Oats

Tonight, I unmasked more, to talk with my Dad on the phone. Of course, he was calling me, driving on the way to something else... Can't ever have his undivided attention. Even though I reserved his time, he's always in the middle of something... I never count as someone to invest time in, I guess. But I'm expected to reach out more...  I don't know why he'd want me in his life... I'm not successful. I'm not married. I'm not enough to visit or make time for. I'm not entertaining enough, and I will not stroke his ego. I only laugh when it's funny... They don't usually land with me if it's racist or at someone's expense. He didn't even show up for my Confirmation... Why do I keep wanting the love I never had as a child? I'm an adult. Right? Why should I invest time getting to know him now, even though he's never invested the same in me? 

He told me of everything him and G were doing to keep their lives busy in Colorado... Gotta keep running around lest you hangout with your spouse, I suppose... I wonder if he lets himself feel any deeper emotions, than just surface dwelling emotions? Or does he just run on the admiration of others? I 🩷 Huckabee's comes to mind. 

If you dig deeper and do the shadow work, you tend to unveil yourself more... Maybe that scares him? Maybe his number one fear is, another divorce... Idt they're anywhere near that... But he'd have become a liberal if G was Left... 

Through unraveling (what I call unmasking even if it's unintentional), you become more yourself, more efficiently... You get used to this you and how you can function in the world that stands in front of you. Kinda tired of depending on funds from parents, but I also wouldn't be able to maintain this level of sanity. Or this comfortable life... Unsure what I could do otherwise... At least, that's the goal. Unsure how to do this life thing alone.... 

The pressure of asking me if I had gone to church when I knew he was on a time crunch wasn't fun... I deflected back... "I have struggles and you have to go..." Is what I said. 

Why I don't attend: my sister's sense of self and reality is more important to me than my faith. If I join a community, I want to be unapologetically me. Can I be myself and still be accepted? Not scorned or judged harshly or ridiculed? Or not controlled by her in any way... If I stay too long around her and family, I also get triggered. Either by the shit BIL says to her in front of the kids, or her behavior... He's still surprised when she speaks to me clearly... I think he needs therapy and to become more self aware than in his own world. 

I know that they want me in their club, but I don't want to be included in such a big-picture problem of govt control and superiority... I do not think I'm better than people purely based on the fact that I'm a Christian. That's incredibly arrogant and exclusionary. I'm the middle child, hear me roar.

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Through unmasking more, you get to know yourself again. How you were, before you were so intertwined with someone so obtuse... Someone so influential in your daily thoughts... 

That's the goal anyway. 

What's a goal I want for myself? 

I want to go back to school and I want a spouse who will help tag team a better life together, AND THEN we can have kids. Idk. I want to be a therapist in the mind and body. I want someone to have me, and I got to take care of them. But it's not an obligation... It's a want. It's a dedication of helping the other like they help you... I want to be myself with a partner but am unsure how that formula works with my dealt deck... Everyone else got mortar and bricks, it seems.... 

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I just want to build towards something... But I feel so lost getting there myself and it's taking so much longer! I wish I knew how to do things quicker and more effectively, on my own. But I will not give up my sanity unless I know I am secure. Maybe once I could put everything on auto payments ... Maybe that's the true Millennial success marker... A benchmark.... A milestone. 

What milestone are we talking? Since when have I completed or accomplished milestones according to everyone else? I'm a late bloomer... 

I'm a genius. Lol... I'm an eccentric.

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"Poor people are crazy, Jack!! I'm an eccentric!"

Speed.

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I also successfully advocated for myself! I asked my dad to stop making jokes at my expense... Be the butt of the joke. It's always kinda stung, and he keeps on unless corrected. I run the chance of him pulling away with corrections on how I require loved ones to speak to me... But such demands are... Sticky. I remember a call where he referred to one of my uncles as a Drunk... The man in question has been sober for a number of years... It was mean if my dad to say that and I called him out on it. He didn't call me for like a few months. His ego is fragile...  

He didn't actually say sorry when I defended myself on the call, he was defensive and deflective. But I stood up for myself. I am tired of being made fun of. It's just... Not funny. It's bad writing. 

I told him during the call about my hack of timers... I time my chores or write out lists and reward myself with treats when I do a good job. Usually the treat is writing. Lol 

But at the end of the call he made fun of me with some joke about timers. I didn't really get it, but it didn't feel good, so I spoke up. Stuttered a bit. But I spoke up for myself. I am proud of my progress. 

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I recall being a child at the park... I was on a slide, and I guess I pushed a kid? A man came over and shook me at my shoulders, and yelled at me to not hit his kid... I ran to my dad and tried to explain. I didn't recall what he said... But I don't recall him defending me or confronting that man ... 

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I was supposed to be married by now, 37, owner of a working uterus? How dare I not be barefoot and pregnant!... I always feel like such a fuck up in my dad's eyes. I have a front row seat to my sister's marriage and I never want their marriage (which could be me if I attend church... And give up on my dream of saving autistic kids, with science and research... Not just sarcasm and "wit" ... I don't want to marry a 40+ year old virgin, either. Those men creep me tf out. But... I'd be married and secure... /s ).

None of me wants the headache of realizing I married a schmuck. Or I married someone who triggers me constantly. I want to marry someone who really wants to see US grow together. Who wants to be married and make it work. Who actually believes in me and... Encourages me? I do that naturally... Because I worked really hard at being automatically kind. I treat everyone with kindness and respect. I'd want to be with someone who doesn't constantly play devil's advocate? I want a cheerleader because it's exhausting being the only cheerleader... I want someone who chooses the betterment of us as a whole. A partnership. I want to be a good partner for the partnership to work... 

Where are those blasted ducks? 

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I really like Handshake. But I don't trust myself with my feelings... He was a lot of fun, and a lot of fun since! We're going to see Wicked on Thurs and I am STOKED. I feel like he doesn't deserve my mess... But he has a stressed past as well... Am I fawning? Is my anxious attachment showing? Am I projecting? Am I missing cues? Am I dating wrong? 

Maybe he's just another asshole and I'm just connecting all these dots that aren't actually there... I follow signs, not make rational decisions. I feel like I'm too much of a mess... Although, signs brought me to live here in this quiet house with a very kind lady and her dog, so who knows....

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The only thing I was trained to do as a kid was to become a caregiver. That's it. And now that I've really thought about what I can put back on my plate, do I want to? I took Motherhood off my life's menu because of who I was with... I just couldn't see Crickets slinging a diaper bag, ya know? So I took the most important decision of my life off the table for a ... Let me check my notes... A schmuck. But then I secretly, silently resented him so... Lol. We were both at fault! 

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I am A LOT better about being blunt when it matters. And I am getting a lot quicker to advocate for myself when something doesn't feel good. 

I had an issue with my coworker the other day, but I know them pretty well. They are very emotionally intelligent and understanding. They learned a lot earlier in life, how to be their authentic self. I had texted them a few days after my issue happened and they responded maturely and with a solution. 

That reminds me to buy them their hat.

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A lot of me wants to go back to school and study human behavior. I want to prosper the field of autism in women... I want to pave the way for young people to be themselves, safely. And understood... I want to be a safe space for all... I want to be apart of the new perception of Autism. 

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How to pick the right husband is my only mission in life, according to my father. That's what was ingrained in me. My 20s was to find a husband and start a family... Because that's what women did in their 20s, that's just how it was... Their bodies are to produce more humans... That's it!

Religion doesn't belong in science. If I was "severely autistic" back in the day, would I have been kept? Would I have been cast out to the state? Would I have mattered more to them, for those sympathy points? He's already admitted that he would've sent me away to an unwed mother's facility, if I hadn't moved to STL when I did, back in 2009...  Silver lining.

This blog wouldn't exist, and if that scenario happened, I wouldn't have made it... 

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I don't necessarily want an apology, anymore. It's more like, I want to tell on the behavior of my collection of broken parents... Try to piece back what they think happened, and analyze what actually happened... My father acts like he AND I grew up in some super idealized version of a Norman Rockwell painting... 

And why didn't they want to know my perspective? Does it bring up any old memories? Any deep unhealed wounds? Any regrets or resentments?

Idt he'll ever be proud of me for anything I do... and will never be able to express it so I can hear and see him say it... Maybe it's too intense for him? And so that's why he always deflects...

I just don't understand not wanting to be around or in my kid's life. I would give anything to be apart of my kid's life... But I am giving Them grace and a life without my mess... I want Them to grow well, into adulthood, with prospects and opportunities I never had. .... And Dad just calls once a month, and I send him reels of influencers who talk about autism better...

Oh. He doesn't know how to be my friend or what I need in the moment. He makes time for those who will admire him or stroke his ego... Make him feel important... But he never returns that favor, really. He stopped learning how to be a good friend... 

I never learned friendship with him. Just how to network. ...and charm!

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I will not be in proximity if and when he reads these words I write here now. I remember his palm pilot... I love writing. Ty for giving me the talent of the written word. I don't regret anything I've written here... The entire blog.

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"And why do you want to keep in contact with these people?" ~Shake

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I had a rather difficult customer today. He just wasn't understanding that the drinks we had were all OAT MILK based, he wanted coconut. I kept saying it over and over, more cortly than the last. I didn't know how else to say it. I kept my cool and kept trying to be nice. 

Customer: "Oh I'll have the whip cream coconut chocolate" ... 

Me: "the hot chocolate is based with oatmilk. The whip cream is based with coconut milk..." 

And he just wasn't understanding... I was tired of talking in circles with this overly-inquisitive man, squirted our whip cream into half a cup, and gave it to him so he'd shut up and go away. 

Meanwhile, R, the production manager, kept his lips curled in a smile, stifling laughter at my annoyances. It was very funny. I took a break soon after that. 

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Snow.