#gen reflects

[likesplatterpaint]

I love this water bottle.

And honestly it’s kinda cheap and makes a lot of noise.

But growing up we had to fight with my dad to pay for shit. Necessities like my health insurance, my contacts...etc. it took wacking a softball into my face and my glasses cutting my eyebrow to get those.

Money issues troubled my relationship with mom too, especially in our last years together.

But things finally changed as an adult. I think it was his 2015 visit? We were at the aquarium? And I was thirsty- could probably just wait and hit the water fountain cuz overpriced stuff right but?? Dad bought me the water bottle?? Without guilting me like mom would over the price? Just? Have the overpriced water bottle? Without it even being a thing? My 24 year old ass was SO excited??

Sorry if I sound like Dobby with the sock but like IT WAS A MOMENT FOR ME OKAY

SENTIMENTAL WATER BOTTLE

[likesplatterpaint]

I’ve never had such a weird mixture of contentment and utter displacement.

We all know I love to be at home with husband, dogs and fish. I breathe a giant sigh of relief when I cross the threshold.

So staying at home is no skin off my teeth. But Mike and I are just... existing and this is all damn weird. Trauma. Fog. Fugue. Renewal in the spring and yet the end of so much.

We are so safe, and yet we’re not.

I’m going to take control of my own emotions and send destructive patterns and stop this post right here. It’s time for sleep.

[likesplatterpaint]

You ever just start to think about all the people that hurt you, but then within seconds your brain snaps back, and laughs, fucking Thanos snaps that shit, because you’re so deliriously happy with your life and it doesn’t matter anymore?

Therapy works, man.

[likesplatterpaint]

Today things

I keeping getting Nothing Makes Sense Anymore by Mike Shinoda and That Would Be Enough from Hamilton stuck in my head, respectively. The latter because while we have our struggles I feel so incredibly lucky to be so safe through all of this. Years ago I wouldn’t have been. Ooof. I am so damn gratef.

-productive time planning featured projects for my FROG home page as that seems to be catching my kids’ interest the most. I’ve had several email me pictures of their Pysanky eggs. It’s almost like they’re all ignoring the county page and scrambling for something familiar...just like I told our supervisor lol.

-A handful of kids are sending me art already and it makes me smile.

-Had a productive Zoom with art teacher buddy where we talked about FROG but also Masonite and our painting preferences and dogs. She is an amazing person and quickly becoming a much closer friend. Since all this started, I talk to her in some form or another every day now.

-went at it in the dirt for a good 3 hours today. Tulles and planted two more beds with a very curious puppy at my side. Cleared a fuckton (6 XL bags!!) of dead leaves and pine needles. Yanked out two of the horizontal posts from the playground that was here. Laughed when I realized the two thick in ground ones might be concreted in and gave up in those.

-burned a small batch of pine needles in our fire pit. BAD decision. Lmao. put them out with my fish watering can.

Mom showed up

-I’ll be so mad if nothing grows ahahaha. I am so sore. But on the other hand if they all germinate I’m going to have a fucking wall of Lupines ahahaha.

Tried to water my plants (didn’t need to because timely rain whoops). Was foiled by this.

-came in and took a nice shower, then Mike and I FaceTimed with my sister and our nephews. Older nephew is being a total threenager lmaaaao. We made several jokes about birth control but had a nice chat. New nephew has hit four months and looks like a human now, so I’m interested in him more now.

- made a fucking bomb dot com dinner. Sausage and tomatoes and spinach pasta. Loaded with cheese later, of course.

-Relaxed after dinner. Watched some Buzzfeed unsolved and have been l her tumblr if with the fan in on high and the screen door to the deck open in the dark while Mike sleeps.

-He had a better day today too. I want better for my poor hoosband though.

-snuggles with bunu. She started dreaming in my arms.

-Texts about whale blow-holes and improper fucking cooker on a cupcake usage with another one of the amazing closest people in my life that make me legitimately laugh out loud

-And mentee just texted me to say hi. I’ve gotta be more present for her. We had a nice chat and I asked how she was feeling about all this. She’s bored. I can’t imagine being a kid during a pandemic. I have plans to FaceTime her tmr and she seems thrilled.

Gonna watch the lightning through the windows and drift off soon. It feels like summer. It’s nice to have the time and energy to experience spring...if even in this really weird, confusing, scary way.

If you read through all of that you’re a champ lmao thank you for caring.

Be safe. Be kind to yourself and others in small and big ways. Sending out love.

[likesplatterpaint]

Nothing can take this haven from me.

This house is mine.

This space is mine.

It’s calm. It’s quiet. It’s safe. No one screams my name so loud I jump every minute. No one blames me for things out of my control. No one abuses me. I am protected. I am understood. I am powerful, even.

My animals adore me and my husband even more so. The food I make tastes incredible and makes me strong. No one judges me for eating it, or enjoying it.

I don’t second guess every single action in this place.

Even acts of god or fates, life ever changing and material things waning.... it cannot take this moment from me.

My life is mine. My life is mine. I’ll repeat it until my dying day because I almost died for want of this feeling.

My life is mine. And it’s such a good little life.

[likesplatterpaint]

There are two places in my childhood that I desperately wanted to be.

One was my mother’s bed, warm and wanted, TV emitting a soft blue glow, and the warmth incandescent bulb of her massively carved headboard, filled with books and drawers and s mirror. I always slept better in that queen sized bed, even on the rare nights when I was a teen and went back in my moments of greatest duress. When things were good, we’d talk for hours there, laugh at the silliest things. It was safe. It was home- for many years until she died.

The other place was a similar bed, but I don’t know the details well enough to describe it. It was my father and stepmother’s bed- in the master suite of their master house. I can count on one hand the times my memory reaches back far enough to remember being allowed in their room.

When I was a little girl, visiting there for my court-mandated six weeks, night would come and I’d feel indescribably lonely. Maybe it was the crime shows and movies that scared me and made me think too much- way too mature for my age. Or maybe it was the fact that when bedtime came, the three of them- Dad, Her, and my younger brother would hold up in the master suite and shut the door. Kent would get his bath in their giant jacuzzi tub. I would have to run my own.

I was five, six, seven. I was terrified of scalding myself, so I often took cold baths. I could often hear them laughing and see the glow of the light flickering under their door as I waited outside on the couch, cold and wet in my pajamas, waiting for dad to kiss me goodnight and send me off to a room that wasn’t mine with a fan that felt too cold.

It was no wonder I desperately needed my fucking teddy bear, which She often fucking hid. Monster.

I wanted to be in that room. I wanted to feel safe. Wanted. Content.

Thank good I didn’t spend most of my life growing up there.

Now?

Now I have my own huge bed, with shelves and soft glowing lights. A TV that hums and flashes with whatever I want to watch. Two massive dogs, soft and sleepy, curled at my feet, and a fan that keeps me comfortable. A husband pressed against my back, only an arms reach away when I need connect because sometimes, that loneliness still seeps into my stomach.

And I am safe. I am so wanted. I am content.

and I only wish I could wrap my arms around that little girl in a bed that wasn’t hers, in a room that was too dark and quiet, and tell her that one day she’d be so very safe and happy.

[likesplatterpaint]

This time last year I was panicking about how we would pay for rent and my wedding dress and churning out art like it was my only hope, because I felt like it was.

In a few days, we leave for Hawaii. Mike is getting a pay upgrade and a department transfer. I went up another pay step. Duncan is learning so fast and being such a good puppy it makes my head spin. We have straight up amazing friends. Our little house, though not really ours, is our heaven. It’s filled with art, good food, fish tanks, our dogs running and playing, and our things and peace and quiet.

Life is so good.

The hope that this would all come some day is what I stayed alive for.

I’m so happy.

[likesplatterpaint]

Notes to self:

-Take notice of and enjoy your aquatic critters always. Marvel at their shapes, locomotion, and how silly but beautiful their existence is.

-Always be grateful for who Mike is. Always. The more you read about other men, toxic masculinity, selfish assholes who won’t listen to their partners, the more you want him to be immortal and marvel that you ever found him. Try not to cry with relief at how much you love him and how well he treats you, and how healthy it all feels. Remember you’re marrying him. Try not to cry some more. Remember your period is coming. This is why cry.

That and you’re a bottomless well of emotion and come by it honestly.

-Never give up your little intimate in-jokes: sppoon. Beeger sneeze. Crihspy. PREEmium. All these stupid little things that make up your love language.

-Your coworkers fucking rock, even if your job doesn’t pay you enough- they really honestly do. People take care of each other in your school, from the secretary who tried to talk you through your meltdown and handed you tissues while sitting next to you, to everyone who honestly cares how your wedding planning is going, to the anonymous coworker who put the adorable little art palette note pad in your mailbox because ??? they’re just genuinely nice??

-Keep watching your principal. Her conflict resolution skills and diplomacy are phenomenal, both with parents and kids.

-Always stay to talk to Vodka Grandma. Always. she loves hearing about your life and it feels so, so good to have an older teacher empathize about life and men and how the world is. Pray she lives forever. Know she won’t and make a note to visit her more often, even if it is to sneak her cigarettes.

-Be so grateful that Mike never gives you a hard time or even acknowledges when you fart. Like, so grateful. (Your parents teased each other endlessly and they liked it but you are gassy and it is EMBARRASING).

-Your silly little goose fish is just so sweet.

-Life is so, so good. And it feels so good to tell people that when they ask how life is. I am so glad our narrative isn’t one of fruitless struggle anymore.

-You have a family to go home to for Easter and no one will yell, or scream, or cry. You will not be overwhelmed by 50-some people in a small place that aren’t sure they want you there. Your MIL can hardly wait to see you, and she loves you so fucking much. You love her too.

I’m sorry I haven’t been around or posting much lately guys. Just a lot to do. I’ve been transcribing in my free time to make a little extra cash for wedding stuff. Just know that I think of you all and send good vibes.

Thanks for being alongside me on this journey.