About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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August 30, 2022
1. Being able to work off adrenaline.
There’s nothing like finding your second wind for shaking off feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and even rage. Your whole week seems to have gone sideways and downhill? Grab the dog and go for a run.
Not an option when your knees give out and you’re staggering home, clutching the dog’s back for support, after 100 meters. Both embarrassing and totally not uplifting.
2. Going carless.
Back in my college days and well into my first post-grad job, I shared a car with my parents. We’d work out a driving schedule where one parent would drop me at public transit, or a friend and I would carpool, and I’d pay for half the gas and parking.
If I wanted to pick up a food or a thing, I’d grab my flip-flops and trot over to the Target or Trader Joe’s a mile away. No problem.
This is both a physical health and a walk friendly neighborhood limitation.
3. Sleeping without incurring injury
My 40s may turn out to be a good decade but so far, peeking over the horizon, I’m not so sure about that. I can pull muscles in my sleep. I don’t think that’s entirely a fibro thing!
4. The innate trust that people are inherently good or caring
I’ve never actively trusted people but I passively assumed that people would do things like AVOID A PLAGUE. What a horrible way to be proven wrong.
My people are great. People in general? I dunno, man.
5. Loving food.
The endless drudgery of meal preparation in these past three years has done a real number on my enjoyment of planning, cooking and eating meals. It’s no fun anymore and many days I dread having to eat yet again. Give me a meal bar or a tablet or a drink and be done with it.
:: Anything y’all miss these days?
August 29, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 157: Monday. Ugh. I’m still trying to recover from the weekend. Our Saturday afternoon plan turned into an 8 hour affair late into the night. The kids had a ton of fun, and the adults were completely wiped out by the many extra hours on our feet.
We retreated, sweaty and tired, and regrouped at our place. We all had late drinks and dinner in our pajamas. I even tried a couple sips of White Claw. That went straight to my head, but it was tasty. Sunday I worked and rested, napped even, but it wasn’t enough. JB kept me up quite late because they were crying about Seamus so I had to soothe them until they could sleep. End result: starting the week like a couple sacks of bricks are tied to my ankles. What l a bad week for this. In addition to the usual school/work/Smol Acrobat/swim lesson juggle, we have an eye appointment for JB today, a big daycare orientation tomorrow, PiC has a dentist appointment and late Friday meetings, and I’m shorthanded at work. Whoof. I needed to be at what passes for my best. But we’ll do what we can.
*****
At breakfast, Smol offered me their banana: “biii?” (bite) and then wiped down the peel, my knee, and their foot with a napkin. Very kind, thank you for the help.
Unfortunately our usual morning yardwork had to be postponed because I’m still broken. This was a great disappointment to Smol. Fortunately PiC was able to stick around and spell me with Smol for a little while before he had to go.
We were wrong, btw, the car battery wasn’t fine. It had to be replaced today. We expected it would be $240 but there was some prorating that brought it down to $120. Yay/boo.
After they got to observe a battery replacement, I wrangled an overtired Smol down for an early nap. They were absolutely losing it because they didn’t want PiC to leave. Or just because. It’s hard to tell, really.
I’m grateful they took a solid nap. I desperately needed those hours of sitting down even if I was still working. I’d considered moving to the sofa for a more comfortable sit but it’s too hard to set up a useful work station there now. Our new sofa fits our small space and does the job but I really don’t enjoy it. A shame that our $200 Craigslist sofa was more my cup of tea.
Year 3, Day 158: We did some really satisfying weeding but it was too much, too soon. My muscles were quite angry at me. Then my whole body quit on me. Extreme fatigue took over. You know that feeling when you’re about to be overwhelmed by sleep and can’t hold it off? That plus a feeling of my whole body being smothered under 100 lbs of weight is what the extreme fatigue is like. It is awful. I had to call it quits on Smol-care earlier than usual and set up my invalid workstation on the bed for the day. This sucks.
*****
Smol’s development continues to entertain. It’s funny to see someone so little be so dialed into certain things like: we weed together in the mornings, the snacks live here so push the stool over to reach them, the dog gets these treats.
I’m enjoying our together time even when they pick a patch of weeds for us to tackle together. I do all the work and they carry the results to the compost.
*****
A local car dealership that PiC looked at recently is asking for a $1000 (unclear if refundable) deposit to be waitlisted for a new car for 12 months. !!!!
We need a lot more details and confirmation in writing that it’s refundable to even maybe consider this but that seems like a big risk to take for too long a wait. I don’t want to have to fight with them to get my $1000 back if they never turn up a car that meets our needs.
Have you ever had to leave a deposit to be waitlisted for a car without getting an actual order / car assigned with a VIN?
*****
This Avatar / Bronte mashup makes me laugh.
Year 3, Day 159: What a day. The school has started minimum days again, elevating Wednesdays to be neck and neck with Mondays for the worst/hardest day of the week. My body is still struggling today, though a little less since I didn’t foolishly do yardwork again. I did take Smol Acrobat for a walk from which I had to carry them home, kicking and screaming, though and that didn’t do me any favors.
*****
Most days I like my mundane life but I was struck today with a feeling like I’m not doing one damn thing that matters. Some of the malaise may be related to the number of meltdowns that Smol had today but I bet it’s more related to feeling like I’ve wasted my precious time. First, my computer scare this morning which directly led to me spending more than one precious hour setting up my backup computer and fighting with a few key functions not functioning. Then, a friend asked me to help them make a decision and it turned out to be a waste of time because they’d already had their mind made up and they failed to provide key information upfront. Then, least consequentially but just adding to the pile of “ugh waste” feeling, some people changed their minds about stuff at work and that meant everything we’d done on that project will have to be thrown out.
It’ll pass. I just hate when what little routine remains to me is overturned and even more hate when hard work is wasted. It feels like I poured myself out and it was all futile. Not cool
Also! The many many meltdowns and toddler whining wasn’t my favorite. Was JB this whiny and melty? I don’t remember if I ever had to work this hard for them to just get through a day. I could go through the archives to find out but the answer to that question isn’t going to make today any better.
Year 3, Day 160: I hope we always have a Zoom option for back to school nights. We were able to fit in swim lesson, making dinner, JB’s homework which required two calls to two aunties, and the back to school night all by 710 pm.
It’s been a hell of a day and I absolutely forgot to finish a couple important things at work but in the end, we got it done. Fewer days like this, though, please.
*****
We need a wider variety of delicious crunchy snacks for the kids that are actually healthy and low-mess (easy for Smol in particular to self feed in the car) but I’m starting to doubt that’s possible.
JB will eat crunchy veggies but Smol won’t. They just chew them up and dribble them back out. Gross. They only want nuts, raisins, and carbs. Maybe they’ll eat dried fruit… ? We’ll try that and see.
*****
Year 3, Day 161: Boy, my psyche is working overtime. This time it was all about being left, lost, late at night on a vaguely familiar college campus to find my way out to my best friend who could easily have driven up to pick us up but chose to park miles away. Not the most deep metaphor for feeling tired, and abandoned by people I trust. Whoof.
*****
Longest. Day. Ever.
I hate when Fridays act like Mondays.
Smol Acrobat was a hysterical mess to and from school dropoff, they didn’t want to walk a single step. They begged to be carried but I can’t carry them all that way, and you can’t carry them partway. Once you cave, it’s a whole thing of “don’t put me down!!!” Not that it’s better than the constant “pick me up!!!” demands.
My stomach has disagreed with every single food choice I’ve made all week and ramped it up this morning to stabbing pains just at the thought of food. Rude.
After we got through all that mess, I got bad scheduling news from one staff member and then a huge project of “bad news please fix it” from another. The latter is actually a huge problem. But I’m going to mentally reclassify it as a non urgent issue because it’s been broken so long.
We made it to mid-afternoon, when PiC doublebooked himself for a meeting and a tire repair. Whoops. He went ahead with the tire repair, taking the call while he was out, and then was trapped there for the next five hours. His appointment was at 3 and they didn’t get to our car until 8 pm. Thankfully the kids were in great moods and played well the whole time but wow what a day. WHAT a DAY.
August 26, 2022
1. Our food friends showed up with an entree for dinner and we cobbled together a delicious unplanned BBQ dinner. It felt positively decadent!
2. My friend pushed back against sexist policies at her kid’s school and got them to change! I’m so proud of her for standing up for kids.
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August 23, 2022
Safety
One of my primary directives is to keep my kids safe. JB had an incident at camp a little while ago where an aide wasn’t respecting their “stop” (playing some game) and while the camp did everything they should have, it brought up some feelings I can’t reconcile and I’ve been sitting with that. I know we can’t protect them forever so part of keeping them safe is teaching them how to handle conflict and difficult situations as far as they are able, and to ask for help when they can’t handle it.
I’m really bad at the latter myself. I hate asking for help, I feel vulnerable and useless and weak if I do. But I also know, in my head at least, that that is ingrained from childhood and not the objective truth. Having not had the experience of knowing when I could ask for help as a child, it’s hard for me to direct JB in a constructive way at times.
Aside from that mundane practical truth that we need to be preparing them to fend for themselves in the future, though, is the stark reality that there are few to no places we can promise are safe. We cannot even protect them adequately as children from disease and mass shootings. This makes me so angry at the world, in so many ways.
*****
Speaking of safety, we keep seeing a parent drop their second grader (JB confirmed their identity) off on a corner of a busy street and gesturing at them to cross alone. At first, I thought it was just a bit dicey but the adults were were still watching so it didn’t seem too bad. Then they got a lot more reckless: the parent was ONLY watching their kid and not the other kids crossing in the crosswalks. They also encouraged their kid to run out in the middle of the street to grab a mask from the driver’s side instead of pulling over. I don’t know what their deal is but it’s not great how often their kid has nearly been run over or hit by a car.
I don’t know when JB will be allowed to cross streets alone but I think we’ll be easing our way into having them practice with closer supervision. There are some terrible drivers by the school. (more…)
August 22, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 150: PiC got JB a slot in the local swim classes for the fall! It was a highly competitive registration process. 6 am on a Monday morning is just inhumane. I loaded him up with all the step by step instructions the night before and he got up predawn to make it happen. We lucked out, he had everything fully prepared and there were more slots at the lower level. JB has been going to a private swim program that costs $60 PER LESSON (vs $60/8 lessons) 💀 and they refreshed lost skills and added new skills the instruction these past two months has been so hit and miss. They started placing kids in JB’s higher level classes who hadn’t mastered the very basic level’s essential skills, they were passing JB on skills they most definitely hadn’t acquired yet. I’m glad JB is back in the water like a fish (temperament wise) but they need consistent instruction that doesn’t just pass them on skills. I am not paying an arm and a leg for the appearance of ability!
This makes me wonder what their problem is: poor instructor training? A mistaken belief parents just want to see progress whether or not it’s real? Bad communication across the program?
I also did some initial research into some weekday self defense programs for JB.
*****
Someone tweeted this Budget Bytes recipe (ONE POT LEMON PEPPER CHICKEN WITH ORZO) which sounded better than the dinner from the freezer we’d planned. I throughly borked it since I had neither lemon pepper, orzo, or parsley. I used ground lemon peel with garlic powder (Penzey’s!) and ditalini. Nothing quite worked as it would have if I’d stuck to the recipe’s main ingredients. By the time I was done, I was pretty sure the chicken noodle soup I’d renamed it was inedible. I set it aside on the stove to cool and walked away. Oddly enough though, after it had soaked up an unreasonable amount of broth, it wasn’t half bad. Not good, but not bad.
(Thread) Here is a list of extremely easy ways to improve your day that everyone should know about:
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August 19, 2022
1. We donated to our local CASA chapter, our local homeless shelter, a dog rescue, and The Human Utility.
2. We’re working on more Lakota donations! I’m rounding up good used clothing, toys, books, and some other odds and ends to ship.
3. PiC spotted a sale on Dave’s Killer Bread ($1.44 a loaf) and ibotta had a $1.50 rebate per loaf. This is the first time I’ve caught such a deal, we rarely buy the brands they promote.
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August 16, 2022
At the wedding, I was welcomed as my own person and not only as my relationship to another person. It was jarring, to say the least. I started to form hypotheses why I have, until now, been unable to assert in therapy that I had worth, apart from whatever I earned through caretaking during therapy. The words simply wouldn’t come out of my mouth. My whole being rebelled against stating that as fact and I could recognize it was fear but I didn’t know what the fear was about.
My current theories: A, I was so hurt with my defense mechanisms up, how much more hurt can I get if I choose to be vulnerable? B, admitting or accepting that I have intrinsic value felt like making myself more vulnerable. So maybe I stripped myself of any perceived worth in self defense so that no one else could hurt me by suggesting that I prove myself a worthy daughter. Shortly after our wedding, I had in-laws “welcome” me to the family by saying “don’t be a burden on (your) dad”. (In hindsight, I wonder how much of that was about tearing me down and how much was about their own perceived shortcomings. Regardless, it stung in that moment and long thereafter.)
And after all, I’d already failed to be worthy through beauty or brains, what was left? Working hard.
The warped logic is this: If I have worth that I earned, no one can take that away. I suppose it never occurred to me at that subconscious “I’ll prove you wrong” level that they could only undermine my confidence, not actually take away my worth as a human.
This proving oneself path, of course, is a capitalist hamster wheel: I always have to keep earning. Because what else have you done to prove yourself lately? That’s an obvious issue when I clearly still occasionally feel guilty over not bailing biodad out of whatever situation he’s in now, as if I haven’t already done my time twice over. Another fun (no, not fun) side effect is that I question every single relationship I have: why would someone choose to be my friend unless I served a purpose?
In thinking this through, I actually remember a conversation where biodad compared me to a cousin. Parenting “better” than others is often treated as a cultural Olympic sport and you win by having “better” progeny. He said, with some pride, “well, she’s no beauty but she does work hard.” I’d never had any illusions about my lack of beauty, I was only what, 10?, but that gave me a distinct roadmap to earning my place. So I leaned into that. I can’t change (won’t, actually) how I look, but I can and will work harder than anyone else.
It’s a bit roundabout but I’m testing the theories to see how true they ring.
For the first time, I’ve been able to allow for the possibility that I can be a person with worth that isn’t dependent entirely on my earning my way. It’s still not comfortable and I can feel parts of me straining to kick out the thought but it exists.
Perhaps I’m evolving from Nutt’s survival mechanism?
Being of service, being a provider, has been a huge part of my identity. If that’s not necessary to prove my self worth, as a friend asked, what does that mean?
Off the top of my head, I expected to redefine myself when I cut off my biodad. But I didn’t because I pivoted and the mission went from providing for my dad and brother to protecting my husband and child and dog. So I’m confronting this now.
I don’t think that my desire to help others in and of itself is the problem, it’s the part where I didn’t set any healthy boundaries for myself. So, as an example, I’m not martyring myself for the Lakota Giving project. I feel strongly about it and do make some choices to prioritize them over my own wants on occasion but I’m not depriving myself just to serve this purpose.
I’ve also decoupled my sense of worth from work for the most part.
On pain and loss
I anticipate pain. I don’t anticipate rewards and joy. In my experience, pleasure is never guaranteed but pain? Pain is certain. People will leave. People will die. Lots of people I care about have died and lots more will. Some day, my kids will grow up and move on and stop needing me. And that should be a good thing but the loss is what resonates most right now. This isn’t about the desired empty spaces in my life. I continually and consciously subtract as much as I can to create pockets of space, physical and emotional, for myself. That’s good space. And I need good space to thrive. This fear and foreboding is about loss of control. I can’t control when people move, grow up, leave, die, make choices that I cannot live with. I can’t help but feel those losses as keenly as my first fundamental losses of the people I should have been able to trust from my nuclear family.
On brain weasels
Since the wedding, some nights, I sleep deeply instead of waking every hour or few hours. Usually, the tradeoff is that those nights involve stress nightmares about my brother or my family in some way.
I think the underlying stress of processing my world view, my family dynamics, and all the unknowns is creating a fair bit of mental and emotional pressure. I’d gone a while without consistent nightmares or conflict dreams. I am guessing it’s venting in dreams since I don’t really have anyone who has the bandwidth to ruminate with me.
That reality also raises a sadness that a dear friend of many years is still MIA and I don’t know if she’s ok. I don’t know if I somehow drove her away. I don’t know if she’ll be back. I suspect there is some depression creeping in around the edges but I’m not prepared to meet it head on.