Subtitle: "Don't Stop Believin.'"
Man, I love Glee. I love the music and the silliness and everything.
Most of all, I love how passionate these characters are. How much they believe in the power of what they do. The power of singing, the idea that many voices together can change the world. It makes me feel sad and kind of lost to watch their beautiful, brilliant faith.
I stopped believing in the power of a voice.
Once upon a time, I was accepted to a PhD program. I'm not saying which one (although if you know me, you probably know which one) -- let's just say it's big and mighty and impressive.
And then, I won a scholarship to cover a year's tuition.
And I didn't go.
Going to this school would have meant an insane amount of loans, as they didn't accept my master's degree and could offer no funding other than the scholarship. So I was going to go for six - seven years. And then graduate and go find a job.
Let's talk about my pal Jess for a minute. Jess lives in the same town as me. Jess holds a doctorate. Jess has been unable to find work in her discipline for almost as long as I have lived in this frozen wasteland. Additionally, nobody else wants to hire her -- not to clean houses, not to answer phones, not to work a cash register.
So I probably wouldn't graduate and find a job. No, I would be unemployed and sitting on $250,000 (oh yeah, that's my calculation) worth of student debt. And I would be unemployable just about everywhere else. That was one of my rationalizations.
Rationalization #2: My dad is dying. My mom's a little off her rocker. My grandma's a feisty 85-year old lady, but she can't live forever. They all live in the Southeast, and I want to be able to spend time with them while I can.
So, I rationalized. It was until I was talking with a friend fully 2 years after I resigned from school that I finally admitted that I hadn't gone. I hadn't been able to tell my mentors, because I felt so badly about it. And my friend, who is a wise and good friend, told me that it wasn't the right fit. Which it wasn't, and which I'm coming to terms with.
This blog post, however, is not about th path not taken.
This is about disillusionment and self-worth.
When I was at university, I had Work. No, that's not a typo. I know it's pretentious, but it's how I saw it in my mind's eye. I believed in my Work -- single-mindedly, purposefully. While attempting to continue my Work at this Big Midwest University (BMU, henceforth) I was continually shut down. Classes that would continue the Work were not allowed. Classes that had nothing to do with it were encouraged (and, mind you, I love learning for learning's sake, but not for a quarter of a million dollars and not when I have ALREADY STUDIED THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS. In the original Latin, natch.)
I know this really supports my pal's claim that this program wasn't right for me -- and it's not -- but the denial of my work (I can't keep doing the capital W -- I'm starting to hate myself) was really disheartening. And so, when I didn't go to BMU, I was already feeling poorly -- because what I wanted and needed to do was being marginalized by the machine.
I didn't go get my doctorate, and I couldn't admit it to the women who so encouraged me. I wouldn't have been able to understand it myself -- you got in, why didn't you go? I couldn't really pull myself out of this spiral. I begged anyone and everyone I trusted to make the decision for me. In the end, I had to say no myself and deal with the consequences, far-reaching as they are.
I thought I had healed by the time I was working again. And teaching again. And then I realized last week how bad it all was.
I was watching This Week With Christiane Amanpour, and her panel was discussing the mosque in NYC. While watching it, I discerned that each side is so caught up in anger and righteousness that they now fight only to win. Not to do the right thing, or to educate others, but to be the victor in this fight.
And I didn't care.
I didn't realize how incredible it was that I didn't care -- this would ordinarily, be a key piece in my work -- but lately I've been reconsidering a doctoral program again.
It was immediately distasteful, yet compelling. So much of my own self-image was of myself as a scholar, and I wanted to take up those reins again. But also, I didn't -- because I don't know if I'll survive that kind of heartbreak again. People may hurt you -- everybody acknowledges that. But to damage yourself, even for the right reasons, is a hurt one really cannot prepare for.
I had finally admitted to my mentors that I didn't go to BMU. One of them gently told me to get back on the educational horse. I think she's right, but first I have to recover what it was that I killed two years ago, when I stopped reading literature in my subject, or any literature of protest or self-actualization. I haven't seen a film on my subject in over two years. I don't even listen to my language cds for brush-up. Why?
Because I stopped believing in the power of words to change the world. And that, my friends, is what I could not forgive myself for. But lately, I'm beginning to believe again. And that is precious and hopeful.
Oh, and mosque-debaters? Stop fighting to win and fight for what's right.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Food Is Love
I became a vegetarian this year. Mostly out of rejection for a fast-food culture and a desire to heal my husband's Crohn's disease and my own migraine headaches via the stuff we eat, and also because I am disgusted with Americans' relationships to food. Unfortunately, this has put a deep chink in the relationship I have with my parents.
My mother thinks that in some sense I am rejecting her. I get it. To my mother, food is love.
When I told my mother I was a vegetarian, she became anxious, and immediately began suggesting meat for me to eat.
“Venison is low in fat.”
“Mom, I’m not doing this to lose weight. I’m doing this to be healthier, and because I
don’t want to eat things that suffered for me to eat them.”
“What about chicken? Chicken isn’t meat!” Sometimes my mother doesn’t pay attention in her panic.
“No chicken, mom. I took two cans of chicken over to the food pantry today.”
“But you’ll still eat fish, right?”
“I’ll make it simple. If it can be categorized as ‘dead,’ or if it had to be killed in order for me to eat it, then no – I won’t be eating it anymore. This includes things like fish, meat, poultry, and shellfish. So no shrimp.”
Silence.
My mom doesn’t realize that her panic has less to do with my physical health and more to do with our emotional bond. Jonathan Safran Foer points out that eating is as much of the fabric of culture as anything else – but I’m pretty certain it goes farther than that.
In my family, the only thing that will pull us together is a holiday meal, and sometimes that isn’t even enough. My grandmother’s children fight like pitbulls on PCP, and mostly it is my sister and I who now plan holiday meals and send invitations and attempt to make a cease-fire. I am the preparer of the turkey – although I should now say that I was. My sister and I shoulder(ed) the burden for every holiday meal that was served at my grandmother’s house. My mom may be thinking that I won’t be preparing these feasts anymore – but I simply won’t be preparing the turkey. Let’s face it, it was all I could do to prepare the damn bird anyway – I nearly threw up in the cavity every time I had to stick my arm inside it. Nothing grosses me out more than a giant turkey carcass with its white birdy flesh. I never actually ate much of the stupid turkey, anyway – I was too tired and too disgusted by the time the whole ordeal was over. I had to wait a day or two before I could stand to look at the meat.
Enough on the carcass, back to the family – showing up at the meal means that you accept the love. Because food means love. Provisions are given for those who live far away, but for those within driving distance, it is a denial of emotional bounds, a severing of ties, a denial of love.
I think the idea of food as love in this family originated with my German great-grandmother. She came from pre-Nazi Germany, and while not a Jew, I am certain still suffered from poverty. I’m not trying to minimize, but simply to point out that Germany before the rise of the Third Reich was a bad place for everyone. To leave that kind of extreme situation and come to the bounty of America must have been overwhelming. I get the sense that she spent a long time trying to compensate for the hunger she suffered.
My mother says that she served frosted cinnamon rolls. With butter. In point of fact, she served everything that could be buttered with butter, and some things (like the frosted cinnamon rolls) that you wouldn’t really serve with butter. Butter lived on her table. One of my uncles butters the bread he uses to make tuna salad sandwiches. My mother butters turkey sandwiches she then puts mayonnaise on.
Why all the butter?
It’s a long answer. Let’s put the butter aside for a moment, and talk about emotional eating.
If you think you’re not an emotional eater, I bet you are. If you have a favorite food or foods, or if I can get you to hop in the car with me right now by promising to take you to your favorite restaurant no matter where it is in the contiguous 48 and pay the bill no matter how high it goes, there is, somewhere in you, an emotional tie to food. Chocoholic? Emotional. Coffee addict? Emotional/physical. Ever been “on a diet?” Oh, boy. Denying or restricting in any way is emotional right there.
Now my mom’s family – emotional eaters. They deny it. Two uncles who are obese (one dead, complications from diabetes) one anorexic, one obese mother (heading into morbidity). I’m sure that this seems like a complicated landscape – but we have skipped the generation that will put this picture in focus. The missing fork, as it were.
The lost generation here is my grandparents. My grandmother hates to cook. She doesn’t much care about food, though she does have her preferences, which are mostly convenience foods and Cheetos. She is suspicious of those who do like to cook. I suspect this is a class difference for her – having been raised as a very wealthy young lady and educated, cooking was not something she did but something that was done for her. When she, as a rebellious teenager, eloped with my working-class grandfather, (he of the German mother with the affinity for butter) she found herself attached to a man who expected her to get in the kitchen and make something. Every day. Three times a day. And did not applaud her efforts as superhuman, but instead considered them mundane. This is not a judgment against my grandfather, but rather a statement of fact. I get the sense that his philosophy was that he worked, so he thought she should, as well.
It should go without saying that my sister and I consider(ed) my grandmother a horrible cook. Food was frequently served cold at her house, either oversalted or bland. On one notable occasion, I mistook homemade mashed potatoes for powdered instant potatoes and therefore gagged on the lump I found, which in fact was a large lump of unmashed boiled potato, and not a large lump of congealed flakes, as I originally thought. Since food = love, you can probably understand from this metaphor that my grandmother was not a demonstrably affectionate woman. As her children were looking for affection and warmth, they of course went to the maternal arms of their grandmother, who fed them emotionally and physically. Often at the same time.
Now, I’m not faulting my grandmother here – I would have resented my kitchen as well; much the same way that I resented my cell phone when I had a boss who rang it incessantly. In point of fact, she often jokes that she only has a kitchen “because it comes with the house.”
To this day, my grandmother’s children are food-reward trained. They feel justified in giving themselves ice cream for good deeds, behavior – even a good workout. They’ve passed it on to their children, who use a particularly strenuous workout as an excuse to go out for pizza. But with this comes a particular self-loathing, along with a certain cognitive dissonance and blindness – all of which comes down to one simple equation: If food is love, this love will kill you.
My mother thinks that in some sense I am rejecting her. I get it. To my mother, food is love.
When I told my mother I was a vegetarian, she became anxious, and immediately began suggesting meat for me to eat.
“Venison is low in fat.”
“Mom, I’m not doing this to lose weight. I’m doing this to be healthier, and because I
don’t want to eat things that suffered for me to eat them.”
“What about chicken? Chicken isn’t meat!” Sometimes my mother doesn’t pay attention in her panic.
“No chicken, mom. I took two cans of chicken over to the food pantry today.”
“But you’ll still eat fish, right?”
“I’ll make it simple. If it can be categorized as ‘dead,’ or if it had to be killed in order for me to eat it, then no – I won’t be eating it anymore. This includes things like fish, meat, poultry, and shellfish. So no shrimp.”
Silence.
My mom doesn’t realize that her panic has less to do with my physical health and more to do with our emotional bond. Jonathan Safran Foer points out that eating is as much of the fabric of culture as anything else – but I’m pretty certain it goes farther than that.
In my family, the only thing that will pull us together is a holiday meal, and sometimes that isn’t even enough. My grandmother’s children fight like pitbulls on PCP, and mostly it is my sister and I who now plan holiday meals and send invitations and attempt to make a cease-fire. I am the preparer of the turkey – although I should now say that I was. My sister and I shoulder(ed) the burden for every holiday meal that was served at my grandmother’s house. My mom may be thinking that I won’t be preparing these feasts anymore – but I simply won’t be preparing the turkey. Let’s face it, it was all I could do to prepare the damn bird anyway – I nearly threw up in the cavity every time I had to stick my arm inside it. Nothing grosses me out more than a giant turkey carcass with its white birdy flesh. I never actually ate much of the stupid turkey, anyway – I was too tired and too disgusted by the time the whole ordeal was over. I had to wait a day or two before I could stand to look at the meat.
Enough on the carcass, back to the family – showing up at the meal means that you accept the love. Because food means love. Provisions are given for those who live far away, but for those within driving distance, it is a denial of emotional bounds, a severing of ties, a denial of love.
I think the idea of food as love in this family originated with my German great-grandmother. She came from pre-Nazi Germany, and while not a Jew, I am certain still suffered from poverty. I’m not trying to minimize, but simply to point out that Germany before the rise of the Third Reich was a bad place for everyone. To leave that kind of extreme situation and come to the bounty of America must have been overwhelming. I get the sense that she spent a long time trying to compensate for the hunger she suffered.
My mother says that she served frosted cinnamon rolls. With butter. In point of fact, she served everything that could be buttered with butter, and some things (like the frosted cinnamon rolls) that you wouldn’t really serve with butter. Butter lived on her table. One of my uncles butters the bread he uses to make tuna salad sandwiches. My mother butters turkey sandwiches she then puts mayonnaise on.
Why all the butter?
It’s a long answer. Let’s put the butter aside for a moment, and talk about emotional eating.
If you think you’re not an emotional eater, I bet you are. If you have a favorite food or foods, or if I can get you to hop in the car with me right now by promising to take you to your favorite restaurant no matter where it is in the contiguous 48 and pay the bill no matter how high it goes, there is, somewhere in you, an emotional tie to food. Chocoholic? Emotional. Coffee addict? Emotional/physical. Ever been “on a diet?” Oh, boy. Denying or restricting in any way is emotional right there.
Now my mom’s family – emotional eaters. They deny it. Two uncles who are obese (one dead, complications from diabetes) one anorexic, one obese mother (heading into morbidity). I’m sure that this seems like a complicated landscape – but we have skipped the generation that will put this picture in focus. The missing fork, as it were.
The lost generation here is my grandparents. My grandmother hates to cook. She doesn’t much care about food, though she does have her preferences, which are mostly convenience foods and Cheetos. She is suspicious of those who do like to cook. I suspect this is a class difference for her – having been raised as a very wealthy young lady and educated, cooking was not something she did but something that was done for her. When she, as a rebellious teenager, eloped with my working-class grandfather, (he of the German mother with the affinity for butter) she found herself attached to a man who expected her to get in the kitchen and make something. Every day. Three times a day. And did not applaud her efforts as superhuman, but instead considered them mundane. This is not a judgment against my grandfather, but rather a statement of fact. I get the sense that his philosophy was that he worked, so he thought she should, as well.
It should go without saying that my sister and I consider(ed) my grandmother a horrible cook. Food was frequently served cold at her house, either oversalted or bland. On one notable occasion, I mistook homemade mashed potatoes for powdered instant potatoes and therefore gagged on the lump I found, which in fact was a large lump of unmashed boiled potato, and not a large lump of congealed flakes, as I originally thought. Since food = love, you can probably understand from this metaphor that my grandmother was not a demonstrably affectionate woman. As her children were looking for affection and warmth, they of course went to the maternal arms of their grandmother, who fed them emotionally and physically. Often at the same time.
Now, I’m not faulting my grandmother here – I would have resented my kitchen as well; much the same way that I resented my cell phone when I had a boss who rang it incessantly. In point of fact, she often jokes that she only has a kitchen “because it comes with the house.”
To this day, my grandmother’s children are food-reward trained. They feel justified in giving themselves ice cream for good deeds, behavior – even a good workout. They’ve passed it on to their children, who use a particularly strenuous workout as an excuse to go out for pizza. But with this comes a particular self-loathing, along with a certain cognitive dissonance and blindness – all of which comes down to one simple equation: If food is love, this love will kill you.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thou shalt not google.
I was originally planning to write a list of "Ten Commandments For When You Are A Broken Typewriter," but they all boiled down to the above: THOU SHALT NOT GOOGLE. Google can only hurt you in these instances. And as the daughter of a hypochondriac and a medical-procedure addict, I've always tried to keep self-diagnosis to a minimum. I like to roll in to a doctor's office, list off my symptoms, and let them tell me what it is.*
Unfortunately, my situation of the last few months has made me opt to throw my normal rules, for the most part, out the window. Googling will only do two things:
1. It will keep hope alive.
2. It will terrify you even more.
What is below is an abbreviated stream-of-consciousness googlefest.
1. I googled my symptoms via WebMD (and this was suggested by myenabler husband. I was pregnant! Hope lives! Then, negative blood test results come in. Hope dies.
2. I googled PCOS. Symptoms list: Cystic ovaries, obesity, marked hairiness. Now, I defy anyone to find a woman who doesn't think she's fatter than she should be and also hairier than she should be, but this is not helpful. I pictured myself in three years as a cross between a Wookie and Jabba the Hut. I am too vain for this, and begin researching electrolysis and lipo. Also, since these are really areas along a spectrum, isn't it possible I'm already hairy and growing stout? I mean, if I was hairy I wouldn't tell anyone about it. Except my husband, from whom I have extracted a promise to have someone come in and tweeze me every week if I'm ever incapacitated.
3. I googled thyroid problems. I'll never be the lucky bitch with a thyroid problem who continually loses weight,** I'll only be the fat one with ADD and tingly hands. Fortunately, I won't be hairy.
4. Cannot look at the dark side of the coin anymore. Begin googling "pregnancy" and "negative blood tests." Find a chat room in which somebody has posted that they had negative blood tests and now have a kid. Hope has a faint pulse.
5. Discover other nasty things to read about on google, like "miscarriage" and "ectopic pregnancy." Alternate between sad and scared. I mean, Christina Yang from Grey's Anatomy almost DIED from an ectopic pregnancy.
6. Repeat 1-5. A couple of times. And by "couple of times" I mean "couple hundred times."
7. Discover am definitely not pregnant. Fall into funk. Wonder if I'll be lovable once I only speak in honks and have a chick in a bikini chained to me. Although why I'd want to look at some skinny bitch is beyond me.
8. Receive email from friend who points out that you only get fat and hairy if you are already fat and hairy, leading me to think that it's less a symptom and more a cause. Consider writing letter to WebMD and every other medical site protesting. Realize it's not only futile, but that I really only did it to myself.
*Hilarious side story: Once, in the throes of agony due to sinus infection over the hoildays, I went to the emergency room. I told the doctor that I was feeling pain and pressure in my upper jaw and that it was pain similar to the last time I had a sinus infection. He looked at me and asked, "What do you want me to do?" I want you to make the pain stop and the infection go away, Buddy. What, you thought I came here to tell you that and now I'm ready to leave?
**I'm not minimizing thyroid problems here, folks. I'm only relating my complete and total shallow reactions that are totally looks-based. Because that's how I roll.
Unfortunately, my situation of the last few months has made me opt to throw my normal rules, for the most part, out the window. Googling will only do two things:
1. It will keep hope alive.
2. It will terrify you even more.
What is below is an abbreviated stream-of-consciousness googlefest.
1. I googled my symptoms via WebMD (and this was suggested by my
2. I googled PCOS. Symptoms list: Cystic ovaries, obesity, marked hairiness. Now, I defy anyone to find a woman who doesn't think she's fatter than she should be and also hairier than she should be, but this is not helpful. I pictured myself in three years as a cross between a Wookie and Jabba the Hut. I am too vain for this, and begin researching electrolysis and lipo. Also, since these are really areas along a spectrum, isn't it possible I'm already hairy and growing stout? I mean, if I was hairy I wouldn't tell anyone about it. Except my husband, from whom I have extracted a promise to have someone come in and tweeze me every week if I'm ever incapacitated.
3. I googled thyroid problems. I'll never be the lucky bitch with a thyroid problem who continually loses weight,** I'll only be the fat one with ADD and tingly hands. Fortunately, I won't be hairy.
4. Cannot look at the dark side of the coin anymore. Begin googling "pregnancy" and "negative blood tests." Find a chat room in which somebody has posted that they had negative blood tests and now have a kid. Hope has a faint pulse.
5. Discover other nasty things to read about on google, like "miscarriage" and "ectopic pregnancy." Alternate between sad and scared. I mean, Christina Yang from Grey's Anatomy almost DIED from an ectopic pregnancy.
6. Repeat 1-5. A couple of times. And by "couple of times" I mean "couple hundred times."
7. Discover am definitely not pregnant. Fall into funk. Wonder if I'll be lovable once I only speak in honks and have a chick in a bikini chained to me. Although why I'd want to look at some skinny bitch is beyond me.
8. Receive email from friend who points out that you only get fat and hairy if you are already fat and hairy, leading me to think that it's less a symptom and more a cause. Consider writing letter to WebMD and every other medical site protesting. Realize it's not only futile, but that I really only did it to myself.
*Hilarious side story: Once, in the throes of agony due to sinus infection over the hoildays, I went to the emergency room. I told the doctor that I was feeling pain and pressure in my upper jaw and that it was pain similar to the last time I had a sinus infection. He looked at me and asked, "What do you want me to do?" I want you to make the pain stop and the infection go away, Buddy. What, you thought I came here to tell you that and now I'm ready to leave?
**I'm not minimizing thyroid problems here, folks. I'm only relating my complete and total shallow reactions that are totally looks-based. Because that's how I roll.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Not The Mama/The Electric Kool-Aid Baby Test
Sometimes, when we are not brave, we have to borrow a little courage. I usually try to borrow it from my friends, but sometimes I borrow it from complete strangers. In this case, I'm borrowing from the cojones of The Sassy Curmudgeon, whose blog I have stalked read voraciously for the past few months.
She hit a chord when she posted about truth in blogging, which engaged me in an internal debate about how much I wanted to share (I'm mostly anonymous except for the people who know me personally, and since I actually don't resemble a cupcake you wouldn't know me on the street; I started this blog to write, and I am not writing because it's all too much to put OUT THERE; what if someone figures out who I am? Well, let's face it, I probably wouldn't say it at a dinner party, but if you and I had been having coffee for a couple of hours I would have totally told you because everything falls out of my mouth; I hate whiny blogs, but I did make a vow to tell the Truth recently . . . .)
And today she told the truth about not being a mama. And I'm not a mama either. And I feel as though I can be brave because this woman who writes a blog I like and admire could tell the truth. Because what I didn't perhaps get to in the last post was that the truth is messy and unpleasant.
I haven't seen my good friend Aunt Flo in over 85 days. And no, I'm not pregnant. I will tell you that the pregnancy machine that makes home tests et al is an evil machine which likes to continually tell you that the test is probably wrong, and you may be pregnant. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here -- you see, I've been a little bit pregnant from June until last Friday, and I've been freaking out for most of that. My sister and I decided that this was a giant worldwide conspiracy involving EPT, and my doctor’s office.
Evolution of the Conspiracy:
January-ish – Pull the goalie. Try to monitor cycles to figure out when to do what.
June 26 – go visit my in-laws
June 30 – four weeks since last cycle. Home from in-law visit, go to bar to unwind from trip. Drink myself into oblivion, aided by husband’s BRILLIANT idea that I should give myself a margarita for every day I spent at the in-laws, as a reward.
July 1 – Hangover.
July 2 – Realize that my cycle should be coming in the next week. Immediately become moody.
July 3 (or thereabouts) – go tie another one on to get to my “one margarita per day spent with in-laws” requirement, because while it was only six days I am a freaking lightweight.
July 4 – Hangover. All I want to eat is chocolate-covered pretzels. So I make them and devour them in front of the TV. Husband tries not to be disgusted by my behavior.
July 10, or thereabouts – Extreme fatigue. My days go a little something like this: Get up, dress in workout wear, plan to run and then clean and apply for jobs. Sit on couch to watch Regis and Kelly. Take a nap. Watch CSI. Nap some more. Move to bedroom. Nap again. Now it’s 4:00 and I take a shower and put on pajamas. This continues until late July.
July 16 – Get a little worried. Buy a stick, pee on it, and celebrate its negativity with a half a bottle of wine.
July 20 – I can no longer button my pants. This is weird, because they are only tight around my middle. Buy fat pants, which are waaay loose in the leg and butt but I can button without feeling like I’m being sawed in half. Also, now have to pee every twenty minutes and am having periods of dizziness. Begin googling “pregnancy” and “negative home pregnancy test.”
July 23 – Get a little worried. Buy a stick, pee on it, and celebrate its negativity with a half a bottle of wine.
July 25 – Repeat
July 25 – Freak out. Call doctor. Schedule blood test. Also negative. Celebrate with wine.
July 29 – Travel to VA to help with sister’s move. She suspects something’s up and tries to out me by asking me to go get margaritas. I go ahead and tell her what’s going on, and she tells me about the time that all the home pregnancy tests she took were negative too. In related news, my niece is now five. I freak the fuck out.
August 7 – I buy another stick and pee on it. Negative. But I no longer trust the damn things. Am still battling afternoon fatigue. No pants fit. Look markedly pregnant in form-fitting clothing, and am scrambling to find things that help me hide it, because while it’s cool when you are pregnant to tell people who figure it out, it’s uncool to have to explain the whole thing to people, who then get confused and treat you like that crazy woman with an hysterical pregnancy from Glee.
August 13 – Return home, call nurse practitioner. Beat myself up for the margaritas, wine, and painkillers.
August 16 – Fat pants no longer fit. Am of two minds – if I’m pregnant, FABULOUS! Time for new clothes! If I’m not, I am a disgusting fat pig.
August 18 – See nurse practitioner. She asks for date of LMP and then we have the following conversation:
NP: So you’re thinking pregnancy?
Me: No. I’ve had several negative home tests, and a negative blood, so I doubt it.
However, my sister also had several negative home tests although the blood came back positive, and my niece is now five.
NP: Well, let’s get you another blood test today, and I’m going to wheel in the ultrasound machine to look at your baby!
Me: Great!
NP: This could also be a thyroid problem or PCOS, but I doubt it because this is the first occurrence of symptoms. I’m thinking pregnancy. Now, I’m not an ultrasound tech, so if we don’t see a fetus it doesn’t mean there’s not one. I want you to continue as pregnant until we have an answer for you.
Okay, I’ve just stopped drinking the Kool-Aid. And now my NP is drinking it, and apparently I still should be, based on her enthusiasm. So I go with it. I’m a little bit pregnant.
As you’ve probably guessed, after twenty minutes of having a probe pressed uncomfortably on my abdomen while I stared at the ceiling tiles and tried not to pee, nothing was seen. NP continues to be upbeat and positive about “my pregnancy.” I go purchase a Bella band so I can wear my pants and begin nesting.
August 19: Blood test that day was negative. Am disgusting fat pig who is retaining water.
August 20: Begin googling “PCOS” (ACK! Will become fat and hairy!) and “low HCG levels, pregnancy symptoms” (these results can be really horrible – ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, etc.) and “thyroid problems.” Cry in shower. Feel like less of a woman. Apologize to dead or mythical baby.
August 23: Trans-vaginal ultrasound. It is as much fun as it sounds. My husband looked like he was really trying to sink into the floor. I knew as soon as my uterus flashed on the screen that I really wasn’t pregnant. Have blood taken to check for thyroid problems. Receive call from NP to tell me that I am not pregnant, I have no thyroid problems, and both ovaries have cysts. (ACK! Will become fat and hairy!) NP prescribes hormones to jump-start things, and refers me to an infertility specialist. Now I am a fat hairy woman who cannot have babies.
August 24: Start hormones. Hate them already. Am headachy and moody, but am less swollen – successfully buttoned and zipped fat pants and wore them for most of the day without cursing the day they were created.
Which brings us to today. I’m awaiting a call from my infertility specialist, and wondering how much of this I want to do. I mean, I want to be a mom, but I don’t know how much in the way of interventions I feel comfortable with. And where do I draw the line?
So yet again I've told you the Truth. It was, as I acknowledged in my last post, exceptionally brutal. All bad jokes are my attempt to deflect, and should not be taken as proof of a bad sense of humor.
And for the Baby, when it comes -- know that this experience let me know how much I want you. Till then.
She hit a chord when she posted about truth in blogging, which engaged me in an internal debate about how much I wanted to share (I'm mostly anonymous except for the people who know me personally, and since I actually don't resemble a cupcake you wouldn't know me on the street; I started this blog to write, and I am not writing because it's all too much to put OUT THERE; what if someone figures out who I am? Well, let's face it, I probably wouldn't say it at a dinner party, but if you and I had been having coffee for a couple of hours I would have totally told you because everything falls out of my mouth; I hate whiny blogs, but I did make a vow to tell the Truth recently . . . .)
And today she told the truth about not being a mama. And I'm not a mama either. And I feel as though I can be brave because this woman who writes a blog I like and admire could tell the truth. Because what I didn't perhaps get to in the last post was that the truth is messy and unpleasant.
I haven't seen my good friend Aunt Flo in over 85 days. And no, I'm not pregnant. I will tell you that the pregnancy machine that makes home tests et al is an evil machine which likes to continually tell you that the test is probably wrong, and you may be pregnant. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here -- you see, I've been a little bit pregnant from June until last Friday, and I've been freaking out for most of that. My sister and I decided that this was a giant worldwide conspiracy involving EPT, and my doctor’s office.
Evolution of the Conspiracy:
January-ish – Pull the goalie. Try to monitor cycles to figure out when to do what.
June 26 – go visit my in-laws
June 30 – four weeks since last cycle. Home from in-law visit, go to bar to unwind from trip. Drink myself into oblivion, aided by husband’s BRILLIANT idea that I should give myself a margarita for every day I spent at the in-laws, as a reward.
July 1 – Hangover.
July 2 – Realize that my cycle should be coming in the next week. Immediately become moody.
July 3 (or thereabouts) – go tie another one on to get to my “one margarita per day spent with in-laws” requirement, because while it was only six days I am a freaking lightweight.
July 4 – Hangover. All I want to eat is chocolate-covered pretzels. So I make them and devour them in front of the TV. Husband tries not to be disgusted by my behavior.
July 10, or thereabouts – Extreme fatigue. My days go a little something like this: Get up, dress in workout wear, plan to run and then clean and apply for jobs. Sit on couch to watch Regis and Kelly. Take a nap. Watch CSI. Nap some more. Move to bedroom. Nap again. Now it’s 4:00 and I take a shower and put on pajamas. This continues until late July.
July 16 – Get a little worried. Buy a stick, pee on it, and celebrate its negativity with a half a bottle of wine.
July 20 – I can no longer button my pants. This is weird, because they are only tight around my middle. Buy fat pants, which are waaay loose in the leg and butt but I can button without feeling like I’m being sawed in half. Also, now have to pee every twenty minutes and am having periods of dizziness. Begin googling “pregnancy” and “negative home pregnancy test.”
July 23 – Get a little worried. Buy a stick, pee on it, and celebrate its negativity with a half a bottle of wine.
July 25 – Repeat
July 25 – Freak out. Call doctor. Schedule blood test. Also negative. Celebrate with wine.
July 29 – Travel to VA to help with sister’s move. She suspects something’s up and tries to out me by asking me to go get margaritas. I go ahead and tell her what’s going on, and she tells me about the time that all the home pregnancy tests she took were negative too. In related news, my niece is now five. I freak the fuck out.
August 7 – I buy another stick and pee on it. Negative. But I no longer trust the damn things. Am still battling afternoon fatigue. No pants fit. Look markedly pregnant in form-fitting clothing, and am scrambling to find things that help me hide it, because while it’s cool when you are pregnant to tell people who figure it out, it’s uncool to have to explain the whole thing to people, who then get confused and treat you like that crazy woman with an hysterical pregnancy from Glee.
August 13 – Return home, call nurse practitioner. Beat myself up for the margaritas, wine, and painkillers.
August 16 – Fat pants no longer fit. Am of two minds – if I’m pregnant, FABULOUS! Time for new clothes! If I’m not, I am a disgusting fat pig.
August 18 – See nurse practitioner. She asks for date of LMP and then we have the following conversation:
NP: So you’re thinking pregnancy?
Me: No. I’ve had several negative home tests, and a negative blood, so I doubt it.
However, my sister also had several negative home tests although the blood came back positive, and my niece is now five.
NP: Well, let’s get you another blood test today, and I’m going to wheel in the ultrasound machine to look at your baby!
Me: Great!
NP: This could also be a thyroid problem or PCOS, but I doubt it because this is the first occurrence of symptoms. I’m thinking pregnancy. Now, I’m not an ultrasound tech, so if we don’t see a fetus it doesn’t mean there’s not one. I want you to continue as pregnant until we have an answer for you.
Okay, I’ve just stopped drinking the Kool-Aid. And now my NP is drinking it, and apparently I still should be, based on her enthusiasm. So I go with it. I’m a little bit pregnant.
As you’ve probably guessed, after twenty minutes of having a probe pressed uncomfortably on my abdomen while I stared at the ceiling tiles and tried not to pee, nothing was seen. NP continues to be upbeat and positive about “my pregnancy.” I go purchase a Bella band so I can wear my pants and begin nesting.
August 19: Blood test that day was negative. Am disgusting fat pig who is retaining water.
August 20: Begin googling “PCOS” (ACK! Will become fat and hairy!) and “low HCG levels, pregnancy symptoms” (these results can be really horrible – ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, etc.) and “thyroid problems.” Cry in shower. Feel like less of a woman. Apologize to dead or mythical baby.
August 23: Trans-vaginal ultrasound. It is as much fun as it sounds. My husband looked like he was really trying to sink into the floor. I knew as soon as my uterus flashed on the screen that I really wasn’t pregnant. Have blood taken to check for thyroid problems. Receive call from NP to tell me that I am not pregnant, I have no thyroid problems, and both ovaries have cysts. (ACK! Will become fat and hairy!) NP prescribes hormones to jump-start things, and refers me to an infertility specialist. Now I am a fat hairy woman who cannot have babies.
August 24: Start hormones. Hate them already. Am headachy and moody, but am less swollen – successfully buttoned and zipped fat pants and wore them for most of the day without cursing the day they were created.
Which brings us to today. I’m awaiting a call from my infertility specialist, and wondering how much of this I want to do. I mean, I want to be a mom, but I don’t know how much in the way of interventions I feel comfortable with. And where do I draw the line?
So yet again I've told you the Truth. It was, as I acknowledged in my last post, exceptionally brutal. All bad jokes are my attempt to deflect, and should not be taken as proof of a bad sense of humor.
And for the Baby, when it comes -- know that this experience let me know how much I want you. Till then.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth/Liars prosper*
The truth: we say we want it, but we hate it when it's there. The truth hurts, you know. People who are brutally honest are also, well, brutal. Honesty is supposed to be the best policy. But no one wants to be friends with a liar. So what makes a good friend? A policy of appeasement or a friend who can and does tell you the truth?
Look, I've been on both sides of both sides of this -- I've been mad when someone told me a truth I wasn't ready to hear. I've also been grateful to those who told me the truth. I’ve been the truth-teller, and also the appeaser. But let’s face it, both are dangerous positions to take. Europe’s policy of appeasement really didn’t work with Hitler; and being honest didn’t work so well for Galileo and Darwin and, depending on your world view, Jesus.
Maybe we should rewrite the platitudes about truth above.
I've been both a bringer of Truth and a teller of the lies people want to hear, too. But lately, I grow tired of being wishy-washy, which is what it all boils down to when you take my amazing capacity to be a human band-aid and mix it in with my tendency to be a people-pleaser and my ability to read individuals and situations fast and quickly. My childhood was rough, but at least I learned to be a human gauge.
But events of the past week have taught me that my policy of being pleasing and trying to be what a person needs at the moment that they need it is exhausting and stressful for me, and really not the best way to keep relationships going. It’s also probably not me being a good friend, since sycophants are rarely respected people of integrity.
This all came to a head last night, when I was talking to my friend, whom I'll call Jane. She's been having some problems with her baby-daddy, whom I'll call Dick. Dick Head.
Dick's been a real jerk for a while, but lately has threatened to (a) abdicate all parental rights, (b) sue for sole custody, and (c) kill himself.
I thought about it, and then I decided to tell her the truth, as I saw it: (a) this man is unstable and quite possibly has a personality disorder, (b) he's not good for her or the baby, and (c) she is enabling his behavior by allowing him to emotionally batter and manipulate her.
For the most part, she deflected and tried to excuse his behavior. When she ran out of excuses, she yelled at me for not understanding, because I'm "rich.**"
During the course of our conversation, Jane expressed anger and resentment at Dick, at me, and at her other friends, who give her conflicting advice (like she should marry him.) I feel for my friend. But I wonder if I'm good for her, or she for me. I feel like I'm often there to listen, or to rescue, or both -- and I'm growing uncomfortable in that role.
So, back to friendships in general. What makes a good friend? I started a list, but it ends up reading like a list of things that make a good marriage, which in the end makes a ton of sense. Except that most good marriages start with some discussions about these things, and then you take a vow to love and honor (respect) and cherish (appreciate) each other, so it’s formal. Maybe we ought to have friendship ceremonies.
To Be a Friend, You Must First Be One***
1. Good friends respect each other, intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
2. Good friends, for the most part, offer support for each other in crisis or hard times.
3. Good friends make it possible to enjoy time with them.
4. Good friends tell you the truth, whether it is that you have spinach in your teeth or are wearing the wrong color lipstick or have managed to entangle you in a relationship with a toxic human being.
5. Good friends accept the counsel of the friends they have chosen, and if they disagree, can calmly discuss the situation, because they understand that the advice comes from a place of great love.
6. Good friends understand that emotional crises may dictate that number 5 be temporarily suspended due to extreme duress.
Honesty seems to be the most important underlying concept here.
It’s also the hardest. It’s easy to love someone, but hard to be honest about the relationship, especially to yourself. But as marriages take hard work, so do friendships. Because in order for me to have a friend, I have to be one, right? So I’ve got to be the sort of pal I would want – a person with integrity and wisdom who will tell the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Truth that hurts more deeply than a manipulative and evil-intentioned lie. Brutal enough to make you bleed. Honesty, after all, is the best policy, although it is also the hardest and more painful.
So, folks, be prepared. I’m going to have to tell you the truth from here on out.
And, Jane? Dick is bad for you. Very, very bad. Take Spot and run.
*These are quotes from the frontispiece of a Stephen King novel. I can't remember who originally wrote them, nor can I remember what King novel. I may remember to look it up later. I may forget. Either way, I am trying to give credit where it's due.
**Gentle readers, I can assure you that I am not rich. I am a woman who graduated with a degree in English who is married to a man with a degree in English. You do the math.
***My mom embroidered this on a pillow for me when I was a kid. I’ve always tried to be the friend I wanted to have.
Look, I've been on both sides of both sides of this -- I've been mad when someone told me a truth I wasn't ready to hear. I've also been grateful to those who told me the truth. I’ve been the truth-teller, and also the appeaser. But let’s face it, both are dangerous positions to take. Europe’s policy of appeasement really didn’t work with Hitler; and being honest didn’t work so well for Galileo and Darwin and, depending on your world view, Jesus.
Maybe we should rewrite the platitudes about truth above.
I've been both a bringer of Truth and a teller of the lies people want to hear, too. But lately, I grow tired of being wishy-washy, which is what it all boils down to when you take my amazing capacity to be a human band-aid and mix it in with my tendency to be a people-pleaser and my ability to read individuals and situations fast and quickly. My childhood was rough, but at least I learned to be a human gauge.
But events of the past week have taught me that my policy of being pleasing and trying to be what a person needs at the moment that they need it is exhausting and stressful for me, and really not the best way to keep relationships going. It’s also probably not me being a good friend, since sycophants are rarely respected people of integrity.
This all came to a head last night, when I was talking to my friend, whom I'll call Jane. She's been having some problems with her baby-daddy, whom I'll call Dick. Dick Head.
Dick's been a real jerk for a while, but lately has threatened to (a) abdicate all parental rights, (b) sue for sole custody, and (c) kill himself.
I thought about it, and then I decided to tell her the truth, as I saw it: (a) this man is unstable and quite possibly has a personality disorder, (b) he's not good for her or the baby, and (c) she is enabling his behavior by allowing him to emotionally batter and manipulate her.
For the most part, she deflected and tried to excuse his behavior. When she ran out of excuses, she yelled at me for not understanding, because I'm "rich.**"
During the course of our conversation, Jane expressed anger and resentment at Dick, at me, and at her other friends, who give her conflicting advice (like she should marry him.) I feel for my friend. But I wonder if I'm good for her, or she for me. I feel like I'm often there to listen, or to rescue, or both -- and I'm growing uncomfortable in that role.
So, back to friendships in general. What makes a good friend? I started a list, but it ends up reading like a list of things that make a good marriage, which in the end makes a ton of sense. Except that most good marriages start with some discussions about these things, and then you take a vow to love and honor (respect) and cherish (appreciate) each other, so it’s formal. Maybe we ought to have friendship ceremonies.
To Be a Friend, You Must First Be One***
1. Good friends respect each other, intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
2. Good friends, for the most part, offer support for each other in crisis or hard times.
3. Good friends make it possible to enjoy time with them.
4. Good friends tell you the truth, whether it is that you have spinach in your teeth or are wearing the wrong color lipstick or have managed to entangle you in a relationship with a toxic human being.
5. Good friends accept the counsel of the friends they have chosen, and if they disagree, can calmly discuss the situation, because they understand that the advice comes from a place of great love.
6. Good friends understand that emotional crises may dictate that number 5 be temporarily suspended due to extreme duress.
Honesty seems to be the most important underlying concept here.
It’s also the hardest. It’s easy to love someone, but hard to be honest about the relationship, especially to yourself. But as marriages take hard work, so do friendships. Because in order for me to have a friend, I have to be one, right? So I’ve got to be the sort of pal I would want – a person with integrity and wisdom who will tell the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Truth that hurts more deeply than a manipulative and evil-intentioned lie. Brutal enough to make you bleed. Honesty, after all, is the best policy, although it is also the hardest and more painful.
So, folks, be prepared. I’m going to have to tell you the truth from here on out.
And, Jane? Dick is bad for you. Very, very bad. Take Spot and run.
*These are quotes from the frontispiece of a Stephen King novel. I can't remember who originally wrote them, nor can I remember what King novel. I may remember to look it up later. I may forget. Either way, I am trying to give credit where it's due.
**Gentle readers, I can assure you that I am not rich. I am a woman who graduated with a degree in English who is married to a man with a degree in English. You do the math.
***My mom embroidered this on a pillow for me when I was a kid. I’ve always tried to be the friend I wanted to have.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Lonely nerd seeks same.
I'm having a hard time making friends in Wisconsin. Now, I'm not necessarily the most gregarious person, but I'm nice and fun and a good listener and a weirdly obnoxious know-it-all who can tell you which direction your ceiling fans should go, and why the "white only between Memorial Day and Labor Day" rule came about. Also, I will tell you if you have spinach in your teeth, and as my friend Kim once said, "She's the kind of girl you want to go out and party with. She'll be fun while you're out and she can still put it together to get you back to your place safe."
Here's my problem: Midwesterners are friendly. They will talk to you as long as you want to talk. I like friendly people and I think it's cool that the folks in the Midwest, largely, are friendly. But I come from the South, where people are polite. They will only be friendly to you when they want to be friends.
So while I've been learning the language and am becoming proficient (eh?) I'm still learning the unspoken language. I guess it's why I now find myself in a mysterious limbo between "insider" and "outsider."
Except that I'm not colonizing the Midwest. I'm just trying to find some like-minded chicks.
Here's my problem: Midwesterners are friendly. They will talk to you as long as you want to talk. I like friendly people and I think it's cool that the folks in the Midwest, largely, are friendly. But I come from the South, where people are polite. They will only be friendly to you when they want to be friends.
So while I've been learning the language and am becoming proficient (eh?) I'm still learning the unspoken language. I guess it's why I now find myself in a mysterious limbo between "insider" and "outsider."
Except that I'm not colonizing the Midwest. I'm just trying to find some like-minded chicks.
In which I change the way I blog.
Folks, if you love it, you love it, but the truth is that I’m going to change the focus of this blog. I started it as an experiment to see if I liked travel writing. While I like it, I’m not a fan of so severely limiting what I write; so while I’ll post my ruminations on being a Midwestern Magnolia, I’m going to have to open this up to more than it is. Mostly, this is happening because stuff I want to write about is bigger than this blog’s boundaries – and since I made those boundaries, I’m re-drawing them.
This blog has now been rezoned.
This blog has now been rezoned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
