About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read More
April 23, 2024
(Saved from drafts purgatory: I started writing this last summer and ran out of energy and brain cells.)
A few weeks ago, I guiltily texted a friend to check in and make plans to meet up. I was about 7 months overdue in setting this up, but I’d also spent four of those months trying to stop being sick and the rest of them just getting my mental stability back. I felt terrible that I’d been so unable to set up playdates before.
When I did hear back, it was a doozy. She’d been physically abused by her spouse and he’d been arrested. She was filing for divorce without a lawyer and scared because his family has money and connections while she has no family in the area. I was stunned. Then I offered to help do research to find her pro bono legal aid and other support with the kids. It’s going to be an uphill battle for her. I worry how she’s going to do it alone and if she’s going to be able to keep primary custody of the kids. We’ll do our best to offer support but I’m not sure how much we can do (or what she needs, yet, either).
Relaying all this to PiC later, I thought about how hard it would be to have to suddenly leave your marriage like that, and with kids. Don’t get me wrong, I celebrate divorces when they can happen. In far too many cases, they can’t happen. People are stuck in unhappy and/or abusive marriages because they don’t have the resources to leave or don’t even know they’re being abused and think they’re the cause of unhappiness.
I’ve known people who tried to stick it out until they couldn’t take it any longer and left, feeling broken and starting over with nothing. I’ve known people who left with just the clothes on their backs. I’ve known people who negotiated from a position of knowledge and power, leaving the marriage happiness and dignity intact. From good to terrible and everything in between.
It’s not the first time I’ve been on the sidelines helping out a friend through this kind of thing. Every time, I’m reminded how important it is to have your own means of earning income and access to your own money. And it’s hard not to look at our own lives while worrying about how friends are going to get through this. No matter how strong we think we are as a couple, I can’t assume that we’d never change such that we might be happier apart, someday. I don’t think it’s inevitable, I just know that I can’t know what the future holds. Not a comfortable feeling but what feelings are? I’m still not at peace with feeling my feelings.
If we were to split up, we’d always said we’d split everything equally. Even assuming an amicable split, that would still leave each of us in a more challenging position than before. He would have to learn to manage his own money. I would have to learn to maintain my own vehicle.
I probably couldn’t afford to live in this area on just my salary and I’d need to pay for my own healthcare. Rent in this area for a smaller space runs between $3000-4000. After utilities, gas and insurance, groceries, there wouldn’t be much left. I always start with savings but at a certain point in the income vs expenses axis, that margin gets really slim. If I left the area to, say, live with a surrogate parent for a time to save money, shared custody would quickly get complicated. I can’t imagine a world where he wouldn’t want to share custody but I’ve heard that before, so let’s assume there’s also a chance I’d have them most of the year. Figuring out how to share time would be messy, transporting young kids back and forth long distance would be painful. Managing single parenting life with two young children would be unbelievably tough. Coparenting is already difficult now with these two. Not having back up? Good grief. I might crumble under the pressure of the already difficult juggling act. All of this is assuming it’s an amicable split. I’ve seen it happen but it seems rare in the dozens of divorces I’ve witnessed.
None of it would be impossible but it would be several extra heaps of challenges. That doesn’t even touch the emotional toll it would take on everyone. I certainly wouldn’t be able to afford therapy which would also certainly mean I’d struggle to manage my pain and fatigue on a long term basis. Early retirement would be off the table. Maybe retirement wouldn’t be but it’s hard to say what kind of impact splitting up would have on that without running some numbers.
All of this to say, I find it hard to mentally manage the logistics from a position of relative comfort and safety. I know it’s much harder for others who have young children, and/or less savings, and/or less recent or even any work history, and/or made less money.
I hate that so many people have to stay in bad relationships and bad jobs to keep financially afloat and keep healthcare.
People should have better options than to tolerate abuse or toxicity to keep basic needs met. They shouldn’t have to hope they’ll get lucky enough to have a support network that might help out enough to scrape by.
April 22, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 19: My OB’s covering person is being really thorough. She’s approving routine prescription refill requests, and emailed me to follow up on health issues I reported in 2019 and 2020 first, before approving them. They’re not a problem anymore but that was weird and unexpected. If only all doctors were as diligent (and believed their patients with chronic issues).
Brain fog is thick today, and I find myself easily irritated by the littlest things that require brain processing. I have so little to spare today, y’all, I need every little bit I can hold onto! But I got through a record amount of work with some time to spare for recruiting JB into my weeding crusade. Quality may be another question entirely but for now we’re not asking that one.
But in “happyyyyy??” (as they would say it) news, it was Smol Acrobat’s turn to make me think they were bodyswapped. They ate their entire dinner using their own hands, including veggies, without a complaint or dragging heels. After each food group they’d turn to me: I ate my vegetables, are you happyyyyy?? They used the toilet and the real capper: put on their face lotion all by themselves. They NEVER do the face lotion! They always kick and whine and fuss. I know it won’t last so I’ll marvel over it now.
Year 5, Day 20: Our bills coming due this and next month will be spectacular in the blowing cash flow sort of way. I keep thinking what on earth did we spend on??? Oh yes, Sera š¶ (4 digits this month alone), the new washing machine (another 4 digits), therapy. Some big ticket items are coming up soon too, between life insurance and homeowners insurance premiums, so I am having to harness my “we have enough cash for all the things” feelings, particularly when it comes to mutual aid. There’s so much need but we have to take care of our responsibilities first.
Speaking of which: we have a working washing machine again! Thank goodness. We didn’t replace the dryer because it was still working, please cross your fingers that it continues to behave another few years to justify not replacing them both at the same time (which would have saved $300). I’d like to keep it out of landfill for at least 3 more years (totally arbitrary number).
After getting dive bombed by that daddy long legs, and catching and releasing it outside, I caught the little sneak trying to get back inside the house three more times. I yelled “you don’t live here” but it just tucked up against a box and ignored me. Rude.
I took the Favorite IA Supporting Character Quiz and ended up with Her Grace. I do like her a lot. But maybe primarily because she’s linked her survival to Dina and so she won’t turn on her. I’d be less of a fan if she weren’t so bound.
Year 5, Day 21: šæļø mode today. My brain wants to dwell on “you’re a bad friend and a bad person“. I asked a longtime friend for advice and they were angry at me when it landed as selfish and inconsiderate. Of course I apologized, I try not to be horrible to my friends intentionally but am not immune to accidentally being so. They haven’t spoken to me since so it feels like I broke our friendship over asking for advice. That feels awful. And as another friend observed, my brain reflexively blames me when things go sideways so if someone I respect and care about deeply called me selfish, maybe they’re right. I mean, they’re definitely right that I haven’t been able to check in with everyone I care about on a regular basis. I try, but this year has kicked my ass in so many dimensions I can’t even count the number of ways I feel like a failure, so that plus one, now. Maybe there’s something else going on but, in the end, they felt I was selfish at them and seemingly don’t want to be friends anymore. That sucks. This whole thing hurts. But I’ve done my best to mend fences to no result, so the best I can do now is to try not to destroy myself over this.
My gut reaction (to blame myself and go to that dark place of just how horrible am I) is not super healthy so, after a hefty dose of therapy, I’m working overtime to stay in neutral emotionally even if I can’t manage to be affirming. That means constantly redirecting my brain every single time it wants to go There. That means SQUIRREL!
I started a load of laundry. Filled the dishwasher and started that.
My seeds still haven’t shipped. *Poke poke* Ship them! So that I can plant them and then stare at the soil waiting for them to grow..
We had to file our tax return very close to the deadline so it’s still processing. Poking “Where’s my refund” won’t make them process any faster buuuuut…
I ordered garden stakes, maybe they’ll arrive when the seeds arrive.
I scheduled recheck appointments for Sera š¶ who still isn’t eating nearly enough to sustain life. Her appetite dropped off last week and it’s been a daily struggle to get her to eat anything but a handful of treats. She’s weak and unsteady on her feet much of the day and some of that may be her disease but the low caloric intake cannot be helping. She’s also increasingly resistant to taking her meds. I’d started out giving them to her with pill pockets, now she refuses the pill pockets. She keeps chewing them up and spitting them out. WHY. The whole point is that you don’t need to taste them! I started giving her a handful of treats, roughly the same size, mixed up with those pill pockets. That worked for two doses, then she started chomping on the entire handful and spitting it out. Now I’m wrapping them in smaller pill pocket wraps and embedding treats in those smaller pieces. Cross your fingers that she stops being so picky about it all? I really don’t want to have to pill her twice a day. It’s unpleasant for everyone.
There are MANY more things on my to do list but I can’t seem to spare the executive function to schedule any more things, so keep circling back to my emotional support bank accounts for comfort. Alas, it’s not helping the way it used to.
Year 5, Day 22: Taking care of Sera š¶ is bringing up all the grief from losing Seamus as she declines in small but significant ways. She wandered the hall last night for hours. I took her out for a pee at midnight just to be sure she was ok and she paced intermittently for the next three hours. I listened to the click click click of her nails, remembering Seamus’s last months when he’d have confused nocturnal meanderings and I’d have to get up and help him settle down. But his first choice was to settle right on top of Sera. She didn’t object.
She absolutely refuses to take her meds now. She will take the treat wrapped pills from Smol Acrobat’s palm, not mine, but then she bites it in half and spits it out. Her appetite is very low. Her energy is correspondingly low. She’s still responsive to us but in a grumpy detached sort of way. She doesn’t follow me around half as much as she was doing last month. Her walks are much shorter and a little less frequent, by her preference. She doesn’t like to sunbathe when it’s warm anymore, she prefers when it’s cold. It feels like a lot of these changes developed in the past two weeks. I’m hoping that my gut instinct is right. I’m hoping she’s just exhausted from months of treatment, twice monthly pokes for bloodwork, six walks a day, etc, and needs more time to bounce back. Hell, I’m exhausted from all of this and I’m not the sick one. So I try to hug her and rub her ears as often as I’m tending to her and hope really hard she’s going to come back from this.
Year 5, Day 23: This Ask a Manager post reminds me of my regular musing about retirement (whenever it is, early or not). Will I have enough to occupy my time by then? It really depends on where we are in life by that point. I have friends who retired early who are busier than they were when they worked. We currently have young kids and an aging dog, and that makes us REALLY busy because their needs are so high now but that’ll change. Who knows what that’ll look like ten years from now. And who knows what my community and friendships will look like ten years from now. I’m terminally online socially because I can handle that. Socializing in person, even with people I like a lot, leaves me so very drained.
In other news, I’m so frustrated with these work people who are actively obstructive. Driving home in an empty car, a rarity, I made like Orro and screamed my frustration to the heavens. I did not claw the air, though I wanted to, both hands on the wheel. It helped a little. Like a tea kettle venting steam. Nothing has changed but at least I don’t feel like I’m going to burst with the pressure of keeping it all in.
April 19, 2024
1. A friend gifted us a large jar of homemade salsa and it’s really good. Sometimes I get tired of eggs for breakfast but never when we have the good salsa. I don’t know what it is but it’s not the same with storebought salsa (which, to be clear, I am generally totally fine with. There’s something about the fresh salsa searing my throat that’s just right).
2. A friend gave me solid advice that my therapist later agreed with. Gold star for friend!
(more…)
April 16, 2024
Life with JB
Making “friends” for JB (adult friends with the parents because I need to vet them before I let my kid go play with their kid) is exhausting. The good ones keep moving away!
It’s been three families now and I’m starting to feel a little cursed. I can only imagine how JB’s feeling.
What’s good is the families do want to keep in touch at least for the kids’ sake. When they can, they let us know when they’re back in town to visit friends and family, so the kids get to see each other for a bit and they love it so much and it’s like they never separated. But boy do I feel for JB’s feeling of separation and frustration with the kids who remain. Most of them are drama seeking and annoying and fight with JB constantly. That was never an issue with the 3 kids they really liked, who then moved away.
JB had their eye exam this year and their eyesight is officially worse than mine. I know it’s irrational but this makes me feel like a total failure of a parent. You know, for failing to pass on my good eyesight genes. And then not for getting them outside long enough to hold off their worsening eyesight.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Throw the confetti and break out the cake, this kid is suddenly interested in using the toilet!!
All credit to PiC for consistently trying and encouraging, for some reason I have been utterly awful at encouraging them to use the toilet. I didn’t want it to become a stubbornness power struggle so I just stopped. They have gone five days in a row with no wet overnight diaper! They even used the toilet at school! They won’t be the only kindergarten kid in diapers!! Probably!
But having potty training and all the requisite accidents happening at the same time as having to replace the dead washer is not great timing. Also (TMI) not great, as soon as they switched to underwear, they also (coincidentally?) stopped pooping regularly. They’re going 4 days at a stretch. We’re trying to figure that out.
Pupdate
Not good. She’s been very very slowly responding to the combination of meds for her autoimmune problem. We’ve had to add incontinence meds, which work thankfully, so she’s on 3 medications twice a day. A big jump up from last year’s zero medications.
Then we had to do the emergency vet run because she had tons of blood in her urine along with a day of diarrhea and it could have been related to the autoimmune problem OR just a UTI. Thankfully it was just a terrible UTI that can be treated with antibiotics. Then we had a morning of vomiting so I got to worry about whether her mass had grown and caused an obstruction or if it’s some OTHER problem entirely. Luckily the vet tech reminded me that the antibiotics for the UTI are strong enough to upset a stomach that’s already on 3 other medications. We’re still recovering from that week of antibiotics. She’s losing weight, has very little appetite, has been panting with discomfort so I had to add Famotidine to her pharmaceutical regimen. It helped but this is all very rough. And too soon. She’s only 12. She needs at least 5 more years with us, but not if she’s miserable the whole time.
Her balance for this year so far: $5500.
Also, you know what’s a dangerous game to play? Leaving the dog toothpaste next to the human toothpaste. That chicken flavor is going to be a terrible surprise for someone someday. If there’s any justice, it’ll be me. Because I’m the one who keeps forgetting to move it.
Precious Moments
SA: I’m not four! I’m free! When I’m gonna turn five and den four, den I’m gonna be five and four after way-ter (later).
It’s tortured, but the logic still works?
*****
Smol Acrobat: If I eat my banana, den when I get to my home, I will get de spicy chips and I will eat dem ALL. When I get my spicy chips, you can have some ok? You an me will eat da spicy chips ALL. Wee will not have any wif you n me betuz we will eat dem ALL. OTAY mommy?
*****
Me: GRRRR. I’m so annoyed at myself. (For not thinking about ordering dinner for pick up until we were already in the car driving.)
JB: why? You already do so much.
Me: š
*****
Smol Acrobat working through the rules of “only Momma can open that box on the shelf”: Only you can get de box? Not me? I’m not too big anymore? But I’m growing up.
*****
Smol Acrobat to PiC, trying to figure out breakfast: I used my words AND my talking words!
*****
Opposite day
Me after nearly getting my butt stuck on a kid’s stepstool: NOPE I don’t fit on that stool.
Smol Acrobat: you’re too big?
Me: yep, I’m too big to sit there.
Smol Acrobat: it’s ok. You’re still growing up still.
April 15, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 12: I was in a terrible mood yesterday and woke up on the precipice of that terrible mood again today. That, my utter lack of patience for anyone’s anything, and my pain and fatigue during school dropoff when I’ve normally walked twice that distance by the time we’re done – it’s screamingly clear I’m completely at the end of my emotional and physical ropes.
Between last week (travel, Sera’s health scare, hours of catching up, Smol Acrobat suddenly deciding that they’re ready to use the toilet so we have sixteen false alarms a day, Smol Acrobat’s stomachaches that spiraled out of control last week) and the weekend (scrubbing Sera’s vomit out of the carpet, the rug, and off the floor x 4, the washing machine dying, my backup computer turned main work computer trying to die)… I need a break. But I have a full week ahead of me so there’s no room for recovery in sight.
I put myself to work on meditative tasks: washing dishes and cooking turkey for Sera in an attempt to settle my ruff.
*****
I simply don’t understand why people call it “six months of the Gaza war”. It’s a genocide, not a war. The Palestinians are not waging war. A small part of their population is committing crimes and the entire population is being held responsible for it. To quote a friend, “one side in this has the power to exterminate the other and they are using it.” Of course we all know the chaos and horror that suicide bombers can wreak and October 7 was horror upon horror. And then it was followed up by a relentless six month extermination campaign. How is that going to bring any hostages home? They’re murdering indiscriminately, children, women, men, aid workers, it doesn’t matter anymore. Israel is just on an all out destruction rampage. They even killed some of the hostages themselves: 3 hostages killed in Gaza by Israeli troops were shirtless and waving a white flag, official says.
(more…)
April 12, 2024
Howww did it get to be Friday already??
Not that I’m not grateful, I’m glad whenever any week is over, but it has certainly been A WEEK.
I’ve been hunting for a backup fancy dress for an upcoming event and friends on Discord have been so helpful!
(more…)
April 8, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 5: Taking a moment to reflect on the fact that I really didn’t expect to still be writing my weekly posts into Year 5 of COVID and, since we’re going to apparently be living with it forever, is it time to stop tracking the days? It’s mostly a habit now, like masking, but I don’t intend to stop masking any time soon.
We’ve taken the unusual decision to take the kid on an impromptu quick trip into the wilderness (Yosemite). I have been so busy with work and Sera that I have spent exactly ten minutes discussing or thinking about it, PiC did all the planning and booking. It wouldn’t have happened without him but also without me being an active part of the planning meant lots of things were missed. Not all my fault, we always tend to forget one thing unless my list is really extensive and I’ve been working on it for months.
We forgot to pack laundry mesh bags (small deal), warm hats (eh oops), PiC’s driver’s license (big oops), boots for Sera (which she might not have even been willing to wear). We don’t even own boots for the adults. The kids had rain boots that worked for them but my feet went up a half a size each since Smol Acrobat so my warm fuzzy boots don’t fit anymore. Wonder if it’s worth getting a replacement pair sometime.
Year 5, Day 6: Oh my aching everything. What a time for a flare-up. I had lava bones all night and well into the morning. Not great. Not great at all.
While granting that none of this trip was really made for me, I’ve made the grumpy snap judgment that I am not at a stage in my life where I appreciate nature enough to trade it for inhaling this much dust, being this cold, being this cut off from Internet connectivity and functioning GPS (I cannot stress functioning GPS enough) and being an hour of twisty windy long and slow drive away from anything. The majesty of the park struck me but fades into the background of my physical discomfort and preoccupation.
We always knew my body is no longer fit for camping but assumed I’d be fine near nature in a nice enough accommodation.
(more…)
