lovelovemotherexpletive

I’ve heard that a lot in the self-help world, ‘trust yourself’ and in the feminism world and… to the extent that I follow my own instincts when I’m out in the wild or faced with strangerdanger, I do. I do not walk down dark alleyways, or explore basements (not even my own. ask the plumber.) and I make a lot of noise as I walk through woods so that I do not surprise bears or hunters. Sometimes I even sing. I trust my survival instincts.

And in almost every other case? no, not really, I don’t trust myself. I’m certain about almost nothing. And I wonder if there is a root that I can follow down into this one somewhere. Do other people have this problem? Did something make me find an alcoholic marriage? What was that? Do I still have that? When you look back and see such an enormous fiasco of instinct in your past, how do you trust yourself?

And for all the majority of people who don’t have an issue like that in their past, is it something you can do? Trust yourself? I’m asking this in all seriousness. If you are a businessperson, you better damn trust your decisions, right? Is that why I have never gone that route? Is it really as simple as self-confidence?

I don’t believe I don’t have self-confidence. I know I do. In many ways. not all, but many.

So what then? Tell me about you and your process. Privately or not, I’d really like to know. Do you trust yourself?

• me.

It may well be that i should be a meme. in entirety. A human, walking meme.

i try to make funny out of everything, but now, all i think about is death, beauty, children, feeling, money, dirt, taxes and now the fafsa, and what it means for the future, or not, or if there is one. Will we ever have a full day snowfall again? and trying to make funny out of all that is played out all over the place, in memes. so maybe i’m trite. is that it?

(and honestly, when i look back at what i think about… is there anything else?have i EVER thought about other things? i mean, i’m sure many folks have better perspectives and less anxiety about taxes, and zero to do with fafsa, but…) and then there is Palestine.

its an enormous shift from joy bubble or ‘look how pretty it all is’, to a soul crushing devastation. deflated and lying on the dirt.

how dare i?

i feel the whiplash of my personality as this personal season of ‘figure it out’ has arrived. I’m so lucky, unbelievably, to have had a tough marriage to a wealthy person, so that now, for every bad memory I still need therapy for, I get a check. It’s not erasing his debt to me, but it does enable this house and a job at a farm.

There’s a lot there though. i love that work, so much. the air, the green, the breathing involved. dirty hands, calloused and rough. i am not a vacationer in the land of blue collars. i’m shy too, my hearing keeps me there, as casual chatter is not really something i can do. Like, imagine, not being certain of the person next to you in line at the grocery store, will you be able to make it out, what they say? It sometimes can be a weight.

But farming? Farming is just good. like, selling books. Its good for the world, unbeknownst to most of the world. And man, is it hard work for little praise and much less money. To have it be something that i will have to leave in order to make more money and more stability for myself and my future, feels very raw to me. Raw because I rub up against the practical and recognize it will be necessary. How long can I hold on? Am I destroying myself? GAAAAAh. ANd what about the everyone else without the profitable divorce? Where will we get our carrots in the future?

Am I a kitty hanging off a shelf? Am I the prancing lady with clever sayings overlaid? What’s my story? Where am I going?

goddamnit.

today i just don’t know.

love you anyways,

kate

I’m dropping services like flies. just ask my landline. gone baby gone. things gone.

lighten up. brighten up. if i could sell all the words I’ve got, i’d do it. let ’em loose.

set a fire, let it burn. but. . .

I’ve got a list going of things not to forget, not to forget. what’s important to remember, forever.

baby feet.

the smell of breastfed baby poo.

the ways my boys try to get in my lap still, rolling over the backs of sofas, sprawling half in and half out of wherever i am.

laughing until i choke with my daughter on one of her last nights sleeping in my bed. I don’t know when it’ll end, I just know its on a countdown.

righteous anger.

the floorboards in the pawtucket house. little hands crawling. children falling asleep against my body.

roxanne, the best beagle. her ears.

each of my many painting phases. that time i made angels of fabric. and quilts.

conscious communicating. working at it. being curious about origins of feeling. uncovering. always trying. remember.

my dad’s hands.

the rings on Kate’s hands.

the joy of turning a phrase.

Love love,

Me.