Not a Wasted Word

Thanks for attending my pity party yesterday. I was in a pretty bummed out place when I wrote that: my husband had decided to pick a fight with me the night before about how I am over-committing and he is doing too much. This is a discussion we’ve had a lot, and I’m really not sure how to move forward with him on this topic. As I’ve mentioned before, the more I request the space and time to pursue my own interests, the more push back I get from my husband. It just sucked that he chose the night before my birthday, when I KNEW I wasn’t going to be acknowledged in the ways I hoped for, to tell me he feels like he is doing too much. It sucked.

So yeah, I woke up feeling pretty down on my birthday. Luckily my husband apologized and then asked what I wanted that day. Since it was a Wednesday, and we had an appointment at 3pm, I just asked for a card with a handwritten note. (His birthday is Sunday and my parents are taking the kids that night so we’ll have dinner then.) Still, I was feeling like my husband doesn’t recognize or appreciate my contribution and I am so tired of feeling that way. It wasn’t how I wanted to feel on my birthday.

Later in the day my friend told me she was planning a dinner with friends at her house for my birthday that Saturday. That was so sweet and made me feel very loved. I’ve literally never had a friend plan something like that for my birthday. So on Saturday I’ll be seeing some friends and on Sunday I’ll be having dinner with my husband. I’m feeling a LOT better about my birthday. (And maybe by Sunday my husband will have the card with the note – he bought the card but hasn’t written anything in it yet.)

Honestly, I think part of my problem yesterday was I’m just mentally exhausted. I’m in the final leg of an intense two-week professional development. It’s farther south than my work, and since my kids are in two different camps that aren’t very close to each other in the city, it’s taking me 1.5 to 2 hours to get home every day. I’m also getting ready for a belt test on Saturday, which is not great timing but they only have belt tests every two months so it’s now or wait a while. I’ve been a yellow belt for a while now and am ready to move up, so I’m going for it, but it’s definitely adding stress to an already mentally exhausting two weeks.

So yeah. Thanks for indulging me yesterday. I’ve found that I generally feel pretty down on my actual birthday, but I don’t dread it much before hand and quickly get over my pity party afterward so I guess that’s not so bad (all things considered). Next year I turn 40 and because 2020 is a leap year my birthday will fall on a Friday. I definitely want to plan something with my friends. I do believe that ultimately it’s up to me to create a celebration for my birthday, and I’m definitely planning on doing that next year.

Such a weird (and very much appreciated!) coincidence that Captain Awkward posted this yesterday. Definitely helping me deal with today.

So I went to St. Louis for over two weeks and wrote ZERO posts and then got back and continued writing ZERO posts and now it’s Wednesday and I’m feeling bad about it.

But not that bad because PRIORITIES and a lot of the time (increasingly, I’ve noticed) this space is just not one of them.

St. Louis was really fun. My kids are older every year (so weird how that happens!) and also more fun do to things with (not so weird how that happens!) and so ALL THE THINGS are MORE FUN!

{I hope to write more about it but I have a shit track record with follow through when I write things like that.}

We got back late Sunday and had to go grocery shopping and get ready for camps for the kids and my professional development for me and a full work day for my husband and it was absolutely the shit show you are guessing it might have been. It was rough.

Monday was ever rougher. It was just an absolute cluster f***. A truly epic re-entry fail. I planned on writing all about it, bullet pointing every shitty moment but now that 36 hours have passed I’m feeling… meh… about rehashing it here. Please just take my word for it – Monday was a shitty day and re-entry is a bitch.

Tuesday was better, but just as busy. Today is the first day this week where I’m not scheduled until the moment I fall asleep. There is a lot to get caught up on at home.

How has your summer been so far!?

There is a beautiful park near my parents’ house. I used to hike it as a kid, and I still run there when I’m on the peninsula and have some time to spare between work and a later event. I’ve always walked, or ran, the same almost 2-mile loop that my mom first introduced me to when I was 12. Once my friend and I tried a different path and got lost and my parents had to come find us in the park after dark. I’ve never ventured off that one loop since then.

But I could always see the other paths crisscrossing the hills below where I run and have always wanted to try one out. I’m no longer afraid of getting lost in the park, but I rarely have much time to spare and I worry about trying a new trail without knowing how long or rigorous it will be. I still run the same loop twice when I go to the park.

The last time I ran my double loop, I realized there were maps at the front sign. I grabbed one and marveled at how many different trails there were. I vowed that when I came again, I would try something new.

Last week I spent the night with my kids at my parents’ house, so that morning I woke up early, put on my running gear and drove to the park. For the first time since I was a kid all those years ago, I took a different path, and ended up running the entire perimeter of the park. It was beautiful, and so fun to be running somewhere new. I can’t believe how big the park is, and now I want to take my kids up there for a longer hike than the one I’ve taken them on before.

Exploring the unknown, walking somewhere and not being sure of where you’re going or where you’ll end up, can be a thrilling experience. But I find I’m much more adventurous when I have an idea of where I’m going and how long it will take me to get there. I really do appreciate having a map.

Do you prefer exploring on your own? Or do you appreciate having a map to guide you?

On Friday morning I dropped my husband and son off at SFO for their flight to Texas. My daughter had left on Wednesday, the day after their last day of school, to fly with her grandparents. They are all in Denton visiting my husband’s sister and her family.

I did not join them.

That means that for the first time since my first child was born (exactly nine years ago this past Friday), I was alone in my own house for three days.

And can I just say, it was amazing.

It was also strange. Very strange. To suddenly have no restrictions (except my own, self-imposed) on my time, to have no real obligations, for such a long stretch… it was actually very disorienting. I struggled to identify what I wanted to do, as I was reminded that even when it’s just me and my husband, I still have to compromise on so many things (or at least take his desires into consideration). Having no one else to answer to, I was unsure of how to make even the most basic of decisions.

I dropped my son and husband off at the airport early Friday morning and ended up at work with an hour and a half before my first class started (I did not join them precisely because I still am at work). I got some stuff done, finalizing grades and organizing my classroom. The school day was both crazy (we didn’t have enough subs so those of us with 8th graders – who were not in our classes as they practiced for graduation – took the smaller classes of other teachers and combined them with our own) and low key (those of us with 8th graders in our classes are basically done teaching as we won’t see them for the rest of the year).

After school I went for a run, then met my friend from work who is leaving for a high school job and we had dinner and drinks. Then I drove home and even though it was late I watched some TV.

On Saturday morning I woke up intending to go to my regular martial arts class at 11am. But at the last minute I decided to skip it and only go to sparring at 12:15. I usually go to the earlier class because that is when my son’s class is, but that morning I didn’t have to accommodate him, so I just didn’t go. It felt so… indulgent.

Sparring was great, and I left realizing that I usually have my son with my, dying to go home after so many hours in the dojo, or waiting for me at home after his dad picked him up. Today I had nobody at home waiting for me, or with me, so I rode my bike to a nearby park and went for a hike. I lingered as long as I wanted, feeling disoriented by the realization that I could do whatever I felt like. But what did I feel like doing?

On the hike I made plans with a friend to come over to my house in the evening, so when I got home I started to get some stuff done. I moved a bunch of tubs from the garage to the shed, which has been on my list for a while, and then moved even more stuff into the shed (all our winter boots are finally out of the house! And some of my son’s more annoying toys! Woot!) Then I cleaned my living room, bathroom and kitchen because they were, quite frankly, disgusting. My friend came over at 8pm, and I was in yoga pants and a tank top (it was in the 90s in SF this weekend! So hot). It was great to stay in, drinking cocktails and eating snacks. She didn’t leave until midnight. After which, I still watched some TV!

This morning I slept in until 8am! I usually wake up around my normal 5:30am time but I guess going to bed so late I slept past that. I stayed in bed for a while reading. Then watched some TV. I also talked to my sister for 2.5 hours! She is in London and it’s hard for us to find a time when we can both chat for a while, but today all the stars aligned. It was great to catch up with her.

I also dropped the camping gear I borrowed off at my friend’s house (and stayed to visit for over an hour), and picked up some toys from a guy on Craigslist (and ran some other errands nearby). When I got home I did laundry and watched some more TV. It’s been a really low key day.

Now it’s 9pm and I’m finally working out (it was way too hot earlier). I’m really getting thrown by the super long days and have trouble understanding that it’s actually 8pm when the amount of light outside is trying to convince it’s much earlier. It really must be summer!

My only other plans tonight are to fold laundry while I watch the premiere of season 2 of Big Little Lies.

This week is busy, but in good ways. Tomorrow I’m taking my other work friend out for dinner (she was pink slipped despite 20 years of service because they no longer have a position open that she can fill with her credential) and then martial arts, Tuesday is our 8th grade promotion, and my family comes home, Wednesday is our last day of classes, and staff party, Thursday is a clean-up my classroom day, and my daughter’s family birthday dinner, and Friday I’m taking my daughter and six friends to the amusement park for her birthday!

It was so nice to have this weekend to remember what I like to do when I’m all alone. I hope my husband and his family make a tradition out of this. ;

Yesterday I missed my son’s TK graduation. It was my first big miss as a mom. When I say “big miss” I’m referring to my kid’s perception of the situation. I don’t think a TK graduation is really a thing (TK isn’t even really a grade!) but my son was definitely disappointed that I couldn’t be there and didn’t really understand why I wasn’t.

His school has had a lot of little presentations and events that have required I miss my last class of the day. To do that I have to ask a colleague to give up their own prep period to teach my class. We don’t have enough subs in the district right now so we’re always being asked to cover other teacher’s classes when a substitute should be taking the whole day. That makes it harder to ask a teacher to cover just one class when you have to leave early.

It was the intersection of a lot of things that made it impossible for me to miss my class yesterday. I do believe I made the right decision professionally. But it’s hard to disappoint my kid. And it’s hard to miss this.

I did communicate to his teacher that I probably wouldn’t be able to make it because I’d already had to miss so much work to come to the myriad other events they’d asked us to attend in the past month. Maybe they will take that into consideration when they plan next year’s festivities.

Being a WOTH mom can be really hard sometimes.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself with that title.

No. We’re not trying to get pregnant again. Yes we are done having kids. I only get happier as a parent the older my kids get and I can’t imagine going back to the newborn baby (or toddler!) days.

But I did go in yesterday to get CD3 blood work done.

I made an appointment to see my OB in a few weeks to talk about peri menopause. My cycle has been a mess for about a year now, and this Saturday I got my period only 12 days after the last one started. I’m used to short cycles – mine are usually 20 days – but less than two weeks is ridiculous.

I’ll be 39 in July, but my RE did warn me that with my AMH level as low as it was when I was trying to have a second child at the age of 33, I’d probably go into into menopause in my early 40s. Which means peri menopause probably isn’t off the table at 38.

Mostly I’m worried about estrogen and osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is one of my irrationally overblown fears, so I’m going to make sure I shouldn’t be taking something to keep it at bay.

Most of my friends are a good decade older than me, and as far as I can tell (I’ve brought it up a few times), I’m the only one staring menopause in the face. Lucky me!

It was a trip getting my blood drawn today, thinking of how far I’ve come since I was getting these same tests done for very different reasons. I’m so glad that those days are behind me, and I’m so thankful I was able to TTC when I was young and it was still something my body could manage. So many of my college friends are trying to get pregnant now, at almost 40. If I’d had to wait that long it probably wouldn’t have been possible.

{I also thought a lot about the many, many days I spent waiting to get my blood drawn after my ectopic, my eyes red and puffy from crying. I go to a different lab, at a new campus, so the waiting room isn’t the same, and yet it still is the first thing I think of every time I get blood drawn.}

I don’t think that much about my TTC, loss, and secondary infertility days much anymore, but this very tangible reminder of my diminished ovarian reserve and its side-effects brought it all back.

I’ll keep you updated on what my doctor says about peri menopause in my thirties.

I’ve known that I have ADHD for a long time, but I’m just starting to realize how much it affects me. And… shit I don’t know how to write this or what to say, but for real I need to write something.

Right now it feels like ADHD is standing between me and the life I want. It is a brick wall, towering above me, disappearing into the horizon in both directions. There is no way to go over, or under, or through. It is immense and impenetrable. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

There are so many changes I’ve wanted to make in my life that I haven’t been able to make, at least not effectively or consistently, and every single one centers around my ADHD. I do these things I don’t want to do because I have ADHD and I can’t stop doing them, or change the way I do them, because of my ADHD. And honestly, if I look closer, and pull back the layers and labels and the ways I’ve understood myself for so long, it is clear that ADHD has been influencing my life in so many negative ways, has been keeping me from being happy for so long, and I honestly don’t think it’s ever going to get better.

{Reading that, it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal. Oh my house is a little messy! Oh I spend more than I mean to! Welcome to the club. But it’s hard to explain how demoralizing it is to set goal after goal and never even get close to meeting them. To KonMarie my house only to have it be paralyzingly cluttered again a year letter. To tell myself that this month I’m going to stick to my new budget and not make it even a single day. To have those things I can’t control keep me from doing so many things I want, like traveling and living abroad, and just having a goddamn friend over for drinks. And that’s not to mention all the horrible things it makes me think about myself. The ways it makes me see myself as a failure.}

I feel frustrated, and angry, that this affects so many faucets of my life in so many adverse ways. I wish so badly I didn’t have it. That I were someone else.

And watching my daughter deal with it, and knowing she will probably have an equally difficult time, breaks my heart.

And knowing that having this makes it that much harder for me to parent her in the way she needs, breaks my heart even more.

I feel like this disorder takes so much, and it doesn’t give much back. Creativity? Spontaneity? Enthusiasm? I’m sorry but those few positives are not nearly enough. The cost is much too high. I can’t enjoy those strengths when I’m constantly stressed that I’ve forgotten something important, or I’ve lost something valuable or irreplaceable, or when I can’t control my anger and frustration, when I yell even though I want desperately to be calm, when I can’t organize my home or my classroom, when I can’t watch a movie with my husband without pissing him off, when I can’t control my spending, and only manage my disordered eating with medication. It fucking sucks to live my life this way, and it makes me feel sad and hopeless to realize it will always be like this.

I’m reading more about it, and trying to take heart in the positive aspects, but damn, it’s easy to linger on the negative. And when I google “I hate my ADHD,” and read post after post by people who feel similarly…

I keep coming back to this paragraph in Driven to Distraction, the current book I’m reading (not sure of the page number because I’m reading an electronic copy on Axis360):

In discussing what’s happening over the past decade and a half with Dr. Russell Barkley, one of the leading researchers in the field, I was particularly interested in Dr. Barkley’s comment that ADD is more impairing that any syndrome in all mental health that is treated on an outpatient basis. More impairing than anxiety, more impairing that depression, more impairing that substance abuse. The “morbidity” of untreated ADD is profound. Twenty-five percent of the prison population has undiagnosed ADD. Most of the kids in the juvenile justice system have untreated ADD. Traffic accidents are eight times more common that in the general population. If you have ADD, you are 40 percent more likely to get divorced than if you don’t, and 30 percent more likely to be unemployed. Estimates run as high as 40 percent of the addicted population having ADD, and a significant proportion of the eating-disordered population.

Edward Hallowell M.D & John Ratey M.D., Driven to Distraction

It’s validating – I see more of myself in those statistics that I’d like to admit – but it’s also demoralizing.

I know I should end this without something that wraps it all up, that makes it relevant in some way. But this is where I am right now, and there isn’t a pretty little bow to put on top of it. ADHD affects my life in many and myriad adverse ways. I hate it. I wish desperately that I didn’t have it. I wish that my daughter didn’t have it. I hate that she has it because of me.

I’m owning it though, for maybe the first time in my life. And I guess that is something. And since it makes it hard to wrap things up into a succinct message, I’m not going to make myself do that, or this post will never get published.

I really needed this three day weekend, and we took full advantage of it.

On Saturday we had our PTA end-of-year party. There are just four of us on the board so it was small. We’re a close group and it was a lot of fun to spend the afternoon together. I had a really good time, and left feeling immensely thankful that I’ve found my tribe.

Sunday I spent the day at work, watching Wine Country and Dead to Me while I graded papers. I finally feel caught up enough to make it through the end of the year.

Today I took the kids to Great America with my parents. My daughter went on roller coasters – the biggest, fastest, scariest ones in the park – and a lifelong parenting dream of mine was fulfilled. I love amusement parks and roller coasters, and finally riding on some with my daughter was truly wonderful. Also, for real, roller coasters these days are no joke.

So yeah, it was a good weekend. And I feel ready to take on the last three weeks of work.

I wrote this yesterday but forgot to post it. Oops!

It’s a lazy Saturday morning. My son and I are not at martial arts because there is a belt test that I’m not participating in. So I’m working out on the elliptical while my daughter reads and my son works on his homework packet with his dad (yes, my kid in TK has homework ::angry red face emoji::)

It all sounds rather idyllic. And perhaps it is. But what you don’t see is the hour of meltdown that my daughter had to navigate before starting to read (she is a high reader but doesn’t want to read novels, especially in Spanish – though once she gets started she always finishes them quickly and easily (and even enjoys them!). It’s been a tough year for her in a lot of ways and I’m not always sure how to best support her. It’s hard, and it weighs on me.

Reading more about how better help to manage her ADHD has forced me to look more closely at my own experiences with ADHD. It’s bringing up some complicated feelings, to say the least. I hope to write more about it soon.

But for now, as the subject line promised, some updates:

• Terminix just did a third treatment on our tenant’s unit (a chemical treatment), as he believes he still has bed bugs. I’m almost positive that he is not following the protocols required before each treatment but what can we do? If we ask he will most assuredly lie, or say something cagey. The most important thing is to wash all his clothes on hot, and I don’t want him doing that in our washing machine (which he technically is allowed to use – yes we are idiots), so I’m not pushing it. I think he thinks that since he did that the first time he doesn’t have to do that again, but if you thought you still had bed bugs, wouldn’t you do it again? I don’t understand how his mind works. At this point we’re just waiting out the three-month warranty on the initial heat treatment to take next steps (which will definitely include us NOT offering to pay for subsequent treatments if no evidence of bed bugs is found). At this point it would be a bad idea to initiate an owner move in because he could easily sue us for doing so with malicious intent and there is a relatively new law in SF that protects tenants with bed bugs specifically so we’re just going to wait until Terminix is no longer willing to keep treating the place for free before we figure out what to do next.

• My sister-in-law is pregnant again, which took us all by surprise because her first pregnancy was uncertain and her child birth experience was relatively traumatic and she was sure she wasn’t going to have any more kids, but her son is barely one and I guess she changed her mind. My in-laws are spending all summer in Texas now, and then plan to be there indefinitely after November. It sucks to get used to them being around only to lose their support entirely for large chunks of time, but having them here sometimes is definitely better than never.

• My kids only have six more days left of school – four next week and two the following week. The fact that they end on a Tuesday is so frustrating, but luckily my husband and his parents planned a trip and will be taking our daughter to Texas to visit her aunt, uncle and cousin the Wednesday after her last day. Then my husband and son will be joining them on Friday, so they can all fly back together the following Tuesday. This means I will have the house to myself for FOUR NIGHTS. I have NEVER had the house to myself for even one night (though I’ve had many alone with my husband), as my husband does not plan trips with them without me. So this is very exciting news. I’m still in school for this stretch, so it’s not just going to be a giant party, but I’m super stoked about it none the less.

• I have 12 more days of school (we end on Wednesday, 6/12) and am feeling panicked that it won’t all get done. By the end of next week I’ll be over that feeling and won’t care if it’s not going to get done, but I’m not there yet. (I think I could be there already, in the not caring stage, but I worry if I let myself do that we won’t get anything done and I’ll go crazy. Keeping them busy and working toward a test is really the better way to play it, and I have to be motivated to do that so I let the panicky feeling have it’s way.

• My house is WAY into the HOLY SHIT IT’S SO MESSY IT’S STRESSING ME OUT place, but we’re not AirBnBing it this summer so I’m not externally motivated to clean it up, so I’m having a hard time working on it. I put the kids in camp for the week before out trip to St. Louis because I assumed we were going to AirBnb the place, so I plan to use that time to do a big purge. We also have a new storage shed in the back yard (which we bought for the initial heat treatment) that I plan to utilize for the stuff that I want to get rid of, but that other people think they still want. Hopefully it will be out of sight, out of mind, and then I can get rid of it for good.

• My husband and I are in a better place. Of course nothing has really changed, we’re just on our familiar cycle’s upswing. I know we need to do more to really change things but I’m too tired right now. Maybe after this summer I’ll have the where with all to initiate something.

• Two old friends recently announced they are pregnant after many years of TTC and IVF. I am so thrilled for them. So, so thrilled.

• My husband went out with an old friend from out of town last night who announced his wife is pregnant. Their kids are our kids ages (second one is a year older) and they had a miscarriage last fall so we were expecting the news at some point. I personally can’t imagine starting all over again with a newborn at this point – I am more and more satisfied with parenthood as I get older! but I’m happy they are getting what they want. It sounds like the husband is not super on board, but going along with his wife’s wishes (he was the one who shared the extremely lackluster comment about parenting two kids when my husband announced we were pregnant again, and it seems his attitude has not changed all that much). I hope it all works out for them. Meanwhile I am SO THANKFUL that my husband and I did not have to navigate that issue. We are both very happy with our two kids, thankyouverymuch.

• (I will also mention this was the woman who was incredibly dismissive about my miscarriage experience, and our struggle to conceive, when it happened, and evidently was totally destroyed by her own miscarriage experience, and how long it took to get pregnant after (she got pregnant immediately the first two times). I’m not sure how that makes me feel, but it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

• I have some new plans for this summer that I’m excited to share, but this post go long so I’ll do that next time.

I hope you all have a great long weekend!