The Holiday Season

There is something about Christmastime that makes me all sentimental. I turn into one of those "Dammit, hurry up and wrap the presents so we can have a bunch of them under the tree way before Christmas Day" people.

One of my holiday quirks that my husband just doesn't get is my love of and need for Christian Christmas music. As you all know, I am not religious in the slightest and am best described as an Awakened Catholic. But 13 years of Catholic school and Christmas masses have taken their toll on me, and I LOVE old, traditional, Christmas music. I will take "O Holy Night" over "Jingle Bells" any day of the week. My favorite Christmas carol ever is an extremely obscure Latin song called "Angelus Ad Pastores Ait" - I sang it in high school when I was part of the concert choir and have been obsessed with it ever since. As much as I have trolled the internet, I am as of yet still unable to find a recording of the arrangement we used back in '99. I look for it every year.

I consider every Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, Christina Aguilera, Faith Hill, and every other pop/country bastardization of Christmas music to be the most horrendous shit ever created. It makes my ears bleed. I hate "Silent Night" just because of how many times it's been recorded and fucked with over the years, so I don't listen to it anymore.

There is something about the sound of a choir - the harmonies, the intricate balance of parts, the full sound they create - there's nothing like it in the world. "The Carol of the Bells," for example, is just not the same when performed any other way. I think that's why the Christian stuff is so dear to my heart - because it's all written for choirs to perform, it's very intense and complex, has so much more substance.

But really, it's more personal than that. Every year, from kindergarten through senior year of high school I was part of a Christmas concert. I have, at one time or another, sang just about every Christmas carol you can imagine in an auditorium or church. We had some great musical directors who went on to conduct large-city orchestras. In other words, this was serious shit for us. It meant spending block after block of classroom time practicing singing our parts for the show instead of doing long division. And it is rehearsing a complex harmony in a large, empty, echoing church that makes you fall in love with a particular piece of music.

My senior year Christmas concert we sang "Angelus Ad Pastores Ait" and "Lo, How A Rose Ere Blooming." I loved, Loved, LOVED doing the less well-known stuff. It sticks with you. So for the rest of my life, no matter how far from religion I may stray, the songs about the birth of a savior will continue to bring tears to my eyes when performed the "right" way.

The other, similar holiday feature that strikes a chord with me is The Nutcracker. My mom used to have The Nutcracker Suite on cassette tape (imagine!), and my little sister and I would put it on full blast and dance improv ballet on the hardwood floors in front of the lit-up Christmas tree in our socks. My mom used to put on the PBS broadcast of The Nutcracker Ballet every Christmas, and we would watch Clara's every move with rapt attention, hoping that her twirling techniques would magically bestow themselves upon us through the TV screen.

We would drink egg nog and hot chocolate with candy canes in it. Decorating the tree was an all-night affair that we were always excited about. Christmas was the one time of year where almost no one in my family fought, or was angry, and nothing bad ever seemed to happen. Our family would come together at one big gathering, we would get dressed up, we would spend the entire day together eating, talking, and exchanging gifts. A decade later my parents would be divorced and we would never again see our entire family in the same place to share a holiday together.

When it was over and the tree was gone, the excitement was worn off, The Nutcracker tape was put away, things would return to normal and the arguing and fighting would resume. I remember one time my sister and I pulled out The Nutcracker Suite sometime around April and tried to dance to it again. It just wasn't the same.

The nostalgia I feel for these small holiday-related things is strong. I dragged my husband to my old high school last night to see the Christmas Concert that I was a part of exactly 10 years ago. It left much to be desired after seeing all the changes that have taken place. I loved my high school, so it breaks my heart that it's been altered so drastically. I did not get the Christmas fix I so desperately needed.

So today, I am taking my little sister to see The Nutcracker ballet at symphony hall. Hopefully it is every bit as captivating as I remember.

Invasion of the Body Snatcher: Month 1

A week and a half ago I found out that I'm pregnant. Holy crap. No need for congratulations - it wasn't exactly some feat of accomplishment. In fact, the running joke in my house is that it was the first thing my husband did when he came home.

You know what the craziest thing is? It should not be that much harder to get into grad school than it is to become someone's parent.

I debated whether or not I wanted to post about this on the blog or keep it a secret until the rest of the IRL people knew. But the advice and support available to me offline is pretty limited and I figured what the hell. If something bad happens, I'd probably post about it on here anyway.

I did not expect it to happen that fast. Not in a million years. That said, the timing of it is perfect because I'll be due in June and I get summers off from work. I was 2 days away from calling my GYN and asking for a new Rx for the pill when the test came back positive. It's amazing how that works out.

So here I am, 8 weeks pregnant this coming Monday. I'm not sick at all which is fantastic, but I do get cramps like a motherfucker and I'm not allowed to take anything stronger than Tylenol. Not even extra-strength Tylenol. I am also exhausted most of the time. I told my husband that getting out of bed in the morning is like trying to re-animate a corpse with nothing but a set of jumper cables and a D battery. I sleep like shit, getting and staying comfortable is nearly impossible, and it doesn't help when 4am finds you down on all fours on the floor trying not to cry as your uterus throws a violent temper tantrum inside your abdomen.

Nope, not a whole lot of sunshine and roses here. Nosirree.

I am also a complete and total airhead. I knew the stereotype of the pregnant brain and all that, but holy shit they weren't kidding. I have all but left the house without pants on. The other day I was driving on the highway, moved over into the right lane because my exit was less than a mile away. And in that .75 mile or so distance, I forgot what I was doing and drove right by the exit ramp. That has never happened to me in. my. life.

I went out and bought the obligatory What To Expect When You're Expecting. It's pretty boring, but I appreciate the information. My other book, though, was worth every last damn penny I spent on it, and that is The Girlfriends Guide To Pregnancy. HI-LAR-I-OUS. Author Vicki Iovine is now my idol. The wit and humor in that book is so fantastic and needed that I haven't been able to put it down. In fact, I am currently reading the section on what to bring to the hospital even though I am 9 months away from that point. I just can't stop reading.

Something I wasn't expecting:

I have been cool as a cucumber about this whole thing. Not overly excited and yuppie-psycho, but not pessimistic and brooding either. I've been very zen - accepting it, allowing myself to be happy about it, willingly taking on the responsibility, mentally preparing myself for the possibility that it might not work out this time around.

Yesterday afternoon I saw the slightest potential sign of something going wrong. I knew on a rational level that it was 99% likelihood of nothing and that I was probably being paranoid. But when the possibility entered my head that I might lose the pregnancy and it felt as if I had some evidence right in front of me, I lost my shit.

I always thought, given what I know about my family's reproductive history, that I could face something like that with the understanding that it is not my fault, that it happens, that it's so early, etc. But when you're looking that demon in the eye, it's a totally different fucking story. It was in that moment that I got to feel what it's like to be a mother instead of just the earthly vessel that I feel like the rest of the time.

Everything is fine. At least for now and as far as I know. My first appointment isn't until 11/10 and next week I have to get the H1N1 vaccine since my job requires me to visit about 14 schools a week and some of them have just closed down due to the swine flu. Hopefully the vaccine doesn't make me sick because I've been running on E for weeks now.

Eggs & MiLs

I've got a couple of things going on that don't necessarily warrant their own posts, so I figured I would just combine them here. 

First, I am being asked to undergo another egg donation cycle that is covered under the same contract (which means I don't get $$ this time). I'm torn about this. I really don't want to let the intended parents down, but after the hell I went through last time I'm not sure I can do this. They keep telling me "It shouldn't happen again because now the clinic knows to give you less of the medication." To which I reply, "It wasn't supposed to happen LAST time, either. It was supposedly a 'remote possibility.'" Problem is, once you go into hyperstimulation, it can't be reversed. They can stop the cycle, which is incredibly dangerous, or you can ride the thing out. They want to do this toward the end of the summer, when my husband will still be gone. I sure as hell don't want to do it when he gets back, but I also don't want to be writhing in pain on the floor again, BY MYSELF. It sounds really shitty (and is troll-fuel), but if they were paying me this time I would be more inclined to do it, because then my potential suffering would at least finance a trip to Europe for me and my husband. In other words, it would provide a light at the end of the tunnel. I hate myself for feeling that way, but it's a lot of physical anguish to go through for people you've never met. Think of it like bone marrow donation - you are more likely to go through it voluntarily for a friend or a family member's benefit, but who would put themselves through that for a stranger? (Besides Will Smith in Seven Pounds.) I feel like I was lucky last time that no permanent damage happened. I feel like doing it a second time is pressing that luck. 

Also, A and I have been talking about starting to try to get pregnant this fall when he comes back. If I undergo the cycle in late August, it means pushing back any attempts by at least 8 weeks unless I want to risk an ectopic pregnancy or, even worse, twins. I'm also pretty sure that the major contributer to my weight gain over the past year was due to the last cycle. Not to mention the fact that in the middle of my last hormone-induced psychosis, I decided it would be a good idea to leave my husband. As you can imagine, he's not entirely thrilled about the idea of me doing this again. Lots of thinking to do....

The other issue is my mother in-law. I've written about this before, how I used to be extremely close with her and my FIL until last year when I moved out. A bombarded her with his impressions of what was going on - that I was having an affair, that I was lying to him, etc. She was given a lot of wrong information that has shaped her current negative feelings toward me. We've been emailing back and forth since he left. I asked to come and see her so we could talk, but she said she wasn't ready for that. I want so badly to explain things, even knowing that she isn't likely to believe me. I know she's pissed, but I want to be like "Listen! Don't you think you got some seriously biased information??? Do you think A would have gotten back together with me if all of that shit was true???"

But I can't do that. I am now outside the Circle of Trust. On some levels, I deserve to be where I am. I did choose to leave her son, after all. But she believes that I left her son for someone else, which isn't true. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe that has nothing to do with it and even knowing that's not true won't change her anger. Sometimes I feel like it's selfish and a waste to try to explain myself to her. Maybe I shouldn't even bother. 

She has offered to go to dinner the weekend we'll be visiting A at the base. It will just be me and her. I have no idea what to expect or how much pain I'm going to endure. I'm not sure I even know what to say. 

Reflections

2008 was a helluva year. It was entirely spent with my eye on graduate school, from narrowing down programs in January to taking the GRE in March, applying this fall, and now I sit and wait with bated breath for decisions to start rolling in. If that was all I dealt with this year though, it wouldn't be worthy of a post. I was also an anonymous egg donor, but I still feel like that deserves its own blog posting. 

After a long period of seemingly neverending conflict, I separated from my husband (I'll call him A) at the beginning of the summer. We had been together for 7 1/2 years, married for 2. It was like I had snapped - I woke up one day and said "I'm fucking done. I can't take this shit anymore." I thought it would be easy, but it turned out to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. We had never broken up before, never spent more than a week apart from each other, never gone a day without at least talking on the phone. But there I was, moving out and living on my own for the first time in my adult life. 

I started a new relationship that was unfortunately entirely defined in opposition to my marriage. But a few months after moving out, I started to realize that without A in my life, a huge hole was left in my heart that nothing and no one else could fill. My anger dissipated and all the red I had been seeing faded away and allowed me to see things clearly. I started to experience hope that the patterns of conflict I could now see could be resolved.

I approached A with the idea of going to counseling to find out if our marriage could be saved or if the damage we had done was irreparable. At first he was resistant, but in the following days we had several very deep, very honest conversations that were respectful and productive. We decided to give counseling a try and he broke up with the girl he had been seeing. Many more conversations followed and we very rapidly fell back in love. Other people ended up very hurt and upset by this, but for the first time in my life I am beyond putting their feelings and expectations behind my own. 

I went through a profound period of self-discovery during my separation and in the weeks leading up to A and I getting back together. I returned to the person that my best friend has termed "Soft JLK." This is the vulnerable me. He describes it as the me who curls up on my couch in a hoodie and sweats, smoking butts and drinking coffee while having a quiet conversation with someone I trust as opposed to the me who gets dolled up for parties and talks to many while truly connecting with none. It is very difficult to maintain this side of me, because the person who cares often winds up hurt. I am traditionally a person who walls people off and convinces herself that she does not care so that I don't have to deal with hurt feelings. 

I am still the old me sometimes, because I am not ready to just let go. My in-laws all but hate me right now and these are people that I loved as much as my own parents. It cuts very deeply, so I have to shut them out at least for now. The decision I made to leave destroyed a lot of the trust and faith that people had in me, but I need to concentrate on rebuilding A's faith and trust. I can't worry about the others just yet. 

A friendship that was very dear to me has apparently dissolved into something bordering on animosity, though I can't explain why because she doesn't really want to talk to me. All I've been able to find out is that she thinks I never tried hard enough, never let her in, never really cared. I'm trying to rebuild that too, patiently waiting for her to give me an opportunity. I can't let this one go. 

I've had arguments with my family that were discussed in an earlier post, I've been through nightmarish stress because of a professor who nearly dropped the ball on me, I've been screamed at by someone I broke up with in a manner that no one has ever spoken to me before and managed not to kill him, and myriad other frustrations of varying sizes throughout 2008. 

But I've also grown up in ways I never thought possible, discovered that I had truly found my other half and learned to appreciate that, tested myself to the absolute limits of my ability to handle stress, finished the degree that even a year ago I couldn't imagine actually being done with, finally graduated and signed my name on applications to universities I could never have dreamed of applying to when I was in high school. I've learned what it means to take pride in my accomplishments without needing the validation of others. 

It's been a very long and difficult year. But it was also the most important year of my life thus far. I am looking forward to 2009 and the further changes it will bring. 

Aaaaaarrgggghh!!!

So much going on right now, so many things I'd like to complain about. Unfortunately, because of the nature of this blog and some of the people I know who read it, I have to limit myself with what I am able to say. So I'm going to stick with just one topic for the moment. 

I have a very strained relationship with my mother, though she seems to be blissfully unaware of that fact. I was going to just gloss it over and spare you all the details, but fuck it, it's my blog. 

My mother had an affair while married to my father when I was 11-12 years old. They were going to get a divorce and she was even taking my sister and I to look at apartments with her. She told us that she had come home from work one morning and my dad had told her to leave. I was so angry with my father that I wouldn't speak to him for days. He asked her why his daughters were so mad at him and she explained. He told her that she needed to tell us the truth, and so after stewing about my dad for so long, my mom explained that the reason my father asked her to leave was because she had told him she didn't love him anymore. She had lied to us because she didn't want us to be angry with her. 

A few weeks after that, my sister and I were shipped off to visit an aunt for two weeks. We came back, and suddenly were told that everything was fine. We were young - we believed them, because logic still defied us back then. Call it suspension of disbelief. 

Within a matter of months, we had moved to a new house in a new neighborhood, and my mom was pregnant. She miscarried, and we were told by my father to be very nice to her and to be a couple of good girls because even though the pregnancy had been an accident my mom was very upset. So we tried to be good. 

That same year, my mom gets pregnant again. I remember my angry 12yr old self practically spitting at her in the car, "If it's such an accident, why don't you get fixed??" Somehow, even then I knew that my parents were trying to use a baby to fix their marriage, and I knew it wouldn't work. But when I was 13, my baby brother was born. The first-born son to a man who had 3 daughters, the first of whom was from a previous marriage. He was ecstatic.

Now to put this in perspective, you have to understand the household I was living in. My father did household chores, they both worked full-time doing the same job at the same workplace in two different departments. They took turns cooking dinner, were physically affectionate with one another, never fought in front of us, and took care of us equally. It was a gender-neutral household before gender-neutral households became popular and purposeful. My father seemed to be romantic with my mom, buying her gifts and doing things for her. I grew up for awhile believing that this is how things were supposed to be - an equal partnership based in love. There was a HUGE age difference between my parents - 18 years to be exact, but I never believed that would matter. 

Fast forward a little over 2 years. I am now 15, just finishing my sophomore year of high school. My parents have now been married for almost 17 years. My mother sits my sister and I down and tells us that she's moving out, moving 20 something miles away. Asks if we would like to come with her. (I know I'm not maintaining proper tense here, but bear with me.) I tell her I need to think about it, my sister says "Yeah, absolutely." She is 11 years old now. 

Of course, I don't believe that she's actually gonna leave. Shit, we've been through this before and nothing happened. Maybe all she needs is for my sister and I to go away for a little while again. 

A week later, my parents are at the neighbors house, drinking and socializing and having a grand old time, or so it seems. Around 2am, I wake up to yelling and a loud bang. I get really pissed, but I ignore it, because if I go up there I'm going to do something I will probably get punished for. Like call the cops or punch someone in the face. It stops pretty suddenly, so I go back to sleep. 

I wake up the next morning, and my dad is at work. My mom is home. I ask her in no uncertain terms, "What the fuck happened last night?" I didn't actually swear. To this day I don't swear in front of my parents, even though my mom herself is a potty mouth. She shows me a couple of bruises on her wrist that look like fingerprints and says, "Your father did this to me." When my dad gets home, I threaten to kill him, and I'm serious. He asks me if I will listen to him for a minute. I try to calm down and listen to him. He says, "Your mother has those bruises on her wrist because I was holding her arms. She was trying to punch me and pushed me into a wall. I didn't do anything except hold her back." I get pissed off at both of them, because I don't know who to believe anymore. To this day, I have no idea what happened that night. I shoulda just gone upstairs and punched someone. 

So my mom ends up leaving, taking my sister and brother with her. I stayed with my dad, partially because I didn't want to move or change schools, but mostly because he was devastated and didn't want him to be alone. They shared custody with my little brother, so he was with us for a half a week at a time until he started school. 

My mom pretty much dropped off the face of the earth for me. She rarely called, I only saw her on holidays. She always had something better to do than come and pick me up to visit, and I couldn't drive yet. I'm not going to get into all the drama that ensued in the following months, including me having a nervous breakdown and developing an irrational fear of my father, spurred on by my mom who told me I was justified without evidence. Either way, she would say anything to get me to be on her side. For staying with my dad, I became his favorite child and he ignored my sister and still does. He has no shame, and tells everyone in my family that I'm his favorite - including my sister. My half-sister is irrelevant. She's the bottom of his list. He once told me that the reason my mother left was because she didn't love "us" anymore - "us" referring to me and him. If it was in the pages of "How Not To Be A Good Parent" - my father did it. 

But I digress. My father is a condescending, self-absorbed ass, but he's always been that way and I've always known it. My mother is much more complicated. She thinks she's a great mom. I think I would have been better off without her. 

My mom married the guy that she left my father for the time that she actually LEFT. I suspected something was going on beforehand, but I let it go. I had enough to worry about at the time. For a long time, I hated his ass. I hated him so much that there was nothing I wouldn't do or say to make him know just how much I hated him. I hated my mom too, but she was my mother, and I tried to make amends with her. I spent years trying to rebuild a relationship with her, from college on. For awhile, I thought I had succeeded. 

This past June, I separated from my husband of two years, whom I had been with for almost 8. There was a lot of drama behind it, most of which no one knew about except for those closest to me. My mother was excluded from that list. 

Still, she was the first person I told that I had decided to move out. Her response? Her very first response? "You know, I'm still paying off your wedding." I knew that was what she was going to say. But I had been hoping she would say something else instead. Something supportive, maybe.

My mom's birthday was in August. I saw her two days beforehand, while she was on vacation and I came up to spend the day. I told her happy birthday, told her to enjoy it, put up with her fucked up comments about the guy I was dating at the time. I intended to bring her a birthday card, but in the commotion of preparing for the nearly 3hr drive down there, I forgot. Figured it wasn't important. She knew she wouldn't be getting a gift, seeing as I was paying extravagant rent on my own for the first time in my adult life, and she had gotten a diamond necklace from me the year before. I figured she would understand. 

A few weeks later I received an email from my stepfather (whom I now love very much), CC'd to my sister berating us for not sending my mother a card or buying her a gift. I responded politely, explaining that I had forgotten and that I would send one. I continued to forget, and it never happened. 

Just yesterday I got another email from my stepfather, (again CCd to my sister), saying that we should be ashamed of the people we have become and the priorities we have if we can't spare 10 minutes a week to speak to our parents or "forget" their birthdays. Mind you, they haven't seen my apartment though they've been invited several times, or that my mom generally doesn't call me unless I call her first, and leaves snide messages on my voicemail if I don't pick up: "I don't know WHY you're not answering your phone, but....."

I responded and explained that while I did not think it was his intention, he made me feel like an asshole. I then explained that because of issues I have with my mother, I don't think she has any right to be pissed over the lack of a birthday card, and that if she's hurt or upset by it, that I should hear it from her, and not him. I also mention the comment she made when I told her I was getting separated. 

He responded by reminding me how much money and "effort" people had put into my wedding, and that I "should have put the same or more effort into" making my marriage work. Basically, that I owed it to everyone who spent some cash on my kick-ass wedding to suck it up and deal. Though I wanted to say "Fuck you," I didn't. I continued to explain my position. No response from him yet. 

My mother is the most selfish human being on the planet. I am trying so hard not to be like her, and I feel like in order to accomplish that goal, I need to distance myself from her. I have given up trying to have a "real" relationship with her, because she lies to me and always has. I have so many issues because of the experiences I have had with her, and I so strongly resent the implication that I am selfish because I chose to separate from my husband despite the fact that other people helped pay for the wedding, or because I neglected to send a birthday card. 

Wow, this was a really long, pretty-detailed way of saying I'm fuckin' pissed right now.