Queen Astrid

I won't be calling my dad on father's day. Years ago I decided I was only going to make an effort for a relationship with my dad unless he started conversations with me. The last 5 years I've probably only talked to him 3 times, in person because I was dropping off something for my mom and he happened to be home. Our conversations never were about me. Only about my dad and what obscure information he wanted to pass along.

Which honestly, it's how my relationship with my dad has always been. He's never been interested in me as a person. All he cared about was whether his children were quiet after working 40 hours and doing nothing else. All the things he did around the house were his personal projects while my mom was a married single woman with 3 children and a husband-child. My dad always talked about how stressed my mom was but never took anything off her plate.

The only father figure I've really had was my grandpa which my dad didn't like for the longest time because he was a man who married my grandma when my dad was 16. My dad's father, I never met. He was a deadbeat who cheated on my grandma, was unemployed most of their marriage, and all he did was drink.

A coworker recently has been going through a tough time because of his own actions.

First he was upset he didn’t get invited to a going away party. But he was invited two hours before the party started. In further discussion he wouldn’t have even gone if the outlook invite wasn’t forwarded to him because people wouldn’t actually want him there. So he just wanted to be in the original invite for him to even have gone in the first place.

He didn’t know how to stand firm in this boundaries or say no. Allowing upper management to somewhat take advantage of him.

I have no sympathy though because at every step of the way he didn’t just say no while he was the only one who could do his job. He was asked to work during an out of state vacation he had. I would’ve laughed in our boss’ face. If I did say yes, it would’ve been only for an hour or two at most to get some of the important things done. This guy seemingly worked his whole shifts during what should have been PTO. I know some of you are wondering did he schedule it as PTO or was it normal hours. It was probably normal hours.

He then had a spiral about how he’s always been told coworkers are the most important thing at a job while I find wild. Who telling him that? For me, it’s the job. If I hate the job I won’t be there for long. My coworkers being decent are a special bonus. He ranted about how he thought his coworkers were his friends and he doesn’t have friends at work. He did have friends but unfortunately, burned bridges when people wouldn’t make time for him after work during a work week.

I will mention he tried to do the whole self-pity thing whenever anyone tried to show him any sympathy in the past now two weeks. It got so bad my super kind and loving coworker was like “I’m out. He’s acting like a petulant teenager. I already got two of those I’m raising.”

I’ve also only heard complaints from other female coworkers about him texting them the self-pity shit and then attacking them verbally when they can’t hang out. This man has a whole ass wife.

He then said this kind of stuff has been happening since he was 26 years old. This guy is in his mid or late 40s. So his behaviour is cyclical and he’s never reassessed his this or his viewpoints in like 2 decades. He goes to therapy…. Wtf he doing there?

He doesn’t like himself and is taking it out on everyone else.

I don’t have sympathy especially when he said I was trying to convince him to stay so I didn’t have to do his work. Which if he actually considered me a friend he would know that I would NEVER do extra work without compensation. Companies don’t do that anymore.

Thank fuck he’s giving his two week notice. I’m 37 years old and I should not have to deal with this crap from people older than me.

I had some driving practice yesterday for the first time in 15+ years. It went well but I cried afterwards. I had a 3 hour nap following it. I didn't tell my partner. He knows I struggle with learning to drive. He said I did great and we'll keep at it.

Almost 20 years ago when I was learning and falling behind my classmates, my parents neglected to teach me. I didn't like being the kid who still didn't have their license.

My mom would never give me instruction. Telling me to just drive. Then would scream at me when I would do anything wrong. This would leave to fights as soon as we were home. Usually ending up in physical violence.

My dad never wanted to teach me so he would set up an impossible task for me so he didn't have to. (My dad was constantly doing shit like this) This task involved me gear shifting up a hill everyone could barely walk up with blackberries on either side. Mind you, I didn't know how to drive so how tf was I supposed to gear shift a truck up a hill?

Not being able to drive has always been something I've been ashamed of. It's a big milestone for a teenager where I grew up. But I moved to Portland when I was 21 so I've never had to learn. The public transit is pretty good.

“I didn’t have all of this growing up.”

NEITHER DID I. I grew up in the country. In a city that used to be a small town with a grocery store and a gas station. I remember it being all farms. My dad refused to keep up with technology. The only reason we had a family computer (sans internet) when I was 17 is he was tired of picking me up from school and library so I could do my homework.

But I learned because I had to. We all have had to but for some reason it’s okay for older people to ignore the world and make excuses for them. These are all skills. I didn’t come out of the womb knowing Excel. I paid for classes. I watched videos. I STILL look things up.

I don’t know how to reconcile this. Especially because my husband now exists in the past. Forever 37.

Bloat has disappeared from my face as well. I catch myself staring at my reflection in mirrors. The inflammation was so bad before I barely recognize myself now.

My thirties have been a time of revelations. I finally have accepted I had a bad childhood and there's nothing I can do to go back and fix it. Even though I am still discovering things that should have been red flags in my childhood.

I finally got diagnosed with endometriosis and adenomyosis and gave up my uterus and cervix because I was tired of the pain. Two decades of excruciating pain I've dealt with since puberty because the adults around me told it was normal and to stop being dramatic. I missed school, work, vacations, outings, etc. because of something that should've been caught when I was a kid.

Recently, I did a genetic test to see if I could have celiac disease. The past few months I had cut gluten out. My inflammation, brain fog, joint pain, vomiting after eating and the dreaded diarrhea are gone. I tested positive for one of the markers. Not gonna lie, I cried. I've had these symptoms since childhood including a rash that develops on my neck after I eat gluten. I haven't done the actually eat-gluten-for-6-weeks test. I am anxious about it. Due to my symptoms and the genetic test, my doctor told me to cut it out of my diet for now.

This also, should've been caught when I was a kid. I can see the bloating in my thighs, arms and face in pictures from my childhood. Even when I was running 1-2 hours a day for years and doing squats, I never did gain definition in my thighs. I think it's because of all this.

I always used to cry and scream about how I didn't feel right in my body. I think everything combined made my mental health issues worse.