Category: My Life

No Competition

Not everybody knows this, but I’ve decided not to try to hide it anymore: RJ and I are polyamorous and we are currently very active in the lifestyle. We have had quite the journey to get here from where we started out. 

Here’s a recap. We met when we were both poly and married to other people, and we quickly fell in love. We got divorced from our ex-spouses for differing reasons. After our honeymoon phase of focusing on just each other, we struggled to figure out how to be poly together; it nearly destroyed us until we decided to be monogamous (then it was just slowly destroying me, but that’s a whole other story). We had a baby and got married. 

And then, a few months ago, we decided to try opening up again. It was a struggle, but not nearly as challenging as our last attempt. We’re doing it differently this time by only dating together. Finding matches who are interested in dating both of us at the same time is certainly more challenging! That being said, it has also been incredibly fun, fulfilling, and even in the harder moments it has brought us closer together. 

I wanted to take the time to write a post about what polyamory means to me, and us. I think that a lot of people don’t understand polyamory because we are thoroughly programmed for monogamy from a very young age. They don’t understand why people would want to be polyamorous and how they can “get over” feelings of jealousy. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about polyamory. Some people think that it’s all about sex, and that it’s a sexual free-for-all. Or, they mistake polyamory for polygamy (which is illegal). Sometimes people think that polyamory is a threat to monogamy, and that poly people want everyone to “convert.” There is also a misconception that people become polyamorous because they are dissatisfied with their current partner, or because they are afraid of commitment and/or addicted to sex.  

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of toxic ways to be poly (just as there are plenty of toxic ways to be monogamous). For some poly people, there is a feeling of superiority over monogamous people. And some people certainly do choose to pursue a polyamorous lifestyle to compensate for issues in their current relationship, or to put a nicer label on a promiscuous lifestyle. 

Personally, I don’t believe that a promiscuous lifestyle needs to be relabeled, because I don’t see anything wrong with it. As long as sex is approached with a safety mindset, and based on respect and consent, I find nothing immoral about enjoying a human connection with a variety of people on a sexual level. 

Exploring sexuality can be an incredible path to personal growth. It can bring meaningful relationships into your life, deepen your emotional and social skills, help you heal from trauma, and even just produce happy chemicals that make your life more joyful. 

But, I digress. 

Polyamory is about different things to different people, but at its core it is about the idea that a single person may not be able to satisfy all of your needs, and that there is a benefit to being open to connections of all kinds with more than one person. Some people really do thrive in monogamy and I think that is wonderful for them. However, they are no more superior than poly people are. Monogamy and polyamory are just two out of many approaches to relationships involving romantic love and/or sex. One is not better than another! 

For some people, “polyamory” is all about sex. But my hot take on this is that those people aren’t really polyamorous. The word itself means “many loves.” Polysexual would be a better way to describe those people. I have nothing against people who approach sexuality in this way (again, as long as there is safety, respect, and consent). That being said, it isn’t the same thing as polyamory. 

Polyamory is about connection. Sometimes that’s sexual, and sometimes it’s romantic, and sometimes it’s platonic–or some combination of those things. At its finest, poly is also about compersion. Compersion is basically the opposite of jealousy and competition. When you feel compersion for your partner, you feel joy for their joy, even when it comes from sources other than you. I feel a high level of compersion for RJ. I get excited when he’s excited about other people, because I know how fun those feelings are! I love the feeling of discovering new connections, so when RJ gets to experience that for himself, I feel the empathic thrill of that. 

Compersion goes even deeper than that, though. It means that I want RJ to experience all of the love and joy that he possibly can in this life, and that includes in the areas of love and sex. I want that for myself, as well. Even though RJ still feels that he would be perfectly happy being monogamous with me, he has shown that he is willing to work through the parts of poly that are difficult for him so that I can live my fullest life. That kind of selfless love is, in a way, the most poly thing of all. It shows me that he truly wants me to be happy, and he’s giving me the gift of supporting that side of me without taking his love away. That’s all I ever really wanted: to be able to love him and be loved by him, to the fullest, while still being authentic to who I am and my desire to give love to others. I love giving love away like it’s extra change; that’s no secret. Why? Because I believe that it’s not only abundant, but it’s one of the most powerful forces for good in the world. 

I was put on this earth to love, and that’s what I want to do.

Living this way, I don’t find myself feeling less desire for RJ. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. You see, when it comes to love and sex for me, there is no competition. And I mean that in two ways.

On the one hand, there is no competition because nobody could ever fulfill and satisfy me the way that RJ does. Nobody can compete with that. Which is why it’s a good thing that it’s not a competition. 

There’s no competition because it’s not about comparison. Everybody brings something different to my life, and none of them have to look like the others. The only competition is for my time, and I am very intentional about giving my time to people fairly. Anybody in my life who wants more of my time just has to ask, and they would have it. I make time for the things that matter to me, and the people I love are what matter most. 

Polyamory is about many things, but one thing it should never be about is competition. For me, knowing that there is no competition for my husband’s love for me makes it easy to feel happy when he finds other love connections–and the wonderful thing is that I think he’s finally starting to get there when it comes to me, as well. It won’t happen overnight. But eventually, my hope is that both of us can bask confidently in our love for each other, and embrace all of the compersion that brings. 

Silence Is Golden

I’ve been having some anger problems of late. After my last post, that’s probably no surprise. I’ve also written about my anger control issues before, which I’ve struggled with all my life. So this is not exactly breaking news, right?

But lately it’s taken on a different flavor. It’s beyond anger, or frustration, or irritation from being over-stimulated. It’s rage. 

My rage makes an appearance pretty often lately. It sneaks up on me and takes over, swiftly and overwhelmingly. It’s triggered by a few different things, frustration being one of them. But a bigger trigger lately is the feeling of being powerless, helpless, silenced, and/or unheard. 

For example, the person I wrote about in Vigilante Shit incurred my rage because they became aggressive towards me when I tried to enforce a boundary of mine that they were disrespecting. This led to me feeling helpless because I did everything I could to make that relationship harmonious, and the other person was still a bully. I was powerless to improve the situation while still protecting myself. And that sucks. 

Smaller things can also trigger my rage lately, when they trigger the same or similar feelings. Someone honking at me when they were the one who did something wrong. Someone being rude to me for no reason. Someone being inconsiderate and then being a prick about it if I say something. 

Basically, I go through the world trying my best to be a kind person. But when my kindness (or just my audacity to exist and/or stand up for myself) receives an aggressive response, it really pisses me off. In short, I’m a sweet little bunny until you fuck with me, and then I morph into a honey badger. 

It was hard at first for me to see the connection between that type of interaction and the feeling of helplessness or being unheard. But basically it’s a situation where I’m doing everything I can to be a good person, but I’m still treated as if I did something wrong. That feels helpless because I have no control over other people or how they treat me. My only influence over that is how I treat them, and unfortunately there are many people in this world who just don’t care. They will treat others badly if it suits them in the moment, and there is nothing anybody can do about it. 

Why does this trigger such rage in me? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself and exploring, and I think I might have an answer. 

This may sound a little “out there” to some people, but I believe that I experienced a childhood trauma that I have repressed. I believe that it was some kind of sexual abuse, and I have ideas about who might have been the perpetrator(s). But I have no solid memories. Just a gut feeling that has followed me around for over a decade now. 

Because I don’t have any memories, I tend to question myself about whether anything really happened.* I have high key imposter syndrome when it comes to being a trauma survivor. It feels really wrong to put myself in that category when I’m not 100% sure that I belong there. 

Of course, I know that I’m good at gaslighting myself, and it’s also possible that’s what’s going on here. Because when I allow myself to mindfully explore my childhood memories and speak to my past selves, I hear myself saying that something happened.

Ultimately, the results are the same. For some reason, either trauma-related or because it’s just who I am, I have a high sensitivity level to feelings of helplessness and being unheard. I believe that is because it triggers a childhood trauma in which I also felt helpless, powerless, and unheard. 

I feel unheard often. Sometimes it feels like the people closest to me don’t pay attention when I talk. Sometimes it feels like I’m shouting into the void and nothing I say is being absorbed by anyone. Sometimes it feels as if no matter how much I write and share, the few people who read it still don’t truly understand me. These are feelings, not facts. In reality, these things may or may not be true. Or, maybe it’s impossible for anyone to truly understand another person; maybe we just think that we can. 

Feeling unheard in those ways doesn’t put me in a rage, though–it just makes me feel sad and alone. What puts me in a rage is when I’m in any sort of conflict with another person, and I try to communicate something to make the situation better, or I try to defend myself, and they either don’t hear it, won’t listen, or misunderstand. Often it seems that they hear things I didn’t say, or read things I didn’t write. It’s so frustrating to be unable to make people understand. 

I think that the key to my rage is that I sense aggression directed at me. When I feel unheard, it doesn’t feel like an attack. But when somebody is mad at me, I do feel like I am under attack. I can literally feel my body going into fight or flight mode. My heart starts to race, I feel blood rushing from my extremities, and often I will start to tremble. Sometimes I feel nauseous or an uncontrollable urge to cry. 

When I am under attack, my first instinct (after my brain has a moment to process the threat) is to fight like hell. I quite literally am ready to fight someone, even though the threat is almost never physical. It’s all emotional, but to my brain the threat feels very real and needs to be addressed immediately. I can’t fully calm down until I have resolved it in some way, and even then just thinking about the event can cause the same physical reaction and trigger my rage all over again.

It’s all very interesting. It’s also something I don’t want to be controlled by. And so, it is something I am working on. 

My new approach is to remember the most important rule when dealing with a bully: usually the best way to stop them is to ignore them. Silence is golden! Any sort of reaction from you only gives them the attention that they want. But when you ignore them, there is nothing left for them to do because you are simply not engaging. Of course, it’s also important to protect yourself and your boundaries, which I believe is best done clearly, and succinctly. Everybody deserves a chance to realize their mistakes and redeem themselves. 

However, they should not need to be reminded constantly of your boundaries, nor should you try to explain yourself over and over again. They. Will. Not. Change. That’s when it’s time to move on to ignoring them.

None of this applies to children being bullied, or people of any age facing physical threats, to be clear. Children need to be protected from bullies, period. They should not be expected to ignore it; they can learn how to do that when they’re older, but until then we must protect them to the best of our ability because they are vulnerable and that is our job. Children who are bullies need to be stopped if there’s any hope for them to grow up and not be an adult bully.

Side-rant over.

My new approach is to ignore bullying behavior. Don’t respond. Do nothing. Say nothing. So simple!

I also am using mantras to help soothe my stress response and feelings of anger that could quickly escalate to rage. My mantras are: “This is not an emergency.”; and “I am calm, cool, collected, and in control of myself, even in chaos or conflict.” That second one is long, but easy for me to remember because of all the C’s. And it helps. If I can manage to stay silent and still for just a few moments and repeat these mantras, I can usually regain control of myself.

Reminding myself that “this is not an emergency” is huge. Because my brain thinks it is an emergency and I am being threatened in some way, when really all that’s happening is something insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Maybe my kids are running late for school… but really, that is okay. Nothing bad will happen. Or maybe somebody honked at me. That’s okay, too. It is not an emergency. I am calm, cool, collected, and in control of myself.  Who cares that somebody I don’t know and will likely never see again wrongly thinks I did something to them? Who cares if they’re screaming profanities at me from their car window? I don’t have to look. I don’t have to do anything except continue to drive safely. 

In situations like this, whatever happened truly does not matter. So I can just let it go. 

A lot of the time, reminding myself of that is all I need to calm down and diffuse my rising anger before it explodes into rage. And that is super important to me, because I want to be the kind of person who makes the world better, not worse. 

*Correction: I do have some definite memories of these things, but I’m so used to disregarding them because I didn’t want to believe it was sexual abuse. The things I remember were “not that bad” so to speak. But I suspect that there were more and worse events that took place which I have completely blocked out.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

I want to make it very clear that the abuse I experienced was not at the hands of anyone in my immediate family. This was not my dad, mom, or brother. I have no intention of naming names, but I do want to make sure nobody thinks my parents did that. My parents never abused me in any way!

iMom

When I was a teenager, I had a lot of stress in my life. Even though a lot of my time was spent with my friends– as it should be when one is a teenager—I also had a very big workload between school, my part-time job, and chores at home.

There were many days when I would go to school, go to work, go home, do homework and chores, and go to bed. That was my life, Monday through Friday. I had zero free time on those days. What’s worse is that even with multiple hours each night dedicated to homework and studying, it was still a challenge to keep up with my coursework because I was in very difficult classes. I have incredibly high standards for myself, and as a teenager I was also extremely motivated to make my dad proud of me. I worked very hard to achieve that. 

When life was very monotonous and demanding at the same time, I went into what I like to call “robot mode.” As a robot, I am efficient. I am productive. I am good at my job. I have a purpose, and that is my focus. I don’t have needs of my own, other than the basic requirements to continue to function. 

This is one of my shades of depression, I have come to understand. I haven’t experienced robot mode in a very long time, until now. When I recognized what I was doing, I welcomed my robot-self back as an old friend. 

The truth is that robot mode is very helpful to me, especially as a busy mom. Robot mom can handle all of my responsibilities. She has a schedule and a routine, and is very good at becoming whatever she needs to be whenever she needs to be it. When it’s time to take care of the kids, robot mom is patient and caring and even playful. When it’s time to go out in public, robot mom is doing just fine—she even greets others with a smile on her face. When it’s time to do chores, robot mom is on it. 

The thing about robot mom is that, well, she’s a robot. She doesn’t have feelings. She isn’t alive. She can feign emotions, of course. Her programming is well done. But the feelings that she lets other people see aren’t really genuine. She is excellent at masking, and the more she does it the better she gets. 

Robot mom is me, of course. Even when I’m in robot mode, I am still there on the inside, with all of my emotions and aliveness. I just choose to push those things aside because there is no room for them in my life at the time. 

What it comes down to is that I can’t be “on” 24/7/365 without becoming something else. 

I am a human being, and I have a limited capacity. I like to imagine my capacity as a backpack that I’m carrying on a hike that represents life. I carry all of the necessities in my backpack—being a good wife, being a good mom, being a good pet caregiver, being a good homemaker, being a good person. And all of those things are heavy. My backpack is full to the point that I don’t know how far I can go with it on my back. How can one person carry all of that?

Now, here’s the twist. I don’t get to take things out of my backpack, because there’s nobody else to carry them, and I can’t simply drop them. So I keep trudging on with my heavy-ass backpack, just trying to make it to my destination. (Don’t ask me where it is, because I don’t know what’s down this road. I’m just walking.)

Oh, and here’s the second twist. I have others on my hike with me; I have my husband, kids, pets, and other loved ones. They have backpacks too, and wouldn’t you know it? They’re also heavy. Too heavy for them to carry, it would seem, because I keep finding myself taking more of their things into my own backpack. When they need help, I’m who they look to. I am leading this hike. And so, I carry the things. 

Eventually, a person carrying too much will collapse. 

This is where robot mom comes in! Robot mom takes some of the things in my backpack and makes them magically disappear. Namely, my own needs and feelings. Without those things weighing me down, I find that I can maybe go a little bit further with all the stuff I’m carrying. 

When I’m in robot mode, I’m just trying to survive– but I’m not enjoying life. 

Above all, robot mode is lonely. It is both comforting and saddening to know that other people can’t see through me. Only my husband (and, I suppose now you, reader) knows I’m depressed and overwhelmed. That’s the way I want it, after all. I’m the one who takes care of everyone else, and to be honest, I feel quite uncomfortable when I become the one who needs help from others. I strive to carry not only my own weight, but the weight of others’ needs as well. When I need other people to help me, it means that I’m taking away from their capacity, and I am certainly not carrying my own weight. I become a burden. 

Pushing down my pain only works for so long. It has to come out at some point, and I do my best to ensure that it only happens when nobody else is around. That is why when I’m in robot-mode, I’m socially withdrawn and I try to isolate myself as much as possible. Masking takes a lot of energy, and when I’m alone I can take a break. 

I am in a stage of life right now that is incredibly challenging. I have three kids in school who need to be dropped off and picked up at different times each day, and who all need more attention than I can possibly give them. I have a baby who isn’t yet mobile but wants to explore everything while also being held at all times. I have a three year old. (Enough said.) Every day is exhausting. By bedtime, I’m a crumbled up piece of paper lying here.

I am fortunate, in some ways, that both my husband and I are 50/50 co-parents with our ex-spouses. It means that on half of my evenings, I have a break from the chaos of feeding dinner to five children, four of which are unbelievably picky (the baby is not picky yet), and getting them all to bed. From five PM until 9 PM on the nights when we have all of the kids, I am swamped. It’s a non-stop, well-choreographed dance to get everyone what they need and not have multiple meltdowns from multiple people. 

Co-parenting comes with its drawbacks for us, as well. It’s emotionally challenging to be away from my kids half of the time. It gives me anxiety and makes me feel like a bad mom; I often feel useless and depressed. Even though I know I need the break, I beat myself up for the mere fact that I’m struggling. 

But back to robot mom. Going into robot mode is a coping mechanism for me when I get overwhelmed with stress. Unfortunately, it causes me to feel disconnected from myself and my family, and especially my husband. That makes me feel even more alone, and from that point I can easily spiral into dark places. 

What it comes down to is this mindset: I am on my own here, and I will survive even if I have to be a robot to do it. It’s easier that way because then I don’t need to depend on anyone else or ask for anything. I live to serve and I’m not a burden. 

Of course, it isn’t sustainable. Eventually, my husband will get past the walls that I put up, either by his own effort or by my breaking down and letting him in because the truth is, I don’t want to be in this alone. When he tells me that I don’t have to, I cling on to that shred of hope. I start to think that maybe it’s okay for me to need things. I start to think it’s okay for me to be human. 

The jury’s still out on whether that proves to be true or not (that it’s okay for me to be human). Only time and experience will tell. 

Aftermath

Divorce is a weird experience. 

For one thing, it can mean different things to different people. 

For some it feels like defeat; for others, freedom. For some, it is a time of heartbreak and devastation; for others, a time of celebration and rebirth. It can be amicable and even unremarkable; or, it can be acrimonious and dramatic. 

Sometimes, divorce is many things to a person—either all at once, or day-by-day. What I mean by that is that for some people, they can feel both negative and positive feelings toward their divorce simultaneously. And for some people, how they feel varies from day to day, week to week, month to month, etc; sometimes they feel positively about it, and sometimes they feel negatively. 

The thing about divorce is that nobody plans for it to happen. (The word “nobody” here is used hyperbolically; I’m sure there are some people out there who marry with the intention of divorcing, for a variety of reasons either unhinged or calculated, or perhaps both). 

Nobody gets married and vows to be with a person for life, while knowing in the back of their mind that they’re lying. For most people, marriage is sacred. It is something they only want to do one time with one person. Divorce is something that happens to those who don’t think things through, act on impulse, choose poorly, or are careless with others. It’s something that deserves sympathy, that people look at and think, “okay, how can I avoid doing that? I don’t want to be that person.”

But the truth is that divorce is, well… complicated. It isn’t good or bad; it is both and neither. 

For me, getting divorced is something I never in a million years thought I would do. Like, ever. It’s also something that I am continuing to process, over two years after separating from my ex, and after getting remarried. Being married again kind of feels like starting to read a new book before you finish the one you were reading before… but you were kind of over it, and this new book is pretty great, so it’s okay? And yet, the nagging feeling of knowing you didn’t finish reading that book is always there. (Or is that just me?)

Long story short, I haven’t finished processing my divorce even though I’m married to someone else now. Which is weird, but also kind of makes sense. I was with my ex-husband for 13 years, and married for ten. That is a long relationship to change so dramatically, and processing that is bound to take some time. For all I know, I’ll be processing it for the rest of my life. I mean, I hope not, but still. 

When I think about my divorce, I realize that there’s a difference for me in how it happened versus why it happened. If someone were to ask me why I got divorced, I would have to choose which version to give them. 

How it happened is that we became polyamorous, and through that I realized that my feelings for him were platonic. I fell in love with someone else, and my ex was not able to accept that person into our lives as fully or as quickly as I wanted him to. Even though we’d both agreed to be polyamorous, in practice it was a very exciting experience for me but a very unpleasant experience for him. Losing my romantic interest was painful for him (I think I can safely assume), while for me it was painful to be separated from my new love. These factors caused conflict between us and led to both of us pulling away from the relationship. It came to the point where we couldn’t find happiness while staying married. 

How it happened makes me look like the “bad guy,” and that perception has messed me up a lot emotionally. Because I know that I didn’t do anything wrong, but from a simplified perspective, it would seem that I left my husband for somebody else. It looks like I threw away my marriage for something new and exciting. That voice in my head tells me that I’m the villain. 

This is why I feel the need to frequently emphasize that I could have and would have stayed with my ex, if only he had been able to support my new relationship. Perhaps that doesn’t make sense to people who aren’t polyamorous, but it is what it is. I would have done the same for him. In fact, I was his biggest cheerleader in dating! I truly wanted him to find a person who could give him what I could not, so that we could stay married and both be happy and fulfilled. 

Why it happened is different, I’m beginning to realize.

As I mentioned, while I was falling in love he was going through emotional upheaval. I was changing and discovering a life of my own apart from him. Because I was changing, he needed to change too. In the end, we were two very different people who could have stayed married if we’d wanted to, but the reality is that we didn’t want to. 

I find it annoying that it sounds like a cliché that “we both changed” and “we grew apart.” Because it’s not just as simple as that. But at the same time, it kind of is. 

We are different people now. Throughout the 13 years we were a couple, we obviously changed a lot as well. I always believed we could change together, and that’s what we did for all of those years. But when everything was falling apart, we both were changing in ways that specifically and by necessity pulled us away from each other. We were becoming our own people, finally. And if I’m honest, all of me changed like midnight. The people we became didn’t make sense as a couple, and so we walked away. 

When we decided to divorce, it was extremely… uneventful. It was a calm, cool, and collected kind of conversation. No anger, so hurt feelings (at least that were expressed), certainly no yelling. We even had one last cuddle. 

Looking back at that always makes me sad. What we lost was something big, and amazing, and rare. All of a sudden, we realized it was already gone and we were holding onto nothing. But at the time, I wasn’t sad. How could I be sad? The people who had that amazing marriage no longer existed. I wasn’t her. So, I had nothing to mourn. 

After the processing I have done thus far, I have found reasons to mourn. I mourn for that person who I used to be, who had that amazing love story, who felt safe and secure and settled. I mourn for all the love we unraveled; we still care deeply for each other, but obviously the type of love has changed. I mourn for how easy it was to spend time together, how much I enjoyed being around him, and how I never got tired of being with him. I lost my best friend, not just my husband. 

It may sound superficial, but I also mourn for the life I gave away. We had built our dream house together, and I loved that house. I loved our neighborhood and our city. I loved the kids’ school, and I loved the rhythm of our lives. Leaving the place I loved, that felt like home, was hard for me. I had to mourn for that as well, and still do. 

It’s strange to think that people can change so much, that they can be the same person and yet not. It’s hard to know how to be around them. When you’re with a person who you have known for so long and been through so much with, and they start to become someone that you don’t recognize, it is extremely disconcerting. You miss that person, but how can you say that when they’re right there in front of you? It’s hard to process. 

Getting divorced when I thought I was above that was humbling. Now, being married again, I have to balance my cynicism with optimism. It would be naïve to say that it is impossible I would ever get divorced again—even though that is how I feel! I guess the difference now, and one of the biggest lessons I learned, was that I have the power to choose what happens in my marriage. 

Of course, I only have control over myself, which is only half of the equation. But the point is that I have the power. It isn’t fate, it’s a choice. I know that I chose to divorce my ex. I know that I could have chosen differently. I know that I do not want to choose that ever again. I also know that I might change my mind about that someday and feel tempted to leave—but even if that happens, I can still choose to stay. If my marriage is as sacred to me as I say it is, then I will choose that even on the days I feel differently. And I am determined to prove that it is.

I’m very lucky with how things have turned out. My ex-husband and now-husband get along really well, and I have a good relationship with my ex as well. There is no animosity. On my husband’s side of things, everything is harmonious with his ex-wife as well. The four of us make up a sort of co-parenting chain, and it feels nice. Our blended family has blended smoothly, and I am happy with that. 

So, the aftermath hasn’t been so bad, on the surface. Emotionally, though? That’s a different story. It just goes to show that nobody goes through divorce completely unscathed. We bear the scars, whether we like it or not. 

Five Months of August

Dogs seem to come and go more frequently in my life than most. I’ve had 12 dogs as an adult. Three were rehomed, four passed away, and one went to live with my ex-husband. Currently, I have four dogs. 

Dezi was my husband’s dog before I met him, and I adopted Pepper when I separated from my ex. Then we got Nugget as a puppy in December of 2022. Three dogs felt manageable, probably because two of them are small and Dezi is older and less needy than a younger dog. But I felt like there was something missing. It seems as if my heart is continuously expanding to want “one more” thing to love and care for. And so, I got the itch for another dog. 

I found myself thinking of my first dog that was my own (rather than a family dog growing up). His name was Marley, and he was very special. He was an American Pitbull Terrier mix, absolutely gorgeous, incredibly gentle and tolerant, and just overall a very good dog. His only vice was separation anxiety, which was something we struggled with for most of his life. But it was worth it to me because Marley was amazing. 

He passed away at the age of 13, and since then I’ve had five pitties—that is, pitbull-type breed dogs. First there was Macy, who I actually got as a puppy before Marley passed away. She was what I referred to as my “soul dog.” While I don’t think there’s only one dog in a lifetime who can speak to a person’s soul, I do feel that some dogs are more special than others. At least, that has been my experience. For me, Marley and Macy were my first two soul-dogs. They held special places in my heart. 

Sadly, as Macy grew up she began to have unpredictable bouts of aggression towards other dogs. These were dogs who she grew up around, as well as others. And when it happened, she went for blood. One minute she could be innocently playing or cuddling with one of her doggie siblings, and the next minute something shifted and she was trying to kill them. We never understood why it happened, but we did everything we could to fix the problem. We did extensive training, and she responded very well. But, because her aggression wasn’t a habitual behavior but random episodes, training didn’t stop these attacks from happening. 

While I never worried that Macy would hurt one of her human family members intentionally, she did bite my ex when he tried to separate her from one of our other dogs during an attack. His injury was fairly serious, and we began to consider our options. We tried to rehome her, but a pitbull with aggression issues is nearly impossible to adopt out. After our second professional training program with her, which was followed shortly after by another attack in which my ex was once again bitten—we knew it was time to put her to sleep. 

Having to put a perfectly healthy, young, sweet dog to sleep was horrid. But we knew that it wasn’t safe to continue to have her around. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye to her.

The two other pitties I had with my ex were Moosey and Buddy. We got Moosey as a puppy, and he was very sweet and overall a good dog. For our family at the time, though, he turned out to be too much of a handful for us. So when my parents offered to take him as a trade for their older dog, Buddy, we jumped at the opportunity. Buddy is tolerant, gentle, playful, and loyal—a great dog to have in a family with young children. He wasn’t as great of a dog for a couple who liked to travel a lot, which is why my parents wanted to trade. We were all satisfied with this decision, and it worked out great. 

In my current marriage, I’ve had two pitties. One of them is brand new as of this post; we just got a puppy, who we’ve named Forrest. But before Forrest, there was Auggie. 

As I mentioned earlier, I began to feel a pull to get another dog this past summer. I was thinking a lot of Marley and how I wished I could find another doggo like him. Well, I looked, and I found August. 

August—Auggie for short—was also incredibly gorgeous and sweet. He was super tolerant of the kids, the cats, and other dogs. Nothing seemed to bother him. His demeanor was exactly what I knew pitbulls could be, at their very best. I loved him from the day I met him.

We adopted him from a couple who was looking to rehome him. He was about ten months old when we adopted him, and they said they were rehoming him for financial and family health reasons. When they said goodbye and we took him with us, they were visibly upset; it was clear that they loved him very much. But what happened in the month following our adoption of him made me suspicious that they gave him up for a very different reason. 

At his initial vet checkup, he had some unusual blood test results for his liver. We ended up doing many follow-up tests, the most serious of which was a very expensive imaging procedure. Finally, we had our answers. Auggie was diagnosed with multiple liver shunts. What this means is that his liver started growing new pathways for blood to be diverted from passing through. This meant that his liver was not serving him well—and the naturally occurring waste and toxins that it should have been filtering out were staying in his body and slowly poisoning him. We also learned early on that his liver was undersized, and when we learned about the shunts, I suspected that his unusually small liver was the reason they developed. 

Unfortunately, while congenital liver shunts (ones that a dog is born with, which are usually just a single shunt) are surgically repairable, multiple acquired shunts (ones that a dog develops, which can be many) are not treatable. The only options for treatment were basically palliative; he was put on a special diet and given a few different medications to help slow the process of him dying. After a couple of months of me making homemade dog food for him, I couldn’t do it any longer. The expense and the time was too much for us. We took him off the special diet and medications and decided to enjoy him for as long as we would have with him. 

I suspect that his previous owners knew about his condition. The prognosis for this is bleak; dogs with this condition can live up to two years, at the very most. The majority don’t get even that long. And I understand why his previous owners might not have wanted to be the ones to lose him that way—or the ones to make the decision to end his suffering. 

Ultimately, we had five months with August. During those months, we took him on camping adventures and gave him all the love we could. We watched and waited for the signs that he was beginning to feel the effects of his disease more acutely. 

The week that we knew it was time was rough on him. He had vomiting and diarrhea, sometimes with blood in it, appetite loss, and general malaise. We could tell that he was just not feeling good. I came home one day and he ambled over to me in his usual “Eeyore” way and he put his head on my lap and looked at me in a way that told me it was time. It felt like he was telling me that he was ready, that he was tired and done. We took him to the vet to put him to sleep that night. 

Saying goodbye to Auggie was painful—as it always is. It is an unpleasantly surreal experience to watch a dog go from alive to gone, just like that. They have no idea what is coming. They are so innocent and trusting, and as human caretakers for them we have to be the ones to decide when to end their lives to prevent needless suffering. It feels like murder every time, to me. I have to constantly remind myself that I’m doing the right thing, the loving thing. 

In the weeks after losing August, I have continued to grieve. I’m still not done, and I don’t know how long it will take until I can think of him and smile instead of breaking down into tears. But one thing that I believe with dogs is that when you lose one, it gives you space to take in another. I debated whether getting a fourth dog (again) was a good idea. I knew that our lives would be simpler if we just stuck with the three that we already have. But, I also knew that I needed a pittie in my life. 

Three weeks after losing Auggie, we found Forrest posted online for adoption. We went to get him that same day. We’ve only had him for a few days now, but already we know that we found a really special one. He is definitely a puppy—mischievous and untrained—but for a puppy, he is incredibly easy so far. He is so affectionate and smart and just plain cute. He’s already captured our hearts.

I know that Forrest will never replace Auggie. Auggie will always be special to me, and I will always miss him and think about the years we should have had with him. But it does bring me a bit of comfort to know that without August leaving us so soon, we would not have found Forrest. The circle of life continues. With any luck, we will have many wonderful years with Forrest. And for that, I have August to thank.

Of course, this post is dedicated to my Auggie boy. I miss you, puppers. I love you and can’t wait to see you again at the rainbow bridge. Until then, have fun running around with Marley and Macy! 

Hello, Forrest.

Spin the Wheel

It’s been a hot minute since I posted, and it’s not been for lack of inspiration. I have a note on my phone with seven different posts I want to write! But, life has been crazy. I’m fairly certain that life will be crazy for the foreseeable future. 

Life with five kids is a lot. For me, going from two to three was a challenging transition, and then going from three to four was just the gradual process of becoming a parental figure to my stepdaughter, Penny. She’s our oldest, so it wasn’t exactly the same as adding a new baby to the family. 

With Finley, I really feel the five. FIVE. It’s grueling, to be honest. 

You would think that co-parenting with four parents would be easier in a way. We only have four of our kids about 50% of the time, because the other 50% they are with their other parents. And in some ways, it is pretty awesome. We get to have some quiet nights with just Finley, and some nights with just Finley and Penny, and some nights with the Westys (that’s what we call my three kiddos from my previous marriage) and Finley, which is a different dynamic than when we have all five. 

Having times without all of the kids gives me and RJ the ability to decompress a bit and recharge for the next time we have them. When we have all of them, we call it “Kid Chaos,” and the name is fitting. It can feel a tad chaotic when you’re holding a baby, two kids are crying at once, and the other two are asking you for things. Oh, and there’s poop, too. Where? Just everywhere. In diapers, unflushed in toilets, in the dog’s crate, possibly on me somewhere. It’s par for the course. 

So the days when we have fewer kids are really helpful for our sanity—or what’s left of it.

But, in other ways, our co-parenting lifestyle is more challenging. The scheduling alone could be an Olympic sport. Even as someone who enjoys organization and lists and calendars and schedules, I can’t always keep track of who’s supposed to be where and when. I absolutely hate being the one who dropped the ball in the parenting game. 

The hardest part, though, is the emotional side of things. 

My mental state is drastically affected by which kids are with me on any given day. When it’s Kid Chaos, I automatically go into Mom Boss mode. I summon the patience and energy to keep things running (mostly) smoothly. I pull out some of my best parenting tactics and often find myself satisfied with my work at the end of the day. 

But, if Kid Chaos goes on too long, I run out of steam. I sometimes describe stress to my kids like air in a balloon. If you’re blowing up a balloon, and you keep adding more and more air, eventually it’s going to burst. If you stop adding air, and maybe even let some out, then you will be able to fill it up again later without it bursting. All the things in life that cause stress are like air that you’re adding to your balloon. Taking time to release some of that pressure—to pause, rest, and recharge—is important to prevent a blowup, AKA an emotional meltdown. 

So, needless to say, when Kid Chaos goes on longer than my personal balloon can handle, it doesn’t end well. Those are the days that I consider “bad parenting” days. Am I too hard on myself? Possibly. But in any case, yelling at my kids is not something I want to do, ever. So when I fail at keeping myself regulated and end up adding to the chaos with my own out-of-control emotions, I consider that a parenting fail.

When it’s time to bring the Westys to their dad, I usually have a complex tangle of emotions to process. I feel relief, because I can finally let some air out of my balloon. Even if my balloon didn’t survive, well, at least I have time to acquire a new one. (Metaphorically speaking…) When I get a break, I have a chance to mentally recover from any bad moments I had with the kids. That brings a sense of relief, because God only knows I need those breaks. 

But the feeling of relief is very quickly followed by guilt. Mom-guilt is a powerful force, and I have loads of it. There’s guilt over feeling relieved that I get a break from my kids. There’s guilt over needing a break at all. There’s guilt that I’m only half of a parent to the Westys, because I’m only with them half of the time—I know that this isn’t true, but it’s what that little voice in my head tells me. 

There’s guilt in knowing that our divorce has caused and continues to cause pain to my children, because they are sometimes upset during the transitions and often miss the parent who they aren’t with. There’s guilt in hearing my kids tell me that they wish we all lived together. There’s guilt in every meltdown, misbehavior, and moment of conflict, because what if it was caused by the trauma of our divorce? 

Guilt is heavy, indeed. 

Plain and simple sadness is also entangled in the ball of emotions. I’m sad that I’m not with my kids. I’m sad and nostalgic about the simplicity of our lives when we were a nuclear family. I’m sad knowing in my heart that Cory and I were not meant for each other forever, and nothing that I did or he did would have changed that. I’m sad knowing that the first part of my adult life was spent with Cory instead of RJ, and that the first part of RJ’s adult life was spent with Amber instead of me, and knowing that I still wouldn’t change a single thing because it brought me my kids exactly as they are. 

I’m sad that out of all our kids, only one will know what it’s like to have an intact family. I’m sad that I’ve done to my kids the one thing I never, ever wanted to do to them—and vowed never to do!—because I didn’t want them to experience the pain that I experienced as a child. I’m sad because I know that life just isn’t as simple as I once believed, and we can only do our best, and nothing is guaranteed, and things change in ways we can’t predict. 

I often find that when I’m with my kids, I feel stressed and overwhelmed, and yet somehow also energized and motivated. But when I’m not with all of them, I feel relieved, and yet also sad and anxious and depressed. It becomes this paradox where “I can’t live with them, and can’t live without them,” as they say. I’m unhappy in both situations, just in different ways. 

It can feel like each day I’m just spinning a wheel to see what it lands on. Chaos? Stress? Guilt? Sadness? Depression? Anxiety? 

Which will it be today? 

Of course, those aren’t the only things I feel. I feel joy and excitement, amusement, contentedness, satisfaction, and so many more positive things when I’m with my kids. They make me laugh, delight me with their adorableness, and warm my heart with their sweetness. Above all, when I’m with my kids, I feel love.

There is no love like a parent’s love for their child. I would do anything—anything—for my kids, and my highest priority in life is to take care of them. But also, there is no love like a child’s love for their parent. To your child, you are a hero. You are the one human in the world (or one of a very select few) that they need and love more than any other. You are the world to them. Even when they say they hate you, or that you’re mean, or any other angry and thoughtless thing that kids can sometimes spew at us parents, we still know that they love us and will forgive us. We can mess up again and again and again, but as long as we do our best and try, our kids will still think we hung the moon. That is such a privilege. 

To love and be loved as a mother is the most priceless gift. Despite the immense challenges that come with parenthood, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. My kids are my biggest source of both pain and joy in my daily life. They are everything.

So, onward I march. I’ll continue to take my days as they come, one at a time. I’ll continue to spin the wheel. Or maybe the wheel is spinning me? At this point, I don’t think it really matters. I’m just along for the ride. 

A Look Back at 2022

Last year brought more unexpected changes to my life than any year I can remember. My family, my pets, my home, my location, my future plans—they all changed drastically this past year. It’s been a lot. And for me, the queen of change, that is really saying something. 

Let’s dive in. 

In January, I was still, technically, polyamorous. I was married to Cory and living at home with him and the kids, while dating RJ. But RJ and I were making plans for a more serious future together. We were seeing each other about every other day, despite the hour and a half commute between us. What our future together looked like was very much up in the air, but I knew that I wanted to live with him and I was hoping that Cory would be amenable to having him move in with us. 

Meanwhile, Cory and I were still trying to figure out ourselves and what we wanted our marriage to be. And unfortunately, he wasn’t ready to invite RJ into our family and didn’t know if he ever would be. Because of this, along with many other factors, Cory and I officially decided to end our romantic relationship. 

Soon after, RJ asked me to be his nesting partner—even though he wasn’t ready to make that a reality, yet, he knew he wanted that someday. His marriage was ending, and the future he saw was one with me as his life partner. But his separation and divorce process was much more tumultuous than mine, and he hadn’t yet made any official moves to get that started.  

For me, watching the toxic environment of his home life was painful. At the same time, I felt a need to gain more independence in my own life and I felt it was time for me to move out. I could only do so financially if RJ moved in with me, but I knew I could scrape together the money to live on my own for a couple of months while RJ got things situated on his end. More than anything, I wanted to give him a safe and happy place to live, and I acted with my typical speed on that goal. By the end of the month, I was in my new apartment and hoping that RJ would join me there soon. 

Not living with my children was a huge transition for me, but I was determined to stay positive. I chose an apartment only 10 minutes away from the house, and began setting it up so that the kids could stay the night there with me a few nights each week. I also designed my schedule so that I spent a lot of time at the house. I wanted the kids to feel that we were still a family, and I didn’t want the changes to make them sad or feel stressed. 

Looking back on those months, it is honestly hard to write about. At the time, I was focused on finding a life for myself that was happy, while still trying to ensure that my kids were happy too. But a year later, I find myself worrying about what I have taken away from my kids, and how it will affect them for the rest of their lives—that’s something that is hard to live with. 

One thing I do know is that at the time, I was doing the best I could. And, on a happier note, January is when I met and adopted my dog, Pepper. She quickly became my close companion and emotional support animal.

In February, I was briefly employed as a social media poster on a small startup platform, which I very much enjoyed. Unfortunately, the job was temporary and didn’t lead to a longer-term position. I spent most of that month setting up my apartment and settling into my new routines, as well as continuing to drive back and forth to see RJ several times each week. 

That month, Cory and I also decided to dog-swap with my parents. As weird as that sounds, it was the right decision for us! Our puppy Moosey was too much for us to handle, and their older dog Buddy was no longer a great fit for their more active, traveling lifestyle. We happily took Buddy and gave them Moosey, which has been a positive change for everyone. Buddy is wonderful, and probably the most gentle, patient dog with the kids that I’ve ever known. Even though he isn’t mine—he technically belongs to Cory now—I still love and care for him very much. And Moosey is also very happy in his new home!

Sometime early in the year, Cory also got a roommate when he started renting out the spare room to a friend of my brother’s named Dean. He has a daughter who is a year younger than Abi, named Odessa, and they both became a part of our extended family throughout the past year. My kids have loved having Odessa around and playing with her just like they would a younger sister. 

In March, RJ moved in with me—but the defining moment of this was actually quite murky. He started spending more and more nights at the apartment and bringing more and more of his stuff there, but there wasn’t one day where he officially moved in. He started contributing to rent that month, so that’s when I consider him “moved in.” In March, we also got our second cockatiel, Eevee. Pikachu was very happy to have a new friend!

In April, nothing much was going on with me from an outside perspective. But emotionally it was a very challenging time for me. RJ and I were going through the beginnings of a very rocky stage in our relationship, and I was suffering from severe depression. I decided to start therapy (again), and for the first time I also started taking antidepressants. Their effectiveness, for me, wasn’t exactly obvious—but they didn’t not help, so I continued on them until I became pregnant and decided that the potential risks didn’t outweigh the benefits for me. For the first time in my life, though, I found a therapist who I can confidently say is helping me. I have continued to see her, and am very thankful for her. 

In May, RJ and I went on a trip to Las Vegas. We wanted to do something special and romantic to celebrate our commitment to each other, but since we weren’t divorced yet, we settled on a wedding-like commitment ceremony. We kept it just between us, but it was very meaningful even so. That month, RJ and I also took all the kids camping one weekend, and Cory joined us. That was significant to me because it was the beginning of our family truly blending together.

In June, I brought home my first foster kittens, who I named Gremlin and Scout. Gremlin was ugly and hairless, but very sweet. Within a few weeks, she started growing her hair back, and then within a few months she became a beautiful gray cat with a lovely coat of long, soft fur. We changed her name to Remi, and adopted both her and her brother. They are very sweet, well-mannered kitties.

In July, RJ’s daughter Penny turned 9. I also celebrated my birthday that month, and after turning 30 years old, I made a poor life decision and brought home a litter of four more foster kittens—who I was determined, at first, not to adopt. But alas, each kitten was claimed by one of our children as their own. And, after bottle-feeding them and nurturing them back to health for several weeks, we were all attached. I admitted defeat and we adopted those four, as well. Their names our Peanut, Milo, Dusty, and Stormy. Because of them, I have six cats. (For the record, Leo is also still around! He belongs to Cory now, though.) They are very friendly and sweet—but they are also extremely mischievous, and it can be quite stressful managing them at times. 

July was a particularly difficult month for my relationship with RJ. After spending most of our relationship up to that point being monogamous, we decided to revisit the possibility of being polyamorous again. After all, to me, being poly was a big part of my identity and something I wasn’t ready to give up. Unfortunately, since meeting me, RJ no longer felt that being poly was a part of his identity. For him, monogamy had become non-negotiable. We struggled with the issue for weeks, and our relationship barely survived. Ultimately, I chose to stay with RJ and give up poly, but the damage to our partnership was severe and we spent the next several months in couple’s therapy working through that as well as other issues that came up throughout the rest of the year. 

In August, Cody and Abi started school for the first time. Cody went into second grade, after being homeschooled up until then, and Abigail started Transitional Kindergarten (TK). They have thrived throughout this school year, and it has been a very positive change for them—and for me! Having the pressure of homeschooling taken off of me has been a big relief. In August, RJ and I also took a trip to visit my parents and he met them for the first time, which went well. At the end of the month, Cory turned 30. 

In September, Abi turned five and RJ turned 29, and we unknowingly conceived our baby, Finley. Also sometime around that month, Cory’s roommate Dean started dating a woman named Kendall, who has a toddler-aged son named Kaiser. They started to spend time in the house a lot, and it was always fun to have them around. Our blended-extended family was growing!

October was a big month. I found out I was pregnant, which (as already stated) was unplanned, but not unwelcome. It was shocking to me since I’ve never gotten pregnant unintentionally before. It was also well before our planned timeline for having a baby (which we did want to do, eventually). Nevertheless, we were still happy about the news. We decided on the name Finley right away. In October, we celebrated more birthdays as Cody turned 8 and Mia turned 2.

Much less happy events also happened in October, unfortunately. My dog Macy started attacking Buddy, unprovoked—and she caused serious damage to both him and Cory when he intervened. The first attack actually happened in July, but we thought it was a one-time thing until it happened two more times in October. That was the point at which we decided we had no choice but to put Macy down. We’d already attempted to rehome her, searching for over a month with no takers. After that, we put her in a board-and-train program for aggression rehabilitation, and the results seemed promising—until the next attack happened. 

We knew that it was likely that any future home would be unprepared for her aggressive behavior, even if we warned them, because she was so incredibly sweet most of the time towards both people and other dogs. Her attacks were unpredictable and vicious. We knew that the safest thing for her and everybody else was to end her life in the most peaceful and humane way possible. It was a horrible decision to have to make, and a horrible thing to have to do. I miss her very much.

The silver lining is that Buddy has made a full recovery from his injuries and is much happier and carefree now. He will be able to live out the rest of his years in peace and safety. Cory has unfortunately suffered permanent damage to his hand from being bitten, and Cody experienced emotional trauma from witnessing the attack and losing a pet he loved very much for a tragic reason. So I couldn’t say that the events were all for the best, not by a long shot. All I can say, confidently, is that I believe we did the right thing. And it wasn’t Macy’s fault. She didn’t deserve to die. It was simply the only safe choice for everyone involved. Part of me believes that she may have had a neurological problem that we could not detect, because her aggression was completely out of the blue when it happened. But whatever the reason, she was still a good dog and I will always love her. 

In November, RJ and Cory and I took all of the kids on a road trip to the snow. We had a great time! Then we came home and had Thanksgiving, which was also lots of fun. We were able to enjoy our delicious feast this year as a blended family, including our extended-roommate-family—six kids in all! It was a special Thanksgiving this year, which I will always cherish. 

In December, RJ and I, as well as Cory and the kids, all moved back to Orange County. It was a decision we’d all made together months before—Cory’s idea, and RJ’s eager request after I told him about it. Being able to live near his daughter again has been a dream come true for RJ. Moving over an hour away from her was extremely difficult for him, and I know that both him and Penny are much happier now. Cory is also very happy to be able to spend more time with his parents and brother, as well as have a stronger support network as a single dad. 

For me, the move was emotionally and physically challenging. Since about five weeks into my pregnancy, my nausea has been in effect in full force. Handling a move while managing pregnancy sickness was no easy task. In addition, the city that I left was the city that I chose and loved for the past 10+ years. Leaving it was hard for me, and I will probably always miss it. It felt like home.

Nevertheless, I knew that moving was the right choice for everybody else, and the importance of me being in the city I prefer pales in comparison to the importance of RJ being close to Penny and Cory being close to his family. I will adjust to being back in the place where I grew up, and I’m sure I will learn to love it. It may not feel like home yet, exactly, but at least it’s familiar. 

On Christmas Day, RJ finally (officially) asked me to marry him. While we were already planning on getting married, and have discussed it in detail many times as well as picked out our rings, I was still waiting for the “formal” proposal. He asked, and I said yes, and we exchanged rings. So now I can call him my fiancé—yay!   

Last but not least, to end the year with a bang, I had to make one final questionable life decision; get a puppy! RJ and I brought home a tiny 1 ½ pound Chihuahua puppy and named him Nugget. He has been a joy, and I am so glad we decided to get him. (Despite the fact that I already felt at-capacity with pets… I got that puppy fever and gave into it. Fortunately, he’s been a positive addition to our family.)

We closed the year with a party, which was also our first time spending intentional time with RJ’s ex-wife and her girlfriend. The relationship between RJ and Amber (and myself) has been difficult over the past year, but I think we all want to build something more harmonious for the future. And we started that off at a perfect time—celebrating the New Year together, and hopefully, the beginning of a new, more positive year ahead. 

Honestly, 2022 was a hard year for me. I experienced a depth of depression that I haven’t been to since I was a teenager, and it’s something I’m still wading through and trying to pull myself out of. My relationship with RJ has been anything but easy, and many of the changes in my life recently have been stressful and emotionally difficult. 

This was a year in which I made a lot of big decisions, doing my best to make sure they were the right ones. And yet, so many times I’ve looked back and felt that somehow, they were all wrong. Worse, it has felt like any decision would have been wrong. I’ve felt trapped, confused, broken, and stupid. I’ve felt that I have ruined everything. It is a good time for a new year, for me—clearly, I need a fresh start. 

But you know, that’s the thing about the New Year. The date on the calendar changes, yes… but it isn’t magic. Everything is still the same as it was before the clock struck midnight. So while, for some people, celebrating New Year’s fills them with a sense of hope and optimism, for me there is also a sense of defeat. If every choice I make is wrong, what good is a new year? It’s just one more thing for me to fuck up. 

On the other hand, I’m still here. I’m alive, and I have a lot to stay that way for. All I can do is my best, and keep moving forward. And so in that spirit, I have set some goals for the year. My focus is on bringing Finley into the world, taking care of my family, and hopefully, finding some peace for myself. (And maybe, just maybe, trying to avoid making any more changes or big decisions for a good long while.) I am hoping that 2023 is a better year than the last.  

Welcome to IDoNowWhat-Gram

I’ve recently decided to get off of social media. One of the big reasons is that social media has a toxic culture, in my opinion, of comparison and competition. Seeing how everyone else’s life looks from the outside (which is not a realistic representation of everyday life anyway,) can cause one’s own life to look a little less shiny in comparison. While I didn’t necessarily see this happening to me, I could see how subconsciously it might affect me negatively without me realizing it.

The main reason I decided to ditch Facebook and Instagram, though, is that I’ve made so many drastic changes in my life over the past year, and to be honest, I don’t really feel like explaining all of those changes to people who aren’t genuinely part of my life outside of social media.

Over the past year, I deconstructed my faith and left the Evangelical Christian Church. Cory and I opened our marriage, and ultimately decided to separate when we discovered that we weren’t romantically attracted to each other anymore. I’ve moved out, and Cory and I have transitioned to a friendly, supportive, and loving co-parenting relationship.

I also met and fell in love with someone else. RJ is someone who came into my life like a wrecking ball (in the best way). It was fireworks and a deep connection from the start, and he immediately became an extremely important part of my life. He is now my boyfriend and nesting partner, and we are making plans for our future together.

So to be genuine about who I am now and what my life is like would be a big shock to many people on my social media accounts—yet those people aren’t truly part of my life enough for me to take the time to tell them about what’s been going on with me in a more personal way. The people who are in my life know about these things already, so what’s the point?

I decided that it would be easier to just walk away from those platforms. But now, I’m finding myself with the urge to still post my favorite pictures and memories of my day-to-day life and special moments, and I have nowhere to do that. So, even though only a few people ever read this, I’m going to start doing that here. I like to be able to look back at the things I wrote—and now the pictures I’ll post here. Every month, I’ll do a photo dump and maybe write a little bit about the things I’ve been up to.

For this first post, since it’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to post on Instagram, I will do a photo dump from the past several months. 🙂 Enjoy!

Brain Thoughts and Things

You can learn a lot from the internet, you know. It may sound funny, but I’ve actually learned a lot of very interesting, helpful, and insightful things from videos on TikTok. It’s become my favorite social media app.

One of the topics that comes up often in my TikTok feed is mental illness. ADHD is a very popular subject within this genre right now, and I think that’s really awesome because it’s bringing awareness to the different ways that ADHD can manifest in adults, and women especially. It’s no longer just a “kid’s” issue—and although there are negative aspects to ADHD, there are also ways that it can be seen in a positive light. Some people prefer to use the term neurodivergent nowadays to describe many mental differences, including people with ADHD and those on the autism spectrum.

The word neurodivergent is great because it reflects the reality that people with mental differences aren’t somehow broken—rather, they are simply different. And being neurodivergent gives those people special strengths, as well as challenges. The challenges are mostly due to the way that society is structured to work best for neurotypical individuals, anyway. That’s one reason why neurodivergents often need to seek professional help and/or medication to help them cope with their challenges.

Anyhow, that went down a rabbit hole. My point with this post was to talk about hyperfixation. This is something that is most commonly attributed to ADHD. What it means is that people can get super-focused on something (or someone) and that thing (or person) can take over the majority of their thoughts and attention for a period of time. There are also food-related hyperfixations, in which people might want to eat a particular meal every day for a period of time. A common hyperfixation can be on a hobby or interest, a TV show, or a book.

I have given a lot of thought to whether I have ADHD or not, because there are a few ways that I definitely relate to the “symptoms.” One of those things is how I will start doing one task, but then get distracted by another task that needs to be done and start doing that task, and so on until I’ve started several tasks but not completed any. This, however, I mostly attribute to my lifestyle. Being a mom, and homemaker, and pet owner, and partner… well, it leads to many people (or animals) needing things from you, often at the same time, along with a lot of chores that continuously need to be done.

Ultimately, I have landed on “no”—I do not believe that I have ADHD. I do suffer from depression and occasionally anxiety, and I have recently realized that I do tend to hyperfixate at times. But the interesting thing about this is that I just learned that hyperfixation is not only attributed to ADHD, but to depression and anxiety as well. So that makes a lot of sense for me, and I feel weirdly excited about finally having a word and an explanation for some of my behaviors.

My hyperfixations in the past have often been pet-related. I will decide that I want a certain pet and then hyperfixate on that—including figuring out what I need to buy for the pet, what care the pet needs, setting up the living area for the pet, and adding the pet’s expenses to the budget. Then of course I get the pet and enjoy it for a while… but eventually, the hyperfixation ends and then I’m left with more responsibility than I needed on my plate. And so, I’ve rehomed a lot of pets in my lifetime. While this isn’t ideal, I also am very diligent about finding good homes for them—and as I’m learning this about myself, I am also trying to end the cycle.

Other hyperfixations have been on hobbies, exercise regimes, daily schedules, meal-planning, home organization projects, budgeting, homeschooling, potential career paths I could follow, and even people (specifically, romantic partners).

For me, hyperfixations aren’t extreme. I don’t spend every waking minute thinking about or doing the thing that I’m fixated on. But I do spend a good amount of time on it, in between my mandatory tasks such as taking care of my children, home, pets, and occasionally myself (haha, joke…).

From what I read, and it totally makes sense, hyperfixations are a way of diverting negative emotions, like those stemming from depression and anxiety, into something more positive. They can become a problem if they interfere with living a healthy and balanced life, but they can also be a suitable coping mechanism at times.

My current hyperfixation is karaoke, of all things. I went to an arcade with karaoke rooms the other night, and had some fun singing there with my boyfriend and brother. As it turns out, my singing in the car doesn’t translate perfectly to good singing into a microphone in front of other people! And even though I had fun, it was definitely humbling. Instead of saying “well, never doing that again!” I decided to practice until I get better, so that next time, I can sing confidently in front of more people. And as it turns out, it’s pretty fun to practice singing with the goal of getting better. And this has been a source of stress-relief for me that is very needed.

Right now, there’s a lot of stress in my life. I have a busy co-parenting schedule with Cory, which means a lot of kid-swapping and time alone with the kids, as well as time to myself. It’s a really good balance, but it does take a lot of mental energy to keep up with. I also have my boyfriend’s schedule and time with his daughter to consider, not to mention keeping up with chores and pet care. My dogs Buddy and Macy and my cat Leo live with Cory, and he takes care of them. I have my dog Pepper, my boyfriend’s dog Dezi, and our cockatiels Pikachu and Eevee living with us at our apartment, and we share the responsibility for taking care of them. Since homemaking and being a stay-at-home mom is what I consider my job, I do most of the chores at the apartment as well. Cory has taken over the vast majority of chores at the house, though I help him with some things still. All in all, I have a lot on my plate, but it’s still a manageable amount of things to take care of.

My stress also comes from challenges with building a relationship with my boyfriend, in the midst of both of us getting divorced and both struggling with mental illness. I’m used to being the one with the “issues,” and now I have to learn a new skill of supporting a partner through these things as well. We have had some incredibly painful experiences as a couple while figuring out these new dynamics together, and even though we’ve made a lot of progress, it’s still not easy.

I love RJ beyond words, and I am committed to being with him forever, just as he is committed to being with me. But that doesn’t make our relationship easy. We have challenges and things that we need to fight through and work hard on. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve been in that position, because things were honestly always so easy with Cory. And that fact alone has its own weight, which can add to my insecurities and stress over this relationship!

What it comes down to is that right now, my stress levels are high and my depression and anxiety are a daily struggle. But if singing “Let It Go” a dozen times in a day makes me feel a little better, then that’s what I’m going to do!

I love learning new things about myself and discovering that other people do similar things—it makes me feel less alone, and more “normal.” So, this is my reminder to go ahead and use hyperfixation as a coping mechanism, even when it feels silly. Because it’s okay to be a little weird and silly! It’s all just part of being human. 🙂

The B Spectrum

I’ve realized something interesting about myself recently. I guess I already knew this on some level, but I never really defined it before. What I realized is that there’s a sort of “goldilocks zone” for my happiness, which I have named the B Spectrum.

On one end of the B Spectrum is Boredom. When I don’t have enough to keep me occupied—physically, mentally, and emotionally—I get bored. And when I’m bored, my anxiety is often triggered. This will lead me to try to make changes in my life to add some excitement, such as a new pet or a move or a new project or goal.

Being a stay-at-home mom keeps me busy in a lot of ways, but they’re not always the right ways. This job—and yes, it is a job—has the unique properties of being utterly exhausting while simultaneously being mind-numbingly dull. Keeping kids safe, fed, and otherwise well-cared-for requires the presence of a responsible, mature, and capable person—but it doesn’t require a whole lot of thinking, or interesting problem-solving, or any sort of mental stimulation, really. Yet it is still completely exhausting to deal with constant requests for menial labor, ridiculous bickering, emotional outbursts, and never-ending (and often disgusting) messes.

So, simply put, I get bored! And then I get antsy and anxious.

On the other end of the B Spectrum is Burnout. When I feel like I have too much on my plate, I get overwhelmed and stressed out. This usually triggers a depression. And then I might react by trying to simplify my life, such as by quitting a project or rehoming a pet. (This might sound terrible to some, but I always make sure that any pets I rehome go to a loving family that will take just as good care of them as I would, if not better. And for the record, I never set out to adopt a pet only to re-home them down the road, this is just a pattern that I’ve noticed, and I’m trying to break it.)

Again, being a stay-at-home mom is exhausting, and frequently does lead to burnout for me. What it comes down to is that I’m doing a job that is very demanding, despite being often unengaging.

Please understand, though—I love being a stay-at-home mom. Yes, it is hard. But I adore my children and it makes me very happy to know that I get to be the one home with them day in and day out during these early years of their lives. I feel very blessed to be able to do this, because I know that not everyone can.

Nevertheless, it honestly isn’t the best job for my mental health, because it triggers both sides of the B Spectrum simultaneously, which exacerbates my anxiety and depression. I can and will continue to find ways to cope with these challenges, because I believe it is worth it. But I also truthfully look forward to my kiddos being in school so that I can have other projects to work on that that challenge and excite me.

In the middle of the B Spectrum is Balance. When I can manage to find Balance between doing too much and not having enough to do, that’s when I feel the best. Right now, with the shifting dynamics happening in my family, I am finding more and more balance.

In some ways, I’m busier than ever. My life is essentially controlled chaos at the moment. I have schedules in place with Cory for who has the kids and when (on evenings and weekends). This means that I finally have regular time that isn’t with the kids, and so does Cory. Both of us are able to do things that we want to do as individuals, and that has been wonderful! That alone has gone a long way towards giving me some more balance between mom-ing and me-ing.

For the most part, boredom is not a problem lately. There’s still depression spells, probably from the stress, but keeping busy is helpful for keeping those at bay. The more pressing issue is making sure that I don’t get burned out, and so far, it feels like I’m staying in that golden zone of Balance for the most part.

I don’t know exactly what my life will look like in the coming months and years, but I feel like I’m moving toward something positive. Some days are better than others, but for right now at least, I’m feeling good. 🙂

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