Qualified Higher Ed Expenses

Had a new D&D game with C as GM on Sunday. The group is a little small but the game was good fun. In many ways better than our regular game. But I can’t have one of these in my house every Sunday. I’m saved by the holiday this weekend but eventually we need a better plan.

V made me feel very important today and last night. I know you had a tough day, but I think also a good one. A step further from your fear and closer to your goals. Good for you. And thank for letting me be involved.

If I wrote an anxiety index would it help me? If I published it would anyone adjust their behavior? Maybe it would use useful to have a list of worries I could use help advancing. I’d like to be more confident that I’ll eventually be able to talk to you about such things. I am very patient and you can have all the time you need for any topic. I don’t need urgent attention. But I would like to know that eventually my number will be called. I fear that if I don’t poke you you will never be available to help me. I’m also afraid that I’ll drive you away with the poking. Particularly when my anxiety presses up against yours. So maybe there’s a better way to communicate about it, that would help keep the pressure down but still get some attention. At least for certain types of worry. And maybe figuring out how to add things to the list ¹I have not yet figured out how to add things to the list, and this version will be of little use to others, but step 1 is trying: medical bills, screen, skirt, budget, cleaning service, sibling introductions, J boxes, pockets, 529s, phone calls, wrist, government and commercial paper, boundaries, physician practice, avoiding stress buildup, … Continue reading – how to frame the worry as something that can be advanced – helps me.

Gymed with E, after a week with you away. I’m glad you’re back even if we only see each other for a minute. It helps me believe that you’re a real person, and by proxy that I might be. Followed Shanda around making faces while I copied her. Got to use the sauna at a high enough temperature so as to make writing on my phone impossible, which is only rarely a threat at this place.

I went to work before gym but got nothing done outside of meetings. I’ve got a hot SR that I really need to get hands-on with tomorrow. But shouldn’t have any more this week – I am on the calendar for the queue on Thur/Fri but it’s apparently not true. And no morning meeting tomorrow. So tomorrow should be fairly easy – just that SR and pushing a bug to BFO.

Slept terribly last night. Shanda did to. She was in pain and restless. I mostly just had a disrupted schedule. It’s one of the things that made work difficult to accomplish today. I would have like to get my bug pushed today, or touched the SR, but I’m trying this thing where I don’t feel bad for only doing the work I’m up for any given day.

Taxes are a giant hassle. They didn’t even start ours until this afternoon and they didn’t get them done. They’re close but contains errors, along with an omission from their rush. I’ve finally got good enough numbers to pay and file an extension, so I’m no longer worried about then, but I’m pissy about the whole thing. I hired someone to not have to worry about technical compliance. Also I should have tracked educational spending – early withdrawals from IRAs are penalty-free of you have matching QHEEs – but I hadn’t figured out where the money was coming from when I spent it.

I got M to talk me back from the ledge a little about your stress levels. There just keeps being another thing, while the last one rages on. To some degree that’s life, but it’s also the culmination of weeks of simmering. I know you’re used to that but it’s still hard. I appreciate you letting me in a crack, and relieving some of my fear. My fear both for you and for the thing where I’m afraid that me caring about people is bad for them.

Talked with Shanda about towels. Which are a hard topic for you, for childhood reasons. But I think we made good progress. I feel like you really embraced the idea of having something eaiser for you once you saw how it was hard. So now we have some new towels and a plan to be able to replace them again over time. Eliminated the need for matched sets, got a dog-free set of linen started, got towels with fun colors and prints. Thanks for taking the time to think about it. Now we just have to teach me how to feel allowed the normal use of washcloths and hand towels and we’ll be most of the way to normalized towel relations.

We also talked about the way I just do things – big things – and how I feel so alone on those decisions. Guilty about exercising our combined power and thereby removing it from you. Guilty about how I choose where to help. Fearful of your mixed feelings about it, and about how hard you find it to resolve those feelings – fearful that when you do you’ll decide against me. Sometimes you feel like it’s great that I decide to do things you (think you) can’t. Sometimes you tell me you’re happy with the outcomes, though only based on criteria you name after the fact. And sometimes you resent me for the change and hardship you feel forced on you. Sometimes you are merely tolerating my decisions while you wait for them to expire, promising yourself you’ll never have to think about it again after X makes them disappear from your life. But I’d prefer not to make the big decisions alone. Or at least to be able to talk about them afterward. You imagine what I’m doing is too brave for you – it would be nice if you could imagine it’s too brave for me, and I need help with it. Not help deciding if it’s right or wrong or what I will do, but help deciding how you want to participate. I don’t want to be brave for you, I want to do it with you ²I probably also need to you offer some restraint, because once I see I can do something it’s easy for me to imagine it’s my responsibility. Or to imagine that I must repeat the same act endlessly once I’ve proven its possible to help in a certain way..

I invited C over on Wednesday night. It’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to do, and I ought to have the time, though it feels like it could ruin my week. I try not to imagine that I know how I’m going to feel because like all people I’m bad at predicting my own emotions. But it’s hard to ignore my well-practiced habits – routine is powerful both when it works for you and when it works against you – and so anything added to my week feels like a threat, and possibly like an event I’ll have to silently twitch through while I try not to ruin it for everyone else.

I really do expect you to participate in dress-up day. Imagine it’s something you’re doing to help me. Later I’m going tell you a story about how it’s for you and you’ll like that story more if you invest in it first. Some of you almost never see me so you’ll have to work with me on these remote activities if you want to be dragged along on my adventures.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.