Give blood

I am giving blood today. First time ever. I didn’t sleep last night worried I didn’t drink enough water to be able to give blood. People said drink water the day before. Well the day before I worked in a hundred degree greenhouse. I didn’t drink enough to account for even that. I don’t want to give blood and pass out. So I drank water all through the night. So much I peed all night also. I also kept trying to will myself to hold it so I would have plenty of hydration. I don’t want to drink so much water I will have to pee while giving blood.

My bladder isn’t designed to hold a lot of pee. Not just from multiple births either just it’s regular size is not regular. I also think water goes right though me. I don’t think I absorb it like I’m supposed to. I drink water and have to pee in about ten minutes. I don’t have time to pee all the time.

Water just doesn’t taste like anything. I’ve gotten better at drinking water through my backpacking. I figure if I don’t drink water I’ll die. I have to remind myself to drink water. Remind myself to stay alive. I spend too much time thinking of who I can get to drink water. Who can I keep alive? Just me. I can just offer basic recommendations for survival to others.

So far this morning I feel like I drank too much water. I’m not sure what hydrated feels like other than not thirsty. I’m just not thirsty. I expected to look more plump and less wrinkled somehow. Feel more full of blood than normal. But I just feel like I have to pee a lot and that I don’t want to drink anything else.

I made homemade hot chocolate instead of coffee so I didn’t have to pee extra. I also wasn’t sure if coffee seemed an appropriate drink for a morning before giving blood. No wine at all last night. It thins the blood. I want good thick ready to be used blood. I am A- which for me means nothing other than I carry a card that says I have the rh factor for when giving birth to children. I don’t know if my blood type is rare or not. It sounds like a good grade to me.

I had to close our business Facebook page. I knew it would be coming. I spent years building it to a platform consistent with what my intentions were and it turned into a place people deemed appropriate to debate politics around a global pandemic. I gave it some space for awhile to see if people would behave then posted about leaf spots and tree damage to only wake to messages and posts of masks. Again. Not in keeping with the tune of the page. I’m the boss. I’m also protective by nature so I’m going to protect it for awhile until people can act like grown ups again. Which may never happen.

My therapist said this was a healthy boundary to set. I have laid out the rules and the meaning of the page and it’s use several times. This is me saying if you can’t treat it like I want then I’m going to set a line for now. She thinks I could be able to do this in my personal life. I disagree. I need more therapy.

I had my first in person meeting with her yesterday. I struggled to not ask her how she was doing and how she is handling things. I often forget who’s role is who’s. We talked about conversation. Which could be also having conversation. How the flow of talking can be. That it is back and forth. Not one silent partner. I was used to this because it was safe. It was my normal. But dysfunctional. So anything that feels a little uncomfortable for me right now is normal. People who talk to me and allow me to talk back is normal. I don’t have to keep talking to try and make them talk. I also don’t even have to try to talk at all.

I’ve been worried about who will teach my son to be a man. How can I if I am not one? My dad can’t because he is dead. His dad can’t because he still doesn’t know himself. His older brother can’t for the same reason. He needs a model. Someone to look up to and model for him on how to be a man. If I could go back I would read books to him when his mind was spongy and help him absorb man stuff and not books on counting fish, and moons talking. Is it too late? Can I now. Sneak in at night and read to him about man things. Like fixing stuff and fishing, and manners and treatment of women. Or can hé learn these things still from me even though I am a girl. Can he learn by seeing who I allow as a man to be in my life? He just needs like a big brother. I need like an early college student to take him fishing. I can’t fish. It’s too hard. I’ve worked through this problem already too.

I know I’m modeling good for my girls. I hear my youngest say on my own all the time. She is 6. She figured this out in just a few years where it took me 42. Except I once knew and forgot for awhile. I’ve heard my dads stories of me as a child. He says that my youngest was like raising me again. She is stubborn, independent, strong willed and curious. She is going to be a fantastic woman.

Back to this blood thing. I am nervous about it. I’m hoping to forget about it and nearly miss the appointment so I’m not thinking of it all morning. I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know if I will be able to watch. I don’t know if it will hurt. I don’t know if I will even be able to. But I need to give something. I accidentally signed up for a living donor program for my kidneys awhile back when I thought I was signing up for living organ donor for the liver. I can’t donate my liver. It carries the gene my dad had that was why he needed a new one. But in the end it was kidney donation I had signed up for. It’s also like a state away. I haven’t addressed this yet. I feel bad removing myself from it. It may not even really be a list. It may just be that I made the contact. Once the coronavirus is better they will likely email me and ask for further info. Then I will explain my dad died and I feel a desperate need to give an organ but unsure now if I made this decision at the right time and under the right circumstances. That grief makes you do silly things when you do what you want to grieve when you don’t know what to do to grieve so you give. They will understand.

I am full of what ifs and all over the places this morning. It’s probably even worse since I am also over hydrated and it is all moving around floating through my body of things to worry about. I am over absorbed with things and water. My eyeballs are wetter than normal. I’m not even crying. Good thing they are taking blood from me I need rang out. My sponge is full. I can’t be anymore of a woman than I am and I can’t also be anymore of anything for anyone. Especially a man for my son. I can just be his mother.