Writing is not… the easiest thing in the world. I mean, it’s harder for me NOT to write, but that doesn’t make it easy. Sometimes it’s like trying to fill a wicker basket with individualized drops of milk… but sometimes it’s as easy as crying. Always it is something: an activity, a transfer, a… fucking difficult translation. Writing is filled with lots of … and delete and copy and cut and move and adjust. But sometimes it’s just like walking.
Blogging your writing, like I do, isn’t the easiest thing in the world either. Especially when it comes to audience… I love the idea of strangers, other random humans, stumbling onto my words and my images and liking what they read- relating to what they see, seeing another human who looks at the world if not the same as them then in an interesting way. I love the idea of being interesting. I love that the few people I’ve met in life who honestly seem to get me have a way inside my (often obfuscated) head.
I do not love one particular member of my family reading my blog. She and I have never looked at the world the same way, and she seems super judgmental. I found out she was reading my blog a couple years ago when she asked me why I curse on MY OWN FUCKING BLOG with a disdainfully confused smile. (I’m not positive how she found it. At one (stupidstupidstupid) point I liked here from my Facebook- that was probably it…). In any case I immediately told her it was my own, personal, (oh my god and your beloved Jesus why can’t you understand the word PERSONAL) space for writing, and that I would appreciate her not reading it, or at the very VERY least not bringing up things I had written years ago in the middle of family reunions and get togethers.
Imagine, for a second, if your most personal (and admittedly fucked up) thoughts and emotions and goddamn baskets of milk were brought up years later, out of context, and discussed with family you see maybe every five years.
Good, I see you understand how fucking irritating that would be.
Now, imagine that she still reads and tells her mother about the things I write. (Like that I’m pregnant. That was MY story to tell, and I had simply been too sick to phone her yet)… I hate her translations of my writing. It makes me not want to write.

What do I do?
As I said, writing is not… the easiest thing. And neither is blogging your writing. And the people I’ve met, the people I know (the people who understand and do so without judgment) these are the people I want to see my writing. They are sometimes even WHY I write. And that, right there, is why this has never been an anonymous blog. Because sometimes the only reason I can get over the difficulty of writing is because I want to connect with those people.
But I don’t want to have it thrown in my face years later, damnit, and it’s almost impossible not to censor myself when I consider that what I write here, this very moment, will come up years later as an excuse for hurt feelings and unfair judgments.
So do I say fuck it, leave my blog that I’ve had for years and written thousands upon thousands of words in? Do I just censor myself more carefully or should I say fuck it, fuck her, and fuck the few years from now when this will (assuredly) come up in an incredibly awkward way?
Thoughts?

A couple weeks ago, when my period still hadn’t come and my boobs felt like they were falling out of my bra I took a pregnancy test.

Then, when the display INSTANTLY turned into a plus sign, I convinced myself I had done it wrong. It was a Saturday.

I took two more tests, with the same results.
So… I went to the doctor… and she had me pee on ANOTHER test and told me I could expect a baby around August 27th.

I’m pregnant.

My whole world has changed, and not just because I can’t fit into any bra I own.

We’ve told just about everyone, now, except my grandpa, who actively doesn’t use the internet… As if sharing the news will spread joy and lessen our fears… but it has, actually.

Consider yourself spread with a small amount of joy. and some nausea.

I can’t believe she’s been gone 10 years now.

It seems like a lifetime, and yet sometimes it hurts like it happened yesterday.

I’m not too sad, considering. I’m just remembering.

I read this letter from Anne Sexton to her daughter: I understand. I may look and (even) be a functioning adult, but really, really, I still need her.

10 years is a lifetime: too many years, too many rememberings, too many times I’ve thought “I know, Mom, I know”.

Inspired by the above video, Eli and I made the following lists of things we need from the store:

Eli’s list for me:

1) Automatic finger-nail trimmer
2) cat-patch kit
3) instant egg- spray
4) meat-polish
5) face diapers
6) fish de-beaker
7) dog diabetes test kit
8.) grumble tube
9) butcher’s watch
10) power cheese

My list for Eli:

1) vegetable sunscreen
2) baby tape
3) reduced-guilt toilet paper
4) carrot filters
5) manatee saddle
6) quick dry coffee
7) personal eye-repair kit
8.) overnight toilet tabs
9) dance pole
10) finger sleeves

Have you ever bought someone candy, truly intended to give it to then, but ended up eating it yourself?

and then, as you were eating it, think, ‘oh well, I’ll just share and give him half, it will still be a nice surprise’, then keep eating past your half without realizing, then pretty much HAVE to eat the rest so he didn’t know?

no?

oh.

me either.