![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jan. 3rd, 2017 10:24 pmChicago this weekend. Again. I've been getting out there every 4th weekend. Those are the weekends A goes with her mom. I'm having all kinds of feelings - about that aspect of things specifically.
On the weekends when she's here - Agatha, there's a lot of doing nothing. She's falling into herself now - almost 14, almost interested in things. There's the thing, she has, I have it and maybe she got it from me - the self containment, the paucity of visible affect. I tell her, because she's having friction with her mom about it - I tell her "Your feelings are yours, you don't owe it to anyone to perform you rfeelings, you don't have to demonstrate enthusiasm or sorrow or whatever." I mean it too. But it's tricky to deal with, between us. I get why people don't respond very... positively to me, at least, why they seem confused. I say, without any demonstated enthusiasm: "That's great." and I mean that I think it's great. I guess people take it for sarcasm, or that I'm disingenuous. I don't care to perform. At all. But especially I don't feel like my feelings are for other people to have or use. But I don't think it's guardedness, exactly. It's just that I don't do that. I don't act out my bad or happy feelings and maybe I'm fucking inscrutible, but that's my affair. That's really where I am on this. I don't see it as a problem. If it is, it's not mine.
But I see what they're saying - because Agatha does it. To me, and it's a little confusing. I say to her- make a list, write down the things you really want to do. This way, I'll know and won't have to interpret. We'll have straightforward experiences. I'm tired of her being so idle. It agitates me. And then it doesn't.
Saturday night and it's closing on midnight, she's apparently done nothing all day and I'm frustrated that she won't show an interest in even getting food, I'm getting aggravated and bored, really bored - and then she shows me what she's been doing- animating all day. Furiously working on her work. And. Well that's me isn't it? I'm planning to measure my output this year in feet. As in how high the stack of books I'll make will be. I think I have a foot, for sure, but I'd like to try for two. And that's a lot of solitude, and effort and apparent indolence. The appearance right? So I'm aggravated & kind of bored but not.
And I start thinking about Chicago, and how I'd like to be with her, and it gets into a cloud of emotions right? Because I shouldn't want to be apart from my kid - and I don't. I don't want to be apart from her, but I also, I'm feeling like I don't need to be with her- like - she's self contained in a way that makes a lot of sense to me. We're occupying space and sometimes the things we make correspond and correlate - but often enough we're just working in separate rooms. 14. And then? She's about to be 14 and she's about to need me in a way that's less fun. Less engaging. So I think about it. This stuff.
I'm not gonna do anything - nothing rash or ill considered - but my experience of feeling these things is worth documenting.
On the weekends when she's here - Agatha, there's a lot of doing nothing. She's falling into herself now - almost 14, almost interested in things. There's the thing, she has, I have it and maybe she got it from me - the self containment, the paucity of visible affect. I tell her, because she's having friction with her mom about it - I tell her "Your feelings are yours, you don't owe it to anyone to perform you rfeelings, you don't have to demonstrate enthusiasm or sorrow or whatever." I mean it too. But it's tricky to deal with, between us. I get why people don't respond very... positively to me, at least, why they seem confused. I say, without any demonstated enthusiasm: "That's great." and I mean that I think it's great. I guess people take it for sarcasm, or that I'm disingenuous. I don't care to perform. At all. But especially I don't feel like my feelings are for other people to have or use. But I don't think it's guardedness, exactly. It's just that I don't do that. I don't act out my bad or happy feelings and maybe I'm fucking inscrutible, but that's my affair. That's really where I am on this. I don't see it as a problem. If it is, it's not mine.
But I see what they're saying - because Agatha does it. To me, and it's a little confusing. I say to her- make a list, write down the things you really want to do. This way, I'll know and won't have to interpret. We'll have straightforward experiences. I'm tired of her being so idle. It agitates me. And then it doesn't.
Saturday night and it's closing on midnight, she's apparently done nothing all day and I'm frustrated that she won't show an interest in even getting food, I'm getting aggravated and bored, really bored - and then she shows me what she's been doing- animating all day. Furiously working on her work. And. Well that's me isn't it? I'm planning to measure my output this year in feet. As in how high the stack of books I'll make will be. I think I have a foot, for sure, but I'd like to try for two. And that's a lot of solitude, and effort and apparent indolence. The appearance right? So I'm aggravated & kind of bored but not.
And I start thinking about Chicago, and how I'd like to be with her, and it gets into a cloud of emotions right? Because I shouldn't want to be apart from my kid - and I don't. I don't want to be apart from her, but I also, I'm feeling like I don't need to be with her- like - she's self contained in a way that makes a lot of sense to me. We're occupying space and sometimes the things we make correspond and correlate - but often enough we're just working in separate rooms. 14. And then? She's about to be 14 and she's about to need me in a way that's less fun. Less engaging. So I think about it. This stuff.
I'm not gonna do anything - nothing rash or ill considered - but my experience of feeling these things is worth documenting.
