Sorry for the lack of posting. Life has been... stressful.
So at this point I'm 28 weeks pregnant. 11 weeks and a bit to go! But I am tired, so very tired. I'm not used to being this fatigued and life stress is just adding to the fatigue. I swear, if I got news tomorrow that my husband was employed I would be much more energetic!
That being said, I've slacked off on a couple of things. A few of them are truly unnecessary, but a few of them make me feel enough better on a daily basis that I'm able to tackle more.
Adderall used to be fairly optional. It's very much not. Caffeine used to be optional. Now I might as well hook myself up with a caffeine IV.
Today took both adderall and caffeine.
Turns out my morning makeup routine is also very, very necessary.
I don't know what it is about doing my makeup in the morning but it seems to put my mindset into "work" mode. Something about the ritual, about applying everything in the required order and cleaning the brushes afterward, is very calming. I need that bit of calm right now.
Should it be voluntary? Definitely. Is it at the moment? No, not really. It's one of those few things about life that I feel like I have complete control over.
So today I took back control. I spent an hour and a half cleaning out the master bathroom and cleaning up my mess of makeup.
Are there other projects that really needed my attention, and were higher priority? Of course, there always are. But tomorrow I get to roll out of bed and walk through a messy bedroom into a bastion of peace and order with everything I need right there. If I do things right, I can do that every day.
That's definitely worth an hour and a half of work.
Not that I can afford it (now or anytime soon), but that doesn't keep me from wanting it:
(from Tempatalia, who you really should be reading)
Wow that's gorgeous...
Looking forward at Thanksgiving, I don't think I've ever been this depressed. A lot of it is exhaustion, yes, but a lot of it is looking at another holiday season without the girls. I need to get my head past the next couple of months.
And so, in the middle of this financial, medical, mental, and emotional crisis, a list of things I will be doing once finances get worked out:
- Buying more lingerie, either Belabumbum or something similarly maternity-friendly.
- Getting an entire set of Pebeo Porcelaine 150 paints for my tile and mosaic work.
- Buying maternity clothes as a whole.
- Setting up the baby stuff and nursery, piece by piece.
- Buying furniture for the upstairs reading nook, or buying a new living room couch and moving our current couch up where it belongs.
- Just plain not worrying so goddamn much about everything.
Hello poor, neglected blog.
The reasons for the neglect and the motivation for this post all come from the same place.
I'm having an identity crisis. A very deep, very personal, very destructive identity crisis.
Go me?
In all seriousness though, I finally reached an understanding of why this would be.
At the time of my last posting on this blog life seemed very different. Chris was about to undergo surgery and that was all that was on my mind.
I didn't yet know that I was pregnant. I didn't know Chris would be undergoing radioactive iodine treatment. I had no idea what was coming.
Now all of that is in the rearview mirror and I find myself trying desperately to deal. Crisis mode is *mostly* over and it's on to dealing with the future.
The fun thing about crisis mode is that while you're dealing with it you have no idea what you're doing to yourself. As you pare down life in order to deal with the shitstorm you don't realize what you're giving up and what you'll need to do once it's over.
Between being a wife, mother, expectant mother, housewife, dog owner and cat owner, I'd lost complete track of everything I am that is completely separate from all of the above.
There's an inherent danger in being _______'s _______. Chris's wife. The girls' mother. Baby's mother. Jayne's owner. Eva's foster mother/mistress (she is a dog after all). All of these roles are defined by some other living thing. And I'd lost sight of everything but those roles.
The problem with all of those roles? Success in them can only be gauged second-hand through the success of the primary subject.
Am I a good wife? Doesn't that depend on Chris, and isn't that best determined by him? Am I a good mother? How do I know without the kids? If one of the dogs won't stop barking, does that mean I'm failing, or is there something else involved?
Then there's the bigger picture. Who am I in the world? As far as 99% of the blogosphere is concerned my first identity is "Chris's wife". At the doctors I am "the cancer patient's wife". At the vet I am "Jayne's owner".
None of those are really who I am, or even scratch the surface. I've allowed myself to get to the point that I'm only known as _______'s _________.
Even in blogging and online I've kind of relegated myself to the same positions. I blog on Chris's blog, but it's still his. My involvement in the forum is secondary, not primary. Even on various social sites my involvement is only secondary. I go to club meetings where Chris is the far better known person and I'm still "the wife".
Granted this is at least partially because Chris has such a big personality and such a big presence, but still...
Where am I just "Mel"?
That's a big question, and the reality is that through a mixture of circumstances and personal choice I've made it this way. I've refused to spend the time and energy necessary to be "just Mel". When your life revolves around your family and your home and your job is your family and home, _______'s ______ is the default. Being known only for yourself is far more difficult. It's also impossible, honestly. There is no going back in many ways.
Just because I'll always be _______'s ______ doesn't mean I can't be Mel at the same time. I just need to carve out some room for myself. Focus on some things some of the time that don't revolve around or include the family. Focus on some things and some projects where the success of my efforts depends only on me and therefore can be measured in a way that is clear and makes sense. Make a name for myself in some circles where I'm known primarily for myself and not for my family.
I have tons of interests where I can do that. I have tons of things I want to get into but between circumstances and guilt I've avoided taking the plunge. I just need to take the plunge. Maybe then I'll feel like I exist as someone separate. Maybe.
It's worth a shot.
This past week presented a huge challenge to me personally.
In 5 days my husband goes under the knife for what will most likely be a total thyroidectomy. The tumor is finally coming out. Yay!
There is however a rather un-expected side to the story.
By taking the rate of growth over the tumor between the two ultrasounds so far and assuming that's the fastest it's grown we've determined the tumor probably originated 9-10 years ago and reached a detectable size somewhere around 9 years ago.
So that's how long he went undiagnosed, 8 years or so.
That's... big.
We'd been chasing down the cause of his symptoms for 5 years when the diagnosis finally came in last March. To look at the past and think, "wow how long has this thing been fucking with you" turned out interesting. Symptoms initially assigned to things like prior trauma, age, and stress take on a whole new spin.
Who knows what will happen past surgery? Who knows what will get better? At the very least we'll finally be able to treat the thyroid symptoms, but what else might be improved?
It is both exhilarating, and terrifying.
Most people look to the future with at the very least a naive, deluded idea of what will happen (and most of the time they're mostly right if the status quo is the answer).
Me? I got none of that at the moment. Completely clueless.
It's terrifying and exciting.
There are also other things going on in the background contributing to all of this; Chris is looking for a new job, I'm still working studiously on un-fucking myself, and the entire world seems extremely full of possibility at the moment.
Exhilarating. Terrifying.
I've been jumping between those two feelings all week. I'm raring to go and get the one thing I can pinpoint in my life calendar over and done with. I'm literally counting down the hours.
Wish me luck.
I'm re-listening to Uncertainty at the moment. Why re-listening? Honestly, I thought I would get more out of it this time.
I'm definitely getting more out of it this time.
In the meantime I'm still struggling with the Un-Fucking Project and its inherent difficulties.
One of the later chapters of Uncertainty goes over the inevitable point in a project when the temptation to quit is overwhelming and when the thought of quitting fills you with such relief that you're absolutely convinced you should give up. We all reach this point in a huge creative endeavor at one point or another and it can literally sink us.
Fields developed a test for knowing whether it truly is time to quit or if the sense of relief is from letting go of the creative angst. If it's letting go of angst it means the project isn't the problem, the resistance is the problem.
His very simple test is a visualization. Imagine its two years from now and your project has to come to fruition in all it's glory. You're reaping the benefits and you've accomplished what you wanted to accomplish with this massive outpouring of creative energy. How do you feel? Where do you feel it? Are you happy and contented?
If the answer is happy, contented, thrilled, and you feel it through your entire body, then the temptation to quit isn't because the project is worth quitting. The temptation to quit is instead from what Steven Pressfield calls the Resistance.
The Resistance is a very difficult concept to translate, but I'll do my best. It's actually better to think of the Resistance as an opposite. Take your calling, your creative endeavors, your very mission in life, that "thing you can't not do", and all of the hard work and delayed gratification that goes into every bit of work towards that goal.
The Resistance is the opposite.
The Resistance is what tells you your work is futile. The Resistance is what hides in your fears and tells you you can't possibly make it. The Resistance is what tells you to sacrifice tomorrow for today.
In physics terms, if creative energy is an object in motion, the Resistance is what attempts to make that object be at rest instead, and STAY there. It's ruthless and uses every bit of fear and uncertainty in order to keep us from progressing.
So in light of Fields' test I decided to sit down and run the test on my current projects and goals. Some of them required tweaking (the true goal was not what I first envisioned) but most of them survived this test.
One of the results though truly blew me away.
Sure "have another baby" and "get Chris healthy" and "get the kids back and healthy" ranked really high on the "want it so bad I can taste it scale".
They were nothing compared to "make myself sane and healthy."
Turns out what the Un-Fucking Project is designed to bring about is what I want most desperately in this world. To be in control of my life and my destiny and moreover, myself.
It's also the project I feel the most angst and resistance about, to the point of engaging in multiple levels and forms of avoiding the project including rationalizing, bullshitting myself, and outright avoidance.
I never thought to apply the concept of Resistance to the goal of making myself healthy and sane. But then it makes sense.
What greater creative endeavor do any of us have than creating our own life? What will ever top that act of creation?
Fortunately enough I already own Steven Pressfield's book which covers Resistance, The War of Art.
I've started re-reading the War of Art with a whole new appreciation for its meaning.