kdiddy.org

When we were on our little writers’ retreat in Las Vegas last year, I admitted to the MamaPoppers that I don’t really like much of the stuff that I write. I think a lot of people are that way. It’s like hearing your recorded voice played back to you. Your voice always sounds like you’re 10 and your writing always reads like gibberish and bad metaphors. I mean, there are plenty of times that for whatever reason I don’t put forth my best efforts and I think that’s easily detected and sometimes I try with all that is in me to write something I like and it just doesn’t happen.

This post just kind of came out of me. It’s not perfect, it’s not even proofread, but it felt good to write and I even enjoyed reading it. I actually wasn’t embarrassed by it and told a few people that I would like them to read it.

Yesterday, Lisa Stone informed me via Twitter that that post had been selected to be featured on BlogHer.com’s Voice of the Week column and I nearly cried. It meant a lot to me that someone read that and related to it and perhaps felt a little less alone…or at least liked the writing.

The meltdown that I wrote about wasn’t the last one that I would have that week. I had a doozy on Saturday. I think the lesson that I need to take away from this is to have tiny meltdowns more regularly rather than bottling them up and exploding every few weeks. Less angry, more often. That’s my motto.

This morning I was thinking that it would be hilarious if I decided to become a life coach. My clients would come to me and say, “I don’t know what to do with my life. I’m unhappy.” And my advice would be, “Well, first you’re going to need a cake or three. And gin. Set those aside for now. Then I want you to lash out at everyone for things that you can’t change. Now, you’re going to want to crumple up your face and sob until your shirt has snot all over it. Finally, slice up your cake(s) and dip the slices in gin. Consume. Repeat as needed.”

Not really related to either of those things, I’ve gone back to a full RSS feed. I had originally gone to excerpts last year after some sort of feed-scraping incident freaked me out. Hopefully, that won’t be a problem again. And hopefully you bums will still click through and comment.

Want to hear something kind of mushy and pathetic? The husband was out of town the last two nights, therefore I couldn’t get to sleep. I guess when you sleep with someone most nights for 10 years, not having them next to you is distracting.

Wednesday night, I tossed and turned until after 2 a.m. and didn’t have a very restful sleep. I woke up a little bit later than I wanted to and when I reached for my glasses on the nightstand, I couldn’t find them. I started cursing my cat, because he occasionally takes it upon himself to nudge my glasses onto the floor, which is really just kind of mean considering how bad my eyesight is.

As I looked around, I realized that everything looked very strange and it took me nearly a minute to realize that the reason my glasses weren’t on my nightstand was because I never put them on the night before. And the reason I never put them on is because I never took my contacts out. And the reason everything looked so strange is that I’m not used to being able to see anything first thing in the morning.

So, summing up: tired, squinty.

Before he left, the husband and I had a pretty good conversation about our direction in life. I don’t know if I can say that any resolutions were made, but it was a far more productive conversation than the one we had the other night.

We’re struggling to adjust our perceptions, I think. We agreed that things beyond our predicament are changing. If the economy recovers, it won’t be the same.

We both grew up steeped in the ethos of, “If you work hard and go to school and keep aiming high, you’ll be fine.” None of our parents went to college. But they got decent jobs and worked hard. While they did okay, they struggled and believed that if they had gone to school they would have been in much better positions in life. Building some savings, not having to worry so much during hard times, and being able to set money-related goals and meeting them. The husband and I were never interested in becoming rich, but seeing our parents worry about money so much and the strife that it caused made us resolve to do whatever we could to not live that way. We were going to take off from the foundation that our parents provided and end up on a higher plane.

What we’re realizing, REALLY realizing, now is that it’s not just our resolve and hard work that controls our fate. It may end up that our investments in our education were riskier than we thought. It may be that they/we weren’t as successful as we just knew that they/we were going to be, that we weren’t on a voyage toward financial security, but instead taking a gamble and crossing our fingers. And, you know, I guess it’s okay that we might fall short of our goals.

But we also agreed that things could be much worse for us. We could have no education, we could be stupid, we could be without families that help us any way that they can.

Last night, the baby and I ate dinner on the porch because it was too hot to eat inside. Afterward, he wanted to take a walk up and down our street. As we got to the end of our block, he managed to convince me to keep walking down to our main street and get some ice cream.

“Let’s play follow the leader!” he shrieked as we headed back home. I imitated his hops and robot moves and then it was my turn. I led him in the Ministry of Silly Walks walk, which is kind of difficult to do uphill.

I forget what we had argued about. Most likely the fact that it was time to take a bath and go to bed. And most likely the center of the disagreement was the fact that it was still light out. Because it was summer, the sun was still blazing in the sky at bedtime, though heavy with August and reflecting an almost sepia tone on our street, making even the cicadas sound drowsy and sweaty.

My mom stomped to the bathroom, muttering, and angrily turned on the bath. I flung myself onto my bed with all of the angst that I could muster in my 5-year-old self and cried because it, whatever injustice I was suffering at the time, was simply not fair.

I fell asleep within seconds and quickly dreamed about sliding down a long, long tree trunk. I woke up, startled, just a minute or two later. The bath was still running and I was surprised at how deeply I had slept in such a small space of time.

My face was still wet from my tears and my curly, red hair clung to my temples, glued by the feverish sweat of an early summer evening nap. My eyes fluttered up to see the house across the street. Old, yellow brick and so very, very bright, especially with that lazy sun beating down on it. Its garish warmth did something to me, reset me somehow. A car roared down our cobblestone street and I gathered myself up off the bed. I stripped my clothes off and tiptoed to the bathroom, sheepishly avoiding my mom’s gaze as I dunked myself into the tub.

Last night, we came home and I stared at the mismatched contents of our kitchen. Payday and mortgage due date had come and gone, leaving us with just a few dollars for the next two weeks. In that space, we needed to eat.

Nothing was going the way I wanted it to. I was so fucking sick of our unemployment and underemployment woes I was ready to kick something. How had we screwed up so badly in our march through adulthood? And how much of this was our fault?

The ceiling fan buzzed above me, circulating the same stale air over and over as I grabbed a half-used box of elbow macaroni and a half-used box of tubetti. I knew we had butter and milk and flour and cheese. I poked my head into the living room and said, “Macaroni and cheese?” My husband shrugged and said, “Sure. That’s fine.”

I went through the motions of boiling water, adding the collage of pasta, adding the flour to the melted butter, the milk, the cheese. But something went wrong. The cheese started to melt but then coagulated into a disgusting lump in the middle of the pot. I stirred and stirred and it got worse. It veered into ruin when I optimistically added the drained noodles.

I angrily stabbed at the lumpy mixture with my wooden spoon and for a second entertained the thought of dramatically tossing the whole mess into the street and stomping it into the ground. I can’t make more money and my husband can’t even get a job and I think we’re giving up and now I can’t even make fucking macaroni and cheese?

This is just not fair. It’s not fair, dammit.

I stomped into the living room and dramatically flung myself into the big, blue, faux-leather, hand-me-down recliner with all of the angst that I could muster in my 31-year-old self. “Dinner’s fucking ruined,” I spat, not really looking at my husband from his spot on our creaky hand-me-down couch that regularly shit grease and sawdust and odd nuts and bolts onto our hand-me-down rug.

“Eh, whatever, dude. I’m not that hungry,” he said.

“I want out. Out of this house, out of this city, out of everything that isn’t working here.” I babbled.

He didn’t have any sympathy to offer and we bickered for a second, exchanging sarcastic suggestions in sharp tones, saying things we didn’t really mean but taking sick pleasure in making someone else feel shitty.

I stopped talking and the tears came. It wasn’t a dramatic cry, just a spilling over that needed to release. I was quiet, but breathed a little heavier as I waited for it, whatever this was, to end.

After a few minutes, I felt a little calmer, and the whine of the cicadas outside made my eyes dart toward the window, where I saw the yellow house across the street. Old, yellow brick and so very, very bright, especially with the lazy mid-summer sun beating down on it.

I wiped my face and swiped at the sweat on the back of my neck, stood up and went back to the kitchen. Looking at the ruined dinner, I rolled my eyes. “So typical,” I muttered. “Don’t have any money and I waste a ton of food.”

Looking around, I grabbed a baking dish and switched on the oven, then dumped the whole sad affair into the dish. When the oven clicked, indicating that it was done heating, I shoved the dish into the oven and waited about a half hour.

My son and I piled onto the couch and turned on Jaws and I told him my estimates of how many times I’d seen that movie. “At least 100 times. Maybe even 200.” He was impressed.

I pulled the dish out of the oven and was satisfied with the results. Not great, but not ruined anymore. I stuck my head back into the living room. “Somewhat salvaged macaroni and cheese?” I offered.

Work. Collapse. Wallow. Try again. The yellow house across the street cooled as the sun disappeared for the night.

I sat down at my desk last Wednesday morning, tired, sore, and frazzled from sleeping through my alarm and having to rush out the door. The familiar sounds of my daily life made their way back into my brain and I became kind of sad. I was glad to be home, as I always am, particularly because my back could not sustain another night in our discount motel room bed. But having spent so many days in a row with some of my favorite people on the planet made settling back into the normal groove of things difficult.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we were in Detroit over Memorial Day weekend for the music festival and its related events that we attend every year.

Probably only the folks who have at least a passing interest in the music featured will care about my evaluation, but those of you who don’t might appreciate a glimpse into the subculture where I spend part of my time.

To sum it up: Nothing gold can stay. I don’t think anyone really believes that the accidental beauty of the first few years of the festival could ever last and I don’t think anyone is opposed to change, but there’s a difference between changing and blatantly going down the quickest path to the most possible money, all while spewing empty platitudes about “internationalism.” If the only way to have a festival every year is to churn out such nonsense, then it’s best to let it die gracefully before it’s too late.

People like me and my husband and many of our friends got into dance music in various ways. At the time that we all met, the best way to hear dance music in all of its genres was at raves, which at the time (the late 90s) were already past their prime. Occasionally, there was an all-ages night at a club, but those were never that great. Whatever half-hearted interest that I had in the culture of raving was pretty much gone after about a year and a half of going to them. I liked staying out all night, I liked dancing, I liked hanging out with my friends. I didn’t care for the pseudo-infantile behavior that began to dominate the culture. But, and I still maintain this viewpoint today, just because I think something is dumb, it’s not hurting anyone, so you go ahead and cuddle your teddy bear and suck on lollipops, even though I’m pretty sure I just saw a grey hair on your head.

Music and culture changes and out of the quintessentially 90s and neon versions of house and techno and the like, a new version emerged. One that was more grown-up, deeper. Baby-making music, if you will. Or perhaps just a mature and refined iteration of what came before it. There was no particular culture attached to it. Adults who still preferred to dress like Rainbow Brite were welcome to attend clubs where this kind of music was played, though the spectacle of, “Look at me! I’m shiny and glittery and dancing with glow sticks! LOOK AT ME!” had definitely been replaced by a feeling of letting only the music be the focal point, allowing listeners to truly lose themselves in it and dance and be free. Letting go of the ego and letting the id rule for a bit, if I may draw on my Psychology 101 class from 1999 (gulp).

Going to the festival for the first time was a revelation. Here we were, outside, in the daylight, surrounded not only by people from all over the country and the world who had emerged from rave culture into the same general moment in dance music, but by families and “regular joes” from Detroit, by raver kids whose devotion to moments of a technicolor existence was almost endearing, by musicians of various levels of fame and infamy. Through the awkward adolescence of raves, we had grown up and were comfortable listening to the weird, the deep, the soulful, the rambunctious, the political, the luscious beats of a generation of people, no matter what their age, who were finally comfortable in declaring, “This is the music that I like. This is the music that helps me to define who I am. This is the music that I hear at my most joyful and my most desperate. This is the music that will be played at my wedding, at the births of my children, at my funeral. This is the music that will be played in my next life.”

I had a transformative moment in 2005 when some of the Underground Resistance guys closed the festival on the main stage. They played “Transition,” while images of people like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Albert Einstein flashed behind them. The crowd of thousands around me melted away and I was alone when I heard the lyrics, “Point yourself in the direction of your dreams…and make your transition.” From that day on, I did, freed from the notion that I needed to worry about the uninformed and frightened opinions of people who would dismiss this music as silly and scoff at my inspiration.

Transition or not, my annual trek back has changed a bit each year. The cost of admission goes up, a necessary evil that we’re told is the only thing keeping the festival going year after year. A cost we’ve been happy to pay to support the work of the people from that city who have helped so many people figure out their lives through music. Something else changed, too, though. Artists from Detroit are bumped from better time slots and given lesser areas to play in favor of their more European counterparts, those who make and play the same music that got old 15 years ago, the music that is almost rhetorically composed for the Rainbow Brite crew who fork over $60 for the opportunity to feel like they’re getting away with something. They parade in front of each other, eager for reactions, armed with an arsenal of camera-ready poses, dying for that first moment when someone points and finally, finally notices them. In the background, the music could be Carl Craig or it could be Linda Ronstadt. They would scarcely notice the difference. They pay good money and lots of it for admission and shirts and blinky, shiny things that vendors sell because they know an opportunity when they see it.

This year, nearly all of the Detroit artists were shuffled unceremoniously to an underground stage that, despite the organizer’s best efforts, still sounded like listening to an off-balanced washing machine while nursing an earache. The glittering kids danced outside, in the sunlight, to tracks that they couldn’t name to save their lives, that could very well all be the same record or mp3 for all they know. They formed dance circles, breaking up whatever collective energy had been present on the dancefloor, so that they could stand and watch one person dance. If that isn’t the saddest goddamned thing ever, I don’t know what is.

Again, they are welcome to. I am happy to share that experience with anyone. But I didn’t feel like I was in a position of sharing this year. I felt like I was stuffed in a basement while the higher bidders enjoyed what used to be our moment in the sun.

I don’t want to focus entirely on the negative. We did hear some good music at the festival and even more at the after parties that we attended. The husband has a good round-up of the music that we saw/heard/got down to while we were there. Not surprisingly, his criticism of the unprofessional and/or just plain shitty aspects of the festival management are drawing ire. The organizers had previously agreed to sit down with him for an interview, but later recanted. I, however, as a professional writer, offer up my tape recorder for any statements that they want to make. If people like us, a numerical minority, who are genuinely passionate about the music and the experience of it, are no longer important, dropped in favor of the wealthy and serotonically tweaked, then just say so and we’ll stop bugging you with all of our demands for care and quality and respect.

Sigh.

Aside from the fact that, last Wednesday morning, I pried my eyes open and stared, confused, at the numbers on my alarm clock which read “7:55” aka The Time at Which We Should Be at the School Bus Stop Holy Crap You’re Late as Hell O’Clock, getting back into all of the aspects of life seems to be increasingly difficult every year. Only this past Monday did I cook a meal and pack my lunch. Over the weekend, I got most of the laundry done (but not all of it). There are still several bags of random travel things gathering dust in our entryway. And I still poke around my office, unsure of what I normally do during the hours of 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. I’ll figure it out eventually.

The quirky title of this post is a reference to the time when me and a bunch of friends went to see the laser Metallica show at the planetarium and thought it would be hilarious if “Master of Puppets” was sung with a lisp. Really, how can it be legal to have that much fun?

Anyway, I have a funny picture to show you.

That’s me, attempting to take a Photobooth picture of myself in my graduation cap, and my cat, photobombing me.

Yes, I participated in my department’s diploma ceremony on Saturday because I’m a sucker for some pomp and circumstance. It was pretty cool. The student speakers gave particularly good speeches and I got to officially receive my master’s degree from the department head.

We had a nice party at my mom’s house later that evening and my buddy Tracey flew up from Baltimore for a whirlwind visit, which meant a lot to me. Even though she was here for less than 24 hours, we got to hang out, dish, and giggle. Much needed.

That night, after everything was over and settled down, I came down with a cold. And then on Monday our water heater died. SIGH. But at least now I can mentally handle these things. A few weeks ago it would have just compounded my stress and pushed me over the edge.

I don’t yet have any pictures of me in my full regalia because the only people taking pictures at the ceremony were my mom and grandmother. And not only do they not have digital cameras, they use those grocery store disposal cameras. During the ceremony, I kept hearing that distinctive, “CLACK! VZZT VZZT VZZT VZZT VZZZZT VZZZZT VZZ V–” sound whenever they took pictures. So, as soon as those are used up and the next time they go to the Iggle to play their numbers, hopefully I’ll get some pictures back and will be able to scan them. Living in 1992 is awesome.

When I was a kid, I had a Cabbage Patch Kids calendar. If I remember correctly, it was for 1987. The calendar had Cabbage Patch Kid dolls posed in situations appropriate for each month: a Kid in rain jacket, galoshes, and umbrella for April, two Kids exchanging valentines for February. My favorite was May’s picture: one Kid in the kitchen, flour splattered everywhere, working diligently on a Mother’s Day breakfast while around the corner his sibling tiptoed down the stairs in footie pajamas, early morning light pouring in from a window, looking cautiously (er, well, as cautiously as one can look when one’s head is made from molded vinyl) behind him in the direction of his Cabbage Patch Mom’s room.

I don’t know why I liked it so much and why it’s remained so perfectly preserved in my memory. Perhaps I was drawn to the intricate short story that the producers of the calendar created with just a couple of dolls and a miniature kitchen. Maybe something about the set reminded me of my home, with its sunny stairs and dated carpeting. Maybe I liked fantasizing about my future kids working hard on a special breakfast for me on Mother’s Day.

I can’t remember if I ever attempted any such grand gestures as the Cabbage Patch Kids for my own mom. In fact, I can’t clearly remember anything that I did for my mom, so I can only hope that at least some of those days made her feel special and loved, especially since I know most of our usual days did not, an unfortunate circumstance that continues to trouble her to this day.

My life as a mom is less tumultuous, though still difficult for different reasons, mostly due to the degree of uncertainty that we feel about life and the shape of our future. Something that I’ve been working on recently is being okay with the fact that things don’t always turn out the way that I had hoped or had pictured it, and that doesn’t necessarily spell failure.

When Mother’s Day comes around, I often indulge in fantasies inspired by those Cabbage Patch Kids and, I don’t know, Hallmark commercials or wherever the lore of picture perfect Mother’s Day mornings comes from. I sleep in and wake up to breakfast that the baby and the husband have made for me. Some nice gifts and sweet words about how swell I am.

This never, ever happens. I mean, sure, I get gifts sometimes and cards sometimes and heartfelt wishes of Happy Mother’s Day, all of which I love and cherished, but they’re never encased in a perfect, soft-focus, ready-made memory. They’re always tucked in between rushed drives to various mothers-in-law and grandmothers-in-law’s houses to wish them Happy Mother’s Day and errands that must be performed on weekends, because our need for groceries and clean clothes doesn’t keep track of holidays and whatnot.

This Mother’s Day, I write to you from the couch. The baby came down with something last night and didn’t sleep much, which means I didn’t sleep much, either. He made sure to give me my cards before collapsing in my lap so that I could thump on his back to break up the junk in his lungs. He’s resting beside me, not himself, and I’m waiting to see if he’s sick enough to warrant a call to the doctor. The husband is still asleep.

Not picture perfect. Not by a long shot. But not a failure. Just how life is sometimes.

I seem to go through really sensitive or empathic periods when stuff that other people are experiencing really hits me in the gut and I feel as though I’m right in it with them.

I don’t know if I’m actually in one of those periods right now, or if the reality of the situation is just too sad not to feel, but califmom’s husband died yesterday and it’s been affecting me a lot.

Leah and Bob’s struggle with Bob’s cancer is pretty well documented on her site. Over the past few weeks, it became clear that Bob’s chances of surviving much longer were growing slimmer and slimmer. Leah not only had to brace herself and her children for her husband’s death but had to think about how to live life without him after being with him for 21 years. In a recent entry, Leah wondered how she would do everything without him:

“And now, I have to figure out how to do this without him –without the other part of me.

Without my We.”

Yesterday, Leah quietly posted the words, “He’s gone,” to Twitter. I expressed my condolences, as adequately as one can do over such a silly medium, and immediately went upstairs and snuggled back in bed with my husband, who was still sleeping.

The husband is my companion through and through. For nearly 10 years, he’s been my buddy, my confidant, my lover, the father of my child. There are very few things in the world that I want to experience without him and every night, when I get to be next to him, and fall asleep, I get to feel safe and secure and like everything will be alright…at least for the next few hours while I’m dreaming beside him.

Later, I went up to him and said, “I know you’re going to look at me funny, but the husband of a woman whose blog I read just died of cancer today.” I hugged him and added, “I just want you to know how grateful I am that you’re here.”

I know that it’s something that we’ll have to deal with someday. I just hope that we have a little bit longer than Leah and Bob did. Eleven more years with him isn’t nearly enough.

Last week, I opened the door to hustle the baby to the bus stop, and gasped when I saw a big, flat package on the porch.

My diploma. My Master’s degree. Live and in the flesh paper-and-faux-leather-case.

Faced with a cartoonish amount of student debt (when I think of the total, which I’ve been advised not to do, I automatically picture Scrooge McDuck as the symbolic beneficiary as he cackles and holds two large sacks with dollar signs on them), and the *^%#(*^ dumb luck of graduating during the worst economic climate in generations, the husband and I have both been experiencing some sort of…buyer’s remorse about our degrees. I may have whined about this here before, but we’re both dealing with bummed out thoughts about aiming too high or something and that we’re as embarrassed of our student debt as we would be if we had burned through credit cards or invested in swampland or something.

Self-esteem: we has none.

Anyway, it’s over. No going back now. And in May, I’ll don my cap, gown, and Master’s hood and participate in a little good ol’ pomp and circumstance. And then figure out what to do with this monster.

I offer my hand for scale. The thing is huge. Also, please note my mad Photoshop skills. I’m not so paranoid, but for whatever reason, posting a picture of my diploma with my full name on it seemed like a bad idea.

So, it’s been *checks watch* two weeks since I posted here last. I knew that I was going to make time to do so today and thought about a few different approaches: pick up with a goofy story like I haven’t been silent for days, explain some of the messy contents of my life.

I don’t know.

I guess I feel the need to do some explaining. I haven’t been writing here because I’ve been too bummed out. And that’s all I can really say. I’m so fucking sad all the time these days and it’s really boring. The constant monologue running through my head puts me to sleep and I can’t imagine subjecting anyone else to it.

And that’s all that I have the energy for right now.

The other night, I had just drifted off to sleep. Our cat was curled up against my tummy, purring away and giving me some extra warmth. I was reaching that really good point of sleep when a small, familiar voice woke me up with a phrase that always makes me panic:

“Mum. I don’t feel so good.”

It was the baby, obviously, and his stomach was upset. He’s never been very good about describing his symptoms, but from what I could gather, he’d just experienced one of those vomit-burps. I’m sure you know what I mean. It starts out as a burp and then takes a frightening detour and though you emerge with your digestive system intact for the moment, it freaks you out. Am I getting ready to spew? Or was it just a slight malfunction? I need to know how much I need to dread the next few minutes/hours and whether or not I should move my operations to the bathroom.

I felt my stomach drop, particularly when the baby squeezed out a few tears and rested his head on my chest (partially because I felt bad for the little guy and partially because if there was going to be spewing happening, I did not want his face mere inches from mine).

I interrogated him on the state of his stomach (“Do you think you need to barf? Have you pooped today? On a scale of 1 to 10, how gross does your stomach feel?”) and urged him to try going to the bathroom. I gave him a Tums, even though I wasn’t sure he was old enough to have one yet, and after a few minutes he declared that he thought he was okay.

He climbed back into bed and I asked him if he wanted a bucket, just in case. He did. I climbed back into my bed and stared at the ceiling and waited and listened.

Though I’ve gotten better at handling digestive eruptions since I’ve been a mom, I’m still prone to panic at the thought of one of us coming down with any kind of stomach bug because I can’t deal with vomit. And, of course, because I’ve turned overthinking things into a sport, I’m sure that this speaks volumes about me as an adult and a parent.

I can remember at least two occasions in which the baby has puked and I have handed the reigns over to another parental figure with shaking hands. Once was when he was about a year old and we were living with my mom. It wasn’t the first time he had been sick, but for whatever reason, I stood in the doorway of his room, wide-eyed, unable to move, and asked my mom to please clean him up for me.

Another time was about a year ago and we had made the unfortunate decision to eat at Wendy’s earlier that evening. Regurgitated chicken nuggets are, I’m pretty sure, the scent of Hell. I couldn’t deal and the husband heroically did all of the dirty work.

Because of our recent crushing blows, I’ve been really upset. Like, really upset. And I’m questioning every aspect of my life and how I’m doing. My evaluation of myself results in pretty low marks and my inability to deal with vomit or even the threat of vomit threw me.

I don’t remember my mom ever having trouble taking care of me. I can distinctly recall a particularly nasty stomach bug that I had in third grade that seemed to go on for days and had me spending my nights in my parents’ bed, next to my mom, and when I had to get sick I would KICK her. She would wake up and hold back my hair and direct me toward the bucket. Calm, sleepy, unfazed, and certainly not dry heaving behind me.

I don’t know that I could do that and it’s just the latest in a long list of things that I’m feeling…incapable of. I’m having trouble going to sleep at a reasonable hour, getting up at a reasonable hour, doing laundry, participating in any cleaning activities, exercising, dieting, getting lunches and clothes ready for the next day, figuring out what I want to do about job stuff, raising a man, being a partner to a man.

Am I just overwhelmed? Or am I just incapable?