Terrified

I really wanted to talk to my husband about this, but I didn't get a chance today. There isn't really anyone in my life that knows about this and I'd prefer to keep it that way, so here I am talking to you folks. I hope you don't mind. And if you do mind, then feel free to click out at the point of TMI. I promise, I won't be offended. 

My husband left in March, as many of you know. I visited him Memorial Day weekend. When I came back, I stopped taking the Pill. We talked about it, and figured we'd just see what happens until mid-October, and then I'd go back on the Pill if nothing happened. I kinda dug this approach - it's almost like a non-decision. 

But today I went for my annual OB/GYN visit. They of course asked, "Are you still taking the Seasonale?" and I had to say no. Next question: "Oh! Are you trying to get pregnant?" My response, "Well, not really. We're just not trying to NOT get pregnant."

Next thing I knew I was being handed a bag full of pre-natal vitamin samples for me to try, then to call them when I decide which one I like. I freaked my husband out though, lol. I texted him with "And so now apparently I am taking Rx prenatal vitamins." And he was like "WTF?" LOL. 

So as I'm waiting for the CNP to come in and do the exam (my doctor is on maternity leave), I pick up the first magazine I grab next to the exam table. It's "Conceive" magazine. I start flipping through it, and I find myself bombarded by ads for sperm banks, egg donor agencies, prenatal vitamins, pregnancy pillows. Images of pregnant women, babies, new moms, cribs, etc. 

I had an anxiety attack. At first I was like "Wow, I can't imagine wanting something so badly that I would turn to an article about Feng Shui for fertility." (No offense to those of you who have gone through fertility treatments and all that - no judgment here.) But then I was like "Holy SHIT! WTF am I DOING???? What is wrong with me??? Am I on crack???"

I want to be a mom. I just don't want to be pregnant. I am terrified of the idea of spending 40 weeks knowing that I have just made the most permanent decision EVER. I miss the days of believing that storks brought babies to lucky couples. I'm scared that it will change who I am, that I will become someone who cares about nothing but her child. I don't want to be a Stepford Wife. I want to be Dr. Mom. 

A big part of it too is that even though I consciously know that I'm 26, I still feel like I'm 16 - when pregnancy was just the most horrific thing I could imagine. I am still scared to tell my parents, even knowing that my mom WANTS me to have kids. In fact, (I don't know if I posted this before), she recently said to me: "Are you guys planning to start trying to have a baby anytime soon? Because you ARE 26, and, I mean, not that that's old or anything, but....you know."

I can picture myself as a mom. I can't picture or imagine myself pregnant. It's almost like I'm too much of a tomboy or something, I don't know. I'm not crazy about the idea of not being able to just do what I want when I want anymore, but the fact is that I don't do shit NOW, so I'll never know the difference. But still. It's just so FINAL. 

I must seem so childish and silly. Is it weird to feel like I'm ready to be a mom but not ready to be pregnant? It seems really weird to me. 

And it's all so STUPID. Because I'll only be off the Pill until mid-October, and then if nothing has happened I'm going back on it until next summer. I know the chances of something happening in a month and a half period are pretty low, but like a friend of mine said "It only takes 30 seconds."

And if I DO find myself knocked up this fall, will I be able to concentrate on grad school apps? If I go for interviews, are they going to see a pregnant chick and be like "fuck this"? It's moments like this when I feel like I should've just gone to R2 - one of their students had a baby in her first semester of grad school and was about to defend her thesis. 

Am I setting myself up for failure? Or setting myself up for settling? What if I get pregnant, and 6 months into it I'm like "OMG, WTF was I thinking? I can't do this!"

I'm freakin' terrified. But I think I probably always will be. I don't know. 

Somewhat Substantial HodgePodge of Bloggy Goodness

Nothing particularly substantial to blog about today, but have no fear - I just got my copies of JPSP and SPPB in the mail and I'm sure I'll have lots to share about some of the articles in there. 

I had a complete meltdown on friday afternoon after a member of a helping profession pointed out to me that "none of us have any control over what happens in our lives, despite the persistent illusion to the contrary." I don't think she knew I was an Atheist when she said this to me, because if she had she might have sugar-coated it or softened it a bit. The only thing that separates an Atheist from a Nihilist (in my opinion) is the belief that we have at least some measure of control over our lives. In essence, one could also say that this is the core difference between Atheism and Theism. 

In relation to the car accident, this was a relevant concept to explain that despite all of my efforts to be a safe driver (never caused an accident in 11 years of driving), and all of my efforts to be on the lookout for dumbass people behind the wheel, at the end of the day it means nothing because someone can always hit ME. And there isn't really a damn thing I can do about it. There was nothing I could have done to prevent the accident I was in. 

It seems so simple, doesn't it? But not for me. I started realizing that this explains why bad things happen to good people, why people who do everything they're supposed to do just can't get ahead, etc. She tried to make this idea a little more palatable for me by adding "The only things we can control are our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior."

But given all that I know about psychology, I'm pretty sure this is bullshit too. Implicit associations and priming, attempting to control intrusive thoughts, the daunting task of trying to self-soothe during an anxiety attack, trying to keep from crying, etc., - I think the only thing we really can control is our own behavior. Because our thoughts and emotions often have minds of their own. I have oodles of studies to back this up. 

So I found myself in a crisis, asking things like "What is the fucking POINT, then??" I am not a spiritualist by any means, but it took listening to Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart to calm me down. (Thanks AA, for the post title the other day. That's what made me think of it.)

Chodron talks about how life is filled with distractions to keep us from feeling emotions that have been labeled as negative. We don't want to feel bored, lonely, sad, etc., so we find things to distract us from feeling that way. Instead, she says we should try and sit with it for as long as we can stand it as often as we can, to build up a sort of tolerance for it. Just sit and feel it. 

So I figured, what the hell, and I tried it. I sat with the feeling of helplessness and anxiety. I sat with the sadness, the anger, and the panic. The only distraction was the sound of her voice telling me why I needed to do it. It took about 1-2 hours, but it went away. I didn't need to try and resolve it, think it through, find ways to fix it. I just acknowledged that I was feeling miserable, let myself feel miserable, and it went away like when one of my cats is desperate for attention but only wants it for 5 minutes before he or she is content to move on. 

I guess this post is more substantial than I thought it was going to be. LOL. Anyway, my point is that I recommend the audio version of Chodron's book for times of emotional upheaval like that. Her voice alone is very soothing. 

In other news, I got to video chat with my husband yesterday through gchat. It was awesome. Unfortunately he can't do it again today because the internet at the base is down. 

The Wii Active Personal Trainer is awesome, but it hates me. I went out dancing on friday night so my thighs were nice and sore yesterday. I turn on the Wii Active, and it made me do 6 sets of 20 lunges in all directions and variations. Now my legs really hurt. But on the bright side, I have lost 4 inches off my waist and 3 inches off my hips since I posted about being frustrated by my lack of progress, and about 6lbs or so since I bought that new scale. I have accomplished this through a daily combination of the Wii Fit, Wii Active Personal Trainer, and Zumba Fitness Latin dancing. I increased my calorie intake slightly by eating less food more often: 1 piece of whole grain toast with peanut butter and a glass of V8 Frusion in the morning, a yogurt or one of those Green Giant Steamers veggie things for lunch, my favorite sandwich ever for dinner (see below), a small bowl of macaroni salad with tuna after working out, and some Doritos for a nighttime snack. I also drink a shitload more water. 

Best Sandwich Ever:

I used to love this sandwich from Panera Bread until they posted their nutrition facts and I discovered that their version has about 1100 calories in it. I might as well eat McDonald's. I knew I could make a much, much healthier version of it at home. Here are the results:

Chipotle Mayonnaise - I bought a bottle of Chipotle hot sauce from the marinade/steak sauce section of the grocery store. I combined 1 cup of Helmann's mayo with 1 clove of minced garlic in a tupperware bowl (I didn't want to have to make this every day). I added the hot sauce to taste while stirring, then added Roasted Garlic & Bell Pepper seasoning and some Cayenne pepper until I achieved my desired level of spiciness. 

The Sandwich - 2 slices of Wonder 100% Whole Grain bread (total 160 calories), 1 tbsp of the Chipotle mayo (80 calories), 1 slice of Kraft Deli Deluxe american cheese (70 calories), thinly sliced red onion, lettuce (both with negligible calorie content), and 6 slices of Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh shaved turkey breast (45 calories). 

Fuckin YUMMY at a total calorie content of about 355 calories. Fuck Panera Bread.

Their version. Image from WebMD's article about the worst sandwiches ever.

***Update: Totally forgot to add this. When I started working out I could do like 2-3 push-ups (the real way) on a good day, 0.5 pull-ups, and couldn't run for shit. Now I can do 10 push-ups putting my nose to the floor, 3 pull-ups, and the Wii Fit is telling me I could probably run 1.5 miles in slightly less than 11 minutes. I feel diesel. ;)***

At The Edge of Insanity

I'm guessing that at some point, my readers got sick of me talking about my personal life because my readership is definitely down these days. 

But it's my blog, so fuck it. 

I think the car accident pushed me to the edge of insanity. I was doing okay with the husband being gone, I was hanging in there. Then the major changes came down from my company and I was upset for a couple of days and got over it. But then that woman ran the stop sign, taking my car away from me, and I lost my shit. 

I've been really nervous driving for the first time in my life. I see people constantly doing stupid shit - running stop signs and red lights, pulling out into oncoming traffic, etc. And I get really, really angry because their stupidity is compromising MY safety and well-being. 

My little sister has become a traffic vigiliante, which I love. She got herself some glass chalk, and when someone parks all crooked and what not in the parking lot at her work, she'll write things like "You park like an asshole" on their driver's side window. Guess what. You can't just wipe that shit off with your sleeve, which means that person had to drive home with that written on their car. Public humiliation is a great deterrant to doing stupid things. My sister is a genius. 

The other day I saw a woman trying to park this big-ass SUV. I don't remember what it was, but it was much, much, much bigger than mine and much taller. Like a Ford Explorer on full-size truck tires or something. Either way, she couldn't park the damn thing even though the space next to her was vacant. All I could think was if I had some glass chalk, I would wait for her to go inside, and then write on the car window "If you can't park it, you shouldn't drive it."

Seriously, I could spend my whole summer driving around watching for stupid and reckless people and then write messages on their car windows telling them what fucking douchebags they are. I'm considering making it my new hobby. 

Anyway, so yesterday my nerves were all sorts of shot from driving around in my mom's car and people just driving around me like this town is the site of a demolition derby. I come home to discover that Husband's Scary Reptile is hungry. Which means I have to feed it. Which means I have to open the cage and insert dead animals. Which means I have to put my life at risk for a few minutes. Yikes. 

I didn't have the dead animals to feed her last night and planned to go get them today (which I did). She was all sorts of active in her cage, and while I was trying to sleep last night it suddenly occurred to me that she might break out of her cage in order to get some food. Husband has assured me multiple times that she can't break out of this cage, but I'm not so sure. And we have cats. For scary reptile, cats = food. Their litter box is down in the basement where scary reptile is kept. In my extreme anxiety, I felt the need to go downstairs, get the litterbox, bring it upstairs, and lock the cat door so the cats can't get to the basement. Just in case. Only then was I able to sleep. 

But today I have to feed her once the dead animals are dethawed. And I am very, very nervous about doing this. I am making Husband call me and I am going to put him on speaker phone while I do it. I figure if I stop responding to him, he'll know something is wrong and can hang up and dial 911 and animal control. 

Fuck. I really want him to get rid of this pet. I can't deal with losing sleep over it anymore. 

So right now I am nervous to drive, depressed because I don't have my car or my husband, anxious about feeding this damned reptile, and on the border of going insane. 

And if I get the job at SFRSHS West, I will have to MOVE this scary reptile to the other side of the country. My heart pounds just at the thought. 

Add A Car Accident to The Week From Hell

As if I needed one of those. Some lady ran a stop sign at a T-intersection where I had the right of way because she couldn't see beyond a tractor trailer in the right lane when I was in the left, and I slammed into her. I'm okay, I think, but now that the adrenaline is wearing off my shoulder seems kinda sore.

But my car is not okay. The entire front bumper came off, the driver's side headlight is destroyed, and some big piece of metal is all bent around my driver's side front tire. I am very shaken up right now.

Why am I blogging, you ask? Because I walked home from the scene, made all the phone calls I needed to make, everyone is working so I can't talk to anyone and I can't work either.

And why is it that as soon as you pay off a car, everyone starts hitting it? My car had never been in an accident while I was paying on it for 5 years. I paid it off last year and it's been hit 4 times since then, NEVER my fault! WTF?!

And of course my husband isn't here. If he was, he would leave work and come home to be with me and help me sort all of this shit out, but I can't even get him on the phone until 6.

***Update*** - should I not work out today? I ask because my shoulder is definitely sore and I know I'm going to hurt tomorrow, so should I just avoid exercise until I see how bad this is going to feel in the morning? Or might it be good for me.....?

Holy Crap!!!!

I have a phone interview for Awesome Job at SFRSHS West!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now it's a whole new ballgame. Back to on-the-spot rocking instead of spending hours perfecting cover letters. OMG. 

Advice? Anyone?

Got to see my husband today too! Freaking finally! He kicked some serious ass down here and I'm so proud of him I don't know what to do with myself. 

But driving in this city is an absolute nightmare. It seems all straightforward, but there's this whole "loop" concept that I am just not familiar with. In New England we do turnpikes and exit ramps and on-ramps. To go south on the highway, you head south and so forth. This crap is just weird. 

Okay, need to go to bed now. Like I can sleep!!!

Some Thoughts Before Heading Off

I'm getting my hair chopped off today, then going to dinner for my stepfather's birthday, then coming home and frantically packing, brushing up on some relevant journal article reading, and then hopping in bed with the desperate hope that I manage to wake up at Hellish Hour so I can make my plane on time. I don't anticipate getting to blog again until Wednesday. 

I don't think I even have time to play Tiger Woods. *Gasp!*

So, some thoughts I wanted to get down before heading off:

First, I am definitely clinically depressed these days. I have been good at forcing myself to do things like exercise, spend time socializing with people, doing things other than watching tv. But the fact that I am not sleeping well and yet it is still a battle every single day just to Get Out of Bed combined with an endless amount of naps every night on the couch, bad dreams, and overwhelming feelings of sadness, hopeless, helplessness, and complete apathy toward everything convinces me that yes, I am definitely depressed despite doing things to prevent it from getting worse. 

It will be very difficult to be in the company of strangers for the next 3 days and not let that show through. 

Second, the responsibilities of caring for the house, the finances, everything without my husband here are crushing me. I can take care of my own shit as I have done for awhile, but taking care of everything for both of us is a bit too much. For example, if something happens to my husband's Scary Pet Reptile, I will not be able to live with myself or face him. Same thing if the house burns down. If my car suddenly dies or gets totaled or something and I have to get a new one, I will have to make that decision on my own and hope it's the one he would want me to make. Not being able to talk about things as they happen really scares me, mostly because I'm one of those people who is perpetually terrified of making the wrong decision (which I seem to do over, and over, and over again). 

This trip is another example. Last night I was thinking that my husband's delayed departure for and return from the military, the separation last summer, the pay situation, the application outcomes, etc. seem to be stacking in such a way to let me know that this is NOT the time to go to grad school - that I need to get over myself and just live for a year. If I do end up dazzled by R2, it will be really hard for me to make the decision to go in the face of all this information. 

When I return, I will post my impressions about R2 as soon as I can - so look for that blog on Wednesday. I anticipate needing/wanting as much feedback as possible before 5pmEST with which to make my decision. You guys are all I've got right now to bounce something like this off of, so I will ask for brutally honest opinions only. 

So stay tuned, and in the mean time keep your fingers crossed that this will be an easy decision for me either way. 

*Sigh*

My husband was able to call me today. For 10 minutes. It feels like my Freak-Out Meter, which was approaching dangerous and foreboding shades of red, has been reset to near zero. 

Nothing else in the world matters right now. 

I Am Cursed

Okay, so I am not one of those helpless female types. Have I ever changed a tire? No, but not because I don't know how. I even know how to change the oil in my car, I'd just rather not risk fucking it up. 

But see, I have this husband who reminds me of Tim the ToolMan Taylor. Anyone remember Home Improvement? Anyway, so he likes to jimmy-rig shit around the house and can somehow figure out a way to fix just about any problem that comes up. I don't have to deal with it. 

There's a really long background story here, but I won't get into it. Suffice it to say that we HATE our condo association. When I was renting my apartment 3 miles away, I received a million times more respect from the property management than we do here - where we OWN our condo. Our cars have been towed across state lines 4 times at our expense - and for no reason. But I digress.

So the basement of our condo shares a wall with the communal laundry room of our building that we never use because we have our own washer/dryer. My husband figured out a way to run an outlet off the electricity in the laundry room so that he could power the lights and heater for his reptile cage in the basement. Shady, I know. I tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't listen. 

The first day he left, after getting my lecture about taking care of his somewhat-dangerous pet, I ventured into the basement to find that the light was off. This is not good - the temp needs to be at least 80 degrees in there at all times, and it was 50. At first I thought the bulb went out - no big deal I can get one from Petco. But then I realized the heater wasn't on either, and I freaked out thinking that they figured out what he was doing and disconnected the outlet. 

So I switched everything over to an outlet on our circuit, and all was fine. Great, crisis averted. 

During a very brief conversation with my husband while he was at the airport, he explained that the circuit breaker in the laundry room probably flipped. I'm not dealing with that. I'll just pay my own electricity, thank you very much. 

Day 2 - I go down to the basement to check on dangerous pet, the fucking light is off again. This time the heater is working. The bulb burned out. Went to Petco, replaced the bulb. 

Today - I go down to the basement to do laundry. Something smells funny - moldy almost. It didn't smell that way yesterday. I turn around and hear a "drip, drip, drip." The ceiling of the basement is soaking wet, right underneath the stairs of the upstairs unit. There is no pipe there - it's the actual ceiling that's soaked. I have a bucket underneath it right now. 

My upstairs neighbor is first and foremost a douchebag. I've called the cops on him several times for beating up various women who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in his apartment. He is a nasty, nasty drunk and I hate him. He scares me. 

I haven't heard him walking around all day, which means he's probably still sleeping. If I knock on the door, I risk several things:

#1 Pissing him off by waking him up. 

#2 Pissing him off by pointing out that something in his stairwell is leaking into my basement and he needs to fix it. 

#3 Letting him know unintentionally that my husband is not living here at the moment and therefore I am alone every single night in the unit right below his. 

It's the last one that really fucking bothers me. 

The alternative, of course, is to keep letting the water come down until the ceiling rots and he falls through his stairwell into my basement when he comes stomping out to go to work. 

It has been 3 days since my husband left. WTF else am I going to have to deal with??? 

Alone Again: Day One

Well, here goes. Life without my husband for 6 months. Life without hearing his voice for 9 weeks. In the 8 years we've been together, we've never been apart for longer than 10 days (separation excluded). I've had a couple of people say to me, "Well, you guys were separated for 4 months over the summer and thought you were going to get a divorce - what the fuck's the big deal about THIS situation?"

And sometimes I feel like they're right - how can I complain that I'm sad because my husband is gone when I voluntarily left him back in July?

But there are a couple of major differences between then and now. First and foremost, we are happier now than we have ever been in our entire lives. We relish every second we get to spend together, we've stopped sweating the small stuff - we've been actively IN LOVE with each other every minute of every day. When we were having difficulty getting along and not taking each other for granted, the maximum time we had ever spent apart was 5 days. Which brings me to the second difference.....

When we were separated and every other time in the past that we have not shared a roof for the night, we have always been separated by a simple phone call. At the time I moved out I only moved 3 miles away. We could reach each other. This time I don't have that option. No phone calls. No e-mails. No car rides. Not even plane rides. If I have an emergency (life-threatening only), I need to go through the Red Cross. That's right - even if I get in a car accident and find myself on my deathbed, I cannot call my husband directly. 

It's fucking scary. 

But while it's going to be very difficult for me, there are many families out there (way too many) who have it much, much worse. My husband is not going into a war zone. He's not being shipped out to Iraq or Afghanistan. And my heart breaks for those people and even more so for those who have lost a family member or friend under those circumstances. I can't even imagine the pain. 

I will likely continue to lament my situation on this blog throughout the next 6 months, but this is a personal journey for me. I do not and will not in any way compare my circumstances to those people who have real concerns and fears for their loved ones. I am very lucky that his safety is not in question. I will just miss him terribly. 

In the meantime and in hopes of lightening the tone I have set with this post, here is the list of things I hope to do in order to occupy my time:

- Play Tiger Woods Golf for Wii until my arm falls off or I can hit a 450yd drive (whichever comes first). Right now my record is 323yds and I'm averaging 292.

- Become ambidextrous so that I can use the still-attached arm to play TopSpin 3 Tennis for Wii - until THAT one falls off (or I beat Federer).

- Write 3 good, quality research proposals that I can use for graduate school based on existing ideas I have.

- Read the first 3 Proust novels that have been sitting on my bookshelf mocking me for 2 years now.

- Learn to play golf for Realz. (I made fun of golf my whole life until I got the damn wii.)

- Learn to play tennis for Realz. (And learn to keep the ball INside the fence.)

- Create at least 3 new variations of my Impeccable Risotto. 

- Finish blog series on gender and the Top 25 cited articles in social psych.

And last, but most certainly not least:

GET INTO GRAD SCHOOL. 

(or don't, and figure out New Plan)