Multiple parenting
I got ranty on a multiplicity community and thought I’d share some love here. Also I’m elated because I finally got the Google Maps out to the parents of the kids who are coming to Noah’s birthday party next week, a task on which I’d been procrastinating for err… 2 weeks. I can’t even explain why.
So here’s what’s surprised me the most about parenting as a multiple system.
1. The amount of parenting-related drama has been really, really low. I credit the therapy we did mostly for this, combined with losing Emily and the trauma of her birth. (Note: Not saying this was a lesson from the universe. Universes do not send message via dead baby.) Although there has been parenting chatter within the system (Lynn makes remarks she thinks she would like to make, but wouldn’t) really…it’s been smooth.
I don’t know why and if I did I would write a book about it. But it’s the most holistic thing we’ve ever done. Ever.
2. It’s surprised me how much we’ve been able to retain about ourselves, except for having a home where Carl refers to us by name. We have decided not to talk to Noah about the system for a good long time because we believe it’s unnecessary and might make him feel less secure.
But it hasn’t stopped people being themselves. And Noah has learned (subconsciously I presume) how to game the system a bit. I’ve noticed that when he wants boisterous play he starts by inviting a (Nerf) sword fight, which always gets the warriors engaged. And when he wants information he asks to go to the library - which makes logical sense, but it’s also JJ who takes him there and she’s really good at explaining shit. And I don’t think it’s quite so Noah-driven, but he and Lyr cook together and play outside.
What surprises me the most though is how close Lynn and Noah are, especially after his appendicitis. Lynn was so able to sit with him in that, totally accepting of his every feeling - anger, fear, sadness, pain. And she was the one who found the roleplaying game he still goes to when he’s processing stuff (it involves a house getting knocked down by the bad guy and getting rebuilt and then knocked down, over and over. Very Jungian stuff.) And they do a lot of musical things together.
I think we’ve struck reasonable balances around being careful with media and that kind of thing, but I also think we’re a little abnormally direct about some things. Like death…Noah knows how Emily died and where her body is and all that; he’s asked over time and been given direct answers.
Most recently, he’s learned how babies are made by reading a book with JJ that is age-appropriate in its illustration and language but also goes into quite a lot of gory detail - “special cuddle” between mummy and daddy, the penis helps the sperm into the vagina, ultrasounds, most babies come out the vagina but some come out with surgery. (It’s Australian.) This fits with the anatomical knowledge his school has imparted (”mummy, arteries carry blood that has lots of oxygen but veins carry blood that needs oxygen”). But it may have been a little over the top and slightly more driven by a need to be right than a need to be a good parent.
And we share a lot of jokes and laughs with each other as a family and when those moments come people do say the odd outrageous things. Like “your mom’s a fairy sometimes” or Noah knows I have a real sword.
As Noah turns 5, he’ll start to become more obsessed with peers and categorization and the way other people do things and I do wonder how this will sort out - and how we can support him.
But for now I feel like it’s gone really, really well. We’re keen to do it again with a different person. And out of everything we’ve done in our lives so far, I have to say that we are most whole (not integrated) doing this.
Major. Fun.
This is the week! of! fun! apparently.
Let me back up.
Carl and I (but Carl even more so due to his work routine) have been major slugs for oh, 3 years. Adjusting to having to drive to work, two working parents, the changing needs of a tot - frankly, a lot of it has been just sink or swim and not a lot of time for what’s good for us. Well, there would have been time had we prioritized exercise but did we? No, we did not. Not really. Getting outside with Noah, yes.
Anyways, a few weeks ago Noah wanted to spend time at my parents’ and I could not hack being there the whole time so I said to Carl maybe we could hang out and have sort of a date. During that discussion we found out we’d both been thinking about a Trail-a-Bike type thing (the one we got cost $99) (this is the third wheel/second seat that hooks onto a regular bike so that your younger kid can ride tandem with you, with his own pedals and chain).
It was delicate on my end because - I hadn’t ridden a bike much since I broke my wrist on one in…1995. Yeah. But Carl had been prescribed biking as a part of his torn ACL rehab and last year we invested in a pretty nice bike for him. And Noah’s daycare is a ten minute drive/20-30 minute bike ride away; granted there is some traffic in between but it’s not (mostly) too bad. But you know, it’s sort of icky to say to your spouse “hey, you should do this.”
But…Carl LOVES getting places in the open air. He used to rollerblade 45 km round trip to work and back.
The risks did occur to me before I brought it up (Carl brought it up simultaneously; it’s Marriage Brain!) God knows it’s scary sending your kid off on a bike. But there are risks in not biking too, and walking an hour round trip is not really in the cards.
Anyways, long story short, we bought the trail bike attachment and except for when he’s been on jury duty, Carl’s been taking Noah to daycare on it and occasionally picking him up that way too. It gives Carl a big round trip and Noah loves it. He LOVES IT. And yuppie me, I love that he is learning that you can get to school on a bike.
He loves it so much…that I bought a bike for myself this weekend too. I went to Toys R Us and got a Skelanimals women’s bike, so shoot me. (It’s 7 speed and a cruiser. It has fenders and a chain guard. It is in no way a serious bike. The system LOVES IT. It is the bike we were not allowed to buy in our youth.)
Anyways that was yesterday and it turned out my helmet cracked when I broke my wrist, or perhaps in the MORE THAN A DECADE in between, so today I got a helmet. And we went for our first family bike ride. We live near many trails…many hills too, but seriously, we go the right way and we can get to a lakeshore trail that goes way out; go the other way and walk down a huge trail and you can go the other way into the city, almost (not quite).
Today we just tooled about the neighbourhood but it was SO MUCH FUN. I thought I would be panicked the whole time watching Carl and Noah on their bike. But no, it was ok.
But wait!
Wednesday early early early I fly to Aruba for a 4 day press trip and get back laaaaaaate Saturday night in time for - Mother’s Day.
So this is like, a banner week.
I really feel like I’m finding myself again. Being active is so much a part of that. Still not really hitting the gym but I have been using resistance bands and a 5 lb weight ball at home.
Drama III, Robert Munsch, and more
Last weekend I took Noah to the Robert (Bob) Munsch reading at Chapters. Munsch hasn’t been doing too many readings; he had a pretty major stroke at least a year ago and so I had sort of given up on the idea that Noah would get to see him. But, he did - along with 220+ of his neighbours at this end of town. It was quite energizing to be in a group of people who had all rushed out for a reading. That is my tribe. The publishing industry is in chaos, but Mortimer remains.
Noah had a blast, after all the waiting. The waiting was looooooong.
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Friday Noah had his doctor’s appointment to follow up on this anemia thing and we have a requisition for more tests. He has had a vitamin most every day and I have been food combining like mad - beef and lentil and kale stew, for example. (Liver is pretty much out for a variety of reasons.) We also have switched over to cold cereal a few times a week, so as to get all the additive iron in it.
After that, Noah and I had made plans to go to the museum together; I’d actually booked the whole entire day off work. Just before our doctor’s appointment who called but my mother; apparently the ex-communication was lifted.
Before I knew it, another system member had invited her and my dad along to the museum. I was pretty grumpy; not only was this supposed to be Our Day Out but I thought there should be penalties for all the shit. However, I didn’t care enough to call back and cancel. I have told myself:
- One trip to the museum does not entirely wreck boundaries that have not yet been set.
- I get bonus karma points for not going off on my parents.
However it still doesn’t sit right with me. But the truth is, I (and others) had not done the system work to get everyone on board with a plan, so no plan was implemented and the good girls took the day. This is both human and multiple; I think it’s human to find yourself doing things you wish you hadn’t. But it’s multiple to be really REALLY sure you’re not going to do something, and find yourself doing it anyway.
The person who went ahead is part of the MMC, which is a whole other post.
In any case, it actually was a nice day regardless. The museum was pretty quiet, and Noah hooked up with a docent in the kids’ area and uncovered a whole bunch of dinosaur bones in the dig-your-own spot and she helped him figure out which each one was.
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Noah’s swim teacher remains excellent. In three days he’s gone from dreading the lesson to crying that it ends too soon, and has put his head underwater and swum a bit holding onto a noodle.
~~
Taking the day off was really good for me. There is so much to like at my job, but the other parts are horrid. I don’t have a strategy in place. But I do need to exercise ’cause it really is high stress.
It’s always something…
So today I had booked to work from home, in part because I have to go to the Dreaded Dentist at 3 and this still, even after years of therapy, makes me fuzzy and uncoordinated. It seemed like an almost perfect set up; time to get most of my work done, go, and then pick Noah up.
Except at 4 am this morning: “Mummy, I pooed.”
Err, did he ever. And again at 6:30. Stomach ailment alert! In point of fact it is now 10 and we don’t have more runny poo yet but… one of the rules of daycare to which I wish all parents could adhere is “if you suspect your child has a stomach flu, STAY HOME.”
So now I’m doing the juggling act, aided by Carl who was paged around the 6:30 event and hasn’t yet surfaced from fixing things, but will in time for the dentist. And I am working in front of Signing Time with the boy on my lap as I type this.
I’m not feeling very competent lately, work wise. A lot of this is due to the slow progress over which I have no control. But meanwhile my capacity to be upbeat and on top of things is eroding. I am hoping it comes back as soon as we can actually launch. But the side effect of this feeling of general incompetence is that I feel panicked all the time that I will be revealed as a poseur. It’s like an imposter syndrome.
I don’t think I need to lean on my years of therapy to point out that it taps pretty deeply in the multiple and abuse thing - that my WHOLE LIFE I have largely had to present as someone I am not, going through things I am not, to the point that I really have to work to feel anything else. It has handicapped me in a lot of ways that I still experience and lately I have kind of despaired that it will ever get any better than this. Not that this is terrible. But it is not peaceful, either.
That extra little tip of the scales - dentist, sick toddler - puts me in a tizzy in my head and heart, still.
I wish things could be a little easier sometimes. These are all normal everyday events, but I seem to feel them more than others. And then I think and you want another child in all this?
Any thoughts?
Characteristics
And, as a side note, I really believe children come with their own personalities that are uniquely theirs. Also a lot of behavioural traits are just developmental stages.
Even so, one of the joys of having children (and I don’t think they have to be biologically yours to play, although that’s a traditional requirement) is to speculate on which aspects are related to you. In our system, even, we play it, so here’s some of our imaginative leaps about Noah’s current personality traits.
Noah continues to be amazingly extroverted; other kids, especially, seem to gladden his heart and bring him deep wonder. I think everyone in the system would turn and point to me for this one and I think that’s true; in that, he is very like me.
Noah’s favourite foods are lima beans (he seems to think they are like candy and when they show up in dishes he digs through the dish to eat them all first), fruit of all kinds, other beans of all kinds, broccoli, and lemon cookies. I would say he pretty much has Lyria’s taste in food. Although he has recently discovered ketchup too.
Noah also has this elephantine memory. An an example: before Carl left on his trip we had to go to the driver’s licence place. Friday we had to go back on Carl’s behalf although Carl couldn’t come along, and Noah hit the door and started getting upset and saying “daddy!” Finally I sorted out that he thought Carl was leaving on a trip. But really just about everything is like this with Noah, and he remembers where everything is in the house - seriously. If I lose something I just ask him and 9/10 of the time he takes me to it. I would say this is very much like Lynn. (And Carl, but we are playing the game in system :))
Also like Lyria &/or Lynn: Noah is pretty sensitive to people’s moods. Now that he’s talking more and more he often will tell me if someone’s hurt, angry, sad, happy, etc. Sometimes I have no idea if he’s right though.
And he loves his body, which again I think is like me… before society got hold of me anyway.
Weird religion stuff // influences
A lot of time in my life I have wondered why it is that things have gone right for me (us; the ‘I’ in this is very fluid).
I mean a lot has gone badly: sexually & emotionally abused as a kid by various people, some of it in a cult-y context maybe-sorta-possibly (I hang onto my denial) and Emily’s death top the list, although I’d throw in a gang rape at university too, particularly as we stand at the entrance of October again. Focusing on the child-stuff though, I often really have wondered why it is that things went right too. And a lot of it was that there were people to stand in our life as “enlightened witnesses.”
One of the stranger set of witnesses were literally that - Jehovah’s Witnesses, Carrie and Alan. I don’t know what the impulse was that led my mother, Presbyterian by breeding and United Church going at the time, to engage in bible study with two JWs and, more importantly for me, send me off with them once or twice a week for at least a year (I think more because we went to two annual meetings). And if you asked me what the result of that was I would have said until lately it was:
1. An abiding love of maple-frosted doughnuts, perhaps an unusual choice for the clean-bodied JWs as bribe of choice to my 10 year old self
2. A lasting suspicion of anyone that tells you God doesn’t want you to have Easter eggs or a birthday party (No one ever bought into that aspect of the JW faith)
3. Yet Another Contribution to the child prodigy aspect of my youth: not only were the JWs fascinated by my 10 year old ability to read and interpret the Bible in two official languages (I think Lynn may have been floating around here), but this was during the time that Quebec had just de-criminalized JW as a religion (yes, it was illegal) and so there was a sense that anyone that could witness in French was on a fast track to saving the world, or whatever.
Lately - remember we had some JWs come to the door and Lynn had a snippy encounter with them and in fact, they came back with a pretty good answer (God can’t be a terrorist ’cause he’s the government - the George W. Bush defense, really)? Well they have kept coming.
And Lyria welcomed them which is typical Lyria - show up anywhere near my house and it radiates herbal tea and cookies, on the right days anyway. And so they’ve kept coming and actually…
… I think I’m kind of glad. And so are other people, or at least, other people participate.
You may be surprised. But let me continue.
I don’t know if all JWs are like Carrie and Alan and these two women. But given how awful so many fundamentalists are I have to kind of explain why these are not.
Today I said point blank that I didn’t see why God would care if people were gay or not, and in fact I believe that if there is a God he made them that way, and that I didn’t want to discuss it because it would just make me frustrated and angry with JWs for their prejudices and is one of the reasons I find it hard to respect their literature, and that was - fine with the JWs in my living room.
Whatever training the JWs get they come to some almost Buddhist-like state - I think it is how they emulate the Jesus they believe in actually. They don’t back down and pretend something’s okay if they don’t think so. They just drop it. But they drop it in the nicest possible way, respectfully, like a yoga instructor admiring your form in a Pilates pose or something.
It’s hard to explain but for me, it’s made the whole experience of choosing to talk religion with these particular people okay. We don’t all agree, and that’s actually okay.
Lynn enjoys them I think because she is having a religious/existential crisis. After all, she loves Noah in her own way and that brings a whole lot of things to a head. It’s one thing to believe in eternal damnation for herself, but what about Noah? And she’s done enough therapy to agree that raising Noah in a fairly normal way - you know, to basically be on the side of God and good and all that - is How Things Will Be. But she isn’t sure if she believes that and how to implement it either way.
I wouldn’t say she is looking to the JWs for an answer. If anything, Lynn can out-Bible them any time. But she is studying the actual women who come quite intently, and it’s not in a mean way (in fact, she has become rather solicitous of their mental health and if she says something disturbing, often gives them a way out… like today she pointed out that Lucifer does what God asks in tempting Job -after- Satan lures Eve out of the Garden of Eden, and that confused things for a while until Lynn allowed that Lucifer might obey God for his own evil ends, or something like that. I lost the thread of it but I saw the relief happen, in the two women.)
I can’t really say what Lynn’s learning, but I think I’m glad she’s having some space to do it anyway. I really haven’t felt ready to try to find her the right people to talk to (whoever that would be). But in the meantime it has been very convenient to have some kind of religious um - instruction? - show up at the door.
But Lyria’s surprised me until today when I realized that the JWs are pretty much the granola Christian cult: they have to take care of their bodies because they will be resurrected in them and God therefore wants them to respect them, and so they don’t consume any drugs (including, MY GOD, caffeine) and the two JWs who come to see us, anyway, say in great innocence things like “well you know how fruits and vegetables don’t have good vitamins in them any more? Well imagine how healthy they were when Adam and Eve ate them! And when God brings paradise on Earth they will be that healthy again!” (And then have a whole digression about figs in a certain area of the former Yugoslavia, now Croatia.)
And although my fae Lyria thinks the idea of God Almighty, you know, Mr. You’d-Better-Shape-Up-God is pretty funny, she is totally down with a future that involves healthier fruit.
So on that level I see why we’re enjoying it.
There’s also the spiritual elephant in the room all the time, of course, which is Emily. It’s one thing to be living with Noah and wondering how to raise him with respect to spirituality and to wonder if we should baptize him or attend a church with him or do a comparative religion thing with him and basically how to shape his moral development.
But it’s an even bigger thing to wonder not only how say, God could have let my baby Emily suffer and die but also to wonder - well - did she have a soul and if so, where is it? Reincarnated? Frolicking? (One of the more horrible episodes with the kinderlynn that has rolled through over and over during since March of 2004 is whether there might be a general sort of afterlife and if so, what if my (abusive) grandfather is there with Emily and if so would he be being nice or being a shit? Because we aren’t there yet to protect her.)
And in the midst of all that - I don’t know.
As a faith itself, I am somewhat uncomfortable with Christianity in general and “young” Christian faiths - faiths that have not, say, had hundreds of years to be corrupt and go on stupid crusades and totally fuck up and have to deal with that a little - kind of make me feel like I’m watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure as a serious attempt at world history.
Do they really expect me to believe that the prophets wrote down the mind of God that was translated accurately and can be understood in words? Dude!
JWs are kind of a far out branch of this innocence. They commit some of the usual err “sins” of fundamentalism - gays bad, marriage good, Catholics icon worshippers, everyone else wrong.
They also have this (to me) touching and childlike belief that what God wants for us all is to return everyone that’s died onto the Earth into their bodies, but better ones really, and all the animals get along (and the lion shall lie down with the lamb) and there to be no sickness and death or anything - on Earth - and for God to have his council of Really Special Snowflake People (I think this is what keeps a lot of JW psyches going) and run things right. And then we’ll spend our days frolicking about and eating really good fruit and be like Adam and Eve before Eve messed up.
And soon; any day now; in fact the deadline was misunderstood twice I think.
I don’t know what quirk it is in my nature but to me this just about goes along with the whole Wish Foundation sending dying kids off to Disneyland. It’s lovely and you can see that it would really make some people (people less perverse than I) happy. But MY GOD WHY DO KIDS HAVE CANCER! You know?
I just don’t see at all how this can possibly relate to either any understanding I have of human nature, where I think people would immediately start to argue over whose apple was bigger, After Death or No After Death, or the God of the Bible (locusts, etc.) or any God I might care to conceptualize for myself. Etc. ad nauseum.
So for me exploring the JW faith -itself- is kind of like reading light chick lit, where buying shoes and meeting the right man makes you happy. It’s nice to visit for a couple of hours but it in no way relates much to my life except you know, that I think about it and enjoy it and might like shoes a bit myself and it says a little bit about people but not always very much.
And yet.
And yet, and yet, and yet.
I suddenly see how Carrie and Alan, who were gentle and kind and loving and really, despite the whole birthday party thing, amazing Christians - in the sense of hanging out, talking about God and Jesus politely and rationally, and not say -raping- you or even making you feel any less than special - may have helped us keep a concept of a benevolent universe going.
And that the Bible was involved probably helped promote some internal communication between Lynn and us, without which we would have been sunk later on. And bingo, perhaps some of the body-respecting stuff that kept us out of the darkest of self-destruction and mostly thanks to Lyria, came partly out of that. (Although I still think Lyr is just plugged into something totally else and cool.)
It has not escaped my notice that the JWs happen to have shown up on the doorstep right when we may have needed to start to reconnect a bit with spirituality. And that this is not the first time in our collective life that two kind people identifying themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses have shown up at the door when, perhaps, we could use a little bit of innocence and a trip to Disneyland.
All of which is to say that if there is a benevolent universe - Goddess - God - trinity - AllThing - flow - it certainly works in mysterious ways.
The yuppy saga continues
You can tell that Lyria really is around more and more, and that she’s coming back from the brink a bit. Proof:
- We have canvases on our kitchen counter which are half-painted (a crafty sort of project, not art-art)
- Homemade oatmeal-wheat germ cookie bars (recipe below, which is an amalgamation of two recipes from the oh-so-70s Feed Me, I’m Yours)
- Somehow last night’s dinner (a chicken-zucchini dish + mashed sweet potatoes) also produced reams of baby food (chicken + sweet potato, sweet potato + zucchini)
- I took a nap with Noah yesterday
The week got better and better after the low point in the middle. I finished some work. I went to playgroup, which was also a demonstration of a myriad of baby-wearing options. It was good to try them on. I’d thought I was going to get a mai tai or a maya wrap, but I ended up getting an actual carrier - the Ergo. It cost as much as a stroller, but I think we can use it on hikes for quite a while, and that’s what we really needed. I can make a wrap myself by buying the fabric, if I go that way. I do like our ring sling, but Noah’s quite squirmy these days. The frugal and bank balance checking side of me wanted to look for it used (it really was quite a splurge for us, these days). But Sandra from Pooka Baby had come out to our group to talk about babywearing and put all the demonstration time in and she’s a local eco-friendly businesswoman and so - I just went ahead and bought it. I’ll report back at some point on how useful it is. I should do a gear post sometime.
Yesterday Noah learned about the word “no.” He bit me at said babywearing session, and I said quite firmly: No biting! and closed up the boob shop. He was happy to substitute toasted-Os at the time, but then at the going-to-bed nurse he would put his mouth around my tit without sucking or anything, barely touching it. And then he would sloooowly bite down until I said “no biting!” and would cover up for a few minutes. We did that about 4 times, and then he laid his head on my breast, patted it, and went to sleep.
My little social scientist.
Carl also decided to give me a real lie-in this morning - until 9 am! And then there were doughnuts! - which really, really helped with the whole sleep thing. This afternoon we are off to such a yuppy thing I almost shudder to tell you what it is: it’s an open house for a Waldorf pre/school. I seriously doubt we’ll be into the private school thing, but Carl knows one of the board members and well, why not spend a bit of time there? Although this is part of their “Walstock” (a whole day of musical events) and I am not sure I can get through anything involving the word “Walstock” without getting tossed out.
Cookie recipe!
3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c butter
dash of baking soda
2 c oatmeal, uncooked
Boil sugar and butter and baking soda until it’s all blended and bubbly. Stir in oatmeal. Spread mixture into a greased 8 x 8 inch pan and bake at 350 for ten minutes. During last five minutes…
8 oz semisweet chocolate
6 tablespoons peanut or other nut butter (I use almond, currently)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 c toasted wheatgerm
Melt chocolate and mix with nut butter and vanilla. Stir in wheat germ. When the oatmeal cookies come out of the oven, spread with this mixture. Let cool on rack for a bit then keep in fridge.
The resulting bars do have a slight tendency to come apart a bit but they are really yummy and not -terrible- despite butter, sugar, and chocolate.
My secret identity
The weekend and yesterday have both been busy. A lot of it was great fun - dinners with friends, visits with relatives, Noah-adoration in spades, etc. - but it’s left me feeling a little stressed ’cause I didn’t get much downtime and I needed it to make space for writing this week. So that’s what I’ m doing today, I think. Making the headspace and hopefully getting to some, depending on naps.
I read a blog where the mum’s smaller child naps 9-11 and 1-3 and her older kid naps 1-3 and I think - man. Noah’s naps, if I’m lucky, total 2 hrs a day, usually one 45 min one and one 1 hr 15 min one. I’ve tried all the techniques to extend them and I think the reality is - that’s how he naps. He does get tired but he doesn’t have meltdowns, and his bedtime doesn’t get too affected. So… I just have to accept that and figure out how to manage some professional/writing time regardless. I really am thinking I’m going to have to find a teenager to come in a few hours after school twice a week, where I can hear them. This would also be a good step towards babysitting.
After thinking more on the whole blog journal writer webspace professional personal public thing (note the lack of word private, ’cause there is a big difference between a personal thing and a private thing :)), I have figured out a few things for myself:
1) I am back in the closet, because of Noah. This is not a terrible thing, but it is interesting. I’m getting closer to some of the mums in my mumgroup, where we’re sharing actual stuff. But I’m not sharing about our multiplicity. I don’t think my desire to be open and - well - seen and understood trumps Noah’s need now and in the future for community. And multiplicity is - too weird.
But in chatting up mums and starting to get to know them, I’m taking about 5 giant steps back from how I have been conducting new friendships.
Over the last few years I’ve simply told people about being multiple and handed out the URL for my d-x and therefore this blog “if you’re curious,” and then rather cheerfully ignored most of the multiple stuff unless it came up directly, like “oh Lyria wants to do this with you.” My belief was that people can’t really grasp “I’m multiple; that is, a we” very well and trying to explain it is really hard. But by sharing some things over the ‘net with those who were interested enough to bother reading, I might be able to show things. (This has been very much a “Shandra” project, as you all know. :)) And those who wanted to ignore it, could, by not reading online.
I guess it gave me the space to feel accepted enough without having to make multiplicity an ongoing issue. Most of the time.
Carl and I discussed this a few times, most recently when Lynn’s poem got all blown up about on DP, and he believes that this middle course - being open enough, but not advertising it - is ok, even with the added responsibility of protecting our kids and nurturing a “tribe” for them. Actually he was quite fierce about not trying to stop being who we are doing what we do.
So right now, if someone comes to my house and sees stuff with Shandra and Magdalynn written all over it and then goes to a search engine and plugs it in and gets this blog and reads this - okay. We’re not going to try to rip everything out of the Internet and start actively hiding.
But I’m trying to keep “friends I have for my son” separate.
It’s kind of a new interpretation of the fine line between not wanting to create uncomfortable situations, and being ashamed. We’re not ashamed and if someone or anyone finds out, we’ll deal.
But I’m finding…
2) Part of being myself, which is really important to me and many in the system, probably more important than it is for a lot of people, is probably entirely separate from having people know that we’re multiple. I can be the parent & person I want to be, and even leave space for Magdalynn and Lyria to be the parents & people they want to be (to name a few), without ever ever coming out multiple and 95% of people will probably not notice much except a few inconsistencies.
But I’ve lost track of where that line is. Being myself without being pretty openly multiple.
In the past I’ve thought that those inconsistencies could torpedo relationships. I’ve maintained that a lot of people sense switches, but if they don’t know what they are, they just get a really vague uneasy sense and kind of drift off. I based this mostly on how much better my friendships & relationships got after we came out multiple. And it has all worked pretty well as a cohesive unit.
But it may not be the case that it’s the /being open about multiplicity/ that has improved my friendships, but the simple being more me (and getting better at it). I just don’t know.
And now I’m struggling. I have drawn a line of non-openness, and I feel hamstrung, closeted, and trapped. And I don’t know if I’m stringing myself up by being muted and trying to think through “if I tell them my favourite food is steak, what will they think if Lyr goes off on a vegetarian thing?”
3) This also comes up for me as a writer. I’m having to supply bios, which is fine. But do I put a website? If so, obviously it won’t be this one. But what kind of presence do I want to have in that way?
4) The temptation is to start a new multiple-lite blog, to test out creating a new persona for us, the parent-writer-non-multiple us presentation to the world. But I’m not sure what I think about that.
If anyone has any ideas I’d be curious to hear ‘em. This is mostly just me musing but it is sort of directional musing. Where do I go from here?
Boy
I was nursing Noah and thinking about this whole thing and why it has my attention. There’s a certain trainwreck quality to it, for sure, and it drags up a lot of the bad feelings from a couple of years ago.
But my feelings are also tied into my recent decision not to open my life to professional parenting blogging, and about a story that ties into my grief around Emily being out to another market. These are decisions I made with care, one in one direction and one in the other. If I publish something about grief and reviewers and readers shit on it (I should be so lucky to get the attention), I need to not go ballistic about it. And conversely, I think I’m right on my decision about blogging, but it means money my family won’t have.
So that’s why someone who’s known for at least two months that their blog was searchable going obsessive-bugfuck about it - someone who’s been on the ‘net for ages and really should know better - is really irritating me. But of course that’s not Terra’s stuff, it’s mine.
Today though it ties also into the big-word thing. Terra’s comparing people reading - reading! not commenting! - her blog to her feelings about being raped; to harassment and stalking. It’s so crazy. And she’s trying to make the facts fit, as if people spent a gazillion hours tracking her down. When in fact, for us, and I’m pretty damn sure for other people, we messed about on Google and found her journal - read a bit - stopped, remembered about it one day while breastfeeding, typed more terms in to find it again - clicked on it. Read some more. Rinse and repeat.
And Terra /knew/ this because she was told, by Jensco.
So why the drama? What the fuck?
And I want to say that it’s not understandable to me at all.
But sadly, it is: when our system was coming apart and we were just crazed inside that at any moment the world would end - a feeling that could be applied to almost any situation on the outside but really was just an internal free floating feeling - we said similar, crazy stuff. It makes me sad, for us and our past. It sort of makes me sad for Terra, because she’s still living in that headspace from what I can tell. (And I can’t tell much. But the way this exploded makes me suspect.)
It’s hard to describe: it’s like your brain is patterned for life-threatening fear, and if things aren’t going well in your life, the anxiety level rises and rises until something tips it and then wham! All the words and thoughts you couldn’t have growing up - that someone was actually raping and abusing you - seem to fit. In therapy we call it shadow-boxing, as in Jung’s thing about projecting the hidden shadow on other people.
And that is where as an adult you destroy and lay waste to things in your life. And those are the regrets you carry forward… if you can look at them. Some people can’t; they just continue to go on with a good year, and then a space where everything falls apart, and they need to move on, move on continually.
With everything we’re carrying now - fears about parenting, about career and money decisions, recent trauma around losing Emily, family stresses and concerns, plus the ups and downs of every day life - it would be easy to slip back into something like that. I recommit my energy to not doing that. Not just for me and us and Carl and Idaho and our friends and family, but especially for Noah. I so hope he does not ever have a reason to understand how crazy things can get, when pain and trauma are suppressed, and then haunt one’s life.
And I blog it here to remind me and everyone else.
I am so blessed with people in my life who say - okay, sure, but what’s the real problem? Including me I guess. But I have been shown the way. Thank you guys - I think you know who you are.
Surreal moments
Lyria was making finger sandwiches last night for playgroup today (hummus & roasted red pepper; cream cheese and olive spread; cheese and jam; cucumber was made this morning).
While Magdalynn listened to Korn and Bauhaus.