Learning the hard way

07.04.26

It's July 4th and we're at Granddaddy's house for lunch with family. 

During dinner, I walked to the kitchen to dispose of some trash, and see her water bottle - a large, 40 oz bright yellow double walled thermos of a watee bottle - on the floor next to the piano where she had been playing music for everyone.

It's sitting in the walkway. Someone is going to trip over it. Probably her. Or me. 

I see it. And I move on. I say nothing. I honestly didn't even think to. I automatically clocked it as a thing and a thing I wasn't going to address.

Five minutes later, I'm sitting in the living room. She walks by with her trash, and knocks over the water bottle. It clangs and she stumbles a bit. Throws away her trash. Then picks up the water bottle and sets it on the coffee table, out of the way.

And I'm sitting here, watching it happen, knowing - this simple scenario could have played out so much differently.

She learns best the "hard way." 

*I wish people didn't use that phrase - "you can listen to me or learn the hard way." Because the truth is - that is how we learn. We make mistakes, we learn. Consequences are life's teacher. Not my naggingnor demanding.

I learned a long time ago now that giving her instructions, especially commands, doesn't work. It has no meaning to her (no understanding) and it mostly just accomplishes placing demands on her that spurs anxiety, escalation, and melt downs.

So, when I can, I let nature take it's course. 

I could have used the moment as a "teaching lesson" and given her instructions, but that would have added pressure and embarrassment, bc in front of family members, and created a stressful situation where one wasn't needed.

Instead. The situation played out, no one was hurt (let's face, the risk of real injury there was negligible) and the lesson was learned. Or, at least rectified. 

Without fussing. Without demanding. Without stress or embarrassment. 

"It was good!"

6.22.26

Reflecting on a conversation I had with one of my doctors today...

(For context, I just got back from a 12 day work trip in Charlotte.)

My doctor asks, how was your trip?

Me: It was really good overall! I realized that being in the lab is still really triggering for me and couldn't stop thinking about how I was lied about and horribly fired from my last job. So that was interesting. My husband and daughter came to visit for a few days, so that was nice. Well, I got pretty sick then too. But that was okay. It was the longest I've been away from by myself. And I had some bad migraines, too, on top of being sick. But yeah, overall went really well!

Y'all.

This is me.

Every day of my fucking life.

I am a very unreliable narrator and I don't even realize it. I simply look over the difficulties as if they're not *actually* difficult and then wonder why the feck I'm so stressed all the time.

I really wonder how much of this correlates with alexthymia / interception issues / neurodivergent crazy brain.

Lost

6.20.26

I feel stuck. I am stuck. I'm -years of trial and error with all error and no more resources- stuck. 

Our situation is... unique? Delicate. Impossible to descrive simply, or at all. So difficult to understand, or even know, that it's taken literal years of therapy and reflection and... arriving at this place of utter emptiness... for me to begin to realize how truly difficult it's been. How utterly bankrupting. Isolating. Devastating. 

Not to be dramatic or exagerating in the least - I feel well and truly empty.

Broken. 

Lost.

And utterly incapable of finding my way forward.

I'm devastated, and I don't know how to -or even if it's possible to- find resolution. Healing. A future that isn't so steeply mired by this trauma. 

I hate that word.

Trauma.

Because some trauma is so blantant, it overshadows everything. Openly. Obviously. Irrefutably.

But there's another kind that comes in quietly. Deeply. Creeping up and taking root inside you, so slowly, so quietly. It becomes a part of your soul that feels so utterly, inherently a part of you. So deeply part of you.

Like the way children grow. From day to day they look the same. Then one day, it's suddenly apparent- you're taller! Or, you see an older picture of them and realize- oh, they've look so much younger then, so much more mature now- and you wonder, when did that happen?

That's how this trauma feels. Except, one day you blink and realize- oh, this is bad. Really bad. Really really so badly terribly, you wonder how this could have ever felt normal to begin with.

This reality that has grown so slowly and settled so deeply, so quietly, that it has felt normal all this time. So normal, that when folks ask you, "how are you?" You answer honestly, unintentionally an unreliable narrator, "Doing fine thanks!" ... "Oh you know, we're hanging in there! ... "Not too bad." ...

And now it's years later and you feel -and are- estranged in ways that are so devastating and feel so unfixable, you wonder, how did we get here? How was it always so bad and I never saw it clearly enough to ask for help. To let someone know, "we're drowning! We need help!"

Until one day, you wake up and see it clearly. Everything is broken. You've used all your resources. You have nothing left and no way forward. 

You are lost and empty and broken.  

And so very, very tired.

Another tired day

I feel dead inside.

Note. That made me realize I need to have my blood drawn for a bunch of lab tests. I've been forgetting about it for weeks. So I finally went. Maybe they'll actually show something. 

Seems doubtful.

I'm so tired.

I see you

Wednesday 9.10.25

I'm so proud of you. 

So so proud.

This is hard.

But I see you.

Trying. 

Melting.

Trying again.

We'll get there.

Tiny step by tiny step.

We're in this together.

And no matter what happens,

I am so proud of you ❤️ 

little moments

Monday, Sept 8, 2025

Got fussed at this morning by my 11yo, informing me that i let them go to bed too late and i should make them go to bed earlier bc of course i should already know they need more sleep than theyre getting! (After we had literally just discussed this over the weekend and agreed on the bedtime.)

Ah okay yeah yep, totally on me bud 😑

In other news, they were very happy to start bedtime an hour earlier tonight, which means I got to go to bed an hour earlier, so all in all I'm taking it as a win. 

Into the unknown. Middle school.

8.10.2025

The first day of 6th grade is tomorrow. 

Anyone who's known me very long has probably heard me rant about how nervous I have been for middle school. Ever since I was PREGNANT, middle school has been the one big stress mountain that I worried about most. I've always thought and hoped we'd come across "The" plan, that would help us figure out the best was to do middle school.

And I suppose, in a very Heather-true fashion, we have. The Heather-true part being - it's exactly the one school I had expected us to NOT attend (ie., the same middle school I attended, nearly 30 years ago 🥴🫠).

I know this is the right step for us. We all do. 

*We, being - our little family unit - my partner and I and of course, miss now 11yo.

And tbh, if you'd asked me last week if we were ready, I would have actually said yes. Not likely overly confident or anything, but last week it dawned on me that we ARE actually ready.

I mean, as ready as you can ever be when you're about to jump into something crazy stressful and don't know what to expect.

We all have our own therapists and we're at least starting the year with optimism and determination.

That's gotta count for something, right?

Right?!?