Dear Diary,

Funny, I spend a lot of time talking about some stuff here in my Diary, but completely ignore other stuff. I guess I mention some things because they seem important, or they stand out somehow. Some stuff that happens every day, or every week, or on some kind of schedule, I don't mention, or just kinda drop a note that 'yeah, that happened too'. Like yesterday and teaching. Yeah, I spent the day teaching, and my students commented on my smile and how I seemed happy, but other than that, it was just another day teaching.

I feel a little bad about that. I remember how much teachers impacted me, how little kindnesses and remembering trivia about me made me feel like I might be worth something back in the day. I'm pretty sure at least one teacher remembering I liked Patterson and spent time talking with me about it kept me from trying to off myself at one point. Not that I had any way of doing it, but there were a few times I got super low, and it seemed like the easiest way out. But the one time I actually started thinking about it, one of my teachers asked me about a novel they'd just read, and we sat there and talked about it, and they asked me if I was looking forward to a movie that was coming out based on one of his books.

It was just a conversation. I'm not sure she remembers it. Fuck, I don't even remember her name, and I don't know if that's because I smoked it out of my head back in the day or I'm missing bits and pieces as a result of my high speed craniectomy. But I remember that conversation, and I... Shit, I don't remember deciding not to off myself so much as I've realized that somehow that conversation made me forget all about my plans. My point, though, is that I'm pretty sure that while that conversation saved my life, for her it was, y'know, Tuesday. Just another day in the life, y'know?

Makes me feel really awful that my complete lack of proficiency at remembering names is being exacerbated by the fact that some of the kids only show up once every couple weeks. Maybe if I saw them every day, I'd know their names, but instead I just go by faces. Sizes. Things they like and don't like. Sometimes which of my girls they pal around with at lunch. Also, and I know this sounds weird with me spilling all the graphic tea about my ladies and I using each other as ostensibly sexy sock puppets, but I don't always feel comfortable talking about the little things some of the kids tell me. With my girls they're my daughters, but some of the kids there have their own parents, their own struggles, their own things going on that have nothing to do with me.

And that's how it should be, really. Shit, eventually my girls will have things going on that have nothing to do with me, and while I'll always be there to back them up, support them, give them advice of dubious quality, or even just hold them while they cry after, in no way do I think they owe me any of the details of their lives. I hope they'll share with me, but that's a totally different thing than thinking I deserve it.

Shit, somehow I think I'm turning into a mature adult woman who knows how to mom. I have no idea how that's happening. I'm probably imagining it. That makes the most sense.

So yesterday at the end of the day, I brought home the girls, and Marie brought pizza home. I felt a little bad about being so focused on the girls and teaching that I hadn't helped her in the kitchen, but when I tried to apologize she flicked me on the forehead and said, "You're Fine."

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I'm not sure if Marie's pizza is 'traditional' pizza or not. I know even the plain tomato and cheese pizza tastes a little different to what I remember from back in the day, but I have no idea if that's a different recipe, different preparation, or different taste buds. Her crust is on point, though, that perfect mix of crispy, chewy, flexible, and tasty enough to bring something to the party while not dominating any of the other flavors. It's like the drummer in a band, and that outer ring of crust is absolutely the drum solo.

That said, she apparently feels absolutely zero need to remain faithful to what I think of as 'traditional' sauces or toppings. Out of the dozen pies she brought home, only half had tomato sauce. Two more had a kind of creamy alfredo thing going on, another pair had a garlic butter sauce, and the last two had, I shit you not, something that reminded me of beef gravy. I'd read about stuff like this back in the day. I think it was Japanese pizza, where they just put any fuckin' thing on any fuckin' flat crust and called it 'pizza'. Of course, all of it was incredible, although most of that was probably just Marie and her kitchen witchery.

Let's face it, at this point if Marie hints I should put it in my mouth, it's going in my mouth.

During bath time the girls made a big deal out of Tallulah's new bling. Weirdest fuckin' thing, feeling whenever any of them touched it. I guess even weirder that none of them had really done that kind of thing with Siobhan. I mean, all of my ladies did, but not our kids. Then again, lately Menace and Maze had been working to pull Ria's mom into the mom collective, so she wound up the center of attention a lot.

Proudest moment of the night had to be the first time somebody touched it. Or really, right before then, when Isnomi reached up, paused, then very carefully said, "may I touch?"

'Cause Consent is important, and even the youngest of my girls gets that. All of them do, really, since each one who wanted to touch it asked.

After bath time, once we had the girls in bed and nominally asleep, Tallulah quietly reached out and touched Siobhan on the shoulder. I wasn't sure what it was about, and I'd honestly nearly fallen asleep myself by that point.

Dreamt of all of us watching on the big screen as Tallulah spent a chunk of the night quietly, slowly making Darling forget about feeling awful, one gentle, negotiated touch at a time. When they both finally fell asleep and joined us, the rest all clustered around my angel food and my ice pop, all of them oohing and aahing over their collars.

In the morning I carried all the girls back to school, and spent the day doing my daily... I don't want to call most of them chores. Hell, even gathering laundry and washing it at the Academy made me feel more connected, more grounded, like I was an important part of things. Everything else... Cooking with Marie, lounging around on top of Treachery Rock and leaning against Tallulah's shins. Playing with the kits, nursing them when they needed or wanted it.

And, all day long, with the two dozen kids who came to class today, teaching math. Ria and Maze had come to my class today, because Ria wanted Maze to learn something about geometry to be able to learn some fancy Fae Shaping. But along with teaching what I remembered of geometry, I also taught long division and multiplication to about a dozen of the kids who'd been there before, some algebra to a couple girls who looked like they were like twelve or thirteen. The rest of the class was learning basic arithmetic. Addition, subtraction, times tables and basic division.

Never really realized how much I could enjoy simple stuff like that.

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