Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

I realized another thing about being an adult today. Although honestly it’s one of those things that I think has been building up over time and I just put words around it today.

I’ve mentioned before how much boredom is underrated. I’ve talked a lot about the difference between waiting for the other shoe to drop and waiting around for nothing much at all. I’ve definitely talked a lot about how I wind up doing a dozen things in a day, and how my ability to Co-Locate helps with my executive dysfunction.

Okay, maybe I haven’t really done a deep dive into that, but I’m sure I’ve referenced it. Or thought about referencing it. Eh, whether I’ve mentioned it before or not, part of my own personal executive dysfunction is related to FOMO. When I say FOMO, I’m not really talking about the whole ’oh, I’ve got to have the latest thing’ or watch the newest show, or go to the hottest eateries. It’s not even about someone missing a trend and not being able to talk to people about whatever it is. For me, in this case, I’m talking about wanting to do something, maybe even needing to do something, but not being able to act on that because I’m waiting for the opportunity to do something else.

I read about that, the whole idea of ’opportunity cost’, but for whatever reason it never combined with my knowledge of my own executive dysfunction until now. I mean, yeah, I’ve had the more traditional ’I have one thing to do and I can’t do it because my brain has decided it is harmful and has no payout’ executive dysfunction, but I’m not sure what else to call it when I’m watching a stream waiting for some kinda drop, but I’m hungry and I’m out of toilet paper, but I can’t call for food or order some TP to be delivered because if I do, I’ll miss that drop. Shit, that’s kinda easy mode, because even if I’ll probably forget to eat and have to hop in the shower after next time I take a shit, there exists the possibility that I might actually remember and get the food or the toilet paper after I get the drop.

When it was two things that each had some kind of time limiter on them, and I had to decide which one to do, I was definitely gonna wind up sitting there doom scrolling until it’s too late to do either one, just so I didn’t miss out on either of them. Yeah, objectively I know that’s some shit right there, but subjectively it wasn’t something I had under control.

I mean, I still don’t, but with being able to Co-Locate, it doesn’t matter. Okay, nowhere near as much.

Thing is, that’s a huge part of what adult life is. Doing a whole assed laundry list of shit every single day, day after day, just doing what it takes to keep the world working. Which, now that I can do it, I feel a whole fuckin’ lot better about myself. I may not be anywhere near perfect, but I can look at the food on the table, the clean clothes on our kids, and even the progress my students and Cadets are making and say ’I did that, I’m helping’, rather than getting on my own case about all the shit I’m not doing.

Yeah. I’m helping, and it’s surprising how much that means to me. Guess Mister Rogers got to me early and deep. Not that I have any kinda bad feels about that.

So after yesterday’s pit stop, Saffron got to work on her research. After we got home and got food in everybody, she nudged me as we lay soaking in the Bath.

”A priority question, love?”

”Okay?”

”Which bothers you more, illusions or compulsions?”

I frowned as I thought about that. Took me a while, but I eventually said, ”I think illusions scare me more, but I think that’s because I think I could recover from being forced to hurt someone faster than I could being tricked into hurting someone.”

She sucked her teeth, nodding. ”Okay, next question; how functional are you while under the influence of a large enough dose of Fae Grain to see Mana clearly?”

I thought about that. ”If it’s regulated, like hard, pretty effective. I’m a little slower, a little softer, but not, like, incapable of thinking or bringing hurt.”

She nodded. ”I’ll take that into account.”

”Thanks, Kitten.”

Didn’t want to talk too much about things while we weren’t under stupid levels of Blend, so I left it at that.

Thought about sneaking off with one of my ladies, but a relatively busy day followed by a long, hot soak in the Bath had me too sleepy. Instead I dreamt of watching on the big screen as Darling tugged first Marie, then Saffron off to the Bedroom to ’perform her duties’. Silly woman, talking about it like that, but I think so long as we all know it’s a joke that makes her nethers tingle I’m good with it. Not gonna kinkshame Siobhan because that’s her particular flavor of nice dream.

Today I got back into the daily routine for reals.

One of me watching Siobhan run the Infirmary with Aoibh semi-permanently attached to a tit. Funny thing, she’s still got that opening on her robes, and she’ll just slip Aoibh through that when she’s hungry. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen her walking around with those holes in her robes and wanted to reach through them the moment we had enough privacy, then forgot about it when we did, and now she’s using them for practical child feeding reasons.

One of me following Tallulah as she took the Training toward Ireland, or whatever the island’s called here and now.

One of me leaning against the Overlord’s throne as my daughter-in-law filled in for her mom.

Two of me with Saffron, one watching over her from Treachery Rock, one playing booster seat while she worked. At one point she asked me, ”are you certain you don’t want to be doing this research?”

I thought about it, then shook my head. ”Nah. My Global Spell project is something I want to do on my own. If I fuck it up, it’ll mostly bite me in the ass. This is something that will fuck over other people if it goes wrong, and I trust you more than I trust me.”

She twisted around until she straddled my lap, then kissed me before saying, ”I’ll do my best to live up to your trust.”

”I know you will.” Then I spun her back around and lifted. ”Time for your daily pit stop.”

I love the way she laughs when I lift her like that.

Half a dozen of me at the Academy, helping the Maids out by doing Maid things.

One of me at the Homestead in the kitchen baking bread. I wanted to do a bunch of bread things this week, which would require extra bread, so I figured I’d do a whole bunch.

One of me backing up Furtim Cauda, not to mention playing translator for her, as she coordinated with the Captains Three, because it turns out Trolls don’t really have a problem with Cold Iron, and they’re the most likely to be able to take London Castle without meaningful casualties on either side.

Finally, one of me teaching Math at the Troll Home Temple.

Weirdest interface of the day was near the end, when I was wrapping everything up, I looked at Furtim and said, ”I didn’t realize there were, like, little Trolls running around.” When she gave me a look, I said, ”the ones in the Math class? Those are young Trolls, right? I’m not, like, misidentifying them or something?”

She shook her head, then blew my mind.

”Those are ours, Goddess. Yours and mine.”