I haven’t been feeling the urge to write lately.  I write more when I am down, and as things have been rather peachy over here, there’s not much inspiration for writing.

I’ve been appreciating my weekdays with Sun a whole lot more lately.  I think it’s that she’s getting to an age, finally, where she’s really interactive.  And funny.  No, I won’t bore you with funny tales that won’t seem funny to anyone but me and CS.  But she’s certainly grown on me more these past few weeks.  Love her to pieces, I do.

I’ve got a new hobby lately.  Facebook.  I know. Sad. And worse? I am there for dumb Farmville!  I dream of living on that dang farm. It’s crazy! I am city girl through and through.  But what’s more addictive is watching the thread of a distant friend as she and another distant friend try to get each other’s head to explode.

She is a new mom.  And a doula.  She is an advocate to breast feeding, not getting vaccines, and not having others touch her baby (even at 8 months).  She is also now making her own yogurt and other delectable treats.  And she writes about these topics daily.

He is a guy. And a father.  But mainly a guy.  And so when she posts pictures on Ina May emerging from a homemade vagina, his head begins to spin.  And when she posts about a baby that died in flight because the airline “forced” the mother to cover her baby and she fell asleep, but the story she links to doesn’t mention the mother being forced at all, his spinning head begins to release steam.

He attempts to point out to her that maybe she needs to be more objective in her analysis.  But his approach does nothing but offend her.  And the more he pushes, the more she stands her ground, even as her head begins to spin and steam.

So now, each day, I can’t wait to see what she’ll post to get his goat which will inevitable lead to his responding.  And then hers, and his again, etc.

And I just sit back and enjoy.  And then I go to my farm and milk cows.

My slow and steady life is going just fine.

It’s never good when my posts are named for Police songs that are 15 years old.

And therein lies the whole of man’s plight. Human time does not run in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

~Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

The Police and Kundera? This post may be a tad maudlin. And rambling. Feel free to abort now. Oh, you’re going to read more? Kind reader, you’ve been warned.

Last week, discovering I had miscarried and was pregnant on the same day, and having the hormonal roller coaster that such a thing brings upon a woman, I’ve given this “do I have another child” question YET ANOTHER good hard look. Same result. Not the point of my post.

I mentioned one day to my mother-in-law that having another child would mean less resources (time, money, energy) would go to Sun and to my relationship with CS. This was one of many reasons I was espousing.

The next day, she picked up this thread and said, “When I was thinking about having another baby after my first, I didn’t think of it as less time with the first or less time with my husband. I saw it as an opportunity for us to come together even more.” She wasn’t criticizing my logic. Not at all. She was showing how my logic, which is right for me, leads to a far different answer on the family-size issue than her logic lead her.

That conversation opened my eyes to how so many women (and men) view having children (plural). But really it showed how, well, I am not sure if “skewed” is the word, but it showed me how skewed my outlook is. Truth is, I couldn’t handle another child. On any level. And that’s hard to admit. It leaves me feeling a bit broken. To know I am so very different (and, in my mind, deficient) from the majority of people walking the earth.

Coupled with this irritant is that my workload is currently light. Again. And although this was a blessing last week, this week it feels like a curse. Something about “idle hands” but in my case it’s an idle mind.

And that brings me to the Kundera quote. I’ve asked this before (oh, how ironic), but why can’t I just find peace and happiness in having all I ever wanted? Dammit. I’ve got two advanced degrees being put to good use, a wonderful husband and child, and even a mother-in-law who I adore. (Mostly) Satisfying Job: check. Health: check. Good Relationships with Friends and Family: check. (Mostly) Financially Secure: check.

Kundera would say that it’s the human condition to “have it all” and not be happy because human time runs in a straight line and happiness is the desire for repetition. Having it all is NOT repetitious. Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. There’s no more challenge, no more striving, no strife or struggle even. That’s all in the past, on that straight line. But so too are the moments of joy that accompany the attaining of it all.

I don’t know the answer for my own situation. I don’t know how to allow my straight line of time to hold on to the joy of the accomplishments my struggles in life have given me. I just know that, at least for now, my life is lacking pizazz. Or something.

We’ve dropped my mother-in-law at the airport after a three-week visit. What a crazy three weeks it’s been. And now I am home and Sun is napping and my small house feels large, cold and empty. And that mirrors my heart. Mia is from New Orleans and her love of the city rivals mine. She, like her son, is someone I can sit and NOT talk to for hours. We just enjoy being together more than we enjoy being apart.

When I was dating, the mothers of the boyfriends I’d met were all my mother’s age or older. And I always impressed them as a girl you’d keep around. And I always felt a pseudo mother-daughter relationship with these women.

When CS and I were dating, I refused to meet his parents until I had a commitment from CS. His parents live in Ohio and we were told we’d have his sister’s room to ourselves if we visited. There was NO WAY this old fashioned girl was going to share a room, A BED, in her boyfriend’s MOTHER’S house. And when I did eventually meet his youthful parents (I am the youngest of 5, my mother had me when she was 29; CS is the oldest, his mother had him when she was 20), I didn’t envision them as parental figures. Instead, we became friends. And this visit firmed up that fast friendship that began some eight years ago.

Mia wants to return to New Orleans. Her husband is agreeable to a move if he can find work here. I just keep hoping it will somehow happen. It seems impossible. That it isn’t meant to be that Sun will have her youthful grandmother near her the way I had mine as a child.

I know I’ll feel better day by day as the post-visit blues pass. But dammit. I miss her to pieces.

Sun cried in the middle of the night. We called her to our bed and all three of us went back to sleep. A few hours later, I awoke with Sun in my arms. There was peace. And I thought, “what was that bothering me yesterday?” Then I remembered. And the obligation of guilt kicked in.

Morning rolled in, we all rose a bit later than usual. I returned to the hospital to have more blood drawn then drove in to work for the first time since. I knew I had to get two sets of documents drafted and have lunch with a peer that I’d postponed on Tuesday. I couldn’t face the challenges of the day. Or so I thought. I finagled in my mind how to get things done in the office without my presence. The first step was postponing lunch. Again.

I turned on my computer and the email was already in my in-box: “I’m still on for lunch. Are you?” And I couldn’t bring myself to be weak and say no. Again. So I said yes. And then I got busy drafting my documents.

And work was my saving grace. The time zipped along. It was lunch time already. I met my new friend. We exchanged the married with kids info. He asked, “Just one? Are you going to have another?” And the pang to be honest beat in my chest — tell this stranger about your week, thought I. “Nope, just the one is enough for us,” I answered, not revealing too much to this unsuspecting stranger. “I think that’s great. My mother was an only child. And all the only children I knew did quite well. I am not sure why folks make such a big deal about only children.”

And just like that. My train was put back on its tracks. I felt normal. I wasn’t thinking about what had happened. I was sipping a glass of wine and enjoying the talk of family, law, nice weather in NOLA.

This “it” affected me, is affecting me, in ways I never could have imagined it would. But time is doing its job. And my train is on the track again, chugging along, even if slowly.

Things DO work out. Heh. What a wild ride this week has been.

Disappointment comes in many shades of gray.  Yesterday’s disappointments were simple: black.

It began to sink in that although my body DID allow me to get pregnant, it still failed in some way in not maintaining the pregnancy.  That choice I felt so strongly about the night before was gone again.  I have no choice.  This body is broken.  Even if it’s broken in a way that coincides with what my choice would be.  See how I can turn something positive into something wrong with me?

We didn’t know I was pregnant until I had already lost it.  So to me this was just a medical issue.  Not a miscarriage.  I struggle to apply that word to what’s happened.

My mother-in-law came with me to the doctor.  She was there when the forceps were requested.  When tissue was removed.  When yet another vaginal ultrasound was taken. When I was told I may in fact not have lost the pregnancy yet.  Then when I was told that in fact I had.  When I was told it wasn’t a tubal pregnancy or one that would require a D & C.  And when they took blood to compare to blood they will take tomorrow.

She loaned me her strength.  Her courage.

On the drive home, she got a call from her job informing her that she’d not have to work next week.  She jokingly told her employer, “You mean I can stay an extra week in New Orleans?”  And when she hung up, I was hungry for her to tell me that that’s what she’d do.

I asked her to stay.  Maybe even implored a little.  Then I got CS to ask, thinking it’d mean more if HE told her how much I needed her, she’d stay.  “No,” she repeated, “I’ve gotta get home.”

Then today I overheard her asking her husband if HE wanted her to stay an extra week.  In other words, if he wants her home, home she’ll go.  He said stay.  And she is upset because she now thinks he doesn’t miss her.  And now she may stay.

And now I just don’t give a shit either way.  And somewhere in here, when I explained to my husband that I’d call a friend to watch Sun today and he responded, “Why?” I got pissed at him too.

So much for being on top of things emotionally, eh?

Looking back, the signs were there.  But when you aren’t looking, how can you see them?

So today when my period turned angry and stopped me in my tracks, I assumed it was what I’m told about ALL my new ailments: It’s yet another sign of aging.

Then the flow got really heavy.  No worries, just a desire for good meds.  Then clots appeared.  Doubt crept in. Could I have been…?  Am I now…?

My mother-in-law is staying with us, and we canceled our afternoon plans so I could wear sweat pants and suffer at home.  She also got me to call my doctor.  He asked if I was sure I wasn’t pregnant.  And then the math hit me.  I mean, it was possible, albeit improbable.  So he asked that I take a pregnancy test and if positive go to his office tomorrow to be sure “nothing’s left behind.”

I called CS at work and explained things and asked him to bring me home a pregnancy test.  And that damn thing showed “Pregnant” faster than I had time to even come close to bracing for such a result.  Stunned, I walked out of the bathroom.  My mother-in-law was walking past the door.  I tossed the stick to her.  She read it and said, “NO WAY.”  Then she brought it to CS, who was running Sun’s bath.

I then went into the bathroom where CS was (and Sun wasn’t yet).  We stared at each other.  Stunned.  Then we talked a bit.  And I realized that CS was under the mistaken impression that I was carrying a viable pregnancy.  I clarified there was NO WAY I wasn’t losing it — hadn’t already lost it.

Then I went to the den and sat down.

Stunned.

Dazed.

Relieved.

I know I’ve posted about our decision to have no more children.  To do no more fertility treatment.  We were coasting along on a “if it happens” mentality.  But when you KNOW it won’t, can’t, happen, you accept it.  And although we felt that we DID have the ability to have another child, and it WAS our decision not to, there was a nagging hint of doubt.  What if we could easily get pregnant?   Have we just decided we don’t want another because of the stress/cost/etc. of fertility treatment?  Were we just “deciding” what was already a foregone conclusion without intervention?

And before I took that pregnancy test I thought, it doesn’t matter what it reads.  Either way, I am NOT having a baby now.  It won’t MEAN anything.  We have no attachment, no expectation.

And then I saw the one word. “Pregnant.”  And my hand shook a bit.  And my nerves shook a lot.

And I sat on the sofa.  Marveling at my own girly parts.  Our fertility doctor had said that if we’d wanted another baby, we’d maybe not even have to do fertility again because my hormonal dysfunction could sort of “re-set” itself after a healthy pregnancy and delivery.

And then I realized that for the past 3 or so years that I thought, no matter what that fertility doctor may have said to me, that I’ve ALWAYS been infertile and could NOT have another child without intervention, that I’d been wrong.  That yet again I’d underestimated myself, my body, and assumed the worst.  That I was just temporarily infertile!  That we really DO have a choice to have another child.  That our decision NOT to have another child is real.  And that decision is mutual.  And right for us.  So instead of tears, there was a small smile.

Tonight, I was liberated.

I CAN, DID, get pregnant without a doctor in the room!  And we really, truly, choose for me not to get pregnant, for us not to have a baby, again.  That nagging doubt?  It too flowed out of me today.  Once and for all.

With this recession going on, and what we me gardening and all, oh, and having a terrible two on our hands, we decided to STOP eating out.  We’ve cut eating out down by about 90%.  Seriously.  I’ve been cooking a lot more, and so has my husband.  We’ve been so thrifty!  I even lost a decent amount of weight on this new plan.

But it was all pretend.

We were play-acting being thrifty.  We were spending less and reallocating money to other sources (like Sun’s college plan).  We didn’t NEED to be thrifty.  And you know what?  It’s kinda fun to pretend to be thrifty.

Then the sluggish economy finally caught up with the businesses of both my husband and me.  And we are each tied financially to what “we bring in the door.”  And although we aren’t eating Spam yet or cutting cable out of our lives, we are facing thriftiness FOR REAL.  We now need to think twice about dropping $5o on a meal.  On occasion, we still do it.  But it’s rare.  And quite the occassion.

And now that I know I need to cut back on spending, I am suddenly on eBay buying crap (mostly nickel and dime stuff for Sun), and buying NOLA books.  And CRAVING eating in a restaurant.  Of course, I KNOW this is my psyche rebeling against this current financial tightening. But I am losing sleep and finding reasons that I need the crap and cannot possible cook yet again.

*Sigh*

In the end, my career (as are most legal careers) is ebbs and flows. I am an expert at being in a Flow and preparing for an Ebb.  There’s always squirreled away something, somehow, to help when that Ebb arrives.  And I KNOW we will ride this recession out, adjusting our work lives and personal lives accordingly, and come out whole and in tact.

But there’s no denying I will miss sushi in the interim.

I drop Sun off at daycare once a week. Last week, there was an, er, incident. I thought I’d blog about it and then decided to let it pass. And it stayed with me and came up again today in conversation. Considering it is STILL bugging me, I thought I’d throw it out here.

After walking Sun to her classroom, I left the building to return to my car. The personnel at the front door let me out and locked the door behind me. Just as she does for every person coming or going into and out of the school.

As I am approaching the corner, I see a man standing on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. I need to pass him. He’s alone, and his neck is bent such that he cannot hold his head up fully erect. And he’s looking down the street back towards the school.

My Mommy Radar went up. But so did my You-Are-Making-Something-Out-of-Nothing Radar. I sized him up and kept walking. I got in my car and debated. Do I DO something? Why is he standing on the corner? Alone, with NO CHILD? Looking back at the school?

“Dammit,” I thought. I decided to at least call the school to let them know of him. They reassured me the doors stayed locked and they’d keep an eye out for him. I didn’t feel better having called. Actually, I felt worse. What was I assuming? Based on what facts?

As I turned my car around to leave and approached that corner, I gave the scene another hard look. May as well be able to describe this guy, eh? And then I noticed he was standing next to a pole. A pole with a sign on it. A pole with a bus stop sign on it.

This innocent man was waiting for a bus, watching the street in the direction the bus would come.

I was mortified.

I don’t need to be told I did the right thing and that it’s better to be safe than sorry. I get that on some basic level, I was being a Mama Bear.

But seriously, folks, what kind of world do we now live in where a mother ASSUMES the worst about a neatly dressed man, alone, waiting for a bus, who happens to have some minor physical ailment? Would I have been less judgmental if his head did not droop? If he’d have made eye contact with me and smiled?

Did I mention this is at 9am on a bright Wednesday morning, and the school was totally following its safety protocol?

I am not happy with myself, with my behavior, with my quick-to-negative judgment. What happened to being neighborly and taking the first step to give someone the benefit of the doubt? Why didn’t I smile and say “good morning” to him? Why didn’t I look for a legitimate reason for him to be standing on a corner?

I think a lot has to do with what American news is about these days. We are told that there are 800,000 missing children reported each year. Well, damn! No wonder I am on the hyper-alert, right?

But according to a Slate article, this number is misleading:

It’s true that 797,500 people under 18 were reported missing in a one-year period, according to a 2002 study. But of those cases, 203,900 were family abductions, 58,200 were nonfamily abductions, and only 115 were “stereotypical kidnappings,” defined in one study as “a nonfamily abduction perpetrated by a slight acquaintance or stranger in which a child is detained overnight, transported at least 50 miles, held for ransom or abducted with the intent to keep the child permanently, or killed.” Even these categories can be misleading: Overstaying a visit with a noncustodial parent, for example, could qualify as a family abduction. Some individuals get entered into the database multiple times after disappearing on different occasions, resulting in potentially misleading numbers.

So, 115 per year of the type of abduction that is a parent’s worst nightmare? That’s too many, to be sure. But is it reason enough to cast a judgmental eye on a guy at a bus stop?

For me, after having giving this MUCH thought, it is not. No more than it is to fear your home will be broken into because a lone black man is walking down your street on a random weekday afternoon.

Our fellow man deserves better than that.  I owe more than I gave.  And it’s time I admitted it and began to do better to judge less.  Being a mother is NOT an excuse to such behavior.

Are you with me?

As I was driving to work yesterday, I was tuned to WTIX and heard an old Chicago song (I can’t now for the life of me recall which song it was).  Then I switched to NPR and heard Garrison Keallor read this poem by Michael Blumenthal.  And in the span of that six or seven minutes, this topsy turvy world of mine made sense.

We can worry, fret, and consternate.  And I do, way too often.  But life continues to move forward.

Things are not as they seem: the innuendo of everything makes
itself felt and trembles towards meanings we never intuited
or dreamed.

Take, for example, how the warbler, perched on a
mere branch, can kidnap the day from its tediums and send us
heavenwards. . . .

Each year, days swivel and diminish along their inscrutable
axes, then lengthen again until we are bathed in light we were not
prepared for. . . .

When I was that kid hearing that Chicago song (whichever song it was), I had no fear my future would be secure.  I read a lot, played with my dolls, and my friends, we played kickball in the street, and the girls curled each others’ hair.  Our job was to do well in school and to tend to the few household chores we were assigned.  Oh, the free time we had!

And in the background was the music of Chicago and Supertramp and The Rolling Stones and Genesis and The Who (my older brothers controlled the radio dial back then).  All those songs of growing up, falling in love, becoming a member of adulthood.  It was all so alluring.  We couldn’t wait to arrive!

But my reality of adulthood has been about 65% worry.  Worry about money, about job security, about my future, now Sun’s future.

And yesterday, hearing a song that took me back to my youth, and hearing a poem about the simplicity of a bird distracting one’s entire day in such a lovely way, well, it made me laugh.  Can it be that life really is that simple?  Have I made it more serious than it deserves?

I graduated from high school over 20 years ago.  And I’ve accomplished a lot.  And I’ve NEVER been homeless or without money.  I’ve been involuntarily jobless for less than 30 days in that entire 20 year span.

It’s silly of me to waste my time, my nerves, on worrying about this terrible shoe that I fear may one day fall.  Even if it ever does fall, things work out.  I’ve seen it. Work out.  Things always do work out, even if in ways one could never, ever have predicted.  So why worry?

Now, how do I manage to hold on to this clarity for more than 48 hours?

Summer’s over.  How do I know?  I am returning to my “normal” work schedule.  Since returning from maternity leave 2+ years ago, I’ve worked in the office Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week.  For the summer, we started Sun in official daycare twice a week–Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days I usually watched her.  So I worked in the office Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays all summer.  Starting next week (Sun’s “school” is closed this week), I return to my MWF in the office/TTh home with Sun routine.

I never got used to my summer schedule, nor did the folks in my office.  So I think we are all glad to return to normal.

Sun LOVES her daycare, and so do we.  Aside from the first-six-months-expect-her-and-us-to-be-sick, we are all very pleased with daycare entering our lives.  So much so, in fact, that I’ve begun to consider returning to a five-day-a-week-in-the-office schedule come January.

Except every time I get serious about it, I get a stomachache.

I LOVE my time spent with Sun on T-Th.  I love that my work life is able to handle this flexibility.  And I want to believe that even if I return to five days a week, I’ll leave early each day so that Sun’s not in school from 9 til 6. That way, I’d be giving more to my office-time than I am now, but still not 40 hours a week.

I hate that money is a part of this equation.  But it is.  A part. Not the entire decision.  Yes, I’ll earn more, but it will also cost more to have her in daycare every day.  But my increased earnings should more than make up for that.  We need work done around the house: we’ve put off several big necessary projects because of money.  And when our water heater broke this week, it mattered how we’d pay for it.

As it is, I see no vacations for the next 16+ months, or at least none that will require airfare and a hotel.  Because I’d rather get things done around the house than travel. And that’s whether I return full time to the office or not.

Money aside, I feel it’s my duty to “hit the pavement” more to bolster my practice.  To transition into a senior partner, one that provides herself and at least one associate attorney with enough work for each to earn well and be consistently busy.  Somewhere in me, this IS my professional goal.  I am not completely content where I am, capable of not being in the office more than I am now.

I stand here today ostensibly having it all–the perfect balance of a work life and a personal life with very healthy relationships in each.  And yet there is a quiet rumbling within.  A rumbling that is rising to the surface, getting a wee bit louder each month.

Maybe that stomachache is fear.  Is that weird?