Chương 1066: Day One Thousand And Sixty-Four

Dear Diary, Sometimes I forget that life is, y'know, lifelike. Which is one of the things some of the old heads used to say back in the day, a sort of 'it is what it is' vibe that isn't quite nihilism, but might be close kin to it. Well, no, that's not fair. Nihilism is the idea that nothing matters, so nothing anybody does matters. What the old heads in Camden put down was more, I dunno, pragmatism applied as a palliative for fatigue.

Fatigue, chronic pain, hitting the wall in the marathon that is life, whatever you wanna call it, if somebody never hits it, I envy them. I guess some people don't. They find the thing they want to do, it's a thing that will pay all their bills, and they just do that thing from that point until they go in the ground. I mean, technically I suppose if we're talking about dreamland, they could do it until they retire, but that idea, retirement, always seemed kinda sus to me. Huh.

I have never really pondered the fact that here and now, dreamland is an actual place. Underhill. The Land of Gods and Souls and Dreams. Literally the place my Worshippers find my Maw when they're dreaming. Shit, it's where the bulk of me lives on the daily. Who knew I was the one Beyonce was singing about. Okay, I'm... No, I was gonna say 'I'm nobody's idea of a Sweet Dream', but fuck that noise, my ladies sure as shit enjoy the fuck out of my dream self.

I may still take every rational opportunity to be down on myself, which is something I need to talk with the 'rents about, but I am not gonna start denying factual information that I know in order to diss myself. Fuck. That means unless I'm gonna start calling my ladies liars, I have to accept that they consider me beautiful.

Which, given that I am clearly capable of doing nightmarish things, not to mention taking on some seriously nightmarish forms beyond my basic Lovecraftian monstrosity self, I guess I qualify as a Beautiful Nightmare as well.

But back to my original point, sometimes with everything being so, I dunno, I wanna say 'extra', in my new life, what with my partners including the Champion of the Heir to Olympus, the Overlord of Rich Mans' Port, the Imperator of the Atlantean Alliance, and three Archmagi, including one Legendary one, and us having, uh... Shit, now I don't know how many kids we have. No, it's not that I can't count that high; I still have toes, after all.

But we started with Isnomi, adopted the five from Marie's Horde Hoard, fostered Ria, Murder Mittens popped out eight more, then we adopted Boy and Girl and holy shit I have to convince them to decide on names without pressuring them, and finally Siobhan squeezed out Aoibh, which is one plus five plus one plus eight plus two plus one, which is eighteen, and I really shouldn't forget Conrad or Vulcan, which brings the count to twenty, but I'm not sure if I should include Dionysus or not.

Okay, given that sixty percent of the Mom Collective have had carnal relations with him in the past, I'm gonna go with 'not'. Sarah's his Mom, we're just, y'know, friends. And Marie's sister. Which means he's our nephew. Yeah, my brain is not up to processing that bullshit right now, but it does kinda exemplify the way my life is 'extra', not knowing how many kids we have because one of them is related to us in ways I don't want to think about even when I'm thinking about it.

But the thing is, even with all that wacky weird bullshit going on, life is still life. I go to work most days, except Sundays, when I go to my family's attempt at therapy. Okay, that's not fair, they're doing the best they can, and it really does help me. I eat dinner with the family every night except Fridays, when I go to religious services.

Yes, the fact that I am the Goddess being Worshipped goes back to the 'extra' thing again, but if I squint a little, my life isn't that different from some of the old heads back in the day. Just an endless cycle of daily things occasionally punctuated by birthdays and anniversaries and shit. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Okay, yeah, also punctuated by weird shit like killing Deities and fighting Monsters, but everybody's got a hobby, right?

Speaking of, after Siobhan dropping the less than lethal bomb that she wanted to join my Physical Training class, I decided to cook yesterday. Well, 'cook' isn't exactly right, I don't think, because nothing involved heating stuff up. I made salad and sushi and put up some pickles. I was not expecting them to take as long as they apparently would, but I've always wanted to try pickling stuff. Taught Math all day, then got home and got the kids ready for their weekly sleepover at Mom and Dad's.

Marie brought some little beds aboard her cart, which she set around Dad's big slab. Every one of the kids and ladies piled in around Dad. Siobhan got pride of place between Sigyn and Loki, with little Aoibh, who'd apparently decided 'eat, sleep, shit, complain if food isn't available' was gonna be her life for the foreseeable future. Like, all babies are like that when they're young enough, but I kinda expected her to be, I dunno, looking around or similar shit. Nope.

Aoibh is a big assed self-attaching no-piercing nipple ring. That's her lot in life. I will not comment on how I'm rethinking my career options. At any rate, got up to Sigyn pulling out some fish... Stuff. Look, the kids liked it, especially Lindsey, Ria, and the kits, so I'm not ever gonna say anything, but while I am all about the pickled vegetables, or at least I wanna try all of them, I had not thought to pickle fish. I also am not entirely comfortable with the idea of just, y'know, eating the bones. So weird.

I've eaten Dragon, you'd think pickled fish would not be the bridge too far. Which I suppose technically it wasn't, since I did eat a few, but I'm really glad that I no longer slam down mass quantities of everything. Yeah, now and then I'll find something really good and nom the hell out of it, but nobody gets surprised or offended when I try a few of whatever and then move on to helping make sure the kids eat the food rather than, I dunno, stuffing it up their noses or something.

Okay, my kids haven't done that yet, but I'm worried they'll take after their Mama at some point, so I keep my eyes open. When the kids headed home with Sigyn and Marie, I settled in at the table.

"I still feel guilty about Ria's birthday." Saffron shook her head.

"You've done so much, so often. With no crises to manage, the rest of us can certainly take the lead on some of the birthday celebrations."

"Yeah, but..." I trailed off because she was right. Which meant this was yet another case.

"Okay, yeah, that's another thing. Something I really need to catch myself... Keep myself from doing, and maybe need you guys to call me out on."

"What would that be?" I chuckled, because I never knew when she knew exactly what I was thinking, when my foreign nature or tentacle brain or Blend or whatever kept her from grokking it, and when she was just letting me say the words, either because she wanted to hear them, I needed to say them, or both. Probably both.

"I know my self-image is kinda shit, both in the 'I loathe myself reflexively' and 'it is inaccurate' senses. Thing is, I'm not sure what to do about that other than more sessions where y'all hold me down and pump affirmations into my ear holes, which seems kinda greedy. Worse, I'm not sure how effective it would be if we did it too much."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I need you guys to call me when my reasons for hating myself are bullshit." Everybody went silent. Then Siobhan chuckled. That spread around the room; not raucous laughter, but a quiet chuckle.

"What?" She shook her head and shifted Aoibh.

"First, I suspect most of those reasons are suspect at best, and second I'm not sure all of us together could possibly manage to catch each and every one."

"Ouch." Loki patted me on the head.

"It's true though, Daughter. I hear your thoughts when I listen. You do reflexively belittle yourself, and typically for things that are either out of your control, morally neutral, or otherwise not good reasons to castigate yourself." I smiled up at him.

"Thanks, Dad. You're the best." His eyes crinkled as he chuckled a little more.

"I know." So for the rest of the day today I sat there and talked with my ladies and Dad about all my failings. All the big justified reasons I thought less of myself, thought I was a villain or abuser or other variety of fecal matter. And for the rest of the day they took turns skewering each of those reasons. Sometimes they teamed up. Sometimes they soloed them. I don't know when I started crying. I don't even know why I started crying.

I just know that by the time the sun neared the horizon I was a snotty, sticky mess.