Tag: advice

Humanity

Don’t Give Up

Lovelovemotherexpletive
(These are not subsistence, safety or emergency directions. These are directions of immense privilege, once the other ones are addressed.)

Instructions on not giving up:

(idea from an Ada Limon poem, found here, and in yesterday’s post, here.)

  1. Call a friend or put the phone down. Like, an actual phone call, not a text. Voices are so good, and so are faces. You can even look at them while you talk if you want. Totally Jetsons.
  2. The second part of number one is important for me. If I can shove it off, the phone, I’m better for it. Really. All the damn scrolling! I can see it for the damage its doing. I can SEE it. goddamnit.
  3. Read a book. Don’t just say you are going to, do it. Don’t do it with the phone in your lap. Don’t feel guilty the whole time you are doing it. There is enough time. Laundry will always be there. So will the fucking game of uno and/or the epilogue you’re supposed to write.
  4. Fucking phone.
  5. Go outside. Look at things that don’t care who you are or what you are worth to worthless people. Just go stand next to a tree. It’ll love you or drop a stick on your head. Clear. (Don’t chop it down, or accept its giving its life to you. No, Asshole. Don’t ask it to, Creep. Just stand there.)
  6. Make a list. Listen when your friends tell you not to give up. Don’t read into it, just listen. Make another list.
  7. Lose yourself in the shape of a leaf. I mean, go for it. Pick an interesting one or just the nearest one. Imagine standing on that leaf. Spend some time there. I mean, try.
  8. Go water something. Be it a kid, or a pet, or a plant. Go feed something a truly nourishing drink of sustenance. Tell yourself how you are keeping life.
  9. Don’t clean anything, for godssakes, unless it makes you feel good. If you want to break a plate instead of washing it, go for it. Just wear safety goggles or real shoes maybe.
  10. I do like to sweep something though. I’m a fan of the sweep. Amazing how many things get caught up in that.
  11. In your moment of quiet, ask for help, guidance. If you don’t believe in a bigger thing, than make the ask to your own higher self, the pieces of you that want to be the best thing. Make it personal. Make it. Your act of creation, in asking, is a waterfall of possible. Rumble.

Do it all again the next day. Give yourself time in the morning, even if it means lying in bed thinking. Or staring at the coffee. Just be. Recognize how fucking awesome that is.

(if you can’t. call me. i’ll take the call, because the phone is still in my fucking lap. And I’ll take the call.)

Don’t Give Up.

lovelove.

me.

Humanity

Words of Advice for Being Isolated with kids…

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Sign them up for something. Don’t make them do anything. Sleep late. Wake them up on time. School them. Unschool them. Make friends with screentime. Make them suffer Monopoly. Sew. Bake bread for the second time in your life. Freak out. Calm down again. Eat something else.

Do feed them. Otherwise, take a deep breath and feel good that you are keeping them in, doing a tremendous act of community compassion and something downright Un-American, sacrificing for the few.

We’re doing the best we can. Be good to yourself, tell your judgemental inner voice to shut the hell up and have a glass of water, or wine, whatever you want. Be yourself and enjoy the hell out of your kids. Pretty soon they’ll be grown and out of the house, and avoiding your phone calls. So just sit down and watch a movie again. It is okay.

Love,

Uwmf

*if you must work out of the house, we feel you. all of us. and we love you, too.

 

Fingers crossed Corona2020 Unwifedmotherexpletive

 

Humanity

Greening my Feed

Lovelovemotherexpletive

so, i’m making a conscious effort to make my social media ‘feed me’.  right.

so there are plants. and lots of ’em.

and lately, a friend pointed to a woman who wrote a book about her life (on being human) and her hearing loss.  and i’m literally like. what?. a person has hearing loss and is a mom and functions socially? and writes about it? everything is punctuated by my own incredulity.

(i’ve ordered it, but haven’t read it, or anything about it.)

as if i can’t google things myself.  as if i don’t know that there are hearing loss forums and such. as if i haven’t learned and forgotten a million times.

so.plants. and hearing loss. next up? women who are unsatisfied with their lack of productivity, but somehow manage to keep on going in humor and life and stuff.  and then, writers who aren’t sure they want to sell anything or fit into a format that is sellable. those people.  i want to find my people. in real life, too.

so. how you greening up your feed?

Houseplants and Gnome Unwifedmotherexpletive

 

 

Humanity

I’m just sitting here.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’ve been sleeping poorly, now, two nights in a row, unable to regulate my temperature.  So, I’m hot, I’m cold, I’m sweating and I have a headache when I wake.  This is not ideal. (she laughs hysterically)

Yesterday I called in the LM and he arrived, and I rallied.  Stood up, took a bath, got it together. Because having someone around is supposed to be a support. Who knew? I mean, really, just having him here making chitchat with the littlest while she does Barbie whoknowswhat?  Made me feel more in-control, less likely to snap in my tiredness and just made the whole thing SO MUCH GODDAMNED BETTER.

Maybe its only the times I’ve been on my own, even when married, that make me see the incredible value in presence.  I think it is. the difference that having another adult in the house can make…

I’ve made an appointment for therapy because i think i’m actually being hit by a bunch of things at once… an anniversary with LM, which freaks me right the hell out. a repetitious relationship with an ex, which saddens me every time. one kid who thinks i’m going back to the ex, eventually, still, which makes me want to vomit with guilt for all that he does not know.

and so i’m doing whirligigs here, internally.  LM is just amazing and even when I say things that potentially might undo him, he is listening and staying and holding on to me. Its astonishing, frankly.

and so, i need therapy again.

DID I MENTION IT IS SCHOOL VACATION WEEK AND WE ARE ALL HOME TOGETHER?!

except my 14 year old, who has been on two skiing trips because you know. 14. sigh. beauty and stretch.

i do love you. hope you are well.

-uwmfVacation Sickday Unwifedmotherexpletive

  • OH, and my cold or whatever this is is affecting MY HEARING, which means everything is muffled and I have to put my face into someone elses to hear. which makes mothering spectacular.
  • OH, and the fastest way to get relief is to call my ex, which gives me great anxiety.
  • OH, and school vacation. Did I say that?
  • OH, and i’m working on a childrens book and I love it, and I am too invested in imaginary illustrations already… sigh. know any agents? (hysterical laughing)

 

Divorce, Humanity

lost and found, but lost.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

hi. I’m at the end of my recovery day, from yesterday’s full 24 hours of hell, from both ends. the kids were at school for the bulk of it, but after school were play auditions for two kids, and a soccer game so I needed to ask for help. and it came, with trumpets. kids were taken to tryouts, soccer was watched and that kid got to go out to dinner with his dad…dinner was served to other kids, homework was done.  a small crew of 3 adults did what I do on a normal Wednesday.

I’m not going to tell you I’m not proud of my life.

and I’m going to tell you that you are lucky if you have family and love like I do. so lucky.

today is recovery. fair amounts of water, boredom in bed, sickness at the thought of food, but hungry.  by the time the bus rolled around today, I had moved myself to the kitchen cozy. spent an hour just chatting with my girl because I missed her yesterday. an hour. the bliss of it. just cozied up. I learned about the lady who did all the math for the moon. (Katherine Johnson) Everything stays the same, yes? but these tiny differences? that my girl sits on my lap and tells me all about the LADY that did all the math to save the men who traveled to the moon? oh, it’s rich with possibility. if this were a comic, we would turn the page to the next ms. marvel.

but since I’ve been in bed all day, I now can’t sleep, as weak and ridiculous as I feel. and so I’m here, apologetic.

one thing: I paid to print out the whole of my old blog, wifemotherexpletive.com  

1016190912I thought it would be so cool to go through it and pick out the things that I loved, that I have written, those bits of beauty that slipped through and away during those years.

and I can’t. I read the first post, and the second, and did some flipping. and it is just unbearably sad. I was so sad, all the time, and mad, and lost. like the perfect puppy who lives under the bridge while the happy family walks by, unseeing. I hate ‘near miss’ movies, and I’m pretty sure I lived one for a long time. Maybe the hate comes from the experience.

It was ten years of my life, that writing. and makes two volumes, when divided chronologically. the first is so fat, rich with hope and trying. and the second volume thin, with so much less of everything.

I don’t want to look into the memories, or remember what the code was in my stories, as I was trying so hard to communicate with my husband my devastation at what i was, what we were.

Its been crushing me a little, into sickness maybe? and this is the season when I feel devastation the deepest. if one has any choice in that, at all.

so there it is. my late-night blog. what the hell do i do with all that?