A new kind of life

My first day in eight years without a paying job.

It feels...odd.

Yesterday people at work tell me that I must be so relieved. That it must be nice to be getting rid of my stress. And, yes, it is.

But I haven't totally gotten rid of stress in my life...just the stress of working in a job at which I was pretty good for a long time, but on which I had burned out some time ago.

Now there's new and different stress...

We're officially a one-income family until I can figure out a way to generate some income while I'm a stay-at-home-mom. Hopefully with my writing.

I've committed to getting the house in shape for the baby's eventual (and hopefully soon!) arrival in our lives. That means cleaning out all of the closets, getting rid of more accumulated stuff to make way for new baby stuff, baby proofing, painting the baby's bookshelves and dresser, and the big project - sanding/priming/painting the remaining trim on our main floor. That's seven door frames (both sides), four window frames, and all of the baseboards. May not sound like a lot, but if you've ever sanded/primed/painted trim you'll know that it's a huge, time consuming, tedious and tiring task. Still, when it's finally done the house will feel fresh.

And then there's making sure that I'm using my time wisely and efficiently each day. That I don't allow myself to get lazy. That I don't sleep in everyday, but I get up and go to "work." That I make a list of things needing to get done each day and that I do them.

As part of my daily "get things done/don't get lazy" regime, I need to make progress on my book. Big progress. Now that I'm not dealing with the exhaustion (or the excuse of exhaustion...) of a full-time job I am making the commitment to myself to write everyday.

Every. Single. Day.

To make writing part of my daily list of things to do because until now I've been pretty haphazard in my approach to getting this book written. Some days I don't even look at it. Other days I'm off at the coffee house for six hours clackering away on my laptop and ignoring the rest of my life. It's time to learn a little discipline when it comes to pounding out my novel.

Then there's also the stress of being the person who is now available to get "stuff" done. The cat needs to go to the vet. The plumber is coming to deal with the leaky faucet. Deliveries. Other house stuff. Grocery shopping. Cleaning. Laundry. That's all going to fall to me because I'm the one that will be home and not "working."

My conversation with my husband this morning:

CHRIS: So, what's on tap for you today for your first day of freedom?

ME: Well, I need to head to the Target in W to get sheets and beach towels for the trip. And also those t-shirts that I like so much, but they didn't have a whole lot left at the Target in S. Um, and then I have a couple of other errands to do and then an appointment with N (my therapist) at 2:30. And then I'm going to come home and deal with laundry.

CHRIS [furrowed brow]: Mmmm. Um.

ME: What?

CHRIS: Would you mind doing the laundry this morning?

ME [furrowed brow]: Why?

CHRIS: So everything has time to dry today. I'd really like to pack this evening so we can get on the road tomorrow as soon as I get home from work.

ME [brow still furrowed]: Um.

For about half a minute I'm annoyed by my husband's perfectly reasonable request/suggestion.
I have my schedule planned out for the day! The way I want to get things done in the order that I want to get them done. And now he wants me to change my whole schedule to take care of the laundry this morning???

I'm about to make a really stupid comment to the effect of what is on my mind which will surely start something that involves serious bickering. But I stop myself. Suddenly feeling very foolish and embarrassed for being annoyed for even thirty seconds.

He's right, of course.

It certainly makes more sense to get the laundry done and hung up this morning before I head out for the day. And, aside from my 2:30 appointment, do I really have a set schedule? Nope. Just my handy list of things to do and purchase.So, getting the laundry done this morning? Not such a big deal.

ME [flushing slightly with embarrassment and hoping that Chris doesn't notice]: Of course. I'll take care of it.

The first load of laundry is in the washer right now. It's still early and I have plenty of time to get everything done that I want to today.

* * *

Just because I don't have a paying job doesn't mean that I'm not going to be working or that I won't have stress.

I'm just going to have a different kind of job. And there's going to be different kinds of stress. And I'm sure that there will be days where I wish desperately that I was heading into the office. Days when if I have to look at another load of laundry or clean out another closet I will likely lose my mind just a little.

Hopefully that's in the distant future (or, even more hopefully, not in the future at all.)

But for now I've signed on for a new life of being the person in our house who takes care of the "stuff" and who has to learn how to fill her days in new ways - with writing, taking care of our home, hopefully taking care of a baby very soon.

Am I excited?

Yeah, kind of.

Am I scared?

Yeah, a little.

OK, a lot.

But here I am and I want to be in the present moment with all of it.

Maybe next year

Most days I'm OK.

I do not spend much time these days obsessing about the adoption that fell through earlier this year or the one that has yet to happen.

Most days I'm OK.

I go about my business. The business of living. The business of trying to be in the present moment.

But then it creeps up on me. Stealthily.

The sadness. The longing.

Like yesterday.

In many ways yesterday is a good day. Gray and rainy. I spend the day in my jammies, reading the last book in my very favorite fantasy series, hunkered down on the couch, enjoying the cat snuggled up beside me. The house needs to be cleaned, but I ignore it in favor of the life of the mind and imagination.

It is only in the evening when it's finally dark enough for the fireworks to start and I head out with my husband onto our back deck to watch them that I realize how sad I am.

How yet another holiday has almost come and gone.

And we are still not parents.

I try to enjoy the fireworks, but fail and head back inside to finish my book.

Last year at the Independence Day parade we talk about how great it will be "next year" when we have the baby with us. We laugh and wonder if she'll make it all the way through the parade or if the heat and the noise will be too much for her and we'll have to pack up and head out early.

And yet here we are at "next year" and next year's parade...

Still no baby. Still not parents.

Today we head to the parade, but surprisingly, I am not sad. Apparently I had my little moment yesterday. Instead I clap for the marching bands, clap for the veterans from the Korean War, Vietnam, and WWII, eat a forbidden hot dog, laugh at the tiny Chihuahua a few feet away barking like mad and desperate to get at the passing Clydesdale horses, and thoroughly enjoy watching parents with their children all around us enjoying the day.

And hoping that maybe next year...

Mental illness: There but for the grace of God, go I...

She is in line in front of me at the Dunkin Donuts. It isn't that she has a bad odor drawing my attention to her because she doesn't have one, which is surprising.

It is her oddness.

The way she holds her arms away from her sides, hands dangling, and sways ever so slightly. It's the short brown obviously unwashed hair standing straight up in the back with large flakes of dandruff embedded in it. It's the droopy, dirty, strapless sundress and the dirty white flip flops that make me look at her more closely. Her tan feet are filthy with long, sharp looking toenails that have not seen a clipper in many, many months. I notice that her long, sharp looking finger nails are dirty as well. When her arms are not held away from her sides she plucks and plucks at the skirt of her dress. I'm guessing that she is somewhere in her early fifties, although it's hard to tell. Her face, except for her rapidly blinking eyes, is slack and immobile.

The young girl behind the counter quickly gets the woman in the sundress her two powdered sugar jelly donuts and a large coffee all the while pointedly not looking at the woman or speaking to her except to say "That's three dollars and eighty-two cents."

Donuts and coffee in hand the woman in the sundress makes a beeline to a table with her flip-flops slapping loudly against her filthy feet as she walks.

The young girl behind the counter, obviously relieved that the crazy woman is gone, chatters loudly at me as she takes my order. I take my bottle of water and grab a seat.

From across the restaurant I watch the woman in the sundress. It's hard not to. I am embarrassed to find myself staring, but she doesn't notice. She has dumped the donuts on the table without the benefit of a napkin. The table top is now covered in powdered suger. One of the donuts has a large bite taken out of it. Half of the woman's face is covered in powdered sugar, but she makes no attempt to wipe it off. Doesn't even seem to notice. Her eyes blink rapidly as she chews and she continually plucks at the skirt of her dress. After swallowing she stops blinking and plucking, stands up, grabs the partially eaten donut and makes a beeline to the trashcan. Slap-slap-slap go her flip flops. She throws the donut away, taps the door of the trashcan four times and then slap-slap-slaps her way back to the table to grab the uneaten donut and repeat the whole slap-slap-slap/throwing away/tapping process all over again.

Now other people in the Dunkin Donuts are watching her. It's obvious to them that she's not right in the head and they stare at her. As I am staring. She still doesn't notice.

The remains of her original twenty dollars are on the table next to hers. She grabs a five dollar bill and returns to the counter where she orders another two donuts (same kind) and another large coffee. The same young girl waits on her and is apparently still too embarrassed to look at her. The woman sways and plucks at her skirt until her order is ready. Her sundress is falling down. I am suddenly afraid that the entire Dunkin Donuts is going to be treated to seeing this woman quite naked. Amazingly, the woman notices her dangerously drooping sundress and hikes it up.

Back at her table, the woman in the sundress again dumps the powdered sugar covered donuts on the table. But now she stops. The plucking and the swaying stop. She holds her arms out straight from her sides and looks perplexed. Furroughs her brow. It's obvious that she is confused. Then she suddenly appears upset. Something is wrong, but she doesn't know what. She pulls her arms back in, furiously plucks at her skirt a few times, blinks rapidly and then just about leaps out of her seat to grab another five dollar bill and head back to the counter.

This time she takes her third order of coffee and donuts to a completely different table on the other side of the Dunkin Donuts leaving the mess of her orginal two coffees and second set of donuts on the first table. She also leaves the rest of her money out on the other table. Again she dumps the donuts on the new table. Now she studies them and her current location. A brief smile plays on her face as she picks up one of the donuts to take a large bite apparently much more satisfied with this table and these donuts. She chews, blinks rapidly, and plucks at the skirt of her dress.

I pull myself away from the spectacle of this seriously mentally ill woman because I have to get myself to work. But not before I sit in my car for a few minutes breathing deeply, wondering if I should do something, not knowing what to do for the woman in the sundress, feeling guilty about not knowing what to do, and then simply being thankful for my life.

Am I an awful person?

I'm sitting in my favorite coffee house today trying to get some writing done when she walks in with her friend.

She can't be more than 15 or 16 years old. Laughing and giggling. Very pretty with long dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin. She is wearing one of this season's popular floor length "maxi" dresses.

And she is also very obviously very pregnant.

She and her friend purchase their coffee and treats and sit at the next table over from me chatting happily away. I know that I am staring at them, which is terribly rude, but I cannot tear my eyes away from them so distracted and distressed am I by the sight of this pregnant girl.

Distressed and distracted not by her or her pregnancy, but rather by my reaction to her and her pregnancy.

"How can you possibly take care of a baby at your age?" I ask her in my thoughts. "You're just a child yourself!"

I wonder whether she's planning to keep her baby, if her family is going to step in with help and financial support. Will this young woman's parents step up and raise the child if she cannot or will not raise it? Is the father going to be involved? Will they live at home with her family? Or will this young woman try to live on her own with the baby?

Then suddenly some part of me contemplates getting up and walking over to this young woman to introduce myself and ask her outright if she's considering adoption. To tell her that there is a couple living just a few miles away who would make wonderful adoptive parents for her child. That the woman who would make a great mom is me! Standing right in front of her!

Urgh! Ach!! WTF??? How can I be thinking these things???

Quite suddenly my mouth goes dry and I start to sweat with the shame of it all.  I am so ashamed that even just one of these thoughts has for one millionth of one second been rattling around in my brain. So ashamed.

This young woman's pregnancy is clearly none of my business.

And, further, I have absolutely no business whatsoever judging her for being young and being pregnant.

Soon the young women finish their coffee and treats and make their way out of the coffee house leaving me behind with my terrible thoughts. Leaving me feeling...

Bad.

Selfish.

Judgmental.

Predatory.

Does this make me an awful person?

I am still not a mom

It's been 70+ days since we found out that the adoption fell through.

In that time I've: wept, blogged, withdrawn from the world, come back out into the world, exercised, not exercised, gained and lost 6 pounds, gone back to therapy, attended a conference for work, decided that I'm going to have a nervous breakdown if I continue my work, tendered my resignation (effective July 1), started looking into new careers and returning to school, cleaned my house, let my house become a complete wreck, avoided the subject of adoption, talked incessantly about adoption, got weepy when I would see little babies out with their moms, came down with The Plague, missed a week of work, started revamping my novel.

And...

At least over the course of the past week, I stopped thinking about the fact that I am still not a mom.

Until today.

It just kind of hit me. And I don't know why. I walk into the house after my trip to the gym and there it is loud and clear in my head:

I. Am. Still. Not. A. Mom.

Which then leads to this thought:

Chris. Is. Still. Not. A. Dad.

And the really sad thing is that we're not having those great little conversations that we had been having for a long time before the adoption fell through...

"We're not going to be able to sleep in on the weekends anymore once the baby comes."

"I can't wait until we get to take her to her first PawSox game!"

"Omigod. I am so not looking forward to the poopy diapers."

Nope.

It seems like we've kind of lost our enthusiasm.

We've turned our attention to other things to avoid thinking about the fact that we were supposed to be more than two months into parenthood by now.

I am still not a mom.

Which kind of sucks.

However, there's not much I can do about that now except be in the present moment.

And so in this present moment I am off to drink a green smoothie, have some lunch, shower and then hit the grocery store.

Life goes on.

Being with discomfort

"Did you take anything for that?" my husband asks me a few days ago during the height of what I am now calling "The Plague." The "that" he's referring to is me practically hacking up a lung every twenty minutes or so.

"No [coughs]," I reply in a deep scratchy voice through a stuffed up head and chest. "I'm waiting until I go to bed for the night [coughs] to take any cold meds [sneezes and blows nose twice] so I can at least breathe a little better while I sleep. [coughs] During the day I'm just trying to let [sneezes] this thing make its way [coughs] through my system."

He looks at me as if I have lost my mind.

"Yeah...umm...OK."

A few hours after this conversation I still cannot breathe. I'm huddled in my nest of blankets on the living room couch and still hacking away. Our elderly cat is enjoying the warmth I'm emitting as a result of my fever. She lays snoozing on top of me, opening her eyes each time I cough to regard me with a baleful glare as if to say, "You're disturbing my nap. Hush."

Like my husband, I'm sure the cat would love it if I would just take the cold medication.

Nope.

Unlike those folks who medicate themselves day and night in an attempt to squelch every symptom of an illness, I prefer to simply be still and quiet and let whatever upper respiratory yuck (because that's usually what I get) just run it's course.The cold meds aren't going to make it go away any more quickly. If anything, I sometimes think squelching the symptoms slows the progress of a virus through your system forcing it to linger.

Better to just let it do its thing and get it over with.

Yep, that's my strategy.

It hits me as I'm laying there trapped under the cat and coughing yet again: In spite of feeling wretched, I am actually good at sitting with physical discomfort.

I am good at just being quiet for days on end and being still and sitting with the discomfort. At waiting it out and letting it run its course.

How weird is that?

In the next moment it hits me that, sadly, I do not possess the same skill when it comes to my mental and emotional life. While I might be good at sitting with physical discomfort, experiencing psychic discomfort of any kind...yikes!

Nope. Not good at all at being quiet and being still when it comes to sitting with difficult emotions or thoughts.

Like most people, I want to squelch the symptoms of discomfort in the realms of the mental and the emotional - numb them with things like food, movies, televsion, my computer, solitaire, anything fun and pleasant that will distract from the discomfort.

How sad is that?

And especially now when I have just given notice at my job, with no new job in the wings and my future plans uncertain. I'm making the leap into parenthood (hopefully, if our adoption ever goes through) and potentially into a writing career.

Yep, there's definitely going to be some psychic discomfort heading my way.

Maybe I should replicate my nest of blankets from my days with The Plague? Think that would help?

How many self-help books are too many?

I open the plastic storage bin in search of a specific journal that I've used in the past to record notes and thoughts about a particular self-help book.

And there they all are.

My collection.

I've had to move them because we turned what was the guest room/my studio into the baby's room. My studio is now down in our finished basement. And I haven't taken the time to pull out and shelve my self-help book collection in the new space.

Until I look at them in their bin this evening, I had forgotten how many self-help books that I actually own.

Holy buckets, Batman.

That's a whole lot of advice from a whole bunch of experts staring me in the face from inside that bin.
That's a whole lotta books.

Books rife with meditations and affirmations. Buddhist books. Art therapy guides. Zen books. Writing therapy guides. Mystical books. Practical self-help books filled with strategies that I can easily incorporate into my everyday life!

Authors who promise they'll take me on the wonderful journey to becoming the thin, healthy, professionally fulfilled, sexy, happy human being that they know I can be!

Many of my self-help collection have illustrations. Others have accompanying workbooks or spaces within for me to write and journal. Still others allow me to create my own illustrations or add my own artistic touches.

So many tomes devoted to guiding me through multiple exercises that will lead me through the pain through the suffering through my past and my present to get to the healing and to discover my ultimate truth!!!

I've read them all. I've worked through them all.

And yet...

Here I am.

Forty-three years old and not quite where I would like to be in my life.

Still struggling.

Still looking to yet another new self-help book for some guidance and inspiration.

Maybe I just haven't connected with the right book yet?

How many self-help books are too many?