Category Archives: whinge

How to answer

Shanna keeps asking me when we are going to see people. She is specific. “When will I see ____ again?”

I don’t know.

“When will I go to ______’s house again?”

I don’t know.

“When will I get to play with ______?”

I don’t know.

I don’t want to tell her what I tell myself. “People take care of their priorities in the order they determine. They only get to the unimportant things if they have spoons left. They just don’t get to me much.”

“They would come over if I wasn’t so overwhelming and terrible. I am really sorry I am driving your friends away.”

“I don’t know what I did wrong this time. But I’m sure I did something. I’m sorry you have to stand next to me.”

I just say I don’t know.

I’m trying to convince myself that I wouldn’t feel so needy and clingy and sad about rejection from other people if my family of origin had worked out better. I’m trying to convince myself that if I am dependable enough for Shanna and Calli that everything will be ok.

We get so many cancellations at the last minute that I don’t tell them about plans with anyone until I get a day-of confirmation or until they are knocking. I don’t believe that people will show up when or if they say they will.

I have a lot of internal conflict around passing on my disbelief in humanity. Yet I feel like doing anything else would be pretty stupid.

People show up when they want to. How do you get them to want to? I have no idea. I do a lot wrong on that score.

The only person who still speaks to me who has been in my life for twenty years lives in another country. We kinda sorta talk on Twitter.

Many people have been in my life for more than ten years. I see most of them for less than ten hours in the average year.

I don’t know how to do relationships that are on a shorter rotation very well. I try to have them and I burn people out. Then they don’t talk to me any more. Now my kids are standing next to me and they have to deal with the fall out. I’m so sorry.

I keep trying because when you stop trying you die. The person who is on the tightest rotation right now is starting to have a bit more conflict. I don’t know how much longer this will last. Yeah, I think when it stops it will be my fault.

If I hurt all these grown ups so much they don’t want to be near me any more what am I going to do to my kids?

I don’t know. But I have to be very careful how I eke out my energy. I can’t trust that anyone else will help. They might. They might not. I have to get through either way.

I’m aware that by this point my sense of “commitment” is totally fucked up. I don’t know how much contact is reasonable to expect from any one. I try to just take what I can get and say thank you.

But when I miss people and I sit in my house and feel guilty for making them not want to come over any more I don’t know what to do. I want to self harm. I know I hurt other people and it is only just that I hurt myself far more than I have hurt other people. Maybe then I will become more mindful and stop hurting people.

I do my best to not cry in front of the kids. I don’t have any wounds for them to see. I don’t have a good enough reason to cry. I would have to be hit or cut or… something.

“Are you crying? Here. Let me give you a reason to cry.”

I think that was one of the most common refrains from my childhood. I’m trying so hard to not pass it on. When my kids cry because their feelings are hurt I don’t tell them to shut up and I don’t offer to hit them.

Sometimes it feels weird. Like if I could “get over myself” and go out and pursue some hobby that I could manage to find people who would be happy to stand near me. But they would feel that way because they wanted to be where they were and they tolerated my presence. So I don’t really have hobbies any more. Dealing with people is too hard.

That’s not so. I have delved into solitary projects. I like my house more by the year. By the time I am old my house will be the thing I have spent the most time working on in my life.

The more I feel like I have to carefully not say the things I am thinking (because I sure as fuck don’t blather on about my bitterness to my kids) the less I am able to take any support at all. I can’t even begin to reveal the extent of the support I need. Because I don’t need it. I’ll be fucking fine without it. By which I mean I won’t die. I won’t give those fuckwads the satisfaction of dying first.

I would rather like to outlive my mother and my sister. Even if I never see them again.

There is need and then there is need.

A while back a friend told me that his therapist told him that I am like a crazy Vietnam vet hiding at home with my guns and ammo. I take things as dangerous that aren’t dangerous.

But when I spend over an hour explaining (with written diagrams!!!!) how overwhelmed I am by work and what I really need is for you to show up an hour before dinner and help cook and instead you show up half an hour after we are supposed to start eating and then you whine about helping…

I’m not sure that all of my problems are that I am just a crazy vet. I think my problem is that when I explain in clear language with diagrams how and where I would like support and you have forgotten by the next week I understand how unimportant I am.

I would rather be unimportant and alone in a room. At least then I don’t have to fucking worry about your hurt widdle feelings.

The thing is, I don’t perfectly show up to support anyone else either. It’s not like I expect anyone to be perfect. I really don’t.

But I have a hard time when people ask me to do something and then I show up having done it and they say, “Oh. I was just joking.” So I just wasted… how many hours?

I understand why other people blow me off. They blow off what I say because they think I am blowing them off in the same way. Maybe I am. I can’t see from that perspective.

Mostly I try to carefully not commit to doing anything. I try very hard to consciously not commit. I don’t want anyone to depend on me and feel disappointed. I know I can’t meet your needs. Let me just say that up front.

Unless I can show up and fill a specific need. Then I will explain in detail what I will do and how I will do it and that is the limit of my obligation.

Sometimes I understand that what I want, people who like me enough to invite themselves into my life, isn’t a reasonable thing to want. What I want is the process of enculturation that I see happening to my daughters with regards to Noah’s family.

None of the relatives are pissy that I don’t send thank you notes most of the time. They just continue to send stuff to the kids. They are fairly clearly not here for me. I mean, they include my name and they seem to have mostly positive thoughts at this point. They are chasing down my kids wanting to have a relationship.

It’s really hard to live with. Because the closest I have had to that is Noah. I feel very lucky to have Noah, don’t get me wrong.

I have been chasing Jenny for decades. I started my livejournal account ten years ago because I was spying on her. I didn’t want her to forget me while she was off at a good school meeting people who were smarter and richer and better than me.

I’m on Twitter mostly because of her. It’s the social platform she uses the most heavily.

But my kids won’t grow up with her. I’ve spent twenty years chasing her love and… well… I have her love, but she had to go do her grown up things. And they took her across the world. She is having a really good life and in no way shape or form do I want her to change the course of her fate to come pay attention to me.

But I don’t know when or if I will see her again.

I go back and forth between “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “out of sight out of mind”. The longer I am away from people I love the more I believe that I am out of their sight and out of their mind.

I actually massively appreciate that Jenny ran off to marry someone so spectacularly suited to her. If she had ran off for a bad match I would feel all personally rejected and shit. Naw, I’ve met this guy. I understand why she wants him so much. Uhm, not that he’s my type. heh. But she needed someone temperamentally suitable to *her* not me. They are so perfect together it is kind of weird.

Everyone picks a different poison. Everyone has to compromise about something.

When will we see _____ again? I don’t know. I’m not very good at predicting the future. I know they are busy. I “know” it isn’t about me. But I still want to beat my head on concrete in penance for being so bad that they need this much time to rest in between visits.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

All I say to my kids is, “I don’t know. They are really busy right now.”

Just another whinging Friday

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It isn’t that I think my kids are bad or anything. They are just excellent boundary pushers. I want them to push boundaries. I flat encourage them in that direction. I want children who are tenacious, stubborn, and sure that their idea is A Good One. But. But sometimes I wish I could say, “I know I’m willing to argue/negotiate with you all day every day but can I please have a friggin break on my birthday.” They just aren’t old enough to understand.

We did have good moments. I feel really bad that it seems like all I do is complain. Doesn’t anything make me happy? Am I ever satisfied? Is there any point in reaching for satisfied or is that just not something I can feel? I feel really guilty for not being able to turn this into a fun trip. It should have been a fun trip. I hate that I am such a downer all the fucking time.

But it felt really bad getting yelled at for what I wanted to order for lunch. I fucking told them four days in advance, “On my birthday I want us to have gumbo and papas fritas and beignets for lunch. That’s what I want.” They were enthusiastic and supportive until we got to the park. Then I was a mean and terrible person for not letting them have popcorn for lunch. Or ice cream. Or a Dole Whip. Or…

My kids rarely have extreme cases of the gimme’s. I don’t buy them things all that often on our outings and I’m kind of nasty about being pestered to buy stuff. Holy.Fucking.Shit. This trip was the most gimme-gimme-gimme I think Shanna has ever been. She actually sat on her ass in the middle of the store and started yelling at me because I wouldn’t buy her a FUCKING SECOND MUSIC BOX. SHE HAS ONE AT HOME THAT SHE BOUGHT WITH HER ALLOWANCE ON OUR LAST TRIP.

I almost lost my shit. If we had been within an hour of home I would have left the park fifteen minutes into the day.

The really funny thing is the DMV portion of the trip was the best natured and happiest all three of us were on the whole trip. We played games and met people and it was a really enjoyable 3.5 hours. Hell, I’m talking to a lady via email after that. She’s nice.

I think it is that whole kicked puppy thing. I was acting like a kicked puppy. I was begging them to please let me have a turn. When you act like a low status person you get kicked like a low status person. So my kids kicked me (only literally a few times figuratively much more often) all day.

It all feels like my fault. If things go badly it is because I planned wrong or anticipated wrong or… something.

Having them both scream at the top of their lungs that I was mean and nasty multiple times before 10am felt really hard. I know this is a current tick. I know that the best way to handle it is to not engage. At this point in time I am having trouble not bursting into hysterical tears or hitting them. I have strong impulses to do both. I’m not doing either but I want to.

Just breathe. This moment will pass.

I have spent ~15 hours over the past week and some working on scheduling. I’m getting close to knowing the shape of my days all the way through the end of the year. If I stick with my schedule. Ha.

In order to make it so that I can potentially accomplish what I want to accomplish I need a schedule with a lot of rest time scheduled. I need to not be booked all day every day. I have to have multiple days in a week where what I do is hang around the house and putter. I need to have scheduled “sit on the couch and read books and snuggle” time with the kids just about every day.

I have to run more. I just have to. Not running is feeling a lot worse than running. Which is hella funny. We have gone out all four of us a couple of mornings in a row. We hope to get the kids used to going for a morning jog. Noah and I take turns doing sprints up the block and back to the family because the kids are a lot slower.

Outrunning Suicide is starting to take shape. I have mostly written several chapters. I have a skeleton. This one is very different than No Secrets. The entire writing process feels different. This will feel more like a collection of essays than a story, but there needs to be some sense of story in it as well. I am trying as hard as I can to be conscious of the fact that I want this book to be appropriate for twelve year olds. Even though the mothers of twelve year olds will say that it is too mature. The mothers are wrong.

I need to start working on painting in the back yard. All of the stuff that was built this year needs to be painted so it doesn’t rot quickly. Oh man.

I don’t want to go out very much over the next few months. I want to get work done. I want to home school my kids. I need to stop looking outward for a while. We will go to park days. I will continue to try to make time for Noah’s friends who have all had kids and the few people I have hanging on who had kids.

I need to stop looking for new people. I don’t have the bandwidth. My monkey spheres are full.

I like having a lot of… I’ll call them third tier friendships. People generally don’t want to think of themselves as third tier, but oh well. At this point the only person I have near daily contact with who I don’t live with is K. Thank goodness for her. That is the first tier. Second tier are all of the people who have kept contact with me for long-stretches of time and they know real things about me and I know real things about them. These are people who very consciously schedule with me and make sure that I know that they think about me. The third tier are the people I don’t see a lot of and they know very little that is real about me but I want to feel acceptance and love so I try very hard to maintain Appropriate Behavior around them and I know there are consequences if I slip up.

The third tier is where you get into the idea of Community. These are people I want to know. They add value to the world and to my life in particular but I don’t think they actually like very much about me so I have to carefully construct what they see or I will be shunned again.

I can’t overload my second tier. When I overload my second tier then I see the ending of nearly-decade-long relationships and the backlash hurts me for years.

The third tier is where I spend most of my time. I carefully dole out just small bits of my personality to people. It all tends to feel very artificial. I know I need to be careful not to be too real. I need to not saying things that will upset people. Good fucking luck guessing who is sensitive to what.

Why is the third tier so important? Because I have absolutely stressed the first and second tiers to the limits of their ability to support me and if I have free-floating miasma of need and I get it met in bursts of random kindness from the universe. I depend on a lot of Pay It Forward. Mostly this has worked out fairly well. Humans in general are loving, kind, and they want connection.

But then we get to this punishment thing. I think that most people have trouble understanding that they are punishing people. I know that I struggle with understanding how and where I punish people. I do it but it is hard for me to understand the mechanism of it. It is hard for me to understand that I have the power to punish people. I don’t feel like I have such power. I feel weak and powerless.

My second tier has worked very hard to step up since I had kids. As much as I am still in a place of great hostility towards the idea of “chosen family” (given that most of the people who have emphatically told me that I am their family no matter what no longer speak to me I think I get to be hostile to this concept) I… feel conflicted. Clearly I have friends who have moved into family roles.

I feel like I am understanding how other peoples limitations work better as the years go on. Like, I’m not inviting people on trips. It isn’t that anyone wants to hurt me (I don’t think that the desire to hurt me played any part in people not being able to go on the trip–major health concerns came up for everyone) but I am still here hurting. How do I move towards hurting less?

I have been asking for help with things where I can’t handle the answer “no”. That is always where I get into trouble. This is consistent for me. I wait until the lack of support will be crippling then I ask for support then I get told no because other people don’t have the bandwidth and I crumble.

I need my life to require fewer spoons. I need to not need help.

Having children has been humbling and humiliating. The amount of help I have needed has been really hard. Things like going to the doctor for an ultrasound of my abdomen. That turned into a huge long lecture at Kaiser about how I need child care or I can’t get health care. I understand why my dentist pushed me to get the dental implant I needed while I was pregnant even though the pain meds aren’t optimal because “Mothers don’t take care of their teeth when they have children under ten.”

It is kind of weird and hard to talk about but since having children I am more house bound than I was before simply because of how my bathroom habits changed. I have always had a small and urgent bladder (common problem with early childhood sexual abuse) but after the kids my life-long diarrhea problem became urgent and explosive too. And then there is how my periods have changed. Having a body sucks.

Having kids is hard but I did not anticipate the specific ways this would be so hard. I anticipated getting sick of laundry and wiping up poop and being screamed at. I didn’t understand that after having children it would be a rare thing for me to be able to handle three hours between bathroom trips–I get a few freak days once in a while. I normally go to the bathroom every half hour or so. I don’t think I would physically be able to teach right now. I used to have 110 minute class periods. I can’t hold my bladder that long any more. And it is illegal to leave in the middle of a class to use the restroom. I did it anyway but you aren’t supposed to and there are severe potential punishments.

You want to know why I have so much anxiety about neglecting my children when they are playing in another room and I can’t see them but I can hear them? Because I went through teacher training and discovered just how much trouble I can get in if I don’t “properly supervise” other peoples kids. Apparently properly supervise means sit on top of the child and physically prevent them from ever breaking the rules. Good luck.

I swear this all ties together in my head.

I have historically depended heavily on the third tier. Why do I consider them third tier? What I can ask of them is much smaller and more limited and I have to be careful of watching how often I ask. The tiering is how much of my need they have demonstrated an ability to handle. It isn’t about me judging them negatively or thinking they are bad people. I’m intense. I hurt people without trying. I need to be careful to notice when I am hitting stress points for people and withdraw so there can be a next time. If I push third tier people too hard they eject me from their lives.

With children this is different and difficult. At this point I feel like a user if I ask people for anything. I try hard to bully K to let me come do work at her house because I feel like such a user all of the time given how much support she gives me. It isn’t actually a better dynamic.

I have a hard time knowing that at this point in my life I need more support than I give. It has been true for years. Maybe for all of my life. This totally plays into being financially dependent. I feel ashamed of myself. I look at the women in my life who are not dependent and I feel pathetic. This is part of that defining myself by being not-like other people. It isn’t good for me or anyone else.

I don’t feel like the things I do are good or worthy. And yet I really really really want to do the things I am doing. With fervor and intensity I want these things in the world and I don’t think anyone but me will do them. I take that as a sign they probably aren’t worth doing and I am just a waste of resources.

Part of the problem with an extensive third tier is someone always needs help. People are always struggling and I wish I could help more. I wish I had more to offer. I wish I had more energy. I wish I had more time to give them.

But instead I will stay home and weed my garden and write a book and paint. I am selfish and small. My life is limited and unimportant. I totally struggle with that Gen Y thing of, “But I am SPECIAL”. No. I’m really not. I don’t have anything unique and special to offer the world.

But sometimes I feel like I do. Sometimes I feel like I am good at helping people see their own value. Because I think so little of myself I view basically everyone in the world as higher status as me. When I explain to people all that I see about them that is good and wonderful they tend to be surprised. They are not able to see themselves that way. Isn’t that ability good and useful? Is that enough? What is enough? Enough of what? Enough for what?

I don’t know.

But I need to pull back into my little shell. I need to count my spoons and carefully lay them next to tasks. I want to read more books this year. I want to look out my back window on New Years Eve and see a rainbow castle. I want to finish writing the book that I really needed to read when I was twelve. I want to teach my children the daily habits of picking up after themselves. Even though it is hard. Even though you would rather do it later. If you do it now then you are free to go do anything you want on a whim. It takes practice to learn these habits.

I want my children to think that physical activity is just part of life. So I have to model it every day.

I want to not be fucking screamed at. I have already made a lot of progress on my own screaming. I will figure this out. It is going to be hard and it will take patience. We will figure this out. Without anyone getting beaten. There may be a fair bit of time out in our future.

I don’t think that anyone did anything wrong per se on my birthday. But I think that at this point my birthday is such a thing that I’m not sure anyone can do right. I don’t think it is anyone else’s fault at this point.

Rope bridges last a long time but eventually decay. You aren’t doing anything wrong by jumping up and down as you go across a rope bridge. Sometimes a log may break and you could plummet to your death. No one actually did anything “wrong” but there are still end results that suck.

I don’t know how to feel special. I want that feeling so bad. I want to feel loved and appreciated and like people are really really glad I am alive. I don’t feel that way. I feel like people tolerate me so long as I can fill their needs and not be too annoying. I know that people don’t actually feel that way about me. I don’t think I offer enough trade to actually justify that belief.

It isn’t that I believe that Noah and Shanna and Calli secretly hate me. It is clear that they all love me with great intensity. But something inside me is broken. It is like pouring boiling water into a tank of liquid nitrogen so that you can warm it up. That just isn’t going to work how you hope.

I feel raw. I know I am “over sensitive”. I know I “shouldn’t take things so personally”. But I am. I just am. Maybe I shouldn’t be. Maybe I shouldn’t exist. But I do. And this is how I feel. And I can’t make it go away just because it is inconvenient for me or for other people. The only thing I can do is try to stop being in a room with anyone else on my birthday so that it is very very clear that this problem is in me and not because of anyone else.

My birthday is really hard for me. I’m afraid it always will be. I desperately desperately want a kind of feeling loved and cared for and appreciated that I’m not getting. I don’t know what it is or how to get it. Everything I have tried so far has failed miserably. I really and truly have tried to change this pattern.

I wish I could stop feeling like it would be better if I was dead. Then I wouldn’t be so fucking inconvenient.

I know it isn’t “true”. I had kids so that I would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that my labor is necessary for a few decades. Nothing would be better right now if I was dead.

But I don’t know how to feel loved. I feel despised. I feel unappreciated.

Which is ridiculous. Noah couldn’t work harder than he does. And he clearly is doing it for me–he didn’t work like this before me. My Owner was a workaholic. Noah was kinda lazy when I met him. He was certainly unfocused–that is probably a better word than lazy. He works like a dog, largely because he is doing it for me. He wants to make all of my dreams come true.

And I reward him by crying and crying and crying and feeling like a worthless piece of shit. He is very confused. If I knew what to ask him to do he would do it. I don’t know. I don’t know how to stop feeling this way.

I mean, in the abstract I know how to deal with this feeling. Feel it. Cry while you have it. Wait. It will end.

That’s the awesome thing about feelings. They change.

Sometimes I do feel that Noah loves me. Sometimes I do feel that my kids love me. But somehow when it comes to my birthday that is broken. There is this big brick wall. I don’t feel attached. I don’t feel love or loved. I feel worthless and stupid and pathetic and bad and mean and unwanted and like I should just die.

And god I miss my mother. I miss my mother so much I want to curl up into a ball and never eat again. I am not worthy. I dishonor the woman who bore me. I am a piece of shit. I am not protecting her and taking care of her. I know she needs it. She has always needed it. She has always needed to be taken care of more than I need it.

And I think my kids need more taking care of than I need. Except for one day a year. Where I think I am going to need to have different boundaries.

I have started grieving really hard for the apology I was told I would get and I didn’t get. That guy in the scene I went and talked to who said he would write an apology. I’m sorry I made myself vulnerable to that.

I’m even more grateful for talking to the guy who made me uncomfortable at the wedding.

I know that I have to keep trying with people. Every relationship is unique. Every dynamic changes over time. I need people to jump over hoops for me. I need it. I’m pretty clear and direct about how and where I need it. I try not to be too demanding of any one person. But I do ask people to jump through hoops for me.

I want people to show me with their actions that I am actually as important as they verbally claim I am. I want my body to matter. This is a really dangerous kind of validation to want. Because I am not going to get it. People will say they will do ______ and not do it.

Do you know what makes people happy? Giving help to other people. Do you know what makes people feel shitty? Needing help. I hate my neediness as much as other people resent me inflicting it on them.

The kids are slightly sick. Runny nose on elder child, both are coughing. Younger child keeps telling us she needs a bucket but she isn’t vomiting. I’ve been crying so much I don’t know if I am sick or not. I scheduled a potentially light weekend because I am S-M-R-T.

I am looking forward to fall and winter. It will feel really nice after the frantic work pace of spring and summer. It is a puttering kind of day. I will go grocery shopping. I should wash the windows. Then they can color on them again. Ha. Right now they are too full to be fun.

I should stop typing. Annnnnnnny minute here……

Well, I’m older.

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I learned a few things on this trip. I will never again plan a trip around someone coming with me. I need to assume that I will be alone and I need to make my spoons cover the whole time I will be there. If I plan around not being the only adult and then I am stuck being the only adult things don’t go very well.

We were gone for 60 hours. I drove for 14 hours (traffic was heinous). Slept for 16 hours. ~6 hours of the kids yelling at me at the top of their @#$#%@#% lungs that they want to go into Disneyland NOW when they wake up 3 hours before the park opens (times two days–see how that works?)

3.5 hours in the DMV. That was entirely my fault for not doing better planning.

So that leaves ~20 hours to be in our hotel or in the parks. We made dinner in the room each day. The kids were very angry with me that I would not take them swimming at the exact same time as I was cooking dinner. It turned into two hours of Shanna yelling at me about how it wasn’t ok to bring bathing suits and not use them.

I think this is the worst set of behaviors I have ever dealt with during a short period of time from my kids. By the end of the trip I felt no love at all. I cried for five hours on the last day including about three hours of the drive home.

My kids were not nice to me. They both screamed a lot. I got hit multiple times when I said no to buying things. I don’t know what the mother fuck happened.

Well, I asked them to please let me pick what we did for one day. Please, just one day. Apparently that wasn’t reasonable to ask for. (The developmental books talk about all of their shit being right on target. Calli is right in the middle of the stage where my FAVORITE AUTHOR EVER says, “Put them in daycare and get a lot of babysitting because no one likes their kid at this age.” It is a rough stage. I remember it with Shanna. She outgrew it. She is currently in a different annoying phase but it is very very different. Give them credit and all.

But it was a rather shitty trip. A long ass time ago when I thought I was going alone I planned for five days in a studio. (Not a lot of points and I would get three days in the park without driving.) Because I asked people to go with me I ended up booking a one bedroom for three days because other people have obligations. Then I got cancelled on. Then I hunted hard for another person and got cancelled on. Then I asked dozens of people and was told, “How about the week after?”

I don’t think I will schedule with other people any more. I keep hoping that I will have the kinds of friendships where I can do that kind of thing. I don’t have them. Wanting them is hurting me very badly and I need to stop wanting that. I need to stop thinking I will ever be someone who is part of a group.

I feel pathetic for how jealous I feel of the big families at Disneyland. I’m not that jealous. I understand that a family that size comes with a dogmatic religion I don’t want to follow. But it looks so nice to have a bunch of people who love you and want to do things with you.

I need to assume my travel is alone and just for myself. This is a tree I have to stop beating my head against because I just flat don’t handle it well when people back out. Then I’m stuck with a reservation that I can’t handle very well. I didn’t plan around my spoons. I planned around someone else’s spoons. I shouldn’t have. That was stupid.

Most of the drive home pretty much all I heard in my head was how stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid I was for thinking that the trip would work out and be fun. Instead I spent the whole time being yelled at and feeling like I was about to burst into tears because no matter how much I do for my kids they yell at me and scream at me and tell me I am mean and nasty for not doing EVERYTHING they want RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. I know it is developmental and all. I think I deal with it ok most of the time.

It sucked golf balls through a tennis ball to have that happen on my birthday at Disneyland. At one point in the day when Shanna was being really snotty I started crying. Then she backed off. She said, “Oh, is this a big deal? I guess I don’t need it.”

I didn’t do very well with having to be the heavy mean person. I just wanted to be allowed to decide what we did on one day. My kids steer the vast majority of our days.

Next year I have every intention of waking up alone on my birthday and spending the entire day alone. Preferably hundreds of miles away from anyone I know so that I have no expectation of anyone being nice to me so that I won’t be disappointed.

Every year after my birthday I feel sad. It always feels like this sadness is all my fault. If I just chose to be happy everything would be fine. It is all my fault I am sad. Shut the fuck up you self-involved, pretentious, selfish bitch.

It really doesn’t help that driving down I-5 is a trip through my hellish past. “I was raped in that town. I was sexually assaulted but not raped in that town. I was beaten up every day by a group of six kids in that town. I was raped in that town. That is the town where my father held a gun to my head after raping me. That is where I was born and where my father started raping me.”

I don’t especially enjoy driving that freeway. It is very innately stressful for me. I have so much bad history there. And it all feels like my fault. If I hadn’t been so stupid…

I really don’t have a lot of respect for my intelligence right now. Right now it feels like there are lots of nice people in the world who like me and things don’t work out better for relationships because I am stupid and I want inappropriate things and I don’t know how to be nice enough so I just flat don’t deserve to have better relationships with all those nice people.

I want to cut so much. Still haven’t. Still not modeling it as a coping method.

People said happy birthday to me and I appreciated it. Thank you. I don’t actually think that “no one likes me”. I think my friends share what they have to give. Unfortunately sometimes I try to cobble what they have to give into what I need and it falls short. It isn’t my friends fault. I’m a black hole. I’m not sure there is “enough” anywhere in the world. So I have no right to complain about any of my friends.

But I’m still a black hole. And it hurts. It hurts.

I don’t know how to stop feeling like I should die because then the world would be better for everyone else. They wouldn’t have to hear about me and my stupid whining. I would finally shut the fuck up.

Assuming I will ever be anything but alone is stupidity. It is hubris. Stop being stupid, Kristine.

I’m not alone. I have Noah and the kids. But you know what… for the life of me they don’t seem to have much collective interest in being nice to me on my birthday.

I think that next year being literally alone is the right call. Less disappointment. Less being reminded that no, I’m not remotely special and people have absolutely no need to be nice to me on my birthday. It’s just another fucking day.

Calling people names isn’t very nice.

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Or maybe I will yell at Noah then stomp out of our bedroom after calling him an asshole. That’s an alternative to sleep and cuddling. I’m still very upset about my birthday. Through my whole childhood I told myself that it wouldn’t always be this way. I wouldn’t always feel rejected and unloved and shitty on my birthdays. I told myself it would get better. I lied. Or I was just wrong. Either way.

I should probably stop doing things for Noah’s birthday. It increases my bitterness that I don’t matter as much to him. But that makes me feel really sad. I think I will need to go away for my birthday so that I don’t spend the day crying and calling him names. I’m so tired of not mattering.

He wanted to know what he could do to make me feel important. I ranted about how he could read the fucking book I already fucking wrote that tells him step by fucking step what will make me feel important you fucking asshole. I hear it isn’t ok to call people names. I should be more polite and civilized. More kind. More understanding.

It’s my fucking birthday. I work so hard. I try so hard. Naw. It’s not my birthday. My birthday was ten days ago. I need to stop bringing up old stuff.

Not being nice to Noah.

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Sometimes when I am having a hard time at “life” I end up very angry with Noah. It’s not particularly fair to him. It’s actually a lot of the reason I originally wanted Sarah to move in. I thought she could help fill the aching hole I have because Noah is gone all the time. It didn’t work. She wouldn’t come out of her room. I was still alone all the time only I had another person to clean up after. I couldn’t do it.

I know I “should” have a better control over my temper but I don’t. I can (barely) keep it off the kids. As a result when an adult walks in the door they become the lightning rod for all the emotions I was not allowed to express at the kids. Sarah really didn’t appreciate being the person on whom I dumped my anger. I don’t blame her. I don’t blame Sarah for hiding from my frequent anger eruptions. She has every right to do that. She had every right in the whole world to not want to be my punching bag. Truly. I am not upset with her for avoiding me. I just couldn’t live with it. I couldn’t handle living with another person I had to be really nice to. I am too selfish. I am too much of a bitch. It leaves Noah by himself as the person I can get angry at.

It’s not really fun being the one person I can safely get angry at. Noah deals with. Noah understands that I really don’t have many outlets. He is the adult in my life I can talk to about the hard things. That means he gets all the hard things. Including when I am angry with him and blame him for not supporting me enough.

Before we got married I was quite cruel to Noah about how “lazy” he was. It took several years of him ramping up work stuff more and more before I understood that all the staring at a glowing box he does is “work”. And it directly leads to money that supports me. I have tried hard to get rid of my attitude but it’s hard. I was taught, specifically and deliberately, that mental work doesn’t “count” and doing a lot of it without doing physical work makes you a piece of shit. You are a lazy piece of shit. You are shiftless. You are nothing. I didn’t grow up with a family who values academia to say the least.

It’s been a gradual process as I try to discover how to live with someone who lives and works in his head. Tom wasn’t like Noah. Tom also had the hard streak of “must work with hands in order to not look ‘lazy'” and he would do things like build furniture on the weekend. It felt like, sure he does namby pamby brain work during the week but he is still a man. He can fix my computer, my car, and when I say, “I’m tired of having an electric oven. I would like gas” he did all the work to convert the kitchen for me. He just did it. Like that. No big deal. Err, Noah doesn’t do that.

If Noah does a house chore he always leaves parts for me. If he had to use tools they are left out until I put them away. I can wait for fucking weeks and look at the big shop vac he left out after cleaning the hot tub and it won’t go anywhere until I put it away. (Thank you for cleaning the hot tub. That is a huge, shitty job and I didn’t want to do it. I’m really appreciative.)

In many of the worlds I have lived in, Noah would be a worthless piece of shit. But he really isn’t. He isn’t. He isn’t. He isn’t. He works very hard. He does a lot of chores. He spends as much time with the kids as he can. He pays as much attention to me as he possibly can. He works at things that are very difficult to him from when he wakes up until he passes out. I know that. I can see it.

But I get angry with him for not instinctively filling all the roles I kind of assign him in my head. I get mad that supporting our family creeps slowly into filling more and more and more hours. I get mad because I want more support. I thought I would have support. All those people at my baby shower and Noah promised me I would have more support. People are liars.

You aren’t supposed to say that though. I have gotten support. I have a lot of people I can call out of the blue for help. They will be happy to help if I specifically ask and chase them down. But frankly, most of them don’t pursue relationships with my kids so I have let it fall away. I can’t chase people down and beg them to have a relationship with my kids. Most people don’t really give a shit. I have to let it go. I have to not try to force it and create it. Then my kids will turn into me. They will have to get used to trying to form relationships only to observe that once they stop doing all the work and travel… they just don’t see people any more. It’s not worth it. It’s really not.

It’s not worth it *to me* to try and form community. I’m so tired of being lied to. I don’t trust people. I hate people. And Noah has to live with me. And I feel so bad. I’m sorry I don’t trust Noah. I’m sorry I bite his head off. I’m sorry that he has to bear the brunt of what a fucking asshole I am. I really feel like that is probably a bad deal for him. I’m not sure he should do it. But the alternatives are really bad for me so I try not to encourage them too much.

Whether I try hard at it or not I drive people away. When I try to get close to them it just means that I am opening myself up to more hurt. I’m not sure how much more I can bear.

I feel terrible when I yell at Noah. For days I feel this hanging cloud over me. He’s going to get sick of me being an asshole too. He is going to leave, just like everyone else. He has been kind of avoiding me lately. Out alone time is full of me being a bitch. I don’t blame him. I wish I could avoid a bitch like me too.

It’s scheduling stuff. That’s all.

It’s not helping that as the days go by I hate running more and more. I don’t want to do it. It’s physically uncomfortable (not painful, but I am clearly straining my body). I’m god damn exhausted All.The.Fucking.Time. It doesn’t really feel like relaxing alone time. The only time I have to relax and be quiet is when I am smoking pot. I may never stop at this rate. I’m developing a Pavlovian response that I am only allowed to sit down, I am only allowed to write, I am only allowed to read the fucking internet when I am smoking. That’s when I sit down. That is the closest I have to rest. And I type furiously in a bad posture the whole time and my arms hate me. I think I should look into arm braces.

Noah isn’t doing anything terrible to me. He really isn’t. He’s not being selfish. He’s not being excessive about the time he needs, not really. It’s not his fault that I am so alone. It’s really not. I can’t expect him to be everything to me. He can’t be. It’s not fair. Some year I am going to have to realize that not everyone in the world is alone, but I always will be. I need to stop resenting it. I need to stop feeling angry with Noah for abandoning me–he’s not. It’s not his fault that I have driven everyone else away. I can’t expect him to make up for everyone else.

I go back and forth between believing I live a life of utter pointlessness–I feel like a complete waste of oxygen–and believing I must have lived through my childhood for a reason. Please, please, please let there be some kind of plan. Please, let me be useful. Please, let there be something I can do that is worth doing. That is worth going through hell for. What I am doing isn’t. What I am doing means that going through hell should kill you. There is no reason to survive for more of this.

In choosing to not die today I feel like what I am doing is dooming Noah. I will hurt him over and over. Yes, I wake up in the morning and sob and cry for hours because I believe Noah would be better off if he didn’t live with a disgusting bully like me. He says I’m not that bad. Yeah, my tone of voice isn’t great but I’m not that bad. I don’t believe him. Because he will change his mind one of these days. Everyone does. I’m not worth putting up with. I really want to die today. I don’t want to fucking run. I want to die. I don’t want to do today.

But I have to run nine miles. And one of the home schooling moms invited us to walk to our local park today and meet her at 10. (Her son is kind of obsessed with Shanna and vice versa.) I try not to speak very much around her. She seems nice. I don’t want to drive her away. So I’m very quiet. The only way for me to earn a grudging entry into the group, I feel, is for me to be as silent as possible. The only thing me speaking does is earn me a swift kick in the backside. I can’t do that to my kids. So I’ll shut up. Just shut up, Kristine. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. No one wants to hear your stupid, fucking mouth. You stupid, mean, little bitch.

Stupidly defensive.

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I feel strangely guilty for liking Disneyland as much as I do. I really do. I’m not alone. This is a grand passion that many people share. But I feel vaguely ashamed of being part of the cult. I’m even part of the time share. Cue jokes about lame people.

When I go down for the marathon I am getting an annual pass with Shanna. This is the last year Calli is free. Shanna and I will go four times if I get my way. I think I will. With an annual pass and a time share the only unusual expense is gas. And I have a fund for that. It’s less than $100 round trip in the blue car. I put about $40 extra every month into a fund for Disneyland travel. I don’t feel too guilty.

Disneyland is pretty much the only place I feel like I can trust people to be really nice to me. I spend my life on edge waiting for people to snap at me. That’s part of why Disneyland Paris is so awful. You go there expecting, you know… Disneyland and instead you get France. Fuck yourself very much.

I haven’t had an annual pass since before my parents divorced. I had one when I was three. That’s not true! I have the vague memory of buying one on the Christmas Day I spent there with friends after Tom and I broke up. I didn’t actually make it back to Disneyland that year–unsurprising I was busy figuring out being a teacher–but I bought one as a self-comfort thing. This time I have three sets of reservations so far. The fourth will be easy.

I am going to be there for the anniversary of my father’s suicide. I’ll be there on my father’s birthday (missing my mom’s birthday by three days). I will be there for Shanna’s birthday and I think I will go again for the fourth trip for my birthday. I have given other people trips to Disneyland for their birthday but I haven’t been for my birthday… ever. I really should stop giving other people things I want. People always leave me. Then I get to remember that I will go through great effort for other people and it’s not reciprocated. Fuck them. I should save my energy for me.

All told that will be nineteen days of travel. Noah will be there for the marathon and I suspect he will come down for my birthday. The other two trips I will be alone with my little girls. I can’t wait. I like traveling with them. I pare down my needs until we can move at the same pace. It’s a lot of fun. Watching Shanna and Calli navigate new situations and people are some of my greatest joys in life. Seeing them exist makes me feel very good about the world. See, I did make it a better place.

I like watching their joy and eagerness. I like watching Shanna run until she is so tired she can’t walk any more and she must be carried. I like watching Calli be brave and fearless… as long as she is standing behind me. Otherwise she is cautious around new people. I like watching my solemn, intense little girl light up like a roman candle when I walk into sight. I like being loved. I like watching how my children believe that love is absolutely limitless. Shanna goes back and forth between which kid she is going to grow up and marry. So far she is not picky between boys and girls. Sometimes she talks frankly about how she is going to have a wedding with one person and a hand fasting with someone else. (Thanks to Grandpa J, his wife C and his hand-fasted partner D.)

Shanna likes people of all races and physical abilities. If you will sit still and talk to her she likes you. Sometimes she seems to disconcert the large black men on BART. I beam benignly from behind her. The conversations are great. “Does your mother know you are talking to me?” “Yes.” “She doesn’t mind?” “Why would she? Are you a bad person I shouldn’t be talking to?” Then they blink in kind of confused/bemused horror. Then they just talk to her. It’s great.

I used to think Shanna was extremely physical. It turns out I was a first time mom who had never been around a baby. Who knew? From birth Shanna was obviously trying to pattern off of me. She wants to be like me. Calli wants to be like Shanna. Only she’s hitting milestones a lot faster than Shanna. If it weren’t for the difference in leg length I don’t think Shanna could catch Calli. Calli is starting to get mad if I don’t let her practice running with the group. “Me hurry!” Of course with emphatic scowl and pointing to the ground. Yes ma’am.

That’s one of the things that I think makes the biggest difference in how my kids speak on a regular basis. I say “Yes ma’am” to things. I use a lot of weird speech patterns, basically on purpose. I like playing with accents. It makes me happy. I use funny accents because then I consciously think about what I am saying and how I am saying it. Then I don’t snap. I’m not nasty. I use a lot of polite words in theatrical, emphatic ways.

I’ve never understood why other people think I am as rude as they seem to. I try. I really do.

I think people who are on the fence shouldn’t have kids. It’s a huge commitment. It’s a lot of work. If I didn’t feel like I was alive for this very purpose I don’t think I could do this. I would hate them and hate my life. But this is the life I want. So I’m trying to figure out how it goes.

I’m struggling with finding the last granules of patience I have left in me for a baby. Calli is still a baby. She gets a while longer. I told her that milk will be all gone on Tuesday on her birthday. Even though she is potty trained, even though I can’t handle nursing her any more… she really does still feel like a baby. It’s funny, when Shanna was that age I marveled at how kid-like she felt. Now that I have a kid I look at two and think, “Baby!”

I’m basing this intense belief on different developmental stuff I’ve read about. Kids’ brains work one way before three. It’s a large developmental stage. Then three to six is another big period. I’m not going to get into it. If you are interested there is a lot of research.

I’m thinking about pacing of the day and learning activities, that may not be obvious. I have a hard time with baby-pace. I don’t like it much. But I follow it. It’s not like I run my home like a daycare or anything like that but I consciously think about what kinds of interactions and reactions are appropriate. I can say things to Shanna I just can’t say to Calli yet. I feel like it requires intense concentration in my mind to censor things to an appropriate baby-place.

I am a volatile person. It has been very difficult for me to be mostly level and calm and happy for more than four years running with my babies. I freak out on the internet because this is the only place I have to put those feelings, those words, that part of my existence. People who watch me interact with my children who do not read my writing have no idea that I am depressed and suicidal unless I tell them. When I have told people (seriously, I think part of the way I am handling my mental illness is building up the responsibility to my community to not die) they are shocked and surprised. They never would have guessed! I think people aren’t very observant.

Everyone is motivated by different things. Part of what I like about staying at the Disney time share is the way it will push the kids into a foreign environment and they will get to find out which parts of their lives and routine is place dependent and which things are all-the-time-required. Like brushing your teeth. You do that no matter where you sleep. You have to eat no matter what. But things like clean clothes? Well… it varies. How you wash. If you wash. How dirty you get. There is a lot of variation possible in life. How do you roll with differences? How do you learn how to observe local customs and adapt to be like the natives? Even things like how do you learn how to use different versions of what you have–like a dishwasher.

When we are alone and going at their pace my kids can do at least half and sometimes all of the work to feed themselves. They can deal with a lot of minor cooking stuff (ok, Calli isn’t there yet–Shanna makes enough for two) and it’s easy to get them to do other cleaning stuff if everything is kept simple and slow. Calli sets the table while Shanna makes food. I think about how I learned to do things. I think about what it is they need to learn.

I think my kids will know how to cook more at five than I knew how to cook at eighteen. That is really kind of weird to me. I knew how to make ramen. I could open cans and microwave things. I could follow the directions on the back of a tv dinner. You can hand Shanna a (small) pile of vegetables and she’ll fucking make you soup. It feels weird to me that these things are so important to me. My kids will know how to handle food. My kids will know how to make a meal plan and go to the grocery store and come back with ingredients instead of boxes and make food. I learned it slowly over time as an adult. It’s been hard. It’s been embarrassing.

I have weird issues around food. If that’s not obvious by now. I feel very differently about what I/we eat when Noah is home than I do when he isn’t home. Taking his preferences into account messes me up. I have to think a lot harder about food and process because I’m trying to take a lot of different things into account.

When I’m alone with the kids I let Shanna do the best she can for as long as she can. She generally finishes enough for her and Calli. Sometimes I finish Calli’s share. Then I do mine. I don’t have to think about mine. It’s automatic and easy. I get territorial about feeding Noah. And if I have to take the time to do two adult portions it is a lot faster and easier for me to do basically three adult portions and call it a day rather than let Shanna slowly and ponderously do everything she wants to do. (cutting, cleaning veggies, breaking things up, assembling plates, whatever food task) Calli helps as she can. Mostly she sets the table and yells “Me do!” without being able to figure out which side of the plastic knife is sharp. It’s a process.

I’m looking forward to being alone with the girls for a few days. I’m looking forward to sleeping with them in the big hotel bed. I’m looking forward to simple foods Shanna and Calli can get on their own. I won’t bother too cook meat while we are gone. I may not cook much at all. We like fruit and raw vegetables with dip and bread and cheese and lunch meat and cereal. That sounds like a vacation to me. A glorious vacation. If I put a bowl of fruit on the table my kids would eat it. No matter how big the bowl was.

Abrupt topic switch: Noah timing stuff and my complaints about losing a year. I was told that bit was unclear. A while ago Noah and I sat down and fleshed out what he would like to do career wise over the next few years. Where would he like to end up. What is our plan for retirement (says she who doesn’t work)? If you are going to be my provider forever then we need a god damn plan because things don’t always work out just for hoping. If you want to get somewhere it’s probably a good idea to make sure you take steps in that direction.

For all that I am so rebellious and anti-authoritarian… I do have a high school diploma (this was complicated to get and I am the only one of my siblings with one–I am the youngest of four), BA, and teaching credential. I failed the MA, but I can jump through hoops. I usually don’t want to.

What path are we on? Where is this hand basket going and who is driving? So we made a plan. Then Noah had someone bring up an interesting idea. But it takes a year away from me. And leaves me standing with a year left in the baby stage and only a couple of drips of patience left and my husband about to make me a work widow. Apparently my response to this is, “Fuck you then I’m running away to Disneyland.” It’s ok. I’ll come back. I think it will be fun.

I think I will slowly replace my memories of my mother in Disneyland with memories of my daughters. It will be good. I will get to share my good memories. Shanna asks me a lot if I used to do ___________ with my mom when we are doing stuff. I try to answer simply and honestly without a lot of detail when it is bad. “No, doing this with my mom wasn’t a lot of fun. She didn’t have patience left by the time she got to me so it was hard to learn. I got in trouble every time I did anything even slightly wrong. I hope you feel like this is going better.” Said after Shanna had dropped about 1/2 a cup of flour on the counter, step stool, and floor. My mother raged. My mother screamed at me and told me I was a disgusting brat.

When Shanna has mastered a skill I feel a relief of fear. I no longer feel tensed up waiting for a blow. I feel like I am waiting for her to grow up without being abused before I can really trust that it can happen at all. I’m waiting for the abuser to show up. I’m waiting to get in trouble for her mistakes. I’m waiting to be told that obviously my daughter is a loser like me. Only it isn’t coming. I got us away. We can hide away and do things at her pace and move slowly and feel safe. It’s really nice. We can learn things at the pace we learn them instead of trying to hurry up or slow down on someone else’s agenda.

I think this last year of babyhood will be the last year that Calli is less capable than Shanna physically. I think that when her proportions lengthen out she will be a force to be reckoned with. I’m looking forward to it. I want them to run with me. I want them to challenge me to work harder. I want to learn how to run from joy instead of fear. I have spent my whole life running away. I don’t want to run away any more. I want to stay here. Except for trips to Disneyland. That’s just going home for a few days (as they like to say–it’s awesome).

My kids have to learn how to stand in line politely. They have to learn how to look at a barrage of options and make a choice. We live in the world we live in. Disneyland is not the world. But it’s a very safe testing ground of a lot of basic skills for very young children. I can relax and not worry about the assholes who feel inconvenienced by me having young children out in public. Shanna’s friendliness bothers people sometimes. They chew her (and me) out for it. I think she needs to learn how to deal with those assholes, yes, but man it will be nice to be in Disneyland. It really will be magical for my kids. I can. Why not? Why do I feel defensive? Because I don’t approve of all of the everything associated with the Cult of Disney™? I’m not even sure. I know it is wasteful of resources. It’s clearly a first world evasion of stress.

I don’t live in poverty any more. Why do I feel so ashamed of that? Why do I feel bad about being secure and having things? I feel absolutely required to believe that my preferences are wrong and bad. What other people want is more important. More relevant. More… just more. I don’t know. I am less. I should shut up. I should stay home and not spend money. Between the annual passes and gas Disneyland is going to be ~ $1,000 for the year of going. (Uhm, on top of paying the time share. Musn’t Forget That. It will probably not be fully paid off this year. It almost certainly will be paid off next year.) I get $100/month to spend on anything I want. We also have a $100/month “entertainment” fund. And Shanna’s spending money comes from her allowance. She has been saving up. She’s really proud of herself. I can afford this. It is within my means as a hobby. Why does it feel so much more extravagant than other things? I don’t know but it’s silly. I have small children. It’s a fucking great hobby.

Whatever. I should go start breakfast.

Sustainable loads

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Brain chemistry is unpredictable. I try to stay level but unfortunately my brain is extra hard to predict. I’m trying to go to sleep earlier. The kids have been very disrupted lately. I only need seven or so hours of sleep and it’s a good idea for me to go to sleep at 8pm if I want to get a full night of sleep. That feels lame. Yet I feel like sleep is one of the biggest factors between me and emotional stability lately. I’m very under slept and as a result I am weepy and depressed. It’s lame.

I don’t like that I cry in front of my kids so much. I feel like that is a bad lesson. I try to explain it to Shanna in a fairly value neutral way. “I had life experiences that make it unusually easy for me to cry. It’s kind of weird and annoying. Not everyone does this–in fact most people don’t. But I cry as I’m just going about my daily life. It’s inconvenient but it’s not always a sign that anything is wrong right now. I do like hugs and kisses, thank you. I’m glad you are here. I have a lot more reason to be happy now.” That’s pretty much my schpeal.

I feel humiliated when I have to casually explain how and why I am defective compared to so-called normal people. The more extreme I worry my current sense of symptoms are (I have very little ability to judge this as life goes–I can be retrospective but in the moment evaluation is hard) the more I struggle with being out in public. I don’t want my kids to be tarred with the same crazy brush I am tarred with.

I feel like a whiner. I am in the very safest period of my life right now. I haven’t been raped in eight years. I should stop feeling paranoid and scared, right? The more than two decades when I was raped over and over are done. Get over it.

Yeah. You go do it. If you think it is so fucking easy you do it. Wait, you weren’t raped over and over for two decades so you don’t know what that even means? Oh. Then shut the fuck up already.

It sounds like an excuse. My brain is *wired* to feel fear and distrust. I was brought up in an abusive environment. I volunteered for a PTSD brain scan study at Stanford. I was told that my case is too complicated to be useful for research. I’m pretty damn sure my brain is non-standard. And I have to deal with that. And it sounds like whining to people who do not have similar brain patterns.

“Hey, whiner, stop having your life experiences and start having my life experiences so you can act like me and I can feel comfortable.”

Wait. Yeah. Too late.

I feel like a whiner because I can’t function under the same constraints as a lot of people I know. I simply cannot be as busy as they are. I can’t think. I cry all the time. I’m scared. I can’t follow simple directions because I am shaking and unable to think coherently and learn new information. This isn’t my fault. This is simply how going through the world works for me.

What do I need? I need less going on. I need to not feel guilty because I’m not providing Shanna exactly what some people are having. She’s having a good life even though she isn’t having the same experiences as her peers. She won’t be permanently fucked up by not being in contact with people exactly her age all day every day. Truly. Biologically that is not normal. But I feel guilty. She would love it.

Life is full of a lot of different paths. I did go out yesterday and buy her a bunch of craft supplies that she wanted. She is thrilled. She has doileys and pom poms and glitter and pipe cleaners and glue sticks and popsicle sticks. It’s in the budget. I’m supposed to buy this stuff. She has paint and play-dough substitute. She does play with children. She just doesn’t do it all day in a place where someone else will clean up her mess because they are paid to do so.

I distinctly notice a difference in how the kids play based on how clean the house is. When things are put away and orderly they are capable of cleaning stuff up as they are done with it and putting it away. They won’t do it at all if the house is messy. And when the house is basically tidy they go from one imaginative game to another all day. When the house is messy they whine at me to read to them or for the iPad. It’s interesting to watch. When the house is basically clean I spend an hour or two on chores in the early morning and then spend the rest of the day on stuff where I am “interruptable”. If the house is a huge mess I get bitchy and tense.

I’m not being very nice lately. I have too many projects ongoing. I need to finish things and back off. I’m looking forward to the marathon so much. I need a break from running. I need to move on and do something more approachable for people in my life. Seven weeks.

I really and truly didn’t think she would say yes when I told her, “You know, if you ran 20 miles this weekend you could *totally* handle a marathon in seven weeks. Just sayin’.” Now she has plane tickets. She’s going to run with me. She will pace me. I know that no matter how scared and apprehensive I am in advance she will get me through. That’s this enormous comfort. I’m shit at pacing. It’s just not a skill I have developed yet. She’s really good at it. She has a lot of practice. This will be her first marathon too. I feel extremely weepy at the idea of being part of her “first” experience. That feels special. She’s doing something new and hard with me. Gosh. That feels like a big deal. I feel really loved.

I think about Sarah a lot as I run. It’s been enough months of her not speaking to me that I feel like I can probably call it done and try to move on. It’s hard. I feel like we spent so much time reacting to our phantom issues with our respective mothers that we didn’t really get around to looking at each other. We are both broken in different ways. I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet because a big part of my problem was that I really and truly could not physically handle another adult showing up in my house who needed me to do a bunch of cleaning for her. I thought I could. I really did. I knew she would be hard to clean up after. I thought I could do it. I failed. I feel bad that I couldn’t handle being the support she needs. I think she deserves it. But I can’t do it.

I’m so sorry that I failed her and hurt her. I do that. I do that a lot. I feel like it is inevitable that I will do it with/for everyone. I will fail you. I will hurt you. It feels like it is an unavoidable part of being me. I am a failure. I hurt everyone just by existing. If I could shut my stupid, selfish, self-absorbed mouth maybe I could learn to be a decent person. Naw. That’s a pipe dream.

I feel so guilty for all the things I can’t be. I feel ashamed of myself. Why can’t I just be normal? I’m not even sure I know what that means. Whatever it means it would involve wiping my memory so that I no longer react from the point of view I have always had. I am defective.

Today I am going to can tomatoes. And mail two boxes. One cross country and one internationally. The boxes won’t have tomatoes in them. But those are my tasks for today. That is all I can have on my agenda if I want to be nice to my kids. Because they need some attention today. I’ve been ignoring them a lot lately as I finish the garage. I need to figure out earthquake strapping. I think this is how my house is going to look for the next ten years. It’s time to strap things to the walls. I’ve never done earthquake preparedness with furniture before. If you move your furniture every 3-6 months then it truly isn’t worth the effort to strap it to the wall over and over. You make holes in the walls and landlords hate you. My life is different now.

Every day of my life is blazing a new path. I have never lived in a stable environment for this long. I have never had ongoing daily relationships that have gone on this long. In another two or three years I will have lived with Shanna longer than I ever lived with my brothers at all. Probably about how much time I lived with my sister if you add it all up. Longer than I ever lived with my mother in one go. Far far longer than I lived with my father.

I’m scared of depending on her in inappropriate ways. I’m less scared of it with Calli, which is weird. When I ask Shanna if I can keep her forever she says yes enthusiastically. When I ask Calli if I can keep her she smiles and says no. She says, “Baby bye bye.” I’m just not real worried about having an odd overly dependent codependent relationship with Calli. Kid has boundaries. Shanna is my me-not-me.

Shanna is good at asking me why I am experiencing an emotion. She’s really good at figuring out, “Oh you are frustrated because I did ______ but you weren’t frustrated last time I did it. Why are you frustrated this time?” That seems weirdly complex from a four year old to me. But I explain, “Well last time I was able to focus on only you and I wasn’t in the middle of something else and last time the spill was water instead of juice and juice is sticky. And…” I try to talk about things in a level voice. “Well I find this frustrating because I dislike having to do _________.” It’s not about her. It’s about what I am doing. It’s about how many ways my attention is divided.

I’m trying hard to train her to come and find me and declare, “Mother! I had an idea! I must experiment!” Then when I find a huge mess I don’t get mad at her. I gird my loins and do my deep breathing exercises before I come to see what she did. It works out.

Everyone who parents does so from a self-centered point of view. This little amoeba is in orbit around your life. What does that mean? What kind of support do you need? What do they do all day to facilitate you getting to do what you want to do all day?

I want to can tomatoes. And mail boxes. I assume we will walk to the post office. It will be a multi-hour walk. We will probably come home by way of the park. That’s about a 3.5 mile loop. Shanna needs to get out and exercise. We haven’t done much this week. Let me rephrase: I have been fucking exhausted from the 32 miles I am running this week so I haven’t done as much at Shanna’s speed. It kind of changes the tone, no? It’s not that I am lazy. I’m tired. I’m sore. I think a slow walk will be good today. Stretch out my legs before I run 16 miles tomorrow. Ew.

But I feel like an asshole. Because I am supposed to be facilitating her life. Naw. Children are supposed to orbit around their parents. That is how it works. For the next seven weeks her life is impacted by the fact that I am too physically tired to do what I normally do with her. It won’t kill her. Maybe she will learn something about the physical requirements of taking athletics seriously. Not that I am a serious athlete. But I’m as tired as one.

I feel like my weakness is inexcusable. Suck it up. Get moving. There is a limit to how much I can do that. I can’t be miserable all day every day and function. I can only suck up so many things. I’m terribly sorry so much of my brain cycles are wasted on things that happened long ago. I would give just about anything to change it. My understanding is time will help and pretty much nothing else. I have to be patient and wait for things to get better. Stop fucking rushing me. It takes as long as it takes. Oh wait, I’m not perfectly mentally healthy on the schedule you think I should keep? Let me care about that. I think I have 2.4 seconds free a week from Tuesday.

I was told when I was pregnant with Shanna that people like me shouldn’t have children. It may be true. But it’s too late. They are here. I am here. We have to do the best we can. In the overall scheme of things I think my kids are doing very well. They get the occasional shriek of frustration from me over large messes but I think I am fairly patient. I got the shit beat out of me for things that I barely react to. I feel like I am doing well. The only marker I have for behavior says that I am really awesome and patient and wonderful. I’m not perfectly patient, but I’m not sure that is useful either. My kids will grow up with a slow life because of me.

Some days all we will do is can tomatoes and walk to the post office. That’s ok. I am actually preparing them for the world. Last I checked it wasn’t terribly important for me to sit and do worksheets all day. I guess all those years of preparing I did was kind of useless. I was extensively trained in how to fill out forms. Sure, I do great in the DMV. I’m not sure it needed thirteen years of harping.

Life is complicated. Things that are mandatory parts of life for lots of people are completely absent from the lives of every one else. We feel our priorities are important because they are what we know.

What do I need to do to get through the next seven weeks with as little impact on the kids as possible? I keep feeling like I should schedule. But then I’m depressed and tired and I want too much from myself and I stop doing it again. What is reasonable to expect of myself? I don’t even know. I really don’t.

You have no power over me.

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Noah asked me why I am letting this woman have so much power over me. She responded to my first email with a short thing basically saying, “I was nine months pregnant when I sent this to you. Maybe I could have had more compassion. Can’t you forgive me?” I ranted back. I explained that I am going to spend every minute I am near her terrified that I am going to have another panic attack in front of her. I’m afraid of how nasty she will be next time because apparently I go through “chances” without ever having any idea I am doing something wrong. I told her I don’t really want to deal with that given that it took me a year to have the courage to leave the house because I was afraid of running into her.

Why am I so afraid of her? What does she represent to me? Noah pointed out that I’m creating my own self-fulfilling prophecies here. I say that people hate me and reject me foreverrrrrrr I will be aloooooooooooooone foreverrrrrrrrrrr. Ahem. Or something like that. She apologized, why don’t I accept the apology?

If she had sent some kind of an apology spontaneously instead of because she couldn’t ignore me any longer I would have had a different reaction. She didn’t want to apologize. She doesn’t think she did anything wrong.

Why does she have so much power? Why does her disapproval matter? Because I spent about a year telling her intimate things. It didn’t feel like the break up of a “friendship”. This was as emotionally intense as a romantic relationship. Since I had kids I have been bonding a lot more strongly with women. I am getting too attached too quickly, apparently. I told this woman extensively about my mental health issues and more specifically about my life. Then she shamed me.

I don’t like someone deliberately shaming me. I shouldn’t care what she thinks. I don’t have anything invested in her opinion. She is not going to be part of my life again if I can help. She responded to my last rant saying she left the Meet Up group.

She’s right that it will be hard to avoid one another given that she lives twenty minutes away. I get to ask her for space once. Past that she really doesn’t have to give me any room. She gets to live her life as well. She lives around here and there is a finite number of kid things. I can’t keep her out of all of them. That’s not cool to her kids. But I can ask her to stop showing up at my gosh darn park day, once.

There were four of us. We spent over a year hanging out together at least once and up to four times a week. When we got together we would spend at least five hours, sometimes up to nine hours. We did a lot of long-term talking about things that our kids would do. We spent holidays together. Then I got told that I was out of chances completely out of the blue after I had a panic attack.

I was punished by the removal of two peoples love because I was bad. Because I am crazy.

So what happened was I was on edge to start with. I was at the beginning of the unravel I had last year. Shanna was in a brief hitting phase (it lasted less than a month). She hit this other little boy twice and I pulled her into the bedroom and told her that if she did it again we would have to go. It was not nice to repeatedly hit someone in their own house. That’s just really over the line for me. She was two. No she didn’t “get it” but if children never have consequences for their actions they will never “get it”. Of course she hit him again. And right as I was telling her in a ranty voice that if she hits people we have to leave Calli had a dirty diaper. I tried to get Shanna to sit still while I changed it because she lost the privilege of playing. We walked out with me repeatedly saying in a louder-than-necessary voice something to the effect of “It’s not ok to hit people. When you hit people there are consequences. Get your butt out to the van. No, don’t play. You are in trouble. It’s not ok to hit people.” I never called her a name. I wasn’t demeaning. I wasn’t insulting or nasty. My tone of voice was really harsh and loud. I couldn’t breath and my heart was racing. Dealing with both kids in that moment was hard and over whelming.

That night I received an email telling me that she didn’t want to know me any more because my behavior is over the top and I am mean to Shanna. I don’t have age appropriate expectations.

Uhm, I expect my two year old to hit people. I think it is then my job to enforce consequences so she can have some idea that it’s not a great plan. I don’t hit my kids. I don’t call them names. I don’t put them down. But I do separate them from their friends when they can’t play nicely. I guess that’s not “age appropriate”.

I feel defensive and angry. I feel like for some reason she has the power to cause other people to share her opinions. I’m scared that she would join this play group and people who currently tolerate me would no longer want to because she would sit there and gossip about my faults. I’m worried because the “Attachment Parenting” community is very harsh and dogmatic. They absolutely encourage shunning people who do not completely follow the party line.

I have mixed feelings because I wonder if her nastygram was a good thing. I wonder if I really am a mean nasty person. Shanna really is a strange mini-adult. I don’t tolerate a lot of “age appropriate” behaviors most of the time. I set really firm boundaries around them. Am I somehow robbing them because I expect manners? Obviously I am insecure.

I believe deep in my heart that I am nice to my kids. I get angry, yes. My anger is bigger than a lot of peoples, yes. My kids are going to have to deal with being my kids. I have mental illness. That’s just a fact. I may always experience panic attacks. I don’t know. I have no crystal ball. My kids have to be near me. It isn’t possible for me to make my panic attacks completely invisible and silent to them. I talk to them a lot about how they aren’t responsible for my emotions and my behavior.

Awhile ago I was having a panic attack and angry with Shanna over something. She started crying. I looked at her and asked her if she was afraid. She told me yes. I sunk down to the floor and put my head down. I told her that I was doing something wrong then. Kids shouldn’t be afraid of their mothers. Mothers are never supposed to hurt kids. I sat up and pulled her into my lap. I asked her to explain what she understood about why I was upset. She did a good job. I explained the rest of the back story on why I don’t want her doing _______. I told her that I was sorry I scared her. I didn’t mean to. She hugged me and said that she would try not to do _________ again. I thanked her.

But I’m a terrible person, right? It’s not ok to ever raise your voice. It’s not ok to ever be angry.

Wait, what? Oh good grief. Why do I give this idiocy so much power over me? Partially because it feels like the drumbeat for my stage of life. It’s not as if this woman is the only one presenting that image. I spent way too much time on Mothering.com.

She was just an echo chamber for what I feel society as a whole wants from me. The vast majority of the time if I express any anger near anyone there is some comment on it. “Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel.” “My son is an empath so you can’t get angry near him.” “You get angry really quickly.” I suppose that depends on how you look at it.

Why does she have so much power over me. Because she is able to smile and spew poison. Because I am very susceptible to girl games. Because I was taken down many many pegs. And now she has come and joined my new hierarchy. Those kinds of status things feel extremely transitory. I don’t really want to get a sudden demotion.

When I transferred to Leigh High School during my freshman year of high school I started going by a nickname derived from my middle name. After I was there for a month or so someone leaved over a teacher’s shoulder and said, “Wait. Your name is Kristine? Like Krissy? Are you Krissy Archer? That Krissy Archer?” I had sex with multiple people at my previous school. It was part of the reason I ran. I didn’t want to deal with that reputation when I moved. Abruptly I had someone calling me a whore in every class.

And women are vicious in a way that is far more hurtful. They don’t just insult you and call it a day. They get close to you and then use withdrawal of love as a weapon. They talk to your friends. They lower the general opinion people have of you. Often by repeating half-true stories. The more they smile at you while they are doing this the more problems you will have later.

My kids need a fucking stable group of friends. I really don’t want to play the social status game. I only kind of interact with the other parents. I really need for my behavior and relationship with my children to be judged based on the things we actually do. Not the things people speculate that we might do because they witness some of our worst interactions. Everyone has their worst interactions. If mine involve my tone of voice being ranty and harsh while I say things that are otherwise fairly reasonable I will live with that and consider it a life well lived. I don’t rant very often. It’s quite rare. And Shanna is quick to tell me that my tone of voice isn’t ok and I need to change it. I don’t think she is a beat down child.

Why have I set her up as a judge and jury I have to defend myself from? Because most other people don’t pay enough attention to me for me to feel like they would bother judging me? And yet mob mentality is very real. I am weird. I am reminded over and over again in a variety of ways (parenting books like this try to make it a joke) that for me to be weird is a problem for my kids. They will suffer for it. It will be my fault and that’s bad. I should be trying to blend into the crowd. That book in particular stressed how it is ok that you know you don’t fit in but you have to learn how to fake it so your kid isn’t punished. It’s true if you are in a public school. I don’t want it to be true at our home school group.

It’s kind of like playing Plants Vs. Zombies. She’s a double pea shooter walking towards me. She’s going to kill me. She feels like she can poison my environment. She was certainly good at having me like her and think well of her. Until she turned on me abruptly and was really nasty. Oh shit I don’t want that kind of poison in the well. It’s just a bad idea.

Why does she have so much power over me? Her brand of poison is pretty powerful. I believe she mostly liked being friends with me. But I’m one of those polarizing figures. She liked me a lot but the things she didn’t like she disliked a lot. I don’t need to have someone who is good at making me like them but who occasionally tells me I am a terrible person in my life. That’s kind of my crack. What’s our favorite game, Noah?

I don’t want her in the group because all of a sudden park day becomes a whole different beast for me. I no longer have to think of whether I’m up for all of the basic things. I have to think about how secure I feel that I can sit off to the side quietly and not get into a conversation that might trigger a panic attack. Because it absolutely not ok to have a panic attack with that woman nearby. Oh God. Poor Shanna might lose more friends. And it would be All My Fault.

I’m not planning to move. Shanna is stuck here. She has to make friends here. I have to not fuck this up.

Why does she have power over me? Because I’m not good at taking it back once I give it to someone. Why the fuck do I care what Tom thinks? Why in the fuck do I care what my mother thinks? Because I do. Because I love them. Because I wish with every part of me that they thought I was good. Because I am very used to people who profess to love me telling me that I am horrible. I have a magnetic attraction to this cycle. I like people who have more control than I have who tell me I am bad for not having it. It’s really pretty fucked up and self-loathing of me.

Why does she have power over me? Because in my experience, other than the people I live with, people don’t give other people second chances. Not really. She has a bad opinion of me. I’m supposed to try and prove that I am worthy of a second chance. Now she has told me that I am going through chances so I can be held to it.

Noah thinks I should just think of her as a stupid person and move on with my life not caring how she feels about me. He has a point.

Even though I feel wicked uncomfortable about having done so I created a socially safe place for me. I hope. I don’t think I will have a perfect experience without her there. But I’m not going to be judged on something half remembered from a long time ago.

I’m not at this group to make friends. I am cordial. I participate in conversations enough that I sort of look like part of the group. Mostly I play with the kids or run. People probably either think I am aloof or shy. I’m ok with either. I have told more than one person that I have horrible social anxiety. That’s as personal as I have gotten.

Where is this space in our life for acquaintances? For community? For people who are around but with whom you don’t have a personal connection? If I keep people out at arms length then they can be out at arms length forever. What they do has very little effect on me. If I let someone in closer they have to be shoved much much further than just arms length away when they hurt me. It’s not a very forgiving system. My problem is I assign too much intent to behaviors. People aren’t trying to hurt me. They are trying to express their emotions.

She felt intimidated by me. So she attacked. Normal. The person who sent the recent accusatory letter? He’s not really upset because of my actions. He’s upset about things in his life and I’m a good target. He at least thinks he is doing a good thing.

It’s not about me. Don’t make excuses. Don’t apologize. She apologized to me. Shouldn’t I take that at face value? What I should do is get off my butt and go eat a banana. Then get dressed. Then go run. Today my wonderful friend Taylor is coming over. That guarantees a good day. I’m going to stop thinking about her. I asked her to leave the group and she did. I may run into her again some day and then I will have to revisit this emotional experience. That time I won’t get to ask her to leave a group. She lives here too. It’s not ok to make her pay for the rest of her life. That’s really not cool. Hell, in a few years I may suddenly grow up and decide I don’t give a shit. Folks either like me or they don’t and I will have been part of the group long enough that it really won’t matter.

But I’m not there yet. My skin is not that thick. It’s too raw. It’s too scary. I have a hard time getting out of the house. If I knew she was going to be there I wouldn’t be able to go. I wouldn’t be able to put my kids through the experience of dealing with my panic attacks. That’s not fair.

I’m going to go now.

I did a hard thing.

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Last February I was sent a nasty Dear Jane letter. Someone no longer wished to know me. I had a panic attack at her house and she told me that I was a bad parent and she could no longer bear to see how I interact with Shanna. She said I am far too hard on Shanna and my expectations are not age appropriate. There was more. I don’t want to read it again.

She showed up at the home school group today. She asked me if it would be a problem for me if she was there. She was smirking while she asked. She had already let her kids run off to play. She said she could round them up and just go “If I was going to feel uncomfortable”. I told her that Shanna still asks to play with her son so it is fine.

I lied. It wasn’t fine. When I got home I sent her an email. I responded to her nastygram from last February (for the very first time) and included the full text. I said, “Given the hostility with which you ended our friendship I would prefer that you not join a group I am a member of. I’m sure you understand given that you don’t particularly want to know me.”

I ended a sentence with a preposition. Bah. That was hard. I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I’m glad I didn’t let her get friendly with a bunch of people so that it becomes “drama”. She doesn’t know those people yet. She has met them once. I don’t really want to get chased out of this community. I don’t deal with passive aggressive behavior very well. Someone who will be nasty to me then smile all pretty like has no place in my life.

Her son came over and wanted to play soccer with Calli and I. He got really angry when I insisted he share. He sat down and told me he wasn’t going to play anymore because I was mean. Calli had the damn ball first and it wasn’t his. Yeah. I don’t really need to deal with that family every week at the park. I hope she doesn’t come back. I really don’t think I was mean to him. I was very careful with my tone of voice. I can’t be passive aggressive enough for that family and I have no interest in trying.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I was all set to have a gosh darned good day. By the way, I think it is hilarious that Shanna talks about the “darn freakin’ housework”. I did finally clean up my language some year. Like the year I heard how fluent my three year old was with “fuck”. Neither of us say it much any more. Ahem.

I feel weird. I feel like I was inappropriate in setting this boundary. I feel like I should have kept my mouth shut. It’s not like I own the group. But man. She was freakin mean. I don’t want to deal with her. UUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Running and singing and whining and kids.

2 Replies

When I sing I listen to my ‘healing’ playlist. Mostly women. Mostly at least semi-introspective music. Lots of relationship stuff. Lots of anger and lots of sadness. There are happy songs too. One of the main reasons I don’t think I run very fast is because I can still sing along sorta pretty much the whole time. I pant the words out during sprints. Just like labor, I never lose the ability to talk. I keep hearing about how something doesn’t qualify as heavy exercise unless you lose the ability to talk. I hear that serious labor inhibits the ability to talk. I never lost my ability to communicate. I don’t get silent.

I used to. I used to experience everything scary or hard or painful as something that caused me to withdraw. Now the harder something is the louder I want to be while doing it. I just can’t suffer in silence any more. This means that my neighbors look at me funny while I run around singing fairly loudly. I smile and wave. I decided that if I am going to run in a Cheshire Cat hat complete with ears I am required to be cheerful. People stare at me a lot. If I take the hat off and run with the super short hair they stare just as much. Early in the running I felt kind of defensive and weird. I doubt my facial expression was cheerful. People used to look at me warily. Now I run along singing, at about a normal conversation volume, and I smile and wave and interrupt myself to yell, “Hello! Nice night, isn’t it?” Then I go back to singing loudly. Now people laugh and wave and answer me with some appropriate comment.

I think people dislike me because I project hostility so much of the time. Mostly people don’t have an opinion of me. But I’m a polarizing figure! Whatever. Mostly people don’t have an opinion of me. They don’t care enough to have an opinion.

I’m not sure I can actually wrap my head around that.

Yeah, no. Can’t do it. I have an opinion about everything and everyone. Only I don’t actually. I think I’m lying again. I’m sitting here trying to force myself to have neutral thoughts. It’s more difficult than one might think. If I look around my garage I can think that I don’t have an opinion on the quality of most of the books (I share library space with people who have a lot of books I haven’t read) but I have an opinion on how much room they take up and where they are stored. Is it a neutral impression? Well… if I see the book dropped somewhere else I will have very strong negative opinion about the book. So I think that all of them are just on the negative side of neutral for me which means I have an opinion.

Yeah. I don’t think I can imagine what it is like to go through the world with actual apathy. Do you want to know the problem? The problem is that I have this weird little piece of me in the center and it decides if my opinions are positive or negative today. Pretty much across the board. Today I’m feeling hostile and pissy; I don’t even know why. I could come up with candidates, but they aren’t really big enough. I have too much good coming. I should be excited. At this time tomorrow I will be on an airport shuttle with Noah and we get three full days of no kids.

The running is hard. I’m tired. When I arrive back I am in high spirits. Then I crash the next day. It’s fairly consistent. I am not explosively angry I am just kind of short in temper. Snippy. I feel bone weary exhaustion and the kids aren’t happy unless I’m running with them. I really can’t right now. I’m so tired. I’m not always. I won’t feel like this all day. But it feels like the core of me is just barely on the negative, whiny side.

Noah is trying to express appreciation for me. For all the work I take off his plate. I hate feeling like it isn’t enough. I don’t feel appreciated. I don’t feel valuable. I don’t feel effective. I feel plodding and stupid. I feel like I am barely going through the motions. I feel like I’m looking at everything through a dense cloud bank. I feel like gravity is too heavy. I think that is what I feel. Gravity is too heavy. That makes it harder to do everything. I have to decide if it is worth the effort. I still haven’t started packing. Not for us and not for Shanna. Shanna is getting picked up at two this afternoon. I should probably get started.

It doesn’t help my overall feeling bad that last week Shanna was helping me with cleaning. I didn’t like how nasty her tone was and her word choice in describing the activity. Do you know where she learned it? Watching me. I didn’t say anything to her about it. She was just reflecting what she sees. But I’ve been thinking about it. I haven’t described her toys as crap since. She doesn’t have crap. She has high quality neat toys in a dizzying variety. It’s really not crap.

I’m cheerful sometimes. I’m not sure why it is so hard right now. I’m grieving; I think that is part of it. Grieving for so many things. I’m more than half way through the first round of editing the book. I really don’t want it to be an angry book. I want to tell the story in the most simple and direct way I can. I don’t want to flail around and be angry forever. I just want to get it right. I want to have other people know the simple facts. I don’t want to be alone with my story. It’s scary. I can’t handle being alone with it.

As I run I think about a lot of things. I think about the one who got away. Ha. I have several. I think about the many possibilities I had open throughout my life. I think of what choices I made and where. Which were the most important ones? Where was the tipping point?

I have the life I wanted. I really do. Why aren’t I happier? Why is everything viewed in terms of me failing? How have I really failed? How am I bad? I’m not really engaging in questionable activity any more. I think this is as close to the center of the bell curve as I will ever be. I still feel bad. I still feel like I am bad. That’s what makes everything just negative of center. Because I am. I can’t help it. I was born bad. This is why I run as far and as fast as is safe for my body on a training schedule and I yell out the words to Born This Way.

I’m not bad. I have done a lot of things that other people don’t do. That doesn’t mean I am bad. The balance of my life is heavily skewed towards doing and being good. Why do I still feel so unworthy? I feel terribly unworthy. God knows I don’t deserve Noah. He is far nicer than anyone like me deserves. In this mind frame I even know that he wasn’t trying to cheat. He did act like a jerk, but good grief how much do I expect one man to put up with while never ever doing anything to retaliate? I deserve a good smack down now and then. I get too demanding and pushy and uppity.

I don’t like it when I think this way. I know these thoughts are fleeting. I know this isn’t how I always feel. It’s how I feel today. I’m enjoying this part of growing older. I feel a lot more security around the fact that I won’t feel this way forever. And I really do know that I have far more good than bad in my life.

Today my baby goes to her Godmamas. She is excited. She loves these visits. Recently she asked me if we will be together forever. I told her that depends on how we define it. I told her that we will always be together again but we won’t do everything together all the time. Sometimes we will be in separate places but if she thinks about me real hard and knows she will see me again soon it’s like being together at all times. We will always be together again very soon. She said that works for her.

Calli has changed dramatically recently and I don’t talk about her in writing much. My experience of parenting her has been different. She needs me in very different ways. For the past few months she needs much more intense physical contact than she seemed to want when she was small. She is very serious and when things don’t go how she wants she gets this stricken expression on her face. It’s really pretty hilarious. I love watching her play with things. She looks like she thinks more like an engineer. She isn’t a dilettante. She wants to sit and figure something out. That’s not how her sister approached objects so it’s neat to watch. She makes me understand how uncurious I am. She also makes me understand that I know so much more than I think I know. She holds things up and grunts at me. She wants me to explain. I always start at the most concrete level with name, color, size, that kind of stuff. Eventually I get to imaginative uses. It generally takes several options before I find the right one for her. Then she nods and runs away. I’m not sure if I have finally given her sufficient data or if I finally said the right word. I won’t know until she can talk.

Calli is going to talk on a very different curve than Shanna. That’s ok. It means that she feels much less there and I think I’ve been underestimating her for a while. Her comprehension is fairly astounding. I think she understands a lot more than she obeys. She is willfull. In a very different way than Shanna. If I try to prevent Shanna from getting what she wants she responds in a very wild, free-swinging way. She always has. Calli clenches her fist and shakes with fury. She may or may not release a few ear-drum-shattering shrieks but mostly she just looks like a bull about to charge. She doesn’t swing out but she may lean over and bite. Calli is a runner. Letting her walk on her own is dangerous. She won’t come back and she is going faster by the day. Shanna never went far from me and would come back when I called. This kid doesn’t feel as strong of a leash to me.

Today I need to pack. I should probably go do that. Everything takes a really long time so I had best get moving. Any second now. Don’t wanna.

You’re up then you’re down

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I’m feeling very emotionally volatile. Between writing, this affair, and Occupy Oakland I have a lot inside my head that feels too big to be felt and understood. I’m feeling like there isn’t enough of me to go around. I feel conflicted about what I should be doing and where. What is actually a good use of my time? Ugh. So tired. Emotionally tired.

I’m having a hard time finding balance. I wish that I could manage to get the grief struck look off my face. I’m not thrilled with how deep the lines are.

Trying to steel myself for a let down

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I think that the okcupid boy is going to decide I’m not worth the fuss. Which is fair, I don’t think I am either. Uhm, yay for confirmation? I am asking for a ridiculously specific thing that isn’t very fair. I feel weird saying it, but I’m kind of sad. I think I added him to my mental script of November a bit fast. It would have been a very exciting month. It was a nice dream.

Instead I will work a lot harder on getting ready for the 5k and I’ll write the book and I’ll try to settle into more peacefulness in the house instead of trying so hard to get out of it. Apparently right now I’m not meant to be getting out. That’s ok.

That means that some of my friends will say, “Hey come to Friday Night Waltz!” or (insert event here). You guys don’t understand the energetic cost to me of getting out of my house right now. Large group events suck. They aren’t worth the price of admission. When I went dancing with my friend, ok that was worth it. He was a good friend-date. That was nice. Those still don’t give me that big jolt of energy that I want. They make me tired. Those are work. They aren’t building me up in the same way. They are a much more pleasant diversion than most of my life, I’ll say that. But they are a physical cost. I can’t do very much of that. I can’t get consistent enough child care and I don’t want to be away from the kids every night.

I am really sad that I don’t get to have an affair. I honestly think it would cause a few unfun conversations with Noah because I would neglect him. Only I wouldn’t. Because I would come home every night and he would wake up with my mouth on his cock. He would miss me a lot. Heck, I think the fucker could stand with a little missing me. It might increase his enthusiasm during the time he has me. We are so tired. Uhm, I say “the fucker” with great love and affection. Just so it’s clear.

Noah has made great strides in his career during our marriage. I have given him a lot of time and space for that. That is something that builds him up and makes him cocky. I like that in him. He likes me to be built up and cocky. I haven’t felt that way in a very long time. I feel beat down and exhausted. I feel worn out. I feel fucking boring. I feel awkward. I feel unpleasant. I feel like no one will ever want to pay a lot of attention to me again. It’s existential angst. I know. It’s pathetic.

That’s the problem. That dismissal right there. I have a lot of this because of the repercussions of trauma. And when a doctor prescribes a drug intended to cure mania, what that means for me is the medical profession thinks I need to stop working so hard. Because I don’t think there is a reasonable way to describe me as truly manic. In times of crisis I work a lot harder than most people have any interest in working. I’m not manic. I don’t fit the diagnostic criteria. Unless of course, you count my promiscuity. Which uhm, yeah. Or the fact that I did have that lovely drug experimentation period. Uhm, only I’ve never done anything that has harmed my life.

That’s the crux. I like my life. I think I have made mistakes, yes. But I wouldn’t take any of them back. In my opinion mania is reserved for when you impetuously do a whole bunch of things that are really bad for you. When I was a small child I engaged in a lot of sex play because I was surrounded by sex and I was acting out what I had been programmed to act out. It wasn’t mania. As I got older it got more complex and emotional, but I don’t allow my sex to negatively impact my life. I’m not riddled with disease or unwanted children. I have *also* had a lot of really fun sex with some interesting people. I’m glad I’ve done that. I’ve gotten the affair thing right a couple of times and it’s been life changing. I have fucked up in looking for what I want and I’ve had a lot of bad days dealing with feeling bad about how I didn’t negotiate properly.

This is why the doctor says I have an omniscience problem. Because I believe it is possible for me to negotiate well enough to get exactly what I want. And I’m ok with fucking up along the way as I learn how to do it. She seems to think this isn’t a good plan and she was constantly trying to figure out how my “sexual acting out”, seriously–she brought this up at least three different times during the hour we were together, “And did you act out sexually during that time too?” whenever I talked about other major symptoms of anxiety. She’s trying to figure out if I go fuck people every time I get upset. No, I really don’t. Bitch. That kind of judgment pisses me right the fuck off. I’m friends with the vast majority of people I have had sexual contact with. Of the people I no longer know, only one is actively acrimonious and that’s a joint issue. I have been very safe in terms of disease risk and pregnancy… what’s the problem? Oh wait, I forgot. I’m just not supposed to do those things because they are amorphously bad. Well fuck you too.

Err, anyway. This is my long rant about why I’m not interested in an affair because I’m manic. I’m interested in an affair because I’m really bored and I don’t know another way to get that really intense bonding and attention I want. I’m doing it in a way that is entirely on the up and up with everyone in my life. Why is this a problem? Who will be harmed? Why do I need to be medicated away from this? No. This is not the approach I want. I learned a lot about what I need to say on the next visit. That’s good.

But what I really want is a month of sneaking out after hours to be the crazy super hot girlfriend. I want it so bad. I want someone to be obsessed with me. I do I do I do. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH He’s not going to want me. *beat head on floor* (I’m kidding Ali! I won’t do it. I’ll just shake my fists in fury. It’s… not the same.)

Casual sex

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“I’ve got someone who loves me more than words can say
And I’m thankful for that each and every day
And if I count all my blessings, I get a smile on my face
Still it’s hard to find faith…

But if you can look in my eyes
And tell me we’ll be alright
If you promise never to leave

You just might make me believe”

I listen to country music because it makes me cry. Because it is just as sappy as me. It’s kind of a weird balance that the more I think about having sex with someone other than Noah the more I am inclined to cry and feel unworthy of him. It’s a hard balance. I like it, and I want to pursue it. There just seems to be some magical amount of it that is hot for my marriage and more than that starts to feel threatening. I need to keep my priorities straight. Noah is forever.

It’s scary to think about forever. How long does that really mean? I won’t know until it gets here. But I really like thinking that I can plan for 2020 with Noah. What do we want to do with our life? It’s hard to tease out which parts are just for me and which parts are just for him and which parts are actually for both of us. It feels important to me to have some idea in my head so that I can ensure that we are all getting our needs met in the most balanced way we can manage. The funny part about our life is that if Noah didn’t program for a living he would do it anyway. That makes me feel a lot less bad about him spending so much time at work. Just sayin’. From where I’m standing programming looks like programming. I’m only kind of serious.

Why do I fuck other people? Do I do it for me? Do I do it because I think that is the kind of girl Noah wanted to marry? It crosses my mind once in a while that I do feel pressured to be slutty. Noah really likes the trashier the better. I’ve noticed. But oh man it feels comfortable. When I am not actively flirting and/or hunting I feel like part of me is dead. I feel invisible. I feel… like I have no value. Yes, I recognize that it’s fucked up.

You know, I can tell myself that it’s fucked up and I should get over it. Then I could stop going out and flirting. Somehow I don’t think the problem would evaporate. Today I went to the Westboro Baptist Church counter-protests in Cupertino. At the Apple campus that rather charming young man was clearly hitting on me. I uhh mentioned my partner and kids and he sighed deeply. I was just trying to amass the courage to say that didn’t mean I was unavailable! Then his friend pulled on his sleeve and he left. Oh well.

I think that’s a lot of why I don’t mind that I like extracurricular sex so much. Because I don’t actually do almost any of it. I think about it obsessively, but so what? I vacillate between feeling guilty because I think about sex outside my marriage let alone doing it and feeling kind of boring because I have so much trouble scoring. I spend a lot of time laughing at my own stupidity. I like these double binds where I’m wrong no matter what I do.

I say I have trouble scoring because when I finally find someone who is interested in actual NSA sex right now I turn him down. I won’t sleep with someone who is cheating. Ha. I guess I do have standards. Other than that I am batting 1 in 3 for attempts. I’m pretty glad for that one, let me tell you. Otherwise I’d feel a lot more sad. It’s weird to feel almost sad for not finding random sex. Because I want such a specific kind of sex, of course I’m not finding it left and right. Noah has spoiled me.

I think I spend so much time thinking about possible sexual encounters because otherwise I want to start a remodeling project and I really need to spend some time sitting on my ass in between running. Really. My poor body needs a break. I’m kind of bored of reading. I’m not interested in more time watching movies or television. I have cut all my reading filters down so far that they only produce about twenty minutes in a day. I could obsess about my kids, I suppose. Instead I think about sex. It’s more fun.

I think that a lot of the fantasizing about other people is just a way of creating roles for us to play later. We do a lot of roleplay during sex. Honestly that’s a lot of why Noah is so fun. It’s like having a whole harem in one. He’s willing to do absolutely anything I want. It’s pretty miraculous. He uhm lacks some of the technical skills I miss though. I’m trying to figure out which ones I care about the most and why.

I miss being tied up. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a serious bondage scene like I used to do with Tom. Not since March of 2006. It’s not that I haven’t been tied up since then. I have. But I haven’t done a bondage scene that gave me the D/s aspect that is important to the experience. It’s hard to figure out how to talk about this. There is something missing. It’s probably easier to talk about Max than Tom, there’s less emotion there. So Max is Tom’s best friend. They have been best friends for nearly two decades now. They learned rope at the same time from different sources and then came into the scene at the same time and strongly influenced one another.

Max is one of the nicest guys I have ever met in my life. He’s also one of the nastiest sadists. And he has the best quietly commanding air of anyone I have ever met. There have only been a few men ever who can say, “May I please have a glass of water?” and my response is to jump up and run to get it and return it on my knees saying, “Thank you for the honor of serving you, Sir.” I’ll tell you plainly that I never came anywhere close to having sex with Max but oh god I thought about it. I was always very sad that I didn’t know what a man that powerful needed to get off.

That’s it. I like finding people who are interesting to me and finding out what gets them off. What sexuality goes with that outer shell. It tells me a lot about peoples insecurities. I know how to deal with people once I know how they get off. I know what their needs are. I find out who they need me to be. Because I require that my sex partners talk about what feels good and what they want. What do they want me to do. Please instruct me.

I can’t go to bed with someone who can’t talk during sex. It doesn’t work well. I never feel like I know what to do and it’s awkward and slightly uncomfortable. Those kind of people are the sort who don’t want to have sex on the first date. They want to go on 3-5 dates and then you are supposed to suddenly just “know” without instructions. Bah. Lousy lovers. No talking in bed, no sex for you. (with a nod to Sarah)

Saying lousy lover is a bit strong. But it means we aren’t compatible. So much of what is going on in my head is related to the things that are said more than anything I feel in my body. Ok, I’m trying to use gender neutral language as if sex with men is like sex with women and it’s not. I haven’t slept with very many women in the last few years. I’ll tell you plainly it’s because I’m sick to death of pillow princesses. I have only managed to find a few active women in the last ten years. I pretty much stopped trying because I’m tired of doing all the work with bicurious or heteroflexible women. Ahem. I’m sure the problem is where I am hunting, but I don’t know where to look.

Men are easier for me to relate to. They tend to not bring their emotions into sex. And when a guy starts telling me he is in love with me I’m in trouble. It rarely goes well from there. All of a sudden they have needs outside of sex I am supposed to meet. I tend to feel angry about that because I can’t. So I feel like I am disappointing them. Like I am failing at my responsibilities. That’s frustrating and my response to people adding frustration I don’t need is anger. It’s not optimal. It’s one of the biggest things that keeps me tentative about going to places I know would be more target rich environments for sketchy catches. I’m trying to only hunt in places I have a good chance of running into people who won’t fall in love with me. I’m a good friend and a good lay, but I’m not girlfriend material.

What is the difference? How is that all tied up (ha) with the bondage I miss? I want an intensity of focus in my interactions that people other than Noah frankly can’t sustain. I think that someday he will be able to do exactly the kind of bondage I want him to do. I just need to get my head out of my ass and teach him. It’s my fault he can’t do it yet. I get really impatient and mean because he’s not perfect yet. He needs practice and I don’t have the patience to give it to him and I don’t encourage/allow him to go practice with anyone else.

I’m aware that this is one of those 10,000 hour skills. Do you know why Tom and Max are so hot? Because when I met them more than ten years ago they had already been each tying people up for over ten years. So they are each at twenty-five or more years of tying people up recreationally. No shit they are better than Noah. They had to start somewhere with a patient girlfriend. I’m so sick of being patient. Dear god. Is there one more fucking thing I can add to my life where I have to be patient? Bah.

Max is so hot because Max is a Master because he knows his will down to the letter and he knows exactly where he wants to delegate and where he doesn’t. He’s not messy. Ever. (Ok, I’m sure he is occasionally because he’s had personal issues just like everyone else, but not in front of me in any capacity.) He mastered his emotions. So when he ties me up every move feels deliberate. For that space of time *I* am being almost an object that he wants to touch and move around. And in the process he slowly adds rope that is tight but not overly painful for the primary purpose of restricting circulation and blood flow so that I get light headed.

I don’t know if that explanation makes sense. But it’s really hot. Being tied up by someone really skillful is nice because it doesn’t have to be overly painful in order to be effective. You can slowly be pulled through neat stretches while nicely light headed. I like particular positions more than others, of course. And being suspended is amazing because fighting gravity is always intense. Not having any part of my body resting on something makes me feel giddy. Even if I’m not far off the ground. It’s intense and scary. Once Tom put me 75′ off the ground. I really like being anywhere off the ground I can. I’ve always liked climbing trees and fences.

For most of my life I have had several recurring dreams about flying. I feel like the suspension fits into that part of my psyche. It’s a way to escape this mortal coil for at least a brief reprieve. I can dissociate without the fuss of someone feeling bad because I can’t feel anything they are doing while they are having sex with them. That upsets people.

Being completely outside my body feels safe and comfortable in a way that very few things do. I can will myself into doing that while stone cold sober just sitting in a chair. But it’s really hard and I lose focus easily. When I’m tied up it’s almost impossible for me to be present in my body after a while. I get to simultaneously become hyper aware of my body and completely feel absent from worrying about it because I feel like I am soaring through the air free from it. It’s wonderful. It’s not all the time food. Well, not for me. Not without Tom. That’s ok. Noah has other perks. It’s weird to miss that so intently; it’s weird to miss Tom. I feel disloyal.

That feels tied up with my current anxiety around not wanting to get attached to anyone other than Noah. As usual, for me, it also feels tied up with the incest. My father told my brothers that they have the right to have sex whenever they want. Rape was specifically fine. It didn’t matter if it was a chick outside the family or inside. If you want sex, you should have it. If you can’t find it outside the family it is the responsibility of someone in the family to provide it, if you can take it. So my mother, sister, and I had to fight Tommy off for years. It’s a good thing he was disabled or I would have lost. I was 4.5 years younger.

If I like people and want to get to know them I feel like I have to be available for sex in order to be interesting. Which is tied up with the fact that when I like people I want to have sex with them. And I really enjoy the kind of getting to know people I get from having sex with them. I find it deeply fulfilling to get someone off. Really. I get this boost that lasts weeks. It’s very similar to the feeling I have when I am serving someone. I can get the same getting-someone-off-high from serving someone in a D/s capacity. It’s a lot of why I miss it so much.

Noah builds me up differently. The biggest difference between Noah and Tom is that Noah could probably tell me my whole life story back to me right now before I write the book. Because he has asked over and over for information and he has bothered to remember. I doubt Tom could ever tell anything about me other than “She had a bad childhood.” He wanted a very different kind of relationship than me. He wanted less of an examined life. Fair enough. This takes a lot of time away from doing other things. But it’s my hobby.

I’m feeling kind of guilty about how antsy I am to find someone to have sex with. So my thoughts keep wandering to how I can start painting the pantry today. I think I should just get laid.

unpacking hell

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Work. Work. Work. Work. You want to do this fun thing? I assign you 100 hours of work first! You want to do this other fun thing? I will assign you 1,000 hours of work first!

Being the mom means I have to be the one who gets up and works when no one else wants to or there is a huge mess… and I have to clean it. I don’t want to make it sound like Noah isn’t involved or that he doesn’t help. He does. But he’s gone 50 hours a week doing other work. I’m here. All. The. Time. So I work all the time. I don’t have space for me in my life right now. I haven’t really written in weeks. I don’t have time or mental energy. I’m not even writing emails because I am so exhausted and brain dead.

I have really mixed feelings about my upcoming birthday party. I’m not going to have the energy to put together the kind of event I was imagining. And that sucks. I am scaling down a lot. I have to. That’s life. But the party was a big scale down from the trip I wanted to take. So I am scaling down again. That’s just kind of how my birthdays go. Historically speaking my birthdays pretty much suck and I spend most of them crying because I feel like it is reinforced that I just don’t matter much to anyone. Having to do this much work before I can even begin to think about doing any work towards making the party fun means that it is going to be a very generic party. People will come and pat me on the head and eat a bunch of food (they better or I will have too many leftovers) and leave. And then I won’t see people again for a few years. I’m feeling conflicted about how this is supposed to “fill up my cup” so to speak.

I feel ungrateful and whiny. My friends have supported me in the best ways they’ve been able. My family is not deliberately making work for me. No one is oppressing me. But I feel like *I* am not in my life any more. I could be replaced easily by a robot with a better temper and more patience. I feel like me being present means very little. But dear god I better get off my ass and start working again. I want to have people come over, right? That means there has to be somewhere for them to go. That means a whole shitload of work right now. It also doesn’t help that I have a lot of internal baggage about my house being shitty. I feel like it proves that I am shitty and lazy and too stupid to care for a house properly. Inviting people over to see it just twists that knife.

Right now I want out of my life. But there is no where to go. This is part of the “for worse”. I really need a break from worse one of these years. I would like to feel like I exist in my life some decade soon.

no balance yet

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Work. Pressure. Don’t get upset. Don’t stop working. Don’t snap. Don’t be fussy. Don’t make anyone else feel bad. Don’t let any of those balls drop.

Today being the mom sucks.

Holy crudmonkeys too much caffeine.

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I AM AWAKE!! Ok. I’m not taking a Foosh mint at 10pm ever again. Oh my god. I thought I would be able to go to sleep by about 2. Hahaha! I am vibrating. Excellent. I didn’t have this experience from caffeine when I was younger. I think perhaps I was just so used to drinking copious amounts of it that I was immune? Is that even the right word? Acclimated? Whatever. I’m feeling downright sprightly. Not too long ago I was told that it would be ok if I couldn’t get everything unpacked in time for my birthday party in five weeks, we could rent a storage unit. Today we unloaded the truck in under an hour and returned it a day early. And I have unpacked about a quarter of the boxes. I expect to be about 75% done by the end of the weekend. So I’m waggling my tail in glee. I think it is kind of sick how much joy I get from working really hard. Do you see what it is? I just found a little sprint! It’s So Freakin Exciting!!! Whoo hoo!

Some wit might say, “What the heck was Scotland?” A grueling, nightmarish trudge. Oh man. Ok yeah, I had fun and I’m glad we went. But it was a buttload of dealing with absolutely nothing but the kids. The only thing I could “get done” was laundry or cleaning up. It sucked. Those are not the parts of being home I enjoy at all. That’s the shit work. (Uhh… taking care of my kids is not shit work. I did not mean to imply that. Carry on.) But I hate laundry and I hate piddly cleaning up! I want to make something! Dangit! I want to noticeably improve my quality of life for ficks sake! I felt so stymied. And we didn’t get in as much sight seeing as one might hope given various anxiety and/or physical issues from being ill and/or me having to deal with Shanna being jet lagged and awful out in public for nightmarishly long stretches at a time so Noah could work. AHHHHH. It was, shall we say, not the best month ever for me traveling around a foreign country. I can’t handle having social engagements on more than three days out of seven or I start to freak out because I can’t keep my company manners in place firmly enough. You should picture me twitching now. Go on. It sucked. But Scotland was really wonderful. I’m so glad that Jenny is there permanently so I have a mandatory reason to go back and explore when I’m not in a crisis state! Yay! Well, that’s almost true. I probably would be a lot happier if she moved back here so I could see her all the time. But that isn’t happening. I’m trying to say that the glass is half full here. So go with me.

Anyway. I have been decompressing from the trip and trying to reconnect socially and I’ve been uhh questionable on that front. I haven’t been feeling good about much of anything. Now that Sarah is here so that I can help instead of just having anxiety from far away (yes Noah, I see the reference to the book–what book was that again?) The only thing I had to do was prep for Sarah to get here and wait. But she’s here now! And I helped! I’ve done things much better and faster than the bar was set to. Oh man. It’s like I just got a shot of heroin. And I had CAFFEINE!! Seriously. I can’t do that again.

Because you see, when I’m up till 4:00am (and counting) no is posting any interesting links. Don’t you guys understand that you are my link to anything interesting in the whole wide world? I read facebook and G+ and that is it. Unless it is sent to my email I don’t know about it. I don’t read any news of any kind. I’ve basically dropped MDC (I’ve had a freakin relapse tonight because people have the audacity to be sleeping) and I don’t go anywhere else. I don’t even know where to go. I used to hang out on IRC but that’s long gone. I don’t really want to read the news. I’m a creepy shut in and I’m sorry for that, but I just can’t pay attention to the news. It’s only focused on the most absolutely disgusting parts of humanity and they distort public perception in really creepy ways. I’m not interested in television. I prefer reading text. Yeah. I can’t follow celebrity gossip because I have no idea who any of them are. I don’t know of any online communities I would maybe feel like I fit. And I really don’t have time to add one if I found it. The last thing I need is another internet time suck.

So y’all posting interesting one-off links, that’s my sole lifeline to the outside world. So don’t be shy with the links ok? Some night I just may need them. Right now I am totally out of tabs and it sucks. In that silly whiny way. I wouldn’t be able to find the book I am reading and I’m done packing. Whinge! Whinge!

You just keep going

Do the best you can

Category Archives: whinge

How to answer

Just another whinging Friday

Well, I’m older.

Calling people names isn’t very nice.

Not being nice to Noah.

Stupidly defensive.

Sustainable loads

You have no power over me.

I did a hard thing.

Running and singing and whining and kids.

You’re up then you’re down

Trying to steel myself for a let down

Casual sex

unpacking hell

no balance yet

Holy crudmonkeys too much caffeine.