shitty and abusive. I fear that it is happening because only shitty and abusive people want to be around me.

Only that isn’t true. I have friends who aren’t shitty and abusive. Well. I have people who want to talk to me for a few minutes or hours a year who aren’t shitty and abusive.

I feel like I should have known that my children would be treated badly by caregivers, as if it is a generational curse.

I don’t want to be bitter or angry or pissy with new people because I hate how this has all gone down.

But that means I have to lie about how I feel all the god damn time because I don’t trust people and I assume people are going to use me or treat me or my kids like crap.

M came through for my last birth. I need to never ever do anything again that puts me in such a vulnerable position. Because I can’t ever again need that much help. I can’t guarantee it. I am sure that people will help me in the future but they will help me randomly and when and how they feel like it and it won’t be based on my needs or issues. It will be about what makes them feel good that day.

That has to be ok. That has to be enough.

Which means I need to not try to be bigger. I need to not try to accomplish things. I need to just sit around and do nothing and wait for my kids to have needs because they will have needs and I am the only one who will be available to help them. I can’t ever believe anyone who tells me they will help again. If someone offers to be a penpal I need to to not believe them. If someone tells me they want us to come visit because they want to spend time with us I need to assume they are a liar.

I am so fucking grateful that Jenny said she has maybe a spare hour one day a week. Maybe. That is not consistent and I cannot count on it.

Thank you.

I hate that I need to assume that people are lying to me all the time. I need to assume that people are telling me what they wish was true, not what is true.

And I wonder why I feel depressed?

I really don’t want to live near the ocean. I don’t like it at all. I learned that, at least.