I’d like to spend today hiding in my garage. I’ve had so many feelingsI feel like I need to crawl into a hole and spend some time thinking about what it all means. Instead I have a date.

There are quite a few factors involved in being a masochist and they entwine in ways that might be unexpected. I was talking to a friend about this today and it seemed to me this might be useful to type out.

So this month I’ve had dates with most of my folks, group dates and otherwise. I have only had penetrative sex with one of them on one of the dates. It just isn’t really happening. I’m having lots of sex free dates this month. After not dating last month.

Feast or famine. What the fuck? Why aren’t I fucking?

I’m not feeling dominant. I’m not feeling bossy. I’m not feeling like saying, “Do this.”

I’m not feeling brave about asking. I’m not willing to risk a “No” right now. Sometimes I can’t.

So I’ll gaze at you with adoration and hope that this feeling will pass. That this divided feeling will go away and I will be able to touch my desire again. Volition. Desire. Wanting. Possession. Ownership.

What does owning my body mean? Fuck if I know.

I didn’t finish everything. I will tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning before I go to martial arts class I will fill the green waste bin and do the weeding in the front. I’m half done with the roses, I can finish in a few minutes. Then I’ll have class. Then I’ll run home. Then I’ll go to an acupuncture appointment.

Then I’ll come home and sand the walls and scrub them again.

Then we have guests who want to talk about mental health. Because excellent. That’s what I’m here for.

Then we have babysitting and we get to go chat with friends. That’ll be nice.

I made some progress on Jenny’s birthday box. But it won’t be sent till Monday. Because I’m a dork.

Didn’t write the letter but I thought of what I want to write and to whom. Just to get it done. Maybe in the predawn hours before I can work outside.

I wouldn’t have gotten so much done if I hadn’t had a three person crew show up to help me. That was magical. I didn’t expect that this project.

Oh thank you, universe. I appreciate the help. They saved me at least a day, probably two of labor.

I am lucky. I am loved.

Why? I will never understand. Do I have to?

Why do I want to date people so fucking much that I’m willing to make big waves in my life?

If you’d seen Cupid’s eyes sparkle maybe you’d understand. If you had seen how my submissive quivers and leans into me… whoa hot. If you wanted a Daddy as bad as I do you’d understand. And my Deity?

I get why Noah worries about being replaced piece meal. But none of these people occur to me as overlapping with Noah. They give me a chance to access parts of myself that are not part of my relationship with Noah. Not because I’m trying to be an asshole.

We all want what we want from one another.

I think Noah would want more parts of me if he understood how they worked. I’d like to show him and I don’t know how without my wonderful foils.

Why?

It isn’t because I’m deficient in sex. 22 times so far this month. We stopped the quota and our sex life kinda exploded. After ten years of marriage that seems alright.

Why do I want to have sex with other people? Why do I want to kiss that guy from the munch? Hell, why do I want to kiss everyone?

Oxytocin, baby.

Why am I not more attracted to kissing girls?

It isn’t a lack of attraction. I just… feel completely inadequate. I have nothing of value or worth to offer so I keep my filthy hands and filthier thoughts to myself.

Why am I not afraid to kiss boys?

They don’t care that I offer nothing. This moment is enough.

Why do I want this so much?

I need to figure this out because it bothers Noah. Fuck.Shit.Fuck.Shit.

What part of it hurts him? Feeling like I am going to run off and fall in love. He’s pragmatic. He knows I love everyone. But then there is falling in love.

Will I wreck his life over my inability to control my cunt? I sure hope not. But I get why he feels fear. I would in his position.

He keeps stressing that I picked exceptionally good people to date; no one is in any way shape or form a problem. But lizard brains don’t care that I picked a good crop of friends to flirt with. Lizard brains care, “Hey. My toy is looking at someone else.” Yeah, I’m a toy. I know it. He’s mine as well so I can’t be too critical.

Why?

Because I get energy from it. I need energy so bad. I need the influx. I do get energy from Noah too. I get as much as he has to give.

Then I start huge projects and use all he has to give and feel… empty.

It’s not fair.

But it is. It happens.

We had our lovely dinner party last night. The conversation was lively and everyone got along. That was good.

I think it is going to take a while before stuff feels comfortable. I think I need to ride the waves of discomfort and feeling like, of all the people at this table I should leave given that they are there for me. I don’t need to avoid them when they are there because they like me.

My brain is not a fun place.

It’s kinda like how i completely wigged out at my 30th birthday. I couldn’t handle that. I could absolutely not psychologically accept that all those people were there because they love me. It felt like a mockery. It felt like really they were there as part of an elaborate hoax and soon they are all going to hurt me.

Paranoia sucks.

Do I really think that a single person last night had negative thoughts? No, but I felt like I should leave anyway. I felt out of my league.

Do you know part of the trouble? I am surrounded by such fantastic, experienced, nearly magical people. Why would they want to waste their time with a loser like me?

I cannot envision a future without signifiant self mutilation because I cannot envision a future where it will ever be safe to really want what I want. I will always need to just shut up. That requires help.

Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to stop this habit. Maybe I should just be looking for ways to hide it better.

I told the Quiet One that I can’t see him. Because Noah doesn’t want me seeing people who won’t do group play. I feel like I just shot myself in the foot. Because that was my solid shot at having someone around who wanted to be helpful during pregnancy.

But Noah is feeling so threatened and scared.

I’m… I’m feeling like maybe a third baby is stupid. I’m not sure I can sign on for another pregnancy of completely overwhelming Noah such that we are both miserable. Not when he is completely against me getting other support.

I wanted that support. I wanted to find out what would happen.

Oh well.

Noah is still pushing for Mardi Gras month. I feel like it would be stupid. I feel like me letting myself want something or someone would be stupid. What if I really liked someone. I liked the Quiet One. Enough that Noah was filled with rage and he feels our relationship is permanently altered.

I destroyed our enmeshment.

Because I’m that good.

I feel like our relationship is permanently altered too. But I don’t know what to do about it. I feel full of distrust, shame, and anger. I feel like in our tempestuousness we have chased off people and I’m pissed about that too.

I did find god damn good people this time. But who in the hell would want to put up with this bullshit?

I feel incredibly hopeless and despondent. I have so little belief we will find a road that will contain happiness for both of us. I feel like I shouldn’t have another kid because I shouldn’t reset the clock on how soon till I can commit suicide.

I promised 12.25 more years. Maybe resetting that isn’t smart.

Know why Quiet One enraged him so much? Because I promised I wouldn’t pick up anyone else who wanted solo time. Then what did I immediately do. I broke my word. Not only did I break my word and want to spend time with someone who is completely anti group play I did it with someone who wanted to be close to my kids. And that is threatening up one side and down the other.

My submissive may offer to take my kids to ice cream, but he doesn’t want to just be a frequent visitor to the house just kinda hanging out doing shit. And that’s the most serious help offer I’ve gotten from anyone.

But I have to say no to it. Because it hurts Noah.

I’m scared I need to turn down the third baby because I can’t go through another pregnancy with how much support I had the first two times. I don’t have room for how depressed I was. It would damage the big kids.

Small points of contention from the currently public narrative. Noah didn’t close any distance to you. He was 10′ away at the stove looking at you. He did not stand a foot away from you. You got up from the table and rushed him while punching your hands. He did not look at you at all until you doubled down on how you were going to threaten me whenever you wanted.

What intimidated me in the store was the fact that I asked you what you wanted and you started screaming at me that I was inappropriate and controlling and you were sick of it and you weren’t going to take that from me. (In your defense when you asked me what my plan was I shrieked “I don’t have a plan” because I had lost all ability to voice modulate.)

Given that your comparison is you weren’t as nasty with me as you were with your children and your children asked you in front of me why you hit them and then tell them they aren’t allowed to cry about it… I feel like being intimidated is reasonable.

Yeah I got nervous.

You didn’t ask me if I was going to cry. You sneered like a junior high bully, “Awwwwww you gonna cry?”

Yeah I will when someone talks to me. Fuck those white bitches.

I used to think I understood what good mothering and bad mothering was. I used to think “like my mother” meant bad. I don’t think that any more. I keep coming back to this Valentine’s Day card I bought for my mother when I was… 23? Around there. I forget exactly. I didn’t give it to my mother. The text says something like, “With every passing year I see that I’m more like you.”

I really am like my mother. But I recently just got a gold star. A good grade on my report card. I was told I’m doing good. I am so much like my mother. What does that mean then?

Maybe being like my mother isn’t all bad.

My mother is an organizer. She can organize stuff and people but people scare her more. She’s had a lot of bad experiences with people so she tends to stick to stuff. I learned that from her. I’m passing it down to my children. I think my Eldest Child will be better at organizing people than I am and I’m several steps up from my mother. But it comes from my mother. Youngest Child (who will need a new nickname at some point–I stopped using their first names for a variety of reasons, including that casual readers constantly asked me to clarify birth order and that’s annoying) seems like someone who will stick with stuff. Kiddo isn’t people oriented in the same way.

Some day my child is going to hate me for believing that they aren’t much of a people person. I can see the writing on the wall. It isn’t that Kiddo has no interest in people it is that Kiddo is very ok with having just a few people around. Kiddo doesn’t need to be broadly popular. As long as Kiddo has a few people in their corner, Kiddo thinks the world is alright. Eldest Child needs everyone to be around and involved. Everyone.

Both kids want me to get my $#!t together and start hosting stuff again because we’d like to see friends more often. But destroyed house. This is not a “Yes” environment and it’s stressful and difficult for everyone. Not to mention that not having a toilet really sucks. We don’t need more people using up the port-a-pottie capacity seeing as technically… we use it more than it is supposed to be used.

Anyway.

I know people who maintain social lives during large scale remodels. I know people who have serious remodels take years and years and I don’t know how they survive that without some serious violence. This is frustrating as fuck.

I feel like I’ve done more than my share of soul searching. I’ve done more than my share of “who am I?” thinking. Yet here I am.

I am the product of rape. I am the daughter of a rapist. I am a rapist.

I am an American. I am violent. I am violence. I am white. I am the perpetrator of white violence in the form of “Nuh uh” but not really greater violence. I have literally only ever been in fights with other white people.

I am a student of history and literature. I’ve read a lot. So what?

I am educated and rich. So what?

I am mean and selfish. I am the problem with the system as I give and give and give. I cannot give enough because my compatriots give nothing.

I feel like lately I am angry with myself all the god damn time. I don’t even know why. Because I cheated on my husband? I didn’t cheat on him, most of the time, I told him before I did it. The only cheating I did was when I spanked two people when I shouldn’t have. That’s not what the colloquial thinks of and that’s ok.

I’m not having a good day. I feel like this is kind of illustrating my problems. I am inappropriately controlling, right? That’s one of the narratives about me. But I also don’t say no to a lot of things because I don’t feel I have the right to be comfortable. I walk a fine line of being uncomfortable enough that I feel like I’m not asking for what I don’t deserve but trying to manage my reactions so I don’t freak out and hurt people.

I’m a volatile person. It’s a fact.

What does that mean? It means that I cry

I don’t know that I’ll come back through and cross things off, but I like making lists. I’m trying to figure out what I should get off my butt and do. I’ve already caught up on taxes stuff (that was a big deal).

• collect tiles into move-from-my-house order
• arrange for donation. (Called already)