Archive for December 13, 2010

so…

the wingless one / December 13, 2010 / No comments

I feel better.

A bit sheepish, but you know, I think I needed to put all of that out there. Finally.

Turns out though, I don’t wallow with the same reckless abandon that I used to.

Don’t get me wrong, I wallowed. I wallowed good and hard for several hours.

I cried. A lot. I watched bad made-for-TV movies and teared up during random commercials for unclear reasons.

And then, after How I Married My High School Crush (I still really can’t see Katee Sackhoff as anyone other than Starbuck so it was kind of weird seeing her in this total teeny-bopper rom-com role), I suddenly felt a little bit disgusted with myself.

I looked around the room I’ve barely left since Friday and it was kind of gross. There were used tissues all over the desk, empty vitamin water bottles, remnants of various food items I attempted (and mostly failed) to consume. By that time, the fever was gone but I still felt…sticky.

So I took a shower. I cleaned up. I did some laundry (including the sheets since I’ve hopefully had my last night-time fever for awhile). It’s still messier in here than it usually is (the rule about my surroundings tending to mirror my mental state still holds apparently) but it’s better.

And so am I. For now, anyway.

Category: Navel gazing /

dam: broken

the wingless one / December 13, 2010 / No comments

It’s really not about E.

At least, I don’t think it is.

It’s more about all the emotions it stirs up in me, how similar they are to the ones I’m feeling today. Inadequate. Broken. Unsure how, or if, things can be fixed.

Because let’s face it, that is what all of this is really about. The obsessing over the past, wallowing in what-if’s, spending so much time inside my own head. It’s all an elaborate cover up orchestrated by my own mind to trick myself into believing that these issues I really have already dealt with are what’s causing this complete and utter emotional devastation I’ve been feeling.

I think I did really believe at this time last year that I could be pregnant today.

Today? I’m not so sure about next year. Or ever. I don’t whole-heartedly believe I can do this anymore, no matter how desparately I want to. When you lose a boyfriend, your heart (and the 12 year old in you) may tell you you’ll NEVER find anyone else, but (as long as you are not actually 12) your brain usually reasons that you will. I think knowing that your brain does not agree with your heart, when your heart is broken, helps a lot. It kind of gives you hope. So what do you have when your brain is the one driving the “IT WON’T WORK” train?

I think the closest I’ve even come to working through all of this before now was back in February when I had the initial bad blood test. I look back on what I wrote then and am shocked at how similar it is to the things I’ve been posting as of late. And then the retest came back surprisingly normal and I thought everything was back on track only to discover a few short months later that not only was I having a flare, I was having a pretty nasty one.

For some reason I couldn’t get myself to really accept it again. I was kind of hopeful that in a few weeks I’d retest and everything would be fine again.

Obviously that didn’t happen.

I did try to process it.

I just haven’t known how to. I don’t know what to do with the fact that I only half believe there is a way for me to get off these meds. That I only half believe I will ever be able to carry a child inside me and know that I nurtured a precious tiny life.

My memory about the things I write here is clearly terrible (as my recent forays into the archives have shown me), but I don’t think I’ve spoken about this before. Maybe not even to Paul. The hardest thing about all of this is that I still carry this horrible guilt inside me.

I’m afraid that I somehow caused this disease.

That all the self-loathing I felt for all those years finally manifested itself in the form of my own body attempting to slowly murder itself.

And that, that is the reason I can’t get pregnant.

I know I shouldn’t feel that way, it’s unproductive after all. But I think that’s part of the reason I haven’t really been dealing with this very well. I’ve been so hesitant to let myself feel what I feel and grieve. Because even though I am very lucky in so many ways, I’ve also been very unlucky too.

I hate that it will never be easy for me. That even if I am able to get off the meds and get pregnant, it will be a high-risk pregnancy and I will be afraid the whole time.

I hate that I will never have one of those carefree, innocent pregnancies where you can’t even imagine that something could go wrong.

I hate how scared I am that if I ever do get pregnant something will go wrong, my body will freak out and that will be the end of that. There are only so many more years left for this to happen right?

I think that we will be parents, we both want to adopt regardless of what happens. The problem is, I don’t think adopting can truly “heal” the disappointment you feel in yourself when you fail to achieve your main biological purpose in life. I don’t think anything can. I will love my children with the same intensity no matter how they join my family, I will love however the miracle unfolds if God brings me a child through adoption. But I don’t think an adoption experience, no matter how beautiful and even more unique than a pregnancy/birth story (as this blogger, whose archives I recently browsed through, so eloquently put it), can replace the experience of having a life grow inside you, of knowing that your body safely cared for a little miracle. How do you REPLACE the feeling of your baby kicking inside you? I don’t think there’s an apples to apples comparison to make there…

Adoption is great. Giving birth is great. Are they equally great? In my opinion, yes. Do they equal each other? No.

I wish people wouldn’t equate adoption to some sort of salve for infertility. Or whatever this is considered. Not to mention, you can’t “just adopt” but I think I will leave that for another time.

Sometimes I read the infertility blogs and I’m stung by the fact that they can do fertility treatments. They take medicines that hopefully help them have babies, while mine are the reason I can’t. If I find out later that there’s also some other reason? I won’t be able to do anything about it because fertility treatments will most likely only do serious harm to my health anyway due to the hormones. So if this chronic disease, which no one knows the cause of decides to go away with only minimal medical intervention, and I can then quickly get pregnant before it changes its mind, I’ll be ok. If not? I’m basically screwed with no options.

Wow. Don’t think I’ve laid it out for myself quite like that before.

And on that note…

Usually I try to end these really long, rambling, depressing posts with something positive. Just because I hate to leave a sad overtone on this blog (although, who am I kidding these days?). I think today I’m just going to let myself feel like this fucking sucks. And not be grateful for anything.

Don’t worry, I will try to put my big-girl pants on tomorrow. I will look for the bright side and when I feel myself slipping into that quiet desperation? I will remind myself how good my life is.

But today, I am going to let myself be broken.

Category: Baby talk, Navel gazing /

ugh

the wingless one / December 13, 2010 / No comments

Yes, I’m awake. No, I’m not going into the office.

That was pretty much decided when I got up to give the toilet a hug around 3am.

I should really go try to knock out for a few more hours since I could use the rest, especially after lying awake half the night trying to avoid the aforementioned visit to the restroom…but lying down only seems to make the nausea worse, so what’s a girl to do? Either way, staring at the screen and attempting to form complete sentences is much harder than it should be so it’s probably time to sign off.

Category: Well, that hurt /

blush

the wingless one / December 12, 2010 / No comments

Well, the embarrassment is already creeping in. I’d like to write more, perhaps explain myself, but right now I kind of just feel like throwing up.

Hoping to make it into the office tomorrow, so probably best to leave this for another day.

Category: Navel gazing, Well, that hurt /

apparently, fevers makes me wordy

the wingless one / December 11, 2010 / No comments

I don’t know why I did it. Especially considering the fact that I already commented on it being a bad idea (expletive removed).

I spent the last two hours combing through my archives.

And I came to this conclusion.

That break-up?

It was definitely me.

I don’t remember being that batshit insane…

But apparently I was. It’s all documented and everything. (Although to be fair to myself, there’s clearly a LOT that I left out, a few paragraphs every so often, sometimes with months in between, can only capture so much right? Right?).

I also came to the conclusion that I actually don’t remember my past in much specific detail, just vague notions and hazy impressions. Memory is a tricky thing.

This actually makes me feel better about myself. Incredibly, I am WAY less crazy than I was in college. How did this happen? I have no idea. Seems like most of my issues revolved around trust, sort of a given considering my family history.

But I now routinely send my husband out to social events on his own by my own preference. Including ones that involve partying with the boys (although, the event he was sent off to solo tonight due to my illness is probably more likely to end in hide-and-seek with the kids than anything remotely unseemly). I won’t lie, I still have my flashes of extremely crazy paranoid jealousy, but I am now able to hide them quite well and talk myself down from the inevitable argument ledge before I get too close.

So what changed? No clue. Maybe it’s something about Paul or maybe I was finally ready to let some of that stuff go. Maybe the constant jealousy just became too exhausting to sustain. Maybe it’s a function of being older and more removed from the root cause of those feelings.

The point is, as much as I sometimes feel like I’m running in place, I have been moving forward all this time after all. And in the spirit of moving forward, I think I’m pretty much done talking about all of this now. No promises, of course.

Kind of glad right now that very few people read this anymore as I have the very distinct feeling that I will be quite embarrassed by all this feverish writing when I look back in a few days.

Category: Navel gazing /

spoke too soon

the wingless one / December 11, 2010 / No comments

Tylenol is no longer doing its thing. Can’t seem to get back under 100, which is the magic number where I start to feel better.

The addition of a sore throat and body aches is making me question my self-diagnosis of a bladder infection, but I suppose having a bladder infection doesn’t mean I can’t also have the flu. In any case, I went to the lab this morning so we shall see.

I’ve been really sick with paralyzing arthritis many times in the past few years, and I can usually take it like a champ.

For some reason, this sucks so much more.

Category: Well, that hurt /

What always happens? Life.

the wingless one / December 11, 2010 / One comment

I suppose this is some sort of disclaimer, but be warned, the following post is long and well, I had a fever when I wrote it.

This recent self-induced emotional meltdown has left me doing something that I don’t normally do a lot of.

Wondering if I should regret my past.

Wondering if somehow, this is all my fault.

If I really am nothing more than the sum of my past mistakes.

***

Year end is here, and for most that means time to make new year’s resolutions.

I have to be honest with you, I have never been a big resolution maker. This is for a variety reasons I really don’t have the energy to go into right now, but I do think I will make a few this year and hopefully have them be the type of lifestyle changes you can actually stick with. I was thinking one would be to regularly get on the treadmill, even if it’s only for half an hour a day before Paul comes home. I need some of those endorphins I keep hearing about…for I am depressed, remember?

Sigh.

More so than resolutions though, year end has me reflecting on the past. For some reason I keep thinking back to my life seven years past from the present. My last year in college. A turning point, really. That fine line between being a carefree student and being an adult. Could 21 year old Joyce have predicted my life today? It would have been impossible, really. It’s kind of amazing to quantify the unexpected turns that life takes, it’s really pointed out to me the fact that all these illusions of control that I have are just that, illusions. The fact that I couldn’t have known what my life would be like today, simply because none of what I have now existed at that time. Seven short, long years ago.

Career
Let’s see, six months out from finishing a BA in Political Science. I hadn’t even gone to the meeting that would lead to my internship with the fundraiser so I didn’t know that was out there. I probably had no clue what I was going to be doing when I graduated, other than moving back up to the Bay Area to be close to the bf. Instead, I got the internship, he broke up with me and I decided to stay in LA and go full-time after graduation.

All of that was somehow feasible. Political/non-profit fundraising was not a stretch considering my degree and interests. Where I am today? Not so much.

As much as I hated math and did my best to avoid classes that involved numbers, how could I have predicted getting an advanced degree in International Finance? And now, selling bonds to banks and money managers?

I will say this, I definitely make a lot more money than I thought I would!

Health
Don’t think there was any way for me to know then, what faces me now. Actually, if I’m remembering the timeline correctly, there was one hint at the time, the ache in my elbow joint which a K.aiser doctor chalked up to tendonitis (not that this is his fault, I had no other symptoms so this diagnosis made the most sense).

(Shit. I just went through my archives to see if I had written anything about it because, honestly, my memory is fuzzy on this one. That was a really bad fucking idea.)

Love
I suppose that’s as good a segue as any to discussing E. E was a turning point in my life all on his own. We had been together a little over two years, I think, at that point, but what I didn’t know (or perhaps I did) was that it was probably already over by then. I think I can honestly say that he was the first person I loved in the mature sense of the word. When he was on active duty I think we were more both on the same page. We wanted to be settled, and for him, I think he needed it really. And maybe that’s why he was with me at all to begin with. I was there. But then life happened and I guess that was that.

It’s unbearably sad to come to the realization that regardless of how you feel, time has run out. Especially when you had allowed yourself to envision a future together. In fact, that is probably what I was envisioning seven years ago as since I didn’t even know the hubby was out there until six months later.

Is it a problem that I’m afraid I still have some latent issues with this that need to be dealt with? There are still so many questions I never asked. It all revolves around not being good enough. As I watched the end of 500 Days of Summer today, I suddenly became panicked. Wondering, how will I react when he is inevitably settled (like in the end of the movie when Summer is married). We’re getting older. It has to happen at some point. Will it hurt less because I have moved on? Because so much time has gone by that I can reasonably conclude that it wasn’t about me but simply timing? Or will it still feel like a judgement against me? That something about me was too broken to really love. Because I think that that’s the real reason this has continued to haunt me. Where did I fail? What could I have done?

I know this is something I should just let go of, but I guess I haven’t been able to because it cuts at a very raw nerve, the part of me that feels I don’t deserve to be loved because I barely loved myself all those years.

The truly twisted thing? I think I continue to dwell on this (despite the fact that I really DON’T want to be back with E) because that broken part of me? It likes when I feel things that reinforce the brokenness. With Paul? There is no question the boy loves me. I know he would do anything for me. With Paul, I’ve always known exactly where I stand. And so that extremely fucked up part of my brain is unable to get its jollies and thus reverts to questioning the past.

Apparently, that is how desperate I am to make myself feel bad.

Awesome.

None of this is a knock on E. His reasons made sense, and he never made any promises to me (as I just read in my very own words, he told me when he got back from the sandbox that he didn’t want to put anything into us anymore, I think I blocked that shit out). He was quite dignified about the whole break-up and really, I wouldn’t have expected anything less from him. He’s one of the good guys. But I think that made it harder for me at the time too. It’s hard when you can’t be angry. And no matter what, when someone dumps you, you can’t help but figure it has to be you right? Perhaps if you were prettier, taller, smarter, less opinionated, more…whatever, you get the point. It’s easy to feel bad about yourself, especially when you have no animosity towards the other person.

And the little masochistic goblin inside of me loves it.

The rest of me? Not so much.

It’s just not me. I don’t believe in regrets. I have too many good things in my life today, things that I wouldn’t have had I lived my life differently. I’m the type that thinks about the past quite frequently, nostalgia is a companion I know well, but for the most part that’s just what I feel. Nostalgia. Not regret.

I realize that a lot of what I just wrote is quite contradictory. Part of me loves to regret and part of me can’t understand regret. Part of me loves to feel like everything is all my fault, and the rest is mature enough to realize that certain things are out of your control.

I never got anywhere by running away
I never learned anything without a mistake
I never loved anyone by playing it safe
It’s a long way down, but I’m here right now

I think because of this dark place I’ve been in, the new year means a little more to me this year than it has before. I’m hoping it really can be the turning of a page. The year that I am healed, physically, spiritually, emotionally. Not miraculously, but because I quit being scared of failure and give it my best.

So, here goes nothing
Here goes everything
Gotta reach for something or you’ll fall for anything
Take a breath, take a step
What comes next?
God only knows
But here goes

Maybe that’s the whole point of this quarter-life crisis. To remind me, that for better or worse, the bulk of the “growing-up” years are over for me now. Excuses don’t get you very far as an adult. And if I don’t “fix” myself now, when it matters, I will regret it when it’s too late to do anything about it.

I don’t want to turn around
And wonder what happened
Never lost and never found are one and the same
I wanna run across the battle lines
And take my chances
Not the long way around
When I’m here right now

I think I’ve actually come quite a long way from seven years ago. Back then, I was mired in regret and self-hatred. That’s why it’s so hard to read my archives from those days, because it’s so clear how lost I was. At least, it ebbs and flows now. It’s no longer my identity. I guess you can add that to the list of things I couldn’t have imagined seven years ago.

And what good is chance, not taken?
And what good is life, not living?
And what good is love, not giving?

Here goes nothing
Here goes everything
Gotta reach for something
Or you’ll fall for anything

Category: Navel gazing /

doctor? i don’t need no stinking doctor!

the wingless one / December 10, 2010 / No comments

Fever has come back down again but the ache in my back/side area is still worrisome so I’ve decided to use my standing lab orders tomorrow. This is the only real benefit of having monthly lab orders – avoiding the GP! I was tempted to take some antibiotics I have lying around from when my lymphocytes dropped over the summer, but decided against it since I’m pretty sure if the tests come back positive for anything that I will receive a note with a prescription from my doctor in short order anyway. I probably still would have started myself on a course but I’m not sure of the exact dosage and Dr. Google suggested that for the occassional UTI (which this BETTER be) the antibiotic that I have may not be the first thing to try.

If things are worse in the morning (please don’t be worse in the morning) then perhaps I’ll drop in on the Urgent Care Clinic instead of the lab. But the tylenol has been doing an ok job of keeping the fever down so far so it can’t be that bad right? And a hot shower did wonders for my aching joints. It was probably also good to wash away some of those germs and clamminess. I’m tempted to wash the sheets too even though I literally just washed them. I just feel like it can’t be healthy to sleep in the same environment I was sweating all over last night.

Side note, it’s seriously amazing to me that I’ve become that person. The one who lives in an immaculate house and gets excited about actually having time to do chores on the weekend.

Category: Navel gazing, Well, that hurt /

oh that freshly run-over-by-a-truck feeling

the wingless one / December 10, 2010 / No comments

My fever broke mid-morning but I spent the rest of the day lying in bed in a clammy haze.

Don’t think I have been this sick in a very long time and my fever is starting to creep back up again.

My right kidney area seems to be aching slightly which leads me to believe that my suspicions are correct and the root cause of this is a bladder infection. I literally haven’t had one in about ten years so I brushed off the very obvious symptoms I started to experience last week. Things seemed to be improving so I didn’t worry too much about it until the fever hit last night.

And it just occurred to me that I’m supposed to be especially nervous around any infection given the meds I am on, but especially bacterial infections.

And of course, it’s now Friday afternoon. Which means no doctor visit over the weekend unless I want to take a third trip to the ER this year (I don’t).

Oh well.

Category: Well, that hurt /

through sickness and health

the wingless one / December 10, 2010 / No comments

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night, burning up and sweating profusely. I was also shivering from cold.

That was my first hint that I might not be making it into the office today.

I popped some tylenol and laid there trying not to wake up Paul but around 3AM the boy must have sensed I was in pretty bad shape because out of nowhere he woke up and looked at me.

It only took four words: I have a fever.

You should have seen my hubby spring to action. In thirty seconds flat there was a cold towel on my forehead and he was running downstairs to grab an icepack (wrapped in a towel) to position under my neck. Keep in mind he had been fast asleep two minutes earlier (and that it was 3AM!).

I don’t know that I ever imagined being taken care of this well.

And can you see why I want to have babies with this man? Honestly, sometimes I worry about my own ability to be a mother, but I have never questioned that Paul will be an amazing father. The man knows how to take care of the people he loves.

Well, I still feel pretty horrible overall, so I think I’m going to go back to drinking my soup (which Paul made for me before he left to work…okay, I’ll stop now..). The monitor is giving me a headache.

Category: The good stuff, Well, that hurt /
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