Baking Makes the Sad Go Away

I came home from work--yes, I am working for pay for three weeks!--and got out the "Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread" cookbook. I have been baking a lot lately, following a slight lapse. But since Blue died I've often buried my sadness in weights and measures of sugar and flour and butter and salt. Last night I had a dream though that I had put on a lot of weight, and SS was there to remind me of that. I am seriously considering a different anti-depressant. I can't stand these dreams.

Anyway...I got my period last week. I am always sad when I get my period, and the sadness just hasn't gone away. Yesterday I ran into an English teacher from high school. The last time I ran into her was in May, and when she asked if I had kids I said my first was on the way. Well, yesterday, she remembered, and asked about my "one," as she had said. I stammered that I'd had a late miscarriage. And she calmly said she was sorry, that she had had one too, but also had three children. In a phone conversation with an old friend who is trying desperately to have her first child, single and at age 43, I was told "you'll get your baby." Everyone seems to think so. But I'm still worried. I wonder if the time is now because it has been for a few years? Or because I am trying to fill the void left by Blue's death? To me, it doesn't even matter. But it seems to matter to the therapist/professional types. If I were married to SS, no one would say boo about my getting pregnant again soon. So why should it be different that I've found someone else? SS was just that, a shit stain. Oh! I called his voicemail the night of "family dinner" (see last, very very angry, post) to tell him he was a piece of shit. I apparently could not be any more insignificant to him, so why care that I took the low road? My friends and family should be happy that I want to move on in a way that feels right for me.

I am finally, happily, falling for AFF. I am so lucky. He is wonderful. He is a wonderful person for me. It's true I had a little freak-out recently that I met him too soon after moving back home, after leaving SS, after losing Blue. But then I realized, WHAT I am still waiting for? It was his shoulder I was crying on two Saturdays ago. It is he giving me advice that doesn't go against my grain. It is he coming to me to vent and ask for help. AFF is everything I said I always wanted but never found. He is not perfect. Neither am I. But he makes me feel so special, in spite of it all. In spite of all my imperfections. In spite of all my sadness. And to not be insecure in a relationship? Damn, that feels nice.

And with that, I will now enjoy a Blondie. With pecans instead of walnuts.

Anywhere But Here Revisited

I wish I could do a little cyber-stalking of my ex. Not sure why I am suddenly curious about him. I guess it just feels strange to go from living together to never speaking again in the course of about a week.

I totally kid myself by saying I am "suddenly" curious about him--I've sort of been wanting to cyber-stalk him for a while now. He has a really common name though, so I can't google him for the news. We never became friends on Facebook. I don't know what is more strange, being Facebook friends with your spouse/partner or not being Facebook friends with you spouse/partner.

My thoughts about SS are softening. I don't feel so angry and hurt when a thought of him flutters across my mind. I would still inflict pain to his private parts if I ever saw him in person, but unfortunately he doesn't have to worry about that since we live 200 miles apart. But I do wonder--is he dating someone? Is he pining for Blue? Is he pining for another baby? Is he happy he got away with not having the child he didn't want to have? Has he admitted to being in love with his best friend, the one to whose son he is a godfather? The one whose son SS wanted to call my son's brother? So gross, I know! (And no, the godson is not actually SS's son. And yes, I have considered that.) A few weeks ago I found myself revisiting the gag-inducing conversations and things that were just weird about SS, and our relationship. I pushed that down thinking that was best for my family. Maybe it was. But it was bad for me. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that I should have left SS while I was pregnant, before we got the bad news. He insisted he wouldn't abandon his child, and I really thought I needed his help, but now I see that I didn't. SS thought I would need his help too, though I'm not sure he would have known how to give it. He didn't demonstrate to me that he could do anything for someone else except buy things. I know that counts for something. But that just emphasizes our incompatibility. I don't care about "things."

A few weeks ago I lamented in a half-written, unpublished post that I loved my baby, hated my ex, and hated that I couldn't separate the two. But slowly I am. Losing Blue was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Losing SS may have been one of the best. Yet one could not have happened without the other. I still struggle to reconcile those facts. Because they are facts. No SS (good?), no pregnancy (bad; therefore SS good). No live child (very, very bad), no SS (very, very good).

But I am realizing that my grief and my relief are not bound by the same circumstance. Losing Blue (grief), losing SS (relief, albeit painful). I am starting to think about "the early days" as being different from where I am now. In another unpublished post titled "Anywhere But Here," I meant for "here" to mean my life, my state of being.

I may still not like where I am, but I am getting somewhere.

Graduating Class

It occurred to me the other day that other mama's babies have died since I lost Blue. It's going on five months now since Blue was born still...there are a lot of other mamas whose babies have died since then. I wonder whether it's time to become a shoulder to cry on, instead of being a crying mess myself.

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I took a break from reading blogs and reading grief books and from submerging myself in the land of the babylost. I stopped staying up late into the night, trying to prolong the day. But I'm back. I have more to do every day, I have to start it all early, and yet I am staying up late, perhaps to find the time to grieve. I sometimes read my own blog posts, and I'm like "right on, yes, I totally relate to that." Right. That's because I wrote that. It reminds me of listening to a mix tape (mix CD just doesn't have the same ring to it) that I made, and each song that plays makes me think "I LOVE this song!" Right. That's why I put it on the mix tape.

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I wish I could talk about some awesomeness going on. But there isn't any. I just can't be awesome ununderemployed and living in my parents' house. But there's some kinda-coolness: I started teaching snowboarding at the local anthill. It doesn't pay much but today I got paid to snowboard all day. I live in Pennsylvania, so no, it wasn't the kind of snowboarding you want to spend all day doing. But all in all, a good day of work.

I also feel like I can't be awesome without a pregnancy, without a baby, without a family, without a home of my own. I asked AFF what life might look like if we planned a pregnancy, instead of my hoping for an unplanned one, and his being okay with that. He agreed that other people would think we were idiots. And he agreed that that wasn't relevant.

So, yeah, maybe things ARE coming together just a little bit. I don't think about SS all the time anymore. I went through a spurt of anger over the deficiencies in him and in our relationship all along. Things that I would love to explain, so I wouldn't be the only one scratching my head over some strange behavior or comment by him, but I am no longer experiencing that anger and I don't want to right now.

I don't know. Maybe they're not. I told a friend yesterday that I had decided not to move back to Colorado any time soon. He encouraged that decision, warning that you can't keep running away from stuff. Thinking your happiness pertains to your physical location, and then changing location, is like changing chairs on the Titanic. You're still going down. You have to starting running towards stuff. The words rang true, but also reminded me of the pit of unhappiness that I have lived in, not just since Blue died. I feel like maybe I am running towards something, but in a desperate, lurching sort of way. Does that count?