Inspiration vs excitement, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for almost a year.

Excitement seems to drive many people to do things, try things, accomplish things, buy things, but not me, not that much.

So the question became what does drive me?

One of the things is truth, I’m haunted by truth, I’m bound to it.

If I had the most attractive, easiest to live with husband in the world, and I knew it wasn’t real love, because he was gay, or loved another person, or perhaps no one else, but not me, it wouldn’t be anything to me. I’m sure I have inconsistencies and mistakes in my knowledge, but I just can’t overlook the elephant in the room the way many of my close family or friends seem to be able to do.

I don’t have autism, although one of types causes inability to lie as normal (Asperger’s), I can lie if I needed to do so to save my life, but I hate it, it drains me, it weighs on me.

My daughter was diagnosed today with sensory processing disorder, and I don’t know too much about it, the doctor did explain, but I had never heard of it before so it will be a bit longer until I understand it at a deep level.

My resolution for 2021 is to get a CES machine that can stimulate her vegus nerve to help her calm down. It’s a very specific resolution this year to get and use a CES (Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation) machine.

I was crying myself to sleep earlier tonight, and for some reason I thought I’ll write, just in case anyone else was crying themselves to sleep on New Year’s Eve, they may someday know they were not alone in that.

I was crying because while my five year old daughter was trying to kick my father, he tripped her and she fell on the floor. She should not be kicking anyone, but she can’t act properly, her brain is a bit stunted. Her prefrontal cortex shuts down, her executive center is approximately like a two year old, even though she is five.

Her father was working at her age, I was attending public school, and my daughter can’t get through 1 week without hitting or kicking a family member.

But she isn’t at the level of a normal person. Maybe someday she will be, probably so, but not yet.

I want to always keep my daughter safe, but she is so annoying she isn’t safe with her father, my father, my sister, and barely me sometimes. I don’t really blame anyone, if you haven’t been with her for 3 hours or more you really would have no idea someone like her existed, unless you have a relative like that, then you know…

The reality is that she shouldn’t have been kicking anyone, the reality is that adults should walk away or put the kids away rather than hurting them, but the reality is that it doesn’t always happen like that either, adults hurt kids, kids hurt adults, families are super messy microcosms.

I really hate that, I love order, I love serenity, I love justice, and families are such gray areas, such disordered meshes of varieties of ethics, personalities, preferences and hobbies, families are ripe with small, medium and large injustice that go unchecked, unexamined and uncorrected.

I’ve lived alone, I’ve lived with family, I won’t deny they both have advantages, but I wouldn’t say family is better than no family, it’s close to even, lots of benefits, lots of costs. In my life, family member were the ones who hit from you, lie to you and steal from you more, not less, but they also cook for you, support you, and keep you alive.

If I didn’t live with my dad currently, my daughter may not have been knocked down with her head hitting the floor. I consoled her about the event, she feels better, she will probably heal physically and mentally, but possibly not, she says she wanted to die because of it, very dramatic, but possibly how she actually feels, who would know better than her how she feels. I worry for her emotions, I worry for her brain, but I already have a doctor for her, I have a treatment plan, we go, we try, it’s not “perfect” but it’s not an emergency in that it isn’t emergent meaning “new”. Modern brain research is that the brain is incredibly fragile physically, a small bump causes micro bleeds, they typically heal well, but each time they possibly won’t heal well. The brain isn’t tough. So I don’t like the whole damn thing, I get it, it happens, in real life it happens, but I hate it.

My father apologized, my daughter apologized, will the brain bleeds mend properly, maybe so, maybe not.

It’s painful because 1. It’s painful to know that I can’t really take a break and have my kids be 100% safe, when they are not with me they are not 100% safe (even when they are with me they aren’t). 2. It’s painful to know I don’t have the family I would like to have where we would protect each other from violence not engage in it. 3. It’s painful for me because my daughter’s brain is already not 100% and getting knocked on the back of the head isn’t the best for improving it. I’m trying to go the other way. 4. It’s painful for me because it’s my sister’s birthday and I wanted the day to be without drama, fighting, emotionally trauma/neediness/counseling my daughter which I hate to do and am not good at.

But I look at the truths, 1. My kids are not ever going to be 100% safe, that’s out of my hands, they get hurt in front of me all the time, 2. I’ve never had a family life I liked, ever, the fact I’m still trying at least says something for tenacity and optimism (I come from a broken family, I hate passive aggressive comments and our beliefs vary so widely that there is more tension than I enjoy), 3. Accidents have, do and will continue to happen, dealing with them is better as a strategy than fearing them, 4. I can want the day to be without drama as much as I want to, but odds are it will have drama. Perhaps someday I will look back and miss the kids, but I very much doubt I will miss the drama, it’s not something I like.

So life isn’t perfect, I’m not perfect, my family isn’t perfect, 2020 wasn’t perfect, but it won’t be perfect in 2021 or ever, I won’t be, my family won’t be, but I’ll do my best, I’ll give my kids the best effort I can. I’ll try not to wallow in negativity, but I don’t turn away from it either, it shows me who I am.

I read many quotes that hate is bad, poison ext.

But one day I found the idea that it protects us from evil, by showing us what isn’t good for us that we are in the presence of evil.

I believe that.

I believe hating my family hurting one another is correct for me, that it will focus me to find solutions of conflict management of adults needing breaks, of safe spaces for children.

Hate drives me to work into the night, to ask an expert, to pay an expert, to not let things stand indefinably that should not be let to stand.

Some hate is silly, some hate is destructive, some hate is not worth it, but I don’t believe the world is a good enough place that it’s not a valid tool to have in my tool box. I still unfortunately find a place for it, if people are stoned to death for silly things like made up adultery ext, that is and does quality as evil to me and I hate it, I realize the whole world isn’t falling apart at all times, but I know there are still evils in the world that I don’t feel the need to forget, overlook, or embrace as if they are not evils.

I don’t have all the answers about myself, about how to live with my family well, but what I find surprising is how much what works for someone else won’t work for me, what works for other children, won’t fit my daughter, how distinct people can be on the inside seems to be so much a vaster range then the outside. I wonder if someday we will have an easy way to see ourselves and one another as we are rather than to seldom find out about anyone else apart from best friends and spouses?

So kind of a dark post, but I wanted anyone else in the darkness to know they aren’t there alone.

Sometimes it seems counter intuitive to name the ugly things in life, and it doesn’t have to be public, but it should be done, to not name them prevents the dissolution of the victim-hood that corresponds to them, when you don’t name them you are tightly bound together, that makes it harder to walk away and not walking away makes it harder to more forward. We are the captains of our souls, but not the captains of the planet, one of the hardest things is to know how much we can do to change our lives and our world and another is how much we struggle to let go of what we can never change in our lives and our world, but there’s always tomorrow to work on that.

Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain. We all have sorrow, but if we are wise, we know that there’s always tomorrow.

– Bill Withers (Lean on Me)

This is the first New Year’s Eve I’m away from my husband in a long time, since we met… but in my heart I’m with him. I wonder if he will notice? Because I don’t know if there is something real that connects people in love or just something imaginary, even after thinking it’s real, I know that I don’t really know.

I don’t know why people from the same families can be so different, why it’s so difficult for people in general to get along and what motivates me to do the things that I actually do vs the things I think I would like to be doing. The world is a mystery, other people are a mystery to me and I am a mystery to myself still at 35.

But I have some peace in my heart because I have hope for the future, hope to do well for those I love who need me, gratitude to those who help me like the neurology team and the makers of the CES, hope that people are generally good and usually do over time find solutions to large and small problems. I have a lot of hope that things will get better and everything will be all right, although largely imperfect if not next year, then the next and if not next generation, then the next, eventually…

The issues my daughter have have been in recorded history for over 3000 years, the treatment has been around for 6 years. For some people this is the best time to have ever been alive, it’s easy to forget that.

🕯️