Know what you've got while you've got it? How novel!

Tonight was a trying night, stemming from a long and activity-filled day.

First up, we had Boo's oldest cousin's birthday party.  The C-Man turns 6 on Monday.  And oh man, do they get wild and rowdy together and just have a blast.  They play SO WELL together that they might as well be siblings (because they DO also manage to tattle on each other when things don't go their ways).  So, what with the playing and the present opening and the people (read: attention) and the cake, it was awesome overload pt 1.

Then, on the way home, he DID NOT NAP.  This is what it all hinges on.

Third, we met up with some friends at the Paramount for a glorified dance recital.  These friends, between them, have four girls that Boo also regards as siblings, and the older two were there.  More awesomeness, more attention overload.

Sooo, when it was time to get ready for bed, guess who pitched an epic screamy fit?  You guessed it: the Over-exhausted Toddler!  In that fit, he threw his Innotab, his puppy, something else I can't remember, and his cthulhu.  To which I took them all away.  Rule is: If you throw it, you lose it.  That's it.  Respect your stuff or else.

Anyway, fit finally soothed, and stories finally read, and cuddling before tuck-in finally happening, he crumped one more time and asked about his stuff.  I looked at him and said, "I know you want your things, but look around and be grateful for what you DO still have," and I ticked off, one by one, all the stuffies that were still strewn atop his bed.  

And then it hit me.  Be grateful for what you do actually have, not what you've lost.  Lesson learned, kid.  Thank you.

crumple

I think I finally need to admit it...  I'm diving toward a depression.  I am angry, I am oversensitive, I want to hide from the world and all interaction...

I am not well.  I know that.  And I knew this would be hard, these weeks, knowing that if all had gone well, I'd have a baby in my arms right about now.  I knew it would suck...  I was just hoping that I'd be pregnant again by now so the blow wouldn't be so harsh.

But here we are, and I have no baby (since there was no baby in the first place) and no pregnancy to promise a baby.  I have been desperately flailing, blindly groping for a result and an answer, and it's too much.  How do I deserve anything that I wish for when I feel so greedy about it?  When I look at the world and start to ask questions about fairness?  I know the world is not fair or partial.  I know I'm not owed anything, and I know that things will happen when they will.

But my heart, it hurts.  My head is not right.  This healing shit is taking too long, too long.  I don't have time for this.  I want joy in my life, honest laughter, to feel like I'm involved.  And this failure, even just the way I'm feeling...  It's got me thinking I'm on the outside of something, and that's all I'll ever be - is looking in on everyone else.  I thought I would outgrow that, but I guess I won't ever.

I just want to cry and to sleep.  I want someone to take the time to tell me it'll be all right.  It gets so hard being so strong all the time.

another one down

As another month passes, I made damn sure to hug Boo as soon as I got home. He's proof that, on occasion, I can win in life.

Also, hey body, what gives? 26, 27, 27, 29, 26? Can you give me some consistency please?

the short wait that feels long

As we approach the end of the first month of 2012, I am finding I'm dreading the Day.  Y'know, the one I said I would be all nonchalant and zen about, to take in stride...  The Expected Period Day.  Except I'm not all nonchalant and zen.  Granted, I'm not spazzing and freaking, but I do find myself in dread of it.  Erik and I did give it a good go at trying this month, but I'm still dreading the thought that another month went by and nothing.  Which, dammit, will be just fine in the end because, dammit, Boo is awesome-sauce.

But here it is.  Three days to go.  Maybe four.  And I'm already tempted to take a pg test, as if that's going to be accurate right now or anything, even if it says it can tell you "up to five days before you're late".  Uhhh, sure.  Anyway, I almost used one this morning.  I lay in bed as long as possible (it's warm and snuggly under there and cold and NOT snuggly outside!) struggling with the urgent need to pee, and I told myself, "If Boo's awake, there's your sign to not take the test."  Sure enough, I finally got out of bed and his head popped up as I peeked in his room.  "HI!"  I laughed to myself and went "Okay, okay Universe, I get it."

But then I had this dream last night that Erik and I were in either Thailand or Singapore, in a house-like place for some bizarre extended stay, and he wanted a little action.  With his two pronged penis.  Yeah, I don't get it, either.  Except that I looked it up and penises in dreams apparently mean something like sexual energy, power, aggression, or fertility.  So whatever, right?  I told Erik, and he's all "It's gonna be twins."  Makes me wish I was practiced at my tarot cards so I could give myself a quick reading.  As if I'd be unbiased enough to accurately read them.

So now, patience.  And probably a healthy dose of tears no matter how this waiting game ends.

timber

It's interesting trying to feel sexy/appealing again after years of... not. Of being a mom, of being the bread-winner, of being function. Sexy, me? How peculiar. Maybe it's just a realization that I've lost the ability to enjoy myself and my form, and I'm not sure where or when that happened. Maybe I'm pining for my 24 year old body and realizing that the passing of a decade and having a child (through surgical means, no less) has without a doubt changed my body, and it's up to me to reconcile that. Maybe I've just been doing too much reminiscing lately.

Admittedly, I do miss the bygone days of semi-lustful and admiring glances from random people, but life was a lot different back then, too. I went out, I danced, I partied, I flirted, and I thrived on the attention. And I was younger and dumber.

I think, more than anything, it's time for me to realize that physical things are to be enjoyed and experienced rather than mindlessly plowing on. Because that's what I've been doing.

Self-awareness isn't exclusive to only the mental and spiritual aspects. Sensuality, in its actual definition, doesn't always imply sex. Just... enjoyment, sensation.

This could, of course, also be my midlife crisis. Scary thought.

new year

So I had that clogged tear duct in my left eye.

It started in earnest at the beginning of December, the day we brought Boo in to the eye doctor to get his eyes checked.  (Yes, our three year old needed to see an opthamologist.)  My eye had excessive tearing up, pressure on my eyeball, sore skin around my eye because of the salt-water constantly seeping out of it, and my sinus gave off pressure like whoa.  Painful, inconvenient.

But two days after Boo's eye appointment, I went in for my routine check-up (that I hadn't had done in probably four years), got my new prescription, and then had a needle shoved into my tear ducts and saline squirted into it... only to have it squirt out the other duct on that eye, instead of into the back of my throat like it should have.  Throbbing pain, on top of the eye dilation and then the reverse eye dilation.  I had to go to work that day, too, and what misery that was.

So, the eye.  The eye.  The teary, weepy, evil eye.  Betrayer eye, affixed to a betrayer body.  Between the pityriasis rosea and the clogged tear duct, something was telling me that maybe the miscarriage was a harbinger of Weird Maladies.

I got a referral to an eye surgeon in the Twin Cities metro area.  Amazingly enough, it's the same doctor my mother-in-law was referred to when she had her own clogged ducts going on.  It was far enough out that there was the hope the clogged duct would just work its way out on its own.  I did the hot compresses, the sinus massaging, to no avail.  In fact, for a while there, it made the pain and the weeping worse.  So I stopped doing it altogether, except when I'd do a quick massage to try and alleviate sinus pressure.

I thought about going to my regular doctor to check out the sinus thing, but everything I'd read online about a sinus infection indicated a lot more was going on that just a simple clog.  Plus I didn't have green crap coming out of my nose, too, no coughing or lung cookies...  So I dropped that idea.

So now it's, what, three weeks later?  Having gotten used to my condition, I haven't worn make-up in forever, I carry tissues with me everywhere, and I have gotten used to daubing my eyeball as needed.

Except on Saturday, I went to blow my nose and this... ick came out.  Foul stuff.  And it was like something shifted in my head.  I can breath out of my left nostril again, the pressure is gone...  And the weeping is pretty much non-existent.  I haven't had an actual non-sad tear run out of my eye for a few days (even though I have been daubing, but I'm not sure if that's out of habit or necessity).

Of COURSE the appointment with the specialist is in two days.  And as far as having medical bills to pay, I SHOULD cancel it and save myself from wracking up another bill, but for shits and giggles I'm going to go.  I want to hear from someone knowledgeable that my eye is okay again.  IF it's okay again.  To ask questions about why the clog happened in the first place.  To see how long my eye will be sensitive to moisture levels.

Go figure.  But I think, on another level, this eye thing has been a metaphor for ME.  *I* am clogged up, and in order to be clear again, I need to blow away all the foul things that have been festering inside me, the jealousies and bitterness and stress and desperation.  I know the turning of the years aren't much more than symbolic, but sometimes I think we need those symbols as a touchstone, something quasi-tangible that can help us realize (or re-realize) our direction, what's important.

So hey eye, thanks for the lesson.  Now get back to work.