Naked Mole Rats, Embracing the Suck and the Things That Break Your Heart

I love to write.
I also love to convince myself that I suck at it.

Because of that, it takes a ridiculous amount of effort for me to actually sit down and do the thing I love. The house needs to be clean. The animals need to be cared for. And whatever other flavor of procrastination bullshit I can come up with absolutely must be completed before I’ll allow myself the time to write.

I don’t think I’m the only one who does this. For me, it all boils down to fear of failure.

What if someone doesn’t like what I write?
What if I piss someone off or hurt their feelings?
Why in the hell do I even care what people—especially people I don’t know—think?

I say I don’t care. But I do. And I need to get over that real quick.

Why I Even Have a Blog

I’ve sat down a few times this month to write my December blog post. I pay a hundred bucks a year for my Ghost website—a place I created so all my writing could live in one spot. What it turned into was a way to keep in touch with people, since I’m not very active on social media unless you count sharing memes of naked mole rats.

That never gets old, friends.

But I’m not someone who shares my life all willy-nilly. I don’t share everything because I’m not built that way. I’m not a hugger. I’m not much of a sharer. And I’m not especially empathetic toward people I don’t know.

In true middle-child fashion, I blame my parents.

How I Was Raised (and What I Did Differently)

My parents divorced when I was around eight and I got to be the bar tender when Dad married my step mom a year or so later. I got wasted just tasting what I was serving the adults. I made a lot of money in tips that day. It was epic.

Today, kids have a say in everything—where they want to live, what they want to eat, whether they want a little brother or sister. I ate what I was given and learned pretty quickly that I could outrun my Dad to avoid an ass whooping. Of course, that meant missing dinner and sneaking back into the house long after dark but it was worth it.

Kids weren’t treated like actual people when I was growing up. We ate breakfast and were promptly kicked outside, the door locked behind us, to fend for ourselves. Our basic needs were met, but I can’t recall anyone ever asking my opinion—because I would have definitely said, “No thanks,” to a little sister.

That was just how it was. Growing up that way taught me early to manage my own feelings and keep my thoughts close. I learned to be selective about what I share and that instinct hasn’t left me. That’s why I don’t post every feeling I have on social media; I save the messy stuff for my writing, where it usually lands somewhere safe.

I vowed I would never force my kids to make their beds, eat fish with the head still on (that beady little eye glaring at me accusingly), or worry if their elbows were clean enough. We would vote on family matters and everything would be wonderfully, democratically, wholesome.

I think I did okay.

Life goes sideways, though—especially when you dance to the beat of a different drummer, as I tend to do. I raised two healthy girls who grew into insanely independent, productive members of society.

Well. I guess I can only say that about the youngest.

She’s the only one who still speaks to me.

Estrangement Has a Name (and It Sucks)

The oldest divorced me several years ago. It’s called adult child estrangement. Millennials and Gen Z didn’t invent it, but they are ditching their parents like hotcakes.

One morning, she sent me a text saying it wasn’t a punishment—just something she had to do for herself.

And then… poof. She was gone.

I thought she’d get over it. Our relationship was never as strong as I wanted it to be. She was a difficult child and a horrendous teenager. I was a single mom working multiple jobs and wasn’t as present as I wish I’d been. I self-medicated my own trauma with alcohol and cigarettes.

Do I have regrets? Yep.

But I never expected to be cut off so completely—from her life and from my grandson, whom I’ll never get to know.

Months turned into years. Any attempt I made to reconnect was met with silence. Other family members tried too, only to be asked to leave her alone and then blocked.

What was I supposed to do?

History Repeats (But Feels Different)

You’d think I could handle this, considering I’ve been estranged from my own mother since I was around ten. But it didn’t feel the same.

My mother was angry that I didn’t want to live with her after my parents’ divorce. I never felt like she liked me, let alone loved me the way she loved my sisters. I resented being forced to visit her on holidays, so I acted like a wanker until she got the hint.

Eventually, the visits stopped. So did the relationship.

She came to my high school graduation. She sent flowers when I had kids. That was it.

I was fine with that—because it was all I’d ever known. You can’t miss what you never had, right?

Choosing Not to Be “Crazy Grandma”

The girls called my mother Crazy Grandma. Not because she was cruel, but because she was strange to them—sending cards written like they were still five years old long after they weren’t. They didn’t really know her, and she didn’t really know them.

I decided early on that I wasn’t going to be that kind of grandmother.

No sending cards and money to a child I'm not allowed to see. No showing up in his life as a name on an envelope with no relationship behind it. Hell, for a long time I didn’t even have an address.

She changed their names. Stayed off social media. Eventually, I found her. She married. Bought a house in Abilene.

I could send a letter.

I won’t.

Fear of rejection? Maybe. But it’s also about not inserting myself into a life where I’m only allowed to exist as an idea.

Impermanence, Loss, and Other Weird Stuff

I believe everyone comes into our lives to teach us something. My firstborn taught me the value of impermanence in vivid color.

My ex husband killed himself on December 31st, 2017, and that hits weird too. He struggled with depression from an early age. I often wonder if I could have said or done something to stop him. He always said he would do it and he did. Suicide doesn’t come with closure—just echoes. It has a way of attaching itself to other losses, like a shadow you don’t notice until the light changes.

Her absence, his death, my mother’s distance —they all layer on top of each other. Life keeps teaching me that nothing is permanent, and that grief doesn’t have a schedule.

Maybe it does have a bit of a schedule. Seasonal depression is real for me. Winter wrecks me every year. Short days, little sunshine, rain or snow—and the cold sinks straight into my bones.

I struggle to get out of bed. My brain turns to fog. I want to eat like a trash panda and wallow in my own self-pity.

If I didn’t have a magnificent specimen of a husband, a house full of animals and outside critters depending on me, I’m not sure I would get up at all.

I tried antidepressants once. I hated them. The best way I can describe it was feeling nothing. I’d rather feel everything—even the suffocating sadness—than feel nothing at all.

It will pass. It always does. Some days, though, remembering that is the hardest part.

Dennis, Solar Power, and Swearing in the Attic

Dennis is the opposite of me. Winter turns him into a super fucking handy human. It's a slow time for his work so he burns his last vacation days fixing up our little house in the woods while swearing creatively the entire time.

This year’s project: solar.

Originally, we planned a small solar cart for power outages. Hurricane Helene taught us that a gas generator is just a giant paperweight if you can’t get gasoline. I couldn’t get off the mountain, and apparently newer vehicles have fancy no-sucky devices that prevent siphoning gas.

I tried anyway. I sucked on a hose connected to my 2000 VW like a champ and got a mouthful of gas for my efforts.

Science wins again.

Dennis doesn’t do anything small, so now we’re putting the whole house on solar. Retirement goal? Yes. Immediate reality? Also yes.

He metered appliances, calculated usage, and discovered our instant hot water heater was a total energy hog. Out it went. He found a heat-pump water heater on Black Friday at Lowe’s for $250—marked down from $1,750.

I assumed it was a scam.

It wasn’t.

There is a mysterious hose sticking out of it. Condensation? Maybe. I’m not sucking on it to find out. I learned my lesson the first three times!

As I type this, Dennis is in the attic, untangling wiring installed by mountain people who were brilliant in many ways—but electricity was not one of them. We’re fairly certain the inspector was bribed with moonshine.

Chickens, Plants, and Socks

Egg production is basically done for the season. The chickens give me maybe two a day if I can find them. The quail have stopped completely—even the indoor ones.

I started tomatoes and mild green chilis in the hydroponic tent. They’re growing slowly. The water’s cold. Fingers crossed for February tomatoes.

The animals are all doing fine. Ginger the cat gets weird this time of year and carries dirty socks around while yowling like a tomcat. I can’t afford cat therapy, so we’ll never know what’s happening in her brain.

Maybe she misses her babies.
Maybe she wants me to do laundry.

In Summary (Which I Suck At)

Life is hard.
But it usually gets better.

If you know someone struggling with depression—seasonal or deep-fried—help them if they want it. Leave them alone if they don’t.

Not every day is puppies and unicorns.

And that’s okay.