RenovationGirl

A Quiet Morning

It is very rare that I get to enjoy a quiet morning alone with a cup of coffee and just be. Today is one of those days...mind you, I have already gotten Builder Boy off to school complete with sleeping through the first alarm, construction that made the 5 minutes drive almost 15 minutes, or the hour of work I've already done, so this wasn't exactly a roll out of bed and enjoy the quiet kind of day. Nonetheless, after all the morning craziness, I grabbed my cup of coffee and here I am.

Just being.

Just thinking.

Just enjoying the cat purring on the couch behind me

...the wind rattling these 130 year old windows

...the cars rolling by on the street outside

...the sound of the furnace kicking on to warm the house.

The day ahead holds a few smaller projects that will finally be checked of my list after too long, a mountain of exams to finish grading, some lessons to be planned, a dinner to be cooked, and some laundry to fold, but for the now, they are just the future. And for once, I am just enjoying the now.

Have a good day, everyone!

The Year of Me

I usually hate New Year's Eve. It is such a lot of pressure (a big party! the perfect dress! ) for just another 11:59 PM turning to 12:00 AM. A sadness overcomes me as I recognize how quickly time is passing (especially since becoming a mother) and I have trouble looking to the year ahead. This year, however, New Year's kind of sneaked up on me and I was like, whatever! (as the kids say...) I mentioned to Remodel Man that past years, I was ready to kick the previous year in the butt-they had been filled with tragedy and sorrow, illness and strife-but this year, well, it just was. He kind of looked at me funny, and waited. And waited. And waited. I guess I'm kind of slow because it hadn't occurred to me that this year, too, was sorrowful. We lost our fourth baby. We had two failed IUI cycles. I had a breast cancer scare. I had heart issues. I was horribly depressed.

Wow. Not exactly an easy year.

But this year's passing was a bit different. While our infertility journey ended and we still hurt over that, we feel resolved that we are done. We are a family of three. This is okay. We have learned to deal with this and have moved on. While there are reminders of it everywhere, we experience momentary sadness, then pick up and move on. There is an intense relief in this. So as we moved from 2011 to 2012, it was with a sense of, eh, whatever.

This year, however, I have dubbed "The Year of Me." This sounds incredibly selfish, doesn't it? I don't mean it to be, but I do need to focus on me a bit more. My health is suffering. My mental wellness is, well, pathetic. My life is a constant chaotic mess. This all needs to change and only I can do that. Hence, the year of me. While I don't want to make resolutions, I do want to better myself through all the normal New Year resolutions kind of way. Exercise. Better eating. Getting organized. Paying down our debt. Being more mindful. Working more on my spiritual side. See, all the normal things.

So here I am, embarking on another year with the resolution to be a better person. The Year of Me! Yippee!!

It Was a Long Time Coming

I have numerous drafted posts that continue to sit in my drafts folder. It seemed that every single one was filled with bitterness, negativity, and cynicism. They are downright pathetic and depressing. They were also raw and honest. I wanted to post them because of that-their honesty-but during the Christmas season, they didn't seem to have a place. The blogosphere was filled with joyous posts filled with all a litany of how every feels so blessed and hopeful and peaceful-and I just wasn't feeling it. Until Christmas Day. There on Christmas Day full of the stress of hosting my first Christmas dinner in a house that continues to be messy, cluttered and dirty, this feeling washed over me. Of relief. Of joy. Of contentment. Of hope.

Life continues to throw what feels like a constant curve ball at me. The bills continue to pile up. I am still confronted with my body's failure to reproduce again successfully. The clutter that envelops my home has a strangling hold on me. Yet, at a particularly stressful moment on Christmas Day (you know that moment when your home is filled with guests and the meal is just about to be served and every.single.food item.needs to be hot ten minutes ago!!), I felt washed over with peace because...

There sat my aunt who just finished her chemo treatments, whose hair is starting to grow back, who delighted in the presence of all of us...

There sat my dad whom we almost lost three years ago on Christmas Day. He sat contentedly with Deconstructor cat #1 filling his lap in all his big-boned sweetness, watching my son explore the new toys and Lego sets and books he had just received...

There played my son, revelling in the most exciting of days as Santa brought him two of the three Lego sets he wanted (yea, Santa couldn't afford the $400 Death Star Lego set!) loving on all of us there...

There sat my mother, who has had a tough year, yet never complained, who finally allowed herself to relax and let me and my sister handle the meal...who adores her grandson more than anything in the world...

There sat my newly engaged cousin with her about to deploy fiancee, happy and full of excitement about their future life together.

All this unbridled joy in my home, under my roof, not marred by the clutter or dirt or disorganization. Just there, filling my home. And for the first time in a long time, I felt lighter and happy and content.

I hope this same feeling reached you and yours this Christmas season. I am hopeful it will stick around in the new year...for me and for you.

Let's Bake Some Damn Gingerbread Pirates

Today is our last day off after Thanksgiving. I am always grateful for this extra day. Since I worked Black Friday (and by Black Friday, I actually mean Thanksgiving night as we head to clock in by 11:45 to work the opening midnight shift...another post on that to follow...), I spent all of Friday recovering. Apparently, my body can't handle a 24 hour day like it used to! Builder Boy and I are both off today, and after a weekend of work, recovery, cleaning, and more work, I set a to-do list that included mostly things we do together, and with as little television as possible. On my list was read together, work on his homework, and study for yet another test (did I mention that he has a test almost every day of the week???). On his list was bake gingerbread pirates. Yay! Get some holiday baking done, spend some time together, and have him removed from the television for a few hours-it was win/win.

Our day had been going well...shortly after he got up, he asked to watch Empire Strikes Back. I was still finishing up some grading I was working on, so I put the movie on, made him some popcorn, and knocked a few things off of my list of to-dos. We had lunch and then settled in to bake some cookies. During a conversation, I answered a question he asked (when can he start using his advent calendar?) and he was not pleased with the answer (Thursday). "But Dad told me advent started Wednesday!" Me: "Well, he must have not looked at the calendar...December 1st is Thursday..." BB: "No, it's not. Dad said Wednesdsay." Me: "Well, buddy, I'm looking at a calendar and it says Thursday." BB: "Well, it's wrong. Dad said..." We went round and round like this for awhile until I hit my breaking point.

This happens a lot around here...Dad is always right, mom is always wrong, and stupid, and not as smart as a teenager (Builder Boy's words, not mine...). I have told him before how hurtful these words are. I've asked him to imagine what it would feel like if someone said that to him, but he doesn't get it. I'm his mom, a metaphoric punching bag for him. I get it...he and his Dad are the best of buds...a lot of that comes from the common interest in all things boy. But a lot of it comes from the fact that I am always working. Always. If I'm home, I'm cleaning, cooking, paying bills, working my cyber teaching job, grading papers. Or I'm at school or my retail job. Dad is here in the morning to get him off to school. He's here on the weekends and nights when I work my retail job. He's here to play with while I make dinner or make calls for work. Dad is here. Mom is not. To say I am okay with this would be lying.

I see the major divide. Them versus me. The boys against the girl. I have no other children to take to a movie or read with or be stupid for. When Builder Boy hangs out with Remodel Man, I am alone. Just me. By myself, existing in all the failure I see surrounding me. Being reminded of my infertility. Forcing me to acknowledge how I've failed to reproduce and even worse, failed to be the mom I wanted to be to the child I do have. Friends are too busy or too far away to fill the void. Just me.

So today, as I informed Builder Boy in no uncertain terms that I am NOT stupid and it's hurtful when he says that, I turned to him and said, "Now let's bake some damn gingerbread pirates!" Yea, how's that for some good bonding time with the world's greatest mother. Perhaps I should just find a fourth job to take...

I'm Still Here

Hi. Remember me? I used to blog here regularly. I blogged about my infertility. I blogged about my miscarriages. I blogged about my home and my family and my many jobs.

And now?

I'm not blogging. Clearly...

I'm not reading blogs. If I read blogs, I'm not commenting.

Why? I just don't have time. I just don't. And when I have five minutes to myself, I still have papers to grade and rooms to clean and bills to pay.

I miss it and it makes me sad and I hope that I will be able to write a bit more soon.

In the meantime, I hope that life is treating you all well. Happy Thanksgiving.

Present and Accounted For

Hi there. Here I am! A horribly bad blogger. A horribly overwhelmed human being. A horrible person who at this very moment in time should be doing 10 other things, but I figured I'd better get something up here or I'd lose all of my readers (all five of you!). Since eloquence has gone out the window only to be replaced with incoherence and exhaustion, I will leave you snippets of my life right now.

The reasons I am a bad blogger:

1. Last year, I had 44 students at one job and 23 students at my other job. This year, I have 87 students at one job and 115 at my other job. Um, yeah....

2. Builder Boy is in first grade...it's going to kill me.

3. We have at least 7 projects going on at the moment...all need to be finished and there is only one Remodel Man and no money or time.

4. I took a good look at our finances the other day. If you're me, I don't recommend doing this.

5. I have a new boss at my job...this person does not have any education experience. It's comical, and sad, and a very public situation.

6. I am begging for technology for my classroom...and by technology, I mean an overhead projector that works. Hello, 1978! (I'd love a VHS that works, too, but really, that would be way to 1985 for us!)

7. My brain is mush.

8. I realized the other day that if I died tomorrow, I would die unhappy, and that would make me even unhappier. (Yea, I get it, I'd be dead and all, but you know what I mean.).

9. My prayers have gone from asking for help and guidance to downright begging. I'm thinking the Lord thinks I'm kind of pathetic.

10. Pregnant women and babies are all around me...I'm doing mostly well with it. Mostly. Well, sort of okay. Okay, let's just say that all those years of acting are an immense help to me right now.

11. I am gaining weight. I'm flabbergasted by this. Yet, I won't stop eating.

I cannot tell you how many times I have opened up my Compose Post page, filled with words and thoughts and ideas, only to close in back up in fear. Fear of what? No idea, but I close up once I actually commit to writing. I think it's partly because I've said it all before...there's no new ideas in there. I live the same day, month, year, over and over again, and frankly put, it's depressing. So very many of my blog friends are joyful where they are in their lives and I don't want to rain on their parade. So I don't write. And yet I want to. But I don't. ARRRRGHH!!!

I'm still here and hoping that this post will open the floodgates. That I will make time to write. But this school year is kicking my butt, so all I can promise is that I'll do my best.

Back At It

Tomorrow is the first official day of school for where I work.  No big deal....this will be the twelfth year I head into the classroom. I have done this twelve times before.  I am not at all prepared...not my classroom, not my lessons, not my photocopies.  Nothing.  But I am a veteran teacher with years of experience, lots of skill, and a calling to teach, so I will manage. The teaching part, that's easy.

The being in the school again, well, that's been kind of rough. 

As I sat around last week at our in service sessions, it occured to me that when I had been here last,  I was pregnant.  Inside of me a life was struggling to grow.  As I moved around the building, I took care to remember this little life inside of me, so desperately wanted, but destined to leave us.  As I cleaned up my classroom, I thought, "This time next year, you'll be in my arms."  And I thought I was cleaning up the room for the last time ever.

The remembrance of this fact, the fact that I had been pregnant when I was last at work hit me kind of hard.  I found it hard to listen to how fabulous everyone's summer breaks had been.  How relaxing!  How fun!  How joyous!  I thought of all the doctors appointments, the surgery I went to and managed alone that took my fourth child from me, of my aunt's cancer treatments and my own breast cancer scare, my chest pains and anxiety, my impatience with Builder Boy, and all the hours lost between appointments-and I was angry.  All of a sudden, out of the blue, it all hit me all over again. I lost my baby.  I lost four babies.  How did this become my life?

I'm not sure why the work environment brought it all back, but it did.  It's not a constant feeling, but just a nagging sensation of something being off.  Tomorrow will come, and I will face the day with purpose and fortitude because I have to.  These feelings will wear off like they have at home, in the car, or when telling others about our struggles, but that won't stop that nagging sensation of the swelling belly I would be sporting now or the new maternity clothes that would be working their way into my wardrobe.  Perhaps once I make it through the nine months that would have been, I can shake off this feeling of missing something. Until then, did I leave the oven on?  No?  Hmmm...did I forget to lock the door?  No? 

Oh yeah, that's right, I lost my baby. 

 

 

Everyone But Me

I work part-time in a pharmacy.  I see what scripts come in and what prescriptions go out.  I know that huge number of the population on some type of anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, anti-your-life-sucks-and-you-need-to-take-the-edge-off.  I also know that many, many friends place a call to their doctors asking for anti-whatever, and over the phone get prescribed something.  Isn't everyone on something??? 

So imagine my surprise when my doctor refused to put me on something for my horrible, can't breathe, think I'm suffocating, anxiety attacks I've been having.  For years, I have suffered...I have meditated, and drank chamomile tea, I have talked with friends and blogged, I have thrown things and petted things.  I have tried to overcome this alone, not afraid to ask the doctor, but convinced that it would go away-but it hasn't.  But she doesn't care about this...she still refused to put me on something. Instead, she is forcing me into therapy.

Not let me state clearly that I am a huge proponent of therapy.  I believe we all can benefit from a little therapy now and then.  I have sent myself to therapy years ago to get over a broken heart that was refusing to heal...it helped.  It really did.  It helped me see why I was feeling that way I was feeling and it allowed me to talk about the situation freely without judgement or worry.  But this time, it's different. I know what I am feeling.  I talk about it all the time to anyone who will pretend to  listen.  I blog about it.  I read others going through it.  I seek help from those who understand.  I cry.  I get angry.  I let myself feel all the yucky the infertility brings.  I'm sad.  I'm mourning.  I'm angry.  What can the therapist possibly tell me that will shed any light on this?  Yes, I'm sure there's things we can talk about, I'm sure the therapist will show me the many errors of my ways since birth (and the ways of my parents, too, no doubt), but what good will that do?  When you are already stressed to the hilt because you don't have time to anything, what will adding another appointment 35 minutes away do to help?  Having to pay for a babysitter with money I don't have to go to an appointment to talk about feelings I acknowledge every day? 

I'm so angry about this.  I understand thattruly, general practitioners should not be doling out prescriptions for psychiatric drugs.  It's not their specialty.  But when you have a patient who jumps through all your flaming hoops (bloodwork, stress tests, echo, EKGs), who deals with you honestly, who pays her $20 copay twice in two weeks so you can meet with her for five minutes, who admits that she's pretty sure she would only want a short-term prescription to get over this nasty hump she finds herself at, why could you not throw her a bone?  Give her three months, for goodness' sake! 

The general consensus is to find another doctor, which I will do in the near future.  For now, though, I'm just dealing.  Not drugs, of course, since I can't get a darn prescription for anything...but dealing nonetheless.

A Hushed Message

A few days ago, a got home from work to a message on our voice mail.  In very hushed tones, PorscheNut said, "Hey, call me back when you get a chance.  I have a story to tell you.  Porsche Peanut told me she and Builder Boy were playing truth or dare in his bedroom..." Click. 

Um.......

Since it was late at night, I couldn't call back right then, but truth be told, I wasn't ready to call back.  I wanted to talk first with Builder Boy to get the scoop, or at least hisscoop, as well as collect myself.  We knew the day would come when we'd have to worry about the boy/girl thing, but they're only going into first grade!  I was getting a little hysterical on the inside thinking of all the things they could have been doing during the clandestine game of truth or dare.  And since I have the boy, well, I was sure it'd be his fault whether is was his fault or not. 

In the meantime, before I could begin the interrogation, I talked with PorscheNut.  The following morning, I questioned Builder Boy about the situation. 

Me: (slyly) Builder Boy, were you and Porsche Peanut playing truth or dare in your bedroom?

BB: (without missing a beat) No. 

Me: (thoughtful)  Hmmm...really?  Because Porsche Peanut said you guys were...

BB:  (introspective silence)

Me:  (going in for the kill) You wouldn't have been daring one another to lick the bottoms of your feet, would you?

BB:  (stopping suddenly, he throws this over his shoulder) Stay out of my business, Mama! (and stomps off)

Oh boy, we're in trouble...

Approach With Fortitude Then Run Away Scared

I did it today...well, part of it.  I've dreaded it for years now.  The thought of it made me physically ill and created panic attacks of epic proportions.  But I put on my big girl panties, walked up those flights of stairs to our third floor and walked right up to those boxes and bins.  I walked up to them, determined that I would show them who's boss around here.  I waded through piles of stored items until in the farthest corner of the room, buried deep amongst Christmas wrapping paper, newly put away preschool toys, a play kitchen, and cookie tins, there they were in all their glory.

It was a bit of a showdown...I stared at them, and they stared right back in all their dusty glory.  I would not be deterred, no sir.  I dropped my hand right into their midst and grabbed the first thing my hand felt-a small bag. I whisked them away from their counterparts, bigger and fuller boxes and bags, and marched back downstairs, threw them on my bed, prepared to show them that I meant business.  I ripped open that bag and the items scattered across the freshly made linens. 

Oh...

It took my breath away.  Literally stole the breath from my body.  Out tumbled pastel fluffiness.  And I thought my heart might break. 

In this small bag of items that had been forgotten when the initial box of baby items had been sent into storage seclusion was a mishmash of babyhood.  A few small changing pads, a few bibs, a couple of hats, and a sheet for the pack and play.  That's it.  Nothing more.  No cute socks, or a favorite outfits, or cuddly blankets.  Nothing that held any particular memory.  Yet, that mishmash of forgotten items with no particular memory instead held all the memories.  All the things I have feared facing as we end our journey. 

I have left all of Builder Boy's clothes, toys, and linens untouched.  We have had no need for the space, and so there has been no need to purge any of the baby things.  I kept them at first for our next baby.  When the next baby alluded us, I kept it for the "just in case baby."  But "just in case" baby has become "never gonna happen baby."  It's time.  I feel it.  It's time to let go...of the journey, or the dream...and all of the baggage that goes with it.

In the midst of writing this,  reliving that brief moment, I had to stop.  On the verge of hysteria, my only thought was, "Call PorscheNut."  We spent some time crying on the phone together...she's already done this purging of baby items...and talking about how it was the memories that mattered, not the things, and that this parenting step was so incredibly hard.  Now still feels like the right time, though.  With Black Belt Mama expecting her baby boy soon, now is the time to move on, let someone else use the precious items.  It seems a whole lot easier to give them to someone I love instead of packing them up in garbage bags to be sifted through at Goodwill. 

I ran away from that little bag upstairs.  It's all waiting for me on my bed.  I will have to confront it at some point before bedtime.  Then again, I can always sleep in the spare room...