Becoming a Gamer Girl

I mentioned before that the girlchild asked for therapy. One of the issues we are working on is social anxiety paired with a need for social activity. The therapist suggested getting involved in age-appropriate social activity groups. I know from experience that the normal routes to finding social peers won't work for someone as odd as she is. They certainly never worked for me. I never gelled with the other moms at playgroup and I didn't book club very well.  I learned to go where the other weird people gather. For me it was the Open Mic scene, art and music festivals, and a knitting group. Knitters are weird, weird folk.

Her thing is gaming. Today she took public transportation downtown for the first time and will be going to the main library for a scheduled Gaming Unplugged (organized board games) activity listed on the library teen activities calendar. Her last text said she'd gotten downtown and was a little lost looking for her lunch destination, which is very close to the library. I think Sgt. is on the phone with her talking her through it as they've both gone radio silent in text. He works near downtown, takes the bus, and is very familiar with the area she's at. He is also in easy rescue distance.

(I was right. He talked her to her lunch destination. He's going to talk her to the library as well. The GPS on her phone isn't working for some reason.)

Another thing we are going to try as a family is Dungeons and Dragons. I've always been interested but was raised being told it was a path to Satanism, and though I didn't believe that, I still never got the chance to play. I found a local Meetup group that is having a beginner-friendly event at a gaming store on Saturday.

I've had the past couple of days off work because work is incredibly slow (yay tariffs! forced unpaid vacation!) so I've been spending my time developing my character and Sgt's character. To make it easy for Sarge I'm creating a character that is basically him in a parallel universe. He is a male human ranger. He is a member of the Watchers, which is a small private semi-military group paid for by local land owners. Their job is to roam the lands looking for and stopping poachers and highwaymen. He was raised as an only child by his father because his mother died in childbirth. This is significant because I have a strong distaste for both my mother in law and brother in law. I killed her off and he never got born. So take that!

My character is a halfling young woman who is a rogue. She left her little village on the eve of her wedding day and makes her way to a village on the border of the halfling homeland on a major road where people of all races travel. She gets a job as a bartender and learns how to cuss and drink like a sailor.

Her backstory is full of Benedict Cumberbatch references. Her name is Berthala Bramblecreek (one of our family games is mangling his name) but she is referred to as Bert. Her home village is Otter Creek (because Otterbatch memes) and the town where she settles is Bakerston at mile marker 221 and her establishment is The Bee. (Get it? 221B Baker St? Yeah. I'm a geek.)

Her bestie is a human male named Finnigan which is the Girlchild's character. He's a fighter and rather large. And he tends to throw her around a lot. And as she hasn't even started creating his character yet, we just know they meet when her drunk mouth gets her into a fight with another large male thing. They become traveling companions and eventually she becomes a con artist, but never takes anything from someone who needs it. Kind of Robin Hoodish.

I can't keep writing past where he saves her from a barfight without her input and she isn't here to input. So boo.

I'm fully expecting a text from the boss not to come in tomorrow. If so I'm going to ask if I should start looking for another job. I can't afford a job that repeated forces unpaid vacay days on me. I can't afford it either financially or mentally. I'm losing my mind today trying to occupy it with D&D and a couple of other stories I've been working on. 

Maybe I'll keep writing Bert's story and edit it as necessary to fit Finnigan's narrative.

I'm going to be extremely disappointed if I end up having to go job hunting again. I'm ten days from what should have been my perm hire date. I'm sick of this trumpfuckery and really so, so tired of all the winning.

Bittersweet

Yesterday we went for quite a ramble. We drove Hwy 52 along the Ohio River, stopping at interesting places to take pictures to share in an ongoing Twitter thread. The kids call this live tweeting I think?

We stopped at the Meldahl dam just in time to watch a tugboat push four barges piled with coal through the lock. The river is high enough that the dam was open so we didn't get to see the lock in action. We stopped in Ripley, which was a major stop on the Underground Railroad, and nearby Shawnee State Park for some pretty shots of nature. We followed the winding river up into the Appalachain foothills to Plymouth where we ate amazing pizza at a funky little pie joint.

From there we caught Hwy 23 north to Chillicothe. We stopped at a rest stop hoping to get a good panoramic view of the rolling hills, but the tree line was in the way. Rude. There, Sgt. Hubby reminded me that this was the same Hwy 23 that runs down to Johnson City, Tennessee (said with Wagon Wheel inflection, of course), which reminded me that it's also the highway that continues to Asheville, where I was born. (And hence my affinity for the Appys,)

I am very proud to be from Asheville. Even though I didn't grow up there, I always told everyone I was from Asheville. Both my mom's mom and my dad's parents lived there so I spent summers and Christmases and Thanksgivings there. I moved back after high school to attend UNCA. It is a wonderfully funky, hippy-dippy, artsy-fartsy town and the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains are the most gorgeous backdrop.

When Sgt. went overseas, I moved back to the area with my sons, then 2 and newborn. I say the area because I didn't actually move back to Asheville. I moved to the tiny town where my paternal grandmother was born and raised. My family history goes back several generations in that town.

But my Granny was a ballsy lady. She left town when she graduated high school and moved to the DC area of Virginia to attend secretarial college while serving as domestic help for a cousin. That's where she met and married a Department of the Treasury accountant who went on to join the Secret Service. They moved back to the area -- and by that I mean actually Asheville -- upon retirement. I practically grew up in that house on Hillview Circle.

They sold that house and bought a house in Granny's little hometown when I was 13. I think Grandaddy knew he wouldn't outlive her and wanted her to be near family. He died a week or so before I graduated high school and I went to live with her while I was at UNCA, but I was still an Asheville girl.

Eventually I left North Carolina to follow my soldier and while I was pregnant with Nut 1 Granny died suddenly in her sleep. My parents inherited the house and a few months later -- when Nut 1 was a newborn, Daddy died after a long battle with liver disease. When Sgt. went overseas, that is the house I moved to with the boys.

My mom stuck around for awhile to "help" with the boys (she wasn't much help, actually) but we were too much for her and she moved to Tennessee to be near her mother and brother. And that's when things fell apart. The boys were taken into foster care about a year and a half into Sgt's 2-year tour. I fell into a deep depression. I did stupid things. I already told this story and I don't care to revisit.

I know that the unfolding of my life wasn't actually my fault and I really did the best I could parenting three non-neurotypical children, and I know that even if that weren't the case, I can't change history, but I can't seem to let go of the guilt and shame of having my children taken into custody, of being a failed parent, of losing my sons. (They aren't dead - they're living down south and failing at adulting. They just aren't a part of my life, mostly by their own choice,) I don't know how to do that.

So, realizing I was on Hwy 23 in my beloved Appys was bittersweet. Can I go home again? Can I ever unpack this? Will I ever be able to go back to Asheville without stirring up all that pain? I haven't been back since I left to move to Ft. Bumfuck, so I don't know. If I turned right to go south instead of north to circle back home, would I be okay with that?

We went north, of course. I found my panoramic view. I took more pretty pictures and posted them to my Twitter thread. I came home to a bottle of chilled dry white, put my feet up on the porch, and did some Saturday porch drankin' with Sgt.

I have a good little life here. And I think the Girlchild is going to be okay -- she's actually in therapy now by her own request. I also will be okay. But I don't know if I'll ever be able to really unpack that bitter from the sweet.

Lots of New News

Well, one new thing, I got a new laptop so I can blog regularly again. But it has been quite a week of news. I got new sheets. They have sloths on them and I love them. I got a new duvet cover. (Previously I just had an extremely dingy duvet that has been well dogged.) My bedroom looks a million times more inviting. But the biggest new new is this past weekend. 

The Girlchild, Sgt. Nutty, and I went on a weekend adventure and really had fun. Like, the Girlchild wasn't off in headphone/smartphone land tuning us out. She was actually interacting. And Sgt. N and I didn't quibble at all. We just laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed. 

We drove the long way -- about four hours -- through eastern KY to Red River Gorge yelling COW! every time we say a cow and HAAAAAAAAY! (in our best southern accent) every time we saw bales of hay and HORSE! every time we saw a horse. We cracked jokes and made horrifyingly bad puns. We interacted like... like... a happy little family. 

The Gorge puts the gorge in gorgeous. I'm originally from the NC mountains and the rolling Appalachians felt like home. It was a perfect day. Mid 70's in mid July with low humidity. 

We chose a short hike -- mile and a half -- but I was verging on hangry so we stopped at the first possible food, which was Subway, where Girlchild licked my face and said I tasted like sadness. I think sometimes this child isn't right. 

Our short hike started out through an enchanted forest and lead to a very steep downhill rock scramble and cliffs and climbs and amazing views where we could see those gorgeous mountains for miles and miles and miles. And then a slow uphill climb with two massive sets of stairs that killed both me and the Girl. Sgt acted like it was nothing and had no idea why we were losing our enthusiasm for the woods. (Protip - if you're going to do the Gray's Arch/Daniel Boone Cabin loop, start by going left so you go DOWN the stairs and slow inclines and scramble UP the rocks.)

The ride home was quiet. The short route -- interstate the whole way.

We were exhausted. But happy. All of us. So very happy.