Tag Archives: Wedding

The Weight

Posted on January 5, 2011 | 9 comments

So, a really smart person asked me another really smart question. And for a second I wished she’d knock that shit off.  But it was asked with just the right amount of “tell me if I am stepping on your toes and I’ll shut up” to know she really meant that.  And given that she knows whereof she speaks, I paused.  And really thought about the answer.

And the more I thought about it the quieter I felt like being… and now that I think I have an answer for her, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to choke back out some words right here so I can get past the pre-christmas pity party I threw for myself.  Barfing up some whiny mess here is like barfing up tequila at a party.  You’re not really even sorry you did it, because you really do feel better, you’re just sorry you have to see any of those people again, the people that saw you leaving the bathroom, sweating, dazed and stinking of a Cancun party bus.

So, what she asked me is if I was  “depressed.”  Or suffering from “minor depression” with an apology for the use of the word minor, which was fair, as all who have suffered from it know that it feels like being told you were in a “minor car accident,” only your car is totaled and uninsured.  Short answer.  No.  I’m not.  I have been, in my life, and so I took some time and stepped back and thought about it.  But nope.    But I am suffering daily.  On two fronts.  That I am hard pressed to believe are not related.

Several months ago when I had my IUD removed I started paying really careful attention to my body.  Oddly, at the same time I stopped taking  particularly good care of it.  Thank you very much, holiday food and drink.  But in an effort to keep my psychosis and paranoia from consuming me I started charting my temps and watching my ovulation signs so I would know when to expect my period, consequently limiting the amount of time I spend convinced I am pregnant mere months before the Biggest and Most Fun Party Ever, I mean our wedding.   At about this same time I started experiencing terrific back pain.  Being a nerd, I logged all these symptoms in to my phone.  Since the holidays were a bigger priority to me than running or the gym has been the last couple months, I couldn’t blame it on the gym.

Stepping back now I can see I am in pain more often than not.

In the morning I struggle to get out of bed.  Mornings are the toughest, as I wince through making coffee, struggle to get back up from a crouched position to get something from the fridge.  I am short with Em and MQD.  I am angry.  A hot shower and a heaping handful of Advil go a long way.  But it’s not my favorite way to wake up.  Angry.  Hurting.

The pain in my back lends itself nicely to feeling sorry for myself.  Not only does it contribute to my lack of exercise, but it causes me to dwell unnecessarily on the process of aging.  I think, and think about how lucky I was that I was so healthy for so many years, and really have experienced very little physical pain.

And as soon as I make that distinction….. no physical pain,  the pain I did feel all comes back, because I am already crying, might as well make use of it.  And before I know it, I am crouched on the floor in the kitchen in front of the fridge, or bent over the trying to pick up my shoes, crying… because my back hurts, and because I am sad I went so long without doing the hard work to get happy.  Now that I have it, this capital letter h Happy… I can’t believe I went so long without finding it.  The easier my relationship becomes with Jer the more I wonder why I didn’t just let him go sooner.  We have our family back.  Em’s got her dad, I have my friend.  And we have MQD.  Who daily is more than I ever could have imagined a man to be.

So… the short answer to am I depressed is no.  But I am in pain.  My back hurts.  And my heart hurts.  And hurting makes me angry.  And being angry makes me unreasonably frustrated with everything.

I am having a hard time reconciling the fact that I am really fucking sad. Right smack dab in the middle of the happiest time of my life.  And I am confused by it.

Marriage is a leap of faith.  One I am prepared to make.  I feel confident and secure.  As secure as someone like me gets anyway…. but all of it, all of this capital letter “H” Happiness is stirring up Sadness and Anger and Failure and all kinds of bullshit that has no repository.  So, how do just I barf it up like that cheap tequila so I can make it all over with quicker?  The same way I used to try to then… drink more of it.  I wallowed in it, hoping that one good splash of feelings would come up from deep inside me and the sweating would stop and I’d feel better.  But it’s just not coming.  So… where do I go from here?

To have someone help me  pull it all out.  Let me look at it and then step over it.

My back hurts.  My heart hurts.  And it’s getting in the way of me sucking up all the Good that is surrounding me.  So in the last couple of weeks I did a couple of things that were hard, but not as hard as carrying this weight.  I asked MQD to help me with Em so I can take care of me.  I made an appointment with someone “to talk to” so I can move on.  And this morning I called the chiropractor.  It’s either my heart making my back hurt or my back making my heart hurt.  I’m not wasting any more time….   gonna fix ’em both up.  And take a load off….

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Day 47: Countin’ sheep, thunder bolts & days…

Posted on October 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

Day 47: Count Sheep….

I can remember occasionally trying to count sheep when I was a kid.  For a short period of time when I was maybe ten years old I used to worry a lot about what it meant if we were really in a war with Libya.  So I started listening to my pink clock radio as I fell asleep.  But the trouble with listening to the radio while I fell asleep was two-fold.  The “sleep” function on either a radio or a television has the reverse effect on me.  I take it as a dare to try to stay awake until it goes off.  And then I started imagining that inside my radio was an entire universe.  That universe generated sounds and thoughts and “radio waves.”  I had a poster in my room when I was really little that had the alphabet on it.  So, I memorized the alphabet backwards.  That didn’t help me sleep, either.   So, I’d just let my mind wander and I’d imagine what it would be like to be married to Tom Selleck.  (Shut up, it was 1983.) Somewhere amidst all of these “fall asleep” techniques I am sure I counted sheep.  But it didn’t leave much of an impression.  So last night when I decided to give it a shot I felt like it was the very first time.

MQD and I both read before going to sleep last night.  It’s one of my favorite times of the day.  When we are both in bed, reading our own books, barely touching, but aware of the sound of the other’s pages turning, the smile that crosses my face when I hear him chuckle at something he’s read, the wondering if he can see the tear roll my down my face (confession:  I am a recently converted voracious reader of terrible chick lit, this will pass, so help me) all of these things add up to make this one of my very favorite moments.    I suspect this is in no small part due to the fact that it “feels” like something good.  Like the way a perfect marriage should feel.  Like something I’d have imagined doing with Tom Selleck.  (See, how I said that before you could?)

There’s something about those moments that feel just like what you imagined it would be like that is so satisfying.   I have been dwelling a bit on the “what is “it” supposed to feel/look like?  The “it” being our marriage.  I am confident in our ability to communicate.  And I earnestly believe if you’ve got that you’re most of the way there.  I am confident that when I make some smart ass remark at the television and MQD looks at me and says “I love you” he really does.  And that kind of love is the kind that carries you through, the kind that really means you like that person more than you like anyone else, that they are your favorite.  So I am not even really sure why I am so anxious lately. But I am trying not to dig too deep and just let myself feel it.  After all, nothing reminds you that even the most well laid plans can go awry like calling your ex-husband so your daughter can say goodnight, a task I complete five nights out of seven.  So it is no wonder I have a little bit of worry that I am making the right decisions.  I think a certain amount of worry is to be expected.  And yet all in all I feel more sure of this being “right” than anything.   I am not afraid to admit it out loud that I really, really want him, us, our marriage.  I don’t often admit to myself or to anyone that I want anything.  Because if you don’t have goals you don’t fail.

So, I needed last night.  One of those nights where you turn off your light and you think, ahhh…. this is it.  I’ve got this.  With little nagging at the corners of my mind I said “Good night” tucked my Snoopy under my chin (Tom Selleck was a phase, Snoopy was not) and started counting.  I really tried to picture each one, real sheep, not cartoon sheep, jumping over a fence.  I got to about twenty and remembered I’d not set my alarm clock.  Began again.  Somewhere around seventeen my mind started wandering and I realized I could feel my pulse in my lower back and I was actually counting my heart beats.  I rolled over and started again.  Put my hand on MQD’s chest. He was already asleep.  His ability to fall asleep in a moment is a trait I both admire and abhor.  Nothing like tossing and turning while your bed mate soundly slumbers to make you feel like a bratty child, desperate to wake up everyone else in the house, too, dammit.     I let the sheep jump in rhythm with MQD’s breath and I counted.  I don’t recall getting to thirty.

I woke to the sounds of thunder and rain around four this morning.  I could see the lightning through the bedroom curtains and I counted the moments between lightning and thunder-clap as I decided whether I’d try to get back to sleep or not.  I was still awake when MQD got up at five.  And still awake when my little lady hopped in bed around 5:30.  And still awake when I felt her chest begin to rise and fall more slowly as she fell back to sleep.  And still awake when MQD left for work so very early this morning.

But I was rested.  I’d counted sheep.  And calculated the thunderstorm’s distance.  And just now I counted the days.  198.  A hundred and ninety-eight days until we make a wonderful decision.  Until we have a party to celebrate a decision we made long ago…

It’s still raining.  Office door open.  Ella Fitzgerald on the radio.  I love today.

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