Tag: work

Humanity

NOVEMBER NONO: TwentyEIGHT. Stumped.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I don’t know what to write. Its like being speechless.

Stumbling on anyhow.

On my last legs. (ha. not really.)

  1. I am stumped, its true. I don’t know what to write and I’m clearly not doing a thorough job. Or am I ? But like everyone else, I am freaking starved for communication so I will freaking drag my ass through the desert to the watering hole. You dig?
  2. After a solid decade of trying to complete an entire month of writing here, I think I’m going to do it for the first time. We will see. You know I may have just jinxed myself in a bad way.
  3. A woman named Anna Lovind runs a class called the Creative Doer and its awesome and you should do it if you feel at all inclined to the creative or the dream following. At least go look.
  4. My moods are wildly in flux right now. I think I’m due for my menstrual cycle soon, because it is wild to try to swim through this. I put up the lights on the porch to begin the season of lights against the night, and went through some serious rage to be doing it by myself. serious rage. at my ex. at the men who have not appeared. at myself. at God. And then some tears and gut-wrenching sadness and I sent some texts of self-deprecation and braggadocio. oh man. the lights are up in their mismatched glory. not in a cute way either. there’s no shabby chic about it. BUT LIGHTS UP, and THE DARKNESS!! and i have to be satisfied or I’ll be bothered until the fuses blow.
  5. I’m working through things in my dreams I think, because I’m still having ex show up. Its a weird unreality as he’s more real in my dreams than he is in person. And look at that sentence, right? How strange is that? I think it makes a lot of sense when I think about assigning an object all the weight of the world, in order to relieve some of the stress i carry. (now and always I recognize my luck in that my stresses are of the extreme privilege kind.)
  6. I thought about doing an entire post on green, the greens i can see from here, the greens i don’t want to eat, the greens of the winter season, the swag for the door my mom and I made on Thanksgiving. And then I got distracted by my own random capitalization problem. so there.
  7. My first kid just got up and its almost 9 o’clock in the morning. This is a very early Christmas miracle. Oh my god, another one. its like dominos.
  8. I’m teaching all three kids how to do their own laundry today. The eldest already knows but its time for some of the mountains to be moved, and not by me. This is what happens on ‘mom weekends’ and whooopeee.
  9. I’m also keeping them busy with chores. Its Saturday and I’m channeling my father. Hopefully I will not break down into rage and everything will get done. I am keeping my standards very low. And yes, they’ve always done chores, but this is a concentrated morning of work, because its a rare day that I do not have work and they do not have a single sports event of any kind. Happy Thanksgiving kids, grab a broom.
  10. It took me ages to get here to #10. I have no idea what to put in here and one laundry lesson is chugging away merrily already. I’ve suggested a porn site to a friend and I’m eating a cinnamon raisin bagel. rotund.

Sigh. sometimes I just have to offload the brain’s extra materials, and today it wound up here. What do you get filled up with?

Eddie, the beloved one.

Divorce, Humanity

Pitchfork…

Lovelovemotherexpletive
  • into this space please insert all the things i cannot and willnot leave behind for posterity about the many things i feel about the man who I divorced. let that be as powerful as saying I married him. why should i keep valuing one over the other?
  • i’ve got pizza sitting next to me that crisped up in the oven and i’m debating very seriously whether burning the roof of my mouth is worth it.
  • i’m planting things but have zero faith that i will ever get them into the ground because they are so spindly. and i am thrilled that the word ‘spindly’ is still around.
  • plus, how many carrots will my kids eat, realistically?
  • i wish i really drank, like on the regular, so that it was part of my life. isn’t that an absurd wish? now, when stressed or emotionally stretched out, i don’t have an easy fix… or if i do have a glass of wine, i have a headache before i even feel a buzz. so. that seems a miss. but i miss it, that brain shutdown, what we call the fall of ‘inhibitions’ but are really just normally healthy boundaries? i want to shed them more often and still manage to watch out for my kids, as a functioning fucked up adult. Does that make sense?
  •  I am worried that i’m not going to regain my proofreading clients when this is done, and that i’ll be back to a square i don’t want to be on.
  •  I am aware that if I were isolated like this and still married like I was, that I would be one of the people you should be worried about, the isolation and the misery combining to unsafe.
  •  The mental health of all of us in my house right now is becoming my ringadembells item, and i’m just as unhinged as they are, but am the grownup.  I am reminding them that all the feelings are okay and that they all will pass, with time, and that nobody has a ‘right’ way to be. its all i can do, that and feed them.
  • my kids have too much screen time. i’ll care later. i obviously care now, but see item previous item, and include ‘screentime guilt’ on the list of feelings that moms are allowed to have and to let pass.
  •  my eyes constantly fill with tears for and of these kids and these times… sometimes it is overwhelm, and disbelief, and sometimes it is laughter and those are the best times.
  • Pitchfork Unwifedmotherexpletive

 

Humanity

My 7-year-old plays Fortnite now.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

and holy shit guys.

what’re you up to now that the world has shut down?

in truth, so far, about once a week I have a complete sobbing meltdown. the fear, the anxiety, the worry for the kids, for LM, for my mom and for everysingleperson.

LM is here, as he has severely compromised lungs and my place is best for not being full of germshare.

my kids dad doesn’t believe in the benefits of social isolation, so gave them to friends for a sleepover a little over a week ago.  he does not have much respect for my being an informed adult and seems to think i am a hysteric who gets her news from gossip.

so i am doing all that i can when i can and cursing his soul.  i hope he feels it. and yes, i am a little kidding, and some of me is not kidding at all.

and then there is hope. because, as hard as it is for me to believe, beneath all the layers of fear, anxiety, cynicism, despair, niggling worries, fear of schooling my children and deep betrayal lies a golden molten core of beauty and brilliant LIGHT that, evidently, cannot be dimmed.

and so she SHINES.

sometimes. when the night is dark and dreary, she flashes.  and i’m seeking her out, and holding hands, and

SEEKING HER OUT.

and i think it is saving me, and so there is that.

Carrots Unwifedmotherexpletive

and i’m hoping to re-enter this world here more often. but lets not hold our breaths.

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)

 

Humanity

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m just…

Lovelovemotherexpletive

the apology. I’m constantly apologizing. in my head, to my children, to men.  It has begun to drive me mad. I think, know, that it is the people-pleasing portion of my psyche run amok.

I can get mad, or irritated, and express that feeling without needing to then go back and dry-erase that mother fucker out of existence. right?

RIGHT?

Legit apologies are necessary things, of course.  But that is 1000 times not what I’m talking about.

I was pissed the ex took two hours to pack the car so my kid almost missed his dinner with me on the ‘last night’ before the big ski trip. And I acted pissed.

Spent the next 45 minutes thinking of how I should apologize.  Then, realized I didn’t have to, because showing pissed-ness is not really that terrible. I didn’t call him names, or swear. I just pointed out the inconsideration and was annoyed.  So, I didn’t apologize, and the world didn’t even collapse.

There is a great call for civility in the world, and a greater one for kindness. Actual kindness.

But this, in me, is the opposite of those things.  Its not real, its not actual sorrow for my behavior or the hurt it may have caused.  It is the desire for someone else to stop being angry at me.  This reality?  It flattens me somehow, makes me waste my time and mental space on trying to ‘fix’ something that is not broken. A perversion of Authenticity? I am a nice person, a kind one even, and I try not to be otherwise. However, my humble humanity has been proven time and time and TIME again.

So, get on it. I’m going to make it my goal for this month, this month of African American history and commercial love products, to stop apologizing.

so f* off.

heh.

-uwmf

Sugar pile sorry Unwifedmotherexpletive