Alcohol fueled cattiness and a strange amount of semen

Well fuck. I've been not so great this week. And by week I mean year. It's just been a whole lot of pain for me, so I've had trouble getting much physical shit done. 

Today

Activity: Blogging with the bestie!

Activity Prompt: Describe a situation in which you felt shame or guilt. How did you move past those feelings?

Alone or with partners: Me and bestieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Drink and snack with activity: I'm having dinner, halal cart "chicken" with cabbage, and a polar seltzer

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: Yes

Blogilates morning abs: Yes

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5: No bitch it is legit 0 degrees out.

10:

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking:

Shoulder shrugs during the day: Yes

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: No. My back pain is at flare time.

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling:

45 minutes of weight lifting:

Macros

Carbs: 23/23

Fat: 137/144

Protein: 99/116

Calories: 1814/1850

So while I was filling out my macros, I was trying to force my brain into focusing on any other time I've felt shame or guilt, because I didn't want to write about this one. I have lived a SUPER shameful, embarassing, guilt-ridden life, are you fucking kidding me? I write stories in my main blog about my shame all the time. But this story just got stuck in my teeth and there was no shaking it loose.

Back in 2011, when I was still with Dan, I had a pretty solid routine down. I would wake up at 4:30 AM at Dan's to go home, pick Allen up, and take him to work, hen I would go back home and sleep for an hour or two before waking Alex up a7:30. I would take my daughter to school every morning, a few days a weeek I would go to work, I would pick my daughter up from school, play with her for a few hours, make her dinner if it was my night, give her a bath, and then go over to Dan's house for the night, to start all over again. Most nights I would eat before I went over to Dan's, because like...no joke, I'm prety convinced he had an eating disorder. We were together for a long time, and I only really recall him eating like a human on, I don't know, maybe five occasions? Otherwise he ate like a fucking bird. A dead bird. Like a seed and an avocado with some water, though maybe the dude just got all of his macros from beer. He would kill a least 3 or 4 beers a night, MAYBE a six pack, though I can't say that for sure. He did have to stop for beer on his way home almost every fucking night. And I damn near lived with him, so I would get a extthat rang along the lines of, "you can make your way over to me now, babe, I'm stopping to get beer". I do not remember Dan ever having like....human food in his apartment. The few times he did it was because I offered to cook for him, but for real, we would legit at avocados with a bit of oil and some salt and pepper. I'm beefy, bitch! I need snacks!! Keep snacks in your apartment for your rubenesque wench. Better snacks than avocados. Which I love, but like...grow up, you fucking weirdo. Learn about real food. Or like...sorry about your eating disorder. Whichever one is more appropriate.

Sometimes Dan would get take out. Now, I have never been very high brow. I know food, I love food, I'm a great cook, but expensive dining was just not something I gave a fuck about. When Derek and I started dating, we talked about where we would take dates to measure how worthy they were of our time. Derek's place was McKenzie's Chop House in downtown Colorado Springs, a pretty nice steak house. Derek took me there after months of us dating, though I am pretty sure that I failed his eating lithmus test on our first trip together when I got drunk and ate all of his leftovers. I would take my dates to the same place, as well, but mine was way more low key. If I went on a first date with someone and I thought they were cool, the second date was to Taco Express, very lovingly referred to as "Greasy". Could my new interests kick it with a Corona and some messy as fuck Mexican food? Not a lot of people could, I wish that weren't true.

I didn't actually take Dan there, because I legit do not think he was cool enough to hang. As the years have gone by, I have realized tha I did not like Dan very much, I did not think very highly of him, I thought he was pretty fucking boring, honestly, and wildly uncool. One of the nicest things Allen ever said to me was that I made Dan so much cooler, and it was truly unfair that other women would get the benefit of all of my hard work. Thanks, bro bro.

So again, I didn't take Dan to Greasy, but if I was spending a weekend with my friends, he would text me to ask what I was doing, and I would usually say I was drunk with my besties, we got Greasy, and we were dancing and smoking and generally having a great time. I talked about Greast a LOT, and I was kind of fucking angry when I got a random weekend text from Dan telling me he and his friends went to Greasy and they thought it was amazing. Well yeah, man. It's Greasy, of course it is.

But that went into Dan's take out repertoire, but ONLY if he had gone out with his friends, not invited me, and then wanted to drunkenly fuck me when he got home. If we got Greasy, I ate way more of our usual (loaded taquitos) than he did, and he would throw out the leftovers a day or two afterwards because he never fucking ate anything in a meal portion. AND HE WAS A FUCKING RUNNER, WHERE DID HE GET HE ENERGY???

The other thing we would get is Chinese food. I wish I could remember from where, it was a pretty decent place, but one time...

one time.

I didn't have the money to cover my order, and I normally have a rule: I will not ask for food, or order anything, or go on a date if I do not have the funds to cover myself. Dan paid for everything 1000000% of the time, and I never ever ever had to ask him to do it, but if he wanted to eat somewhere, and I said yes, it was because I could take care of my own portion. I never had to, and I would find myself getting a litle complacent. Sometimes Dan would belike, want to get some Garbanzos for lunch? And I would say yes knowing I was broke, but knowing Dan would cover it.

So on this evening, I was prepping through my routine, I had just finished making Alex her dinner and I was getting ready to give her a bath, when I got a text from Dan saying I should come over in an hour, would I pick up Chinese on the way? He was running late and he couldn't stop and he just wanted to be able to come home, eat dinner with me, and have me lay on his lap for the night.

I didn't have the cash to pick up the food. I had just paid rent and electric, I was flat fuckin broke.

So I told him sorry, I didn't have the energy to grab the food.

He was like, babe. I'm starving and I've had a long day, I just want you and Chinese food, can you please pick it up.

I was like, I can pick it up if you call in what you want, I don't want any. I figured if it was just HIS food, he wouldn't make me pay for it, he'd call it in and pay for it like a normal person, and I could pick it up, eat something before heading to Dan's, and be fine.

He was ike, so if I call this in and get you an order of General Tso's chicken, you're telling me you won't eat it? And I was sarting to get agitated and embarrassed and I was like, NO, I don't want anything. So he asked again if I would just go pick up his meal, he'd pay me back, he just wanted to go straight home.

So I snapped as much as anyone could via text that I was broke and I couldn't g pick up his food for him.

And that didn't make me feel as bad as what he said next, which was:

I know. I knew you were broke and that was why you didn't want to pick  up food, I just wanted to force you to tell me. 

I was fucking MORTIFIED. Beyond mortified. The great shame I felt swell up in me is pretty fucking unmatched over forty years of shameful shenanigans. 

Dan went on to use this as some great lesson in couple's intimacy. That we had to be able to talk about these things together, I should be able to tell him when I've got money problems, blah blah blah. And like, irritatingly Dan was absolutely correct to say those things, I blame a stunning lack of intimacy on the demise of our relationship. Not that I think we would have lasted much longer than we did, it isn't like I think our lack of intimacy kept us from several long and happy years together, but I definitely think intimacy was a massive part of the misery I found myself in with Dan. But my guy, forcing me to say I'm too broke for take out was not the fucking move. Like, how is it intimacy to make your partner say something they don't want to say because they're embarrassed? 

In the time Dan and I were together, nobody knew about me. Not his brothers, not his parents, not his friends. I couldn't be facebook friends with him. Mother fucker made me guess his birthday. So hearing about intimacy from him was rich. The running gag in my friend group was that Dan was married and I was his local side piece, but in my heart of hearts, I always knew it was because he was deeply ashamed of me. 

I was cute enough to fuck, but not gorgeous.  

I had a job, but it was part time and clerical. 

I had two children already, never married. Pro and a con, I think.

I had been homeless.  

I was flighty.

I was wildly unserious and I was super in love with this about myself. 

I was artistic, but not talented. 

I was smart...in fact Dan told me on more than one occasion that I was not just smart, but perhaps the smartest person he'd ever met...but I wasn't educated. 

On paper, I was not any kind of pedigree of high quality. I was a free spirited 20 something that did enough to sustain themselves and their bad habits so they could fly through their twenties on selfish whims and bullshit. Like nature and god intended. But I was nothing compared to Dan. We met when we were 26, Dan already had his BS in something something I don't care...business something or other. He was a 2nd lieutenant in the army, though Derek says that's bottom of the barrel, he did something or other that sounded way more important than my clerical job at a real estate company. Dan had money, I did not, he had upstanding parents, I did not. I wrote once that I was like a homeless dog in Dan's shadow, acting beyond grateful for the shade, and I think that's true. I hadn't really noticed a difference in us until Dan found subtle ways to make sure I did. 

So him setting me up to admit I was not as stable as he was leveled me. I didn't end up going to Dan's that night because I was mired in shame and self loathing. 

How did I move through those feelings? 

I robbed him.

Slowly, over time, I robbed him. 

This is something I learned from the girls at the escort agency. If a man makes you feel worthless? Rob him fucking blind.

Have you considered a public tar and feathering?

I know the drill!

Today

Activity: Blogging with the besie!

Activity Prompt: I's ten questions!!!

Alone or with partners: Blogging with the bestie!

Drink and snack with activity:

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: No!

Blogilates morning abs: No!

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5: No! I am not feeling well at all!!

10:

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking: No! I don't feel good!

Shoulder shrugs during the day: No! I said I don't feel good, dammit!

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: No !

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling: No!

45 minutes of weight lifting: No!

Macros

Carbs:

Fat:

Protein:

Calories:

Ok, so this week we're doing like...and old school survey.

1. What is your favorite memory of us together?

This is really fucking tough, there are so many! We have almost three decades of friendship under our belts, how are we supposed to pick ONE favorite memory? I think I've got it, though. When Derek and I were getting married, it was a clear no brainer that Amber was going to be my maid of honor. Matron? Whatever. My main bitch of honor. It had been almost ten years since we had seen each other, which is far too long a time, so I think my favorite memory of us together was picking Amber up at the Denver Airport, and us running at each other and exploding intoa hug. Best memory. 

2. How do you envision our futures together as we get older?

Hopefully closer than we are now? I am happy that we blog together three nights a week, because I have missed having like, real connection time with my bestie. But I would love for us to occupy a closer space to each other where there can be several visits a year. When you think about like.....number of years left and average our visits out over the last ten years, we've seen each other three times in tten years. If we live another forty years, that's only12 more visits. If we keep at a three visit for ten years, we've got twelve visits left with each other before one of us dies. And that isn't enough. I need to live close enough to my bestie where we can see each other like, five times a year MINIMUM. 

3. What are three things you appreciate most about our relationship?

Hm. I think the thing I appreciate the most is there's no pretense. Like, I can say, "bitch I don't care what's going on with you right now, listen to what is happening to ME." and like, I bet it's aggravating, but I also know it'll be ok. And Amber can do that, too. Next, but no less important, I can be myself, however selfish or silly or dumb myself needs to be at any given time. Again, Amber can do that, too. And I think the last thing is feeling fairly certain tha I won't disappoint Amber by not being enough of anything. 

4. How do you handle stress, and how can I support you during those times?

Depends on the stress, really. Usually I need to vocalize it again and again and again while I work it out internally. I come to my own conclusions, and maybe it takes me a bit to get there, but I'll land there ifI can just rehash everything. Or even jut say I'm stressed. I'm not sure there's much that can be done, support wise? I think being there while I fiure everything out is enough. 

5. When was the last time you felt truly understood by me?

I'm not sure there's been a time where I've ever thought to myself, "I just fucking wish she really uneerstood me!" Like any misunderstandings have been superficial and not worth stressing over, because I usually assume it's an issue with how I present whatever is being misunderstood. 

6. Are there any unresolved issues between us that you would like to discuss?

I don't think so. I think tha we got to hash our shit out in Nashville, for the most part. I am hard pressed to hink of anything unresolved. This would have been a GREAT time to tell you about Cirque Du Soleil, though. 

7. What role do you think laughter and playfulness play in our relationship?

I think we've always been playful, so it's a pretty big part of our relationship. I would be shocked if you don't write somewhere in your survey about how the first time we hung out we just rolled around on your floor, which was goofy and strange and I think it really set the tone for how goofy and strange we could be together. Laughter has been a constant, even if we're having a serious conversation. 

8. What are your thoughts on our communication style and how can it be improved?

As a general rule, it's pretty good. I think it's definitely gotten better the last couple of years. My biggest beef about our relationship was that you'd ghost for however long you needed without even mentioning that you needed time to decompress, and I always felt like I never mattered when you did that. I always understood that you neededyour space and time, I just wanted  to be considered enough to be told. Honestly, communication has probably been more of a me problem the last few years, because as Ive learned to unmask, I have gotten steadily more bossy. Sometimes I bet I just need to listen instead of popping off at the mouth with telling you what to do. I hope that I ask you more often than not if yu want to just vent or if you want an opinion, but I bet I forget a lot and I end up just telling you what to do. 

9. How has our relationship evolved since we first met?

Oh, in all of the ways. Our relationship made it through a lack of internet, a lack of cell phones, a lack of access to physical closeness. We've become grown up friends that still get to be kids together, just wih grown up tastes, grown up boundaries, and grown up money. I think we are still exactly how we were thirty years ago, just...you know. Thirty years older. 

10. Are there any habits or behaviors you’d like to work on improving for the sake of our relationship?

I think I am a railroader. I worry a lot about telling you what to do, and I am concerned that it presents n idea that I think I'm morally superior to you, or I don't think you can come to your own conclusions. I never give you advice with the expectation that you take it, but I am not so sure anything I say comes off that way. If there are certain people in your life who make you feel dumb, or make you feel less thn, none of those people should be me. 

Alan Alberts and the Lobster House volume 1: Choose your Own Haunted Fish Tank

Y'all. Today and yesterday have been "I'm listening to my body" days. And my body has been saying, "stay the fuck in bed". And so I'm gonna leave the rest of the week to follow in yesterday and today's footsteps. This is all to say my metrics are trash. But like...cute trash.

Today

Activity: Blogging with the bestie!

Activity Prompt: Explain something that happened to you that is so strange that nobody believes you.

Alone or with partners: Me and bestie bloggin' it up as a twosome!

Drink and snack with activity: I am still eating my dinner, a veganified and ketoized halal cart chickenwith cabbage instead of rice.

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: Nope!

Blogilates morning abs: Nope!

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5:

10: It's a no all the way down.

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking: Still can't find my weighted vest! Also no.

Shoulder shrugs during the day: A few! I feel very weak today.

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: Nope!

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling:

45 minutes of weight lifting:

Macros

Carbs:

Fat:

Protein:

Calories:

One of my very favorite things in the world to do is tell stories. This isn't just a now occurance, I have loved being a story teller since I was a little girl. A family gatherings, my aunts love to recall to me how I would sit with their children, usually only afew years younger than me, and tell them long and winding stories, and my aunts would lovingly joke about how I've always been creative and imaginitive.

My daddy is my favorite storyteller. I have alway been so inspired by the way my father folds people into whatever he is talking about, whether it's one of his many ghost sightings, or a particularly funny evening he had at work. When my dad is on, it's hard not to be enthralled. I've always assumed that in our past lives, my dad and I were the ones who stayed awake to tend the fire and watch over others, and we came to know the stars intimately. We were the ones who invited others into our fold when they woke up in the long hours before dawn, and spoke fantasy into the ether and made the darker hours come alive.

Beig a storyteller is an artform, and I firmly believe it is not a thing you learn. You're either born into it, or you are our captive audience, there is absolutely no inbetween.

I was born a storyteller.

In my younger years, this meant I invented excitement and shared it with others. There are plenty of blogs I've written about where I made up ghosts and shared the stories with my friends, I would tell stories to my sisters, I wrote a play, I created whole worlds for my barbies...which were always drenched in violence...and my stuffies also went on adventures all the time. When our parents fought, I would drown out the fighting by telling my younger sister stories in the dark. Sometimes I made things up, though mostly I recited Disney movies. As I got older and life started happening to me in grander ways, my creative streak took a back seat and I started sharing real life adventures.

Like the night my grandfather died, I woke up very early in the morning, which was very uncommon, and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I took a book into the bathroom to read, and was startled when the phone rang a little bit later...a phone call that would wake my mother up to share that her father had passed away. I have always been certain I woke up the moment he died. My grandfather and I were very, very close. I'm not sure if anybody has disbelieved that story, especially against a backdrop of stories like that occuring with regularity across my lifetime. I have more unexplained stories like that than I know what to do with.

On our family trip to Ithaca, I wanted to visit my grandmother's grave, a place I have never gone to and I did not know where it was. My dad called my mom to ask her, and she said she thought it was at one cemetary in Ithaca, but didn't know for sure, as she hadn't been to her mother's grave since her funeral. As we were driving through the cemetary, I shouted STOP! to my husband, because I felt something. In my bones, in my gut, all around me, I felt something. Derek drove up to the top of the hill, which was not where I told him to stop, but when he parked, I jumped out of the car and took off in the direction of the place I felt pulled. As I heard my dad and Derek making a plan for everyone to fan out to find my grandmother, I found her grave in less than a minute. I didn't even have to look att any other graves, I walked right to her. I found her. I say now that I just knew where she was, and I did. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. My dad didn't believe me, when I yelled out, "I found her" my dad said, "no fucking way" and then walked over...it took him a minute...and was genuinely shocked. Everyone was surprised but Derek, who talks about my spirits as though they are a constant. A silent second spouse that he didn't sign up for, but is warmly resigned to having around. My dad didn't believe me, but was there to see that the story was true, and I'm not sure anybody I've recounted it to has disbelieved me.

The story of the laughing children in the hallway of the hotel galvez. The story of the girl in white at the abandoned mines outside of Vegas. The story of the voice and the impossibly slammed door in the abandoned warehouse in Walsenburg. The ghostly visits to my room in Ithaca when I was 16. The coincidences surrounding death, the ghost stories, the impossible knowing I've demonstrated my enire life, I've never really been met with skepticism, though it is possible that for all of these stories, there was always a gentle laugh once I left, and a loving, "oh you know Drea. She's a natural story teller."

The impossible things of my life, the things I've found most unbelievable, have been taken at face value with alarming consistency in contrast to the very true things that, when shared, people have no believed me about.

As a person who identifies as female, was socialized a female, and is suspected to be mostly perceived as female by others, I have almost never been believed by the masses when I share the stories about my abusers. It doesn't matter if the incident was sexual, emotional, physical, or verbal, it is those stories that people find most unbelievable. Surely I misunderstood what they meant, I've been told. Oh they would never do that to you, they're so nice to me. If that happened, you must have provoked it.

Even when I am disbelieved, I am disbelieved in a way that makes me the conductor of my own misfortune. My first abusers were my parents and my mom made sure that the one social worker who believed me and came to check up on me knew that I was, in fact,a natural storyteller. "Going through it because of the divorce" she had told the social worker warmly in the kitchen. "The bruise was actually from her falling off of her bike, you know how clumsy kids can be! She just misses her father". The idea of my mother, the inviting lady offering tea to an outsider, being a violent abuser was suddenly so exremely strange as to be unbelieavable. That social worker was the first person to throw water on my ideas of setting injusttice on fire, she would not be the last.

I am pressed to understand how a storyteller like me is dismissed out of hand for the more realistic things I share, and adored and never checked on the things we socially find the least likely.

I wish it were the other way around.

And these are the wedding sneakers

 Alright alright alright. First the details:

Today

Activity: Blogging with the bestie!

Activity Prompt: Are faith and belief the same thing? Can someone believe in god without having faith in god?

Alone or with partners: Me and bestie, back in action

Drink and snack with activity:

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls: Yes

Blogilates morning abs: Yes

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5:

10: Yes

11: Yes

12: Yes

1: Yes

2: Yes

3: No - Driving

4: No - Shopping in Springfield

5: No - Shopping in Springfield

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking: I CANNOT FIND MY FUCKING WEIGHTED VEST

Shoulder shrugs during the day: Yes

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: Yes and I hate it

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling:

45 minutes of weight lifting:

Macros

Carbs:

Fat:

Protein:

Calories:

Are faith and belief the same?

No.

Can someone believe in god without having faith in god?

No.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I told Amber I was done a minute after writing all of this up, and it only took me that long because I had to fill out my dailies first. She laughed, and I said I would write some more because I felt bad for not putting in any effort into having a long explanation. I will say from jump that a long explanation isn't necessary...the answer is no.

When I first went to college, I took a philosophy class on a wim during my first semester, and was surprised to find that I truly enjoyed it. From then out, I took at least one philosophy course per semester. I ended up with a double minor in philosophy and sociology. I was a co-founder of the philosphy club at my school. I have read philosophers for fucking leisure.

I mention all of this as a preface:

Could I quote philosophy here and show off? Sure.

Will I, though? Hard pass. 

I don't think the god follow up is necessary, the question stands on its own, but to the god point it is a definite no. Faith is the primary tenet of god. The big Abrahamic ones, anyway. You have to have faith in god if you believe in god, even if that faith means being disappointed when your faith that god will deliver something that you want or need doesn't go your way. So can you have faith in god without believing in god? Why would you do that? It is fucking dumb no matter which way you present it. Can you believe in god without having faith in god? No. 

The other bit is trickier, and I actually think you coud have a longer, but still very short conversation to discuss the finer points of it. Are faith and belief the same thing? Still no, but you don't have to pretend to get into the deep weeds by bringing up god to make your point. Do I believe that humans are capable of unshackling themselves from capitalism and saving ourselves from destruction? One thousand percen. Do I have faith that humans will do it? Not in the least. 

Faith and belief sound synonymous, but they are not. 

Code 2! Code 2! Minor abnormality!

Oh no. It's been a tough few days. I am not keeping up with my shit.

Activity: Blogging with the bestie!

Activity Prompt: Do you have to be happy to live a fulfilling life?

Alone or with partners: Me and bestie!

Drink and snack with activity: Just water. I had vegan halal cart chick'n and I am stuffed.

Physical activities log

Morning ab routine

5 ab roller rolls:Yes

Blogilates morning abs: No - Starting Dec. 30th

Quarter mile walk every hour on the hour, 10-5: I didn't do any of these today, it was raining

10:

11:

12:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

5PM Two Mile Walk: STARTING IN MARCH

Weighted walking: No -Starting Dec. 30th

Shoulder shrugs during the day: Yes

MON, WED, FRI

45 minutes of PB: Starting Dec. 30th

TUE, THUR

45 minutes of cycling: Starting Dec. 30th

45 minutes of weight lifting: Starting Dec. 30th

Macros

Carbs: 20/23

Fat: 103/144

Protein: 75/116

Calories: 1374/1850

Reflecting on forty years to find long stretches of happiness leaves me coming up empty. I think I was about 13 or 14 when I was admitted to the psych ward for the first time? I asked Amber if that was before or after we became friends, and she said it was after. And that question just...derailed our blogging.We ended up talking instead for 6 hours. 

But we didn't talk about the answer we would give to this question. 

I've lived with chronic depression for almost 30 years. I was medicated off and on throughout my teens, and nothing I was prescribed worked. I have described almost all of my antidepressants as making me feellikeI was walking through sticky cobwebs with a head full of foggy, dusty clouds. I never felt any more like me when I was on antidepressants and anxialytics, which is a weid thing to say when you've lived your whole life depressed. Did I even know what being me felt like?

Yes? I think I did. At the very least, I know the way I felt WASN'T me. There was a me feeling out there, somewhere, but the many rounds of meds never helped me find it. 

I got kicked out of my house for the first time when I was 14, to go live with my dad in Vegas. My dad was married to a wretched woman named Cheryl at the time, she was intensely abusive to me, and perhaps those horror stories will be written about another time, but the most important part of this is how much it ignited my desire to be nomadic. It was thrilling to pack up my day to day normalcy and move that somewhere else. When my parents divorced and we moved from New York to Maryland and finally landing in Florida, I was pretty young and I have no real recollection of how that sat with me. But I do remember getting on planes o go visit my dad back in New York before he moved down to Florida and never feeling scared to travel for a single moment. I loved travel. I loved to see new places and being able to move to a new place was even more exciting. I was crushed when Vegas didn't work out the first go around, for reasons I won't go into but also because Vegas was new and exciting and I wanted to explore it. But Vegas worked out the second time I got kicked out. I lived there for a few years and traveled the surrounding states. Arizona, Utah, California. A boyfriend and I drove out to the salt flats so I could learn to drive, and I fell even more in love with the desert. I went hiking with my dad into mountainous terrain, saw hidden rivers I never would have noticed if I hadn't explored the area. My dad taught me how to climb without equipment because we couldn't afford the permits and we both took the exciting attitude of, "if we die here, at least we die HERE" because Red Rock Canyon was our sanctuary. I have done every single hike in that area, and it made me hungry for more adventures. I picked up and moved in the midde of the night to California when I found out I was pregnant with my oldest, and while I was depressed and unhappy, I was excited to be somewhere new. 

I kept moving round, different cities in Northern Cali, back to Florida when my oldest's dad and I split, back to Vegas when I was trying to be close to my oldest, was homeless for awhile, moved to Colorado when I got pregnant with my daughter, and after a thousand crusty relationships, I met my husband. 

I am staunchly ani-militry, and it brings me no joy to be married to someone in the military at all. It is a conflicting, painful part of my  every day life that I wrestle with on the regular. It makes me unhappy in ways I think I would be hard pressed to keep brief, and this unhappiness weighs on me. But I love my husband passionately and deeply, it's the only way I know how to love anybody. Since being with Derek, he has not just scratched my travel itch, he has given me a joy with travel that I didn't have before. I used travel to escape things, and as exciting as it was to be picking up and mving all the time, I wnted internal solitude more than anything. Under  all of my long car trips and decisions to pick up leave was a desire to set roots somewhere because maybe then I would be happy. Maybe stillness meant something good instead of something boring. It was a desire I never ever ever spoke out loud. 

Derek and I have traveled little pieces of the world together, we have had so many adventures that I needed to start blogging them to keep all of the memories collected because my brain will ditch them. 

When we're not traveling, Dererk understands and supports my need to care for community and be involved in making things more tolerable for others. He supports my participation in the organizations I am part of, he gets excited for me when I find some new cause I can add to my list of things I've thrown myself into, he doesn't even really tell me to pull back when I take moral umbrage with places I work and it weighs so heavily on me that I need to quit. He knows I have to stay true to my personal moral compass, and while he will occasionally remind me that I always say "morality is for the rich", he never stops me, despite our financial struggles, from being aligned with my spirit. I have spent the last few years working to sow good, and build community, and work outside of myself and my family.We have  traveled. We cook together, I hyperfixate on a food and I can't rest until I make it and Derek goes with me on these food journies (I've learned canning, fermenting, how to make booze, foraging, gardening, chicken tending...it's been a ride!) and seems delighted by them. 

I am fulfilled. 

But I do not think I'm happy. 

I am happiER than I've ever been, this much is an undeniable fact. I am as close to true happiness as I think I can feel, whatever happiness can mean when we live in the word we live in. I feel the weight of everything fairly constantly. I cry over genocides daily. I weep at the apathy of the world daily. I am angry about my own complicity in these things, how the things I consume are born of violent exploitation. I want to live on a piece of land with a community where we all fill each other's cups and there is an ease and lightness to life where we can enjoy the smell of the air after rain, and the sound of chickens scractching a the wet earth through fallen leaves. I know these are things humanity is capable of, and I feel a deep unhappiness tthat we are colletively choosing to speed run the death of ourselves in the name of capitalism and consumerism. Did you know there's a name for the smell after rain? It's petrichor. A chemical release from the ground that humans are veery very good at detecting. And the sunbeams you see when the sun is rising or setting, the ones that poke through the clouds? Those have a ame, too. Crepuscular rays. I am unable to be happy at the thought of all of the things I will never know because we are all choosing violence. 

I am not trying to paint myself as a saint here, and I feel like here will be some sense of judgment at expressing the idea that I cannot be happy because there are things that are happening elsewhere, not to me, and it keeps me from happiness. But I would ask how anybody holding that thought has allowed themselves to become so disconnected to the rest of humanity that the suffering of others isn't carried as personal suffering. Hyperindividualism is moving us toward our demise, where am I meant to be happy there?

I think that joy and happiness are two very different things. I can say that I am fulfilled, and largely this is true. I feel fulfillment at not just wringing my hands at the state of things, but being an active participant in fostering change. I feel fulfillment in talking to people about anarcho-communism and trying t mve the needle oward class consciousness. I take in cats that have been dumped by their previous caretakers and I provide warmth and safety for them, and I feel fulfilled. I have my children, I have my husband, I have my hobbies. I am fulfilled, and I have joy. I experience joy daily. I fall in love with everything, and I am so in love with the way the wind moves, and the laughter I hear from my oldes talking with a friend, and the way my daughter loves to draw, and the way my husband throws himself into projects both for himself and for me, and I daydream about being across the universe who I imagine are daydreaming of me, and I am moved to tears consantly because I am so joyful about these  little intricate moments that mean nothing in aggregate and are readily forgotten but as monumental as they happen. I am joyful and ful of hope. 

I am fulfilled. 

But I am unhappy. 

And I do not think unhappiness is a  dealbreaker for fullfillment. The two are not synonymous.