Anger

For the last week or so, I've been consumed by anger. I can't seem to get a grip and I can't seem to do anything to make it go away. I am just so, so angry.

I saw someone today that I don't like. This woman is a real bitch - excuse me for saying so - and a liar, hypocrite and backstabber. And of course she - like the rest of the female population of the world, it seems - has a baby. I can't think of a person whose motherhood annoys me more. Not just because of her overt smugness but because, as much as I know it's horrible to say this, I just think she doesn't DESERVE to be a mother.

There. I've said (or, rather, written) it.

Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe it just makes me human. Maybe it's just one of those things that's like rubbing salt into an open wound.

A lot of times people tell you all sorts of assorted BS when you're going through a rough spot - whether it's a divorce, unemployment, loss of a loved one or any number of things that elicit (or at least SHOULD elicit) sympathy. One of the things that gets under my skin the most is when people act all fatalistic about it, like oh, well, I guess it's just not meant to be. NOT MEANT TO BE??? WTF??? Some white trash retard has 6 kids and that's ok, but then someone like me apparently can't have any (through no fault of my own, it would seem), and suddenly it's some sort of cosmic conspiracy.

If there is a God, he's sure as hell not on my Christmas card list.

===================================================================

Today should actually have been a good day. It should've been fine. I talked to a lot of friendly people (except for one idiot who was trying to be all high and mighty - but then, some people are just like that and occasionally I can almost relate so...stones...glass house...you know where I'm going with this). There were no real tragic mishaps today. No one cut me off on the road, no one was rude to me - quite the opposite in fact - and I had a semi-productive day.

But lately, every time I pause to think - about my life in general, my marriage, my future - I feel this black cloud of doom and gloom descend upon me. Suddenly, no matter what else is going on, I am nearing a panic attac and just wish I could literally split the ground and disappear in a chasm. I don't know what's gotten into me. I've had ups and downs before - but this is just completely ridiculous. Worst of all: I can't seem to get a handle on it.

I AM JUST

SO

DAMN

ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!


I don't do yoga - not for want of trying, mind you. The whole chanting and listening to some weird instructions to bend my body as though I'm some sort of human Gumby...yeah, not my bag, baby. Pilates? Let's not even go there. So, I guess, the truth is that I really just don't have an outlet for all this pent-up frustration, despair, this anger I feel. I have no way to...let it out and get on with it. So it just sort of hovers like smog all around me.

I considered spending the next three days in bed. Pulling the covers over my head and pretending that everything around me just stopped. Or that, at any rate, my participation in this life was suspended.

I feel ashamed of my feelings, my downtrodden attitude. So many awful things happen in the world, I really shouldn't even have an ounce of unhappiness to contend with. But, alas, that's just one of those things that, if you ask me, aren't nearly as easy to control in reality as one would think.

I talked to my parents earlier today. My mom sensed - of course, as she would - immediately that I wasn't myself. My dad tried to cheer me up - but, try as I might, all I could think was, I am SO not in the mood to talk to ANYONE.

If I had a lot of money, I think I'd hop on a plane to some exotic island and spend a week or so just regrouping. But then - look at all these celebrities and how f***ed up they are. Really??? I mean, sometimes I wonder how you can possibly have issues if you're rich. But then, I guess, while money certainly does make the world go around (latest evidence the astronomic campaign expenditures during this last election), it doesn't buy you happiness.

If you've ever read this book called The Perfume - about a man whose quest to bottle the perfect scent eventually leads to murder - it makes you wonder what it would take to bottle happiness, so to say. I have this little cutout somewhere that says:

"If you have the capacity to be happy someday, you can be happy NOW."

I wish I could just somehow LIVE those words, instead of bemoaning my life for what it isn't. So sad, when you think about it: that I can let this one thing - this fact of being childless - stand in my way of an otherwise happy life. Life is, of course, always what we make it - and right now, dear void, there isn't much in it.

Grateful in spite of it all...

First of all, I want to start this post by saying thank you to the lovely comments that have been left on my blog lately - you will never know just HOW MUCH they mean to me, how much they give me strength and make me feel like, somehow, somewhere...Someone understands. My heart goes out to all of you who, like me, face this difficult situation armed with nothing but hope, everything riding on a wing and a prayer so to say...I am with you all in my thoughts.

-----

Lately it seems that, everywhere I turn, it's not the married women my age that I "fear" because of their happy pregnancies. Rather, it seems that, increasingly, more and more teenagers between 15 and 17 are getting pregnant. This is, of course, where I sometimes think I have to tread lightly, carefully - because I know that my own very strong opinion on these issues is probably not shared by all. I think we all are products of our upbringing - of the time and place we grew up in, the relationship our fathers & mothers had; not only with each other but with the world around them.
For me, the idea of a teenager (who isn't even yet legally entitled to vote or drink) being flies in the face not just of my current dilemma, but of EVERYTHING I believe in and hold dear. It seems ridiculous to me - like some sort of cruel joke Mother Nature is playing on me and on others like me. How can you sit there, contemplating the emptiness, the void in your life that can only be filled by something which, undeservedly, happens to someone so much less well-equipped and prepared for the challenge than you are? It makes me ANGRY.

Yet, at the same time, I wonder if, despite my personal feelings about teenage pregnancies, this is the way of the future. Increasingly, there is talk of an infertility epidemic - as even arguably healthy women in their mid- to late twenties face problems conceiving. It makes me wonder what's in store for us all, for the world at large...

And then, of course, there's the issue of celebrities - and their babies. Until about a year ago, I went through this period of reading all the gossip magazines almost religiously. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I got some sort of voyeuristic pleasure out of catching a glimpse into the often much less-than-perfect lives of these people who, arguably, have everything they could ask for. After a while, though, I realized that reading these magazines made me distinctly unhappy - that being constantly confronted with these people who live in the lap of luxury and STILL somehow find ways or reasons to be unhappy, do drugs or otherwise do some of the most stupid, ridiculous and inconsiderate things, made me look at my life and find myself coming up short. Where was the money for ME to buy a dozen quilted Chanel bags or drive a 6-figure car? And how come Britney - possibly one of the WORST celebrity mothers - could have not just one but TWO babies, when she didn't even care enough to strap them into their car seats?

So it happened that, yesterday, for the first time in a while, I picked up some of these glossies as I was waiting for a friend I was meeting for lunch. And, lo and behold, they've all been so busy - having MORE babies! I found a familiar heaving in the pit of my stomach - sick with envy at this people who just seemed to have it so damn easy. Every page I turned, there was someone else who'd gone and had another baby since I last perused these magazines of dubious content and low quality - in the case of Brangelina, even TWO!

But then the strangest thing happened. Amidst all these feelings of loathing - myself, all these rich people, pregnant teenagers...YOU NAME IT! - of inadequacy, of fear and failure...I found comfort in the kind words of strangers on my blog; hope in the email from my husband; joy in the simple fact of a sunny day.

Life isn't perfect - and that fact doesn't change, no matter how much money or how many kids you have. So often, we keep looking to a distant future and set high expectations instead of realistic goals. I am weak in that way - I keep looking forward in anticipation of something intangible, something that I think will or must necessarily make me happy. And all the while, life is passing me by. Instead of living in the now, enjoying what I DO have - I keep pining over what I've lost and waiting for things that may never come to be. I am reminded of a maxim I read somewhere a long time ago:

"Blessed are the flexible - for they shall never be bent out of shape."

So simple, yet so true. Life is like a river, ever changing as it goes - I think those words are even incorporated in a song somewhere. The true test of character, of your own worth, is not metered by an easy life but borne out of adversity. I often think that, so many times, as women we have this unrealistic expectation of ourselves: that, somehow, we have to be able to fulfill a multitude of roles - and excel at them ALL.


The other day I found out that someone I had known a long time ago died. I didn't know this person well or seen them in years. But the death was unexpected - came without warning. And it made me realize, once again, how FRAGILE life really is - and that there are no do-overs. I am so often caught up in daily trivialities - getting upset about this or that, bemoaning our infertility issues, feeling so down. Yet, most important of all, I have my life - and the lives of the people I love and care about. I have the ability to do almost anything with my life - yet it has been YEARS since I've truly felt that I could "dream in possibility".

So maybe, what I really want to say today, in this post, is THANK YOU. Thank you to my family who loves and cares about me; to my parents and my husband, who would give me the shirt off their backs. Thank you for my best friend, who has stood the test of time and is still my greatest champion.

And thank you - to those of you who read this blog and find yourselves walking along this journey with me; offering your comforting thoughts and advice. Thank you for being you.