Songs…

I am approaching my breaking point. My overwhelming feeling is “I wish I could just stop crying…” but I’m not crying. I am maintaining pretty well on the outside. I am, for the most part, keeping up with feeding everyone, laundry, work, pet care… Fuck, I am even pushing ahead in some areas: getting more competent at my job, decluttering this place, eating better, getting slightly more exercise, I’ve even got a garden plan lurching into motion this week! I’m orchestrating weekly date nights. Fucking date nights! (no pun intended, see? I’m even keeping up my sense of humor!) I am exhausted from this past year plus. This song is just my anthem right now:https://youtu.be/r5yaoMjaAmE (Human, by Christina Perri) closely followed by: https://youtu.be/BF-nZziUCCY (You Don’t Know, by Katelyn Tarver)

I am plodding ahead encouraging, supporting, drying the tears, soothing the fears, reassuring my 3 anxious, autistic, grown children. “Just one step at a time, Sweetie, I’m here, just do one thing at a time, breathe, I’m here, I’m here.” “It’s okay my little love, it’s ok, just keep showing up, that’s the thing, that’s at least 75% of life, you’ll find your people, you DO know how to connect, you have deep connections, look at me, look at my eyes, we have a connection, me and you, that’s not a guarantee, that’s not automatic, even if I wasn’t your mom I would WANT to hang out with you because you are funny, you are kind, you are brilliant! Look at me, look at the cats, look at dad, look at our puppy dog who fucking worships you. Making friends is a skill you can learn. Depression is a LIAR.” “you’re doing great, we all start from where we are, it’s ok, you’re making progress, you’re doing great, I’m here, I’m right here beside you.” I’m getting more sleep lately but this song was my life for parts of this, even before the fucking pandemic: https://youtu.be/cjVQ36NhbMk (How to save a life, by The Fray)

I am grateful to Amanda Fucking Palmer forever for her song that tells the truth of motherhood. She sings about the early days/weeks/months but honestly, the central message holds fucking true. At the end of the day, if everyone is alive, that is a victory, a line in the sand, and we got up the next day and try even harder to be better. https://youtu.be/bDk7CNsQqUk (Mother’s Confession, by Amanda Palmer ~Note LONG song) She’s captured the exhaustion, the frustration and the fears of being in charge of fragile beings. And, while I’m talking about fear, here’s another one that captures all the fears I can barely name for fear of shattering: https://youtu.be/70ApTTyKpdg (Drowning in the sound, by AFP)

It probably seems like all this music is, I don’t know, fucking depressing? But on the rare occasions when I get to play it all and sing and cry, away from the eyes of those who need me to be a rock in this stormcrash life, it helps. I sing loads of other highly emotional songs that are less on the nose too, and I cry and it helps. But I am surrounded by people who need me to be strong, and they never really leave the house, you know? And, for the one who is My rock, I need to keep it together, need to keep pulling beside him so he knows he isn’t carrying it all alone. We have a lot on our plate here and it is what it is, I’m not going to drop in my traces. This is one of the songs that sums up how I feel about our relationship: https://youtu.be/0yW7w8F2TVA (Say you won’t let go; by James Arthur) This one too, adding in the rest we need, the break we’d like to have from responsibilities for a while: https://youtu.be/GemKqzILV4w (chasing cars, by Snow Patrol) How many weddings you think this one gets played at? https://youtu.be/450p7goxZqg (All of me, by John Legend) Anyway, I’ll happily jump on that bandwagon.

I’m ok. I will be ok. Writing all this here helps.

Life is Like Chocolates filled with Toothpaste.

Spring feels like it’s really here so no surprise that snow is forecast for Friday. Sure it’s been up in the mid seventies already but Friday is supposed to have a high of 37 and a low of 32. I feel really bad for all the plants and trees that are out there budding, flowering and leafing like mad.

Things are nuts here, as always, work is crazy for my husband who has six major projects all happening at once in his department because of the infinite wisdom of his employer. They do not understand that if people are forced to do many things at once nothing will really be done well and those people will burn the fuck OUT. I don’t know how he’s stayed in the job for so long. He’s been working so hard through this whole pandemic. Minimum of 60 hour weeks. Even working from home he doesn’t have a sane work/life balance because the work culture seems to be “drive yourself into the ground! Work constantly!” People from his work will email or text him at ANY HOUR day or night. It’s insane. He got 18 texts while he was in a 5 minute shower this morning. Bonkers.

I want so badly for my husband to have a job he loves, a sane work/life balance, and for him to he HAPPY. His employer seems pretty bent out of shape that he is still working from home even though he is at great risk with this virus and its creepy variants. There is an expectation that he will come back to work in person soon even though he doesn’t have a desk anymore as they finally hired a replacement for his last assistant and at long, long, long last hired a 3rd person who is supposed to do helpdesk stuff. His assistant has his old desk and the helper has the old assistant’s desk. There isn’t room for a 3rd desk and his employer’s solution is to have “one of you floating at all times.” Yeah, one of 3 IT people should definitely just wander around, building to building, … all the time, like some sort of nomadic computer tinkerer. That is an example of why I don’t think his current job is a good one. They could give his department more space but they give any and every other department priority over IT no matter how little sense it makes. I honestly don’t know how my husband puts up with it.

We also have a situation at home. My two twenty-something, autistic, transgendered daughters are living at home. One never left and the other bounced home about 2 (?) years ago and was saving money to move out on her own again when the pandemic hit and she had to quit her retail job in a pharmacy to protect her dad. So, for over a year now, she’s had to spend the money she’d saved to get her prescriptions, pay for doctor’s visits, etc. So frustrating for all of us. It is getting to a point where the girls can head out to job hunt again but we’re not quite there yet. I have faith the eldest will get a job eventually, she’s got an employment history, interviews reasonably well and is personable. My middle child has job-hunted for years with no success at all. I don’t think she has even landed an interview. She has no sensibility about how to dress and quirky doesn’t come close to describing her style. She is also very soft-spoken to the point of absurdity. I’ve tried to counsel her on dressing and grooming for a job interview but she is fixed on “How I look shouldn’t matter.” Oh Sweetie, but it does.

Yeah, so, the situation. … that wasn’t the situation. Middle child asked to speak to both my husband and I privately. She brought notes, lots of notes, and told us that Eldest child has been relentlessly harassing her pretty much since she came back home. Eldest has been complaining to me that Middle won’t forgive her for ancient history, Eldest wants to be friends but Middle just keeps rejecting her. I have told Eldest that she cannot force anyone to forgive anything. I have explained that she needs to build trust by doing small, kind things without Any Expectation, and perhaps, over time, Middle might soften. Apparently that has gone in one ear and out the other. It even seems like Eldest might be trying to manipulate how we perceive Middle. Winding her up when we are not in ear shot then asking an “innocent” question and provoking a snarling response from Middle while we can see it. My heart, at this point, is a bunch of jagged glass shards held together with glue that won’t set. We’re trying to figure out what the fuck to do that won’t make things worse. Just up front there are only a few possibilities I can see:

Middle child is lying to us and just hates Eldest and rejects her overtures because of prior bad acts.
Middle child is telling the truth and Eldest is manipulating us so that we only see Eldest trying to be friends and see Middle reacting harshly.
Eldest is so incredibly socially awkward that her acts of harassment are some attempt to be funny and Middle perceives it all as an attack because of old history.

Having raised the two of them, all these many years, these are my thoughts:

Middle child is not lying. She was so on edge she was literally shaking while she talked to us. At the very least, she is telling the truth as she perceives it.
Most likely, Eldest is harassing Middle, she may be stupidly trying to force Middle to interact with her, she may be actively manipulating the situation, and manipulating us, to make Middle look bad because she is refusing to “be friends,” or some other muddle-reasoned thing I can’t grasp.
Eldest has a history of being pretty freaking cruel to middle, there is no denying it, the last time things got physical was 1 /12-2 years ago but it was 100% on Eldest. Middle did exactly as she should have and attempted to walk away from Eldest. She was pursued to her room by Eldest who tried to force her way in while screaming horrible things at Middle. Middle tried to push her door closed but was weak as she was recovering from gastroenteritis (or something? anyway, it led to anemia and made middle exhausted and weak) Middle has PTSD and reacted to what felt like a very dire threat striking Eldest with her palm on the forehead to try and push her out so the door could be close. Eldest responded with repeated elbow strikes to Middle’s neck and shoulders, maybe her head too. I did not witness any of this, neither did my husband, but we heard about the incident from both girls and the accounts only differed on what words were exchanged during the whole thing, really. Each of them felt justified in what they did. … … …

Sometimes I freaking Hate being a parent. WTF? WTF am I supposed to do with this? Talking to Eldest about the situation might cause retaliation. I don’t think dredging up the old physical incident would be helpful at all, though it does add weight and veracity to Middle’s perspective on current events. I need to protect Middle, I need to stand up for her because I know she was the one my ex targeted for extensive punishment that led to her PTSD while he favored Eldest. (Not that is was all skittles and beer for Eldest either but she definitely had it better w/ my ex in most ways) This is Hell. If someone not my kid went after one of my kids, my path would be clear, that person would be made to understand that they would not continue their BS if they wanted to live a long happy life. Undiluted ire is so easy, so straightforward, how easy that would be. But one of my kids is making another of my kids miserable, and I haven’t witnessed any of it so it’s all “she said/she said.” And I don’t want to come down on any of my kids with the wrath of the Elder Gods. This is misery. This is horror.

Middle is relying on my to defend her, to somehow defuse the situation, get Eldest to back the F off so Middle can just live her life in the house without hiding in her room all the time. I need to do something, I just don’t know what, and no matter what the truth is, no matter what I do, this is going to hurt. See why I haven’t been posting much? I totally slacked off because how do I even talk about this stuff? I sound like a crazy person or maybe just an asshole but I am just trying to do the thing that causes the least harm. I’m just trying to help my kids learn to act like human beings and grow the F up and start their lives.

TL/DR: My husband’s job is unreasonably and unnecessarily bad and my older 2 kids = a situation I don’t know how to deal with with my mediocre parenting skills, that I learned mostly from watching nature documentaries as a kid, and my ex is an asshole who I should have found a way to cut out of my children’s lives when they were young.

Kintsugi

Sometimes i feel like i’m just a collection of broken pieces.

I walk around pretending to be a functioning human being.

I have interactions and conversations but i’m only half there because i’m lost in the maze of traumas past.

I’m trying, I’m fighting my very hardest. that you can’t hear my battle cries or see all the blood stuns me

those closest to me suffer through my fucked up reactions to everything

changes in plans that are nothing to everyone else hit me like an avalanche. it is an emergency, a threat, and I come up swinging, panicking, running for my life.

gods forbid someone startles me,

no telling what you will get

anything from falling to the floor crumpled in fear,

to a roar of rage-fueled ready to fight,

or maybe I detach, float in the fuzzy space that is nowhere, cold and safe

watching like an unconcerned, alien observer.

just the smell of the wrong aftershave and I am 5 years old

terrified, nauseated, scrambling to get away, screaming in my head for a mother I didn’t have

the one that would have stood between me and danger,

the one that would have seen,

would have known,

would have prevented me from shattering to pieces

But that isn’t how things happened.

This is what I have.

The child inside of me is defended now

when my inner 5 year old screams

the maelstrom rises to defend her

flaming swords and vicious bloody curses that rend the dark and all the dark things lurking there

but the monsters are all gone

bladed words hit those I would die to protect

in this safe new world

I am still made of broken shards

I keep gluing

and I keep breaking

I’m fighting as hard as I can

battle weary and covered in gore

but making a stand atop the hill

where I drew a line

feet planted

every day finding

there is still fight left in me.

Banner credit: “169/365” by drubuntu is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

November is Here!

It’s windy and spitting snow this morning on the edge of Cold Swamp. Welcome, November! Halloween/Samhain didn’t really happen here. We wore no costumes, didn’t honor our beloved dead, didn’t hand out candy. We watched a couple of scary movies and ate spider donuts, that is about it. Ah well. We’re all stressed and trying hard to just maintain these days.

I harvested the last of the mint yesterday and made fresh mint tea to go with our sausage, meaball, and potato dinner. It was a ridiculously hearty meal. Tonight’s plan is lentil soup to make up for it. I’ll be at work when my little clan eats it but I’ll either bring some to work or eat when I get home. I love Fall and Winter, love the cold, love coming in from the cold to find the warmth of our fire and drink hot drinks, love the dark that makes our home a little island of light and comfortable coziness. I love wearing the cozy layers of soft clothes, I love being able to stand wearing them without dying of heatstroke, and I love the long, long season of baking and making soup. I love the contrast of the cold and raw outside with the heat indoors. And I love the long, dark nights, the hush of falling snow, and the scent of woodsmoke in the air. I will be making my usual lentil soup, squash soup, and hopefully leek and potato soup, as well as searching for new soups to add to the line-up.

And baking! Oh the bread, the cookies, the homemade cakes! I’m all geared up and ready to shop for feast food here. Got my lists ready to go and might do a few practice runs of some of the trickier items. Muahahaha. Yum. I might try to flip lemon bread and make it with lime since I can’t have lemon anymore. I may have to learn to make pies… I’m not great at it, I can do it, but everyone else’s are better, it is known.

Fun fact: The house banners from last Xmas/Yule are still up. Yeah, I know, but it’s true. I like to leave them up till sometime in February but this past Feb we were looking at the progress of Covid19 and I thought how the banners coming down each year made me all wistful and I thought I’d leave them up a while longer, you know? until the crisis was past? Yeah, at this point I just don’t know what to tell you. Will it ever be past? I hope so. I really hope so.

Our 18th wedding anniversary is coming up. My husband asked me yesterday what I want to do for it. He is not in a good headspace at all and this was clear as anything when he asked that question. So I asked him what he wants to do and he said something like: “Our options are nil.” It’s sort of true in that we don’t have the option to go out to dinner, or to a movie, or even to go out and browse a bookstore together. (all traditional anniversary activities for us) But I mean we do have options. We could make a nice dinner and eat by candlelight, we could read aloud to each other, we could borrow a movie from the library or watch one of our favorites we already have kicking around. We could even go freeze to death in the shed to get away from the kids for a bit. Insulation and a tiny woodstove have to be the next things for the shed. Yep. How cool would that be?

As much as I love my shed it seems the garden is the priority. I have a very cool lady coming next week to start preparing the first of our gardens. The idea is that it will be sitting there ready for next Spring when it’s time to plant. She’s also going to work on expanding and diversifying our berry patch. I have such endless dreams for this project/series of projects, endless. So many things I want to grow. I can’t wait to be growing and harvesting FOOD.

Tune in next time for who knows what rambling! I should have garden progress updates sometime next week,

At a Loss

My Uncle died yesterday morning, on his daughter’s birthday as if dying with so little warning wasn’t traumatic enough, my poor cousin. I’m heartbroken for her, her children, my other cousin, my other uncles, my mother and my aunt. He’s the first to go of his generation in my family. I am having feelings but I couldn’t describe them accurately if I tried. The whole thing is surreal. I didn’t see him often, maybe a few times a year in a good year, so it won’t change very much in my day-to-day world but it leaves a lot of things unsaid, unresolved.

There was a big upset when I was still little, at my grandmother’s birthday gathering, at our house. My uncle got very upset over something, supposedly he was jealous that my mother’s inexpensive present to Gramma got a bigger reaction than his expensive present, so this uncle grabbed one of my other uncles and took off. When they came back they had alcohol with them, beer I believe, and that wasn’t allowed at family gatherings for some reason, so my grandfather raised his voice at these 2 uncles and the uncle who just died grabbed his wife and kids and stormed off in a huff. He prevented all contact with the whole family for several years. I couldn’t see or talk to my cousin and I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. When he decided to have contact with the family again there was no explanation, no discussion, let’s just pretend all that never happened. That has never been good enough, it’s bullshit. I mean I know my grandfather raised his voice over the beer thing, and I’m sure that humiliation is why this uncle took off that day, but was all this idiocy started because my mother’s gift was more thoughtful and more well-received? That seems flimsy to me. Plus, my mother is the person who told it to me so it is immediately suspect. She lies like it’s breathing, like the lies she tells keep her alive, and she doesn’t admit anything that makes her look bad so there could be a lot of things she might want to hide. I don’t know though, and now I think I might never know.

So I’ll remember him best for that, for taking my cousin away and not allowing us to see each other or talk to each other for years. I’ll remember him too for being one of 2 uncles who utterly ruined the piddly-ass, bullshit gathering we had to spread Gramma & Grampa’s ashes, several months after they were killed. I will remember him for not allowing a single moment of silence, of reflection, not one single moment for so much as one meaningful word before he and my other uncle unceremoniously dumped my grandparent’s ashes into the river, not even allowing all of us to arrive on the bank. “They didn’t want any funeral!” He and the other uncle snarled when everyone expressed shock and dismay over their actions. I am still furious every time I think of it. I waited months, there was no funeral, no memorial, just as my grandparents wanted. I wasn’t the only one who expected a moment of silence and perhaps a little sharing of memories, nothing formal, nothing to violate their wishes. My memories of him are not fond ones. The brother who always leapt to be his partner in crime also remains not one of my favorite people. The both of them have always seemed to me to be harshly rules-oriented people without the kindness that can make such people decent and good. There seemed to be no mercy in their strict attitudes. Other people have had different experiences of my late uncle, and of the one still here who always helped him. I’m glad.

I guess, not having known him well enough to have anything much beyond these stark experiences, I guess I won’t really mourn him. He wasn’t much a part of my life and most of what I remember of him isn’t very pleasant. I feel like I should be sad to lose him but I only feel sad for the others who lost him. I guess they had good times with him, good experiences, happy memories. I only have what I mentioned above and fleeting memories of brief shallow conversations at family gatherings, and briefer, perfuntionary hugs. I never had a real conversation with him so what could I find to miss? For myself, not a lot. For my cousins, they lost their father and I hope that he was a decent one. I hope he was kind and patient with them, I hope there is a lot to miss. I hope he was a good husband and A tremendous loss to my aunt. I hope he was thoughtful, kind and supportive to his little family. I hope he is missed and mourned. I wish I had seen his good side, been allowed to know him more, it’s too late for that now. This is what I have and I’ll do with it what I can.

Comfortably Numb

A lot can change in a day. Yesterday I was focused on my health and work and getting in some reading time. Today I’m wondering if my uncle is still alive. He was diagnosed with cancer about a week ago, maybe two, yesterday he was rushed to the hospital and isn’t expected to live through the weekend. He’s someone I haven’t been close with. There was some kind of weirdness between my mother and he and a big confrontation at a family party, he took off and wouldn’t talk to anyone, for years. I haven’t been much of a fan of his since then. He took my cousin away from me, and I loved her, I honestly have no idea WTF his problem is. The explanation was that he was pissed with my mother because he spent $$$ on some cuckoo clock for my Gramma and my mother had Gramma’s poems typed up and bound for her for $ and Gramma was more moved by the book. ??? So he and my other uncle took off and came back with a bunch of beer… when apparently no alcohol was allowed at family parties. My Grampa raised his voice over it and this uncle grabbed his family and dropped off the face of the Earth for several years. I missed my cousin horribly and he had literally snatched her up from where we were playing and stormed off without letting us say goodbye. He’s been a little mellower in the past decade or two but his actions have never been addressed. I’m sorry he’s dying, very sorry for my dear cousins who are losing their dad, their kids who are losing their grandfather, my aunt, my mom, my other uncles, but my personal feelings are… unknown to me. I feel something, I feel disturbed, upset in some way I can’t name, and sad for everyone that we’re in a pandemic so hospital visits or a funeral are all fraught with danger.

Maybe my muted feelings are just some shade of denial. Since I can’t do what I would usually do, visit, help, hug everyone, maybe my brain is just tamping it all down because it would drive me to distraction if I could feel all my own sadness, if I felt it all enough to break all the rules I’ve been living by for so many months. I can’t go to a funeral, even if it’s outdoors, and everyone is masked, because how the fuck do you go to a funeral and NOT hug all the crying people??? I couldn’t do it, I would break, and that would risk my husband’s health and my daughters. So, I guess this strange, removed feeling is a good thing, for me at least, and at least for now. Hopefully sending cards now will suffice and hopefully they will wait and hold the funeral when it becomes safe to do so.

Everything else: my doc never called yesterday so no news there. I got through my shift at work despite my mother’s phone call to tell me about my uncle. The spaghetti sauce seemed to be well received so I guess it tasted good. I’m still reading, still crafting, still picking berries in the yard and attempting to further propagate my mint. Oh! And I appear to have accidentally grown a squash or pumpkin plant by my compost patch! It’s such a pretty plant I can’t wait to see what it grows. If it produces any squash or pumpkins or whatever it will be a first for me! Tempest the Blight Druid claws her way toward becoming a regular Druid. ^_^ That is very exciting for me. I hope it produces. I will dance and sing if it does.

Now I will scamper off and bake something yummy. I’ve been craving sweet comfort food since I got the news about my uncle. I am not going to drink wine or beer, which I also crave, because I am babying my liver now at least until I find out what is going on with it. I need my liver. I’ll run may game tonight and hopefully not accidentally oversee a TPK! (total party kill) I thought about calling off the game tonight because I feel so unsettled but, since I can’t go to the hospital or otherwise help anyway, sticking to my routine and spending time with my friends may just be the best thing I can do.

Dispatch From Under my Bed

Nope. Nope, nope. Not going to talk about the state of the world or all the craziness going on right now. I’ve focused on the crazy already, elsewhere, and I’m going to let this blog be a place of refuge from turmoil, strife and fear.

I found no blackberries in our yard this morning, and was only able to find a few golden raspberries, but there are bushes out in the neighborhood that are producing and I’ll probably hit some of them later. Our bushes are still heavy with not-yet-ripe berries, and we are getting a bit more rain lately, so maybe we’ll have more blackberries soon. Our staghorn sumac is finally producing! I was able to harvest 7 berry clusters this morning and they are now soaking in cold water for a day so I can make my family some pink “lemonade.” I can’t drink it because I am allergic. Sad story, I am allergic to lemons but in a Wild Foods class I took I learned that staghorn sumac tea was the original pink lemonade. It tastes just like it! I got to drink it 2 maybe 3 times before I became allergic to it. I was so excited to have lemonade again… a major letdown, but my family can still enjoy it so I make it.

Got through book 3 of the Demon series: Secrets of the Demon; by Diana Rowland. Really loved it as I have all of them so far. A little iffy on the ending but I am willing to see where the author takes it in the next book: Sins of the Demon. I love her books for many reasons, but the best thing for me is that I haven’t unraveled her endings before I got to them, not in any of books 1, 2, or 3, and that is a rare and happy event for me. I mean, sure, there’s something ego-boosting about figuring out whodunit all the time, but it’s also kind of tedious too depending on how early I’m sure I’ve figured it out. I don’t know why but I’m good at figuring these things out and it makes me appreciate writers who can surprize me, especially when I can look back over the story and actually see the hints that were so skillfully obscured. Suddenly seeing the red herrings for what they were is wonderful. Her white Trash Zombie series is wonderful too, I should get back on that, I think I’m on book 4 or 5 of that one.

Here at the homestead we are focusing on our many games. We’ve started to split off from each other a bit, which is weird. The girls are in games with friends, my eldest even dropped out of the family game, our boy dropped out of the circus game too which means my husband and I are in/running 2 games with none of the kids involved. It’s probably a good thing. Someday things will be more normal and we’ll leave the house for jobs and school and social stuff and it’s good the kids are taking steps and branching out before we get to that. We should encourage our boy to join a game with friends online too.

The reopening of the library continues. It looks like the trustees have approved opening for August 1st. We will start allowing a maximum of ten patrons at a time in to use our computers. Supposedly there will be no browsing allowed, not sure how that’s going to go over. Hopefully it will go well. There are still some layers of approval to get through, the Board of Health and the Select Board must approve the plan before we go forward with it, so it might not happen the way it’s written right now. It seems fairly reasonable to me, if the plexiglass is in place and I am not expected to leave the staff area to interact with patrons, I think I can handle it.

For all my worries about the virus, I am also stressed with the tons of extra work I’m now expected to do. Patrons can’t come in and browse and many of them can’t figure out how to properly reserve things online, so they call us with lists. That’s fine when it’s a few patrons a day but right now it’s many more than a few, and it’s overwhelming. I’m enunciating through my mask into the phone, trying to type or write with one hand, the computer is slow, the patrons are often incorrect that their searches have verified we have the item in our collection, and I have to apologize constantly, explain constantly, etc. After all that, I have to enter everything into the new curbside pick-up spreadsheet we’re supposed to keep. Pus the near endless procedures of quarantining and disinfecting every item coming into the library, all the doors, and everything we touch during our shifts. It’s a lot. I get it, I know it’s all for the best, but we are not working a single extra minute on this stuff. We have the same shifts we used to have only now we’re supposed to add in all this extra stuff and that is just going to get worse for a while as we slowly open up.

After each patron’s computer appointment we are going to have to sanitize the computer, mouse, desk, and chair. We are going to have to field all the phone requests by patrons who haven’t had access to a computer in months, collecting information like name, age-range, phone number, whether they will need to use the printer, etc. We will be enforcing 30 minute limits for the first time since I’ve been working there and requiring patrons to leave the building when they are done. They can’t pick out a book or movie while they are there, at least I think that’s how we’re planning on doing things at first, so we have to enforce that as well.

Lingering, nagging doubts about reopening are with me constantly. The emphasis from my boss is; “if you don’t feel safe with the way we are planning on opening, tell me what concrete steps I can take that will make you feel safe with reopening.” But the only thing that would make me feel safe would be not opening. At this point we are looking at pretty flat numbers in the state, which is lovely, but a lot of people were really stupid only about a week ago, around the 4th, and we won’t see if we will get a spike in cases from that for at least 1-2 more weeks. Add another week onto that to see how bit that potential spike will be. The crazy thing is we’ve been loosening restrictions across the state without pausing long enough to see how that loosening is affecting the infection rate. I’m afraid by the time we see the spike, and even later when officials finally admit that it’s a problem, and even later when they Hopefully lock things down again… it’ll be too late. It’ll be a disaster we can’t hope to contain. We’ll be utterly fucked.

Limiting my exposure to the news isn’t helping. I can be adequately informed as to what’s going on or I can be calm, I cannot have both. I very badly need both somehow. It doesn’t help that my husband feels a need to stay up to date with the news, or that his brother calls and fills him in on any horror he’s happened to miss. It doesn’t help that ignoring all the horror doesn’t make it go away and i know that. I need a break. I need 2020 to give us all a break, to give us something good, something really, really good, something helpful, something hopeful, something less stampede-toward-total-dystopia-ish.

So here I am. Here we are. Tonight will be the last cool night for quite a while. So I think I need to sleep in the fort tonight. In an ideal world, I would arrive home tonight to find a note from my hubby saying “meet me in the fort.” and I would get out there to find a nice dinner, lit candles, jazz playing, and wine. I know, that’s the date I put together for him a while back, it’s the date I need tonight, but I have to go to work. Maybe I can pull it off somehow? I’m having trouble seeing how.

Not Digging Phasing Back to “Normal”

We’re easing back into the work routine, it’s going fairly well, despite one abusive patron already, during my second shift back. Keep it on the road lady, I haven’t used the system or tried to locate a book or dvd in months! Oof. I have caught up with making all the flyers I need to and am working on assembling materials for the take-home crafts, and packets of information for the contests I’ll be running and things like that. I’m learning all the new protocols, all the new procedures, etc, even as we wait to phase most of it out whenever that happens. I’m enjoying being back in the building, being among the books, getting to casually chat with a coworker, even at a distance and through our masks. I’ve got my new materials budget starting next month, it’s been slashed, but I will make do. I’ll hunt for what bargains there are to be had, solicit more donations of gently used books, etc. That’s all good. And yet I am still contemplating quitting my dream job.

I get stressed out having to go there, stressed by the extra steps we need to go through to track curbside pick up, stressed trying to talk on a phone through a mask, while the phone slips against the mask as I try to use the computer, stressed by all the cleaning, the cleaners make my skin peel, the gloves make my hands wildly sweaty and uncomfortable, I’m just very stressed by work right now and by the pace at which people are rushing to “get back to normal” without adequate time between steps to see what impact the lifting of restrictions will have on virus spread. They are just going to create a new surge of this horrible virus and we are all going to be forced to quarantine again. 😦

Stress is a big factor in my negative feelings toward working, but it isn’t the only factor. I got used to a new, softer rhythm of life, I have been able to be a better wife, better mother, better pet-mom, vastly more prolific artist, and despite all the stress of the pandemic a generally happier person in a bunch of ways. I had more time to read, more time to learn new things, I liked it. Normalcy kind of sucks. Being stressed, rushing places, having to plan dinner for my family and a stupid, sad separate dinner for myself. (usually a couple of granola bars and some water for me. bleh) Not working allowed me to reach out, online of course, and keep up with my friends more, connect in new, untried ways that have turned out to be hella cool. I feel more of a sense of community with all my friends than I did when we were all rushing out to jobs all the time, driving kids around, constantly running errands and busy, busy, busy! Not that I was idle at home, I mean now I am cause it’s a billion degrees out, but I was painting, writing, working from home, cooking a lot, reading, planning, dreaming, just living. And it was good.

We’ve been lucky, we’ve been able to continue to work from home through this nightmare, we have been getting paid when others have been laid off temporarily or permanently, lost their insurance and suffered hunger while not being able to pay their bills. We have friends who are struggling through this and it’s just so stressful. We help where we can but I wish we could do more. I want to fix all the problems and it sucks that I can’t, that I have to choose where I feel like we can make the best impact at any given time. When the virus comes roaring back and we are all forced to go back home I think it might be worse the second time around. Folks that lost jobs will probably still be out of work and how are they supposed to eat and live if our damn government doesn’t support its citizens? Doesn’t ban evictions and suspend the machinery of rent and mortgage collection and tell the greedy utilities they aren’t allowed to shut people off? If our government was more functional we would have universal health care, a strong safety net, and much else that the rest of the civilized world already has. We need to fix that!

Sunday, Relaxing,& Thinking

The hippie fort soothes me. It turns off the jagged, jangling, screaming of my overwhelm and lets me rest. Out there, 30 yards from the house, there is no TV, the internet is slow and unreliable, and time slows down. I colored for a bit while my husband took a turn reading the book we’re reading aloud to each other: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; by Becky Chambers. It is a great, fun read so far. It’s got a little of the flavor of Firefly plus… something else, with aliens and such, and the characters are wonderful so far. We are enjoying it so much we might make it a family read-aloud in the near future. ^_^

I finished The Year of Less; by Cait Flanders. Terrific book, just what I needed to motivate me. I’ll be getting started on Step One soon; Declutter your House. It sure needs it! So much stuff. Why? So much. The not spending much has happened on it’s own due to the global pandemic but it’s still something I’m going to have to track as the world struggles to go back to some kind of normal. I don’t want to slip into old, unconscious habits that were dragging us down. Hmmm, I guess I’m going to need some boxes and some bags, I have a lot of stuff to go through.

Mother Issues (etc.)

74 days of isolation and all is well at our house… or at least relatively so. We are all covid free as far as we know, all still at home, still able to get food and water. We are very lucky.

We’re still gaming a lot. Preparing to add more games and more players to the mix going forward. Lots of fun to be had there. We’re preparing to face decisions about going back to physical workspaces relatively soon as the state opens up. My Director just mentioned having the library actually open in some fashion by mid June. Color me terrified/skeptical. If we open and the spike in cases comes later I am naturally extremely reluctant to be exposed to this monstrous disease or have my vulnerable family members exposed, at the same time I doubt/hope it won’t happen that we won’t open then because the spike comes in time for us to change course on that. If I just babbled some kind of incoherent nonsense, I apologize, my focus has been suffering lately.

Last night, as I was gaming with some distant friends, my sister started texting me about how our mother has been ripping her down about her adorable little craft business. WTF? I have so many objections to this treatment of my sister. #1. Who does that? Who wants to just rip someone down over their art that they enjoy? It is so the worst sort of Jr. High viciousness #2. Who does that to their own daughter??? #3. WHY??????? WTF???? Ok, I have a pretty good idea wtf: jealousy. Our mother started behaving in a competitive manner toward us as soon as each of us approached puberty. When we started looking like attractive young ladies she clearly freaked out internally and started treating us like crap. (In new and exciting ways she hadn’t tried before!) If we, as teenagers, dressed attractively, wore any makeup, talked to or about boys, etc etc. she would call us “whores” and other choice words, accuse us of sleeping around, restrict the hell out of us, etc. I remember her flirting with boys we brought around, putting us down as we were just not as good as her, as popular as her etc. It was ridiculous. So, my sister is better educated than our mother, has more money and success and that sort of thing, which is not my sister’s focus but is probably why our mother is digging at her.

See, the thing is, my mother and her husband run a successful online business that has supported them for more than several years. They ship worldwide, they have a showroom that people occasionally come and peruse, (not often, it isn’t really public) but they sell tons online, more so now in the pandemic because those who can still afford to shop are doing it online. So my sister, who has a great job already at like a company, started making these terrific crafts and a local place or two near her started selling some, and she made so many she started selling them online. She did it more or less on a lark, maybe as a little experiment. She loves making these things, they are lovely, so she put them out there. Knowing she can afford to do this experiment who wouldn’t be encouraging of her hobby/business? That’s right! Our mother. My sister can’t say anything about her little fledgling business without our mother shitting all over it and bragging about how much money her business makes…. and our mother asks and asks about it so she can get her digs in! If my sister responds with any kind of ‘hey, wtf, don’t pick on me’ all of a sudden mother dearest cannot understand WHY Sis is so upset or angry? “why are you mad at me?” So Sis needed to vent, needed a little TLC from someone else who regularly receives such bullshit abuse and understands the horrible bind one is in when being tortured by a narcissist.

Sis? 100%: I feel ya! We got through our childhood alive. We somehow all grew up and eventually chose good, loving husbands. We managed to raise kids who are all wonderful in their unique ways and we LOVE OUR KIDS and SUPPORT them. We are fucking superheroes! We have grown kids, almost grown kids, and a few younger kids, and all of them are good, kind people who still love us. With any luck they will bitch in their like spaceship voice logs or whatever about how we moms all bother them with space-care packages too much, or how we sometimes interfere with grandkid’s homework because we want to talk to them every day. But they will never, Never have to rant to each other or cousin to cousin about how we tear them down, insult them, manipulate them, or make them feel like shit. Our kids won’t have that to deal with because we are goddamn amazing phoenixes rising from the ashes and ruin we were subjected to, and we have all fought hard to be good moms and we have succeeded. I don’t know, maybe our mother is jealous of that? Jealous of the happiness we have each found in so many ways so she wants to damage it, drag us down, make us as miserable as she is? Whatever her damn issues are, they are not ours, and I’ve got your back. Bitch to me whenever you need to. I get it, girl, I hear you.