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Aug. 27th, 2013 02:16 amI do not even know where to begin. I've let this thing go for too long.
It's wild, just nuts, how different I feel when I'm really engaged with people and the world (as opposed to spending all my time alone with my kids in our house, with very minimal adult interaction). It is truly the difference between feeling mentally ill, as opposed to being like, "Wait what? I have PTSD? I guess technically I do." Sometimes I feel sad about this, because I used to be so (relatively) content to be home alone with my children. Other times - like now - I feel really happy that such a simple thing can make such a huge difference. Things get complicated because I can be very picky about who I really want to spend time with...
Many things have changed over the years on my Myers Briggs test results, but the most significant and startling was definitely watching my stubborn, moderate "i" turn to a just-over-the-line "e," last year.
I'm sitting here tonight, agitated and stressed with everyone else asleep, wondering what the hell my problem is - and it occurs to me that this is the first day in weeks that I haven't seen anyone that doesn't live in my house. There were other reasons to be stressed: a bank error I had to spend awhile on the phone about, some tedious crafting time with Elise that really took a tremendous amount of patience, realizing at the last minute during cooking that I was missing a crucial dinner ingredient... But all that is just life, it's the kind of shit that happens every day and hasn't been tying my shoulders in knots until today. Maybe it's isolation. Maybe it's not. There was a lot of arguing with Aaron about cleaning his room, and a lot of moodiness out of Jake, and a lot of Annie eye rolling and Isaac homework procrastination.
Still and all, I could list three times as many positive things about each of them. So. *shrug*
Previous non-isolation:
G and I had an awesome trip to Maryland ♥ Grant had enough flyer miles and hotel points stored up from business trips that we could fly and stay for free, and his mom was here in town with a friend for a couple of weeks, and spent those days with our kids. So, all we had to pay for was food! Totally awesome, and he has a ridiculous amount of paid time off accrued since he rarely uses it. We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday exploring Maryland together, which was just fucking great. It was all awesome sex and sweet cuddling and a picnic in the park and a picnic on our hotel room floor. We walked all over and found great farmer's markets and a cool Thai restaurant and an interesting Ethopian place. The weather was lovely, we laughed a ton - it was really cool to be on foot and transit for a few days with no car whatsoever attached to me. Talk about a paradigm shift.
Then he left, Sunday night, to come home, and I stayed at my friend Kristin's house Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday. She works in the evenings, so I was free for those hours. One evening I took Jenne/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_waker to that Thai place I mentioned, which was awesome. I hadn't seen her since she came by Dama/mommydama's place while we were there with newborn Elise in 2007. I think we could be really close friends if we just lived closer together. Totally easy and natural to hang out with her and talk about ANYTHING.
Another evening I met Amy/tumblr user Bohemianelitist, with her kids and Kristin's kids (who I love, and have known for a decade...they're like family and only moved up there 6 months ago). We had great food and then moved over to a playground. The time went too fast.
I was going to meet Ruth/former lj'er "meileki," but she got too booked up at the last minute by a high needs kid and study demands, which was disappointing but I totally understand (obviously).
Staying up til 4am laughing with Kristin after she got off was great, as it always is. And her brunch spreads were fantastic. And her kids are pretty much what I would call friends, 8 and 11 though they may be :)
The week+ since we've been back from Maryland has also been a connected, networking sort of week. I didn't really experience the coming down of a vacation being over, because:
-My mother in law was still down and visiting and wonderful until a couple of days ago. She is really great. I got so lucky in the mother in law department.
-I spent a half hour at our evaluator's house talking when I picked up all our forms. We have enough in common that this can be an actual good time.
-Cybele and I caught up for at least that long, when I dropped Aaron off to hang out with Adrian. They've been gone all summer.
-The most recent weekend at home Grant and I had was riding high on the utopic chemistry of the previous weekend away (we barely see each other during the work week, it's mostly texting honestly).
-Laura brought the kids over one afternoon and we all sat around the bar eating and the library floor talking.
-Shaun came to dinner last night, with his new girlfriend. We pulled out all the stops (my husband actually made two different meals) and it was a pretty cool time.
-Aaaaaand a bunch of little things - needing to run errands and interact in small ways, meeting Isaac's new teacher, bringing the snack for Annie's derby team this last practice, all that sort of stuff that I don't even think I care about, but, what do I know. It probably makes a difference.
Tomorrow, my Fall semester begins. We had a big family meeting tonight before bed about the kids' meals and activities (Grant is working from home when I'm in school, so though here we need to have enough stuff set up in advance that they aren't constantly interrupting him).
I'm sure I was going to say more. Sure I gotta go to bed.
I'll leave this with a bunch of pics that will be outdated, if I don't hurry...
I had to take a picture one day when I realized that I was treading water in the deep end, with all five of my kids nearby - not a flotation device in sight - and we were all just hanging out, casually having a conversation.
It really hit me like, "Whoa." I kept counting them, unable to process that they were all there and everything was so simple and easy.
Diner (breakfast for) dinner.
Yes, that diner is actually in a pharmacy O_o
This is Elise before GMYS camp one morning, Isaac the day they were going to perform, and the three of them after the performance...
My "little kids," at 7, 9 and 6...
This is Elise after she went around and found all the pieces of that table, reassembled it, and started doing her art outside, and Jake doing a trick he learned at camp with water and vinegar (making tones sound by running his finger along the tope of the glass...pitch changes based on water level).
Ananda and Aaron, after breakfast one morning and waiting for me in the FIU library while I took a makeup exam.
Ananda came home from Mia's house with this lovely hair...we were at a coffee shop in the Gables that afternoon :)
We kinda look alike.
More than 5 years, we've had Aaron's cat, Peter...and finally he's starting to almost, sort of trust me.
I honestly think it's because I quit acting like it's preposterous and just accepted that he understands English, and speaking to him like I do people. Now, I can put him at ease. He is the weirdest and most complicated animal I've ever known, and the 11 year old cat I had who died, before we moved into this house - was a pretty developed personality.
Three thirsty chickens.
There are a lot of pictures of everything from Elise's doodles and her and Jake's cross stitching, to Maryland trip pics galore, on my tumblr in the personal tag. On the second page there's also a montage of my trip to Fairchild Tropical Gardens, with the big kids and our friends Gloria and LJ, a screencap of my grades and some degree planning, and many other random things :)
It's wild, just nuts, how different I feel when I'm really engaged with people and the world (as opposed to spending all my time alone with my kids in our house, with very minimal adult interaction). It is truly the difference between feeling mentally ill, as opposed to being like, "Wait what? I have PTSD? I guess technically I do." Sometimes I feel sad about this, because I used to be so (relatively) content to be home alone with my children. Other times - like now - I feel really happy that such a simple thing can make such a huge difference. Things get complicated because I can be very picky about who I really want to spend time with...
Many things have changed over the years on my Myers Briggs test results, but the most significant and startling was definitely watching my stubborn, moderate "i" turn to a just-over-the-line "e," last year.
I'm sitting here tonight, agitated and stressed with everyone else asleep, wondering what the hell my problem is - and it occurs to me that this is the first day in weeks that I haven't seen anyone that doesn't live in my house. There were other reasons to be stressed: a bank error I had to spend awhile on the phone about, some tedious crafting time with Elise that really took a tremendous amount of patience, realizing at the last minute during cooking that I was missing a crucial dinner ingredient... But all that is just life, it's the kind of shit that happens every day and hasn't been tying my shoulders in knots until today. Maybe it's isolation. Maybe it's not. There was a lot of arguing with Aaron about cleaning his room, and a lot of moodiness out of Jake, and a lot of Annie eye rolling and Isaac homework procrastination.
Still and all, I could list three times as many positive things about each of them. So. *shrug*
Previous non-isolation:
G and I had an awesome trip to Maryland ♥ Grant had enough flyer miles and hotel points stored up from business trips that we could fly and stay for free, and his mom was here in town with a friend for a couple of weeks, and spent those days with our kids. So, all we had to pay for was food! Totally awesome, and he has a ridiculous amount of paid time off accrued since he rarely uses it. We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday exploring Maryland together, which was just fucking great. It was all awesome sex and sweet cuddling and a picnic in the park and a picnic on our hotel room floor. We walked all over and found great farmer's markets and a cool Thai restaurant and an interesting Ethopian place. The weather was lovely, we laughed a ton - it was really cool to be on foot and transit for a few days with no car whatsoever attached to me. Talk about a paradigm shift.
Then he left, Sunday night, to come home, and I stayed at my friend Kristin's house Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday. She works in the evenings, so I was free for those hours. One evening I took Jenne/
the_waker to that Thai place I mentioned, which was awesome. I hadn't seen her since she came by Dama/mommydama's place while we were there with newborn Elise in 2007. I think we could be really close friends if we just lived closer together. Totally easy and natural to hang out with her and talk about ANYTHING.Another evening I met Amy/tumblr user Bohemianelitist, with her kids and Kristin's kids (who I love, and have known for a decade...they're like family and only moved up there 6 months ago). We had great food and then moved over to a playground. The time went too fast.
I was going to meet Ruth/former lj'er "meileki," but she got too booked up at the last minute by a high needs kid and study demands, which was disappointing but I totally understand (obviously).
Staying up til 4am laughing with Kristin after she got off was great, as it always is. And her brunch spreads were fantastic. And her kids are pretty much what I would call friends, 8 and 11 though they may be :)
The week+ since we've been back from Maryland has also been a connected, networking sort of week. I didn't really experience the coming down of a vacation being over, because:
-My mother in law was still down and visiting and wonderful until a couple of days ago. She is really great. I got so lucky in the mother in law department.
-I spent a half hour at our evaluator's house talking when I picked up all our forms. We have enough in common that this can be an actual good time.
-Cybele and I caught up for at least that long, when I dropped Aaron off to hang out with Adrian. They've been gone all summer.
-The most recent weekend at home Grant and I had was riding high on the utopic chemistry of the previous weekend away (we barely see each other during the work week, it's mostly texting honestly).
-Laura brought the kids over one afternoon and we all sat around the bar eating and the library floor talking.
-Shaun came to dinner last night, with his new girlfriend. We pulled out all the stops (my husband actually made two different meals) and it was a pretty cool time.
-Aaaaaand a bunch of little things - needing to run errands and interact in small ways, meeting Isaac's new teacher, bringing the snack for Annie's derby team this last practice, all that sort of stuff that I don't even think I care about, but, what do I know. It probably makes a difference.
Tomorrow, my Fall semester begins. We had a big family meeting tonight before bed about the kids' meals and activities (Grant is working from home when I'm in school, so though here we need to have enough stuff set up in advance that they aren't constantly interrupting him).
I'm sure I was going to say more. Sure I gotta go to bed.
I'll leave this with a bunch of pics that will be outdated, if I don't hurry...
I had to take a picture one day when I realized that I was treading water in the deep end, with all five of my kids nearby - not a flotation device in sight - and we were all just hanging out, casually having a conversation.
It really hit me like, "Whoa." I kept counting them, unable to process that they were all there and everything was so simple and easy.
Diner (breakfast for) dinner.
Yes, that diner is actually in a pharmacy O_o
This is Elise before GMYS camp one morning, Isaac the day they were going to perform, and the three of them after the performance...
My "little kids," at 7, 9 and 6...
This is Elise after she went around and found all the pieces of that table, reassembled it, and started doing her art outside, and Jake doing a trick he learned at camp with water and vinegar (making tones sound by running his finger along the tope of the glass...pitch changes based on water level).
Ananda and Aaron, after breakfast one morning and waiting for me in the FIU library while I took a makeup exam.
Ananda came home from Mia's house with this lovely hair...we were at a coffee shop in the Gables that afternoon :)
We kinda look alike.
More than 5 years, we've had Aaron's cat, Peter...and finally he's starting to almost, sort of trust me.
I honestly think it's because I quit acting like it's preposterous and just accepted that he understands English, and speaking to him like I do people. Now, I can put him at ease. He is the weirdest and most complicated animal I've ever known, and the 11 year old cat I had who died, before we moved into this house - was a pretty developed personality.
Three thirsty chickens.
There are a lot of pictures of everything from Elise's doodles and her and Jake's cross stitching, to Maryland trip pics galore, on my tumblr in the personal tag. On the second page there's also a montage of my trip to Fairchild Tropical Gardens, with the big kids and our friends Gloria and LJ, a screencap of my grades and some degree planning, and many other random things :)
