Everything Is Beautiful Here

Today, flush with renewed optimism that is tempered with chop-wood-carry-water inner peace and several bowls of Apple Jacks, today, I am far enough away from the events of the past week that I can take a look-see, do some interior poking around. Prod my brain like Dr. S. prods my dainties, digging for that antisocial left ovary that likes to hang out behind the uterus getting high with its fallopian tube.

Because, see? There's some stuff in there I didn't realize I had.

I spent last weekend thinking I was pregnant. Ninety percent convinced, anyway. And I was pathetically unprepared for the firehose blast of various and sundry feelings that followed.

I tend to bop along thinking I am SUCH HOT SHIT, having resolved all that mess left over from the ectopic and the miscarriage, having origami'ed it all into pretty little hopping frogs that I can trot out when useful for been-there stories or hilarious renderings of excruciatingly painful times. Generally they behave, my little hopping frogs. Throw the prospect of a repeat performance at them, though, and they go total frogshit. They unfurl themselves and pull a Gobots maneuver that unites them into a sewage-spewing dragon, and the shit flies everywhere.

As soon as I saw that pink line, I began to daydream. I thought about names we'd talked about, thought about what time of year it would be when the baby was born. Spring. Thought about whether I'd keep on going to work after we saw there was no heartbeat, whether I'd want a D&C for the genetic testing, or --

Wait, what? And I tried to shove it back down but it wouldn't stay, and those were the fullest fantasies I had, the most detailed, with dialogue and settings. Could I tearfully share the bad news at work? Would I refuse to see anyone, or set up a tent city around my bed with well-wishers fetching Kozy Shack and Vicodin? Would I be stoic or destroyed?

And I see how sick this is, but I cannot blame myself for spinning them out. Those stories are all I know. Time blunted their edges, I figured, but forgot that two years of unpregnancy built up on top of them, leaving them buried but no less sharp. I watched myself thinking these thoughts, and felt nothing but compassion for this person, penchant for internal melodrama notwithstanding.

I have much left to do. I'm not sure how to do it, but I don't think that matters. Work has a way of doing itself if you just stay out of its way. Don't pick at it. Just keep it clean and give it air.

I say all this not by way of extending a grief that resolves but never leaves you, but to let you know just how fine I am, really. How okay all this is. I am so happy these days. I love my husband, I love our little enormous life, I love that I am not so desperate that the sight of a pregnant woman crushes me, but that I am still raw enough that I feel a twinge. Everything is going to be okay, because everything is okay. There's a song by Neutral Milk Hotel that I love; I listened to it constantly the second time I was pregnant, to steady myself. It never picked up the taint of how wrong that went; it's just as lovely now as it was then. Here's a chunk of "Everything Is," with the chorus at the end:

Growing sleepy as the rain falls
As children draped in flowers form a chain
They sing a song with jelly jars and bird calls
As night falls into dust and it's day again

I'm not afraid of a love parade in my daydream
Old men with kazoos and beating drums
But I awake and I see the streets are ice cream
It's just you and me and oh dear, our life has just begun

Everything is beautiful here
It's spinning circles around my ears
I'm finally breaking free from fear
And it's fading

Comments

[jilbur]

O Jo sweetheart, how you make me weep. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

[Mollie]

Good, good, good. All good, my love.

And I agree with your comment over at Grrl's. I know, there's a party going on over there, but your sentiment belies sage wisdom.

I'm glad you're loving yourself. When we say "grace" at the table holding hands (something that really freaked me out at first, since I spent my life "graceless" up until Nico picked up the habit at his pagan daycare), George always says, "I love myself, I love Mama, I love Nico, and I love Dana. And I'm glad we're all together as a family. Amen."

[Brooklyn Girl]

Ah, Jo. This last time around I was mentally scheduling a D&C before I had even thought to wonder about a due date. That can't be good. It just can't.

[Kristine]

I'm glad to hear you're in a good place with all you've been through. That's all I need to say...except, could you maybe be the sweetest gal in the whole wide world?

[Moxie]

Jo, this post made me cry.

I'm sorry I called you a truck-stop hooker.

[Julia]

What grace. I'm so glad for your centeredness.

[Menita]

Oh Jo. Oh.
In the offing, David Cassidy is singing "I think I love you..."

[barren mare]

Au contraire, I think you are vey hot shit. The hottest. Let me count the ways you rock me world- no- there are too many. Let me assure you there are many, and that I take comfort from your wise and true words.

[Mamarama]

Sweet Jo, that was a wonderful entry.
Remember these things:
1. I'm always reading.
2. I'm always here.
3. I always love you.