introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- nothing you want is upstream peacefully now - 10 april 2014 "and the days went by like paper in the wind. everything changed then changed again."~tom petty & the heartbreakers
the baby's father isn't coming with me to maine, now for a 'myriad of reasons' as he puts it. for one, he has to go through a process to have his license reinstated. when we first started dating, after a long night hanging out with a girlfriend of mine, we were saying goodbye before heading to our separate homes for showers. it was a warmish trickster spring day. in her driveway, he collapsed into a grand mal seizure. i have never been around someone having a seizure before and i recalled him mentioning epilepsy. i called 911 because that's what you do in a medical emergency, right? to me, it was a medical emergency. i wasn't prepared for that kind of thing and i've learned a lot about epilepsy since then. but because i called 911, he was told not to drive when he was at the hospital--he didn't listen to that, though. he pretty much ignored the doctor's telling him that he had to see his neurologist before driving again. weeks later, he got a letter about his license. for this (i later learned) and other reasons, he texted me that he wouldn't be going to maine after all. a few days later, i found out i was pregnant. i waited several days before telling him. i'm not sure what i was supposed to do. he'd lied to me in every moment of our short fast relationship. i thought i'd found something healthy. i have tools to communicate what i need and i have been level headed in this thing. i thought i'd found a match..someone that was going to be a partner. i was so happy for those few weeks, i truly was. i mean it when i say this baby comes from a happy place. that place, though, was a lie. he had told me he was going to be separated from his wife, even going so far as to tell me that perhaps we should hold off on anything until he'd moved out of his home. i respected that...that seemed like the right thing to do. my intentions in all of this was to check in frequently, and to just communicate about things openly. do your thing, you know? i'll do mine. let's enjoy each other's company. this is the only way i know how to be now. i just want someone who can talk to me and tell me what they need. that's all i want. he'd gone back to his wife. i think i knew it all along but i wanted to trust him. so i trusted him. he told me on a thursday (rather, his wife sent me a text message for him from his phone...classy.) on saturday, after a sleepover at rachel & andy's, rachel made me waffles with cheddar and bacon. she sent me home with pregnancy tests. they came back positive. i told my parents. in two days, i went from being devastated, scared, and setting up appointments with a therapist to finding out that i'm going to be a mom if everything goes well. i didn't have time for a broken heart because now, my broken heart just doesn't matter anymore. i'm sad, i admit that. i'm disappointed and withdrawn. my focus is on growing a healthy baby in there. so i've had three sad days. the puking hasn't curbed too much and i've gotten very little done. all i want to do is sleep. three sad days to sulk and then we're done because, despite the plan to have him come with me, the father says he can't leave the state until september. he picked up his things yesterday and yelled paternity test in my front yard (so so classy) and packed his second hand bmw up with his boxes and took them back to his room across the river. goodbye, bmw. goodbye pit in my stomach. goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. i felt the stress go out the door with him. he gave no real explanation, he just took his things. in truth, it has been hard with him here. how can i try to share a space with someone who did nothing but lie to me from the first day i met him? how could i not harbor some anger with so many examples of him blaming anyone but himself. of watching him not hear me when i told him that i had every intention of reviewing my rights...he finally got it a night or two ago. the plan never changed. i'm protecting this baby. i'm not a dumb lady. so he is gone. i can breathe. i took three sad days and let the nausea consume me. tonight, after three sad days and all the sleep i could squeeze, my stomach is settled and i am breathing. i have always had a back up plan and the movers are coming on the 16th so i'm going to need to shake down this house and get the boxes packed. the landlord who screamed that i was breaking the lease (we have no lease) and that she'd find a stain on the carpet (we've never worn shoes inside and Sean was great at vacuuming it every week.) she called and sounded quite reasonable in the voicemail...i think she may apologize. i've never been a person who felt like there was god or anything like that...but i do feel strongly that for all the weird the universe is piling on me, she's giving me a whole lot of answers and quickly. from strange interactions with customers to my closest friends giving the best advice to my mother sending verses from proverbs that (while i'm pretty sure benjamin franklin may have written these) behaved as koan for me for the last few days. i took no action either way and the answer played out on its own. so i'm not choosing my own adventure. i'm letting these days here wash over me. i'd said to ashley and jason that the saddest thing to me is that he'd somehow managed to steal the fresh start from my fresh start. i have fresh air in my fresh start and i know that i'm going to be okay. this baby and i are going to be okay. i am stronger than i have ever been in my life. i have known love and happiness and i will know more happiness and a new kind of love. i feel brave. this baby and i and my sweet dog sammy are going to climb mountains and go to the rocky maine shores. and eat lobsters....oh, so many lobsters. and i'll ride my bike to work and next spring, i'll swap out the old book crate on my bike for a baby chair. i'll meet new people. i think i'd like to find a zen center or perhaps a unitarian church up there. i'm contacting an ob/gyn who is also a midwife to meet as soon as i arrive. my neighbor's have a little 4 month old son and he is a school teacher and she stays at home. i learned about my new neighbors from my dear sweet salty mainer landlord. he made me cry when i called him to let him know what was going on. that man is getting my very first maine pie! he assures me that i will like my kitchen even better than the kitchen i'd seen because even the wallpaper (oh, boy?) speaks to culinary acts. the mover told me they will not move my meat. i have a chest freezer full of meat to consider. i have actual puzzles that need solving right away. these three sad days are over. the books are packed. i am going to take the nausea pill and deal with the side effects because i have a lot to do and not a lot of time. things are going to be better. a few hard days ahead and then i get on that plane for seattle and i get a few breaths of fresh air and see everything i've been dying to see for so damned long. this baby and i are going to fly right over you, america. my sister says i can't leave all of this behind when i go there but i promise you i can. i've gotten good at vacating on vacation. then...when i get home, this adventure is going to start being exactly that. i'm doing my own kind of homesteading. i have cast aside the garbage in three sad days. all i have left is future and excitement. i am thankful. xo, kiddos. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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