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.

.

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.

.

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?

Dreaming In Color

Grief is not a linear path. I recognize the inverse relationship between my blogging and my happiness.

I wasn't writing very often for a stretch--things were going well. I was meeting people who might be a in a position to give me a job. I was spending time with AFF and other friends. I was "doing stuff." I still am...on all counts...but things are not going well.


I blame the holidays. I blame the neighbors' stupid floodlights that shine into my room and have chased me to another bed most nights. I blame the all-too-life-like, Prozac-induced dreams I have each night. They are crazy and vivid even though almost exclusively still in black and white.


In the early days I didn't want to go to sleep because I didn't want to wake up. These days I don't want to go to sleep because I don't want to dream.

Last night I dreamt of a positive pregnancy test I kept hidden in a linen closet. When I woke up in the morning I really didn't know that I hadn't woken up in the middle of the night, peed into a paper cup, saw two blue lines, and learned that I was pregnant. Once I figured out it wasn't true, I didn't expect not to be a in sort of funk all day. I just didn't expect the funk to keep deepening as the day wore on. Now it's almost time to go to sleep, but I am fighting it, and I am tired but I am sad and I am angry.

My grief is anything but pure today. It is so much anger and frustration it is rage. I am irritable. I am belligerent. I am hopeless and depressed about the other crap in life. I am brittle, unpredictable, and utterly inconsolable.

I blame the babyless-ness.

Baby(les)'s First Christmas

I don't know why I shouldn't have expected Christmas to be a tough day. I just hadn't thought much about it with Blue. I'd thought about missing him on Thanksgiving, I'd thought about missing him for the family ski trip in February, but not really on Christmas.

My sisters and brother were with in-laws this year, so the annual brunch guests were mostly friends and neighbors. That was a relief. I spent the morning attending my Sitto (grandmother in Arabic) while her regular Sunday caregiver went to Christmas service. Sitto hadn't been feeling well and she didn't wake up once from nine until noon. She is 94 and has Alzheimer's, so I was a little relieved to not have to answer the same questions over and over about what I've been up to lately. I was also a little relieved to not have to be at my parents' house helping my holidays-stressed-out mom get ready for guests. But I was very alone on Christmas morning. I looked around at Sitto's decorations and photos and holiday cards...there were my niece and nephew, there was my one-year-old nephew...and there was a missing card of a missing newborn great-grandson.

My sister called and asked me how to modify a cake recipe. She did not ask how I was doing on my babyless first Christmas. I thought about SS and how it was Christmas and he wasn't going to call, about how he never called, not once since I left. And it was just so fucking sad. We shared nine months of our lives together, we shared the greatest tragedy of our--my life anyway--lives together. And nothing. A G-chat. I'm so sad I was so committed to this person. I am so sad I almost gave my son a father like that.

I returned home in tears with my parents asking what happened. Nothing. Nothing happened. I went out into the yard and sat in front of Blue's tree. I whispered to the branches, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, sending energy from my heart, through Blue's tree, to the core of the earth, through Blue's tree, up and out into the universe, back through Blue's tree and back to my heart. "You're always with me, buddy." I looked up at his blue sky, I leaned over to kiss the skinny trunk of his tree.

I stood up in damp and dirty yoga pants, went inside to change into something suitable for guests and for Christmas. I drank two glasses of Champagne before I ate anything for the day. From then on it was easier to pretend there was nothing wrong.

Public Pregnancy, Private Miscarriage?

The Daily Beast ran this article on Friday about the Duggar family's public miscarriage. Here is the comment I posted:

"The Duggars had a public pregnancy, yet they should have a private miscarriage? It's a shame that this very important message--that miscarriage and stillbirth and medical terminations happen sometimes and it's not a dirty secret--is lost among the criticism of the Duggars' family size. Memorializing your dead baby may be "creepy"--until it happens to you. It's normal. And beautiful. My heart goes out to the Duggars." 

Do I agree with their choice to have 20 children? Who cares? 

I've been secretly hoping that Beyonce would miscarry or have a stillborn. Eccchh...really. I wouldn't wish it on my WORST enemy, actually. But I feel like the public could use a wake-up call about pregnancy loss, especially after the first trimester, and neonatal death. I am truly saddened to hear the ignorant comments from readers and even professionals about the "publicity stunt" pulled by the Duggars. From the article:

 “It just seems too public and almost seems like, ‘OK, we’re stars, everybody wants to know abut us,’” said Susan Newman, a social psychologist who has taken the Duggars to task for continuing to procreate in two columns for Psychology Today. “From what I know of parents who have lost children, it’s horrific. It’s not something you want pictures of..."

Who are you, Susan Newman? Here is her blog and here is her email address: snewman9@optonline.net.

She will be hearing from me. Let her know what you think, too. Respect and integrity are always in order. But do you think it would be okay if I send her the pictures of Blue?

Therapist Two Out of Three

Therapist B says all the wrong things. I can't get pregnant again soon. I can't date. I can't have sex. I have to be on birth control (um?). I can wait to meet a man. I can wait to have another baby. I have to get a job first and foremost. I have to attack my demons. I just want a baby!!!!!

I saw a local psychiatrist (Therapist C) last week for a new Prozac prescription. About 30 minutes into the session I considered asking her for another doctor so that she and I could be friends. I sensed that she spoke not just from clinical experience, but from personal experience, when she reassured me that I had time to meet someone and plan a family. I asked if she had a loss and she nodded, but did not elaborate. She wondered why I wanted an unplanned pregnancy; why I wanted that in the first place, and why I still wouldn't mind its working out that way. I knew where she was going, and it wasn't pretty: no one would ever want to plan a baby with me. I'm not good enough for a man to want a family with me.

I thought I'd slayed those low self-esteem dragons years ago. Okay, I hoped. Maybe it's just self-preservation, but I think it's not just low self-esteem. I think I don't want to have to choose. I want something to just happen to me. Clearly I suck at choosing. At choosing men anyway. I am not so confident in other decision-making areas of my life. I feel like I have so many choices, too many choices, that I am paralyzed into choosing nothing. What do I want to be when I grow up? Well, gee, I'm 34, shouldn't I know this by now? Where do I want to live? I really love it in Colorado, it really suits my lifestyle, the weather is great, I need to be outside...New York is so awesome, I love the culture, the food, the people...I want to live abroad for a time...my hometown isn't so bad after all, and I have friends here...I've always thought Portland would be a cool place to live. I mean, enough!

So I think there is a part of me that just doesn't want to deal with all these choices. In the same way that I could be happy living in a wide variety of places--I lived in a 10,000 person tourist town for two years, then spent more than three years living in NYC with 10,000 people on my midtown block--I could be happy with a variety of men. Just somebody hand him to me already, I'll make it work! The problem is I seem to prefer to make it work with men who will abuse me. Not physically. Not in the obvious after-school-special kind of way (at least, that relationship did not last long). But emotionally. Subtly. A cool withdrawal here, a mild punishment there...and soon you're wondering "what's wrong with me?"

In case you were wondering, AFF is still extremely attentive. He's pretty awesome. I'm worried I will do something to shove him away. I'm also legitimately concerned that it's just too soon. I realize I met him one week after I left SS. It's really true that I never missed SS. I missed Blue, and leaving SS drove it home that my baby was dead. But I never missed his dad. I missed the opportunity to try again. I missed the love and support that I needed. I needed SS, and he wasn't there. I guess I need AFF too. He is attentive and loving and supportive. He kisses my blue star tattoo. He looks at me knowingly when someone in the room starts talking about babies. He cries when he imagines what it might be like to lose his son. He is truly the antidote. But then I wonder: is he good enough just like all the other guys were good enough, because I just want to meet somebody already? Is it possible that the first guy I date after my baby dies will be the guy I want to be with for the rest of my life?

Therapist B would probably say no. But I hate her.