Back to you, Morbo.

Updates:

It's roughly two weeks later and we've been to one counseling session. Something we had been doing is writing a (brief) letter to each other once a day and responding to what the other one says (kind of; S's letters don't tend to invite response really, and some of mine don't either). The counselor affirmed that this was something we should keep doing, and I have been. I think I've gotten maybe...two letters? In the week since whereas before it had been every day? So I feel ways about that. Maybe I shouldn't. But I do.

So. What's been going on? Oh, studying. Processing all the bullshit of the previous two weeks. I am still angry about said bullshit, and do not feel feelings like trust or security, but am fine and do feel like this is pretty on-brand not only for my relationship with S (under the circumstances) but my life writ large. Something sort of similar happened with Sc, and so far the trajectory has been similar as well. Unsure what lesson life's trying to teach me. Is it just karmic? Any other suggestions? Am open to suggestions.

I did do a mental health intake at a local place that does a discount for paying in full at the time of the appointment which is the best that I can do. And the person who did my intake was quite witchy and is willing to take me on*, so that's nice.

L's been having a time. She's asking for therapy again because she has big feelings and S continues to stonewall on this. I'm sure not all therapists demand that both parents agree to therapy, but with the lack of insurance or job I feel kind of powerless right now so that's going to have to be a "reexamine in the Fall" item. My feeling is if she's self-aware enough to ask for therapy and explain why (to me, at least; she has a harder time articulating this to S - which isn't surprising all things considered) it doesn't hurt anything to at least take a look-see. A little gander if you will. But S is of the mind that unless things are extremely acute there's no point in pursuing it. Okay? If we're there it's already too late an ounce of prevention, my guy. I do feel like if I push too hard explicitly he's going to stonewall even harder. OT addresses some mental health stuff and she's able to avail herself of the school counselor, so hopefully that will be enough until S has his "Come to Talos" moment whenever that is.****

Ooooootherwise, SSRIs are coming in clutch, and I'm spending as much time as possible studying for my test (on Monday. Eek.) and trying to figure out how the hell I want to show up in my roles and general life.

Good things:

1. Going on a "foraging" hike with L & H with some of S's friends from AA - except I guess they're edging towards becoming more like our/my friends due to general witchiness and so forth. We found white flowers that smell amazing, sage, dandelions, and spruce tips all of which have uses, none of which I knew about before. I am a lame witch in that regard. 
2. Have been cleared to exercise and have gone on two sorta runs with S since the clearance. He wants to work out with me, but I imagine that won't happen before my gym membership kicks back in in July**
3. Have started going to an Al-Anon meeting and this will be overall good, I feel. I need to process and heal and therapy and Al-Anon are probably the ways to go for this. Evidently there are 12 steps for Al-Anon too, but I'm not that far in the book yet. I've been reading a little bit each night before bed and keep having to stop and go, "Dammit. Yes. GODDAMMIT."*** Evidently there's an experiental fork in the road where one way people go into hyper-fixit mode and the other way people shut the fuck down and become attuned to all the things that are and could go wrong and feel powerless about it and anyway to no-one's great surprise I did the second thing.
4. Ma has been coming over once a week for the past 4 weeks at first to help clean/hold the baby and then study and that has been lovely. She's really showed up for me in ways that I want to remember forever and wish I knew how to pay back or show the depth of my gratitude for.
5. Volunteering for Juneteenth and Pride at my church's booth has been...not terrible! I definitely hit my wall around a certain time, but it's more fun than it was last year. Going to church events has been a little easier too. Win!
6. H is gaining weight (I think), and drinking formula when she needs to. More win! Much in the way of win.

Okay, time to be constructive again. Bye.

*TAKE ON MEEEEEE

**Jesus, Clara why so negative? Well, I'm a Virgo Finn/Dutch/Estonian/Swiss/Scots heritage person (among other things, but those are the stereotypically practical bits) who is almost 40 so forgive if I'm a pragmatic motherfucker. Or hey - don't!

***AA steps for reference if anyone wants that.

****There's also this jazz in the meantime.

No, I don’t want an open marriage.

 I can’t integrate all this I feel sick. I feel like I’m drowning. No matter how much I talk about with S I don’t know that I’m ever really going to feel okay. No apologies. No let’s do this together. Painful.

Flat

Comfort films, 90s edition: George of the Jungle, Crocodile Dundee, A River Runs Through It, Free Willy, Shipwrecked. ...none of these pass the Bechdel test, I'm pretty sure. Upon further examination, the first two do, but the second two do not. The last one hasn’t been listed yet. Guess I’ll have to watch it.

The sass is the same as it ever was from Clarissa Explains It All to any YouTube vlogger ever.

Titrating down the pain meds. Took my last ibuprofen today.

Powders everywhere; 'tis the orthorexia, I fear. Our countertops are covered in protein powders and baby formula. There is much talk of “gains” and measuring of biceps. Blah.

Thrush feels like fiberglass. Cute name for a not-so-cute problem.

L unexpectedly got the opportunity to go to music camp next week because we ran into B and her dad at the park recently. This is the man S decided was a threat of some sort. Well, he’s been doing better (ish) with that lately, so I decided to act normal (ish) because I want L to have a friend in the neighborhood consarnit. Long story short, L’s going to camp and hopefully playdates will ensue and also hopefully S can take her to those playdates and get off my case about it.

Renaissance Faire tomorrow with an emphasis on pirates.

The trapeze act was wonderful

Good things to watch at 2:00 AM when you're sleeping in 1.5-3 hour chunks on the couch with your newborn, an incomplete list: The Decameron, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast and Jeopardy (needs no introduction), and I now suspect that I only like media incorporating Saoirse-Monica Jackson in some capacity. For that reason, Derry Girls is next on my list.

The last few days have been rife with playdates and sunshine. Two playdates yesterday both of which involved lots of splashing in creeks but somehow zero leech encounters. It's been climbing to the 80s which is pretty hot for Alaska, and I've been hanging out with awesome people this week. It is helping me feel better. I do feel better. It's still hard for me to identify how I feel, what I think, and how to communicate that to brand new people, especially when tired with a newborn strapped on trying to halfway supervise my 8-year-old. 

I've been studying as much as I can, but it's tricky. To get enough sleep for bare-minimum focusing and still do what needs to be done (dishes, shopping, socialization, going outside). I hope beyond hope I can pull this off.

In June You Change Your Tune

 Today is better. I’ve only had 3 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours. But today is better.

Now That the Last Month's Rent Is Scheming With the Damage Deposit

- Time means nothing. There is only sleep in 2-3 hour chunks, tracking feedings over 2-3 hour periods, and up to 800 mg of pain meds (combination Tylenol and ibuprofen) every 6 hours-ish. And studying in there somewhere. The OT Miri youtube channel is GOATed for a reason!

- Did you know that body chills are somewhat normal when breastfeeding? I guess they're some sort of cue to feed the baby now. Bit of a carrot and stick situation with that. The body chills being the stick, and the carrot being oxytocin released when breastfeeding (see below). The...pain when breastfeeding being some sort of injury sustained by the mule, perhaps? Will have to workshop that.

- There have been moments in which I have had glimpses of why I thought it could work with S in the first place. Nothing specific or solid, though. And I must remind myself that, due to breastfeeding and being postpartum, I have more oxytocin in my system than normal, which may be a factor.

- Marijuana is proving to be not-so-different than alcohol in some ways. There's just the more-ish ness of it. It permeates every waking moment. It's...not recreational, it seems. Just the water in which S swims.

- This water has resulted in some interesting situations. For instance, S walked over to my parents' house with H to show off the baby I suppose, and L and I stayed at home because: tired, and not necessarily feeling it. I have certainly gone to his parents house without him many times, it only seems fair that the emotional labor cut both ways sometimes. He left altered and returned altered having committed to going to church with my parents on June 7th. But I do not have to come! (he says) But it would be cool if I did - that's what Unitarians do! And we're Unitarian - aren't we? (he adds) I'm fairly certain that I didn't hear jack shit about evangelizing or going to other peoples' churches; "ministering" to those of other sects is largely a Christian Classic Flavor thing. I am very much not going to go, but have said I will probably judge it on the vibes the day of. Why? Because I'm relatively certain I will either have to deal with the fallout of some sort of spat involving one of the following: "You're not/never supportive of X/me/your parents/your family!" or "Why did you even come if you're going to have such a shitty attitude about it?" or "If you really felt this strongly about not going, why didn't you tell me?" Choose my poison, I guess.

- The night before last J, one of S's newish friends, came over to hang because they'd just been through a breakup and S is hyper-focused on being there for his friends. I like J, we seem to have a fair amount in common, they are very kind, and warm and I'm glad S is connecting with new people. However, I noticed when S was chatting with J about...us...that we just have very different narratives. I am glad that S believes that communication is in a good place and that he feels comfortable talking to me about most things and that we accept each others' neurodiversity. I didn't feel like I could really participate in that conversation, though, because I just...don't feel the same? And that's not a conversation I was about to have on a Saturday night before trying to take my pre-night shift nap with a newish friend in the house in front of our daughter. So I just didn't say anything.

- The day before yesterday, as riffing about not having had to take oxycodone even once as recovering from this C-section, even though they gave me five just in case. S said that he'd taken two without telling me for various body pain issues and that he would understand if I hid it because he should have asked me before taking it. I don't care about him taking them. I do care about him not asking/telling me. I don't feel the need to hide them, because if I needed to take them I probably would have taken them by now, no? Plus the meds transfer to milk and newborns don't really need opioids in their systems. They just don't. But I do feel icky about it, because that's alarming behavior generally. I thought about just taking it to a med disposal box at a pharmacy. I might just leave it out. I don't know. We'll see how the spirit moves me on Monday*.

*Update: the above was written on Sunday and Monday morning I found another missing with no notice. So I guess I'm one hundred percent just taking it to the med disposal box at the pharmacy. It sorted itself out! And now I feel much worse. Blerg.

- Recently (since Omaha-gate) I've felt the need to pretend to S that I will think about certain things for a period of time before making a decision about said things with the innate knowledge that I’m not really going to change my mind. Is this lying? Yes, I think so. It is also a bit of a choice between the "You're not even going to consider an alternative way/thing/perspective?" fight and the "You're disrespecting me by not choosing what I want you to choose!" fight. And it is, in a sense, hitting snooze on all that. Ahem. What’s the appropriate period of time to do this? A day? A week? Unclear. Does this make me a bad person? Probably! And there is so much evidence to substantiate that that I don't really feel that much shame about heaping one more thing onto the pile.

- Conversely, there are things I don’t seem to be able to make up my mind about and no amount of time seems to resolve this. Typically this involves things like where to eat, whether L can spend the night at her grandparents' house (I...guess?), and what to watch on the telly. But sometimes high stakes things like answering the question, "What setting do you want to work in?" Um...I like it all, bestie, just not all simultaneously.

- How infuriating must it be to have had When Your Mind's Made Up written about you? I would be livid. Just because I know what I want, Swell Season. High key negging energy.

- Sometimes one does a Kagi search to see if The Weakerthans are touring (they aren't) and discover that The Mountain Goats are, and that they're playing a show in Portland the month of your birthday for less than one million dollars and also that they're co-headlining with The Hold Steady (pretty decent band) and you think to yourself: I'm turning 40. Why not? Because money is tight is why not. But...just maybe? I will. 

Enough With the Ganging Agley, Bob.

L officially finished the school year as of yesterday. It culminated in a massive picnic and kids running amok in a small wooded area adjacent to the school garden and outdoor amphitheater. It also culminated in her (sort of) doing a research project, kicking and screaming the whole time. Hyperbole? Maybe. But were there tears? Definitely. Mostly hers. Some takeaways from the whole star-crossed affair:

1. Thank the goddess we do not homeschool. I would be losing it on the daily.
2. My MIL does not understand how research projects work. The one assignment she either...took on or S asked her to take one (I'm unclear on those details) were allegedly her making broad statements about the research topic (monkeys) and having L write this without regard for spacing, capitalization or punctuation. I chose to frame this as an interview. She's too young to worry about citations, so that's good.
3. S may have offloaded that one assignment on MIL without communicating things like: the syllabus and how/where to upload the assignment.
4. I very much do not relate to my kid about all this in the sense that I vividly remember wanting to write essays and things like that as a kid because I wanted to be a reporter, largely because April O'Neill from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was goals. My godfather had me write an article on something or other at age 6 because he got wind of me wanting to be a reporter, and he revised it with a red pen and had me rewrite and resubmit it. Which I did. And was grateful for the opportunity. Or something.

Anyway. Since we've been back, H has failed to regain back to her birthweight which has been the cause of some anxiety. I'm not against supplementing with formula (so we have been) it's more of a dammit I guess we should have been doing that all along and tick tock on the clock motherfucker development is developing and now we have to play catchup. 

The longer I'm alive the more astonishing I find it that humans survived at all. Wasn't FASD just...rampant? Didn't people die in childbirth like...almost all the time? How the hell were kids getting all the nutrients they need (they probably weren't tbh)? Plus all the evil true crime and billionaire cabal shit that was and is happening. Christ. <thousand yard stare>

Okay, bye!