The post without a title January 21, 2010

I’m just going to start typing and see where this post ends up.

But just a little forewarning, it’s not going to be pretty.

For weeks now, I’ve been feeling like there’s something . . .wrong. I’m not sure that I can do it justice by trying to explain it. I just feel . . .unhappy. And I don’t know why.

I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful child, and a (at least I hope) secure job. What do I really have to complain about? Why do I feel this way?

It’s almost like I’m going through the motions. I get up at 5:00, spend an hour on the treadmill or elliptical, shower, get Maggie up and dressed, get ready for work, eat breakfast, and head out the door. After work, I come home, throw a load of laundry in, play with Maggie for 45 minutes or so, put her to bed, then Mike and I make dinner, clean up, wash that day’s bottles and make them for the next day, pack my lunch, and then either fold laundry or pay bills or clean or whatever until I collapse into bed. Just to get up and do it all over again the next day. And the next day.

As regimented as I am (or try to be) about certain things, maybe I’m struggling with such a predictable routine. Maybe this is too much of a routine. All the spontaneity is gone. Mike and I can’t go out to dinner during the week because Maggie goes to bed so early and there’s not enough time (and we don’t DARE keep her up later than she wants to be—we’ve made that mistake before). And I really don’t even want to go out to dinner, because what fun is it to sit in a restaurant when I could be rolling around on the floor with Maggie at home? There are times when I run errands after work, but then I feel guilty because that cuts into the little amount of time I have with Maggie. So I feel like I’m never home, but yet I feel housebound at the same time. It used to be on the drive home from work, I’d wonder what we were going to do that night. Now, I don’t have to wonder. I know. Down to the minute.

I find myself crying at the drop of a hat, over stupid things. Like, REALLY stupid things. Things that I’m too embarrassed to write about. I struggled a little with crying jags after Maggie was born—the hormonal kind. But these are different. Where I was once more likely to laugh at something, now I’m more likely to be upset at it. It’s like all of the humor has been leeched out of me. I’m just getting through each day and onto the next.

Maybe this will all change once spring comes. Already there’s a little daylight left when I leave work each day, and I know it’s just a matter of time before the sun will be shining brightly and the flowers will be in bloom. Maybe that’s all it will take.

But in the meantime, do I just continue on through the next month. Two? What if I don’t feel better once the weather’s a little nicer?

I’ve also been struggling with panic attacks, or at least what I think are panic attacks. I all of a sudden feel helpless and claustrophobic. Like the walls are closing in on me but I’m too frozen to escape. Trapped. I break out into a cold sweat, get dizzy, and then a minute or two later, I’m fine. And every time I have one, I think it’s the last one. That they’ll go away. And then I have another one.

So I don’t know where I’m going with this. I’m not asking for help, or advice, or anything. I’m just . . .venting I guess. And hoping I come back to read this in a few weeks or a month and laugh about how silly I was.

And I’m not going to go back and re-read this now. I’m just going to hit “publish”.

Anymore November 6, 2008

I don’t envy the “popular” bloggers.  If I was one of them, I think I’d eventually find myself in fear of the written word.  One hateful or overly-critical comment/email too many and I’d hightail it out of the blogosphere immediately.

As it is, I feel like I limit what I say write.  I would only write in specific detail about a friend if I had his or her permission to do so.  I mask the names of my family members to a certain extent.  I don’t write certain posts that are brewing in my head because I feel like I’d be sharing too much.  Things that maybe certain people would take offense to.  My original intention was to have this be a totally anonymous blog, but over time I added a link to it on my Goodreads profile.  And then my Facebook profile.  So now it’s not-so-anonymous and there’s a chance that if I bitch about someone in particular, one of my real-life friends may be able to figure out who that person is . . .and, well, my reason for this blog is not to start some snarky war where people’s feelings get hurt (whether intentional or not).

Today, I said “screw it.”  This is MY blog.  It’s for ME.  It’s ABOUT me.  My life.  And when something happens in MY LIFE that weighs on my mind for a week and I feel like I’m holding it in because I’m afraid of singling out one specific person . . . .screw it.

That’s when I have to remind myself that this is my journal, what will one day be my history.  And if something’s affecting me to the point that THIS THING is affecting me, I need to let it out.  So here goes.

Last week I played bunco with a fairly large group of people.  All women.  Some I know really well, some are just “casual friends”–we know each other’s names and can have a “Hi, how ya doin’?”-type conversation but don’t just call each other and chat.  When we were broken into groups, one of the women (a casual friend) said to a good friend of mine in front of two other people (I wasn’t in the group), “I guess she (meaning ME) isn’t pregnant anymore, since she’s drinking.”

We’ll call this casual friend Elaine.  I’d like to give Elaine the benefit of the doubt.  I’d like to think that maybe it somehow just slipped out of her mouth and she regretted it instantly.  But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that that wasn’t the case.

I’m a fairly laid-back person.  With so many things, I feel that I can forgive and forget and move on.  But I’ve been thinking about this for over a week now, so apparently I’m not moving on.

Earlier this week on my way home from work, I saw Elaine standing in a neighbor’s yard, about 15 feet from my car as I stopped at a stop sign.  I couldn’t meet her eyes.  I couldn’t even wave.  Tears welled up that I fought back, and I continued on my way.

What she said hurt me.  First of all, I had never told her that I was pregnant, so obviously I had never told her that I miscarried.  And it’s not as if she took me aside and said “I knew you were pregnant earlier this year, so something happened, and I want to make sure you’re doing OK and see if you wanted to talk to somebody about it.”  There was no compassion, no concern.  Instead, it was “I guess she’s not pregnant anymore.”  In front of a group of people.

I hide my struggle with fertility/miscarriage a lot.  I joke about it, my favorite defense mechanism after sleeping it off (which didn’t work in this case).  We named our kitten Forrest because that’s the boy name that Mike loved and I would never agree to it when we were discussing baby names.  So we named the cat Forrest the Cat, Not the Kid–Forrest the Cat for short.

But each day as I dutifully chart my BBT, each month when I get my period, I get a little bit . . .sadder.  I remember my disbelief at the positive pregnancy tests in April, and I want that disbelieving/hopeful/too-good-to-be-true feeling back.  That overwhelming sense of awe that two people can create another one.  That I could be a MOTHER.

I don’t need reminders from people I barely know that I’m not pregnant anymore.   If Elaine really wanted the scoop about my situation without asking me directly, she could have least waited until I wasn’t in same house as her to ask someone else.  And she could have done it a hell of a lot more delicately.  Does she really not understand that every morning when I take my temperature, I recognize that I’m not pregnant anymore?  Or when I called the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment to discuss fertility medication, I was pretty aware that I wasn’t pregnant anymore?   Or as I flip the pages of the calendar, ever closer to what was my December 25th due date, that I think about not being pregnant anymore?

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On a related note, I found out on Halloween that three of my neighbors are pregnant.  I guess there’s hope that there’s something in the water and it’s working it’s way up the street to me. . . .

Caution: bitch session alert February 18, 2008

If you don’t want to hearread me whining and wallowing in self-pity, continue right on to the next post in your feedreader or on your blogroll.  This one’s been a-coming for awhile now, and it’s finally time to let loose before I explode or implode or whatever.

The bottom line is that I’m tired of being everything to everybody, or at least attempting to be.  Because I can’t do it.  I can’t keep up.  And I’m getting sick of trying to and fighting off the feelings of drowning in “to-do” lists.

Before you call a crisis hot-line on my behalf–I’m not depressed.  My idea of the whole world crashing down around me isn’t comparable to depression.  Trust me.  My mother was a guinea pig for so many depression medications that I got to see the super-highs , the super-lows, the drug-induced disaffection, and the whole spectrum of symptoms and side effects.  I’d write a book, if I could just find the time or the energy.  Which brings me right back to my point.

I’m just exhausted and can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.  And we don’t even have kids yet!  The thought of adding to our family, adding to the dishes and the laundry and the DEPENDENCE.  It scares the crap out of me sometimes every time I think about it.

Between working full time at a demanding job that has beat me up and beat me down over the past 11 years, trying to stay involved in a few social activities so that I don’t become a complete hermit, staying in touch with my family (of which certain members think that phones only work in one direction), cooking (when I can find the time), cleaning, laundry, cleaning, more laundry and more cleaning, and then trying to get enough sleep so that I can do it all over again–I feel like I’m treading water.  I can’t get anywhere.

My first natural line of defense for everything has always been to sleep it off.  I knew I reached my limit this weekend when I slept for 8 hours Friday night, took a 2 hour nap on Saturday, slept 8 hours Saturday night, took a 2 1/2 hour nap on Sunday, and then slept 7 hours last night.  Each time I woke up more exhausted than the last.  I realized this morning after hitting snooze for 45 minutes and then dragging myself out of bed that I need to vent.  I need to clear the air and start all over.  I need to throw a big pity-party for myself and clear the slate.

My second natural line of defense has always been to bury myself in a book.  I’ve read 7 books so far in the month of February and I’m currently in the middle of 3 more.  And we’re not talking 150-page trashy romance novels that you can skim through–we’re talking 400-900 page novels with complex plots and seemingly minor details that you need to pay attention to in order to understand the plot-line.  I’ve spent hours on goodreads–creating a virtual library of the books we own and the ones I want to read in the future.  HOURS.

I know you’re thinking, “that crazy bitch isn’t getting anything done because she spends all of her time sleeping and reading and yet she’s bitching that she can’t keep up with stuff”, and it’s true.  I’ve shut down.  I spent over an hour cleaning the kitchen on Saturday, only to have it trashed within 30 minutes of Mike getting home.  I stopped cleaning.  I walked away, buried myself in a book or under the covers (and sometimes under the covers with a book) , and ignored the mess accumulating around me.

Most of my friends have a cleaning person.  Even though I am way too cheap to even consider that as an option (and I know that I would feel that I had to clean before the cleaning person got there–you know what I mean), even that wouldn’t work.  I don’t need a cleaning service, I would need a live-in maid.  I spend so much of my time cleaning up after myself, Mike, and the cats (who are spoiled rotten and track litter everywhere and grind their food into the laundry room floor), that I never reach a stopping point.  I finish one room, move on to the next, and by the time I’m done with that one, the first one is a mess. I can’t curl up on the couch to watch a movie because I feel like I just sit there glancing around the room at stuff that needs to be done.  Not just stuff that I would like to do, stuff that NEEDS to be done.

It’s not like we live in squalor or anything (well, sometimes–don’t ever ask to see a picture of my bathroom), but I wasn’t brought up in a messy house and I have trouble dealing with messiness.  Even if I had hours of free time each day, I wouldn’t vacuum for the sake of just doing it–it would have to NEED to get done in order for me to even think about it. 

And don’t think I’m busting on Mike, because I’m not.  I saw his bedroom when he lived with his parents.  It still makes me shiver just thinking about it.  I knew what I was getting into and have no complaints about housework being my responsibility.  It’s just the housework in addition to everything else that’s weighing me down.  I could easily write this same post and center it around my job, but I’d probably end up getting fired over some of the things I would write.  And it’s not like I would get fired from housework, so I’m safe there.

One of my (many) problems is that I go to extremes.  On just about everything.  I can’t just open the pantry or the fridge and figure out what we’re having for dinner.  I need to plan it out in advance, mark pages in a cookbook with post-its, make a grocery list, and go to the store.  Seriously.  And I’m that way with most things.  If I can’t go all-out, I can’t start it up.  In my crazy mind there’s a logical progression to everything, and that progression needs to be followed.  Sometimes it’s simple and truly logical: take everything out of the laundry room before I mop the floor.  Sometimes it’s so whacked-out that only I understand: in order for me to do our taxes, I need to take the big pile of receipts and bills and other miscellaneous correspondence and file it, even though I’ve already segregated all of the tax-related stuff from that big pile.  And no, I haven’t done our taxes yet, because I have that monstrous pile of stuff to file first!

OK, I think I’m done.  I guess my third line of defense is to spend time on the internet, because I’m totally using this as yet another avoidance technique.

Starting today, I have to make some changes.  I’m not sure what they are yet, but I guess that’s one of the things I need to figure out.  And first I have to make a list and consider all of my options and the different scenarios.  Because I’m crazy like that.

Half-assed February 10, 2008

This is truly going to be a half-assed post.

So much has been going on lately, and not all of it has been good.  Actually, very little of it has been good.  As a result, I have so many random thoughts swimming around in my head, and I can’t function well enough right now to say what I want to say in the way that I want to say it.

And so, instead of working through everything, I’m going to proceed to get on the treadmill, struggle through a 2-mile run, and then tear my whole closet apart looking for something to wear tonight.  What do you wear to renew your wedding vows?  The original plan was to wear my wedding gown, but somehow the extra 50-plus pounds that I’ve tacked on in the past 8 years haven’t managed to successfully melt away.  The details for the event say that you can wear your wedding gown/tux, or else “attire appropriate for a guest at a wedding.”  Every dress that I have in my closet that I’ve worn to a wedding is black.  Can I really wear a black dress to a wedding vow renewal ceremony?

At least there will be 999 other couples there.  Odds are, someone else will also have a black dress on.

Another day . . . January 31, 2008

 . . .another trip to the doctor.  Another (different!) kind of antibiotic.  And BONUS!  Cough syrup with codeine!  Someone’s gonna be sleeping REAL good tonight.

I woke up this morning severely congested and with a very attractive hacking cough.  Since my company does not believe in the concept of sick time (THAT’S a topic for a whole other post!), I dragged my sorry ass into work and sat here and coughed and hacked.  After much deliberation and arguing with myself over whether I am a hypochondriac or not, I went back to the doctor’s office.

She gave me a breathing treatment, which seems to have helped a lot. A few nips of the cough syrup and I’ll probably be out like a light.

The one thing that concerns her is that I still have a fever.  Last Monday my temp was 103 and today it’s 101.  I have no idea what it was in between then and now, but I feel the same, so I’m guessing it’s been around the same.  I haven’t  had the chills, but I have gone through veryhot/very cold stages.  Running around like a maniac all over the country will do that to you, though.  But this weekend?  I may not get out of my pajamas.

I should have gone to medical school January 29, 2008

What a whirlwind 2 weeks.  This past weekend we went to a wedding in New York City and then on to New Jersey to visit Mike’s aunt.  The weekend before, I was in Phoenix at a swanky spa with 14 fabulous ladies for a great winter getaway.

 Sounds absolutely divine, doesn’t it?

It was, except for one nagging little detail . . . .I’ve been sick for two weeks now.  Not just the sniffles, either.  We’re talking mind-numbing, barely shuffle through the day sick.  The weekend in Phoenix–a blur.  Except for the landing where I clutched the arms of my seat and cried because my ears hurt all the way down to my collarbone.  Last Monday I went to the doctor and was told I have bronchitis, strep, a double ear infection, and please pay your $15 co-pay on the way out.  A monster dose of antibiotics put me among the living (barely) through this past weekend, but I still have the earaches and the sore throat.  So I called the doctor and was told that what I have is probably viral since the antibiotics didn’t knock it out of me.  So they gave me MORE antibiotics (?) and told me that if I’m not better by next Monday that I should see an ear/nose/throat specialist. 

The kicker is when they ask at every appointment and during every phone call if I’m allergic to anything, I tell them every single time that I have a really bad reaction to E-Mycin and, well . . .that’s it.  I have no other allergies to anything.  So I tell them that there is one thing in the world that I can not have, and guess what they gave me?  Azithromycin, E-Mycin’s twin brother.  The rationale?  I would only have to take it for 5 days and my reaction to it shouldn’t be “that bad.”

So I dealt with the rash (Hello, sleeveless dress that I wore to the wedding!  Look at this fine rash I have for you to display so that I look like a leper!).  And the diarrhea (yes, Mike, I have to go to the bathroom AGAIN!).  And the dizziness (Let’s circle the Newark airport for 30 MORE minutes in turbulence!).  And now you want me to take MORE antibiotics even though they will do nothing to combat a virus? 

Something is telling me that I should have put more thought into the decision of making one of Mike’s old bar-league softball buddies my primary care physician.

Regression November 9, 2007

I want to know (and to feel) that I’ll always be taken care of–no matter what.

I want to crawl into bed and sleep for days on end when I’m sick.

I want to ask for a big long list of things for Christmas, and fully expect Santa to deliver them all.

I want to be given a lollipop at the doctor’s office or at the bank.  And to be able to spend 3 minutes deciding what flavor I want.

I want to never have to write another check, fight with the cable company, or pull weeds.

I want to never have to make a life-changing decision.

I want to fall into bed and sleep as if I don’t have a care in the world.

I want to wear clothes that don’t match and wear my Halloween costume in July.

Sometimes I just want to be a kid again.  Really, is that too much to ask?