Sunday, August 25, 2013

Grief-Stress-Happy-Baby

My niece was baptized today. Her older brother is almost three, and when he was baptized at six months old I was pregnant with Blue. The godmother to my niece is pregnant and due in February. So the sitting in church thing was a big grief trigger for me. I just thought about how I miss my little guy and tried not to tear up too much.

I am sort of jealous of her (the godmother) pregnancy, but I seem to have calmed down from my obsession that I blogged about a few weeks ago. I don't know how or why, I just had to let some of that bad energy go. I still want to be pregnant again soon, but I am still not menstruating. So. And though of course I keep getting older, I cannot keep stressing about getting too old to have more kids. I just can't.

I am also stressing with work and wondering how the heck I can have more kids and somehow less stress with work? So perhaps I have just transferred the pregnancy envy onto work and family stress generally. Sigh.

I'm concerned I may lose my job, because my workload has been very light for quite some time. This wouldn't exactly be the worst thing, but I don't know what else I would do. Looking for work at a law firm again is very unappealing. Looking for work doing something else feels even worse. Starting a business by default when I am the breadwinner in my family? Ugh. I would love to start a business, but I don't feel like I am ready for that just yet.

Maybe, though I don't tend to think of myself as being particularly high-strung or stressed out generally, maybe I actually am. Or maybe it really is just the pressure of working at a law firm that causes this generalized stress. I never really wanted to work at a firm. I just figured it was something you had to do after law school, and after you put in a few years making beaucoup bucks and hating your life in NYC, then you could move on to whatever you wanted. So it's possible that I am harboring stress over how my current career is not jibing with my ideal--or idealized--career. So many questions, so few answers.

In happy news, I have been showing my dad's horse this summer and that is going great. You can watch me do my thing here (but I don't come on until about 5:25 in the video.) This afternoon Mr. E and I walked over to the municipal golf course and hit a jumbo basket of balls at the driving range while Sprout watched from his stroller. I actually hit well even though I have never actually golfed because I haven't graduated from the driving range yet. It was beautiful weather the past two days--perfect timing--and I also took Sprout in the pool both days and he is so dang cute! Proof below: I actually took this picture myself, and didn't have to color or light-correct, which is also exciting. He actually has blue eyes like that. (From his dad. My eyes are the color of caca.)


Saturday, August 10, 2013

Two Years

OK, wow. It's been two years since Blue was here and then not here. There is a candle burning as a symbol of my love for him.

For the first time I recently had the thought, "I wish none of it had ever happened." No unplanned pregnancy that I was so joyous to discover. Then no experience with the ex where I watched him curse at the positive pregnancy test, pull away from me emotionally and physically, encourage me to get an abortion, at some point decide to stick it out for the baby, and generally make me feel sad and miserable about the relationship. But the baby would make up for all of this. Maybe then Chris would see that our life together wasn't so bad. I was so naive. About both the relationship and the pregnancy.

I can only imagine where my life would have taken me in that scenario. Probably back to Colorado. Probably into the arms of a man I already knew, who was ready to have a baby, whether with me or with anyone. But in this scenario I am angry again at the man I was dating when I was 28-29. The first man I moved in with, the first man I really thought I was going to marry. He turned out to be a dick. No, he probably was all along, but he started to become a dick to me too. I only take credit for not marrying him. I do realize my role in picking terrible men for me. That ex and Chris were quite similar in the way they made me feel about myself. So if I look at it that way, I am the only one to blame that I didn't meet someone and start a family a little sooner in life. I am going off on a tangent. It's Blue's 2nd birthday and all I can think about is how old I am and how I want more kids but I feel rushed and now I want a do-over in life. A do-over that doesn't include him at all.

And then I wonder: am I better off knowing him? Or would I have been better off not to have known him? Do I cherish or resent those 25 weeks we spent together? Today, I am not sure.

Birthday
The day I wasn't meant to meet him,
The day he was here and gone,
The days and years go on without him,
But on this day the breeze is always whispering his song.
-E