Second birthday is done now. Onto the Christmas thing.
Just made three different kinds of cookies to give as gifts. It was hours in the kitchen and I gave up on holding onto my sanity and it went right out the front door. I watched it go, that skanky bitch. She had a fucking swagger, she did.
My eyes are dry and I’m slightly sticky from all the sugar. I don’t know, man. Its a chance to say thank you to people, to show them a little generosity: of time, of thought, sometimes of money. I like it, actually, but not the wild stampede of my guilt and overwhelm as I try to fit in all the things and the planning and the grocery. Its all the steps that get me, the ways in which I am overwhelmed three weeks before the thing, the way my brain carves a groove in the ‘is this worth it’ platter holding the cheeses we’ll eat on the Eve.
My kids have Christmas with their dad the day before they have it with me. Mine is smaller this year than it ever has been and I’m just so done with all the things I think about that. Man, I need a good therapist, and I’m just so damn mad at myself that I am still falling into old patterns, ones which I’ve already tired out a few therapists with. OOOOLD news. so fucking old.
I don’t even care about them anymore, those old pieces of shit, to tell you the truth. But they come up AGAIN with the overwhelm and the fear that I’m not doing enough, that I’m not appreciated, that maybe I’m still invisible, like I was then.
so shit. i do not know. and here i am, all cookie-d out. and i look forward to giving them out tomorrow. I have to be in early, and its cozy day, so i’m just wearing a gigantic sweatshirt that almost comes to my ankles. I may not ‘rally’ and ‘be lively’. I predict a sort-of dazed experience of the day.
I don’t think it’s just me, but I’ve hit the wall (and climbed it) of apocalyptic thoughts, feelings and mind lapses. I’m mostly happy about it, the theatrical world knows my connection to the fears we all have right now. Which, in itself, is a whole post.
I’m thrilled by all the movies/series which suit me right now. Last of Us. Any Walking Dead. A million more i can’t think of right now.
But man, one of the weirdest things I keep thinking about is farming.
I’m aging out of the work a little bit; the heat is too hot, the baskets too heavy, the monetary payment is too light. (It’s time to get into serious retirement discussions, selling the house cannot be my entire plan. It cannot.)
But I’ve been wafting back and forth in my apocalysm daydreams, while seeding hundreds of baby things, wondering how future generations will know how to get broccoli. I mean, food is the most important thing, right? Food and water. And, will the home gardeners save us all? Really? Better get out those zucchini recipes.
When we finally decide to stop flying produce from country to country, or spraying it with shit to slow down the ripening, or to speed it up, as the case warrants, what then?
Will ‘we’ tolerate not having bananas? Will i be able to grow bananas in New England?
I know, i know, focus on the here and now. Be mindful, be present. And all that is true, and yes, my small world is all that i can control.
When my sons want to eat meat at every meal and I feel such exhaustion that i throw frozen meat patties on a grill again and again, its that whole butterfly wing again, and I’m upset also that its such a recurring thing in my brain and yet millions of millionaires exist and I don’t think they are wrapped up in tinfoil about this.
1. I was outside watering my garden and a young buck came strolling through. I called out to him as he came close, asking if he saw me, checking in to see if he was alright, thinking, I think, that I’d go get him a carrot. He was close enough that i could see the fuzz on his antlers and count the elk spots on his flank. When I called to him, he just looked at me for a minute and then moved along. No beef.w
He came through near to the chickens, and then my dog noticed him and lunged towards him and he ran off through the bushes. There was no real emergency, my dog is a member of the cowardly lion crew.
2. I turned fifty. My lovely man got me the gift of my best friend for the week, and i took all those days off. It was a real joy bomb and I’ll take it, again and again.
3. I’m wearing booty shorts, at my daughter’s painfully awful softball game because it is in the 90s and humid and if I could lie down until the fall, I would. Welcome to my booty.
4. i will write more. I got myself a little bitty keyboard that sits on my lap so i can type onto my phone. I’m using it now. I’m a tech-genius and now I can write anywhere I want to, pen or no pen.
See my cute keyboard? And my barely theres?
5. 50. It might be time to get a job that can sustain me and the kids. I’m going to have to sell the house, and the more I say it, and share it aloud, the more okay I’m going to be with it. There is time still to get along with it. But it must and will be done.
6. I’m very stubborn. Very. Very. Very. It is very hard for me to handle number 5 and I rail against it. So small and demeaning, and it activates my stubborn nature, and none of this is helpful or practical or rational. Digging in for the sake of digging in is idiotic.
7. I’m 50 now. I should grow the fuck up. And write more. I hate feeling sheepish about coming here. That’s utterly ridiculous.
I’m about three skin layers away from hysteria. And they are transparently thin sometimes.
And I’m back to smoking, and there is, in the addiction, the belief that if I could just go outside and have a minute to myself, everything would re-set itself, and I’d be fine, it would ease my mind somehow. and it’s a lie, every time, it’s a lie. I’m sitting here with minutes to myself right now, inside, and at the typer, and I am not escaped, and I am not even needing escape. It’s a trick of the mind, and I resent the bastards who’ve encouraged the ‘on the road’ shit that tells me I need to wander in order to find. Without and within, you know what I’m saying? I’m not a badass because I smoke, I am a craven addict.
My boys are both teaching themselves to play guitar. There is much to say about that. pride and cringes and whatnot.
Tissue paper thin. My eleven year old daughter suddenly resents me. It is a hard change to swallow, no matter how well I can identify and depersonalize.
I just planted the last of the dahlias. Saving something over the winter to plant again and have hopes for, is possibly my pride moment of the year, aside from the guitar thing and the fact that my daughter is a flaming badass.
I’m trying to get my ducks all lined up to lower some of my expenses this year. Everything takes time, especially when you add in my fearful procrastination. I had to make two cold calls to gather appointments this morning, and it made me unable to go in to my most part time job. Too many things.
The nerves and anxieties of having to ask a stranger for help? An appointment? When that is literally their job, to field these calls? And still, I am crippled? Why am I still 11 years old and of the middle school innards?
These steps. Get the trampoline listed on the giveaway page. Wait for someone to come and get it. They cancel. List it again. Finally goes, to become a chicken run for someone else. Heavens to Betsy.
Find policy. Wait three weeks to gather the nerves to call what I actually know will be a good resource. Wtf.
I had to wait for my tax return to fix the leaking upstairs bathtub. So, had to first do taxes, then get quote, then bleed from the eyes in horror and refuse to use said bathroom until I got another quote. Got refund. Then called friend of friend, young young young and he did it for 150. All done. No ceiling teardown, no mold remediation and suddenly I am at two working bathrooms and I didn’t even have to do my damn taxes for anything afterall. Which of course, is a lie. Hello school systems! Hello working highway departments! Hello bridge repair! I love you, of course you can have my taxes! Thank you for your service!!
Call the garage that will handle the car once its towed. Mother of god, I am ridiculous. Does anyone specifically pray to mary? I always found that easier, but felt like I was sneaking around or being a cheat somehow or that maybe she wasn’t a real choice, and that, in the face of my wavering beliefs in anything other than the big dad figure in the sky. and my less wavery belief that we all get what we dream of in the end anyhow, as long as we try not to do harm. I’m extremely lucky to have had the dad I did. Even with his questionable rage practices. As a parent now, I am less confused by fits of rage.
All these multiple step processes and they’ve been with me for weeks or months and yes, I know the ‘break it into baby step’ methods but hell gods, that only works if you can take steps at all. I’ve got to go register my kid for a soccer camp in the summer. This, she will resent me for also, but at least i will cut down on her screen time for one whole week while i am incessantly working. sigh. all hail summer.
love you guys. hope to get out the writing bugs more often…
me.
*The fact that now I have to wait for a call back is breaking me. I’ll have a whole ‘nother breakdown when it arrives. This is probably unsupportable materials.
the fury of finances is settling down. Have started being paid for the new hours, have asked the farm boss to pay me asap, and she’s happy willing and understanding. the credit card carried the day, which bites it but got me gas in the car and the kids got their juice. mofo.
in my adult life i have never had it be such a goddamned lightening strike as that was and I’d be very happy never to repeat it.
And spring has mostly exploded, so at the climax of it all are daffodils, and wild expanses of seedlings in a greenhouse and little baby grape hyacinths everywhere. So i am content.
Grape hyacinth in the front yard
I am sitting on my porch and I feel like I’m on a softly rocking boat, watching a sunset. One of those life altering appreciations, the wild privilege of a beautiful life.
So it swings, this pendulum, between sense and sensibility. today is all the senses.
and its kim smith’s birthday. holy shit. we be 50 this year.
