Personal life? What personal life?!?

I’m having something of a parenting challenge right now. Teenager’s brains are difficult to live in and difficult to live with. My son is man-sized. I have to regularly remind myself that he is NOT a man. And I have to check my own issues with male anger and avoid getting worked up when he’s worked up. He’s working through some very appropriate and very complicated emotions but, like most men-type people, he’s lacking some of the emotional intelligence and self-regulation to really experience and process his emotions. Walking him through this process is sticky. It’s really REALLY hard to see the 10,000 foot view.

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I’m coming out of a place in my life where I performed hypervigilance in response to someone else’s emotional state and needs. As such, I’m having something of a backlash against expectations that I read people’s minds. I don’t mind hard work, I don’t mind staying late or staying up late to help you with your problem. But don’t expect me to intuit your problem. I’m more than a little bit psychic but I’m still a terrible mind reader. 

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Back on the dating horse - we’ll see how it goes this time around! 

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Had a good conversation with my son to work toward helping him with some of the things that are holding him down right now. It was a successful conversation and forward steps have been made in the process. It is hard to blog about these huge aspects of my life because I want to respect my kids' privacy and right to own their own digital identity. I want him to get help. He’s got a lot of emotions tucked inside but anger seems to be the door we need to go through to get to them. I think we've found  the start of a solution.  I love it when I’m able to navigate the psyche of a teenager and it goes well. 

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I absolutely cannot stand gossip. It is right up there with mind reading. Once my ex remarked to someone that something he liked about me was that I wasn’t catty or gossipy. I was surprised, I guess it was a little like someone complimenting me for not being an aggressive picker of lint off of the clothes of strangers on the bus. Of course I don’t do that! Why the fuck would I want to do that? I don’t get any joy from talking about people behind their backs. It is malicious and poisonous.

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I have shrines that want constructing and it is making me sad that I can’t get that done. I need a few little bits for one of them - some nice paper & an hour of internet research and printing of things, plus someplace to put the things I print (I’m thinking tiny picture frames). The other I think is just a matter of cleaning off a shelf and rearranging things that are in other places in my room. I also want a full moon calendar. At this point, I should probably just wait and get a 2019 one, but dammit money is always tight around the holidays and I forget to get it in the new year. These are things that will make me feel more centered and authentic in my home. Lots of little shrines and a full/new moon calendar as art. Life goals.

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There are many areas of my life where I am full of curiosity. Curiosity helps me understand people who are different from me. It helps me parent. It helps me do my job and it helps me learn and grow as a human.

I get texts from people I’m dating, asking about my day or sharing some tidbit and it occurs to me, I may be crucially lacking the curiosity about that person’s life for casual dating to evolve into actual relationships. I’m not sure I have space in my life right now to care about another person. I care about so many already!