Opposite Traumas

Hello and Happy Holiday Weekend!

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've written. Not much has happened, although I did get good results from my colposcopy! All three samples taken were negative for malignancy. Yay!!! Getting that good news was very relieving.

Other than that, I'm still experiencing heightened anxiety. The pandemic doesn't help. Neither does my current situation at work. I spent some time today reading several articles about being gaslit in the workplace. Signs, symptoms, what to do about it. It all made sense, so, unfortunately, I think that's the situation I am in right now. To cope, I am practicing redirecting my thoughts (so I'm not always thinking about it) and focusing on the things I do enjoy (sewing and reading blogs).

I'm honestly annoyed. And tired. And I wonder if I'm not still experiencing some trauma-related entitlement. I feel like I've already been through so much, I don't want to deal with a crappy situation at work. I don't want to quit and look for another job. But I also don't want to stay and deal with drama.

You know what I really want? And I'm sure everyone feels this way. A break. I want a freaking break. I've been going nonstop since 2015 and I think my nerves are shot. All of my trauma started in 2011 and I'd really like to just put the last decade to rest. I want to rest. I need to rest. We all do.

I am also incredibly thankful for so much. I'm probably more thankful right now than ever before.  First, the tangible, I have a HOME. Then the intangible, I have clarity. Well, somewhat. Well, maybe not clarity exactly... But I have a strong sense of self. I have my experiences and values. I have boundaries. I have a new life. And I have my grieving process to thank for all of it.

Infertility sucks. It completely sucks all of the energy out of you and all of the meaning out of life. I feel like not having kids--not through trying to conceive, fertility treatments, or adoption--is the worst thing that could have happened to me. I'm so damn maternal. It runs deep. I was born to be a mother. Or so I thought. 

I dreamt of raising kids throughout my whole life. I wanted it to happen in my early thirties, but it didn't. It was completely traumatizing and life altering.

Which brings me to the point/title of this post...

My boyfriend and I have opposite traumas.
I'm an infertile woman. He was a teen dad. 

It's a pretty significant detail. I've had his permission to share here, but it just never seemed to be the right time. I never found the right words. Even now, this post isn't flowing like I normally like. 

But Thanksgiving came and his young adult children drove up to see us. We hadn't seen his son since January and we hadn't seen his stepdaughter since the pandemic. It was so good to see them both. They stayed two nights and the four of us ate an early Thanksgiving feast on Monday.

My boyfriend raised them both, his son from birth and his stepdaughter from toddlerhood, with their mother. I can only imagine how hard it was. While teen parents may get a lot in terms of judgment, they don't often get a lot in terms of actual support. At least my boyfriend and his partner at the time didn't. They just got jobs and juggled childcare and made it happen.

It's weird for me. My boyfriend raised children. There's lots I could say here. There's lots that I have said to my boyfriend. Take Thanksgiving for example. I loved seeing his kids and having them stay with us. But it also felt weird. Like I was hanging out with some other woman's family. And it made me sad that I didn't get to raise them. But hell, I was nowhere near around over twenty years ago. 

So that's our opposite trauma. I'm infertile and my boyfriend was a teen dad. 

We have more in common than I would have ever guessed. For one, we are both missing our peer group. Most people our age are raising kids, but I'm not (obviously) and he's done doing that. So... We find ourselves hanging out with much younger or much older people. 

Well, before the pandemic anyway... Nowadays we are at home.
(But at least we have a home. We do not take that for granted.)

So now you know. 

I am not a mom or stepmom; I did not raise children. But my boyfriend is a dad. He raised children and now has two young adults in their early twenties. I love them both very much. I tell them whenever I see them and they know me as stable, practical, dependable, and effusive with my feelings for them haha.

Maybe they will come up in future posts. Maybe I will write about incidents that happened in the past couple of years. Maybe I will share the unexpected things my boyfriend and I have in common through our opposite traumas. Maybe I will just write as an infertile woman who is in love with a man who raised children. 

Who knows what the future holds. But for now, I am thankful.

Part of our feast! Cranberry sauce, two kinds of dressing, green bean casserole, and that big silver pot is holding our homemade macaroni and cheese. Not pictured: the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and two pies (pumpkin and cherry).

Here's something I'm thankful for! I finally unpacked my fabric. I can lie on the guest bed and be surrounded by shelves of books and fabric. It's so relaxing! I love it!!

Did anyone listen to Jody Day's Reclaiming the Childless Holidays? It was really, really good. I took notes. I should write a review post. She and the other panelists encouraged us to enjoy the parts of the holidays that we've always liked. One of things I've always enjoyed about the holidays is ornaments. Even during my darkest years, I never stopped buying myself an annual ornament. And pictured above is this year's ornament! It's designed to look like a Welcome mat. :)

And, in keeping with my own traditions, I put up the Xmas tree on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. You can count on me enjoying the Xmas tree lights every night for the rest of this year. I'm thankful for the little things that make me happy. What little things do you enjoy?

Sick of Feeling Anxious

I had a bad week.
Every day there was something Very Not Fun.

I chipped my tooth last week and went to the dentist on Monday to get it filled.

On Tuesday I had my annual mammogram. It's not painful, just everything makes me emotional.
(Upsides: Yay for following through with preventative care. Plus, it was negative!)

I went to work on Wednesday and had an extremely awkward day. I don't foresee things getting any better any time soon. I'm so frustrated. But I've been through worse and I'll get through this.

I had a colposcopy on Thursday. (You know your job is bad when you look forward to a gynecological procedure. I took two days off from work. I needed the medical respite, but it was also a much needed break from the work drama!)

On Friday I felt like crap. So sore, so cranky, so over it. What has my (non)reproductive system ever done for me?? (Answer: nothing good.) Fortunately, I was able to spend the entire day on the couch. I rested, watched tv, and finished sewing the binding on my nephew's quilt.

Now it is Saturday. My favorite day of the week. A day to do what I feel like. I did a little bit of sewing, a little bit of picking up, and my boyfriend and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. Then he cooked some food while I just tried to RELAX.

I am very stressed. I feel it physiologically; I feel it emotionally. I am so sick and tired of living in a heightened state. I lived like that for many years while trying to conceive and then while going through fertility treatments. Then grad school, divorce, and moving a bunch sucked a whole lot. Then the pandemic hit. 

It doesn't take much to make me feel anxious. Who can blame me? It was a shitty decade for me. And now life is harder for everyone. It's so easy for my anxiety to shoot up. Then it's so hard for me to come down.

I recognize it. I feel it. I give myself grace. I mean, damn, I didn't create any of the chaos that is currently around me (at work and also in the world). I cry a lot. I sleep. I sew. I read. I write.

And I bought myself this card. Then I bought a frame for it at the thrift store and got a little crafty.

Keep on enjoying the little things.

Still Stings

Well, this is far from the first time something like this has happened, but it still stings.

I got ghosted by a friend. He just stopped replying to my texts. Then yesterday I learned through a mutual friend that his wife just had their third kid.

Oh.

I lost another friend to parenthood.

It sucks. It stings.

When we became friends he already had his first kid. I was happy for him and his wife when they had their second kid. But I didn't make the cut for their third kid. 

I get it. He's busy. His life is going a hundred miles an hour in another direction.

I also don't get it. A parent is still a person. They still get to have 5 - 10 minutes of free time every now and then to text a friend. Personally, I think I'm a good friend. I also think I'm a good person to keep around because I will always be an outlet completely separate from the parenting world, which I'm sure is a much needed mental break every now and then. Not to mention, I'm busy too. Life is made up of what you make space for.

But the dynamics and rhythms in people's lives change and friendships often don't last, especially when one person has kids and the other doesn't.

I'm done pursuing friendships with people with kids. I can be friendly, but I doubt I'll ever be in an active friendship again with a person who is currently raising children.

I've had enough loss in my life.

Halloween Weekend Wonders

It's Halloween night. Trick or treating is over by now. My thoughts go out to every teacher and paraprofessional tomorrow. The day after Halloween is never the easiest when you work in a school. Sugar can be quite the drug.

Halloween was fun as a kid and it was fun as a young adult. During my dark years of infertility, Halloween was excruciating. I wrote about it here, calling it the hardest day of the year. 

And now... It's... Fine. Plain old fine. Not a big deal either way. I enjoy seeing costumes and I love eating candy. And... That's about it.

But that in itself is a miracle.

🎃

And it doesn't end there.

Here's another Halloween miracle: I talked to my mom yesterday morning for over an hour. I talked to her for an hour last week too. And the week before that. In fact, we've gotten in the routine of talking on Saturday mornings for a couple of months now. 

We are both very thankful for this change in our historically challenging relationship.

💜

It's moments like these (Halloween doesn't hurt anymore? And my mother and I are talking frequently?) that remind me that I don't know the future and that's okay. 

Hmmm... Maybe everything that I am feeling doomsday-ish about won't actually happen... 

But even if the worst does happen, I will survive. 

And do my best to thrive.

Too Much & Not Enough

That's how I'm feeling these days, like everything is either too much or not enough.

Work? Too much. Definitely too much. Very demanding, low pay, long hours.
Weekends? Not enough. Please. I need more. I need every moment I can take to try and relax.

Pandemic? Too much. It's month 19 and we're all breaking in our own ways. Short-fused. Foggy.
Pandemic precautions? Not enough. Not where I live anyway. :( When does this end? And how?

My feelings? Too much. I'm sad one day. I'm anxious the next. Ok, I'm anxious every day... But I also take time to be thankful every day. It's exhausting. But it could be worse. It could be much, much worse. I don't ever want to take my health, home, or groceries for granted.

My energy? Not enough. Except it is. I'm not expecting myself to go full pace, nonstop. Not now. It's impossible. I do expect myself to follow through with my commitments, but I'm also making less commitments. Working part-time. Volunteering a little. Sleeping a lot. My job and the pandemic require it.

It's hard right now. It's really hard. I'm tired. We're all tired. Nobody is having a good time.

But I do believe in enjoying the little things. I believe in cultivating gratitude. I just ate some cinnamon cookies. They were delicious. There's still a pandemic, inflation, a shipping crisis, and climate change, but I also enjoyed my cookies. 

I don't know how I endured infertility. I couldn't enjoy the little things back then. I don't know how I got through those years. I can barely believe I survived. 

Even now it's hard to believe I created a completely new life for myself. And I'm the one living it.

One thing at a time. 

I couldn't think about all of the changes I needed to make all at once. Too much.
I just couldn't stay stuck in the life that I had. Not enough.

I guess that's how we're all getting through these challenging times. One moment at a time.
Anything more is too heavy and way too much, but anything less is superficial and not enough.

Go easy, my friends.

Five Years Here

It's my 5th Blogoversary! Thank you for being here!!

I did a pretty good job describing why I blog in last year's blogoversary post.

*****

Today I had some time (and the emotional bandwidth) to continue rereading my old posts and labeling them. I began where I left off. In June 2018. The summer I moved out of state and the summer my marriage ended. Oh.

It began innocently enough. I moved to an apartment in a new state to finish up my clinical rotations to complete my degree. My husband stayed at his job in our old city where I used to live. I unpacked and decorated and started cooking again for the first time in years. I believe I was really starting to come alive again...

It happened quickly. All of the big and little things that I'd chalked up to the stress of moving never got better after we moved. Everything got worse. I told my husband I didn't want to be married anymore and he didn't try to convince me otherwise. We were getting divorced. I knew I would be taking a break from blogging so I wrote this post on 8/20/18 about life turning out beautifully.

I returned to blogging on 1/4/19 with a renewed enthusiasm for life. I didn't mention my divorce.

I kept blogging like usual for several more months. Then I wrote my annual post for what I call my Survivor Anniversary and that seemed to be the best time to share my change in marital status. Interestingly, it's also the same post where I mention taking my first sewing class.

I shared a little bit more about my marriage and divorce here.
And I shared when the divorce was final here.

Most importantly, I wrote a post when I started taking quilting classes. This was right after the time that my divorce was finalized. After decades of searching, I had finally found my medium as an artist. I find the timing of this discovery to be very interesting!

*****

And that's where I am with my reflective thoughts... 

My divorce has been final for over two years. My last IVF was over six years ago. So many lives, so many lifetimes ago... I would have predicted NONE of it. Instead, I wrote about all of it. 

It was just too much to carry by myself.

Thank you for reading.

Love, Phoenix

Parenting, the verb

God I wanted to parent so bad. It's an ache in my heart, a vibration and a yearning throughout my whole body. I don't romanticize the idea of parenting. I know it's a 24/7 gig that lasts for 25 years to life. I know it's hard work. I know it's expensive. I once joked to my dad that I was "the worst economic investment he ever made." He laughed and said, "Trust me, the investment wasn't economic." And then we both laughed together. 

I don't think parenting is all cute moments and baby showers. 

Parenting is hard work.

DUH.

I've always felt like I was born to parent. The verb, not the noun. And now I get to kinda do that with my pediatric patients. With appropriate boundaries of course. I am most definitely not the parent. But I do get to play, teach, set boundaries, maintain high expectations, and positively reinforce every kid's progress, effort, attitude, and just the individual self that each kid is. 

I get to parent the parents too. Respectfully and professionally of course. I get to hear about their problems, concerns, and excitement, pride, and happiness about their child. I get to positively reinforce all the good that they are doing and what all they are providing for their children. I get to validate their stress and exhaustion and I get to encourage and celebrate with them too. 

A mother arrived late with her child to an appointment the other day. She was apologizing, saying how it had been a hectic morning. And I got to smile and say, "It's okay. You're here. And you got here safely. All of us did. I'm so proud of all of us for this moment right here." 

Later she was sharing some of her current stresses with parenting and I simply said, "You're doing a great job." And do you know what she said? She said, "Thank you. I don't remember the last time someone said that to me." Ohmygosh, YES, I am here to support the parents. 

That reminds me of another fun moment for me at work. I evaluated a child and walked him out to the car. His parents looked at me and asked, "How did he do?" And I immediately and genuinely belted out, "You all are lucky! Your kid is amazing!!" And they both smiled so big and said, "We think so too!" And everyone felt good in the moment. 

How many times do parents only hear about the bad stuff? I thought about this often when I was teaching. Once I called a mom to tell her how much I enjoyed working with her son and she told me it was the first positive phone call she had ever received from the school.

So I just realized... Even before infertility, I enjoyed supporting parents.

Parents. The noun. The people with a very specific role and a multitude of responsibilities.

Parenting. The verb. The hard work that parents actually do.

I think a lot of people think they want to be a parent, but they don't think about the actual 24/7 parenting. I think people underestimate or just don't realize HOW MUCH and what all different kinds of work parenting demands. Not everyone of course. But a lot of people.

I really wanted TO parent. Yes, I wanted to BE a parent, but I also wanted to do the parenting.  

Like I already wrote above, I kinda get to parent at my job. And then I get to come home to a quiet house that's only messy from me and my boyfriend. I get to do what I like/need to restore for the next day without taking care of someone else. The fact that I do have this daily respite in my life did not use to bring me any comfort at all. But now it does. I'm glad that changed! Lol. I really do appreciate my life and love my home a lot now.

But I will still share the fact that I shed some tears this morning. Not a full on cry, but several tears escaped. I told my boyfriend, "I just really wanted to parent." Verb form.