I.O.U.

I.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe

There was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I would shine.

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed.

“On Turning Ten” – Billy Collins

II.

When I wrote my last blog post, I thought I was fine, that I had emerged from a bleak, mind-numbing couple of months completely intact. Mostly intact.

I thought my career as an emotional black hole was over.

I thought I was done crying and binge-eating pie.

I thought I’d be able to write about my “journey toward parenthood” (for lack of a better phrase) as I was living through it.

Ahh – the folly of the eternal optimist.

Looking back, I can see now that writing about it all as it happened was a stupid idea, but I was naive and optimistic. I really believed my story would end successfully – I was going to get pregnant, and soon. Any day now.

I was so, so wrong.

I told myself I’d successfully survived the worst good news of my life. I told myself that things could only get better from there.

But then I kept getting more bad news.

It wasn't all related to my ovaries, but it was all bad.

My aunt died unexpectedly.

We had to make the difficult decision to re-home our other dog, Gemma.

I was diagnosed with another endocrine disease. (I'm trying to collect them all.)

I was diagnosed with a blood abnormality.

I was put on medication for several months, and when that didn't work, I began taking fertility drugs. This doesn't sound like bad news, but it was to us: fertility drugs make you feel psychotic. And yet month after month, nothing seemed to be working.

Did I mention that my sister-in-law was pregnant and I still wasn't?  I know that’s actually GREAT news, but at the time, it felt like salt in the wound. (Let’s be real–everything felt like salt in the wound.)

I know I could’ve received way worse news. I know that. But at the time, it felt like the universe was conspiring against me to help me build character. (Yes, the universe - nebulae, black holes and galaxies - all of it. I was that overwhelmed.) I was desperate to stop feeling so many emotions all the time. I couldn't take it anymore. Every cell of my body was saturated with anger and frustration and despair and deep, deep longing. I self-medicated using my favorite vices.

You might think I was looking at all of the bad news from a positive light - that in between the tears, I said to myself, this could be great writing material!

That would be an incorrect assumption.

I wasn't thinking about anything. I didn't care about anything.

Case in point – I volunteered to cook the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. On Thanksgiving day, I brought a raw, thawed turkey to my mom’s house and barely glanced at the recipe I’d brought with me. I didn't even bother to read the cooking instructions correctly. I was distracted and apathetic. As a result, I cooked the turkey low and slow for way too long. I basically made turkey jerky. It was awful - the absolute worst thing I've ever tried to make. And yet I didn't care one bit.

I felt numb.

I was lost. I felt like a failure: my body could not do what it was designed to do, something 14-year-old girls could do. Like a bad habit, I replayed that thought over and over again. I was surrounded by friends and family, but I’d never felt so alone. Unless I saw you in real life, you probably didn't know the extent of my anguish. I tried to hide it, tried to be okay, but I didn't have the energy. I was completely shattered inside. I was running on fumes.

I think that’s why God sent you to save me. At that point, I wasn't really talking to Him much. At best, I was grunting in His general direction, but I was mostly not-talking. Like deliberately not-talking.

After reading my last blog post, you reached out to tell me you were sorry.

You reached out to tell me I wasn't alone.

You shared painful, intimate details of loss and longing and sorrow.

You said you were praying for me and thinking of me and hoping for the best.

You listened and didn't try to fix or force me to be optimistic. You just let me be sad.

You texted/emailed/messaged/commented the kindest words.

It took another six months - maybe longer - to feel not-shattered, to slowly pick up the pieces and glue myself back together again. Slowly, methodically - one piece at a time. Your thoughts and prayers and kind words and company got me through each day. 

Thank you for your kindness and generosity. You showed up when I needed you most.

III.

There you have it – my long-winded excuse for why I disappeared so abruptly. It’s kind of lame, but it’s all I've got. Next time I fall off the face of the earth, I’ll make sure it’s because I've done something dramatic – like I've quit my job and have been eating my way through Europe with Mike and Crosby.

There’s a part of me that wants to leave Last Year in the past, to just fill you in on what’s going on now.

But I can’t.

Last Year was awful and horrible and hard. It was a mess. I was a mess. I lost sight of myself and the absolute best part of my life – this guy:

  

But I learned a lot about myself, and because of you, about how to be a good friend to someone who’s stumbling through the darkest nights of his or her life. And maybe – just maybe – what I learned will help one person feel not-so-alone. And so, I will write.

More to come.

Thanks again.

Bean

A hello, and an explanation.

I.

The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears or the sea. Isak Dinesen


II.

Sorry I've been gone. I'm back now.

I had to take a break for a while, and when I say, "I had to", I mean I had no choice because I couldn't stop crying for two months.

Three months ago, on a Saturday morning, my sister-in-law called to tell Mike he was going to be an uncle.

I was sprawled out my bed, lapping up the morning sun, when he shared the news with me.

First reaction: "Oh YAY".
Second reaction: cue waterworks 2012.

I don't think I've gone from zero to sixty/fine to weeping since I was six. I fled to the shower.

I'm pretty sure I peed out of my eyes for a good hour. I cried, brokenhearted, like a small child. As I lathered and rinsed and lathered again, I begged:

"Me too, God--please, me too.

You know this is what I want more than anything right now. Please, God. PLEASE."

I begged, knowing the answer was still no.

I know I should've been happy for my sister-in-law, but at that moment, I felt utterly disappointed it wasn't us sharing that news with her.

I felt insanely jealous.
I felt angry.
I felt betrayed by God.
I felt really, really sad.
I felt barren.

You may be thinking, GAWD, you are dramatic, which would be a true statement. I can be dramatic. It's not like hers was the first pregnancy I'd heard about since Mike and I started trying. Everyone around me seemed to be exploding with children, and I was genuinely happy for them--people who were trying, people who just happened to touch elbows and got pregnant unexpectedly, people who'd been trying for a while and were finally successful.

But I fell apart that day in the shower. I kept thinking, What makes us so different from them? Am I not ready? It's because you know I've got a lot of issues to work out before you entrust me with a child, isn't it? 

I sat in my bathtub and tried to justify my extra long shower by shaving my legs, which was a terrible idea. I couldn't see through the wall of water and ended up cutting the back of my knees. When Mike got off the phone, he was surprised to find me swollen and pruney, drowning in sorrow and salt water. I didn't want to get out of the tub, so he sat outside of it and asked me why I was so sad.

I didn't want to tell him how my heart really felt. I knew it would confirm that I am a terrible, self-centered person, but I also knew I needed to be honest.

So I told him everything I'd said to God.

And because he is my best friend, he just sat with me and listened. He told me he was disappointed, too, and that he was sorry--sorry I was disappointed, sorry we weren't pregnant, sorry I was so, so sad. We clung to each other, or rather, I clung desperately to him--naked in every sense of the word--and cried all over him.

I wish I could tell you that I was fine after that epic cry, that my heart was able to rejoice every time I saw my sister-in-law after that.

I could tell you that, but then I'd be lying.

Instead, I slipped into a season of sadness (a.k.a. S.O.S.). That's my dramatic way of describing the two-month-period when I ate, slept, and cried almost every day. It wasn't like I woke up weeping every day, though some days, that did happen. I felt full of sadness, and being that full of sadness meant there was little to no room for any other emotion. Some days, I woke up and just wanted to go back to sleep. On those days, the sadness felt thick, hot and stifling, like being in a steam room with a bunch of old, naked women. Other days weren't so bad. I was sad, but the sadness felt thin, wispy and damp. I felt lost, but sure-footed enough to keep walking ahead even though I couldn't see an inch in front of me.

I'm a huge believer in giving myself room to feel emotions. I'm sure this sounds strange and overly touchy-feely, but I don't like to rush through them. If I'm sad, then damn it, I want to feel sad. I want to know what it tastes like, what it smells like--I want to become familiar with it, so I can more clearly appreciate what it feels like to be not-sad. Unfortunately, having a full-time job means that I can't wallow in a pool of sadness for weeks on end. I did my best to comfort myself with food and drink. I ate a lot of pie and cheese and chocolate, though not all together. That would taste bad. I didn't even bother to put the pieces of pie on plates. I just ate them right out of the tin. That little act of rebellion made me feel a tiny bit better.

I tried to channel my sadness into writing or reading--activities that seemed more constructive and cathartic--but found that when I sat down to write or read, I just couldn't. I couldn't feel or focus. I couldn't string more than a few words together. I couldn't read more than a few lines. It was exhausting and annoying.

So instead, I watched a LOT of television, ate a lot of pie, and tried my best to keep moving.

I'm grateful that the S.O.S. eventually came to an end. I don't have a secret formula that helped. I think I was just all cried out (does anyone else think of that song by Allure featuring 112?). God also took pity on me and provided me with some perspective and other reasons to celebrate--a dear friend's joyous engagement, another friend's progress in their adoption journey, more new babies. With each day, I noticed that there was more joy floating around in my body than sadness.

Finally.

III.

For some reason, I felt like I couldn't/shouldn't talk about my real feelings about my no-baby situation. Did someone (Emily Post? Miss Manners? Dear Abby?) say it's not okay to talk about how sad you feel when someone else tells you she's pregnant? I'm not sure, but I felt guilty for feeling sad, as though I'm ONLY allowed to feel unselfish joy for everyone else's very fertile wombs.

Is that true though?

I can feel joy and sorrow in the same breath. Both emotions can exist in my body at the same time. If that's true for me, it must be true for others, right?

I'm going to assume the answer is yes--at least for one other person. If that's true, why aren't we more open and honest about our feelings of sadness and disappointment? Why can we talk about being disappointed about not getting our dream job but not about wanting to be dating/engaged/married/pregnant/[insert stage of life]?

The first time someone asked about how I was doing post-S.O.S., I remember thinking, I have a choice: provide a decent, polite, easy-to-digest answer, or be honest.

I'm not good at lying, so I chose to be honest.

I'm glad I did. So many friends shared their own stories of disappointment or regret. Others who didn't have their own stories shared other people's stories. Almost everyone just said, "I'm sorry. That's really sh*tty."

My sentiments exactly.

IV.

I had to give myself space to write about the S.O.S. I wanted to be honest, but I didn't want to hurt anyone--namely my family. I definitely didn't want to write anything I would regret. Time has helped. So have food and booze. Sometimes I still feel sad when my sister-in-law announces another mommy milestone, but I don't cry anymore. I'm mostly happy now and am looking forward to meeting my niece.

I'm still not pregnant. In fact, since my S.O.S., I've survived even more life: not-good news about my womb, a sad goodbye, a death, and in the midst of all that, graduations, bridal showers and more weddings.

But more on all that later.

Sorry I was gone so long. I'm back now.