5/19/24

pretty sure I have not felt the dizziness at all this week. (it’s gone)

5/20/24

had a class, my first, with Sarah Jackson Coaching today. it was really good, restorative, informative. some things i learned/that occurred to me during:

how I want myself to feel, baby to feel, and R to feel: you are safe with me. and I want our home to feel safe to each one of us too.

you will restore to me/more than I have lost.

Signal safety, dignity, and connection through the language of physical sensation, which is the language of your nervous system.

“never underestimate the power of making your body feel safe with you. Creating trust with your body.”

5/21/24

happy that i found a pretty good cheese. finally, one down. still need a good bread.

5/23/24

after our second therapist appointment today, talking to her about how R and I are different in that I can have peace being alone for days and days, while it seemed to me that he needed the companionship of others to maintain some homeostasis, it started me thinking more about how different we are. like how he likes to go out, and I like to stay in. But I think these differences are kind of what drew me to him in the first place, maybe subconsciously. Like, maybe in my heart, I knew I am too much of a stay at home introvert, so I chose a partner to draw me out sometimes, to maintain balance. I wonder if he sensed the same thing with me but opposite (he felt that he went out too much and needed someone who would ground him by staying in a little more?). and even with our different native languages, we draw each other further out of our comfort zones. And I guess also this point of attraction, when taken too far, can sometimes become a point of contention (like when I REALLY feel like staying in, and he wants to go out). it’s like how they say your strength is also your weakness. I think it’s just if we communicate well and kind of know and accept each other’s personalities, when lines are crossed it’s not too shocking and maybe we can roll with it more lovingly. because for all my tiredness and exhaustion from these past two years, I still wanna grow as a person, and I still desire to change and become more beautiful and not stagnant. I know that somewhere, he wants this too. It’s how our adventure started. It’s just that this most recent part with a baby was so physically and mentally difficult, that we need some help now. but I feel like we are still well suited to each other, and I still love him very much. even though i’m not well, something still melts in me a little when i look at him, esp after he’s been out in the sun all day. he still has my heart and my loyalty.

5/24/24

if you die in your sleep…was your whole life like a dream?

his feet don’t fit in my hands anymore. i used to always while breastfeeding him, hold the bottoms of both his feet in the palm of just one hand. now just one of his feet are too big to contain in my hand. 

tonight on the couch i was holding baby in the very late afternoon/almost-evening light, and everything in the room was the same shade of blue, and R was sleeping right next to us, no sounds except for the air conditioner alternating bw on and off. and i was looking over this sleeping baby, his perfect skin. and i realized…it’s true, it’s happening: you will return to me/more than what i’ve lost. i started crying, holding my perfect baby, mine, in my arms, the heavy toddler weight of him against me so real. so real, and yet almost unbelievable how perfect. this is exactly what i would have asked for, of course. that he be healed before me. first the baby. him first, always. as an outsider, i always thought: i won’t be one of those selfless mothers – i won’t lose myself/my identity. but now knee-deep in it: i can’t help it. he’s innocent; he’s nothing but a tiny ball of pure sunshine energy. it feels like nurturing and protecting that is what’s most important, at whatever cost.

5/26/24

Hunter fell asleep holding my hand tonight. i looked over after he’d fallen quiet for some time and his eyes were closed, his face peaceful, his pouty lips pursed. i am in constant love. (simultaneously in a lot of pain too with skin, but this is what I most want to record and remember.)

5/12/24

itched my feet for so long last night (from like 12 to 4 AM) that when I woke up this morning, I was afraid to get up because I wondered, what if it hurts to just even walk?

5/13/24

just cried hard but only for like 1 min, then stopped. but it felt good during, kind of cleansing. nearing end of cycle, so it could be pms, but i think mostly it’s built-up sadness from skin pain these last days, and feeling like my body betrays me/doesn’t work with me or for me or support me, in many ways. it could also be the combo of all these meds – i just took basically all of them in the hour or so before i cried.

5/14/24

was tempted to use topical steroid on feet last night, but then realized that if I did, it would get “artificially” better, and I wouldn’t know if the internal medicine I just started taking was doing anything. so I didn’t.

5/16/24

after another difficult weepy night last night that kept me up and robbed me of going to sleep at a decent hour (itched & soothed from about 11-2 am), I finally caved this morning and applied a really thin layer of topical steroid (Clobetasol), just gently tapping it onto my feet with my ring finger. I actually haven’t used any steroids for a long time, I think the last time was almost a year ago, or at least more than six months. I guess I won’t know now if any of the natural medicines I’m taking are working, but…at this point I don’t care- I just don’t wanna feel in pain anymore. I guess I’ll deal with what works later? I kept thinking it might get better, but I guess i needed some western medicine intervention/respite – it seemed to be getting worse despite everything I was doing (confining myself to the house, supplements, allergy medicine, clean eating and avoidance of gluten, dairy and egg…)

even though using steroids is kind of against everything I believe in (i want to solve it with natural medicine, getting to the root cause, no easy fixes) I desperately want to feel strong again. I want to walk and take each step without having to think about how uncomfortable it feels while going up and down the stairs, walking around the house. I want to be able to play with my baby without being uncomfortable or in pain or hyper-worried he’ll step on my feet (several times already, I’ve anticipated that he was about to, so I jerked back and almost allowed him to injure himself because he wasn’t anticipating that sudden movement from me – he doesn’t understand. I feel like it’s just a matter of time before I accidentally allow him to injure himself because of how rough-and-tumble he is, and how hyper-afraid I am of anyone touching my feet when they’re bad. just not a good combination. Maybe I could try to somehow pick him up at the same time that I move away?). so whatever – I’ll temporarily go against my ideals for all that. Also the peace of mind and the restored sleep I’ll get – I think is worth it. not ideal, but I’m doing my best. This is the best I can do.

I wish I could see the fx med doc so he could help me root-cause wise, but I’m not spending $165 per appointment plus the cost of expensive supplements when we have almost nothing in the bank and even have a negative amount a few times lately. this is the best I can do right now – this is all I know to do right now. will keep taking the Allergena zone 1 homeopathic drops, because I was blood tested and confirmed to be severely allergic to certain tree pollen (mostly silver birch and white oak), and that medicine is supposed to help with allergies from those trees- I looked it up on their site. So that’s like the most specific medicine to my problem I believe I can take, that I’ve come across. it’s only been three or four days I’ve been taking it – maybe it needs more time to work. and in the meantime, the clobetasol will restore some sanity and I’ll use it as sparingly as possible.

5/17/23

woke up this morning dreaming that I had just eaten a lot of ice cream, like three bowls of it (it was nice, in the dream- creamy, different flavors, maybe pistachio and vanilla…) before I realized that I wasn’t supposed to have any because it’s milk, at which point my heart kinda fell.

5/7/24

Hunter was hovering over me the other day with a jar of sesame seeds while i made jello and insisted that sesame seeds go with jello, even after i said they didn’t. so today i’m eating jello with black sesame seeds in it. 

5/9/24

still dizzy when sudden change of head elevation, like sitting or standing up, but no more accompanying nausea. I’ll take it.

5/12/24

it’s been a pretty painful last week or two with weeping feet, which I think is really mostly caused by the tree pollen- i saw so much of it in like drifts all around, just coating everything when I took Hunter out today (stayed inside all week when he wasn’t here and wore a mask for the brief times I did have to go outside to protect myself as best as possible). But for the past three days (as soon as I got it in the mail) have started with the Aller-Aid by Allergy Research again, and I’m sure that it’s helping, or at least not hurting/neutralizing things. I hope the longer I take it the better gets, paired with the fact that pollen season is only for a season and I guess in a few weeks(?) it dies down. at the playground today there were lots of kids and parents, and I was the only one there wearing a mask. maybe they thought I was sick or they were suspicious of me for wearing it, but I wasn’t gonna take it off and risk having a worse breakout than I already have.

4/30/24

i think last night was the first night i didn’t really itch my feet – meaning i didn’t itch so much that they wept. a milestone. fruits are the sweetest things i’ve been having- other than that, meat and vegs only. 

5/1/24

he has this new thing where once I take off his shirt or pants when changing his clothes, he’ll just start running away, so that he’s running through the house shirtless or pantsless or naked, he loves us chasing him i think, he’s grinning and laughing the whole time. 

also, it just took four of us (my mom, my dad, Rodrigo, and I) following him around the house, all trying to convince him to let us wash his butt after he just pooped – he finally relented after about 10 minutes of our joint efforts. 

5/3/24

feet started weeping about two days ago. Tonight, it was painful for hours, from about 11 PM to 2 AM.

i’ve had two kind of sudden changes of heart/mind recently: was just watching I think an older movie that I got from the library, called like the house with a clock in its walls, with Jack Black. And there’s a point in the movie where Cate Blanchette tells Jack that he always just runs away when things get hard, and it struck a nerve with me. After hearing that, I’ve just been trying so much harder when I’m taking care of Hunter by myself. instead of like giving into despair mentally, I just keep powering through, and it actually helps. I don’t wanna be someone who runs away from difficulty.

The second perception change I’ve had has to do with R. We had our first therapy/counseling session today, and he revealed something – a way that he felt that I kind of don’t even want to put into words- but when he revealed this way he felt, I just… I don’t know. I kept tearing up during the appointment thinking about it, even though most of the appt was the counselor talking to us about kind of practical, non-emotional stuff. And I do kind of see now how my perception of things isn’t his lived experience, that I can’t really imagine how he feels sometimes. I feel kind of selfish, and I don’t know. I felt shocked and like I let him down. Even after my like personal self-awareness revolution years ago, is it possible I’ve backtracked/still come off too harshly?

5/5/24

After shower last night, itched feet a little, but there was practically no weeping, it seemed better and flatter, just a little raw patches. definitely a big jump in reduction of pain compared to the other night. the whole day yesterday and lately, I’ve just been eating/trying to eat what i think is best for my skin- fish, meat, vegetables, good fats, no grains, etc. celery juice. haven’t been over eating- only eat when I get really hungry, because kind of feel sick to my stomach about the state of my feet. Also, I realized by looking around the house (and the news reports) where everything is covered in a fine like neon green dust, that the tree pollen is really heavy, and I know from my functional medicine appointments that I’m severely allergic to this. So ordered Aller-Aid, a supplement that the doc had me on (also had me on glutathione, but I can only do one because these supplements are so expensive) and meanwhile, while it arrives, started taking vitamin C, using up the last of my Boswellia supplement, and eating yogurt (cashew coconut based), all of which I already had in the house and which combined basically have the same ingredients of the Aller-Aid, which will arrive in about one week. Also just started taking bio Ray liver lover in hopes of just helping my body through everything, and also ordered oil of oregano for the same purpose. This all in addition to my regular routine (multivitamin, cod liver/omega-3, bovine adrenal pills, humic fulvic multimineral water…). I’m on so many supplements, and I don’t want to be (bc it makes me feel weak, like my body doesn’t have what it takes to sustain itself without help), but I feel like they do support me and that maybe without them, my skin would be worse.

4/22/24

A pattern I really like about my husband, that I just noticed: when he sees us drifting apart, one of his first instincts is to hold me tight for a long time, not saying a word.

something that surprised me yesterday: how much food can actually comfort. I came down to dinner, and dad had made my favorites – chilean seabass and lamb chops. Together, for the same dinner! When I saw them after sitting down, I almost cried.

4/23/24

I think this talking phase that Hunter is currently in is my favorite. Because he will only get more logical and comprehensible from now on. But right now he’s a mix of understandable/silly gibberish. He’s poetic all the time. yesterday morning, when he woke up and my back was to him, he said, “Mama? Can you mama?” I smiled and said yes and turned to face him and hug him.

4/25/24

this morning, while Hunter was eating from a snack box of raisins in my room (many times tilting his head back and shaking the whole box into his mouth), he declared to no one in particular, “nice day to eat raisins!” Then got up and was looking at himself in the mirror while he ate and kept saying “raisin guy” with different intonations, for a good while.

he also frequently when eating, will grab two of something and eat them simultaneously. for example, pao de queijo bread, he will take one in each hand and alternately bite each one; and the other night, he took a lamb chop in each hand and was eating from both of them by turning his head left and right and chomping from each outstretched arm, standing in his chair at the dinner table like a very small caveman.

4/15/24

dizziness is lessening now- if i lay down quick it’s almost like a drunken dizzy now, unaccompanied by nausea. but if I laid down and sat straight up a few times in a row, I’m sure I would get nauseous/pass out.

had this dream: Hunter and I were at my parents and my dad told me the ice cream truck was here so I grabbed my wallet and took Hunter out to go to it. It was this new kind of truck that I never saw before named Crispy I think. They had tons of menu options, which was overwhelming, and were really busy with a big kitchen i could see when i looked behind the cashier, and the cashier up front looked like Kieren Hutchison (i somehow managed to mention to him during our interaction that he looked like this actor but in the dream couldn’t remember the name, but I thought of him as Carey during the dream). I ordered a SpongeBob ice cream for Hunter, because in real life that’s what he’s been wanting, and for me, a Daiya dairy free chocolate, which, when I finally got to look at it, was only a tiny sad scoop of ice cream, and I wanted the one with a cone, oh well (im like 100% sure this has to do w my current real-life frustration of lack of delicious dairy-free cheese, gf bread, etc. options). the main part of the dream was that when I went to pay, I opened my wallet, and all the bills were play money. They looked real at first, and I took them all out, a 20, a 10 and a 5 I think, and they were all white and printed  correctly it looked like, and I was just staring at them, trying to figure out why they looked white, then realized it was play money from all different games Hunter had. I told Carey and he said it was fine if I wanted to give him fake money and laughed, because he liked me, but I said I wouldn’t, and was then searching a little frantically, because there were a lot of people behind me, for my credit card, but couldn’t find any credit ones, so had to use my bank debit card finally and remember thinking as he swiped it, “there’s at least enough money on there for ice cream..” (obviously has to do with our current financial state). After we ordered, I stepped away, and then Carey finally came out of the truck and brought our order, and in the moment that he put the order in my hands, he leaned in to kiss me on the cheek at the same time that I did to him, like we both had the same idea, and it was wonderful, it was all I wanted. i tingled and everything. I actually remember, I think, mentioning my husband or boyfriend (R) when I was talking to him, and he knew i had a son probably from seeing Hunter, but still, he really liked me and I really liked him, and there were immediate, mutual, romantic sparks, which left me feeling loved when i woke up.

4/16/24

last night …after R didn’t let me know where he was going and just left while Hunter and i were at the playground on Sunday, and after a tiny back-and-forth about it through text, I was seriously thinking of divorce like in the hour before I fell asleep. But then I considered that I am in the PMS phase of my cycle, so maybe I’m blowing up something small. I decided to give it a week and see if I still feel the same, and also after reading about divorce on Reddit, decided we should try milder tactics or to “save” things first like with therapy, rather than jumping from being generally happy, to divorce.

something really sweet (clingy?) that Hunter did this morning. We were just woken up in bed having slept together the last two nights at my parents’, and my mom had come to take him downstairs so I could sleep/work, and he wouldn’t go, and first she gave him the choice to either go down with her or she takes away his breakfast rolls that she had brought up to the bed, and he chose to have her take the food away rather than leave. Then she told him all about the gummy bears and vitamin gummies and stuff downstairs she would give him if he came with her, and he really loves gummies, but he still said no, that he didn’t wanna leave.  the final thing was that my mom said “do you want Mama to stay here all the time? Then you have to listen to me, or else Mama won’t be able to do her work and she’ll have to go home.” To this he responded, “ok i’ll listen” got up right away and went with her.  It just showed me like I don’t know. He really loves/is attached to me I guess.

4/17/24

feet had been getting better, until last night. I went to bed and couldn’t stop itching for a while, and then it was painful. When I woke up this morning, I looked closer and there was some weeping. I was trying to think back the last few days what I ate. I never broke any of my diet rules, but I thought 1) maybe there was some gluten-laced soy sauce in some sushi takeout i had, or 2) the granola that was in the açai bowl I’ve been eating for the past two days.  I looked it up, and I saw that the restaurant (playa bowls) offers regular and gluten-free granola, and I did not ask for the gluten-free one (I just assumed and couldn’t spare the few minutes to check that the granola was gluten-free). so basically have been ingesting wheat for the last two days, which I’m pretty sure is what caused the flare. It made me sad and discouraged that i’m kicked back a few steps. trying to take it easy on myself today and drinking a lot of celery juice and of course eating clean. Took a few more fish oil pills than usual to help with the inflammation. Trying to look at it as a kind of contest with myself to see how fast i can get my body back on track. 

4/18/24

this morning i just tried saying this line out loud in my head to see how it sounded: “i was married for five years.” “Yeah, i was married for like five years.” it sounded fine, actually. like it didn’t sound like a pathetically short (or pathetically long) amount of time or anything. I’m pretty sure i’d be comfortable saying it.

4/19/24

when I first got the idea of divorce this week, I thought it would be a very difficult thing. maybe it would be a little hard logistically like with paperwork and joint account and house and such. But the more I think about it, the more i think it might be best for both of us: for me, I can avoid all the awkwardness around his family because I’ll never have to see them again, I feel really safe at my parents especially at night because there’s no sexual requests being made on me when I really don’t feel like having sex bc i still feel like i’m recovering, and that worry i feel around him whenever he drinks- that he’s drinking too much- is completely removed because I don’t have to witness it every night – everyone I live with here, my mom and dad and Hunter- are like much more stable people. For him, he could find someone who likes to be butt fucked and will eat junk food and dairy and eggs all day long with him – stuff I can’t give him. Maybe someone more fun-loving than me, someone more like him. and I also keep getting the thought like: “he gave me what I needed (the baby). Maybe I don’t need him anymore.”

4/20/24

tonight was playing hide and seek with Hunter. gave him a nice long 20-second count, during which i heard him scrambling all around the room looking for a hiding spot. when i finally opened my eyes, he was standing right in front of me, looking right into my eyes and patting me with his little hand and smiling lol. also this morning he woke up and first things he said to me: “you’re my superhero.” “you’re my incredible hulk.” “you’re my captain america!”

4/8/24

I can’t even write down most of the cute things he says because we’re in the moment and he’s too needing attention so that it happens and I don’t have time or space to get my phone to write it down. But I could watch him every second- it’s like watching cells divide before my eyes, is how fast he’s growing and changing and maturing. 

4/9/24

even though the past two years since having baby has been really hard with loss of sleep and time and our identities as like single people shattered, and serious sickness on my end, and financial hardship, I also feel like I’ve gotten to know my husband, and he has gotten to know me, better. like I feel that if we had not gone through and were going through all these difficulties, that it would maybe be harder to see the real him? Because I guess hardship brings out your true nature? and I feel like the trouble brings us closer in that it makes us have to work as a team and we need cling to each other and really understand each other, or else everything will fall apart. And like when you have no energy left to pretend, no time to make anything up, no money to distract, everything just gets chopped down to the bare essentials – the roots- and you see who they are. And I love him, still, after everything, after all this. I know we’re both trying our best.

4/10/24

this morning woke up with the dizzy thing again. Again it’s when I get up too fast, or look way up tilting my head, or look way down – this nauseating dizziness ensues. If I’m sitting up or standing up, I can walk around just fine – it’s just certain positions – whenever i change my head’s altitude, i get it. But I even went for a run today and was fine. just weird. 

4/1/24 

I realized a mistake I was making when playing the lottery: I was looking to an external source to tell me when it was OK to stop worrying. (Like by winning, I would finally stop worrying about money.) But I just realized it’s a mistake to wait for peace to come. It should already be here, inside of me. Even though I don’t know like how, feasibly…it should, still.

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so conflicted in my life as when I drop off Hunter to stay at my mom’s or she picks him up, in those few minutes right after they leave the house and I’m alone. I need him to go because I need a physical break – I need rest mentally too- I need to pick up after the chaos that the tornado of him has left and get the laundry, clothes, toys, kitchen back in order so we can do it all again. But after he leaves, it’s like everything means nothing without him.

4/2/24

sometimes I feel cute because I’m small, and sometimes I feel special because I can sometimes wear kids’ sizes, but mostly I just feel angry and frustrated about my shortness: I need to get the stool out in the kitchen every fucking day multiple times to reach stuff from the higher cabinets that normal people can reach, average-sized dish gloves are flip-flopping on my hands because the fingers are too long so that grabbing things is awkward and inefficient, just reaching things, hanging things, etc- normal everyday things that i need to do- that a normal person can do without any extra steps- piss me off because i can’t fucking reach. every day. 

breastfeeding as trauma: the lack of warning before it all, the all-encompassing nature of it (takes over body, hunger, thirst, sleep, everything, entire schedule), sleep deprivation, loss of identity, control, focus…maybe…maybe more than just my body needs to recover. 

4/4/24

i always dream of…people holding me. people, well boys- men i guess- who…are in the back of my mind/bottom of my subconscious, who i haven’t seen or talked to in years and years. in my dreams they…put their arms around me and i feel safe. Safe and…wanted, loved, completely. i think about them the whole day after. 

3/22/24

it’s so funny how kids won’t eat things unless they’re in pretty shapes, attractive colors.  Like they’re born artists, already.

3/25/24

Hunter had his first kiss this weekend, at the Lindenwold playground. We were there with granny and grandpa, and were the only ones cause it was pretty cold out, but then this father came with his son (maybe 4-5 y/o? named Bryan or Ryan maybe? they spoke Spanish) and daughter – she couldn’t have been more than 1 yr- was waggly walking and non-verbal. She was really cute and round and shorter than Hunter and dressed all in pink- fuzzy pink sweatshirt with matching pink sweatpants. First she just stood and stared at Hunter when she first saw him riding in the play police car. Then wherever we were, she kind of followed us, and if Hunter stood still, she would walk towards him. At one point on the way up to the biggest slide, Hunter was just standing and she walked right up to him and reached for him/his face and just very intentionally pressed her open baby mouth to his face lol. i don’t think it was right on the lips, but pretty close. hahaha

i told R this and R was like wow, first kiss at 2! That’s better than me. I was like when was yours? R said like at 6, and thinks his mom kept the letters from the girl – apparently she used to write him letters 🙂

after taking care of Hunter for three days and two nights, with me and R sleeping apart at night (the bed situation in limbo right now- we can’t all fit in the same bed when Hunter goes to sleep- it’s a twin sz bunk- so it’s either R or I who sleeps with him, but not both) and then, being kind of physically apart during the days because we can’t cuddle much while taking care of the baby who wants all our attention, when we got home after dropping him off at my mom’s last night, we just cuddled and cuddled and stuff for so long that, even though we both had to work tomorrow (with him needing to get up much earlier than me, as usual), we stayed on the couch just entwined until about 1:30 in the morning. I knew it was getting late, but it just felt good to finally have his body against me that I couldn’t make myself get up and go to sleep at the hour i really should have. (got a “small” herpeticum outbreak later in the week around Wednesday- i’m sure this contributed)

*

so annoyed when they treat objects as living things. That item I left in my cart is not “waiting for me.” meanwhile, I’d argue that the very ground beneath our feet, the air, the forest around us *is* waiting for us to do something. But that cannot be monetized so no one says it.

3/30/24

just while we were hanging out in the living room this afternoon doing no related thing, Hunter suddenly, randomly said, “if you eat a Jack Skeleton head, you become Jack Skeleton”

3/31/24

Hunter can convey basically anything now.  he can’t like write a detailed novel, but he can say, it seems,  anything he’s thinking, and we can mostly understand it all. He says so many things, observes, and remembers so much. It’s amazing and hard to just summarize. 

skin definitely getting better, but slowly. I’m sure it’s because I’ve super cut out dairy and egg, along with making sure I’m strict gluten-free and stuff. getting good-sourced meat and reducing sugar, eating variety of organic veggies. plus supplements, plus prioritizing sleep, plus getting in exercise when i can, and everything that was inflamed before (hands and feet mostly) is starting to go down to normal again. i guess i just need to make all this somehow sustainable, because i just proved to myself over these past months that if i stray from these principles, my body starts to break down. this Easter was a bit hard with all the treats that got brought over. One of my sisters in law brought these delicious-looking filled chocolate eggs that I really wanted to try since seeing them last night but knew that I shouldn’t (sugar, milk), and I kept looking at them on the counter, and finally today just angrily and frustratedly-sadly turned the box over so i couldn’t see them anymore through the see-through plastic on front (R’s eating them). 

3/16/24

something that keeps pleasantly surprising me: I thought he might’ve just loved me for my milk, but since he stopped breastfeeding altogether, it still seems like he loves me like as much as ever.

something I was wondering…like it took 15 consecutive months of no sleep for the sickness to show up in me. So how long to reverse that, or can it ever even be reversed? Like do I need great sleep for 15 months straight (definitely have not got that yet) to counter it and then I’m back to normal? Or will I never be normal again? I don’t remember ever being this sensitive to foods before. I feel like I was maybe more resilient pre-pregnancy. I feel like, I don’t know. That I just eat a little bit of dairy/egg, and the way it shows up on my skin is like disproportionate to the amount I consumed. maybe I’m just resentful that I can’t have these things, and I wish I could. maybe i’m still healing, and i’m just impatient.

3/19/24

oh. Something so sweet, like maybe the sweetest thing ever. yesterday accompanied Hunter over to my parents’ house, then Hunter, mom and i went out to the playground, and when we came back, grandpa (my dad) gave Hunter this plate that consisted of spinach leaves with little dinosaurs on them. I wish I’d taken a picture, but I was so delighted and surprised in the moment, and I didn’t have my phone directly on me. Grandpa had bought some kind of dinosaur mold/cut out thing so that he could cut veggies and fruits in the shape of dinosaurs. So they were like tiny pterodactyl mangoes, and beet T-Rexes, etc. As soon as he showed Hunter the plate, grandpa asked, “Hunter can you tell me what kind of dinosaurs these are? you can eat them, you know!” grandpa told me that he bought the shape-maker in hopes that it would get Hunter to eat more veggies. And it just really touched my heart, that he had thought it out and searched for it, and purchased it, something so good (and fun) for my baby.

3/21/24

R’s been working so many Saturdays lately that i’m tired of asking him if he’s working Saturday and being disappointed when he says yes every time. i’m gonna stop asking i think, and just assume he’s always working on Saturday and then be pleasantly surprised that rare day he’s not.

haven’t written a poem in a while. i guess it’s all getting to be too much, and the following came out.

March 19-21, 2024

where did this war start?

it all started in someone’s mind- thinking he had been wronged.

now white phosphorus

now a father with nothing left to say but “my children died cold.”

*

i have this sinking feeling

there are threads within me

connected to the hate

that shapes weapons of war.

*

i didn’t like physically

start this particular war, but still, this

gut realization that

whenever i, from the quiet of my

suburban American home, stumble upon

a small reason that sparks

ill will within me toward another being

and i entertain that will for any amount of seconds

and do not immediately like

rebuke it in the name of god, i am tapping into the psychological, spiritual,

emotional root of the problem-

the entire problem – i touch it.

I don’t want blood on my hands or even fingertips.

*

Like if we don’t:

• pay attention and choose to turn from all forms of ill will
• go sit by the river
• seek out the forest and pull it around us like emergency blanket
• choose to swim and bask and daily baptize in deep unconditional love,

all is lost. all is lost for us.

*

where did my hell begin? It began with thinking i was wronged.

Not with the wrong itself, really. it began once my mind sought vengeance –

because then the wrong was on nonstop replay.

*

So what if you are wronged? So what?

Do you really want to go there? Do you really want to go down that hole? Waste your one life blind with self-pity?

*

Lucky I held no military power;

look at what could happen.

Look at the innocent

watery eyes of these

children, the dead eyes of these

dead children, closing –

each of them grew and swam

so many months in a hopeful womb

to end up

cold, in pieces

*

if all atrocities start in

the mind and heart…

then so do

healing, solutions, renewal.

*

kneel with me

now, surrounded by nowhere

in this layer of brown broken leaves.