Some days you just can't win. in The Tightrope Dance (August 2019)

I tried to have a good day.

Woke late, but I am falling asleep late because Dick Face is watching Supernatural until early. I think it is a PTSD thing where I can’t stand to hear the tv scream. I think it’s his fault that I get irritable if it is male screaming. This is the biggest issue I have with the kids’ love for 24 hour a day Youtube - the men all scream, it shatters my calm, and I have to put it all back together, but before I can, they’re screaming again. I know they love Markipliers, but I also know I just can’t do screaming men. But unlike when something triggers his PTSD, which is SRS BSNESS, I am told that I should just “chill” and “handle it.” Dude, I am handling it. I am handling it by demanding you respect my mental state.

Fucked around on the internet. Not writing. Wanted to write today, but other things came up. This is fine because those other things needed doing.

Took the books back to the library. Forgot one, and that kid’s video, which I didn’t know she had, was late, so I owe $2. Irritated by this, as videos have different return dates and I never got told she had it, but the charge is on Kitten’s library card, and it must be cleared. Another problem with a video and we may consult with her mother on video rules for library usage. One will have to be “use your own card.” The other ought to be “save the receipt so I can remember when it is due.” I don’t think that’s mean or anything. I drive it back and forth, I’d like to know when. Fair enough?

Kitten’s bedframe (and mine) came in. Walmart’s pickup service sucks! They made me wait about 35 minutes for delivery of the items in store, then walked them around with me, left the cart, and buggered off. I had to figure out how to fit twin bed frames into my Ford. I managed, but I broke four nails (box slipped and they were long.) One’s bloody. I am not impressed. I should have gone with the home-delivery option, but I reckoned they’d get to the store earlier if I went for store pickup, and I was not enjoying my floorcot. I know Kitten hated hers: she was doubling up with Lu every night, to Lu’s sweaty disgust.

All fixed now. Neither of us sleeps on the floor anymore.

Finished The Good Place. Loved the ending.

Aah. Want to write: headed to the library tomorrow to knock out some wordcount. If the girls don’t tag along. I know Lu needs more books for summer reading, but I’m not into dragging a car full of hysterical, shrieking girls around town. I wish I didn’t mind, but one of them has a laugh like an icepick and my brain is a glacier or something. And it’s so sudden. I worry I’ll overcorrect and kill us all.

I startle pretty badly.

I need to work on Dirty Corner so I can turn this bed, then work on Moving Bookshelf so I can stop Diablo from running full tilt over the keyboard all the time.

But I might go watch Phantom of the Opera for the millionth time. And then I might sleep.

Until Sam and Dean start screaming, anyway. Fuck. I need walls and baffle between me and that TV. Maybe a dividing curtain would cut the noise and the lights.

It occurs to me that I am building a tiny little dorm room all my own in here. Is that just because university, or is it because I long for a space where I can be myself and be taken seriously and this little nook is all there is? I feel like this is teenaged rebellion like 20 years too late. I wanted to love my family and work with my husband, but my family has tossed me over for strangers and my husband is like a big child.

Now I want to live alone.

I wish someone had grabbed me by the collar in high school and told me I was good enough for college, and that I should go. I could have seen if I could have worked out all this longing to be alone and separate first. But instead of degrees, I had babies. I love the kids, but I also love myself, a little, and I fear I can’t have both.

But I could have both - if Spouse were working and I didn’t have to make all these horrible, one-sided decisions. Is it bad to admit that every morning, I take a deep breath in and hope he died in my sleep?