67. Doubt and Hunger

Dear London Fire Snake Scorpio,

Isn’t it miraculous how doubt creeps in, in those small spaces between successes? I was completely ready to boast how well I am doing, how creatively I solved some problems, how many hours I sat writing — and then that small, tiny voice hits with devastating accuracy: Is that what you are supposed to be doing?

I should probably start from the beginning, eh?

So, Wednesday, the 20th. I wrote to you about the two food banks Drago’s social worker found. One, she visited the very same day. While I was picking up the kids from school, she left the cardboard box on the front steps. Inside was an astonishing 3kg of frozen ground turkey, 4kg of frozen pork, and fruit and vegetables.

While finding aubergine and lime was a real treat, I had to work very hard to avoid making any displeased faces with the overripe mandarines, cantaloupe, pineapple, the soft tomatoes, and banged-up oranges. It is not that I am ungrateful. It’s just me reliving my childhood.

I remember how I hated that everything was second-hand. That even the food looked like it had been used before. And yet here I am, in my 40s, serving the same shit to my own kids. It’s very hard not to feel a failure. But I am working on it.

Drago was incredibly happy. When she saw the meat, she was ecstatic. “We are so lucky!” she mused. I was very proud of her. Being a 14-year-old, she could have easily been that kind of obnoxious kid who complains about the shortage, instead of being the amazing kid that she is and showing gratitude. Don’t know how I got so lucky with these kids of mine.

We have not eaten meat at home for 5 weeks now. We eat mainly beans, eggs and canned fish. The hunger I have for meat is indescribable. I fear how I am going to heal from the surgery without any protein. Damn. Here comes the tears again.

That evening, I spent making toasts for school for the kids and fighting the sink, barely able to stand. While cooking and screaming (let’s admit the obvious), I also got the two massive boxes of seasonal clothes from the storage room. We had to rotate clothes before it gets too hot.

If you have never seen the mess that rotating closets is, let me draw you a visual. 4 kids going to their rooms, dumping all their clothes into a laundry basket (or two or three of them), and bringing it all to the living room. Then they go over their clothes and arrange them into 3 piles: one of clothes too small for them, or ones they don’t want to wear anymore, one with clothes that do not fit the season anymore — in this case, winter clothes — and the clothes they want to keep for the next season.

It is a nightmare.

It takes the kids forever to bring the clothes from all the rooms. Then it’s a couple of good hours to go over the lot and sort everything. Eventually, Drago and Stallion’s clothes that are too small on them go into storage, while those clothes that are too small on Piggy and Wolfy go into a donation bag. I still need to do the same with shoes, sigh.

It was a stressful affair because Drago and Stallion had to attend a Big Brother event. They are not yet matched with mentors, but they attend their events once a month for free, which is nice for the kids. So we only had an hour.

I was toasting shit in the kitchen, loading a dishwasher, dodging questions from Piggy and bitching from Wolfy, and screaming my head off at Drago and Stallion that took their damn sweet time sorting their clothes and chatting — even though they were about to walk out the door in 20 minutes.

To tell you that it was my proudest moment as a mother? Definitely not. But I am trying to catch up on a massive tsunami of everything I neglected while being sick for 6 months. So. It is what it is, and it was my best, even if it was unimpressive.

While the older kids were at the event, I put the girls in front of the TV, did the laundry, cleaned and cleared the laundry room, and focused on the dishes again. Later on, I showered the girls, and as I was about to put them to sleep, the older kids came back. The kitchen reopened because they decided they were hungry, and then the little ones wanted to eat again, too. I swear by 21:30, the walls were shaking with my screams.

I was done.

Well, if Wednesday was not nasty enough, here comes Thursday. In the morning, like every day this week, I sat down to work on my writing blog. I say work, but this is where my doubts sit, and I will tell about it in a bit.

Anyway, Thursday morning, I sat and worked 9:00–15:00 again. My lats and thigh muscles are still making me walk and stand in a ridiculous way because they are so tight and sore after Tuesday’s training. Then the kids came home, I cut the cantaloupe and served it with peanut butter, and off to the warship place we went.

It was a religious holiday for my people. Yes, another one. We practically have a holiday every month, lol. Anyway, I think I told you that we got discounted tickets and volunteered to help. It felt good to give some back. As I said, I am choking on kindness lately. Being on the receiving side is not the natural state of an Ox.

So, the highlights of that evening? We started getting dressed 2 hours before, and the kids just somehow ate all the time. From “I have nothing to wear” to “I can’t wear that!” I was left with exactly 25 minutes to shower, dress, and apply makeup. I was stressed as F, and yes, you guessed right, I was screaming my ass off again.

But, probably because of my screams, we got to the worship place exactly one minute before we were supposed to. The teacher was there; he was the one to ask us to come. He turned out to be a man full of anxiety. He kept checking and rechecking things and thanking me for coming to help — until it actually got on my nerves after the 7th time, and I told him, “Seriously, stop.”

I spoke to the kitchen staff and did some unintentional networking. Talking about this and that, speaking the same languages, she asked what I am doing — I told her about my product. She got very excited and said they will need my services. She took my phone. I don’t expect business from it, but I liked the validation that my product is something that people need.

The second thing that happened was a conversation with one of the other patrons of the worship place. She works at a traditional camp in our community. Crazy expensive, like 5K per kid. They go into the woods in a neighbouring province for 3 weeks in the summer. It’s a semi-religious camp for my tribe.

Drago has been begging me to send her to that camp since we landed here, but the prices are just astronomical. The lady I spoke to, though, said there is a subsidy program and that they have a lot of funds this year. So, as much as I am hesitant about letting my babies out of my sight for 3 weeks, it’s those experiences that will make them… well, not me. lol.

I will take a day next week (probably Monday, cause I have the mammogram and blood test anyway that day) and do all the clarifying things. Register the kids for that camp, reapply for the CDCP and many other things.

Another thing that happened was that Piggy broke a plate in the worship place. She was crying and miserable. It was… a magical moment really. Stallion, Drago, and I were all serving food; the line was long, so I couldn’t leave the line. I was in charge of the Alfredo spaghetti and Rose fussily. Drago, next to me, was in charge of the mini quiche.

I snatched her tons and sent her to help Wolfy, but by this point, there were about 20 adults around her, all helping her up, cleaning it up, and encouraging her. I think as much as she might have felt that her mom failed her that moment, she also saw overwhelming communal kindness — and that is very rare these days.

The ex picked up Stallion, Drago and Piggy from the worship place. Wolfy had an appointment the next morning, so she needed to stay with me today. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my phone, keys and other personal items from Drago’s purse, so when we got back to the house at 22:00, we were locked out.

The ex was annoyed with Drago, and apparently, she went to sleep crying over the harsh words he had said. I knew it would be like this, but I couldn’t do much. Just to send her a message that she would see the next morning, thanking her for taking my stuff to protect it and apologizing for not remembering to take it off her.

But he dropped the keys, and we got in the house by 22:30.

I am gaining weight. Isn’t that a cruel joke of nature? The stress over not having enough food makes my PCOS active with insulin resistance, and I am getting heavier and heavier. Not to mention that when presented with food, I cannot ration; I wolf it down without any ability to stop.

I ate 3 plates of pasta. There was no protein, and, as proper for those serving the food, I was the last to take food, so all the vegetables and salads were gone. Just pure carbs and fat. Jolly.

I went to bed bloated, and… yes, ashamed. Ashamed that I cannot control this stupid starving response to food. See, at the house, I prioritize the kids and ration myself at all times. It often happens that I give the kids food, and when they ask for seconds, I am left without.

I am not complaining. I am the mother; it’s how things should be done. But as I said, when presented with abundance, my brain snaps and I cannot stop eating. I hate it. I hate the lack of control, even though I understand that it’s my survival instinct.

I didn’t fall asleep until 1 am. And this morning woke as usual at 6. We got to the doctor, and Wolfy went through an assessment. I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep, but I was aggravated with them. Basically, they diagnosed her with ADHD (officially making this a household of 5 ADHD people), but she “didn’t see” the anxiety, which is the whole reason I asked them to diagnose the girl.

I mean, what kind of a stupid excuse is that? Did they expect her to be anxious 24/7? Isn’t it enough to talk to the girl and me? Oh whatever.

Then I came home, sat down at the PC, and started working on the writing blog again. All in all, I sat to write 8 hours today. No endless AI fantasies, no staring at the wall. I am starving for this, and I am really working nonstop.

Stallion decided to come home instead of going to his father. Apparently, the idiot is teasing the boy over a girl in his class. How damn juvenile. And Stallion is upset because he dislikes that girl, and, well, because his father is a child. I was quite proud of him for trying to teach his dad a lesson. It won’t work, of course, but I didn’t tell him that.

I still have a sensitive stomach today. I collected those last 75$ in grocery shop gift card and 20$ in toonies and had just enough to pay for some produce the neighbour was kind enough to pick up for us. 2 bags of apples, a bag of oranges, celery, carrots, cabbage, 2 bags of potatoes, 9 English cucumbers, 15 roma tomatoes, bananas and 4 jars of applesauce.

Yes, everything is damn expensive.

The abundance curse struck again, and I was bingeing on fruit and vegetables like a crazy person.

I love you, 
Thanks for listening,
Yours, 
Oxy. 
May 22, 2026

Help me find him: Have you seen this man?