Thinskinned

shitshow on the horizon

I have this autoimmune thing that makes my skin all soft and breaky and when I am in too much sunlight or under a lot of stress all this weird shit happens.

And it’s happening now, for all the obvious reasons. Praise to everything that I have the right medications and the worst part of it is being bleeding and rashy and all I have to do is keep an eye on infections. I have good doctors. I’m not thrilled about going to my mom’s whatever celebration thing looking like I’ve been ferociously attacked by a family of raccoons in the middle of the night, but as long as I don’t get sick I’m okay with this. But, ick, my bedsheets! I’m staying with a grade school bestie the nights before The Thing and I know that my arms will bleed on her bed so I will bring a towel. My joke is that the stigmata people had Ehlers-Danlos but made the logical connection to Jesus. Which for sure is a better explanation.

What else. I still have intermittent contact with half-bro, and randomly replied-to emails from donor…but don’t you think that if we live in bordering states that by now we’d have met—after two plus years?

I probably write about this every other post, but I just need to ask if this is going to happen. Bro dude will say yes, of course, which is probably true and he’s kind of in his own world.

Donor guy—as I keep saying, I worry/think/predict there is a plan about what happens when I ask if I can meet him.

At this point I am so worn down and bedraggled by my mom dying (the death, but equally or more so the unpredictable horrors that surrounded it) that I just want to have everything fucking laid out for me.

I’m managing to keep it together at my new job in which I’m wildly overworking and underpaid but have no mobility right now but it is so, so stressful (shameless bid—I have a few paid subscribers which is totally thrilling and validating and helpful so if you are so inclined to subscribe, even for a month and then quit—I’d be very grateful. And I promise to post 2x/month from now on.) I hope one day to have more options for work than I do now—even though I know I’m wildly lucky.

The best thing about this Substack is knowing that whenever and however I encounter my donor—or not—you will care.

I worry that my mom being dead makes him less inclined to meet me—like I’d want more from him. I don’t think that’s so. But I do feel lonely and longing in a particular way I haven’t before. I absolutely cannot let him know this, of course.

I wish more than anything that he and my half-bro pushed to meet me. Eventually I will push myself at least on half-bro and it’s 50/50 how that will turn out. I’ve played games for over two years and if that has got me nowhere, why not push? No one likes rejection but I am so tired—if I haven’t said that—of wanting something and wondering about it.

After I get through this mom thing, I’ll face the rest of it. In the meantime, send your good vibes my way for the weekend after next when I’ll be in the town where I grew up, a place I secretly hope I’ll never see again. I am reckoning with my mom on my own terms—mostly through dreams—and going to this event is almost solely for my kids. I can do this. It can’t be any worse than the last time I was there, right?

Thanks for listening.

With love.