So This Is Monday

It's not to say that I don't generally have unpleasant Mondays, not that at all.

No, what it is to say is that today, even in the grad scheme of Mondays, was especially unpleasant. Why? I'm so glad you asked (and don't you role your eyes, you can stop reading whenever the hell you want, and with all due respects, you knew what this blog was to begin with, and there you went typing it in to the search bar... I refuse to be the one who feels silly here. Or the only one, anyway)

1) I had my bike stolen.

And by that, I mean it turns out that if you leave your bike unlocked for well over 6 days in front of your college, which is known for homeless people sleeping in it... someone's gonna' take that bike. Who knew? Well, everyone in the campus security office, for starters.

2) So you know how I thought I had raccoons in my attic?

Well, now I know I had raccoons in my attic, and that the largest one was 25 lbs. The pest control guy assured me that it would be released into the wilderness, did not agree to accept addresses from me suggesting where it ought be dropped, and it totally pooped through the cage onto my stairs on its way down.

3) My math professor seems to think I should be coming to class more often.

Well send your snarky emails to my babydaddy who makes me take days out of school to fight false allegations of child neglect, the raccoon living in my attic, and my 6 year old who has inconvenient ideas about when to be up all night having bad dreams that require some sleep in the daytime to recover from. We all know if I miss 2 more of your classes, I will fail the course. One of those classes I am guaranteed to miss (again, talk to the babydaddy-- when it's not his problem, it's not a relevant one), and we all know I'm barely passing anyway. Let's just step away from the send button, shall we? It hurts my heart.

And if upon further reflection you still feel you would like to beat the dead horse of your choosing, let's do it on a Tuesday, shall we?

There is more, my Lord there is more, but in a few short hours it's going to be Tuesday and the whole thing to be done over again.

Well, that's embarassing.

When we got together, not very long ago, my boyfriend and I used to write these long random emails to each other in the middle of the night. They were candid and neurotic and cautiously romantic, and it was a comfort to be able to wear my heart on my sleeve and not feel exposed or vulnerable, but a mutual participant in something overwhelming and new and delightful. He told me recently that he used to watch his inbox for messages from me, even check in the middle of the night, and that he would write me back very carefully.

It's not often that we exchange emails anymore, and I'm not even entirely sure that he reads them at all. Last night, as often, I wrote my boyfriend an email. It was neurotic and personal and candid and romantic. And, in a couple of days when I ask him if he read it, he will do what he generally does when this happens-- he will kiss me and say "I did, and it was very sweet".

And I will feel exposed and vulnerable and I will wish I'd said less, and there will be less between us, and more between us.

I've always said that relationships baffle me because there are only the two modes, advance and decline, and the advancement is short lived and exactly what creates the decline to begin with. And, now comes our decline and I have to wonder why I got on this ride to begin with-- I knew what this was.

Things I Find Annoying: A Sunday List

1) My boyfriend does the most frustrating thing.

Any Sunday that we are spending together that is cut short:

"Aww, I hate losing our Sunday time!"
"Me too. Why don't I pick you up after I gt off and we can go to sleep and I can drop you off in the morning?"
"No, you need your sleep for your business meeting/field work/cross county job trip... whatever the fuck you do. "
"No, it's fine. I like falling asleep with you!"
"Ohh, you like me!"
"Siiiike!!! I'm going to drop you off, yell "see you, wouldn't want to be you" and drive a bunch of donuts in your wet lawn in about 45 minutes. It's awesome that you just believed that suggestion, though"

Or, maybe he said "See you next weekend sweetie" when he drops me off to gently announce that he didn't find it a good idea after all when saying he had and that no, I shouldn't be waiting around midnight in my pajamas to have a cute last minute sleepover. Because he doesn't want to make me feel bad by saying it's not a great idea, and he wants me to make other plans because he's a good guy who knows I only have weekends.

Whatever-- it's the fucking principal of the thing.

2) My EX boyfriend does the most frustrating thing.

Or rather, he IS the most frustrating thing. We're still best friends, or at least we're supposed to be, but sometimes out of the clear blue sky he'll decide to just start being moody and impossible and I'll get the impression that we are not friends at all, and have no idea what I've done. Then I'll walk on eggshells, then I'll feel ashamed, and then he'll yell at me for being weird. Then, I'll cry. And cry and cry and cry and cry.

Really, it's like we never broke up.


3) It Is Raining Snow Outside.

I, personally, find that disgusting. Pick a way to ruin what I thought was the start of our Midwestern spring thaw. ONE way.

Raining snow... what the fuck.

4) My Apartment

Which really just ties into the snow and the rain and such. But, it was 56 degrees a few days ago, I lit incense and opened the windows and cleaned my living room and my kitchen (to a lesser extent) and my bathroom (which is never that bad off to begin with).

But, there's still the bedroom, and that was going to be done today, and it isn't. My problem, largely, is that specifically in winter I cannot clean. I don't know why, but my diet, my cleaning, my homework, my everything falls to hell in the colder months. Not because I'm unhappy mind you, I am actually one of those people that is very happy even in the middle of winter all the time. But still, something in me freezes the second the weather does, and I needed this thaw to last a little longer... I needed it to last until I got under the bed and the top of the dresser at least.

Freezing rain. Fuck this shit.

5) Feminists.

Specifically, the feminist who copied and pasted one of my blogs, and then submitted it to our local female studies performance group to do a stage reading of. You picked something personal, you edited the meaning out entirely, and you completely missed the fucking point.

You exploited my motherhood, my female insecurities, and if I didn't hate feminists before, I do now. Way to support the team, jack-ass.

And, that is all I have to report.

Hey, Guess What I'm About To Do?

If you guessed "Go to the Gym and get ripped", you're half right. But if you guessed "Go to the gym and drink soda and work yourself into an ALMOST sweat in a totally cute outfit, then spend 40 minutes walking the track talking about sex and potential sex with your gym buddy*... "

Well, then you should have bet money because of how 100% right you are.

*{and by this I mean partaking in discussion about sex with said gym buddy, not that there is potential sex between the two of us. Not that she isn't a lovely girl, mind you... but this isn't that kind of gym, and what's more, this isn't that kind of blog}

To Say The Least, The Week Was Difficult.

I am am a good mother.

There are few things I can say about myself with complete and utter confidence. More specifically, there is one thing I can say about myself with complete and utter confidence, and it is that yes, I am a good mother. Of my looks I will say "I have a great body-- but, I may have nursed a bit too long, and I have a little mommy tummy". Of my intelligence, I will say "I am very smart... but just in some ways". Of my house I will say "It's pretty much clean... but it's very cluttered" or "It suits me... but it's a little small".

But of myself in the end, of what I come down to and who I am, there is only the one thing I can say in complete confidence. One thing I have not and will not doubt: "I am a good mother."

End sentence.

My daughter is carefully fed. My daughter is clean and well rested and gets exercise and socializes with other children multiple times a week outside of school. My daughter knows she can talk to me about anything. She doesn't lie to me, she comes to me when she's hurt or sad or happy and because in all the world I am who she wants to go to. If she has days she hates me, she is allowed to. If she has days that she just wants to not talk about anything, just quietly sit and hold my hand or lay her head on my shoulder without getting into why she has had a bad day, that is allowed, too.

She is allowed to be a child, to say silly things like 'butt' and 'poop' or giggle at those words without being shamed. She is allowed to be 6. She is allowed to sleep in her undershirt for the next day because she gets warm when she sleeps in PJs and sometimes takes a full 20 minutes trying to put one on in the morning because she's like a 40 year old who is out of coffee when she wakes up. When it is only her sweater or long sleeves, she can put them on herself even tired, and feel like a big girl. Why this is, I do not know. But it works, and so it is done at my home.

My daughter is told precious stories about her father and his family, regardless of the living hell they have put me through, regardless of the values they have that I do not ever want my daughter to think are OK: Because if I raise her well, she will not develop them and part of raising her well is letting her love who she does and encouraging it no matter who I know those people to be.

And my daughters father files motions against her mother, who never raises her hand, enforces consequences in a loving but firm way only, makes sure there are frequent new experiences, educational toys, social interaction, who reads to her for hours and makes up stories on command, who walks 5 blocks to the laundry mat in the snow every single weekend that she can without said daughter having to come if it is cold, claiming she is an unfit mother.

And it makes me sick. Absolutely sick.

And the judge laughed. And everyone I knew first gawked then cussed and then laughed too... "That's absurd-- you're the best mother I know". This from the best mothers I know, this from teachers, this from people who admittedly hate me as a human being, can't stand the sound of my voice. This from a woman who I in younger wilder years slept with the boyfriend of... "I'll probably always hate you for how you were when we were teenagers, but even I can't believe that bullshit. You're an amazing mother. You never even say shit about that jack-ass in front of her, even the times it would be appropriate to. You're even too nice about him for some of the things she asks you about that he's suggested." And this person, if we may note, is in fact an early childhood educator.

And she agrees that I am if nothing in all the world, an amazing mother.

Because I am. I am a good mother. And now, I am a terrified mother. I am walking around on eggshells, scared to let my daughter sleep in bed with me because he may file a motion that it is indecent. Scared to joke about anything because if she repeats it he can twist it how he wants. But at the same time, scared to speak to her in any way, or to not say anything for fear that he will paint me as in-affectionate.

I spent the weekend in a bed and breakfast with my amazing boyfriend. We went antiquing, we stopped at totally random restaurants to eat, we went to the beach to look at the lake covered in snow. And I clung tight to the trip, not simply because this man is the man of my dreams, or because I have not had a Valentines Day in years... but because I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid that the man who came for a year to live near his daughter is laying the groundwork to take her away from me, and weekend visit with boys, homework that means nothing without the child who will benefit from the eventual degree, an apartment too quiet, will be all I have left.

Which is my worst nightmare, and one I never prepared for before-- one I never realized I needed to.

Because I am a good mother.

It's 9:10 am, And Already: I Can'T Talk About Today Anymore.

.
That's where we're at. Just saying.

Go Ahead And Judge Me.

In the middle of cleaning my living room, I had some thoughts. I abruptly remembered I had homework to do, went back in time to sort out if I had covered all of the food groups in my daughters dinner, discovered that I can no longer find the ankle brace my jazz dance instructor lent me which I A) need for class and B) just don't want to lose because it's not fucking mine. I didn't have time to be cleaning, I was totally bombarded by having to as well as the fact that I haven't since early December, and the walls are literally closing in on me-- it's a small fucking apartment. There are a few people in my world who can understand this, but not many: Cleaning the things I have to clean is just too emotional for me, and not cleaning only makes it worse. It's like having a fear of the dentist while the cavity becomes an abscess (side note: I am terrified of the dentist and generally have not liked to go until pain from toothaches has brought me to the emergency room).

I stopped, lay down in the middle of the floor on a big pile of papers in sweatpants and nothing else (You know what? Go on and fucking judge me: The moral of the story here is that I was cleaning my living room at all. No eyeliner, no support on my double D mommy boobs, no airbrushing over the scared and tired face of a 31 year old woman who has cared for herself exclusively essentially her entire life, and minded to the task of others thinking well of her all the while-- that shit'll break you out and give you some crows feet, yo) and cried myself to sleep. I wasn't sad, I wasn't even really frustrated-- I was just full. There was a kind of surface tension, like the skin on a too taut balloon when it starts to pucker from old air a few days later, and I could feel it straining across my throat. I had been trying for hours to decide which childhood homework efforts needed to be saved and which of her hours of learning and growing could be tossed in the recycling, if I still needed this Abraham Lincoln bust I bought my ex at the dollar tree 8 years ago or if the fact that he had left in in our house when he left not a month after I did to be with the love of his life was reason enough to discard it myself. I tried to find a place for my vitamins that wouldn't get in the way of the tea or the peanut butter and longed for a moment to be the kind of woman who could add on when she ran out of space instead of having to discard this much of her life, no more or less. And just as in my overcrowded apartment something had to go from me, bloodletting of sorts--if I'd had leeches, I would have used leeches and that would have worked every bit as well.

But I didn't have leeches. And so, the crying.

I slept for about 10 minutes, then I got my ass up and blogged this because it's better than walking around carrying it, and now it's back to picking apart the little bits and pieces of my life, separating the emotional from the practical, because that's what there's room for on so many levels I can't even begin to blog it.

And now, on to the bathroom. I don't know that I've ever cried in sweatpants in my bathtub before... we'll see how it goes.