🗞️ TUESDAY: Cryptid Dispatch

The Name in the File: Ending the Ancestry Saga

The emotional weather’s been… unstable this week.

Case File Tags: identity shift, inherited history, quiet revelations, storm season, found family (adjacent)
Content Note: family discovery, parentage, identity shifts, grief-adjacent reflection, chronic illness

Welcome to The Crippled Cryptid

Disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and survival without the performance.

If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Occasional chronic illness and disability advocate.

Medically complex enough to make my chart a jump scare. I cope with sarcasm, snacks, and narrating my life like it’s a field report. Sometimes there’s coffee. Those are the best days.
Today, there’s electrolytes. Because your ghoul is rocking a migraine.

Most days are lived in a haunted meat suit with a questionable warranty and a long-standing feud with my nervous system.

And on Tuesdays… we document it.

The appointments.
The adventures.
The spirals.
The “we left the house and now we have a story” moments.

Sometimes that story is just me in a waiting room, mentally drafting a rant while staring at outdated magazines.
Sometimes it’s “we found a place after and the food was life-changing.”
Sometimes it’s both.

I spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™, but when I do venture out into the wild, I’m rarely alone.

Luna is there.
Medical alert service dog. Guardian. Enforcer. Service Dingo™.
Public access professional. Emergency “we need to sit down right now” decision-maker.

There’s also M&M.
My Player 2. My soft place to land. Snack provider. Voice of reason when I have none. Which is often. I’m a very stubborn cryptid.

And, in spirit (and usually at home), the Yard Yeti.
Keeper of the home base. Guardian of the Wi-Fi. Champion of “I support you from this chair.”

This space is for chronic illness without inspiration porn.
Disability without apologies.
Life as it actually happens… including the messy, the mundane, and the unexpectedly good.

If you’ve been here before, welcome back.
If you’re new, you’ll find your footing.

Welcome to the Cryptid Dispatch.
Field notes from the chaos.

Cryptid Dispatch Incoming

Today’s report includes life updates, quiet revelations, and something that changed my life in a way I didn’t expect.

This isn’t a rant.
Not even a “we left the house” post.

Although… after the news, we did.

We went to the food bank Saturday. Saw our friends.
And for the first time, I said it out loud… at least, to someone outside of the family.

The Ancestry Saga Is Over

I told you I’d bring you along for this.

Part 1: spitting in a tube like an offended llama.
Part 2: getting results and finding a name I didn’t expect.

And now… this.

The ending.

And your ghoul has feelings. Naturally, since most people find out who their parents are when they’re born. Not at 31.

Before the Results Were Official

We already had a suspicion.

We’d had him over. Sat in the house. Talked.

He was one of my mom’s best friends.
Someone she was on-and-off with in the 90s.

Someone who held pieces of stories I’d only ever heard from one side.

He told me about Magic the Rat.
Not just hers. Theirs.

He painted my grandfather’s work van. White. Latex house paint.
R & M Services on the back. Red lettering I remembered but couldn’t quite read anymore.

He remembered the phone number. 1895.

He remembered the milk crate seat.
No back seats. Just vibes and mild danger if someone took a corner too fast.

It was the 90’s okay? Everyone was just trying to stay alive.

I rode in that van almost every day as a kid.

He built the fence around my grandmother’s garden.
The center of my entire childhood world.
The one I built stories around in my head.

He helped build the deck. The pool. The spaces where my life happened.

Everywhere I look in my childhood…
He was already there.

I just didn’t know it yet.

Saturday Morning

6:30am message.

“Call me in the next couple of hours when you see this.”

I thought it was about the storms.

Illinois has been getting hit hard lately. Tornadoes, warnings, flooding. One touched down near him. I figured it was a check-in. I was planning to text him anyway.

So, I messaged at 9, right when I woke up.

Asked if he was awake. Didn’t want to wake him if he’d just gotten off work and gone to bed.

Then I went about my morning.

Checked my notifications.

And there it was.

Fifth one down.

Ancestry.

The Moment

I expected another distant relative. Questions. Maybe more puzzle pieces.

Instead…

There was his face.

And his name.

One word.

Father.

Not hypothetical anymore. Not a maybe.

The Quiet After

Here’s the strange part.

It wasn’t loud.

No emotional explosion.
No breakdown.
No cinematic moment.

Just… quiet.

We had already been trying the word out.
Saying it softly behind closed doors.

Father.

Seeing how it fit.

It turns out… it fit just fine.

🐾 Luna’s Field Note:
Mama experiencing major identity update. Attempted intervention via toy delivery.
Conclusion: Emotional events require enrichment.

A Ghost in the Conversation

Some answers settle in quietly.
Some raise new questions.

I wish she were here to confirm it. Or argue with it.
(She would’ve argued. Loudly. Possibly from beyond the veil, if necessary.)

I still talk to her, you know.
Some conversations just… don’t end.

Maybe that makes me look crazy to some people.
But it’s how I cope.

Sometimes out loud, it’s just how I get through the day.

Asking, “what the fuck were you thinking, Mom?”
Or… “did you know it was him?”

Especially thinking back to 2012.
When we met him.
When he asked how old I was.

And she looked at him, chuckled the way she always did… and said, so confidently:

“Don’t worry, she isn’t yours.”

But here we are, Mom.

And I am, in fact, his.

So, it leaves me with this question:

Do you think she knew?

I don’t think that’s a question I’ll ever get answered.

Of Course, I Still Did Something Unhinged

I sent him a graphic.

Mothman. Holding a DNA envelope.
“Congratulations, it’s a ghoul.”

Because I’m still me.

And because I refuse to send real glitter or confetti.

That’s not a gift. That’s a curse.

Glitter is eternal.
Confetti multiplies when you’re not looking.

My aunt taught me that.
I retaliated once. M&M has never recovered.

Someone sends you a glitter-filled envelope… you pass it on.
And the cycle just keeps going.

He asked how long I’d been holding onto “the bat” like he knew I’d had it planned for a while.
Was I offended? Yes. How the hell did he know?

How I Actually Feel

I’m not angry.

I’m not disappointed.

I’m not grieving something I feel like I lost.

I’m just… surprised.

There’s something strange about gaining a word for yourself this late in the game.

I didn’t start this looking for a father.

I started this looking for answers about my grandfather’s Cherokee heritage.
About my health. My body. My history.

Instead, I found out I’m not as alone as I thought I was.

It’s strange, realizing your story had a missing chapter…
And finding out it was there the whole time, just written in someone else’s handwriting.

But I’m glad I found out, and I’m glad I found him.

Because I didn’t grow up knowing my father. Not the one I thought was, and not this one. And there’s still time, and that’s the thing that matters.

He was right when I reached out to let him know that his last name popped up in my Ancestry DNA test: “life’s too short, we should really do a test.”

And we did.

And he’s my dad.

Will I call him that now, instead of his name?
I don’t know.

But what I do know is this.

I grew up with BJ, the Yard Yeti’s dad, for a while there, and he was great.
And I grew up with my grandfather for 10 years of my life, and he was amazing.

And now I have an opportunity to know my own father, and I’m really excited to see what the future holds.

That feels bigger than I know how to explain yet.

What Matters Now

He plays with Luna.
She likes him, which honestly feels like a cosmic endorsement.

He checks in when storms hit.
Suggests horror shows.
Likes horror, scary movies, and spooky stuff just like I do, which means you know he fits in around here.

Asks about my writing. Pays attention.

Shows up in small, real ways.

🐾 Luna’s Field Note:
Subject has passed initial vibe check.
Monitoring will continue.
Tail wag observed. No alerts triggered.

🐕 Luna Rating™

Event Type: Emotional Revelation / Identity Update / Unexpected Dad Drop

Luna’s Assessment:

• Initial reaction: Alert but polite curiosity
• Sniff test: Passed
• Vibes: Acceptable. Possibly friend-shaped
• Engagement level: Willing to interact, play, and call me a pretty girl
• Protective stance: Present but not activated

Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5 paws)
(Lost one star for emotional disruption to Mama. Ongoing evaluation required. Got it back later for adding to Mama’s life.)

Today Wasn’t Big… But It Was

There was no dramatic reveal. No life overhaul.

Just a quiet shift.

A name where there wasn’t one before. Even if we kind of already knew.

A person stepping into a space that used to be empty.

My body didn’t mark the moment as special. It still hurt the same.
Which, in its own way, made it feel more real.

And me, still here.

That counts for more than people think.

Especially when you’re living in a body with more red flags than green ones.

From One Cryptid to Another

If you’re low on spoons, grab a couple from the snack table.
I keep extras there.

Drink some water.
Take your meds if it’s time.
Eat something, even if it’s only a few bites.

If your life feels like a string of strange side quests… you’re not alone.

Some days feel like DnD with a character you didn’t build.
Some days feel like Jumanji and someone else already disappeared into the jungle.

Some days are big.

Some days are just:

we survived the appointment.
we survived the body.
we survived Bed Jail™.

All of it counts.

🐾 Luna’s Final Field Note:
Mama stable. New human categorized as ongoing observation.
Snack levels acceptable. Situation contained.

Storm’s passed.
Still standing.

Thanks for coming along with me.

-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability. Honesty. A little chaos.
(Occasionally field-tested.)

🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

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If you’d like to support the long, slow work of staying alive, stable, and still wandering when I can:
💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility