I’ve been feeling itchy all day. I want to write…don’t know what to write about. For the past several years I’ve completed a gratitude piece. Maybe that’s why I’m itchy…habit. I guess my fear this year with this kind of essay is that it will be redundant. So…fingers cross that I’ll have the brilliance of something new, and if it’s coherent, so much the better.
I have a lot to be thankful for. My health, my family, my…a lot of things. It’s hard to remember them when I’m feeling low, but they’re there. I actually never really forget about them. I use those good things to torment myself for feeling inexplicably depressed. I miss my mania. It’s been the longest time. For several years now it’s been an up and down on the other side of the mood pendulum. I’ve still been functioning, which I’m grateful for. I have more obligations of my time then I used to. I’m relieved that I’ve mostly been able to maintain those obligations, even if I have to slow things down. I’m thankful I have access to decent health care. Definitely not a given. I’m grateful for my privilege in all the ways that allows me to get stable treatment.
A couple of years ago I stopped being able to afford the out-of-network provider I’d had on-and-off for a couple of decades. I’m with an agency now after struggling for months to even get someone to call me back. Thank all the heavens and universe that I wasn’t in a desperate place during that time. It was hard, but not excruciating. The agency ensures that I’ll continually have someone, but it also means that it won’t always be the same person…it is what it is. But I’m White and generally don’t have many complications with getting decent treatment. My mental health diagnosis makes things a challenge. There are very few in the field that know what to do with it. It’s not that I’m special. I just have a psychotic disorder as part of my potpourri of livelihood. But I function well enough. I’m grateful for that. I have the space to stay fit, eat well, and sleep well…for a middle-aged woman with young-ish kids. I’m grateful for that too.
I run my remote writing program at a jail and a men’s maximum security prison. Three sections and about seventy-five submissions a month. In the new year my program should start at a corrections state hospital. This facility has been at the top of my list for a while now. I’m thankful that it will start after working toward this goal for so long. I think the content for my program will be used to bolster an in-person group/class, which will be interesting if that’s what happens. I expect the experience on my end will be a cross between the jail and the prison. I don’t have the complete picture of what running my program at this place will look like, but I’m relieved I’ll finally be able to find out. It’s hard to go from cold calling a place to implementing my program. I’ve had so many failed attempts over the years. This place is somewhere I was desperately hoping for. There are so many places I’d like to work in, but alas there is only one of me…and complicated entrenched systems to deal with.
I still have hopes to get my remote book discussion-ish program started. Maybe I’ll make a push in the next year. It should be less work to manage than the writing program. Hard to say what will happen on that front, but a girl can dream…
I’m thankful my friends are still hanging in there despite my unreliable communication. It’s not that things have been bad, but it’s been hard to maintain interactions. I’m not sure why, but it’s frustrating. Now that my kids are in school, I barely see anyone. I’m sure that’s having an impact on me in some way, but I don’t really think about it. Maybe I should.
I’m grateful I’ve met a couple of people who share my mental health diagnosis. One of them has a similar learning disability to me as well. My mood stuff started when I was seventeen or eighteen. During my mid twenties I had my psychotic break. There wasn’t social media at the time, at least not how it is now. I was lonely and scared. I had no one to see me, and it was so hard, even with the privilege. I didn’t know what was happening as I was experiencing it. It didn’t take many mistakes of telling people before I stopped doing so.
For all of it’s problems, I’m thankful for social media. I have people who see me in ways that others fundamentally can’t. I remember the evening I actually put myself out there…stated my formal diagnosis for all the world…of my meager social media following…to see. Someone like me reached out briefly…because that’s what he does. He makes a daily search of his shared formal diagnosis, and follows all those accounts…bless him…can’t imagine what his feed looks like. Mine is a compilation of the political rantings of an obsessed person. But I cried when I “met” him. It was only that single interaction, but it was the first time I found that kind of commonality.
I think that’s why I’m a little more out there now. I likely (hopefully) won’t be too adversely affected by the stigma. But if I can provide that relief for someone else. If someone else can feel seen…I’d be grateful for that.
So much heaviness this year…I didn’t plan for that when I started this piece. I try to balance things with some levity. I’m thankful I have people in my life who will laugh with my crazy ass.
I’m grateful my candied yams turned out so well. I look forward to them all year…and the pumpkin pie. I love pumpkin pie, which is funny considering my passion for dark chocolate. I made an apple cobbler because apple pies are annoying and I’m not much of a baker. I’m kinda meh on them, but it’s not like I’d kick an apple cobbler out of bed. Thank goodness it turned out well. I couldn’t bare to eat a store bought apple pie. I’m not really picky with my sugar intake. Even when I don’t like it, I have no problem shoving it in my hole and going back for seconds…or thirds if I can get away with it.
I’m thankful I finished a second pair of knitted socks. They turned out really well, and now I have four partial skeins of self-striping yarn that will be rolled into a third pair of amazing socks…the power of positive thinking. I have no idea if they will be cool or an incongruous hot mess of striping and color. The other two are fantastic if I do say so myself, so I have every reason to be hopeful about this third pair. I’m thankful I had the motivation to start them right away instead of having this project loiter in my mind the way the second pair did for at least a year.
I’m grateful for another year of participating in the Thanksgiving 5K. My tushie is so sore now, but it’s always worth it. It’s my fifth year participating. It gets me out before the stress of the family food fest, and the registration money goes to my town’s food pantry. It’s a pretty walk and I mostly stroll through it toward the end of the mass of people who take the event much more seriously…though serious is probably not the right descriptor. I’m thankful I’m conditioned at all times to just do something like this without much thought, planning, or preparation.
When I was first pregnant with my son ten years ago, I was so nervous that I wouldn’t have anything for myself. I worried that I would completely lose my identity to parenthood. I wasn’t expecting to stay at home with my kids…life happens when we are busy making plans. I had nothing at that point and spent so much time desperate and anxious with little to no outlet. I’m grateful that I took up writing and it’s mostly stuck. I can see my progression. I’ve come a long way from when I was mostly illiterate until my late twenties. I’m grateful for all of the things I can become involved in now. It’s madness when I make a list of everything, but when I was almost dead and recovering in the hospital with Covid caused pulmonary embolism a few years ago, I reflected that my life has been lived exactly the way I want it to. I have no regrets, and I strive to keep it that way. What’s not to feel thankful about that?
I’ve been grueling over this piece for months and that’s before I became distracted and stuck allowing this piece to languish further. It’s another season now from the beginning of this time capsule. The world has moved on, at times in a rapid flutter, but these moments will be immortalized once I hit the publish button. It feels like I should be writing about more important things, but alas I commented about an unremarkable and ordinary life.
In any case, the months it’s taken me to move on this will be added to the heaping guilt I’ve managed to pile on myself about not spending as much time writing as I’d like. As I finally sit down to this, I’m still not sure what this body of work will be. What I do know is that I have a collection of pictures I want to include, so maybe this piece won’t be disjointed by the end…
(Image description: Looking down a narrow dirt path in the woods surrounded by pine and other green trees.)
I’m lousy at going outside. If it weren’t for my husband pushing things, I’d be a forever hermit staying home reading my porn. When the weather isn’t heinous outside, I seldom regret my encounter with the sun. But since I relish complaining over nothing, I don’t have the internal gumption to take a walk when it’s a pleasant day outside. It’s always silly to me that I can motivate myself to do all kinds of things, but fresh air is apparently a deal breaker.
I’m a list person. I have lists of lists that turn into list subgroups. The hints of bigger ideas would make any conspiracy theorist idea board proud. Shit is all over the place because I don’t like wasting paper…The world is saved because I don’t misuse and toss a small post-it in the trash!
October is my second favorite month. When mid September rolls around I start making my fall list of goals. It isn’t just a fall thing. Whenever I’m about to experience a predictable transition…like the end of the school year or something…weather too, I’m prompted to start collecting ideas and thinking of what my path forward will look like during a new segment of time. I think October symbolizes something I really like in a somewhat vague, nebulous way. I’m not sure how to define it, but there is something cozy and comforting about the month. I look forward to October and November, and lists help me remember that. Any kind of walk no matter how short twice a week is what I’ve been aiming for…and failing miserably. It’s not an exercise thing. It’s exclusively about the fresh air and just appreciating things during my two favorite spans of time.
(Image description: A fallen tree starting at the back left of the picture and running diagonally to the right. It’s a relatively thing trunk with similar outward reaching main branches that have been cut in order to make room for a path. Young pine saplings are surrounding the fallen tree with green leaves along the top of the image.)
This is a short walk through my neighborhood wooded area. I love it, even though I’ve seen this scenery so many times it should be boring. It isn’t. I’m always disappointed it’s not a longer jaunt, but I suppose it’s long enough. Long enough to embrace its value. And while the world around this trail doesn’t really change, I always feel like something is different when it’s been a while and I start walking these paths again.
(Image description: Tall green trees with some pine. Younger pine trees in the front of the picture. Yellow flowers on the right with somewhat tall and inconsistent grass cover along the front of the image. A rocky area on the bottom right of the picture.)
When I’m not existing as a shitty parent, I manage to take my kids outside for a walk around the area. My kids are like me in different ways, which has been an interesting thing as they’ve grown.
I dragged my feet having kids. My husband and I didn’t wait a super long time, but it was still my mid thirties. I was just so worried…worrying is my trademark, but this was something different. I have a lot of disability stuff…learning…mental health…It hasn’t been a easy path for me. I’m not special; life is life and everyone has their own shit, but I desperately worried I’d pass myself onto them.
It’s taken time for me to find myself and take pride in who I am…thank you middle-age. It took time to appreciate the ways in which disability has made me uniquely good at what I do in my corrections work. A decade ago I was in a different place where shame in my process ruled me. I didn’t want my kids to walk the same path. It’s not that I want them to experience my struggles, but I guess I don’t sweat it quite so much. I suspect, however, that I would have trouble if my mental health shtick made its appearance in them regardless.
The thing I realized pretty early on while I stayed home with my kids was that I can clearly see myself in them. It’s been increasingly obvious the older they get. I didn’t expect that; not in the way reality has played out.
There are the values and interactions piece that’s part of what I try to teach them directly. Time will tell if it sticks. But my kids have a way of absorbing my weaknesses, and all the things I’m not proud of. My kids take those things I’m most vulnerable about, and embrace them as their own and spin it to suit them. Suddenly what I’m most negative about in myself becomes something interesting and pretty great as they tread the planet. No one told me that kids have a way of reframing what I find most internally tormenting about myself; allowing me to interpret myself in a different way. I don’t know if I’ve healed so much as moved on.
(Image description: A row of spaced large rock diagonally from the middle of the picture to the middle right edge. A row of young green trees and flowers along the left edge of the rocks and stretching to the front left of the picture. Grassy area behind the young trees. Large pine trees on the top third of the image.)
My six-year-old daughter loves anything that’s a gross motor activity. She’s daring and brave, and passionate about the outdoors. When the option presents itself, she’s all for it; leaping with both feet and ready to go out and collect things.
My eight-year-old son, however, looks for reasons to get out of leaving the house. Sometimes I can twist his arm and we take a nice long walk that he always ends up enjoying. Maybe always is a stretch. He enjoys it about eighty percent of the time. The rest will be an experience of him bitching and dragging his feet…a kid after my own heart.
(Image description: Close up of a row of green plants and young trees. Obscured tall pine trees in the pack of the picture.)
I haven’t had the easiest time of late. Not entirely sure why, or I am for some of it, but angry because I’m not able to fight my way through it.
I was having trouble over the summer too for reasons that are also frustrating, but not entirely about me. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t phone- and textbank for candidates in the primaries. I’d save up my tenacity for the general. Originally I selected four campaigns. The candidate I thought would win the Pennsylvania primary didn’t. Bring on the totally reasonable and not in the slightest bit irrational guilt that I didn’t do my part that would have resulted in the difference in getting him elected. Thankfully the Republican ended up being so grotesquely horrible that a shitty Democratic candidate managed to flip the Senate seat.
I had my general campaigns selected and everything, but then I found out that the Party was organizing phone- and textbanking for all the major races…score. Usually I go right for the campaign when I do this kind of thing, and it’s a chore. Training for both volunteering avenues went well…organized and efficient. Generally, in my humble experience, the Democratic Party is both of those things with their phone- and textbanking efforts, locally or nationally. I was all geared up to start with whatever I could do to ensure the demise of the GOP on the federal stage, but then I started to get really anxious thinking about phonebanking.
It’s always a little anxiety provoking using a new system with phonebanking, but dialers are particularly tricky for me. I have to be in a certain mindset for me to be able to manage them. For those unfamiliar, it’s a system where I wait on the phone as the computer runs through numbers until someone picks up. It’s a ton of constant concentration because at any minute I’m on. Instantaneously I have to figure out how to pronounce the name I’m calling, assuming it isn’t a common one. I’m never sure until it happens, so more anxiety. I have a language-based learning disability and slow to process information, so dialers aren’t easy. That’s not even touching my psychotic disorder which add its own party to the mix of whatever task I’m trying to do. And then there is going through a script that takes me a bit to get. I tend to memorize the talking points so I sound natural and can adjust to the person I’m speaking to. But that means I have to try to navigate the system in the moment to record everything before the call ends and I’m automatically cut-off. The first few times on any new system or script is messy. I accept that, but if my headspace is mucky, I inherently know I won’t get it together at all no matter how many repetitions of a script I experience.
Now that the midterms are resolved, I can recognize the stress that they caused. I’m still struggling with very specific things at the moment, but I’m ready and prepared to phonebank for the Georgia runoffs. I have a nifty pile of postcards burning a hole on my desk as well…I love postcarding. I used to be part of a couple of groups…before Covid…because everything fun is before Covid.
Returning to my personal failings at single-handedly ensuring a Democratic midterm victory with my magical phonebanking capabilities, I accepted I’d textbank. I did a little, but it was hard to get a list because volunteer gluts guaranteed call list filled up quickly…a good problem to have. Eventually, as the day of the election drew closer, it was only phonebanking options. In sum, I did almost nothing for the elections, and I felt terrible ever since. My ability to finally resume my political volunteering has been a boost for me. I completed one shift of calling to cure ballots for a couple of Arizona local races. A shift in CA is next.
(Image description: Dirt path with grass and saplings on either side. Tall trees along top third of the picture on either side of the dirt path. Two large rocks on either side of the path in the distance. A hint of an opening at the end of the path. The backs of two young children walking on the path. A boy walking with a jacket with two shades of blue. A young girl bending down wearing an orange shirt and pink leggings. Her hair is covering her face.)
There are a lot of paths and places among the trees around me. We aren’t so far from civilization, but my town prides itself on a kind of rural feel. We are on well and septic, so it would have been nice for the town government to not take things quite so far, but it’s not much of a nuisance…until our hired trash company doesn’t get around to picking up the garbage when they are supposed to.
Rural-esque living is an interesting thing for affordable housing, incidentally. There are all of these state housing regulations and laws, but both of those things are designed for areas that have town services like water and sewage, and that doesn’t take into account that there is no public transportation around me and the further out one travels. But in those areas that have access to all those things, especially transportation, are in the throws of a housing crisis…shout-out to all the people making sure the wealthy have access to prime city apartment real estate.
I’m trying to get on my town’s housing committee, but I’m totally unqualified at the moment. I attend the meetings anyway, and also started going to this other meeting where I interact with various people who do housing work professionally. I especially like attending those. I’m someone with countless questions no matter where I go or what I’m doing…that I’m sure most people love because they rarely actually get to talk along their own train of thought. This is a place for questions, though…until they stop telling me about these meetings because I’ve become too annoying and they aren’t able to get their own work done.
Poverty work isn’t really my thing…corrections is, but I realized a while ago that I’d like to also take part in issues that help prevent incarceration outside of the prison/jail systems. There isn’t an established causality for crime, but societal exclusion and poverty are the highest correlating factors. Societal exclusion has a way of poking its tushie into most social things, but it’s nebulous to address directly. Poverty has a ton of spidery-legged offshoots.
I started having a more focused thought process about poverty and housing when I started to relatively consistently attend meetings and very tangentially volunteer for a really great organization that works with homelessness issues, both from the ground level where people do the day-to-day work, as well as legislatively. Knowing that the more local the government is, the more of a direct impact it has on a person’s life, I’ve been really itching to be qualified enough to serve on my town’s housing committee. I found it really isn’t enough to dip my toe in with the periodic calls to my State Legislature critters for whatever poverty connected thing. I more or less have the time. It’s on me to become involved in any way that can positively impact someone’s life…and I really don’t want to see Republicans harming people by making decisions when they are in positions of power. So I either step up and do my part, or I stop bitching.
(Image description: Tree leaves surrounding the bottom of the picture that make a kind of U shape to be thicker along both the right and left sides. Through the low area of green leaves is a forest of thin trunked green leaved trees and shrubbery on the floor of the woods.)
(Image description: A gravel road taking up most of the picture. Tall green trees on either side of the road going into the distance.)
I think part of what’s been challenging is that usually when I’m doing political volunteering, like phone- and textbanking, I don’t have many other things going on, so maybe it’s easier to manage because my brain isn’t as tired.
We are members of a synagogue now. It’s been a little over a year, which has been an interesting experience. My husband and I aren’t into the ritual of it, which is fine. Judaism is a culture more than solely a religion. We very much identify and take pride in being Jews, even though we are atheists. But it’s important for the kids to be in the religious school to learn the things that are not inherently part of our family traditions. It’s fine if the kids move away from the ritual or cultural aspects as they become adults, but they will never know to make a choice if it isn’t part of their young lives. That’s the thing about existing in a marginalized community. Everything around presses another groups identity. If my kids are raised with nothing, they will automatically embrace more Christian things, which I’d rather not have happen.
My own experience with Jewish education as a kid wasn’t a positive one. We tried a couple of synagogues, but my peers were really shitty. I was bullied in school, so it makes sense it would follow me, having most of the same small cohort of kids enrolled in Sunday and Hebrew school. In the beginning of when we first joined this synagogue, it was surprisingly anxiety provoking for me to be there. But as things moved along, it’s been good…odd and interesting, but good. I’m much more involved than I thought I would be, but that’s not surprising to literally anyone who knows me. I can’t help myself. If there is some kind of leadership or social issue I can meddle in that constitutes a finite task, I’m all in. My kids might not be overscheduled, but I most definitely am.
My synagogue has a very strong activist/charitable base. I’m in an official position that consists of overseeing all of those things. It’s a very loose oversight, but it’s cool to be able to do various projects that I wouldn’t be able to do on my own. I have a budget and resources, as well as people in the congregation to help. For years I’ve had to do things without any financial or people resources, which limited the projects I could take on.
I bring all of this up because the High Holidays were really late this year. There is an annual food drive that I ran. I’m someone who often can only manage one thing at a time if it’s a more involved task, so I waited to be done with the drive before I dove into the political efforts. By the time the drive settled, the push toward the midterms was close to ending. I think that is part of what was so difficult this year. Between the two prison/jail facilities that I’m running my remote writing program, the food drive, and the other odds and random ends, I didn’t have the bandwidth to function on a dialer. I’m a little mad at myself, even though the midterms worked out surprisingly well despite the media rhetoric and obstacles. One neurotic reason for me to be mad is because I failed to participate in this very important thing. Two because my brain can’t do everything I want it to do.
(Image description: A somewhat wide creek surrounded by trees with green leaves. Broken branches along the front third of the image with rocks breaking up the water flow.)
(Image description: Calm water with green leaved trees on the right and bottom left corner. Green grass-like plants coming up from the water that turn into brown along the top quarter of the image. Tree line in the background with a blue sky and a lot of white clouds.)
Rosh Hashanah I took the kids for a walk in a nature thing close to the synagogue. It’s a place I was always curious about. All I’ve ever been able to see is the small dirt parking lot with the trail heading into somewhere mysterious. I like responding to my curiosities. It was beautiful back there and the kids had a good time wearing their fancy duds and walking along. Warrior Queen got knocked into waist deep water, so she was not happy. Mostly she was embarrassed. Thankfully it was a warm enough day because the walk back had the potential to be quite miserable for her. She’s a kid, though, and fairly hearty, so once she overcame the shock, she was happy enough chatting with her friend and a new boy from family I don’t know.
(Image description: Grass curve stretching from each corner of the front of the picture. Large rocks lining the left side of the curve that goes into a creek. The creek curves along the grass and flows toward the back of the picture until it’s out of sight curving to the left. Trees along the back bank. On the far right bank is a retaining wall of large rocks. A young boy and girl standing on the back left bank.)
Something I didn’t really have to deal with when I was a kid and among a congregation of other Jews…the potential for mass killings. It’s not as though I’d never encountered antisemitism. I experienced heaps, and still do periodically even in a blue area. But to sit through a training of what to do in the event there is an active shooter is something else. Really unsettling experience. I’m never completely comfortable walking around, probably because I grew up in a smallish conservative town where people would know me and I wouldn’t necessarily know them. They’d know I’m a Jew, though, and it wasn’t always a pleasant thing. But having to be trained in the event some horrible person with a horrible, hateful belief system decides to take me and my people out, is an entirely other level.
(Image description: Quiet street going diagonal from left front to the right midpoint. The trees are green, but starting to turn on the far end of the street. There is open grass along the right and left of the street toward the front of the picture. There is a single tree on the left grassy patch.)
(Image description: A quiet street on the top diagonal from the back middle to the middle right. Trees along the street along the back quarter of the image. There is a “25-mile” street sign on the right back. There is a sidewalk along the left of the street. In the front of the image are two young children (a boy and girl) playing in a grassy depression with medium-sized rocks. The boy is crouching in the front middle. The girl is standing to his left.)
I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving, but not in the way that I used to always tell myself. In reality it’s often draining, but I started my own tradition a few years back. My town has a 5K Turkey Trot early-ish the morning of. The enrollment money goes to the local foodbank…so this kind of thing is totally my jam. Covid meant that I’ve only been able to do this thing in-person one time, so I’m looking forward to taking the casual stroll through pretty areas I don’t see otherwise.
For me it’s not about a race or some kind of physical accomplishment. I exercise so much that I’m always able to walk for an hour without issue. For me this is about giving back, of course, but also because I need to push myself to get outside and outside of myself before the day sits heavily on me.
Some day I’d like the kids to do this 5K with me. For years I’d have this fantasy that we’d do it together, but like most things, I dragged my feet making it happen. Then one year I reached out to the organizer, but was too late to participate that year. For a few years I inched closer to participating until I finally did. The past couple of Covid years I took the kids for an hour long walk in the morning instead…so I’m kina sorta making my fantasy a reality. At some point I’ll push the kids into joining me for the official 5K course, but that point is not this year.
Another item for my list is to get me and the kids back to volunteering at the foodbank. Staying at home while the kids were itty-bitty and doing things on the cheap was not an easy feat when it’s something that has to last for every work day. Even when the kids were in preschool, it was really only three mornings a week at most.
Before Covid, the kids and I would go to an assisted living. My son still asks about it, but I think with Covid and the way illness is happening in school, it’s not a good idea for the seniors. But I remember how much my son loved going. It was like a second home to him. He would take in everything around him with a kind of ownership that was cool to see.
Both kids, however, loved stocking the shelves and sorting things at the food pantry the most. Not terribly shocking that the kids enjoyed arranging things. It’s what they do. I’ve been meaning to get us back there now that Covid is a more predictable and a somewhat preventable situation.
(Image description: Clear blue, vivid sky. Pine and color turned tress and bushes taking up the entirety of this picture. A small dirt/grass patch along the bottom right corner.)
(Image description: A placid lake on the middle right of the picture with trees on the far bank in the distance. A floating squre dock in the middle of the pictured lake. On the right of the image are pine trees and a some color-turned bushes. Some scattered bushes also changing color on the right and middle. A grassy/dirt patch of ground along the bottom half of the image, but slopes to the bottom right. There are two large rocks on the bottom left.)
We have a town beach off a lake, but it’s not as nice as the lake beach the next town over. We go to that one during the summer. I used to not like going to our town’s beach/park because it was exhausting chasing the kids everywhere, and usually in opposite directions. The park is on a kind of bluff and stretches to a field.
To get to the lake, one must traverse a steep set of stairs. Physically it’s something I should be able to do, but since I ended up with my second case of Covid in May, anything more than a single flight is frighteningly hard. It’s like I have a band around my lungs restricting my air flow. Still, it’s a better outcome than the almost fatal case of Pulmonary Embolism I had when Covid wasn’t supposed to be in the country, much less my state.
My husband isn’t a fan of walking. It bothers his flat feet, so we went to the park attached to the beach because it’s and easier jaunt than the walking activity I usually do when I’m alone with the cherubs. The kids love visiting the lake…of course. I remained on a bench at that top looking out over everything.
(Image description: Camera looking down on an asphalt sidewalk covered by leaves that have fallen in autumn. There are some brown pine needles as well. The ground is wet. There is a street on the back left corner. Green grass is lining the left side of the sidewalk.)
I would be remis to write about my life and not include anything explicit about my prison work. Corrections is a big piece of me and what I take the most pride in.
It feels good that things can move along better. For a couple of years everything was stagnant, especially the first year of Covid when the world was shutdown. Before the plague hit, I was teaching in person a kind of creative writing class I designed at three facilities. I have yet to go back, which has been harder for me than it probably should be. Most of my work is at a men’s maximum facility, and recently there seems to be some movement returning to my in-person classes on that front…huzzah!
But while in-person classes haven’t been possible, my remote writing program has been going strong for almost a year-and-a-half. I even managed to expand it to a jail. It’s going well there also. My hope is to expand it further, but we’ll see. Expansion is a more challenging task than I imagined, though I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
Currently I’m developing a virtual remedial writing program for the jail. It will be a small group through Zoom. My remote program is through correspondence. I’ve been wanting to have this opportunity, so it’s cool that I’m at a facility with the capacity for virtual programming. The higher the security level, the less likely such things exist.
And if I’ve learned nothing else from the delays upon delays for this piece is that life moves on.
I don’t really do resolutions, but I like to reflect on how I spent the last year and think about what I envision for the next.
Hmmm…what do I hope for the next year. An end to the pandemic, but that’s realistically not going to happen because too many people in this country are self-centered asshats who are incapable of doing the bare minimum of taking care of others in their communities. And, yes, I realize that the pandemic won’t actually end until the entire world is vaccinated…or worldwide infection is managed. An end to the pandemic is also out of my control; I just feel compelled to complain about it.
I hope to have my remote writing program expanded to the entire maximum facility I’m currently in, as well as the federal and out-of-state prison I have my sights on. There is an additional bonus system I’m hoping for, but I don’t want to get greedy. Along the same prison lines, in the next year I hope to see my successes for what they are…successes. I’m extraordinarily quick to second guess or dismiss my accomplishments. While I doubt I’ll stop doing that entirely, I hope to get a little better at it. I hope that I can feel good about what I’m doing…that I’m enough, even as the world may very well crumble around me.
I look forward to a new opportunity in the realm of politics. I’d told myself I would never join another Board. When I walked away from the last one I asserted it wasn’t for me. But now this new gig is on my lap and it has such potential that I’m compelled to jump in both feet like I do. It would be building something, which I love. It is also a way to join forces with other, probably, like-minded people in enough ways to make this interesting…hopefully important. And I’ll likely learn some things as well, which is always a draw for me.
I ended up joining a book club…sort of. It’s online. I’ve never joined a book club before…too much pressure, and after my hospital jaunt two years-ish ago, my brain hasn’t been able to manage things as well. I feel stronger these days, and it kinda crept up on me suddenly one day that I am. I’m able to handle text I couldn’t for the longest time. The first book was good. The second one is massive, so I’m feeling the pressure to read it. The club focuses on social justice and reading authors from marginalized communities…totally my bag. At some point my remote book discussion will happen at the same maximum. I have the same author goals, so it will be good to explore some of these writers. I have my own that I’ve read, but I won’t pretend to be an authority. The book club has mostly been my only social thing. It occurred to me during the first meeting that it was…so sad…this pandemic is brutal.
I wrote a book. It needs to be edited. I’m resigned to doing it myself. I can’t imagine I’m going to sell many, so I’m doing things as much on the cheap as I can. If I hired an editor…something I’m not even sure how to go about, I don’t feel confident I’d recoup those funds. I’m proud of what I wrote, and it gives me a little buzz every time I look at the draft. It’s formatted to look like a book now, which is such a cool thing. I never saw myself as writing a book. Mostly I thought to do so because many of my students have dreams of publishing. It’s easier for me to speak about a process I’ve experienced. I hope in the next year I get the book off and for public consumption. I’m also in the throws of a second one, which is a very different project. I hope to have that one finished as well. Neither of these books are terribly long. The second is a kind of art project in a way. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but lately I’ve had a clear picture of what I want for this thing. Thanks to a friend, I’m newly excited about it. I think it will come together well.
Since I’m already riding the writing hope train, I hope to go back to writing more fiction…maybe some poetry. I’m not much of a poet, but I enjoy it, and days when I’m not feeling mentally together enough to sustain creativity, banging out a poem can scratch that productivity itch.
In the next year I hope to be a better parent, which probably isn’t fair. It’s not that I’m a bad one, but I’m definitely not winning any awards or gold stars. But at the same time, there are moments that I’ve done well. I know I’ve done well. I hope to weigh those moments as having just as much value. My husband is the fun one. He’s the one with the activities and exciting things. That’s not my shtick. It will never be my shtick. I guess in the next year I want to see my role in my children’s lives as equally important to the fun. I know abstractly what my kids need from me. I want to see that as enough…that I don’t have to be all things…that I’m enough just as I am. As I write this my seven-year-old walked into the room, snuggled into me, scratching my shoulder (I’m a huge fan of back scratches), asking me how I slept. I’m raising him to be that kind of human. My daughter is the same way. I don’t know what their futures hold, but such moments are important.
I hope to get outside more in the next year…laughable, I know. I’m not friends with the outdoors. It’s mostly that acquaintance that is tolerated, even though I know objectively they are a good egg. I hope to do better.
I hope to keep laughing with my husband. I don’t think people realize how funny he is. He tends to be reserved and straight-laced, but he has this desert dry humor. For a long time things weren’t easy. Our marriage was fine, but other things impacted it nonetheless. There is laughter once again. I love that I’m probably the only one who knows this about my favorite person in the entire world. No one makes me laugh like he does.
I’m not totally sold on this one, but I hope to go back to the twice a month gig at my town’s food pantry. It will depend on what infection rates are. Ideally, I’d be able to return with my kids. They really loved volunteering there, and they were actually helpful.
Probably the biggest hope of all of that is to practice kindness to myself… more forgiveness of things I’ve convinced myself are a wrong, but actually aren’t. I brutalize myself over things I need to let go or not worry about in the first place…and then I brutalize myself for brutalizing myself. It’s a mess. For my own sanity I need to work on this. It’s not healthy for me, and if my kids pick up on it…which they probably do because they are kids, then it’s not healthy for them to see me modeling that kind of behavior. I’m not sure where it comes from. I kinda know, but not really. But whatever the impetus, I hope to be in a better place on this front by the turn of another year.
I hope to always value the support I have around me. I don’t interact much with people these days, but I’ve met some truly fantastic people along my life’s travels. I hope they know how much I appreciate them. In the next year I want to be certain. Life is short and can be hard. It’s too short and too hard to allow those I feel connected to to not realize their importance in my life. I’m usually pretty good about this, but we are still in a pandemic, and I think this specific thing often slips through my fingers as I lose track of days and muddle through.
It’s not that I’m ungrateful this year; I’m just especially disorganized and can’t get my shit together. I wish procrastinating was some kind of recognized sport. I’d kill at it.
I don’t know if I feel silly much this year, but I do at the moment. Too much internal serious lately, and I’m kinda sick of it.
I’m grateful to my friend who consistently buys me my favorite chocolate for Hanukkah and my birthday. I’m pretty sure I haven’t received another gift for years from anyone…which isn’t a complaint. I think I just noticed that as I write this. Is that sad? It shouldn’t be, but it sounds sad. In any case, the chocolate always comes at the best time when I’m especially craving something fancy and different. They used to have stores where I would buy this brand in heaps, but no more. Now that is sad. When my friend gifts it to me, it’s extra special now…not that I avoid scarfing it all in an embarrassingly short amount of time.
It’s hard to keep up, but I’m kinda grateful for the correspondence with the people I’m managing through Prisoner Express. I’m not exactly sure why it feels like such a cool thing on my end, but it does. I feel a little bad about that because me communicating with someone incarcerated isn’t about me. I talk about books with one person. Nothing serious or involved, but it’s fun. Not sure what my messages are doing for any of them, but it’s definitely a cool kind of thrill to get an email containing a scanned letter. Maybe in a world where I’m making myself a little too isolated, it simply feels gratifying to connect to another human.
I’m thankful that when my Kindergartener daughter put together her own school lunch after whining for thirty minutes about not wanting to eat pizza (Yeah, I don’t understand it either.). She did a pretty good job. The situation was her calling my husband’s bluff…because of course my fierce Warrior Queen did. The meal totally lacked protein, but on her own she compiled crackers, a banana, baby carrots, and half an apple leftover from the million times during the day when I’m cutting up apples. She was so proud of herself, so while I’m not sure this is totally a parenting win, I’m going to count it as such.
I’m grateful for a socially conscious seven-year-old. This morning he told me he hasn’t called Congress for a little while, so he wanted to when he came home from school today…good timing. The kids have a half-day. Before we left for the bus, he told me his list of concerns he’d like to communicate. It’s a really good list. I’m not going to get his wording right, but he wants there to be less fossil fuels for everything, less Covid deaths, less guns, and accessible transportation. The last one is something he mentions pretty consistently during these calls. I have to say I’m not entirely sure where it comes from. While I’ve definitely discussed disability issues with him, I don’t remember this particular thing coming up. It must have somehow, of course, but I don’t remember…not that me forgetting shit is a rare thing. Little Man…who’s growing right before my eyes, wants to tell Congress about having reusable items and more bike lanes. Those will be to our state congressional critters. I’ve spoken to him about the difference between local, state, and federal government; but I’m not entirely sure he gets it in terms of what box each issue type goes in. In any case…I’m really proud of him. He’s always been good about seeing others. I’m grateful that Warrior Queen hears us talking about these calls and wants to participate as well. Since she’s only five, it’s hard for her to articulate a list, but we’ll get there. I don’t want her to miss out. Last time her list was one item…vaccines…which kind of strikes me as tragic that it would be on the mind of such a young one, but that’s the world we are in.
I’m thankful my remote writing program is going as well as it is, though the data isn’t quite where I want it to be. Probably not fair of me to be so harsh with myself about it. The program is about six-months in and there have been a good deal of changes. That doesn’t include whatever is happening in the facility, this time of year especially. I’m honored to read all the writing they submit…that I’m trusted with vulnerability.
I’m grateful for the couple of walks I managed in November. I had a goal to take walks outside a couple times each week in October and November, and I totally shit the bed at it. That said, I managed to take the kids on a virtual 5K on Thanksgiving. It was pretty great, actually. I have some pictures from it with the plan to write it up here. I’ll get to it…eventually. But we also took a walk as an entire family unit somewhere I hadn’t been for years. I’ll write that up too…eventually. Little Man isn’t so much for snuggling these days. He does, but not so often like Warrior Queen. During this walk in this beautiful and still place, he kept holding my hand and pulling my arm around his shoulders. I loved it so much.
I’m thankful for the collection of friends that put-up with me. I’ve been up and down a lot for a while now. I didn’t always have friends, so I don’t take them for granted. I hope they know that.
I’m grateful for the friends who broaden my world, as I find some kind of kindred spirit.
I’m thankful for the Warrior Queen snuggles on the sofa while she watches a television program I can’t stand. She’ll periodically look at me, smile, and give me a smooch on my cheek while I’m reading. Other times she drapes an arm over me. She’s always been one for physical connection. That kind of thing doesn’t come naturally to me, but I love that it does with her.
I’m grateful that I’m connected with so many nonprofits and various social efforts that I receive really cool address labels.
I’m thankful for the afghan that I tinker with after meals or when I’m enjoying one of my plethora of tea mugs throughout the course of the day. I have a final home for the afghan in mind. I like to think of this person’s face when I give it to them. I’m very excited for when this project is done and the time comes for relinquishing it and the comfort it provides because I know the comfort will transfer to someone else…to one of my favorite people.
I’m grateful I’m here. That’s it. Just here. I almost wasn’t. I’m grateful for the vaccines…for my parents…for my husband…now for my kids. My G-d, everything I came so close to missing out on. There have been hard days since, no doubt, but I’m here.
It’s horrible how unmotivated I’ve been to write, and it’s carried on for the longest time. I started this a little after school began in September…so there is some time lapse. That said, I use this site, in part, as a chronicle of my life. Sometimes I go back to read these pieces so I can rekindle a memory. Other times I think that maybe one day my kids might be interested in getting a glimpse of Mommy as she was adjusting to the kid life change.
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The kids are both in school now, which is so strange. I remember people would tell me about this time when Little Man was a little baby, and it always seemed so far away. I’d been kinda sorta preparing for this time, but not this time specifically. I had my worky plans and I plodded along a certain trajectory that Covid completely dismantled…or it did in a way…a big way, but not a complete way like I would have expected.
I had my plans, most of which I was anxiously excited to be teaching some classes that I wouldn’t have to be creative about because of childcare needs. Covid definitely stomped all over those for the time being. Life is a funny thing, though. I’ve always had some kind of plan, but most of them were me saying yes to whatever task was sent my way. I like learning new things and seeing how things function, so even if something isn’t all that interesting on it’s face, my life philosophy has more or less always been, why not?
It occurred to me some time ago that with all of my political stuff, I’m not terribly grounded in my own local governance. I tend to focus on out of state efforts where rights are more threatened, and while that stuff is important, there really isn’t an excuse for being almost totally disengaged from my own local politics. After all, politics is very local…I know that for everyone else, but apparently not for my own neighborhood…totally unacceptable. I’m volunteering for a town council, which is fine. It brings entertainment and culture-type things to my somewhat rural area. I chose this committee thing because out of the list it’s the one thing I felt I had some degree of competence navigating. That reality has been bothering me for a while now. The bothering, however, doesn’t make me anymore competent in the needs of what’s happening.
Societal exclusion and poverty are the highest correlating factors crime/delinquency, so while I have all of this prison work that I do and focus on greatly, I also try to reach out and participate in things that focus on those two factors. Admittedly it’s a bunch of fly by night stuff. I’m not terribly connected to any one organization or effort. I was attending a town meeting to help represent my own committee and caught that they have trouble filling our housing one. There isn’t an opening now, but this month I started attending this group because they focus on the area of affordable housing. I hope to join when there is an opening, so maybe in a year?
It’s only been one meeting so far. I’m pretty sure I understand what’s going on, but it’s definitely a learning curve. It’s interesting. I can also say that this area is completely out of my wheelhouse. I have not one crumb of expertise for this, but maybe by the time I’m able to be part of this committee I’ll be more useful. In the meantime, I plan to listen…a lot…a lot a lot.
I’m not really sure what the issues is exactly, but phonebanking has required too much concentration for me to do for a while now, so I’m switched over to textbanking. No real campaigns at the moment, so I’ve been doing a weekly gig for the Equality Act through the Human Rights Campaign and the occasional assignment for voting rights through Fair Fight. Those have been going well enough; I’ve noticed that my ability to handle the different types of banking fluctuates quite a bit. I’ve had to try to tell myself that changing it up isn’t a moral failing or a absconding of responsibility. Sometimes things are just too much at any given time, and it’s perfectly acceptable for change things up as I periodically need to.
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And things have continued to this day. My textbanking is hit or miss. I phonebanked for the Virginia gubernatorial race for the home stretch, and managed it well enough. I think I managed six or eight shifts? I can’t remember. Generally, though, I can only handle about 30 minutes of an autodialer format, so all of those shift commitments aren’t as impressive as they sound. I had a ton of guilt for a while that I didn’t do enough for that race. I just couldn’t get my act together until the end.
And while all of that was going on, my kids are doing their kid thing…enjoying school. Warrior Queen comes home from Kindergarten with all sorts of tales that I’m pretty sure didn’t happen. That’s her bag; telling stories. She isn’t lying so much as she is creating her own little world in her head. I used to do that as well, though with my psychiatric profile it probably held a different prodromal meaning, even when I was young. There is still a lot that professionals need to learn about people in my diagnostic category. But regardless, Warrior Queen is like me in that regard…loves her stories, loves her internal world. I try not to tamper with and discourage it too much. What she is doing was my primary coping skill for most of my life. Even now I use writing as a way to organize my thoughts, even when I’m writing fiction…that’s actually a thing, apparently. Any kind of writing is grounding for people with psychotic disorders. I’m don’t necessarily think Warrior Queen has inherited this part of me, at least I hope not. As proud as I am of my own accomplishments and what I’m capable of because of my neurodivergence, it would be hard to watch either of my kids travel a path similar to mine. It’s just so hard all the time. And scary as well…I’m always afraid. But in the meantime I love my daughter’s stories. They are mostly amusing…when I can follow them. Good luck getting actual information from her. Her health class has been covering “bus safety” for months now.
Not too much to say about Little Man in the second grade. He’s doing well. His brain amazes me. In some ways he’s so like me, but in other ways so not. He’s cracked open his first 1,000 piece puzzle…a Star Wars thing. He’s both into and not all that interested in Star Wars, but I guess the puzzle held some kind of appeal for him. So, he’s been tinkering with it on the floor of our living room that houses an elliptical, a random sofa, and nothing else. It’s actually kinda cool doing my exercise and having him on the floor next to me. Puzzle pieces surrounding him like some kind of oddly shaped snow angel. I’m still not sure how he can put together pieces so efficiently; his brain is an interesting place.
I still owe a gratitude post. I’m grateful for much, but I’m having trouble getting thoughts together for a reason I don’t understand. In the meantime, I’m finally publishing this piece that’s been languishing for months…I guess that’s something…
(Image description: crossed leg in the front with a blurred black and white knitted project at the bottom end of the picture. Tan clogs on the bottom right. Black driveway with a cut off big wheel at the top.)
It’s warm again! So strange and so sudden, but I suppose it’s technically spring. I’m acutely aware that I take the same kinds of pictures, but really they are mostly a vehicle to jog my writing brain. This image represents what I did over our first spring weekend. And, as I sat outside I remembered what it was for me exactly a year ago…sitting outside in the same exceptionally flimsy chair. I’m not sure if I was knitting quite yet…if I was capable of it a week-ish out from returning from the hospital. It was overcast and rainy last year with a definite chill that I loved at the time. I felt alive then. This year it just feels surreal. The last year seems a little wasted in a way, as though we were all in stasis or something. My husband commented that we can’t even say nothing serious happened, as I almost died. But, here I am…spring again in an vaguely uncomfortable chair knitting and watching my kids do something that doesn’t make me feel like I’m a horrible parent.
(Image description: snow on the ground. Mostly the back of a young girl with her face obscured. Wearing a pink hat with the top cut off by the end of the picture. She’s holding an orange saucer sled that appears red and shadowed. A young boy with obscured face and blue had sitting on a green saucer sled. A man to the right standing with only the legs and boots visible.)
It’s strange because there were a good amount of new things this past year. I worked hard to have new things, but those new things do not include clothing that fits. I managed to find a pair of sweatpants I could tolerate and a sweater I don’t remember buying. My husband took the kids sledding a bunch…because he’s an excellent parent. This was the first and only time I’d been. I wish I could say it was a profound experience. It was cute, but…sigh…not every activity or new-for-me thing with the kids is this precious moment I will hold until my last breath. I feel guilty that I’m not in love with every moment. I feel guilty that every other parent in pandemic-land has figured something out that I can’t seem to manage. I don’t do anything noteworthy or special with my kids. We are getting through, and that’s probably the most I can say.
If I’m honest, the best moments are when my kids are playing Lego together and leaving me alone to sit and watch them tinker. And, periodically comes the call of “Mommy” before they tell me a story I have trouble following. Or, those moments when my son does something silly that’s just him, and follows it up with telling me that he loves me. I love those moments when Warrior Queen squishes me on the sofa while I read or something…totally un-newsworthy life event. I don’t know. I just don’t really plan stuff, and it bothers me. Frankly, I’m not really in a place to plan stuff. I used to, but it’s been forever since I’ve been able to. But, if I’m honest, the planning was taking the kids to the library after school for some activity I knew they’d like. And, while they were liking that activity, I’d have my huge ass blanket out that I was crocheting. My planning consisted of volunteering at an assisted living and food bank with the kids. They really used to love doing that, especially the tasks at the food bank. My kids are good helpers. I miss those days. They will return again, I suppose.
(Image description: shadowed interior picture. Young girl holding a white imaginary structure in front of her face.)
Warrior Queen is into Lego now. She made a “cruise ship.” We are hoping to take one for our first family trip…eventually. My husband and I used to cruise all the time; it’s our favorite vacation. It’s perfect for our low-key, don’t like to plan shit personalities. Part of me can’t wait to get away, and the other part of me is kinda an anxious wreck about the prospect. When did I become such a mess about things that aren’t a big deal?
I’m feeling unsettled, which isn’t every moment, but it’s a problem this week. I’d had such high hopes a few days ago, but they kind of fizzled for me. I’m finally in a position to start up with a second campaign. I’ve been so eager for that to start, and now that it’s here, I feel like I can’t quite get my act in gear. I’m sure I’d feel better if I wrote a story, but I can’t focus for that either. I’d been doing well the past couple of weeks; writing a micro story or two a week. As much as I know it would benefit me, I’m just sluggish and flat. The last time I was feeling like this I increased my medication, which helped. I really don’t want to have to do that again. I’m not quite at the level I was before, but I’m starting to feel it again, which is disappointing. After so many years of barely taking anything, I’ll be going into territory of a significant level…or significant in my own mind. That’s quite disappointing. I suppose it’s better than needing a second medication to help me manage, and I need what I need. I just hate the way medication makes me feel sometimes, but I also hate the way I’m feeling now, so…
The weather is getting better, so maybe I should start taking walks again. That helped a few months ago when winter hadn’t quite become miserable. I don’t think I’ll enjoy outside the way I did then, but I probably need to get out of the house. I probably need a lot of things.
(Image description: computer generated image designed by a first grader. In black along the top says, “You are a super ninja, Mom!” The background is red. The center has a large, thickly lined blue stick figure with other lines that don’t fit an image for a person. There is a large yellow line going from the body to the upper right corner. There is a brown “X” in the upper left corner covering multi-colored computer generated balloons that are overlapping.)
This is how my soon-to-be-seven-year-old sees me because I’m his person. I feel it radiating from him all the time. My soon-to-be-five-year-old and I are close too, but it feels different. I feel like Warrior Queen connects to people better, so there isn’t quite the same urgency for my existence that Little Man seems to have. I’m not placing a value judgment on something like that. I very much crave the ways in which Warrior Queen expresses her love for me. I love when she greets me each morning. I love the way she smiles when I cup her cheeks in my palms. She leans into my grip and sighs…something I cherish much more than sledding. Little Man is different. He often does a push-pull with me, which is fine…it’s what kids do. But, while Warrior Queen just does her thing, her neurodivergent big brother uses me as a kind of stabilizing force in a way that’s hard to explain. So, when he’s playing with his Lego while I’m just sitting in the room, there is a closeness and reciprocity to that experience. I don’t always focus to appreciate it, but every so often he’ll pause what he’s doing, look up, and say he loves me. I don’t usually feel like a “super ninja,” and I’m not entirely sure what he means by it, but I have all the feels that his projects from school usually include something blue because, “he’s thinking of me.” I’m sure that impulse will fade as he gets older. I’m sure at some point I won’t provide this kind of comfort to him, but it’s something for this moment in time…also better than sledding.
My posts span days or weeks in the event anyone notices tense differences I don’t catch or something seems off. In the span of this particular post on the tail end of a tough week or so, I managed to start phonebanking for the second campaign, and that provided a lift for me. Campaign volunteering is a strange internal experience. It’s important to do, though I’m one person, so it’s hard to really get that it’s important. In many ways phonebanking stresses me out as I simultaneously enjoy it. I’d been anticipating the start of this phonebank, but hadn’t been able to settle my routine. I’m an embarrassing creature of routine, so I never feel quite right until I have them. I haven’t managed a routine for this new responsibility. I’ll be uncomfortable until that happens. I spent the early part of the week feeling the pressure of not having officially started. Once I did, I felt more grounded…so odd how that works.
Another good thing; I found replacements for the black dresses I wear practically every day. The ones I have are old and on a steady path to deteriorating. It’s been an arduous task trying to find new ones I like. That hunt ended with the delivery I received a day ago! Clothing is a really tricky thing for me these days. I try to be body positive, but I’m not really able to. I don’t think I look bad, at least not in clothing, but I haven’t been happy with the way I look for a long time. The reasons for that are complicated and sad for me, and not so much about the weight gain itself. I’ve been working on it, but I’m plateaued right now, so it’s hard to feel good. The compromise is that I try to not think about it at all. I can’t say I feel attractive in these dresses, but I like knowing I have something I like for when the old dresses will no longer work. These dresses have pockets, which makes them far superior to the originals!
Little Man lost his first tooth. He was a little freaked out by the blood and I don’t think he was expecting it to actually come out. Lessons in a difference between intellectually knowing something diverging from the reality of the matter! He’s fine, of course, and was delighted to see the somewhat crisp bill waiting for him. Times have changed…I remember receiving a quarter for lost teeth, and it seems that’s totally not what happens any longer. We were gifted a lost teeth harboring set from a friend. I was “too tired” to do the deed, so my husband ventured into Little Man’s room when he was asleep. Apparently, however, in the effort of removing the tooth from the small vile, my husband inadvertently dropped it back in without knowing…so this particular tooth fairy did not take the tooth with her…as my son noted. On the sofa the next day he was all smiles, “I guess she’s real,” and inquiring what the fairy’s gender would be before deciding that the fairy would be a she because it’s “custom.”
Otherwise, Little Man returns to full-time in person school next week after a year of a wonky COVID schedule. I’m due to be vaccinated…eventually. The last year feels like time hasn’t really passed, but there are notes in the experience that clearly mark that it has. Maybe I’ll start teaching again soon; a piece of me has felt missing away from my cinderblock fishbowl. Maybe my solitary confinement program will also (finally) begin. I don’t know that I’ve ever had this experience when so much has probably changed, yet everything has been the same.
I started helping an out-of-state nonprofit with reentry programming. It’s a good experience, as I haven’t had a lot of exposure with reentry program development. It’s a good amount of work, and some of the content is a challenge, but I enjoy having it on my plate. Some of what I’m doing is reformatting their current content into something more structured…something that would be similarly presented regardless of the facilitator. Other things I’m creating are for data collection and to help characterize and fulfil a grant that they were awarded, so it’s been a fun thing for me.
I’ve been phonebanking for the last month or so. I have an additional two campaigns I’m looking forward to volunteering for when the time comes. I don’t really understand election timelines, so I’m just going with it. I think I’ve settled on maintaining three campaigns at any given time. That should work for me. That’s about 150 calls a week, and if the phonebanking can’t be actualized; sometimes it can’t, then my second choice is textbanking.
I was just lamenting the other day that I miss postcarding. I used to attend a couple of groups, and they were such a good time. That seems like ions ago, well over a year. When I was sick, but didn’t know it was COVID, I was laying low anyway. Even if my kids are okay to go to school, I try to not expose my yucks to other people…good thing too, it seems. I have a couple friends I had canceled with during that time. I thought it was a nothing cold, but postponed outings anyway…they are still thanking me for that. I think back to the irresponsibility of the past administration. Them lying about the prevalence in the country could have harmed others. I didn’t feel all that sick. The subsequent pulmonary embolism out of nowhere…what a difference a year makes…
I attended a training of sorts. I’ve been wanting to take part with this prison correspondence thing with another nonprofit, but was confused about some of the mechanisms for doing so. I have an account for communication through someone else that is funded through a grant, so it was just confusing. The orientation cleared that right up; I love it when my barriers are solved with almost zero effort on my part! I have to write my mentee after a recent letter that was delivered. In the coming weeks I need to get more serious about the other correspondence nonprofit. Their work a way to provide feedback to incarcerated writers, so that their writing is seen as a kind of living connection to humanity. Additionally there might be a way to assist them with some program development as well. Not really sure about it, but maybe they might even fund some of my solitary confinement work. They are associated through a university, and since I’m an individual and can’t get funding myself, it’s good to be affiliated through other entities. It also helps for networking. I have no idea if any of that will amount to anything, but while I’m stranded from my in-person classes until at least the spring (maybe even longer than that), it’s good to have some things to work toward, as nebulous as they might be.
I’ve always been oddly crafty…not having crafty enough impulses to have an assortment of eclectic harborings in the house, but enough to use it as a default when I’m trying to think of something to do with my kids. I’m also a massive procrastinator, so there is a certain celebratory delight in finally managing to get shit to do with my kids. I’ve been ruminating for months over this funky crayon project thing a friend told me about. I now have the materials handy for when the gumption to make it happen arises…probably a time just short of all of us simultaneously losing our sanity, and me wanting to trek out into the cold never to be heard from again. The rest of the craft store order was replenishing my stock of blank story books that are usually a profound success in our parts, and I stumbled upon blank puzzles. The puzzles have odd results, but it intermittently keeps Warrior Queen busy, so I won’t complain. All the more delight is that they managed to restock a couple of the sock yarn I’d wanted. When I get around to it, I have my next knitting project set…another pair of ankle socks…huzzah!
It was one of those weeks when I was feeling down. I was struggling to get Little Man to complete his school work. My struggle isn’t because he’s difficult about it; he isn’t…not any remote iota of a challenge in that regard. I have trouble organizing my head sometimes, and heap loads upon loads of mom guilt on myself. Usually he manages to do his assignments. Usually he doesn’t do the preferred commitment for the computer programs that are paced weekly. This particular week was especially hard, and I’m not sure why. I think there was a snow day and it just threw me, even though it didn’t impact my day or schedule. My son came home from the bus on Friday showing me something he made during his computer elective, and it was everything I needed to see. Little Man has the most profoundly amazing timing more often than not. I might have teared up, and he was so proud. I’m in blue. Little Man regularly points out when something is blue because it’s my favorite color.
I love it when my son wants me to play with him. I love it more for the snuggles than the play itself. Little Man is affectionate, but it’s oddly delivered. When he’s playing or showing me his Lego especially, he leans up against me and kind of snuggles into me. I love the weight of him, and he gives me much less resistance with hugging in those moments. My son will hug me, certainly, but it’s not as sustained. I don’t know if it’s just him or his almost seven-year-old age, but he’s not always in the snuggly mood. If I’m honest, I’m not really sure how to play with my kids. Fortunately they don’t seem to mind. It’s enough for them that I’m on the floor in some kind of contact with them. When I throw together random Lego bricks into haphazard structures, Little Man is delighted. These times are worth the sore back from sitting for extended periods of time on the floor.
Warrior never liked puzzles other than haunting her big brother while he would work on them. Fast forward who knows how long, and Little Man has almost no interest in them, and the almost five-year-old is all about the puzzles. I don’t see her making quite the same gains as my son did when he was younger, but she is good at them. She’s so proud too…putting together her 100-piece ones over and over again. I have yet to find others that she will like. One-hundred seems too easy for her, but I don’t think we have anything else around. I keep telling myself that I need to go online and explore, but I never get around to it.
I love to see my daughter delighted by things. I snort horribly when I’m in the throws of a really intense laugh, which is not infrequent. My husband says it’s horrible, but it’s his fault. He’s hilarious. I don’t know that people realize how funny he is, but our seventeen years together has been filled with laughter above all else. I say my snorting laughter makes me quirky…or something else that makes me quirky. Warrior Queen now snorts all the time when she laughs. Sometimes it seems really forced, but I guess she wants to be just like Mommy…with the obnoxious laugh that can’t be helped. I was just telling a friend that my kids have a way of seeing my worst qualities and reimagining them into something kinda nice. Snort laughing might be one of those things. There really isn’t anything lovely about the way I laugh when I get into it, but my fierce girl sees something in me when I’m laughing at such a level, and she wants to be that way too. Nothing bad I can say about that.
I’ve successfully botched this blanket. It’s completely pleated at the ends, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to fix it. A friend mentioned stitch reductions, so that’s what I’ve been doing…after I had to unravel a massive row-and-a-half of yarn. Interestingly it isn’t that frustrating now that the rows are gone. I’d been increasing my row at the time, or I would have just left it as it was and continued to make the problem worse. I’m thinking this is a forgiving yarn; it’s soft and pliant, so maybe it will work out. It would be such a bitch to be this far into my afghan project and have it be completely ruined. I went into this with such high ideals, but working in the round on this scale is no joke. The perspective is completely skewed and hard to gauge…which is probably another fiber ware life lesson. But, I’m not ready to bail on this yet, so I’ll try for the decreases and see if I can fix this in a few rows…that will take for-ever. It wasn’t always the case, but I enjoy just having something to pull onto my lap and work on. I think part of the problem is that I just like sitting sometimes and keeping my hands busy. I hadn’t noticed, and I guess didn’t care that, big picture, it wasn’t looking right…maybe another fiber life lesson as well.
I think these things also have a way of revealing something about who we are as people, which sounds so serious for yarn and a hook. I’m really a pretty tenacious person…maybe to ridiculous proportions. As a kid school wasn’t easy…people weren’t easy…a lot wasn’t easy. I was taught and just had to embrace that the direct way to do things wasn’t the only way. In my life I seldom achieve in a direct way. I’ve had to buckle down and keep working at what I want until I achieve them, or finally have to give up when every outlet is exhausted. But, even then, much of the time the task is postponed until another avenue opens to me. Me attempting to fix my mess after neglecting the problems with it for so long is a sort of example of my predisposition for how I manage my time. This will be such a pain in the ass to fix. Part of me is leaning into just giving up on it and squirreling it away for whatever. I’m not sure what I’d do with it because it’s so large at this point. But, if I just gave up on it, I wouldn’t be me. I’m annoyed all the time by things not working out how I wanted them to, but I keep at it because I apparently can’t help myself. I may very well ultimately fail with this blanket. I’ve failed at a ton of things. On the other hand, maybe I’ll fix this…save this project. I’m enjoying the process, and if there were ever the components for something to be salvaged, it will be this.
The thing is I have a home I want this project to go to. They don’t know it yet, but I’m pretty sure they would love this piece living with them. Whenever I start a project I say to myself that this will be the one I keep for myself, but something about the process speaks, and I know it would be wrong for the project to belong to me. This one already belongs to someone else…if I can fix it…I have to fix it…I hope I do. They really will love it when it’s finished…I think they will. If I kept it for myself, I’d miss all of these thoughts of the comfort this project could provide. Maybe that’s the ultimate point of it all…another life lesson found in stitching. Investing in the comfort and happiness of others in the smallest of ways make ruin worth saving.
Okay…so while thinking of all the ways in which I’m blowing it as a parent during the pandemic…because I’m nothing if not neurotic, I’m revisiting an old life goals dream. Even with a solid government pandemic plan, I’ve been in a place of needing specific things to look forward to. Eventually the prison work will return, which is one, but I also kind of crave silly things to plan for. Silly things that won’t make or break me if they never come to fruition. This isn’t a new sentiment for me. I did the same thing inching my way into the Thanksgiving 5K I walked the year before the pandemic hit. Given what happened with my own COVID experience, I decided it wasn’t worth the risk this past year. I want to make it a tradition, so my plan is to sign-up once again for the upcoming November. It really was a pretty super way to spend my morning. I knew it would be. It’s just getting over that hurdle to just do it…Nike knows what they are talking about!
Turkey Trots are serious fucking business, right WBUR?
A leisurely 5K is one thing. I know I can do that pretty easily in terms of fitness. Usually the barrier is about finding my way to the event. When I was a runner, I seldom registered for races for this reason…I’m also the least competitive person anyone can ever imagine. I’m the type of person that will let everyone else pass me because I feel guilty beating someone. We live in a small town. Knowing where I’m going is a big deal. This 5K ended up being a fate, inevitable kind of thing. I even get an ugly t-shirt, and who doesn’t love an ugly t-shirt?
I’ve spent the past several years inching my way to growing a vegetable/fruit container garden and some herbs. And, make no mistake, the only thing I’ve successfully grown are dust bunnies, but maybe if I keep at it something won’t end up brown and sorry looking. Each year I get a little closer to giving it a try.
I’m thinking of growing grape or cherry tomatoes…because they are REALLY expensive for what you get. My kids scarf them down and I like them too. I’ve heard all about how fresh tomatoes are where it’s at, so it might be time to try them. Part of the delay for me is that I can’t decide what to grow. Tomatoes have been a definite decision, but I’d been thinking that it’s kind of an imperative to grow at least a few things. I enjoy my fruits and vegetables, but how many of any one thing do I really need? This is a pretty big assumption that I’m successful growing anything in the first place, of course.
I think I have some growing starter choices, though. I’m pretty sure garden stores have the pre-bush or whatever. So, I guess I’d just stick something like that in a pot? Maybe I’ll do the same experiment a college friend did, and try to grow them from seeds of tomatoes we bought in the store…because that’s the kind of shit good parents do, right? We can have two pots with each tomato version, and I can post the comparisons all up and down social media. After all, it doesn’t really count if people I barely talk to don’t give me some kind of interaction that barely counts as existing in someone else’s life.
Spinach is another one. Fresh sautéed spinach is a-mazing…also pricey at the store. That might be a cool thing to do too, and maybe it’s less likely to die than the tomatoes. I’m not sure of the yield of something like that, though. It takes a ton of spinach to get a tablespoon of it cooked. I’ll definitely have to look into that. If I have to make a decision, though, tomatoes win…hands down. It’s not even a remote controversy. I’ve been starting to embrace that I probably would be fine just focusing on tomatoes, but part of me is kind of a go big or go home kind of person. I need to get a grip. I’m more likely to kill the plant than anything else. My best option is probably making this the least tragic of a situation as possible.
I’d like to grow some chives…no idea what else. I’ve been fantasizing growing herbs longer than the produce container garden. The problem is that whenever I see a kit or a planter or whatever, it’s always a combination of herbs I don’t want. And, part of it is that I’m probably hedging on this anyway, and it keeps me from making a decision.
But, I love to cook, and herbs are also pricey at the store. It would be kinda cool to feel like I’m some kind of legitimate chef or something by having fresh herbs. At the same time it wouldn’t hurt my feelings as much when the kids refuse to eat what I’ve prepared. I can bask in growing my own herbs like I deserve my own uTube channel or something about all the ways I’m awesome at…growing herbs and stuff. Herbs are hard to kill too, I think, and they will probably end up in the lawn, which would be excellent because they are green. Each year it’s become increasingly clear that we are mostly nurturing a dirt patch instead of grass. It’s all about the angle in terms of the visuals, but there is definitely a lot less lawn than when we moved in over a decade ago.
I bet this guy grows his own herbs…Are you holding out on me Pinterest?
It’s 2021, and maybe this will be my year to do this! I know some people who actually know something about gardening. I hope when I ask them they don’t start getting hard core on me and talking about things that will hold no meaning. I’m not advanced. I need some kind of pot or whatever…some dirt…probably. We may or may not already have some kind of tools or something. The seeds, of course. Does one buy a watering can? I’ve got the Crocs for this. Do I get a hat to bring the whole get-up together?
This is totally what I need to wear, right, Atelier Entomologica?
When all is said and done I’ll need something to document this process…good, bad, and the insect infested brown. I can post Facebook pictures of plants before they die, and I’ve upheld the expectation that everyone will think I’m not totally shitting the bed with my kids watching way too much television and me avoiding the sun like I’ll combust from the mere thought of it.
And, we will all rejoice in the newest member of my family. He goes by the name of Clyde and leaves the television on obnoxious volume levels all night. Hobby Farms warned me, but I didn’t listen!
I’d never really planned on them because they have always been a little trite to me in the abstract, but here I am…the second of the trite posts that I can’t help myself, but to write. The first is a gratitude post around Thanksgiving, though I’m not sure there was much gratitude in the one I wrote this year…I tried. The second one…this one is usually a reflection and hope for the next year. I feel that this year I need to write this more than just a vague want. That need stems from me feeling internally scattered, and maybe getting things out in my words will bolster me a bit…keep me from feeling as though my substance might fly away.
For a long while I didn’t spend too much time discussing my mental health stuff. Certainly there is a stigma with some of it, but I think part of my hesitancy is that I don’t want to sound as though I’m whining when my life is actually pretty good…maybe even objectively very good. But, then there is this other part of me that knows or has encountered so many people struggling. I have people in my life I can be open with, but that’s not always the case for others. So, maybe if I can communicate what my experience is, then someone else won’t feel alone or as an outsider…that’s the hope anyway.
I’m not unfamiliar with anxiety or depression. What I’m experiencing now is not nearly as arduous as what I’ve confronted at other times in my life, but I’ve also not had lives depending on me the way I do now. I’ve also never had another point in my life that I have virtually no time to myself. Usually it’s quite the contrary…endless time to myself balanced with a job I don’t like. But, at the very least I wouldn’t be struggling and also have a perpetual external demand placed on me and limited capacity for an outlet. I mention this because many of my coping mechanisms currently can’t function in the way in which I’ve always depended on them. That translates to a lesser severity anxiety/depression mix feeling more incapacitating than I might otherwise experience. I’m functioning, more or less, but the general struggle to get my head in the game has been grueling.
The presence of depression means that I’m not able to move how I would with my mania. I enjoy my mania…I miss my mania. All of that before I even touch the psychosis piece…or my learning disability and processing piece. And, for all I know I could still be rocking brain damage from the oxygen loss from the pulmonary embolism I had in March. Or maybe it’s all just existing in COVID land and the trauma we all have the shared experience of. That’s my head space, and it’s very hard for me to think clearly.
Historically I rely on tasks to occupy me and carry me along. That would mostly be my prison work. COVID means it will be on hold until spring at the earliest. I’m on blood thinners, so will I be able to be vaccinated? I guess I may or may not find out in February for my next appointment with the team that treated me in the hospital. I almost died from this COVID complication, so the prospect of relying on vaccination herd immunity for something that may or may not yield such a result is not something I don’t want to think about. But, who am I kidding? Of course, I’m thinking about it, and I don’t have the gray matter to spare.
Warrior Queen is too young to spend much time concerned about her school stuff. Little Man is in the first grade. Our district does a reasonable job with his education right now, but it’s not like a good job is possible. We have access. He’s more or less self sufficient and doesn’t give me a hard time. That’s a good thing because some days it takes virtually all of my reserves to help him with his meager schoolwork commitments.
I’m trying to avoid making this sound like a complaint. Mostly I just want to be honest because I don’t know that people feel they can be. My sleep is erratic. I recently learned that insomnia has been linked as an after COVID thing…lovely. Does that mean it will or will not resolve? No one knows…wheee! I’m grumpy with little patience most of the time, and I want to crawl out of my skin as a default state of being at the moment. I don’t know when it will change, other than it will at some point. My prison work will likely come back. I will also probably have some new things to glide into when all of this resolves…eventually…months from now. I wish it felt emotionally helpful to remind myself of such things.
I’m someone who likes projects. I crave them. I’ve written something like seventeen programs for the Department of Corrections in the last three or four years depending on how it’s tallied. There is a hold on new programming, so while I was about to write-up another one, there is no point in puzzling through it. I’ve been reserving some focus for remote solitary confinement programs, but with the approved one in the wings waiting to start at some point, I was hoping to see what barriers arise before constructing something new. When the approved program is implemented, it will probably be popular. I think I can probably get it in another couple of states when COVID restrictions ease, so at some point I’ll be quite busy. That will also be around the time I’m allowed back into the facilities. If I’m lucky, the federal literacy program thing will work out. I’m also building some other connections, so this isn’t wasted time. I can probably get at least one university to fund some of my work, especially if students are involved. That will also put me in a position to approach other institutions. There is a need for criminal justice reform stuff, I think. What I offer is someone who has access to facilities and active, successful programs. It’s important I remind myself regularly about all of this stuff because it’s been a devastating hit for me to have my years of hard work gone indefinitely.
None of that helps me now, though. I’m doing my political stuff. It’s important, but it also requires consistent and reliable blocks of uninterrupted time I don’t have. And, while I enjoy these political things, it doesn’t feed me in the way I need in this struggling moment in time. I’ve done little else but reflect on the last year, so what do I need from the next, at least in the short term?
I’d been vaguely planning to write a book about my prison work. I’ve published excerpts about what I’m thinking it will be like in my other blog. In my mind I wanted to be at a certain programming level before beginning that project. I was on the cusp of that point just before COVID, so…that’s on hold. I’m not really a book writer. It’s a pretty massive undertaking for me. I toil with short things. I’ve been writing more consistently the past six-ish weeks or so, which I’m endlessly delighted about. I’m partaking in a couple of short/micro story contests. I’d like to write more fiction. I struggle to sit down to write more fiction even though I love it. Then it occurred to me that I can legitimately write a story under 500 words. The past week I broke out my box of prompts and wrote three stories.
That isn’t the entire picture. I follow someone on Twitter who will self-publish a collection of short stories soon. Something like that never occurred to me, but now that it has, I think I’m going to go for it. I dug through my darkened file reserves and opened a document of various short stories…maybe I’ll include some essays and poems too. For whatever reason, people seem to like my poetry. Much like my afghans, it’s comforting to have something that I can tinker with little bit by little bit, and eventually I’ll have a book. Though, truth be told, I’m struggling to envision people paying to read things I write, but nothing ventured nothing gained, I guess…story of my life.
I need to make sure I’m doing my needle craft. I’m better about my afghan because I have it sitting on the floor next to me and my computer. I spend so much of a day sitting here sometimes, it’s more in my mind to work on it. That’s helpful. I should probably make more of an effort to find the yarn I want for another scarf and some socks. I really did enjoy those projects, and I need to enjoy things.
I’m sure there will be more savory moments, but I guess I want to mark an explicit priority to recognize them when they happen…like when I’m listening to my latest musical obsession on the computer while I crochet my increasingly massive afghan. At some point Little Man enters the room wanting the song he likes. I barter that he must finally get dressed before that can happen. Eventually he complies with another dozen instances of me nagging him. The annoyance decreased as he steps to me in his underwear to scratch my back because of how much I love having my back scratched. Clothing on he presses into me and we watch the video for the song he loves. At some point Warrior Queen stumbles in and sits on my lap that is covered by my stitching. I’m snuggled against two children listening to music while I crochet, and it’s a wonderful moment. I want to have more instances when I recognize those kind of small moments when they happen. No matter how irritable and frazzled I am, I want to be able to pause and stretch those instances for the wonders that they are. That’s been a struggle for a while now. It will continue to be a struggle, but I want to succeed in appreciating such value more times than I don’t. I want to record them in these online files because I want to feel them long after the the excerpt of time has passed. One day I’ll read through these random months and years, and I want to be transported back to the feel of my kids resting against me while my fingers move on their practiced impulse. I want to remember that even though I’m not really happy, and can’t seem to control it; I’m loved. I feel the love in every minutia of a burrowed body.
Before the hospital I was really great about stretching many days a week. For whatever reason I’ve not been able to get my act together to stretch lately. I’m middle-aged. Stretching is super important now. My routine is maybe five minutes. I don’t know what the barrier is because I love doing it. I love how I feel after. Getting started to do anything has always been a problem for me…transitions, in general, are a struggle. More than most everything else, stretching has been an insurmountable task completion that I don’t really understand, yet can’t seem to correct.
I need to get back into calling Congress weekly as well. Up until about two months ago I was super consistent. Lately it’s been hard for me to make the calls. Or, if I make the calls, it isn’t all of them. I’m in touch regularly enough with my State Senator; I hound the poor guy on Facebook all the time to the point that he periodically invites me to things. If I catch something in the moment that requires specific action…like calling or emailing my Governor or something, I can usually swing that. But, the ongoing contact has been slipping, and it doesn’t make me happy.
And, then there are the hopeful things I want to pan out. I may or may not have met a friend in my town that has the same political values as me, beyond party affiliation. We would like our town’s Democratic Party to take on certain things. I don’t have the wherewithal to head something like that, but I can definitely support it. He has the ambition to lead that kind of effort, so maybe it will turn into something. A side note, I’ve reached the age when I meet accomplished professionals that are ten years my junior…such a strange thing. I’m not so old, but I guess I’m no longer the spry spring chicken I was. And, some of that is me existing with my kids at home. My world shrank in some ways, and expanded in others, while time does this funny thing that’s hard to describe and explain.
I read a lot, and I mean A LOT…total smut these days, but very well written smut. I’ve found some authors I adore in the process. I usually have a range of things I read based on my attention span, which is a wispy thin hair these days. Consequently my higher brow, more sophisticated and more challenging of a read books cannot happen. I miss my nonfiction stuff, but can’t attend to it still. I ended up renewing my Smithsonian magazine subscription, which I haven’t had for years now. I finally received my first issue, which is full of random information goodness. I suppose that feels like progress to me. With all of my learning and probably complicated with my mental health stuff, it feels good to feel like I can return to nonfiction text, even if it’s in a limited capacity. Anything moving in the right direction is a good direction no matter how minuscule that momentum is. I looked at the Table of Contents, and didn’t know where to start, so I suppose the beginning is as good a place as any.
And, as much as I’m not a fan of outside, I think I need to try to get out more…get some fresh air. I don’t leave the house anymore unless it’s to drop-off Warrior Queen at school. But, I can feel my world getting so small. I miss my friends and the semblance of a social life I’d managed, but I’m crawling inward, I think. Lately it’s been a hardship to reach out to others altogether. I’m doing it, I suppose. If I know someone who is having a challenging time, I try to make the effort, but it takes quite a bit out of me to do it. It’s worth the effort, though. I remember when I was depressed in my twenties. I was particularly low and I didn’t have anyone. I didn’t have depression friends…people who would reach out to me no matter how I pushed them away. I’ve always been good at pushing people away, so I try to fight for others even if I’m not so terribly close to someone. I remember the desperation at the time and there was no one and no where to go until I met my husband. Nothing good happens from that kind of suffering.
That probably circles back to small things. I can do small things, and hope it’s enough for someone out there. I think, however, is that I need to start doing a better job at paying attention to myself as well. Intellectually I take notice of my life’s components; sometimes when they are happening. I recognize my dysregulation, even if I’m powerless to do anything about it. I think I need to spend the next year not letting myself get to an extreme before I’m willing to nurture myself. Maybe that will make a difference, not waiting for the bottom to completely fall away.
Asking for help too, though that’s probably not something I can tackle in the next year. It’s too hard. I’ll put a pin in that one and hope to work on it at some point.
What I really want for the next year is out of my control. I want a normal to be more…normal…maybe that will happen, and maybe it won’t. I’m hopeful to return to some normalcy where I can feel good about the tasks I take-on without it feeling like a need to regulate endless and unrelenting anxiety. The new year is poised to bring on a good deal of change on my end…for my whole family. It isn’t bad change, just change. I don’t do well with change as a general statement. I abstractly recognize I’ll be fine, but emotionally I don’t do all that well. I can’t control any of that…the change or the feeling surrounding the anticipation of it, but maybe I can control what I look forward to and what I focus on. It won’t take the nerves, sadness, or anything else away, but maybe it will keep me from sinking or staying in an emotional place I don’t want to be. So, while in the next year I hope for the things outside of myself to improve, maybe in my direct world I’ll try to focus on the progress, and the good. I’ll feel what I feel, but try to let go of the things weighing on me. I’ll try to identify what I need in any given moment or segment of time, and do my best to chase it. I can’t…or shouldn’t hope for things that are outside of what I can impact or control, so circling back to recognition of the things I can. So, while I wait for normal to be a more normal thing…eventually, I’ll take care of me a little more…a little better. I won’t pressure myself to be a way that I’ve come to unrealistically demand of myself. I’m proud of my drive and what I’ve accomplished, but at some point it becomes a torment, so I need to be practical with the entire process. If the world isn’t forcing the pressures on me, then I shouldn’t be either. Ambition is good, but it shouldn’t be at the sacrifice of my peace…maybe in the next 365 that peace will feed the ambition that I haven’t been able to achieve in the distraction of misery.
I’ve probably made it moderately clear that I have my hand in (probably) too many things. I’m a strange one. I muddle through life thinking that I don’t do much with my time unless a friend happens to correct my madness or I make a list. It’s helpful to make a list. It’s kinda like when I have to periodically do a bio for something. Even when I shorthand describe what I do…or have done, I usually take a step back and even manage to impress myself with my hot shit status. I lost one of my life’s all-time closest friends a couple of years ago, and that’s how he described me when I managed my latest credential. He was proud of me, even though it was never something very impressive in my eyes. I come from a high achieving family…another credential is more of an expectation than something spectacular. As is, my own achievements are more acceptable than anything registering some kind of wow factor.
For most of my adult life I’ve been involved in all kinds of social community service things…as many as I could swing with full-time work. Political activism has been new since 2016…I’m a little ashamed it’s taken me so long to be involved, but I suppose it’s better late than never. I’d never phonebanked before or anything like that, but the more I put myself out there, the more things seem less scary. I’ve been phone and text banking for a while now thanks to an activist friend I met on social media. She hooks me up with all kinds of things. If not getting me directly connected with a campaign, she points me in the right direction with organizations…like the Human Rights Campaign. Not everything pans out as a regular gig, but I usually manage something consistent with a side of other things. With COVID that’s taken a hit, like with postcarding, and with the slog of things, I haven’t been as active as I really wanted to be, but I guess I’ve been taking some part.
One of my regular phonebanks was the Jamie Harrison campaign…a lovely experience. There was something comforting committing to each Saturday for a couple of months. I don’t always communicate with organizers, but I did for this campaign, and there is something just…snug about tapping into these kinds of communities of workers. Like I’m part of something right and important. I’d been using this kind of stuff to help me manage my anxiety. Though I never rebounded to the levels I was at from before my hospital situation, the calls added up. I think I ended up with 800 calls made for Jamie, plus however many texts. I know there are people who do so much more than what I was capable of, but I’m not on the sidelines, and that’s important to me…and I’m with other people not on the sidelines. I happen to be especially good at phonebanking, I think. That’s surprising to me, but I guess it shouldn’t be. It’s probably my favorite campaign specific activity to do.
I’ve never bought campaign-ware, so this was an exciting purchase…though not all that flattering…unless I want a Fans Only account or a spot on pornhub. I’ve always been blessed with the girls, but after all of my pregnancy losses, the ladies became HUGE and have yet to go down. I suppose they have a little, as I can squeeze into a G-cup, but it isn’t pretty. Blessings from COVID; I haven’t had to wear a bra for eight-months. I wear this shirt around the house or when I’m going to have some political fun, but with the way the lettering is I look like my chest has its own gravitational pull. Consequently, unless something dire changes, I will not be wearing this shirt out in public.
We’ve been taking some walks around the neighborhood (Yea me!). I’m inconsistent with them still, but I’m better than I used to be. Considering my baseline was the basement, up was really the only way to go. But, it was November, and November is my favorite month. It’s the time of year when the trees are almost naked. The skies are often overcast on the cusp of rain, and the wind gust invigorating without that frigid bone chill that will be present the next month.
It’s been such a strange passage of time, probably for almost everyone. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s as though time has passed, but it doesn’t seem like it has. I’d been saying that my kids will probably be remote by Thanksgiving, and that time is this vicinity…and with the cases dramatically increasing at my son’s school, we are probably a breath away from the remote benchmark. That will be sad for him…for Warrior Queen too when it inevitably happens. I’d been anxious sending the kids to school, but there were no cases in either town by late summer. Our Governor likes to drag his feet with inaction until someone twists his arm into doing his job. Even then he’s fortunate that our Congress is more on the ball. So…here we are…about to be remote…again…it is what it is. I guess I’m grateful that my kids managed some degree of contact with civilization while it was still safe to do so.
And, then there are the random, weird days where you might have the first snow of the season that is more than a flurry. The ground isn’t frozen yet, so this won’t stick long, but it’s enough to delight the kids.
Warrior Queen was without her sometimes beloved brother for this event, but the snow she hounded me to play in the entire morning proved to occupy her for an hour. Mostly she was running through it, and it’s absolutely delightful to watch her run. Warrior Queen is fast, outrunning so many boys older and larger than her. But, the best part is that she will have this determined, serious look on her face as she sprints to nowhere…a purpose I’m sure will grace her features at other points in her life as I’m sure it does mine.
Warrior Queen is a collector. I refer to her as the junk man from the shtetl. Part of her collections consist of various containers housing the sparkly beads that she prizes from the plethora of jewelry she’s made. Sometimes she simply persists in schlepping whatever we thought we already threw in the trash months ago. That’s the thing with our kids. We can’t throw away anything, or if we do, it’s a stealthy maneuver riddled with too many failed attempts. I keep telling my husband that he can’t just ditch things in the regular trash. Inevitably one of the two cherubs will see it and manage to resurrect whatever broken object they had totally forgotten about, but suddenly can’t live without. Buying gifts is such a challenge too because we have to consider what garbage either kid will want to squirrel away for their collection. As creative as I can be, I’m never quite up to snuff when trying to guess what random object will be revered as a priceless treasure left for me to step on because of its status reserved for the middle of our most traveled house walkways.
I really enjoyed this scarf project. I didn’t think I would. Like a lot of my fiber things, it’s mostly about what would eat through my stash. I had several skeins of self-striping sock yarn I didn’t know what to do with. I’ve always found the self-striping yarn better in theory, yet always manage to collect them because I, apparently, can’t help myself…in case anyone was wondering where my kids get their junk collecting tendencies. I was quite sad to see this project end. The remaining yarn went into a pair of ankle socks (also a project I was sad to see end). I would have thought that the distance from the completion of my sock yarn scarf would allow me to stop lamenting it, but alas… I finally went online to see if it was worth buying some more random ones to make another scarf I tell myself I’ll wear, but ultimately won’t. So, what is that, the precontemplation stage? As much as I’m hedging, I know full well I’ll be buying the yarn to make another scarf…and a pair of socks. I give myself such a hard time about these things because apparently there aren’t more worthy things to torment myself about.
The socks are done. I have them exhibited in my last post, but I like this picture. I’m back to working on my giant granny square-esque afghan, which is fun, but huge at this point, and it will only get bigger. Unlike the socks and scarf, I can’t sit with it outside. But, while I can consider the fiber craft pragmatism to keep my hands busy while the kids play, argue, and whine outside; there is also a kind of sadness to the situation.
I miss taking the kids to the after school library activities. Little Man especially loves the Lego Club, and Warrior Queen at the very least just liked playing with the kids. So, while they would play, I’d sit on an uncomfortable stool and drape my afghan over my legs…a good project for the cool building. A really uneventful and small memory, but it was a time not that long ago…just before COIVD. Those were days when I didn’t feel like a terrible, neglectful parent. They were days before the blood clots stormed my lungs, almost killing me. They were the days when I was still teaching and feeling like things were good. Things are good now, I suppose; just different. Pulling out the afghan is a kind of comfort project. They always have been because I’m forever cold and it’s a way to bundle up in a colorful mass stitching away.
But, now it’s a grief project of sorts. Actually, these afghans take so long and follow me to so many places and tasks that they are life projects in a way. They become a weird piece of me…weird because I’m not really spiritual or whatever…but sometimes it feels like the life I’m living while I create each stich is woven into the very fiber. And, with this creation is an extra something, maybe an emotional communication through tactile impressions, that the eventual finished blanket will provide. Then again, it’s probably my overactive imagination. But, I do like sitting in whatever online meeting and having its weight on my lap. I listen or escape or just drift in my mind. Those moments when I’m itchy just under my skin and ready to scream, my fingers move and I’m not thinking.
Moving past precontemplation and out of desperation, I’ve been attempting to buy some more of the self-striping sock yarn I loved so much for another scarf and some socks, but literally everything is sold out. It’s unreasonable how disappointing that is for me.
Disappointments or not, phonebanking returned. I’ve become so efficient at getting through with the campaign volunteering stuff, I guess, that the Georgia Senate runoff scheduling has become very confusing. I cast a wide net because I often don’t hear back from people or organizations. I think my net is a little too wide this time, so the emails have been convoluted to track because campaigns and political entities utilize similar registration sites. I think I finally managed to figure things out…it’s only been a month.
Life is a funny thing too. I tend to be exceptionally hard on myself, as I mention often enough. I don’t have all that much time, especially for something where I can’t really have interruptions. For the general election I managed a teeny tiny amount of volunteering for the cause of voter protection in one of the target states. I’d been irrationally beating myself up because of this personal perception that I didn’t do a good job…or enough. I ended up receiving an email from that effort asking me to help out in GA. So, I’m banking for two campaigns (maybe?) and voter protection, which is fun.
I think I finally managed to figure out the technological stuff too. It’s all pretty similar, but…not. Sometimes it’s a hindrance that I can’t use my cellphone for some of this stuff. I don’t have reception or data on it, so it’s a total nonstarter as a means for any kind of task outside of texting my friends during desperate moments without cookies, which has posed a barrier from time to time. Now and again it’s been frustrating to finally manage to hear from someone only to realize that my method options are completely and irreconcilably incongruent with how they do things. And, I’m a minority with these issues, so it’s not like I can kvetch too loudly without looking obnoxious. It doesn’t happen often, but I still am pins and needles when there is a particular effort I want to take part in.
Often enough I’m just volunteering for a bunch of things that are either some kind of social cause or a specific political opportunity. I’m usually reaching out without any particular focused desire aside from a general wish to be part of a solution or movement in the right direction. Every once in a while there is this deep want. The want scares me because it’s such a hit for me emotionally when I can’t swing it for whatever reason.
None of that helps my random, yet consistent irritability that I’ve been nurturing for…What day is it? It turns me into an award winning parent who barely holds it together when I’m interrupted by inane chatter that is the nature of small children. It’s just so constant and I’m so tired…and stressed in a way that’s hard for me to quantify…or even qualify. It just is.
And, it’s such an uncontrollable thing that may or may not alleviate easily. Little Man wants a story. I’ve been rereading the same paragraph of a book I enjoy for fifteen minutes because of interruption after interruption with a side order of more interruptions. It’s the second children’s tale I’ve been asked to read. A lot of text, which makes reading aloud a challenge in this brain funk fatigue thing I’ve got going on. If I’m honest or willing to put a formal name to it, it’s probably a COVID inspired low grade depression. But, I do like the book, so I comply with only mild guttural grumbles. I liked the other text heavy story as well. Both haven’t managed off the shelves for a while. I read that one too. And, one kid snuggles up to me, periodically kissing my hair, and I just needed that in the moment without realizing. Then the other child nestled into my other side, and it’s sweet…until someone farts, which is not sweet and not what I needed. I laugh easily anyway, so of course farting is hilarious…because I’m a child myself, and that was something I needed as well. The levity didn’t last long, but I’ll take whatever moments I manage because my life is a serious of relentless moments. I want to feel better. I don’t know what it will take, or I do…normal…to rewind time…to recover…to…impossible yearnings. In the absence of all of that, I don’t know what it will take. Maybe one of these days I’ll figure it out.
A Tale of Two Mommies 