If I had to sum up my life in words not including “perfectly” or “cursed,” I think I’d be forced to describe it as the act of waiting for the other shoe to drop. This often leads to a great deal of self-sabotage. When you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, you often inadvertently cause the other shoe to drop. It’s the great conundrum of my life.
Life becomes a maze of anxiety when you get too nervous to be happy.
I’ve had some really rough times with this “morning” sickness during this pregnancy thus far. It’s actually usually night sickness more than anything. Either way, it’s harder for me to eat a meal, keep it down and digest it properly than it is for most people to get nominated for a Nobel Prize. So imagine my surprise when Sunday I felt relatively fine. Sure, I couldn’t eat all of my dinner, but the heartburn and indigestion and nausea were kept at bay.
Just guess what I did?
If you guess “FREAKED THE F*CK OUT” you are correct. Congratulations! You win a prize from the PCL Prize Van.
This is NOT the PCL Prize Van. Don’t be lured into this thing.
My mind raced that night. Was I miscarrying? What was going on? Was I sleeping and imagining all of this? Why was I able to eat two relatively decent sized meals? Did I go through a wormhole into an alternate universe?
Of course, the freaking out was modified only when my stomach decided to show me (again) who was boss later that night and the next day. The freaking out was fully calmed yesterday when I felt like death after coming home from dinner. (Taking a newly pregnant chick to a Mongolian barbecue is a waste of money, really.) I couldn’t even stand up at different points.
This is just another great example in a long 30 year history of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Don’t get me wrong, I love to celebrate when things go right. But I’m so used to there being a catch behind Door Number 2 that I get nervous even playing the game.
Get a lead in a high school play? Great…here’s a gnarly ankle injury that will haunt you for years to come.
Graduate from law school, pass the bar exam and get what is supposedly the job of your dreams? Awesome…here’s a dose of “that shit ain’t right” to go along with that job that will force you to reevaluate your entire existence.
Finally decide the time is right to start having kids and recognize that you may have some issues? Fantastic…here’s two and a half years of fertility treatments and soul crushing miscarriages and near misses to help your psyche.
There is so much more…so many more injuries–both physical and mental–so much more heartache. It has gotten to the point that I cannot accept good without expecting bad. It’s a horrible reaction. It’s one that I deal with constantly in therapy. But it never truly goes away. Do you know how many miscarriage related dreams I have had in the past few weeks? Yeah…quite a few. And each one garners the kind of anxiety that is usually reserved for people in mental wards of hospitals.
Basically my life can be seen as one big attempt at making me ridiculously frightened of stepping foot outside my front door.
But it has never stopped me from trying. I’m not some hero. I’m just someone who has to battle the constant anxiety of knowing her own history and trying to be happy nonetheless. I just keep plugging away at this quest to be happy and to be the captain in my own life boat.
I need one of these awesome hats.
There’s three quarters of a breakfast sandwich sitting on my desk reminding me of my stomach of doom. While it sucks that I can’t eat, it’s a reminder that I’m willing to live through the uncertainty just to have another crack at the bat. Yes, I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’d be lying if I said I weren’t. But maybe this time it’ll be a pair of comfortable yet stylish shoes that get me closer to my goal.
A girl can never have too many shoes, right?
If only my mutant feet could wear these.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It is good to feel that way for now. It will pass (when if wants too.) How many weeks are you?
I’m in my 7th week. I know the stomach stuff is good (“good” being a weird term to use here) but when it disappears for a day my freakouts are not good. Such is the life of someone pregnant after losses and infertility, I guess.
I can imagine. Just eat something before panic mode hits, you will likely feel sick again. Btw, I had no issue getting pregnant and I still freaked out a lot. I can’t tell you how many pregnancy tests from the dollar tree I took… I finally calmed down around 16 weeks. Which is twelve years in first and second trimester weeks. Hope you’re nice and green today:)
I kinda feel like in the back of my mind I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, too. Things have been going so well…then I think about it a bit more, and realize that my job is stressing the hell out of me, I’m not sleeping well at all, and Scott and I are both dealing with his crippling back pain every damn day now. I suppose that’s the shoe. It’s killing me to see him hurting so badly all the time. I guess when I’m trying to think more positively and try to remember how we’re good on money, we’re safe in our jobs, and our families are all okay then it seems a bit better, but the back thing…ugh.