Wouldn't it be funny to label the post with the e.g.'s ("scooters, vacation, fall") Or not. September 6th is the very rough estimate. Grad school, eh? Ha. Well, make fun of me, you feminists, I'm not defensive, I swear, except I am; and September 6 is the birthday of the boy who shot me. And after that my period disappeared for eight or nine months and I was so petrified I'd never have children. (Seriously: it kept me awake nights)
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Are we too similar, my... (what should I call him? BD?) and I? The two Pisces moons, so conjunct, so boring. Isn't a trine aspect, or even a square, hotter? "Does having children ruin your life?" --> http://open.salon.com/blog/kryptogal/2009/03/31/does_having_children_ruin_your_life An interesting article
Am I too much an Aphrodite archetype-type; do I only care about men, by which I mean, myself? Do I live for flings and fiasco and false agitation and what patience, what devotion, can I possibly have? Again, what am I doing? Why didn't I wait? It was sheer desperation, reckless impatience, and also... the desire to submerge in the challenge, I apologize for the ellipses, and it was also this:
"I have always known that at last I would take this road, but yesterday I did not know that it would be today." Narihara
Resolve does not make it easy. I have heard the words from the trenches. It will not be easy, but is easy what I was after? Perhaps in the light of my fears which are beyond words, it will be, comparatively, shockingly easy. Maybe the precise opposite. I don't know. It's "natural" to reproduce, it's instinct; today D. said to me - or maybe it was last night - that all my talking was crowding him, and I said he ought to listen, to make me feel listened to which would calm me and probably lead to less of it, but he said, "Everything you're saying is so obvious though." Well, of course, and be prepared for more and more of it. But there is something to it when we seize a truth as our own.
Yes I feel like dying about this, at times. No, I do not feel some rosy, effusive, pickle-oriented and renewed Sense of Purpose. I am not Kendra Wilkinson, I am not the Pastor's wife. I do think that I love my boyfriend, to the point where it was sink or swim, that my desire to keep him in my life was a huge part of my decision, which I know is not politically correct, but how often must this be the case? I know things will be different, that our dynamic will not be, on the surface, as "romantic"; there will be much less, I hope, stormy melodrama, no more throwing furniture (Lord Have Mercy), very diminished quota in terms of bleary-eyed gropey make out sessions at Bridge Street Tavern (to be fair, even before, these were punctuatingly rare). This is how I choose to see it, however: Responsibility is a gift. I have been striving to "find out who I am" as long as I can remember. I'm probably not "ready," but neither is anyone. Am I flippant? Am I trite? I don't know why, but I'm going for this. It's not all I can talk about anymore, but it is something to consider. And whenever I start to wonder what I was possibly thinking, how I'm not at all confident I can get along with my partner, or if he will work, or if I won't just live out my days in a mental hospital after the legendary post-partum shock waves: I try to remember, then, that I would rather have had a baby at 14 then never, selfish as it sounds/is. That everyday, people in much worse situations do this and many even thrive. That the world is filled with murdering, even of children and parents, and child molesting, and all kinds of evil darkness, and when I glance at this reality I realize that I am very blessed indeed, and that it will be fine.
I also firmly believe that my partner will be there for me (though I'm sure many third parties would not predict this), even if we sometimes drive each other nuts, and even- this is the darker part, the part few are aware of or can admit- the way being with someone can actually make you feel lonelier, because nobody ever fits our expectations. I see his inhaler sitting next to me and I want to cry, because I remember how frail he is, how frail we all are. I look wistfully at a man backing up a big truck, at his work, and realize that I have passed up the macho kind of guy. I remember all the hateful words we've spat at each other--realize that the coming together again, the forgiveness we must bring to the table, this is all practice, because surely my child will hate me again and again. Growing up is painful no matter how old you are. Sometimes, I think, we romanticize the wonder of childhood, and forget the terror. Do you remember those nightmares? The dark at night? Going to school for the first time?
My own parents were also, by any objective or cultural standards, woefully unprepared for parenthood. Though I've consistently struggled with profound depression and anxiety, and an indescribable envy against the way 'Others' seem to move through life, I can't say - though I sometimes do - that I don't like being here. D. & I both use the double negative far too much, as do many, I suppose. So what I mean is, I like being here. Though I worry about D & I's combined melancholy quotient (it is very, very high), I remember that we both have found much joy in all those cliche things to find joy in: nature, music, literature, sex, friendship, thinking, food, even suffering. I believe with certain New Age ideologies and branches of Orthodoxy that the child's spirit is on some level a combination of both its parents spirits, and I do think we have strength to offer, no matter how it is hidden and often deranged. ("It will be a tall serial killer," - R.)
So yes, I am not sure that what I am doing is in anyway noble or beneficial. I have been on both sides. I've, after all, "terminated" (and maybe some day I will seize the language to simply say what I have done) and I justified it in the most expansive and philosophical ways, pulling arguments from everywhere, Buddhism, Hinduism, Kierkegaard's spin on Abraham's offering of Isaac. I found solace in the Eastern idea that it was actually selfish to have a child, since life is suffering.
There's so much I want to say, but it all seems like speculation. I don't have the foggiest idea what I'm doing and I'm afraid of becoming dull and my life losing all its edges and not caring about anything. But I see how challenge is positive and how life could open up in ways I've never imagined. It's hard to remember, but I wanted this. I will say this: the day I took the test (Tuesday, I had just come home from my trip) D. & I walked around Hannaford buying many groceries together, saw some people we knew, stopped and chatted amiably, pushed the cart, and I was very happy, very expansive, with my coffee. And then, I was in the hygiene area, and went to buy sanitary napkins, expecting my period that day or the next. And though I have always appreciated menstruation and in fact losing it is one of the hardest parts for me to swallow- imagining the crack of feminine knowing plugged up, but that is no way to think, and I will combat it with intellectual hunting, and remembering the methodologies of Blessings; or, more simply but also more profoundly, the heartening examples of others; and speaking of "heartening," there is much to be said for tidying up - I didn't want to buy those pads. I didn't want to menstruate. I wanted the superfluous line of this funny little journey I've - let's make no "mistake"- purposely undertaken. P.S. I'm planning on procuring interesting job soon.
Love,
Spicy Shalom
