I haven’t come on in a long time. There’s many reasons for it and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to share this, but I’m still going to take a minute to share.
Safe in the Dark
Boy oh boy it’s been a long time since I sat and wrote anything. I get the urge all of the time but like the self sabotaging doofus that I am I find reasons why I can’t.
Xander is a handful and requires my attention. True, but I can write and put the writing down when he wants to play with me and pick it back up when he’s done with me.
Work is crazy and exhausts me. Also true, but if I start something and fall asleep it will save as a draft. Maybe it will take forever to write a piece, but I’d be writing.
I have nothing worth saying… Possibly true, but this has always been my space to write whether the words are read or not.
I’m having a hard time right now😐 Truly hard and I’m not fully embracing these growing pains… Instead I feel safe in the dark. There’s a consistency and comfort there. The dark doesn’t make me feel lonely and worthless. I don’t question my place or my choices in the dark. I don’t have to raise my voice to get a response.
I don’t know how people do it. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through it. My son is two, he’s head strong and smart, he’s sweet and loving. But he is also a little asshole. He defies me at every turn and thinks it’s funny. He makes me raise my voice after asking him soft and sweet five times. I should have more patience with him, I truly should, but these things grate on me.
I don’t feel good in my new position at work. If I am honest and look back at my career I never feel good in a new position. But this one is high profile! Not only do I have a co manager and my store manager but I have a market manager just over my area to answer to and a regional.
I want to do well not just for myself and my career, but for my store manager who, I believe, has faith in me. Most especially though I want to do well for Xander. I want to be in a better and better position to take care of him. Right now it is a true struggle. I worry about it at all times…
I’m tired right now and writing can sometimes take it out of me. I’ll end this post now and make a shaky promise to myself to do better.
New Things to Worry About
It has been a long time since I sat or more accurately laid down to write, lol. I tend to do it in bed before I go to sleep. I’m not focused enough like I should be or I would write multiple times a week. There’s so much I want to write about and talk about, but I get caught up in my simple need to just veg out.
Four days ago I was off of work. Two days in a row which is rare for me to find, but switching days with a co worker got me this perk. Sometimes it’s good to help someone out… but here’s the thing we have been getting snow. Lots and lots of it and that’s not common for where I live. This of course makes people crazy and they get paranoid when on the road.
So Monday of last week we had our first snowfall. It wasn’t a terrible amount but people shut themselves inside, but I went to work. Tuesday there was still snow on the ground but not really falling anymore. So I picked up a few of my associates who weren’t able to make it on their own to work. I drove them home at the end of the day. Then I was off Wednesday but Xander and I woke up in the morning to give the rides that were needed and went home to have our day together. He went out in the snow for the first real time in his sweet, young life. It was so much fun to watch him play, but he only got fifteen minutes because mama didn’t want him to freeze.
Here comes Thursday and we ran some errands and got out of the house. Xander loves to adventure so it was very good for him. I haven’t been feeling well for a while. Nothing major to worry about but just a little off.
Thursday night I went to the bathroom and when I wiped I felt something… Do I have a giant hemorrhoid and didn’t realize it?? Feel around a bit and nope, that’s something in my vagina 😳
I immediately head to the living room and tell my sister I have the strangest request she’s ever heard. Can you look at my vagina, there’s something coming out of me and I’m a little freaked out! She tells me that aside from watching me deliver Xander she has no point of reference 🤣
I go back to the bathroom and use my phone as a mirror so I can see what’s happening. Holy fucking shit! What the hell is that?? I go back out and say there’s definitely something there but I can tell what it is!!! Suggestion is made that I just make an appointment with the gyno.
I go back to the bathroom, this time to take pictures that I can study🤣 I take a few pictures🥴 and I study them but for the life of me I don’t have the first clue and I’m starting to freak out a bit.
I step outside so I can call the nurses line. I get on with a nurse and explain the situation and I have a 16 month old baby. She says I need to get to the walk-in before it closes, this is something they are going to need to see to determine what’s going on. You sure you don’t want me to text you the pics? 🤣
My sister graciously keeps Xander while I quickly run and get in my car. I try a few times to get ahold of my best friend because I don’t want to be alone. She comes to meet me at the clinic.
I get checked in and the nurse is awesome. He’s having a great time chatting with us and rightly thinks we are hilarious. Then the doctor comes in and she doesn’t have the same humor. That’s okay, most people don’t. She says it sounds like I have a prolapsed uterus, which is apparently common after childbirth. If you don’t know what that means it basically means my uterus has fallen and is coming out of me.
She asked if there’s a chance of pregnancy because I’m not taking birth control, but I tell her celibacy works better 🤣🤣 We talk about my thyroid and why I haven’t taken my meds in months, but she doesn’t really listen to me. What is with doctors and not listening? It’s my freaking thyroid, I know what’s what since I’ve been dealing with it for the last five years!
We talk about the fact that I was taking metformin for PCOS until I was in my 12th week of pregnancy. The doctors in Minnesota weren’t sure it was really needed to begin with but for the pregnancy I had to come off of it after week 12. My primary doctor never renewed the prescription and I just let it go… maybe I should have fought to get it back again.
The doctor did her explain after giving a urine sample. These poor people had to stay so late on account of me. But urine was given and three vials of blood taken. The doctor said she was going to refer me for an ultrasound because they needed to get a more accurate picture of what was going on up there. Sometimes the prolapsed uterus could be handled without surgery, but not always.
I went home and tried not to cry as I crawled into bed. Why the fuck is my uterus being a bitch and trying to escape! I’m not to do physical labor. I’m not to push, pull or lift. If I can just rest and stay off my feet that would be best.
The next morning at about 7:30 the clinic woke me up to say I needed to get down and have the ultrasound done. So again my sister watched Xander while I went to the hospital.
I didn’t have to wait long for them to bring me in. Did an outer ultrasound to see my uterus, ovaries and kidneys. Not sure why the kidneys and wondering about kidney stones… Then they did the inner ultrasound. She asked if I was okay with it so I said, yes but say sweet words to me during because it’s the most action I’ve gotten in a long time 🤣🤣
She did her scan and then took them to bed read while I waited in the lobby for the doctor to call with the results…
Here are my results and my new found reason for worry, because I’m a worrier already by nature. When going through my fertility treatments and any exams people have always been surprised at the pcos diagnosis because my uterus and ovaries have always been clean. No signs of cysts or any scaring or anything happening.
There are cysts on both ovaries. Multiple cysts and they aren’t small. Okay, that happens. The uterus is lapsed and will require going to the gyno surgeon for repair. Okay. Only time I’ve spent in the hospital was having Xander.
But the thing that made me cry on my drive back to Xander was the fact that they found a mass at the base of my uterus. A solid mass and they think it may be a cyst but it’s not filled with liquid. That made me cry with worry.
What if this is something terrible and I have to worry about whether or not I’ll be around to raise my son. To watch him grow up and love the hell out of him.
I got home and gathered Xander’s things so we could head out and I could get to work. My sister said I was crazy, when you get news like that you don’t go to work. But there was another snow storm coming and work was crazy and needed me to be there.
So I went to work and told my store manager what was happening and why I was a bit late. I used my usual humor with it all and they just couldn’t believe how I was making jokes. But honestly what else was I going to do? If for no other reason than I have this beautiful baby I need to make sure I’m not drifting to the dark and hopeless.
I come from a very long line of warriors. Strength is a natural thing for me and while I have to work against the dark, strength is always there. But I have to make sure I’m not being more physical than necessary. I have Xander to care for a play with, but other things don’t need to take a physical place in my life.
The snow storm began to hit Friday night, but I was off the weekend. Sunday night my niece needed me to pick her up from her sleepover. Xander was just put to bed, so I go out to the car and brush it all off. Put the car in reverse and away I go down the driveway. Turn to pull off aaaaaaannnnnnndddddddd I’m stuck! I can’t move forward. My other niece comes out and we spend forty minutes trying to get the car out and at least in front of the driveway so I’m not blocking the road. She’s pushing the gas and I’m pushing the car and then vice versa… nothing. My niece is brought home from the sleepover. Now she’s pushing the gas and the two of us are pushing the car. Finally!!! We get the car out of the road, but now I can feel my uterus trying to fall completely out.
For Monday and Tuesday and the constant snow fall, little by little, my car is stuck and I can’t get it out. I can’t go to work and I worry that it’s going to be viewed that I’m taking advantage of the weather. That I’m playing hookey. I’d like to be at work. I’d like to be keeping busy and not thinking about these things and having a small freak out.
Doctors office called to set up the appointment for my exam and deciding the next steps. I’m not going to be seen until the 5th of next month, so for three weeks I’m going to have to live this way. Constantly on the edge of full falling out. And with no real talks or answers about the cysts or the mass or what it all means for my future and the future of my little miracle.
I dreamt after Xander was born that I was pregnant again and he’d get siblings. This makes me question that dream. I don’t see children who don’t come to us, but I saw them, just as I saw Xander before I got pregnant with him. Now I think Xander may truly be my one and only. For him I am truly grateful because he’s the most amazing and sometimes infuriating little person around. If I only get to have one at least I struck gold❤️❤️❤️
Mourning
It occurs to me sometimes when I have moments of clarity the things that I am feeling and going through. Recently I had one of those moments of clarity.
I am in mourning. I have been for over three years now. Hell, even longer than that. Probably my whole life. I have mourned the fact that there were so many vital things missing from my life.
But a little over three years ago I began a mourning process that still hasn’t left me. I lost my first baby. One I loved with every fiber of my being. A baby that was hoped for and wanted as much as anyone could ever love or want a baby. It was a pain and a hurt, that even though my life was full of it, I had never known or could imagine.
In the process of mourning my baby I suffered another loss. The loss of my husband. A husband who in my eyes was beautiful and perfect. A husband who would never hurt me or leave me feeling unwanted or unworthy. To lose him so soon after my baby compounded my pain. It sent me into a tailspin and I didn’t know how I was going to come out of it.
In order to recenter myself I chose to suffer more loss and moved myself halfway across the country to start over. It was the right choice and I knew it then. Even though I didn’t know that it would be the catalyst for my dreams coming true as well as even more loss to follow.
So I made my choice and suffered the loss of family and friends being close by to me. Of having the support that I needed while dealing with my baby and my husband’s departure.
I gain from this as well, so to feel the loss so heavy was an odd thing. I promoted and got to have time with my best friends. I got to grow and nurture that friendship and I continue to hope to hold on to it. I don’t want to suffer the loss of them. I’m not sure I would get over it.
I made more friends and people seemed to really be open to me and all I had to offer. It tends to go that way. Somehow people tend to like me.
I started a relationship and while it was casual I really grew to like him. But in mourning and dealing with all of the emotions proved difficult. And then it happened… he walked away for another woman. Yet again I was suffering another loss of possibility. Because I was too scared and reserved and prickly to allow myself to be open. But we remained friends and continue today.
Months later another man would enter my world and he would alter everything. He was the same with the pretty words and compliments. They all are the same with the pretty words and compliments. But he would give me my greatest gift out of it. I would walk away pregnant with my beautiful son!!
Let’s take a minute to talk about Xander. I feel like sometimes people feel the need to point things out to me that I already know. Yes, he is the greatest blessing. Yes, he is my top priority. Yes, this time we have together is absolutely the greatest time of my life. Yes, he needs me to be strong. Feel free to tell me all of those things again so that we can stop being friends since you aren’t invested enough to listen and instead want to state the obvious.
I am his mama and I know all of these things. I live all of these things day in and day out. Solo, alone without the aid of someone to be my partner. I am also a person in my own right. I am a person who has needs and desires. A person who needs and wants to share life with someone. Xander isn’t responsible for being that person. He doesn’t need to ever worry about whether or not I am happy based solely on him. I need social interaction.
Having learned I was pregnant the decision came to return to Washington where so many people, people I let get close to me, promised life would be better for us here. Despite the pleas of my people in Minnesota to stay and they would help carry me through, I chose to return to Washington.
What I returned to was not what was told to me. What I returned home to was casual friendships and basic check ups. I still went to my doctors appointments alone. I still only worked and slept. There wasn’t a lot of time spent with me enjoying my pregnancy and making me feel like this was special to anyone else.
I liked to reason things away and say that people are busy with their lives. And for those who share a casual friendship with me that was/is fine and good enough. Because that was what had already been established in our lives. But the others. The ones I let get close to me. The ones I would have thought more of. Those ones hurt.
Let’s talk about life after Xander was born. I had a different plan and idea for what going to the hospital and having him was going to look like. But that’s okay because the circumstances around his birth turned out to be so beautifully perfect.
But after he was born and I was deep into postpartum depression I sat in the apartment alone with him day in and day out. Unless we were in the car traveling to see people. Or to babysit, where I would end up in such a shitty situation that I’d end up losing my milk and no longer be able to breastfeed my son.
I was vocal about my situation and still I was alone. Day in and day out alone. What I would get was platitudes and people telling me how their single moms sacrificed for them. It’s not a contest and I know that is how it will work. I needed you. I needed you to come and spend time with us. I needed to be remembered for still being a person. I needed to talk and socialize. I needed to not feel so alone in everything.
I went to therapy again for a short time. One of the last sessions my therapist told me he couldn’t wrap his brain around why I would be told so often that I was beautiful or gorgeous or hot. He just couldn’t understand and if he saw me on the street he wouldn’t stop to talk or try to get my number. Thanks, I don’t get it either. That maybe these men were seeing my damage and that’s why I attracted them. The next session we were supposed to have he forgot about me and I waited in the lobby for almost forty-five minutes before I finally gave up and left. Another person who promised to be there and left me abandoned.
My former in laws who assured me we were still family turned on me after I did them a favor. Tore me to shreds and made me feel small. Walked away and never looked back.
And then I go back to work and it’s hard. The sleep deprivation and the traveling was tough. Making sure I left work right on time so my family wasn’t burdened with my baby for longer than necessary. But man I was thankful to have them because I can in no way afford to pay for babysitters or daycare.
Until the day when I learned that they were not okay with watching him for me with my long hours and crazy back and forth schedule. Now I was screwed and not sure what I was going to do. But I found someone and they said they had me. Xander would be good and in good hands. Until the day they no longer replied to messages and I was again to scramble to find care for the baby.
He became a vagabond, a nomad baby who would bounce around to anyone who was willing to watch him from day to day. This is how we live our life now. I drive sometimes more than six hundred miles in a work week. His time in the car is not short.
I have friends who I would have called family that don’t talk to me unless I reach out. Sometimes not talking for weeks at a time. They are floating away and I’m ready to cut the cord and they can drift out to the farthest reaches.
For a year I have tried to hold on to the things that were. Hold on to things that were told to me and yet didn’t happen. Realizing all of this helped me to understand why I’m so angry. It’s not just because I live a life where people say things they don’t mean or if they do other things get in the way, so they just float.
I am in mourning because all of these relationships that I thought meant something don’t. Because I am still alone when I say I need someone to talk to. I am still alone when I say I need out of the house. I am still alone when it’s obvious to everyone that they think I have postpartum and maybe need a well check called, but no one comes over to see us.
I am continuing to be in mourning and I’m not sure when it will end. But it needs to end sometime soon. Unfortunately that means letting go of people I would have called family. It means letting go of some family.
We cannot continue to use our words to pretend we care while sitting back and doing nothing. Message that mom who is on social media begging for someone to have lunch or dinner with. Don’t be a prick who disappears because they don’t know how to put aside our guilt or shortcomings. Don’t let someone you care about go through a constant state of mourning the loss of friends and family and children alone. Or be the cause of the mourning. If you are never there then you don’t know and maybe they should slap you in the face with it to make you see it, but what if they don’t? Does that take away all responsibility? Maybe it does… but that friend who is trying so hard to hang and be seen they will mourn you when you are no longer in their life and then they will move on without you.
You’re Probably a Good Person
My usual lately is to cry alone in the dark. I try to keep myself from being emotional around Xander. I try to keep myself in check at work and with those I used to consider friends or family. But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes things build and I just have an instant snap.
There have been a few times recently where that was the case. And I always end up feeling guilty. Taking the entire burden onto myself for why it occurred. It’s time I make serious changes in my life. Xander doesn’t have time to wait.
Xander is deserving of all the good things there are. Someone at work told me that I’m probably a good person on the inside but my outside doesn’t match. They then went on to say that I’m probably a good mother too…
I started to write this post in March but became distracted by the day to day of life. Now we are a week into May. My son is napping on my chest and I’m ready to really write.
When I lost my first can’t I questioned myself and my ability to be a good mama. Was that the reason why God had to take him from me? I felt guilt to Remy for not carrying his baby, but being able to carry Sean’s. I no longer feel that guilt and I don’t consider my first baby shared with Remy any longer.
He was my son, my baby that I didn’t get to hold and love. Remy didn’t even consider my baby a baby because he was “just a bunch of cells”. We differed on our opinions of when life begins. I realize now that whether I lost the baby or not Remy would have found and left me for Katelyn. He wasn’t ever ready to be a husband and father. Say what you will about Sean but at least he was upfront and honest about his readiness for fatherhood.
Then I was pregnant again and the judgments began. I was working too much. I was doing too much. I wasn’t thinking of the baby. I was gaining too much weight. I wasn’t sleeping enough. I wasn’t relaxing enough. I was being too emotional. I really needed to worry about postpartum if I was already this emotional.
Perhaps saying judgements is too harsh. People love me and try to be supportive, but for me it all balances the same. You’re probably a good person on the inside. You’re probably a good mom…
All my life I’ve had to accept the fact that my inside is never seen on the outside. Laughing and joking when people tell me it’s absurd when I say I’m actually the sweetest person you could meet.
And in the last month or so my ability as a mama has been called out by people. I’m not Donna Reed or Betty Crocker. I am a cry it out kind of mom. I am a you do you and I’m here when you want me kind of mom. I’m a boys will get bumps and bruises and survive kind of mom. I’m a figure it out and watch you proudly kind of mom. I’m a get on the floor to crawl around with you and wrestle kind of mom. I’m a do anything for you kind of mom.
I’m not probably a good person on the inside or probably a good mom. I am a good person. I can be the best kind of person you could hope to have in your life. And I try with all of my heart to be a good mama! As Xander grows I hope he’ll be able to reassure me of those things💙
Owner of a Tender Heart
Some days I just don’t know what I’m going to do. Not in an Eyore ho hum sort of way, but in a life just isn’t easy sort of way.
Being an assistant manager at Walmart isn’t something I ever saw for myself. It wasn’t a dream of mine or any kind of real accomplishment. I’m not doing good in the world and I’m not following any passions.
I can’t even feel secure in doing any good for those around me. When you are told by your store manager that people were coming to her after your morning meeting… I covered all of the business that needed to be covered. I made jokes and tried to make it a fun experience.
There was all kinds of eye rolls and sighs. People just not engaging with me or each other. It left me feeling stupid and foolish for trying to bring levity to work. It made me question myself and what I’m doing.
But to honestly have your store manager tell you they were coming to her about it. I don’t know that I want to continue to try. I don’t know that I bloody care to keep trying to be so much for those who work with me. I can go a more natural for me route. I can be quiet and shy. The wall flower I am by nature.
It’s so draining for me to be on all of the time. Especially since I don’t get a whole lot of time for rejuvenating. It depletes me more than people understand. It can cause me to be far more emotional. Because I don’t have my calming reserves built up.
I don’t know what I’m writing for or if there’s a point to this post. But it just sort of sat with me all night. The fact that my people went to the store manager to talk about my meeting. Did I do something wrong? Was there something missing? Or was it just they don’t like me and my personality? It’s probably the latter, but to think that that was so much that they felt they needed to complain to my boss…
I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable in this skin. But it allows me to make a decent living that allows me to take care of my son. So does it really matter if I’m comfortable? Does it really matter that I feel a failure and the fool? Does it matter that more often then I care for I fight back tears and wonder my worth in this job?
All that should really matter to me is the happiness I can find with myself, when by myself. And the happiness of my son! But I’m the owner of a very tender heart, it’s just not easily seen. Things weigh on my heart more than most would begin to see or understand.
When I’m Gone
Several times today I had to hold back tears. There’s so much swirling around and I’m trying to catch my breath as I work to figure out the right road to take my son on.
It’s something I will possibly always struggle with. The worry about the choices I make for myself and my son. Without a partner to bounce things off of. Although I’m very lucky to have my roommate and best friend because even when she’s got an overflowing plate, she makes time for me.
At work I feel mediocre at best. I’m not great at my job. I’m barely good and I am not completing and executing the things I need to. But I always try to tell myself that while I work to get better on those other aspects, I really have the people side of it down. That’s where my strength lies, in getting from those around me the best of what they have. And typically they do it with a smile and we laugh.
Lately I’m not so sure of that. I feel like an idiot and a fool. Some joke to be poked at. And it’s crazy to me because I’m so good at making people believe I’m confident. Extroverted. In charge and badass… but I really feel none of those things. I’m nervous and awkward. I’m struggling to not fidget and look down. I’m struggling to not cry and just hide because I feel like a fool.
Sometimes I wish I could just let the veil down and they could see inside. That even though I am hilarious and quick witted. I’m still that petrified and shy girl who doesn’t think there’s anything of value inside. It’s the biggest accomplishment every day to go to work and just help strangers all day. To be in charge and have to make those calls and ask for those things I need.
I told my peeps as I was hanging in the lounge for a bit and being silly with the associates, it’s something I like to do, that they don’t know it but they’ll miss me when I’m gone. No one ever thinks it about me because I come in like this tornado and overwhelm. People get lost in my gestures and stories and loud nervous laugh. They don’t realize that amongst the chaos is a truly firm foundation and a safe harbor for them. It’s not until I’m gone.
That’s the way it’s been my whole life. While traveling around as a navy brat. A wallflower always hanging close by and once someone took notice, usually just before we would move again, they’d tell me how sad they were that they didn’t get more time to be my friend.
I wonder if the people I work with now will miss my unorthodox morning meetings? I wonder if they will come to understand that it’s truly coming from the most sincere place of trying to have a few moments where we can laugh and relax while also talking about the business at hand.
I’m at a point where I am seriously just wanting someone to love and embrace me right now in the moments. Someone who will just see me and soak it up. I don’t even know why I’m feeling so emotional. Perhaps because I know I have to make a life altering choice and I’m not sure what I’ll do. Maybe because I’m so tired and that always ups the ante. Maybe because I just feel so off about so much of the little things…
Six Weeks
Yesterday Xander turned six weeks💙 It’s been the hardest six weeks of my life and make no mistake I know I’m battling postpartum depression and I know this. It’s a battle I’m willing to fight because Xander is and will always be worth every battle I face for the rest of my life. I don’t always handle it like the warrior I am known to be and for that I won’t make any apologies especially on social media. We can’t always take the good and act like the bad is something to be ashamed of. Everyone will give their opinions and that okay and ones right, but I can choose to take from it only what helps me to feel better whether it is liked or not. But a funny thing happened at my doctors appointment today. So if you’ve read this far please be aware of the tmi to follow…
This made me laugh and when I told Kayla and Mistina they laughed too. I go to my appointment and we do the weigh in and basic talks. The nurse says to go ahead and undress from the waist down and the doctor will be right in. So I do and Xander is in his seat with a bottle propped up for him. He’s good so I undress and sit on the table with the sheet over me. Xander starts to fuss, so I get up and wrap the sheet around me to grab him. I get him and get back on the table fixing the sheet. Feed him and then burp him and talk for a bit. He calms down and so I put him back in his seat then get back on the table. This time with my phone in hand. I’m chatting with Kayla and SharaLin about the crap time I’m having. Still no doctor but I can hear him in the other room chatting with another patient. Xander becomes upset again and still no doctor. So I get up to get him again this time not wanting to fuck with the sheet, so I tell Xander they are about to look at my world so if they walk in they’ll just have to deal with seeing my bare ass😂 We get back up on the table and adjust the sheet. I’m playing and comforting him while saying, this is why I need a fucking father around😂 The nurse comes in to apologize for the wait because I’ve now been sitting there, ass flapping in the wind, for thirty minutes. It’s okay I tell her as I fight back tears. Finally about ten minutes later I hear the doctor wrap up in the other room. There’s a knock on the door and in comes doctor Vold apologizing for my wait and that the previous patient just needed to talk about things. I tell him I completely understand and Xander and I are good. The fact that he remembered Xander’s name and complimented how beautiful and advanced he was helped, lol. Fast forward to him asking if he wanted me to put Xander in his car seat. I thanked him but no I’ll hold him. So I laid back with Xander on my chest and scooted to the end of the table. Chuckling the whole way and telling him he was earning yet another warrior stripe. The doctor helps me get my legs in the stirrups because I couldn’t see with the baby on my chest. He proceeds to tell me what he’s doing, like this is my first time at the rodeo😂😂 He then asks me if I had any stitches. I laughed and said, yes a lot of them because apparently Xander really tore me up. His response floored me and the look on the nurse’s face was priceless. Ready?? He said to me, “Wow! I can’t believe you had stitches! Everything looks perfect and if I could take a picture to show you I would! You’d never believe there was tearing!!” 😂😂😂😂
You hear that? After giving birth and having A LOT of stitches I still have a perfect vagina!!! Picture worthy even😂😍😂 I’m freaking dying of laughter! Made my day
There is so much to be thankful for and so much to overcome. Not only with the depression I fight on a daily basis, but with the onslaught of advice and opinions that come my way. I wish I could say I handle everything with grace, but I don’t. For that Iam sorry
People Slip Away
In the last few years so many people have slipped out of my life. People I hoped would always be a part of my life. People I freely gave my heart and my loyalty to.
Sometimes I sit and I wonder why people float away so easily. Is it me? Is there something about me that makes it so easy to walk away?
I want to hope that I’m easy to walk away from because I do love with all of my heart, so people know that even if they slip away they are safe in floating back.
It makes me feel like a sucker sometimes. People can count on my affection and my heart always being open and free. There doesn’t seem to be anything so harshly done to me that I can’t forgive it and continue to love…
You can tear me apart in my childhood and make me wonder if I ever had any worth to me. I can feel stupid and ugly, pointless and worthless for all of my days as a kid. I can feel like you hated the fact that you brought me into this world. That I wasn’t liked and would spend my life questioning everyone walking in and out of it. I still love you! I still miss you! I’m still thankful for your bringing me into the world and raising me to be who I am today.
You can trick me into thinking you love me as a young girl. Someone so hungry to be loved and wanted. Hungry to have the family she always dreamed of. And you use that as a way to hold me. To spend 15 years in misery of emotional and psychological abuse. To be cheated on and degraded all the while letting me hold on tight. Because my faith in the church was so important and my belief that I wasn’t worth a real love kept me from seeing a way out. I still don’t hate you. I still hope that you are doing well.
*** I began this post just days before my son was born and I never got around to finishing it. I don’t know that I could pick y where I left off. So much has changed in the last seven months or so… But it is still something I felt strongly enough to write and so I’ll publish it as it is. Raw and unfinished
Am I Really Poison?
You know how it is when you have a hard time believing the good you are told, because the bad is easier to believe? For a brief moment in time I thought I had found someone who understood me. Saw the bad and the good and loved me for who I was.
He left. He left for her, because she was a selfish child with no thought to our marriage. He left because his heart was broken. He left because I lost our baby, our dream. He left because he couldn’t manage through our shared sadness.
These are all excuses I made for the man I loved. The man I loved more than I’d ever loved anyone. The man I loved more than myself. They are the things I’d beat myself up with any time I had a self pitying moment and wanted to be angry at him for tearing my world apart.
After he walked out and could no longer make ends meet I bought him tires for his new car. They needed it and to drive with bad tires was unsafe. He insisted on paying me back, so I said whenever he had the money he could give it back. I paid off his medical bills before departing for Minnesota. I bought him his prescription medicine when he got the flu. I paid for a storage unit to house his belongings for almost a year after he walked away. I let him keep 90% of our last tax return filed together. For almost a year I gave him $500 a month to help keep him going. When a dental bill was sent into collections I paid the $700 to get rid of it because it would help him and the collection was also tied to me.
I tried to remain a friend and be there if he needed me. I stayed in the background to not upset his relationship with her. When he first left I asked his family to please treat them with kindness because he would need them as we went through this divorce and still suffering the loss of our baby. I never said anything about him or her that was mean or cold or thoughtless. Just that all I wanted was for him to be happy. So long as he was happy I was good.
When his family would talk about the fact that she was toxic to him, I’d just shrug and say, so long as he’s happy. When they would tell me he was crazy to have left and he just needed to come to his senses, I’d say, he has to decide those things for himself.
It isn’t to say that amongst my friends and family I didn’t have moments of bitterness and ugly. Because I did. But tell me who wouldn’t.
When I found myself pregnant I can’t express my excitement and joy. Truly can’t put into words how incredible it was. But part of me literally ached because the baby I was carrying wasn’t also his. Because we lost ours and here I was having another and he wasn’t.
I wanted to tell him before I announced it to the world. I thought to myself that if he had something so huge happening and I heard it through the grapevine that it would hurt worse than hearing it from him directly.
So I told him. I was thoughtful and gentle. He told me he was happy for me and he knew what a great mama I would be. Next thing out of him was, who’s the father. I thought to myself that he has a lot of balls to ask the question, but in an attempt to be kind but not overly open I told him the father was someone I was casually dating but not a couple with.
So for almost three years now I have tried hard to be the goodness. To never get to the point of ugly. Then on what would have been our sixth wedding anniversary he reached out for the first time in months. He said he couldn’t remove himself from the account we shared that I was suppose to get in our divorce. Can I go and open a new account? I told him I would after I got paid so my checks wouldn’t be affected. And I did the Friday after I was paid.
I’ll be honest that I was more than a little butt hurt that he decided to ask this of me on such a tender day for me. But I cried it out and then let it go.
Xander and I took a trip on my day off and went to the bank to open a new account. They informed me that he must have misunderstood and could have removed himself at any point in time. Still I have him the benefit of the doubt. Opened a new account and proceeded to change all of the bills that automatically pulled from that account. I even left enough money in the account to clear a bill that hasn’t made it through yet so it could balance before he closed it out.
When I messaged him to fill him in on everything he didn’t respond to me. His usual MO. I went about my life working to get everything lined up. There was an issue with one bill and they couldn’t make the change in time. They told me that because the account would be closed it would try to pull and be sent back rejected, I could then call and make the change. I offered to pay over the phone and that was not an option they could do. I honestly didn’t worry about it because I believed the account was closed out.
I then received a message from Remy saying that the account was overdrawn. I apologized and told him what happened. I then gave him three options to give him the money. Three options that would be easy for both of us. Three options that would cause the least amount of upheaval for me and the balance I try to find as a working single mother. He countered with wanting me to yet again do something extra because it was his way. This made me mad enough that I didn’t respond.
The more I thought about it the more it upset me that he just continues to want me to do the work. Always. I had given so much and done so much since he left that he could eat that money. And that’s when things took a turn. He became ugly to me.
I finally gave in and said I’d give him the money in spite of everything. He was calling me a thief and threatening me. My best friend talked me into being a little petty and well he deserved it.
Then he made a post on Facebook blasting me and being unkind to not just myself, but my son! I couldn’t believe it when someone showed me. Because he naturally did this without giving me access to see it or respond to his venom. At the end of the post he wrote, And people wonder why I wanted a divorce.
I’ll be honest and say that really hurt. Not only did I try to be the best wife to him. Making sure his needs were always met and exceeded. But I even let him leave for her with kindness because I wanted him to just be happy. I’m dealing with trying to not feel terrible about myself and wonder whether or not I’m really poison.
This man who made me believe I was more than worthy of love and devotion stripped everything from me. And I’m left to wonder if he ever meant any of it or if he was a far better manipulator and liar than I could have ever imagined…
Traveling Infertility Together 