This is how it goes

I know, I know. I’m supposed to be enjoying my pregnancy. These little kicks to my bladder, the strange, ripple -y, pokey, sensation that freaks me out instead of bringing me a smile, all of this nonsense it’s just lost on me. While I’m still fearful, I mean I don’t think I’ve ever so much as held a fresh born baby let alone fed or changed one, the anxiety is passing. I’ve been spending an hour a day cleaning out my life, trying to decide what no longer fits and what needs to go. Trying to come to terms with the things I need to accept and make room for is just as difficult.

I’ve spent the past several years trying to pull my life together. I learned to admit that my life has basically been one big cycle , failure, disappointment,  try again. The things that happen to me have been known to turn people who don’t believe in luck to tell me I have the worst luck they’ve ever seen. And it’s OK.  I learned to pick myself up, dust myself off and move on- and I’ve gotten pretty darn good at it. But this current situation, I’m really struggling with it. I can’t find the words to explain it. To communicate the anger, the frustration, the fact that some days I just want to lay on floor and cry hysterically about how unfair life can be. How was it that  I was just getting things together, I was finally learning who I was, how to be comfortable in my skin, perfecting my budgeting skills, and growing up and then it all fell apart again.

And then I turned up pregnant.  In the beginning I had more faith in the father. He was a good guy, he’d served 4 tours in Iraq, he had a much better than average job, all in all any girl couldn’t have asked for more. But then things changed. We revisited the fact that he was still recently divorced. That his ex-wife was a cheating skank. That she had delivered him a non-viable baby, the details not shared with me, only explained away that she had delivered another to her lover. And I tried to understand his anger. I tried so hard to see his point of view that I forgot my own for a while. I understood  the fact that these occurrences were why he’d had a vasectomy. That they led to his mistrust of me and disbelief that my child was indeed his child. But, the more I tried to understand the more anger grew in me. The more frustrated I became and  I cried over my pregnancy more than I should. The more I resented being pregnant, and I began to see it as the ultimate failure and I wondered why  my life always seems like punishment.  And it was all misplaced. It’s not the baby I’m mad at. It’s him. While I have to give up everything I enjoy, throw any dreams I had in the trash bin, and stay cemented in the same place he gets to move on.  My dream trip to Europe I had been saving for for 2 years? Trash bin. Savings into my retirement so I wouldn’t have to cut hair for jackasses who talk to me like I’m an uneducated yokel for the rest of my life? Out the window. But not him, as I write this he’s preparing to take a massive promotion that will move him into western Europe.  Last month he wanted to take the baby and I along. This month we are out with the trash on the side of the road.

My friends laugh when I get upset about my dog sitting in my “spot” on the couch. But it’s because they see it as just that – a spot on a couch. For me though, it’s safety, it’s a corner that hugs me without ever judging me, I can cry into the pillow and it just absorbs my tears. It doesn’t try to tell me that everything will be fine. It doesn’t lie to me saying you going to be okay. It doesn’t spout gibberish about god  only giving you what you can handle. It just sits there, inanimate holding me and wiping away the tears that the baby’s father causes. It is in fact, for all intents and purposes, at this point in time the support I need.

Maybe this isn’t punishment at all. Maybe my child is on its way to teach me to branch out. It will show me that shutting most of the world out because sticking to myself is better than risking getting hurt isn’t worth it. And maybe it will prove that when my mother tells me I am much to hard on myself she is right, after all she is my mother.

Remembering to breathe,
DL

That one person

When I woke up this morning I knew I had a lot of errands to run. My dog Tosca had been misbehaving and moody for the past few weeks so I thought I’d take her along with me. It would be a nice change of pace for  her and what dog doesn’t like car rides? So when I finished my workout we had one of our bi-weekly grooming sessions where I brushed her up, vacuumed her off, and wiped her down with a few Paul Mitchell pet wipes. I put on my shoes and loaded her into the back of the car. The new car is a small suv so she gets the whole back to herself along with the giant window. We went to the post office and a few other stops before driving through Taco Bell to get her a soft taco for lunch. We headed back home and I let her in the yard while I put her taco in her bowl. She of course promptly rolled in the dirt before coming in and gobbling down her lunch.

I should preface the next paragraph by admitting that I have some o.c.d. issues.  The biggest problem is my spot on my couch. Much like the Big Bang Theorys Sheldon I am very particular about it and it is the only place I will sit. When I got out of the shower and came downstairs she was in my spot. AFTER being outside and rolling in the dirt. I lost it, flipped my lid. I screamed. I swore. I ranted about how I give her everything.  I told her that there were dogs at the pound who would love to trade places with her. I screamed so much she peed on the floor. Right in the middle of the living room floor. I took her outside and scrubbed the floor. The poor thing was so upset she wouldn’t come back in the house when I left for work. ( My mother stopped and brought her in after she was done. )

Later that day I stopped at the bank and the teller asked me a question. ” Who is that one annoying person? When my sister was pregnant she couldn’t stand me. ” And I started thinking about it.  I remembered a friend saying her coworker drove her absolutely nuts. In fact every pregnant woman I could think of had at least one person who drives them bonkers. Could it be that of all the personalities and all the people in my life my Tosca-tot was that person? For the past several months every little thing that she did had been wearing on me. Everything from not sleeping on her bed to losing her favorite bone outside in the snow was now annoying. Stealing turds out of the cat box?  Yep. Shuffling the rugs around? Yep. Smelling like Fritos? Most definitely.

How had it come to this? The one who can’t help being stupid or doing all the ridiculous things that are making me nuts. I can’t seem to stop being irritated by her very presence. Who else orders thier dog a pizza or takes her out for tacos? Only the person whose brain is so scrambled that they are letting the little things get to them. I spent hours last week writing a letter to the man I am actually upset with. I never mailed it, but, now that I realize that my frustration wi th him is coming out on the wrong person maybe I should mail i t. Then maybe I’ll stop being angry at my dog for smelling like Fritos.

Remembering to breathe,
DL