(almost) 8 months out.

I was thinking this morning about the transition between TTASP and choosing to live child free.  You all know the “Infertility Island” metaphor right?  To recap, there’s a ferry that runs between Infertility Island and the mainland, call it Motherworld.  And the ferry comes, but you never know when your ticket is going to be called.  You wait and wait and hope and wave goodbye to your friends and wish them well and simultaneously feel miserable that you’re not going with them.

Then one day, for whatever reason, you realize that you simply CANNOT stay one more day on the Island.  Could be that you’re going crazy, could be that your spouse forces your hand, could be that you run out of funds, could be … any number of reasons.  But you can’t stay.  And you still can’t go to the mainland cause you don’t have a ticket for the ferry.  So you jump in the water and let the current carry you where it will.  And pretty soon, you wash up on another island downstream.  There’s a great big jungle on the side of this island that faces infertility island that’s deep, and dark, and foreboding, and hides all the villages.  But once you hack your way through the jungle, you realize that there’s a gorgeous beach and friendly neighbors with lots of tequila to share on the other side.  

The ferry doesn’t come to this island (well, occasionally it’ll show up without any warning, but it’s a complete surprise because no one here expects it).  For the first few months after you wash up on the island, you force your way back through the jungle to watch the ferry travel back and forth between Infertility Island and the mainland.  It’s sad, it’s painful to watch the ferry and know that you might have been a passenger, that your ticket might have been called this month.  But after the first month or two, you get settled into your new routine and you realize how much WORK it is to trek through the jungle to watch the ferry arrive.  So you delete the arrival date from your calendar, you try to find something to keep you busy on the day the ferry arrives.  You still know it’s there, but you make a conscious decision not to keep watch for it anymore.  More time passes, and one day you realize that you really don’t know when the ferry schedule is anymore.  And the absence of that knowledge is an absence of pain.  Sometimes you’ll think about the ferry, or catch a glimpse of it as it travels over the water, and you remember.  Some days the memory is sharp and it cuts like glass and leaves you bleeding.  Some days the memory is a fleeting ghost that you catch out of the corner of your eye and then it’s gone.  But the vast majority of your time is spent doing things other than thinking about the ferry.  More time passes, and memories grower paler and the pain grows duller and then one day you wake up and it hits you: you are happy.  Not just faking it, not just the absence of pain, but true and real joy in the life you have instead of longing for a life that might have been.  And that is a wonderful day.

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Y’all know me, I find my words so often in the mouths of other writers.  And I love me some Fight Club, so I’ll paraphrase here: …first you have to give up. First, you have to know, not fear, know that someday you are going to die.  Only after you’ve lost everything, are you free to do anything.  And then, once you’ve hit bottom, you start deciding what you are going to do with your freedom.  I think that part of the reason that there are so few women who keep blogging about unresolved infertility is that they are either a) in the stage where they are deliberately trying to NOT think about the ferry or b) busy living the rest of their life.  I’m a big believer in perspective and have been accused of observing situations instead of participating in them.  And choosing to step off of the ART train, choosing follow a different path, requires a big ol’ dose of perspective.  It takes a true and wholehearted belief that there is a life for yourself that does not include children, that you can be happy, that time will heal emotional wounds, that eventually you too will be free of jealousy and anger and bitterness.  But it takes a choice to start that process, to embrace that belief, to stop watching for the ferry, to walk away.  And that’s a hard motherfucking choice to make.  But once you make it, once you start walking that path, it gets easier with every step you take away from the beach.

 

 

 

Still here.

For Aurelia, yes head still above water.  Manly came home Tuesday night, and doesn’t go back to the doc for two weeks.

The new job looks like it’s going to be fantastic (at a week in, anyway).  BUT I can’t/won’t get online there.  Too much temptation to screw around all day reading blogs when there is lots and lots of good work to do.  Between that and having to take care of everything at the house now — I’m even going to learn how to plant the garden this year — I just don’t have enough time to keep up.  I’m terrified to even look at my g.oogle reader.

So if I’m quiet, please don’t worry.  If something is ever really wrong, I’ll get Becky or Jess to let everyone know.

 

Away Message

Something UnBloggable has happened, and it means I will be away from here for who knows how long.  End result of said incident: Manly ended up needing surgery today to repair several broken bones and will be off his feet for a while.  Obviously he’s in a lot of pain, but nothing life-threatening.  I personally was not involved and am just dealing with the stress of this on about 3 hours’ sleep spread out over the last 36 hours.  Of course, this had to happen the day before I start my new job, so there’s no telling how this will all play out.  I’m 80% confident that everything will turn out fine in the end, but I’m going to be wrangling with this Incident for at least six weeks. 

So please say a little prayer for us and be patient — I’ll be back eventually. 

 

 

Five

days left in this job.  Well, 4 1/2 by this point in the day.

Oh, hi!  Remember me?  Yeah, got a new job.  Start next Monday.  Losing my mind trying to wrap things up here. 

Post brewing on predestination/free will … again.  I know you’re sick of hearing it.  I’m sick of thinking about it.  But with the new job and the way things are shaking out around here, I just can’t let go. 

For your homework,

1.  Go read this post and think about the last few lines:

“…the past is malleable, that chance masquerades as fate, and that, when you look back, by some trick of the light, all roads seem to lead inevitably to exactly the place you’re standing.”

2.  Add another quote that I love:

“Don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either.  Your choices are half chance.  So are everybody else’s.”

3.  Now, answer me this: have you ever thought that events occurred in YOUR life in order to make way for someone else’s dreams to come true?  As in, you were the tool (unintended pun there) fate manipulated to create an opportunity for another person.  So in essence, it didn’t matter what happened to you as a result.

4. Extra credit:  is luck something that everyone has an equal shot at getting, or do people create their own luck?

5.  Extra extra credit: do you believe in karma?

I’m asking these things very seriously.  I really do want your answers, whether you leave a comment or want to take a shot at an entire post of your own.

Go forth and ponder.

 

WAITT recap

Just so you know, if you suggest that someone “really should blog about this tomorrow”, it’s likely that the table will nominate YOU.  Ah well, I love you guys anyway :)  For everyone who wasn’t there, we met at 6:00 for dinner.  I didn’t get home until 10:30.  Yeah, it was that fun.  In light of our four hour marathon, I’ll recap the high points of dinner (as I remember them) in bullet points. 

• Social workers suck, especially if you don’t want to be a foster resource  
• Teething toddlers suck
• Once cloning becomes available, we each want a copy of Becky’s mom (Hi MomWinks! *Wave*)
• According to someone’s dad, you can’t watch a lunar eclipse because you’ll go blind.  He was a rocket scientist.  Literally.
• People in the south are all related, which is why we ask to hold strangers’ babies.  This FREAKS OUT our northern transplants.  As does random conversation in the grocery store.
• Contrary to popular belief, people in Alabama DO wear shoes and shop in malls.  And thank god that there’s still Mississippi, because that means we’re still #49.  Woot!
• If you have girls, you have to worry about the pee-pees.  But if you have boys, you have to worry about all the vajayjays that are out to get your pee-pees, because you can get stuck with one of those, too. 
• No one will tell you beforehand what to do with a toddler - um - e.rection during a diaper change (according to the dad, you can’t tuck it sideways without damage, but mom says you can’t leave it straight up unless you want to get drenched.
• No one will tell you beforehand that little girls figure out how to - geez, how did I get stuck with this - “enjoy” themselves as young as 3, and then decide to stop after a few months because they get “too sweaty”.  True story.
• Although everyone knows that your hair gets thicker when you’re pregnant, no one will tell you beforehand that ALL your hair gets thicker.  All.  Yeah, including what you’re thinking.  And apparently trimming/shaving around a pregnant belly is quite difficult. 
• You need to be told to deal with the hair issue before you go to deliver because the nurses WILL talk about you and you will be that girl on the floor.  Doesn’t have to be perfect, just neat and freshly washed.
• Femara will make your hair thin and/or fall out.  It will recover after you stop taking it, but it takes a while (our group is 3 for 3 on this side effect).
• Men are disgusting (think toenails, whiskers, toilet habits) — and we all should have separate bathrooms for the sake our sanity and our marriage.

I’m sure there was more, but that’s the bulk of the topics.  I know there was some talk about engineers because I was studiously studying the lovely flower arrangement nearby :)  But we had a fabulous time, and I love you girls!  Remember, if you ever want to join us, it’s always the 3rd Wednesday of the month at Casablanca’s on University at 6:00.  Email one of us (me, Jess, Kel, Becky) and we’ll meet you out front.