New York

I have a love affair with New York City. It’s a city I have come to love so much. A city I feel so at home in, a city where I feel so much like myself in, where I feel like I belong. (I also feel that way about London, but that’s not as convenient to get to). And with the holidays approaching, I really started to miss the city, and started feeling quite sad that I would miss it this year. New York this time of year is magical. It’s unlike any other place I’ve ever been. And it is so soothing for my soul.

Actually, I will be honest here and say that mentally I’ve been struggling on the inside lately. Chicago was amazing and not a long enough trip (I’m planning to go back in March) but some small things happened (a dream where my dad came to visit me was the catalyst) and my anxiety has been really bad. And I feel antsy and uneasy in my own skin. And just very unsettled. And then I had a day where I was more manic and firing on all cylinders, and then 2 days later my period started unexpectedly and I went in a downward spiral. All in the inside. Except that I may have had a meltdown of crying on Friday that I couldn’t control or stop, and my 4 year old may have used wipes to wipe my tears, which made me cry harder. But then I got it together and went to work that night and have been ok ever since, just with anxiety sitting on the sidelines waiting to pounce.

Anyway. New York. So I realized that I had most of December with nothing planned, since I was leaving things open in case my niece graduated this semester so I could go. She’s not going to walk until May, so I had time and PTO that was now open. Discussed it with my husband (who isn’t big on traveling but doesn’t hold me back or hold it against me) and I got my girls on board for a day trip. And then, what was supposed to be a day trip turned into 2 days in the city, with tickets to see Phantom (my favorite, and their first) and the serendipitous find of an affordable hotel room on The UWS on Broadway. We are going to eat street food and Magnolia cupcakes and see a show that is my heart. And look at a giant Christmas tree in the cold and just be so damn thankful it exists in the first place.

Carpe Diem and life is short and YOLO and all of that.

But it works out because they are at the point where gift-wise there isn’t anything they need, so this will serve as an early Christmas present, and I guess now it’s just becoming our thing, New York, this city that makes me feel so me when I’m there.

****If you are feeling down this time of year, please reach out and talk to someone, or do something for yourself that’s just for you that makes you feel a bit better. You deserve to be happy. We all do.****

Weird week

Last week was such a weird one. I encountered so many people behaving in ways that were not normal, I had to wonder if I was in an alternate universe or if there was a full moon or something. (There wasn’t.)

Some odd highlights:

-My husband’s grandmother fell and required surgery. My mother-in-law sort of went wack-o about things even though she was doing the least of everyone to help out. My normally calm and level-headed husband lost his shit with her and spent a few days in such a mood that his secretary was texting me asking if he was ok. No one had ever see him get that mad and stay that way. It surprised even me. I’m guessing it brought up a lot of stuff about how his mom was while he was growing up and he was triggered. But wow.

-My best friend and I made plans 2 weeks ago to have dinner last week. The day before we were to meet she messaged me asking what time the 4 of us were meeting. 4??? Oh damn, I had forgotten that we had said the last time we went out that the next dinner date should be a double date with our husbands. But when we made plans she didn’t mention it and honestly I had forgotten. Right after our last dinner I had started making the Chicago plans and that turned into a thing where I didn’t hear from her and thought she was perhaps upset with me for still going (if she ever was mad she never said and isn’t now so not sure if that’s what it was or not) and I had spent so much time worrying if I over-stepped with the whole thing that I didn’t remember we were supposed to try and all 4 go out. So anyway, it’s the day before and of course I don’t have a sitter for dinner time on a school night. And we don’t just roll out on our kids like that and leave the older ones in charge. So I think she was disappointed about that, and I’m sure her husband was also, so I said we could reschedule if it caused issues but she said it was fine.

AND THEN at dinner. She acted like she didn’t want to be there with me. She kept her phone on her lap looking down at it the whole time, told me she had invited this other person (who I didn’t know and had never met) that she worked with but they couldn’t make it, took a bunch of selfies at the table (not something she ever does, like ever) and toward the end when we were still chatting (at least I was) abruptly got up and started walking out. I was like “oh, we’re leaving?!?!” trying to quickly gather all my things. She didn’t even wait for me, she was ahead of me the whole time and in her car before I got to mine. SO BIZARRE.

-Friday night I noticed my sister had called about 30 minutes earlier and I missed the call. I called her back and she asked me like 2 questions about Plans for the next day then abruptly got off the phone with me out of the blue with no explanation. Like, I’m not really even sure why she had called me to begin with because her questions were weird and kind of out of place. I don’t know. You called me. If you didn’t want to chat, just text me or don’t answer the phone???

I told my husband, I always feel like the sky is falling or some shit when I’M the one acting normal and even and balanced and everyone around me seems to be spinning out.

I’m currently packing for Chicago and hope that by the time I fly back into town everyone around me has righted themselves again.

Chicago

This time next Tuesday I will be on a quick, solo trip to Chicago. I have never been, and I am very excited. It’s supposed to be very cold (well colder than the east coast has been so far) so I have to pack accordingly.

Here’s how it came about. My best friend (who is a bit older than me) has a daughter who’s about 10 years younger than me. Her daughter and her and very close, more like friends, and has always been involved and around. When we do things, it’s always the 3 of us, and it’s pretty awesome. Her daughter moved to Chicago 3.5 years ago for a job on a very popular TV show that films there. She’s behind the scenes, not on camera. I’ll call her Tori.

Recently Tori has been having a harder time...just with the loneliness that comes from being in a different city than your family. When she moved out there she was living with a friend who has since gotten married and moved. It’s also the last year of the show, so with a potential loss of income amidst just general life stuff, she’s having a tough go of it. Of course, I’ve offered all I can (Netflix passwords, access to an online grocery delivery account) to help her if she gets in a jam or just needs anything. She also took a second job, and has realized between the two she couldn’t travel home for Thanksgiving, instead opting for the Christmas-New Years dark week at her main job.

I suggested to my friend that we should try and take a girls trip to visit Tori. Anyway, it turned into this whole thing (on her part) and between that and her new job she opted not to go. There’s a lot more to it, but as it’s not my thing and I don’t totally understand enough, I’m not going to delve into all that. But I had already figured out it was super inexpensive to fly there, had it all worked out on my end with my family to go, so when the ticket dropped to $72 round trip I booked it without thinking twice.

I love traveling on my own. I have a place to stay and things to do while Tori is at work. I get to go with her to the set and check out all the exciting things there, and then I’ll go off and do my own thing in between. A co-worker recently went, so he has money left on his mass transit pass he’s giving me to use. I booked the early flight Tuesday and the latest flight Wednesday, so I have 2 full days basically. I’m going to drive myself and utilize short-term parking with shuttle service at the airport, and I have an under the seat rolling bag that’s free. Since I don’t need to worry about taking shampoo and stuff  like that it should be plenty of space for me. My oldest arranged to be off during the day so she can hang out with my Baby boy (4 on Saturday...!!!) while my husband is at work and she can get my Kindergartener off the bus, which stops right in front of our house.

I’m super excited to visit this new city and to spend time with Tori and see this new life she’s built. I’m kinda bummed her mom isn’t coming to, more for Tori than for me. But I can’t control that situation. So I’m just going to be there for her daughter, the same way I know my friend would be there for mine.

one and twenty

Oct. 22, 1999 I met my husband. I only remembered the exact date because it was the day after I took my Boards, back when it was on paper and only given a few times a year, so I knew that date I would take them long before I ever would. I met him and initially left not knowing if I would actually talk to him again. And my sister and best friend at the time heard me all wish-washy if I would talk to him and declared I would marry him, before either of them that ever even met him. And it ended up very quickly turning into a great big mutual falling in love.

The fact that I even met him that night was out of sheer desperation. I had been unceremoniously stood up by a fellow classmate/person I was really into, leaving me the 5th wheel in a group of couples who were pretty tipsy and being very all over each other. 2 were married friends of mine, the other 2 friends of theirs and ones I really didn’t like. It was miserable and the girl I didn’t like literally said to me in the car on the way to the next bar “you must feel really left out”. So when I saw a cute guy sitting alone on the other side of the bar, I noticed and thought maybe I would have someone to talk to or give me a ride home. Or something. I tried to rope in my friend M, and asked her what she thought of this guy. Was he actually cute or was I just desperate? And M started pointing at the wrong guy saying to just call him over and I panicked because please don’t call the wrong guy over! And she said go talk to him. And I had this flash of thought that my night was already so bad that I’d go over and his girlfriend would walk out from the bathroom and I would end up in a fight that I wasn’t up for. So I just did a few more shots to try and block out everything. But I kept looking over at this guy. Until M stands up and screams across the bar “Hey you, come over here!” and half the guys in the bar move forward, until she singled the guy out. I introduce myself and try and apologize for this scene...the drunk yelling across the bar, the 2 drunk couples with their tongues down each other’s throats right at the table with us. We tried to talk but the scene at our table was beyond that. The other girl was now laying sprawled over the bar stool and the guy was leaning over her aggressively kissing her, and my friend M was howling with laughter when this guy said his name , because somehow I had dated 3 other guys (2 recently) with the same name. He was looking around at the scene before us and said “Do you want to go somewhere and talk?” And I was all “yes please, like anywhere but here right now” and so I left with him.

Guys, I KNOW. I was sober enough to know what I was doing and to have 2 thoughts as we were walking out 1.) maybe he will turn out to be a decent guy and we will talk for a few and I can find my way back to my car. I know M’s house is sort of near here.
And 2) Or he’s a serial killer, in which case this night has been the most awful and I just want to die anyway and he will just murder me and put me out of my misery.

Turns out he was a nice guy. Waaaay nicer and better than me, in fact. Totally not used to the wildness of my crew and all those shenanigans. At the bar alone and lonely. Lived quite nearby. We ended up having some stuff in common and he was cutely overly excited about that. I was sort of humoring him and biding time until I thought it would be ok to ask if he could help me find my car. (I didn’t know the area super well, but knew enough to help navigate my way back.) We ended up talking until 4am. I quietly snuck back into my friends house and slept on the couch for a couple hours.

I’ve talked to him everyday since. We used to try and celebrate together quietly on that date. Reminisce about that night, watch the movie he was so excited to show me that night. Some years it just slips right by without being noticed.

Oct. 22, 2018 19 years after meeting I was at the surgery center to have a D&C after miscarrying our 8th pregnancy. There isn’t a lot to say about that that I haven’t already said. It was devastating. I didn’t want him to go with me, partly for logistical reasons, partly because I felt so alone that I just wanted to be alone. I only conceded to let my friend take me when I found out they wouldn’t let me go home alone or even in an Uber after being under anesthesia. I remember going into the changing room to change into the hospital gown and compression socks and just standing there undressing, feeling more alone than I have ever felt in my life, where it was almost crippling, the aloneness. That’s what stands out the most from that day.

One year later. I’m on my cycle and bleeding. That’s not lost on me. 20 years we have spent together, trying to build and compete our family. 20 years is a long time to be on this TTC train. I’ve been on it so long I don’t know how the hell to get off.

Tonight. We are going out to a late movie after the littles are asleep. Not because we are celebrating this day. Because it’s Tuesday and I just found out about a Thanks rewards program we get through out wireless and TV provider, where movie tickets are Buy-one-get one free every Tuesday. And there’s actually a movie I would venture out to a theater to see. (ZombieLand Double Tap) that I think will be worth it. And that somehow when I entered everything in, the rewards paid for more than one ticket plus the fees and left me with a $10 balance, which I had an old gift card that covered the rest. So it’s a free date night. That thanks to my period plus a head cold, I don’t exactly feel up for. But I’m going to go anyway.

Because free tickets.

Because 1 and 20.

lasts and truth

I really, really want another baby.

There, I said it. It’s ridiculous, it’s selfish, it’s probably a million other things as well. But it is true. I can’t tell you how much I wish it wasn’t. I was kidding myself if I tried thinking I didn’t. I wish I didn't have to carry around this massive weight like a deep, dark secret. Everyone thinks it's ridiculous of me. I know it is. But it's still there.

My friend and coworker had her baby a few weeks ago. I was working that day and so I got to see him at just a few hours old. I held him then, and my heart just ached and I had to try hard to keep the tears from falling. I got to spend time with them the other night, and as soon as he woke up I held him. I got to feed him and cuddle him against my chest and rock him and just hold him. And it was amazing. I listened to my friend talks about struggling to find a rhythm, how to keep him asleep at decent times, how to get sleep herself. I had answers that I didn’t share. It’s not my place, she has to figure that out on her own.

But man. THAT right there is my skill set. Like Mel wrote about a few weeks back. That is what I know how to do and am good at. And I love it. Every sleepless, exhausting minute. Babies are all what is right and good with the world. The most innocent of creatures that only want love and warmth and snuggles and a full belly back.

Something has been missing from my life. I’ve been trying to fill it with other busyness...traveling on my own, going to shows, visiting more with friends, various projects of all kinds. It’s all been just a temporary lifting...nothing that sticks. Nothing that lasts.

This time last year I was pregnant with a doomed pregnancy. I was waiting to miscarry on my own. For a pregnancy that was such a shock, but still so very wanted, that felt like a last chance.

Miscarriage leaves a baby-shaped void that nothing can fill. It leaves behind a grief that you can’t describe. It leave an ache in your heart so strong that sometimes it feels like it will kill you. It leaves a baby-shapes hole in your soul that sometimes feels like it might swallow you up in it. It leaves a sadness that lingers in every breath you take. Miscarriage leaves behind a feeling of such utter loneliness. It leaves behind anger and confusion.

I don’t notice it all the time. That’s not to say I forget ever. But life moves fast and it’s not always at the front of my mind. Sometimes in a crowd I feel so lonely. I watch other happy families or pregnant women or infants in carriers and I get swept up in the all-consuming grief, and that baby-shaped hole opens back up. And sometimes I fall in.

I don’t want to feel this way. I wish that I could move on from this. I’ve been trying to find other ways to fill the void, but nothing can. I feel it when I see pieces of it in my home...the crib mobile in the closet, a stray bib, baby sock, or toy thy didn’t make the bins in the attic, the pieces of the dismantled crib tucked way in the back, the breast pump sitting on the top shelf of my closet. Things tucked away out of plain sight but things that I can still see every now and then. I feel it when I look back at old pictures of  my tiny new babies. I felt it when I held my friend’s precious, tiny son.

It’s muscle memory, remembering what to do without even thinking about it. It’s instinct. It’s me. It just is.

(((I know I’m one of the lucky ones. But it does not diminish my pain or fill the baby-shapes hole in my heart.)))

Infertility robbed me of time. All those years I lost trying to make things happen. Miscarriage robbed me of the hope that everything would turn out ok. I don’t have any hope that I will ever have another baby. It seems pretty impossible to me, seeing as I’m now over 40 and have miscarried 4 times in between two lucky shots. Every month that goes by the already slim odds get smaller and smaller.
I’m just waiting for time to officially run out. I hope to have come to some peace about this by then.

But man. I wish my last baby wasn’t the last baby I miscarried.

6 bullets for Friday

I don’t want my last post to stay the most recent one, so I decided to do a bunch of random happenings right now, bullet-style.

•We are 3 weeks in to the new school year and so far, it’s been pretty good. In fact, it’s been a lot smoother than I expected, which is a great surprise. Even my kid going to Kindergarten transitioned extremely well. He has wanted to ride the bus, but due to our weird proximity to the school we didn’t have a stop close enough. We appealed for a new stop and we got approved yesterday, so he got to ride the bus home and was so excited.

•My best friend’s daughter has been living in Chicago for a few years now. She works on the set of a TV show, but that series is ending and she’s trying to get into the Union and get another gig before this one ends. She’s been really stressed and a bit lonely and kind of in a dark space right now. I’ve been racking my brain trying to see what I could do to help. I found a comedy show that’s in Chicago this weekend and sent her a ticket to go. She is so excited. I hope it’s a small thing that can help lift her spirits right now. My friend and I are trying to figure out a time we can take a quick trip to visit her.

•Things in my house keep breaking. Over the last month or so we have had our big freezer go up twice (my husband fixed it once and the same thing happened again), our kitchen sink had a leak, our kitchen fridge has a mysterious leak we can’t pinpoint, and a pipe burst and leaked into my oldest’s room in the basement. The only thing that got ruined was her bed, which was a very old hand me down mattress anyway. Her new bed just got delivered today, and it’s really nice and was a really great price. It’s called a serta Caldiero. I had her go over and lay on about 10 different mattresses and find the best one. I’m so impressed that I am going to earmark some funds from our tax return next year to get two more for my 2 other teens. And luckily my husband is a plumber so he has been able to fix all the leaks, but we are still working on the freezer situation because he’s never really worked on those.

•I had my yearly review at work and it’s probably the best one I have ever gotten. There were a lot of things going on the past couple years that created conflict and in turn I had to change how I responded to them, being firm enough to let them know my position and what I was and was not willing to do. It was more ancillary stuff vs how I actually perform my job in the clinical setting. But I sort of got my point across that I wasn’t going to be pushed around or be the fall guy or anything else. They seemed to take notice and have treated me with a lot more respect. I actually even got some days off I didn’t expect to get approved for. We don’t get merit-based raises, but there was just an across the board raise about a month ago, so I am very happy work-wise.

•I have a love affair with Trader Joe’s. It is my favorite store and my happy place. Right now there is SO MUCH fall themed stuff out. I can’t even keep up. I went there 4 times last week and couldn’t manage to get all the things. Last Friday one of my closest work friends and I met up there and shopped together and had so much fun looking at all the stuff. I’m not super into everything being pumpkin spice, but we bought a lot of stuff to share and try. The hold-the-cone pumpkin ginger cones were amazing as was the pumpkin ice cream. The pumpkin rolls (like cinnamon rolls that come in the pop-open can) were a big disappointment. Everyone I shared the Pumpkin Spice Rubiois tea with loved it (I don’t drink tea) and also the pumpkin spice K-cups. Actually, every coffee I have ever tried from TJs has been really really good. There’s just so much good stuff in that store.

•It’s Friday and I am feeling very content today. I don’t feel rushed or like I have a thousand things to do, the fridge and pantry are stocked and I have plenty of leftover food so I don’t have to cook tonight through this weekend. All of my reminders on my phone have been cleared off and handled. I just feel a sense of calm. I went our with my best friend last night  and laughed so hard I cried and couldn’t breathe and my stomach hurt, and my anxiety is non-existent today.

anger

I wasn't going to write about this, but I really need a place to put some of my feelings. Hopefully by putting it here I can let some of it go.

So, I have written a lot about a friendship that I outgrew that had started to become toxic. If you are curious you can go back to posts from the last third of 2015 and some in 2016, and there are a few others sprinkled through this blog. What has made it hard about ending this friendship is that she is the godmother of my oldest daughter, and so it wasn't as clean of a break as I would have liked or needed, but I always tried to remain neutral for the sake of my kid.

I haven't spoken to her in a very long time. Any text messages were usually initiated by her and mostly I didn't respond or had little to say. There were just some things over the past couple years (especially that for someone who still wanted to maintain a friendship, she didn't step up when I did reach out in a crisis last summer.) The farther away from the friendship I got I realized I wasn't missing anything at all, and that actually I was better off without her.

She was supposed to attend my daughter's graduation in June but backed out at the last minute, claiming she didn't want her presence to create any "drama" for anyone else (meaning me). This was just one more thing that proved she continues to make things all about her, and is a selfish person at the crux of it. I was very angry and upset by her choice, because her being there would have meant so much to my kid. My daughter was upset but trying to focus on graduating, and asked me to not get involved and say anything. To me, that was the final straw, and I blocked her number. I was going to say something but in the end decided it wasn't worth my time, and that nothing I could say would make her change her mind. I did talk with my daughter the week after graduation about it, letting her know that I did not even talk to this person at all, so that it wasn't anything I might have said that made her feel like she couldn't come. I explained that I was upset for her, and that it was okay to expect more from someone, and that the day was about her graduating and this big accomplishment and new chapter, not about anyone else, and she deserved people in her life that would treat her that way. My daughter acknowledged how upset this made her, and that she had started to notice how selfish she was just over this and different things she had picked up on over the years. 

This person did visit my daughter at work one day and gave her a card and just said sorry I couldn't make it, and left. 

I just found this out today, but apparently over the summer when this person's birthday arrived, she wasn't happy that "all my daughter did" was text her a birthday message. She called and left my daughter a voicemail message chastising her for "not making time for her" and "doing more" or "offering to take me out BECAUSE I GAVE YOU $40 FOR YOUR GRADUATION" and “I did for you, you do for me”. 

Yes. Let that sink in. a 41 year old woman left that kind of message for her 18 year old goddaughter.

I CAN'T EVEN. there are no words. but also...FUCK HER. OMG. how dare you leave that kind of a selfish, self-absorbed, self-centered, asshole message to MY KID. I had so much anger I didn't even know what to do with it.

I was also just so devastated and heartbroken for my daughter. She didn't deserve that kind of message from someone who is supposed to be a mentor to her, someone she looks up to and respects. How hurtful that was.

And also? The majority of raising kids is doing stuff for them and not getting a lot in return. It’s a whole lot of doing, doing, doing and sometimes that’s about it. It can be thankless a lot of the time or things that go unnoticed. It takes a long time to ever truly appreciate all the things parents do. So expecting a just-out-of-highschool teen to even think she could or would be expected to take someone twice her age out to a birthday anything is a bit...odd? I don’t know. I know my 18 year old self wouldn’t have thought to treat my godmother to a day out for her birthday. What in the world??? More importantly, where is the unconditional love here? The giving a gift because you want to and it makes you feel good to make someone else happy, not what you expect to get in return? That’s just not how I was raised, or how I’m raising my kids.

My daughter came home soon after I found out. I asked her to sit so we could talk. I was almost in tears having to bring this up, but I told her I knew about the message. And her face fell. And she said she had never responded to her, that she had not spoken or texted with her in the almost 2 months since that message. I think in part because she felt embarrassed...as if she had in fact done something ungrateful or wrong. I assured her that was not the case...that it was unacceptable for anyone to treat her that way and leave her such a mean and hateful message. We talked about how its terrible and how much it hurts when someone you loved and trusted does not act the way in which you think they will act. How 2 months have gone by and this person has never for a second thought that maybe what they did was wrong and out of line and reached out to apologize. How the silence from her speaks volumes.

I mean...you hate me, you are mad at me? Fine. Great. Treat me badly, say whatever you want to me. But don't you dare mess with my kid. That's unforgivable.

My daughter came to the conclusion on her own that this person is not really worthy of her time and energy any longer. That as upsetting as it is, that she deserves better in her life. She is not short on adults who love her and cheer for her and only want the best for her. People who are kind always and have her best interest at heart. People that will gift her things and not expect anything in return. 

She asked for a new phone number. We got a new phone number. Not solely because of this but also because she wanted a fresh start and has had this number since middle school, and sometimes gets messages from people she doesn't want to hear from.

I went in to my blocked numbers and sent one last message. I said that it wasn't bad enough she had to be selfish instead of putting herself aside and attend the graduation, but then she had to be ridiculous and leave such a nasty message throwing her gift back in my daughter's face, and how there is no redemption from that, for how much she hurt my kid. How I never talked bad about her to my daughter so that she wouldn't want to spend time with her, but that she showed her true colors and that now my daughter knew the truth. How I found her actions to be sad, and how she was not welcome to contact me nor anyone in my family ever again.

I feel like the anger from this is going to stick with me for a while. I realized the kind of person she was turning into...I am just so sorry I couldn't protect my daughter from finding out in this way.