November 4, 2009

Whew.  Another walk at night with Grammie has been survived.  No coyote attack.  I received confirmation today from a more reliable source that coyotes do indeed eat people.

It’s really weird living out here, not only because I need to think about wildlife, but also because literally every night when I walk down the street there’s either the shell of a new house that’s gone up since the previous night, or there’s something that’s been finished on an existing house.  Weird.  Weirdweirdweird.  It’s always changing.  And every time a basement is dug, the dirt is all over the sidewalk and street, and when it rains it’s muddy absolutely everywhere.  I long for the days of lawn, neighbors, driveways.  Less dirt.  Spring will be rough.  Oh well…maybe I’ll just heavily medicate myself in order to get through

I ended up having THREE coffees today and by 8:00 tonight I was still feeling pretty aggressive, even though the last coffee was consumed before noon.  I wonder how long that stuff stays in the body.  I’d say a good 7 or 8 hours.  So finally at 8 after feeling verrrrry aggressive I had to go to the gym and work some of it off.  But now I’m wired from being at the gym and therefore won’t sleep.  Ugh.  I know I know, you new moms are reading that and thinking suck it up…you don’t know tired.  I hear ya.  Why don’t you start a blog so we can all read about your difficult life right now ;;)

November 4, 2009

I’m sitting here with an XL Tim Horton’s coffee to my left and a L Tim Horton’s coffee to my right.  ITS GONNA BE A GOOD DAY PEOPLE.  I predict some serious productivity this morning.  And then a massive crash this afternoon, which I’m pretty sure can be prevented by keeping the coffee flowing.  Ah, I love that there are many coffee fairies at work.

Not much else on the brain…yet.  Just wait til coffee #1 kicks in.  This morning I saw a jack rabbit and a deer on my walk with the dog.  At night when I’m walking the dog I hear coyotes that do not sound far away.  It’s like the wilderness out there people.  I keep myself from running back into the house by telling myself that they are a lot farther away than they sound.  I used to tell myself that coyotes don’t eat people.  But Jordon tells me they do.  I’m still deciding if I believe him or not, as he refers to me as his arch-nemisis; therefore I suspect that the statement “coyotes eat people” is a mere fabrication designed to make my life a teeny bit more scary.  I’ll have to do more research.

November 2, 2009

Musta been a full moon last night.  Very fitful very short sleep.  Probably not as short as my new-mom friends’ sleeps though.  Overall it was a bit of a weird week.  Washing machine exploded, literally.  It’s now at the washing machine cemetary and we need to buy a new one.  I saw my husband in Kim’s grad dress.  That’s always weird.  Found dog crap in his pocket.  That was weird too (and somewhat disappointing).  One thing I never hope to have to say again would be “Never under any circumstances put crap in your pocket, even for a second.”  What else was weird.  Dropped my brother off after work one day and an ambulance pulled up right after us.  Baby was choking.  She’s fine now.  Parents were here this weekend and there were plenty of weird interactions (maybe a better way to put it would be non-interactions).  Friends had babies, which is exciting and also weird!  Yep, weird week.  Hoping for some time alone soon so I can get my inner world straightened out.  It’s a bit chaotic in the mind right now and a chaotic inner world is never my happy place.  There are just piles of stuff everywhere in there, shoved to the side to sort out later.

October 29, 2009

If you married someone, you married his family as well.  To have and to hold.  For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.  Till death relieved you of the burden.
- Sylvia Brownrigg in The Delivery Room

October 27, 2009

I’ve slowly been reading the book What to Expect When You’re Adopting by Ian Palmer.  I came across the book as I was checking out some titles that I have thought about using for a book, and this was one of the possibilities.  When I saw that it already existed I was outraged, and then I bought the book to see what my competition would be like   (I’m kidding, I welcome every book written on the subject and appreciate the contribution that each of them makes.)  I’m only about 1/2 way through this book, and unfortunately have not really “connected” with the information provided.  For starters, it’s all based on adoption in England.  The process is quite different if you’re in Canada, and then in Saskatchewan, so the particulars of the process in England are of little interest to me.  I have also come across a few statements like this:

You have to be 100 percent certain that this is the right course of action for you, and those close to you.  Dig deep, search your head and heart before committing to adoption; the consequences of getting it wrong are potentially devastating to all involved.

No pressure!  And later:

There is no room for doubt.

SERIOUSLY?  And then:

Accepting infertility involves a process of grief and mourning.  Your adoption agency will want to know where you are in this process as it is important that you have grieved properly.

No offense intended, but this is almost laughable (when I get past the rage that it induces).  The idea that you know where you are at in your grief seems impossible, and even more absurd is the idea of “grieving properly.”  Give me a break!  Also false (in my mind) is the implication that grief will end, and that it should end before you move forward.  I strongly disagree with that.  I don’t think grief of any kind ever ends, but rather it changes.  It will always be there but in different forms, in different ways.  Whether the grief is related to infertility or death or whatever other kind of loss, the idea that you grieve and then get on with it is not something that I can accept.  Ah, if only it were true.

And the idea that there is no room for doubt immediately takes me out of the game.  NO room for doubt?  Do parents who are having a birth child not doubt what they are doing?  How can you possibly not have doubts when the process of adoption is such an uphill battle?  Seriously.  Maybe I’m just overreacting here but these ideas are not ones that I can get on board with.

Ideally before, but certainly during, the assessment it will be important to know that you are settled in your own mind and have accepted you will be unable to have children.  You will need to be comfortable with the changes this will have created in relation to your self-image – as well as issues relating to masculinity and femininity, potency and impotency – and be at peace with their social implications.

Again, I’m finding a lot of assumptions in this paragraph.  The assumption that the people reading the book know that they will not have children.  (If you’re dealing with unexplained fertility you cannot accept that you are unable to have children because you don’t know that.)  And again, the idea that people will accept this and be “comfortable” with it seems far-fetched.  And seriously, I have never before reading this paragraph even thought that I am less of a woman because of this, less feminine, but now I have something else to add to the pile.

That being said, I have also found truth in the book, and small nuggets of helpful information.  For example, the author talks briefly about the reasons people adopt, the reasons people have kids at all.  He discusses the cultural pressures to have children and that was interesting to me.  There are good reminders that people can live fulfilling and valuable lives if they never have children.  He talks about how intrusive the process of adoption is and the scrutiny involved, and how it so strongly goes against the value of privacy that we have in our culture.  So, I will take the good with me and leave the stuff behind that is not so helpful.

I feel like I need to finish with a disclaimer.  I understand that pregnancy and giving birth to a child are not at all easy.  I don’t really see it as either one of them being worse than the other.  It seems to come down to the fact that in general, getting kids is hard.  And I’m sure raising them is even more difficult than getting them!  (So why do people do this again?)  The major problems for me occur when people say things like “You’re so lucky you’re adopting, you don’t have to gain all this pregnancy weight” or “Be glad you don’t have to spend money on diapers for the first year of your child’s life.”  Things like that are problematic for me.  I sincerely recognize and appreciate the difficulties in all of these things, but no, I am not glad, and I do not feel lucky.

October 26, 2009

Note to self:

If knowing answers to life’s questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey.  You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables – of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and most of all, things unfair.
  – Madame Jeanne Guyon

October 20, 2009

I’ve been complaining a lot lately.  I live in a mud pit.  My house is filthy.  I’m working too much.  My car is dead.  My uterus is hostile.  blah blah blah.  It’s getting even harder to complain these days, which is really too bad   Ya, I live in a mud pit and my house is therefore full of dirt, but I have a home.  I’m working too much but this means I can do things like adopt children, have a new home, pay my bills, maybe buy LAWN in the spring.  My uterus is hostile, but this means that I will be able to experience adoption (still have some convincing of self to do about how good this would be…I think I’m getting there.).  My car is dead, but we have 2 vehicles and therefore I’m not totally screwed.  AND Greg doesn’t need his vehicle this week so really, the timing is perfect.  So, WHATEVER.  The things that I have to complain about are really no big deal.  Yet in my world they can still be stressful.  I try and let myself off the hook by saying it’s all relative…people find different things stressful and that’s ok.  But it’s not really working.  Especially not now as I see homeless people wandering around every day while I’m at work, digging through the dumpster because that’s the best option and living out of a shopping cart.  I’m pretty sure I’d rather have MY stresses than their’s.  Hmmmmmmm.  Makes sense to my brain but it doesn’t always play out that way.  I hear gratitude is a solution to a lot of things.  Maybe I need to try that more.  The other ridiculous thing I do from time to time is forget that everyone is fighting their own difficult battle.  As in, when I’m having a rough time it usually seems to appear to be the case that no one else is.  And then I feel even more alone, because ’tis true that misery loves company.  The truth is – everyone is having a hard time.  Well, ok, almost everyone.  I’m not sure why I convince myself that everyone else’s life is awesome.  And I’m not sure why it would make me feel worse about my life if everyone else’s life was in fact awesome.  Deep down it is truly my wish that the lives of people I love are awesome and without struggles.  <sigh>  Some days I feel extra crazy

October 14, 2009

One of the good parts about unpacking is that you find some real gold that you forgot about.  This morning while on a frantic search for something else, I was reunited with one of the best reads EVER – Greg’s old journal.  From like Grade 4.  Ooohhhh yeeeah.  It looks like it was something one of his teachers was making them do, and unfortunately there are only a handful of entries, but they are gold.

Many of you have been blessed by this already, but just for old times’ sake here is the entry from November 4th:

Unicorns are fake.  I think girls get too carried away with horses and ponies and stuff.  No on has ever seen a unicorn before so why should people “adore” fantasies.

That is so sweet.  Kills me every time.

October 12, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving.  I’m working at my second job today.  It’s ok…the alternative is really no better.  Even though the pace of life with 2 jobs is too hectic, I still feel better in my center.  As in, by the end of Friday I didn’t feel like jumping off a bridge, which is generally how one feels when one hates their job.  Nope, the thought of having to go back to the job on Monday, or even if I would’ve had to go in again on Saturday, was not crazy-making.  Ah, what a relief.  It’s insane how miserable having a job that isn’t a good fit can make me.  And I only am really seeing it’s effects now that I’m out of it.  Again, I say, what a relief.

Feeling less displaced.  I think the impending doom of a big change is worse than actually being in the change and going through it.  I do better not knowing what’s ahead.  As in, it would’ve been much easier for me to wake up one morning and have someone say – ok, today you start a new job and life as you know it will be different.  I could deal with that better than knowing in advance that this would happen and then being left with my anxious brain to go over all of the worst case scenarios.  Brain, I am tired of you.  I am tired of your irrational thoughts, your negative spin on everything and the deep deep grooves in you where my thoughts seem to get stuck in for days, months, years.

Also contributing to my sense of belonging somewhere and having a home is that more people are moving into the houses around us.  We really were out in the boonies for a while.  Still are, but slowly there are more humans moving in.  This is helping.  More humans…maybe this will keep the coyotes away.  (I hear them yipping and howling at night a lot when I’m walking the dog…freaky.  They live just over the hill.  I don’t know if they eat people, but I should find out.)

So, for a few moments this weekend, maybe even a few hours, I think I spent some time with the real me.  And that was good.  I thought she was gone forever.  I was scared that I changed along with everything else and that now I had to figure myself out too.  Most thankful today for those people in my life who often know me better than myself, who have kept steering me towards the truth about who I am.  I hope that I can be present like this for people in my life and do the same for them.  This can really only happen when I am not so focused on myself.  Ugh…less me less me less me.  More of them less of me (I mean this in the least screwed up way possible!).  More of God less of me.  He must become more, I must become less.

October 8, 2009

I’m alive people.  I’m alive.  The new job has been great.  I can’t say I really have an idea of what exactly I’ll be doing yet, aside from a few obvious things that I’ve been doing this week.  But I can say that I know that I’m going to like working there a lot.  I already am enjoying it about, oh, 2500 times more than where I came from, and I don’t even know what’s what and who’s who yet.  So this is a good thing.  Am feeling a little fried lately because I’m working at the new job and then I go to my other job in the evenings.  And then I try to do a couple of normal life things.  And then I try to sleep.  I can’t keep up right now.  There’s only so long I can do this pace.  So we’ll see…something’s gotta give.

The only major disappointment with the new job is that the life size portrait of Jordon that Jordon promised me he’d have on my office wall is not there yet.  Soooooo we’ll see.  If it’s not there by the end of my probation period I may just walk out.