(no subject)
As an expansion on my theme of having hashed out a ton of history with Dama, I've retrieved a giant Rubbermaid storage container full of old journals from Grant's Sr's laundry room this week. And read through most of them by now. They basically all focus on the time period between my being a pregnant high school senior still sort of dizzy and hung over from falling really hard into intense love that didn't work out so well back in the real world, and move on through to it all falling apart, with the "end" sort of being me trying to regroup, with Ananda and Aaron in tow, as a single mother.
Things that stand out to me as I read:
-The journals I most wanted - the ones from my early high school counseling days, my YMC trips, and so on - are not here, and neither is the diary I kept starting at 5 years old. So I'm really wondering where the older stuff is, now, if it even still exists.
-I was really idealistic and new age and oblivious to, you know, facts and absolutes of any kind
-I was also about a million times more judgemental than I am now, though in a relatively harmless way...meaning I think I was the only one suffering for it
-You really lose a lot journaling on the internet, as far as doodles and drawings go
-notes passed back and forth in class with friends I still have are some of the highlights
-DAMN AM I ACTUALLY LESS LONG WINDED NOW. I know, I know, how can that be possible? Believe me, it is. I'm talking about a full page per period, each starting with "Now I'm in ______ class", and/or 3 pages per day with subtitles like, "later that evening". I mean holy shit, stfu teen Tina.
-It is really bizarre and noteworthy, in retrospect, how close Grant and I were through all of that and how invested in those kids he was from their time in the womb. What this points to more than anything, for me, is how completely naively heartless I was where he was concerned. Just...truly obliviously self centered and inconsiderate, in the most unintentional and yet glaringly cruel ways. I had just...never been "in love" with him. And so I didn't get it. At all. I can't even IMAGINE ever treating him the way I did then, now...
-Also glaring: his level of self sacrificing love, I mean, WHAT? HOW did this man not tell me to quit coming over and leave him the hell alone, of course we cannot eat dinner and watch movies, right around the time I began sporting a permanent necklace of hickies? It was so easy for me, back then, just then, to be his friend, and to lean on him as a friend, and I just do not know.
-my mother and I had a much closer relationship back then. I completely forgot that I wrote her letters, I think I even sort of forgot her familiar handwriting until I happened upon it, which is really sad
-Bobby really did do a hell of a lot as/for a 16 year old guy. He was the scathingly critical and sometimes angry son his parents had raised him to be, and he was lazy and apathetic in spurts, like a teenaged guy...but he also worked 1-2 jobs, often grueling schedules, for quite awhile to try to (what?) support a family - at 16. NEWLY 16, can't drive, 10th grade, etc. I also forgot how truly good to Ananda he was before Aaron came along and their screwed up anti-relationship clouded all else. Really, though, working all day, coming home and bathing and diapering and playing with a baby, a 16 year old guy? Taking pictures and getting excited about teeth and planning birthday outings? It boggles the mind.
It boggles my mind how he waded through all my repetative bs, he used to obsessively read all my journals and now I wonder how often he just skimmed. Which would have REALLY BOTHERED ME THEN.
It all boggles the mind. I was just reading this entry from right before I turned 18 - so almost exactly 10 years ago and very soon after I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I was so blown away that I would have a child. I was trying to picture it. I was saying things like, "I'm going to breastfeed, change diapers, bathe and read to and sing to and teach a child. I'm going to play music for, play with, buy presents for and hold and carry a child. My child. I'm going to be a mother. A MOTHER, What?!"
Yeah. Yup yup yup.
"It's just so freaky to imagine, I mean, like what is this going to do to my physique and freaky medical procedures, I don't feel ready for that."
YOU'RE NOT!!! AND YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA! Which is a good thing, because this is the kind of thing you can't really prepare for. On the job training all the way.
I made a lot of bad decisions. That is a stupidly underestimating thing to even say, really it is. But in the general cloud of bad decisions that continued to rain down on me for years afterward, some stand out to a teeth gritting, wincing degree as I read my blitheringly ignorant entries.
-Jumping back and forth and jerking people around, like, you know, not least of which my INFANT DAUGHTER who needed to know who Daddy is?
-going to Dr Augustus and blithely agreeing to an induction and agreeing to a c/s...TWICE!
-Moving to Jacksonville, *shudder*
I'm really astounded by how much better we all are, now. My sister is not a gangsta ho with too thin eyebrows and prom hair everyday, who I don't feel understands anything...she's basically a main course of awesome with a side of holy shit this is great. Bobby, you know, I don't know what he is or isn't ready for in his own life but he's NOT THAT GUY, at least not the intolerable parts. And Grant, Grant who was amazing then but, like, an amazing human? Now I am not even sure how to describe his amazing.
You know what happens these days, when Ananda walks up to me for a hug? She lays her head on my shoulder. And we stand there with our arms wrapped the whole way around each other.
Things that stand out to me as I read:
-The journals I most wanted - the ones from my early high school counseling days, my YMC trips, and so on - are not here, and neither is the diary I kept starting at 5 years old. So I'm really wondering where the older stuff is, now, if it even still exists.
-I was really idealistic and new age and oblivious to, you know, facts and absolutes of any kind
-I was also about a million times more judgemental than I am now, though in a relatively harmless way...meaning I think I was the only one suffering for it
-You really lose a lot journaling on the internet, as far as doodles and drawings go
-notes passed back and forth in class with friends I still have are some of the highlights
-DAMN AM I ACTUALLY LESS LONG WINDED NOW. I know, I know, how can that be possible? Believe me, it is. I'm talking about a full page per period, each starting with "Now I'm in ______ class", and/or 3 pages per day with subtitles like, "later that evening". I mean holy shit, stfu teen Tina.
-It is really bizarre and noteworthy, in retrospect, how close Grant and I were through all of that and how invested in those kids he was from their time in the womb. What this points to more than anything, for me, is how completely naively heartless I was where he was concerned. Just...truly obliviously self centered and inconsiderate, in the most unintentional and yet glaringly cruel ways. I had just...never been "in love" with him. And so I didn't get it. At all. I can't even IMAGINE ever treating him the way I did then, now...
-Also glaring: his level of self sacrificing love, I mean, WHAT? HOW did this man not tell me to quit coming over and leave him the hell alone, of course we cannot eat dinner and watch movies, right around the time I began sporting a permanent necklace of hickies? It was so easy for me, back then, just then, to be his friend, and to lean on him as a friend, and I just do not know.
-my mother and I had a much closer relationship back then. I completely forgot that I wrote her letters, I think I even sort of forgot her familiar handwriting until I happened upon it, which is really sad
-Bobby really did do a hell of a lot as/for a 16 year old guy. He was the scathingly critical and sometimes angry son his parents had raised him to be, and he was lazy and apathetic in spurts, like a teenaged guy...but he also worked 1-2 jobs, often grueling schedules, for quite awhile to try to (what?) support a family - at 16. NEWLY 16, can't drive, 10th grade, etc. I also forgot how truly good to Ananda he was before Aaron came along and their screwed up anti-relationship clouded all else. Really, though, working all day, coming home and bathing and diapering and playing with a baby, a 16 year old guy? Taking pictures and getting excited about teeth and planning birthday outings? It boggles the mind.
It boggles my mind how he waded through all my repetative bs, he used to obsessively read all my journals and now I wonder how often he just skimmed. Which would have REALLY BOTHERED ME THEN.
It all boggles the mind. I was just reading this entry from right before I turned 18 - so almost exactly 10 years ago and very soon after I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I was so blown away that I would have a child. I was trying to picture it. I was saying things like, "I'm going to breastfeed, change diapers, bathe and read to and sing to and teach a child. I'm going to play music for, play with, buy presents for and hold and carry a child. My child. I'm going to be a mother. A MOTHER, What?!"
Yeah. Yup yup yup.
"It's just so freaky to imagine, I mean, like what is this going to do to my physique and freaky medical procedures, I don't feel ready for that."
YOU'RE NOT!!! AND YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA! Which is a good thing, because this is the kind of thing you can't really prepare for. On the job training all the way.
I made a lot of bad decisions. That is a stupidly underestimating thing to even say, really it is. But in the general cloud of bad decisions that continued to rain down on me for years afterward, some stand out to a teeth gritting, wincing degree as I read my blitheringly ignorant entries.
-Jumping back and forth and jerking people around, like, you know, not least of which my INFANT DAUGHTER who needed to know who Daddy is?
-going to Dr Augustus and blithely agreeing to an induction and agreeing to a c/s...TWICE!
-Moving to Jacksonville, *shudder*
I'm really astounded by how much better we all are, now. My sister is not a gangsta ho with too thin eyebrows and prom hair everyday, who I don't feel understands anything...she's basically a main course of awesome with a side of holy shit this is great. Bobby, you know, I don't know what he is or isn't ready for in his own life but he's NOT THAT GUY, at least not the intolerable parts. And Grant, Grant who was amazing then but, like, an amazing human? Now I am not even sure how to describe his amazing.
You know what happens these days, when Ananda walks up to me for a hug? She lays her head on my shoulder. And we stand there with our arms wrapped the whole way around each other.