Bounty, the quicker picker upper

More than a month past...should I apologize for being away.  I'm sorry.  Really.  Every day I log in and then log out.  Or just stare at the link, debating what to do with it.  I'm confused perhaps.  Have I gotten shy all of a sudden?  Do I not want to share my secrets?  Am I just so different that I don't feel I belong here any longer?  None of that for truth. 

When the fog started to lift I wanted to take in all the clarity, and I believed the more distance I put the easier it would be to comprehend.  I am afraid that I was incorrect.  The more time that passes the less sense I can make.  The pain still jabs and I want to cry for those days yesterday, and now I want to cry for those days tomorrow.  I found a new pain...the growing kind.

Anya has gone from tettering to running in moments.  She gives tude and responds to what she's asked to do even though she can't really talk back.  Her grunts and screams and limited sign language at a minimum help us to meander through the new connections her brain makes, and by the way I think we're getting close to those first words.  She's developed a personality with a rainbow of color with her squishy smile and belly giggles.  She takes running leaps and crashes to the floor; she tastes food, discarding what she doesn't like that moment as dog food - yet chooses to sneak dog food out of the bowl as a treat; she gives hugs and kisses, then turns biting, pinching and pulling like Jekyll and Hyde.

This little creature never stops.

Hubby got a part time job (thank the universe!), and maybe now the financial devestation can start to rebuild - just before total ruin.  We're adjusting to the new schedule.  She loves her Wednesday nanny; and, we love our Wednesday nanny.  Freyja on the other hand is making the day a little too noisy, and we hope she adjusts to our weekly house guest soon - who wants a bark collar!  The daily routine changes so there is never a bored blink, making it very difficult to get Anya's routine set.  Poor kid, no wonder she's become so demanding.  Poor mom and dad really. 

Work is work and most days I have to remind myself that without my job Anya will have to live in a box under the county line bridge.  Not an option.  I still hate being away from her.  I miss so much, and I think some of her lashing out at me is because she doesn't get enough time with me.  I feel guilty.  I don't want to be super mom nor do I need to be.  I just want to be mom right now.  But life sees it differently.

I catch myself having to change the song on the radio, like when Live, Lightening Crashes, comes on, because the words make my heart hurt.  I have to change the channel on my favorite shows, like CSI and Criminal Minds, because they remind me of the dangers out there.  I want revolution for this; I want to bitch smack that person; I think this person deserves the chair (mind you I'm anti-death penalty); I fear that natural disasters might separate me from my child or I can't get to her; there is terror when I think about someone grabbing her in that second I blinked; I can't stand stupidity.  Now none of this paralyzes me as it did before, but Im becoming hyper vigilant...just as exhasuting.

I've got myself on good vitamins.  I've started dancing again, and even got a gig teaching belly dance once a week.  Who would have thought.  I have to admit I needed that confidence boost.  Now if I'm working out at home or lesson planning Anya tries to mimick me or turns off the TV video. 

I do feel much more human than I have in 2 years.  I am forcing my body to move even when it hurts...sometimes I win.  A sense of humor, one of my prodigal sentiments, started to assimilate back into my emotional responses.  Wow that feels good.  I don't like being so serious.  Maybe it's just that I can partake freely of my vodka and coffee again.  What ever it is...thank you...my family thanks you...and maybe my friends will like me again.  It's clean up time.

The 12 month Program

She stood in her purple tutu looking like a little girl.  She toddled around fascinated by the colorful presents stacked in the corner and the strange little folk, just her size, invading her play area.  The grown ups fawned over her walking skills and her gestures of affection.  A special day just for her; a secret special day for mommy.  We all gathered in our home on the day of the 2010 monsoon to celebrate the passing of a year; my little Anastasia turned one.  I looked at a picture from moments after her arrival, and realized that time is precious and fleeting, and a year of growing and evolving into this little human passed by while I blinked.  My little 6 pound 19 inch crying and sleeping bundle morphed into a 20 pound 29 inch mini-being, with an attitude and personality all her own.  No longer my baby, but my little girl.

Everyone said to me that she won't remember her 1st birthday so take care not to go overboard.  I listened to a point: balloons and paper plates, snacks and homemade cake, no special games or decor or themes or grande feast.  She may not remember, but I will.  This 1st birthday was less of a milestone for her than it was for me, the anniversary of becoming a mommy.  All I needed was to watch her spend her day exploring and enjoying the adventure. 

Reflecting on the past year produces a headache and tumbling stomach.  I feel agitated and frustrated and something I can only comprehend as guilt.  So much pain, physical and emotional, taint this first year of her life.  Part of me hears the cliche that children are resilient, she will remember nothing of her mother's struggles, nor will they affect her evolution.  The other part of me screams LIAR.  Children are fragile, dependent creatures affected by their environment every moment, every breath: just because they cannot voice their part of the suffering doesn't mean that they are unscathed. 

Modern mothers tell themselves what they must to make it through the day.  Our lives are different from our parents or grandparents.  We don't live with or close to our families and most need dual incomes or more to survive.  We don't know our neighbors, and if we do, we may wish we didn't.  The village no longer supports the family; we leave ourselves stripped of the community energy.  We are the post-women's lib generation with its pros and cons effecting every aspect of our daily lives.  We want to work, be independent and strong; we want equal pay and responsiblity, and we want to be a mother and wife and keep house and socialize.  Somewhere in there something has to give.  How do we justify it?  Why do we think we have to be superwomen or super human to have worth and value?

I see woman who fall victim to the Jones' mentality, and treat their children like pawns in the game of who has or hasn't.  We voyeuristically accept this as normal through our reality TV extravaganzas.  This hurts our children and creates generations of adults who feel entitled and don't understand the word no.  When did love turn into money.  Money is both a necessity and a luxury, but it is not equal to the emotion that is shared by people that produces sentiments of fondness, appreciation, respect and affection. Love is not something tangible.  Love is when my daughter reaches up to caress my cheek or twirl my hair. Love is her giggle and hugs.  We've forgotten what is important, perhaps, or maybe we have just chosen to turn our back.

Long ago I lost my faith in popular religion.  I spent 8 years in Catholic school and my entire life in the Greek orthodox faith.  I watched my father painfully lose his on his death bed, and that crushed me even more.  I know I need something to believe in, and science doesn't cut it.  Do I believe in God or gods or Powers that Be?  Some days.  What I respect about religion and its faith is its determination to bring harmony to an otherwise chaotic life (and death).  I appreciate the ethics and fair treatment that inevitably leaches through the preachings: not so much the morals, but the values.  I stand in conflict wanting my child to learn the community lessons of faith, but me being too lazy and uninterested to wade through the church services.  I know I can find support there amoungst the believers, but shame keeps my distance.  To teach my child good values and ethics and respect I stand against this wall.  Society has turned religion into a war or falicy or cult, but I need to find a way to surmount to instill its side effects into my daughter.  I need to figure out how to rasie my child in a world that seems menacing and hateful without boundaries or respect.

Rewinding a year in my mind is sort of like falling down the rabbit hole: moments flashed and thoughts passed, nothing really clear; some things seem larger and others smaller and time doesn't exist or exists too vividly.  I know I see my mother as a different being now.  I forgive her for things I blamed her for, and respect her for things I didn't understand.  And this is only the beginning, I know.  I weep for my hurts and her hurts and all the hurts of my ancestral mothers.  I have a new hurt for those who will never come to this place of womens hurts.  A mother's pain from birth to the ends of time is a blessing.  Now I can see my year in review and not resent how I felt or even the fog that blinded my path.

I think about being a teenager and how horrid (and stupid) I behaved.  The suffering I caused my parents I can never take back.  The nights of fear and tears that they shed for my stupidity tear at my heart.  I know now how even minutes after curfew must have ripped my parents to pieces with fear.  The need to protect and guide is so powerful, so instinctual, so fierce.  My child will hurt and be hurt and I cannot stop it from happening.  For all my parents did to help me navigate this life, I still hurt.  They made mistakes, but we are human and fallible and don't know the questions to 42.  I spent hours, days, weeks, and months crying to be with my daughter every moment of her early breaths.  I needed to protect her from the world.  I couldn't comprehend how to manage this life and motherhood because there is too much dark in the world.  I resented the life I brought her into because it wasn't ideal.  I hated the causes of my pain.  The love I feel for her cannot be touched, explained or compared.  My inability to comprehend this rush of emotion raged within me, and still does, but with filters now. 

So far away from my beginning I've wandered.  My daughter turned 1 yesterday.

The party brought friends from near and far and family members to share our moments.  I felt happiness and contentment for the first time in ages as I flitted about the day less concerned about perfection and more concerned about the miracle of childhood.  I watched in amazement as she moved about the house inspecting all her visitors and experimented with new tastes and made friends and the curiosity that passed behind her eyes.  The friends that have grown with me helped make the day easy.  I love my friends dearly for being a part of my family, and for welcoming Anya into their hearts too.  The day was spent early with a happy and tired little lady nestled in my lap sucking her thumb, dreaming of the day's strange adventures and treasures.

At 8:33pm on March 15th I snuggled in bed with House on TV and the lights out and kissed my baby girl a Happy Birthday.

My Merry-Go-Round

Signs of spring are everywhere.  I can smell it in the air...well mostly just sneeze.  The icebergs that dominated our landscape these past few months disappear more each day.  Some poor bulbs try to poke through the thawing landscape, and mud, dark, brown, wet, mud everywhere.  It's refreshing to see the sun, blinding as it may be.  O and the beauty of light beyond 6pm delights my sensibilities.  Most people call spring the season of hope.  Even the Christians with their Easter holiday capitalize on the emotions the spring thaw instills in the people.  I use to feel renewed myself, but not so much this year.

Am I better, honestly, I should say mostly.  But am I well, not a chance.  The fog that tried to choke me for the better part of last year has lifted and I see blue skies.  I'm sleeping more hours at a time, but not through the night.  I'm restless with random insomnia...looks like a trait my little peanut has inherited as well.  We both toss and turn and sit bolt upright at random intervals in the dark.  Did we hear something?  Do we smell something?  What thoughts burst through our slumber so regularly?  Whatever causes us to lose precious moments of sleep I despise.  Some nights we manage a full 6 to 7 hours...but ahh those nights are rare.  Mostly we're on a 4 hour holding pattern, better than every hour on the hour, but still not optimal.

With those blue skies I bear witness to the burning orange of the sun.  The fiery ball inferno that blinds and engulfs...not life giving warmth, but rage that stirs beneath, seizing when opportunity arrives.  My ocean of clarity is not the calm blue sea but a tumultus anger.  Some of it I can justify.  We've been on a down trend of luck for some time now.  Where's that Harry Potter vial of prized potion? Generally I'm not an angry person.  I use to be the epitomy of patience and trust and optimism.  I use to love people and conversation and opinions.  I use to relish in a good debate and sharing of stories.  I'm impatient and short and stabby...my adventurous piscean senses have turned dolphin to shark.  I don't like my new world vision.  I'm cynical and distrusting.  My ability to be open to perspectives diminishes daily.  I can't tolerate ignorance, stupidity and lies. 

Everywhere I look I see sadness, pain, loss, fear.  I see a world out of novels.  People...humanity...lost.  Sounds a bit dramatic, and I feel obligated to apologize, but I won't.  Perhaps the veil is my own devise.  Maybe I'm inflicting it upon the world at large.  Perhaps I should take note of my female compatriots during the industrial revolution.  The soot and dirt that tainted their food, clothing and breath is not so much different that our 0s and 1s encoding the technologial revolution of present.

Where are the neighborhood children playing in the streets and turning the entire neighborhood into a game of tag?  Where are the farmers providing local fare at the more affordable prices - when it's cheaper to buy a big mac than a salad there is something seriously wrong with our priorities.  Think of those famous works of art from a time not so long ago. It was vogue to have girth because that meant you had money to buy food.  And those wane and feeble were the peasant class who barely had bread or porridge to calm their grumbling bellies.  Now the overweight and obese are the poor and the super-model thin are the wealthy; the poor can only afford the worst foods and the weathly have nutritionists and organic meals prepared for them. Pfft.  When the government feels it's their responsibility to remove freedoms of one to placate another someone hasn't read the constitution.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for safety, but making rules for rules sake and ignoring the more important larger issues at hand has become a staple for our government and takes precious time and attention away from the plagues that sicken our nation every day.  The people take itty bitty dislikes and turn them into life or death decisions instead of letting the human race evolve as it has for thousands of years.

Something as ridicuouls as Snuffalupugus being made real because imagination is bad - the bandwagon perception of 20+ years ago - now snuffed out too late - told generations that thought and invention was detrimental to society.  We created zombies of ignorance.  We let the fairies and invisible creatures of wonder back into our children's lives again.  But we also gave them TV and internet and Nintendo.  The adventures they have are simulated, shared imaginations.  Will we have another Einstein or Ben Franklin or Motzart or Fitzgerald or Michelangelo?  Who will fill Baryshnikov's shoes or Sinatra's microphone?  The arts are relegated to starving artists - the free thinkers and risk takers cast out of society's mainstream for failing to drone.  Theaters and novels are outdated ideas: IMax and Kindle take any adventure away from the human experience.

I caught myself watching Disney's classic Snow White the other night and thinking how they should re-dub the voices for a modern sound.  Shame on me.  I disgust myself.

I'm entranced by Muse.  The music revolutionists of my choice: angry enough, intelligent enough, loud enough, and controversial enough to feed my thoughts.

The healthy institutions of yesterday entrap today.  Money: real estate, banks, hedge funds, bonds, oil, natural gas, biofuel, everyone wants a piece.  Marriage is disposable...and so are children.  I've watched so many of my peers suffer through the challenges of infertility: some with success, some without.  Then there are those graced with the gift of parenthood who abandon and murder the helpless humans of tomorrow.  Forget about the gangs and pediphiles and drugs that destroy senslessly.  Natural disasters cause enough death and suffering, yet the human race still behaves in its primeaval ways.  Communities fail their people.  No the people fail their communities.  Two income households are no longer a luxury, but a necessity.  Our nuclear family seems quaint and so American, yet we've lost the bond of family and support of our neighbors.  Our grandparents are in homes for the dying.  Our children are raised by strangers.  Our 24 hour day is spent providing service to the machine rather than enjoying this temporary life.  Ugh, Who am I?!

I'm not sure who speaks my voice.  My head hurts from fighting myself.  I've become someone that I don't know and I'm not sure I like.  Out of the fog into the fire. 

I don't want my child to lose her hope.  I want her to learn to love life and the natural world.  I want her to play with her imaginary and real life friends...in person.  I want her to learn value and respect and loyalty.  I want to feel that she is safe.  I need to turn off the news and close the papers with their fascination of the morbid and horror.  People need to re-learn respect and selflessness.  We seem to have forgotten that we can't take it with us and we need each other.  We've lost any sense and form of balance.  We've lost the reality of time.  We put ourselves here, but do we care enough to save ourselves and each other.

My precious gift is turning 1.  I've lost a year of my life, and what should have been one of the best years of my life.  At every stage I've looked upon her feeling like this was the best stage of all.  I understand why a time comes to pass that we want to have another.  The rational side of me says that children are resilient and she will never remember what her mother suffered during those early days; she won't remember my sorrow, my physical ills, or my disillusionment; she won't remember my impatience and confusion.  But something deeper makes me think that children aren't as we have convinced ourselves to believe.  They are fragile.  I'm trying to become the mother I've always wanted to be.  Some days I have the strength.  I'm looking to breeze to sing me my hope.

For what it's worth

I have something to say.  I'm sure of it.  I'm blank though.  Dark and empty.  I don't even know how to feel.  I'm angry and sad and just fed up.  I'm tired too.  Another morning of white outs on my drive.  I used to love the snow and a free work from home day and eating comfort food, and not always French Toast like the rest of the locals.  I had to leave the house.  I needed to get to the office, tired and blah. 

For the first time in almost 2 years we went out to a bar to have a drink and grab some junk food and listen to some friends take us back to a time when life seemed more simple.  I showered and curled my hair and put on makeup and a cute little outfit of black.  Slimming you know.  My sis came over to play with Anya and get her to sleep so we could enjoy a few hours of us time.  We met friends and enjoyed a clanking of the glasses in honor of our little adventure.  A lot of chatting and a smokless bar of 20 somethings made me feel bored and tired much sooner than I had hoped.  I didn't, however, feel the urge to call home. 

As the clock neared 10 I felt myself nodding.  Geesh one beer and I'm a gonner; it doesn't help that I'm up all night with the baby and at work by 7am.  I think Fridays are the hardest day to survive let alone try to extend into the hours of the moon.  I tugged on his shirt for the whatever time, asking if we could head out before I embarassed myself by falling asleep at the table.  He rolled his eyes, ordered another beer and walked away.  We stayed for quite a few songs and I finally stood up and put on my coat.  With much resistance and obvious pissed-off-ness (if you can allow me) he stood up and we walked to the car.  I said thank you, we were home and I went to bed.

The next day was full of distraction and visiting and by the time we arrived home it was past bed time.  The baby and I shuffled off to bed and left him to play the Wii for a few more hours.  I woke up alone save for my little precious nestled beside me.  I wake up alone on most mornings because we can't get the baby out of the family bed and he feels cramped, or he ate something he shouldn't and was stinky, or he had insomnia, or he fell asleep on the couch.  But this...this was Valentine's Day.  The day I've always resented as a Hallmark day that should be scoffed at or ignored.  But married now I tried to feel something akin to smugness.  Instead I woke up feeling single and unattractive and alone.  The same thing I have always felt, and I was seething.  I dropped the baby in his lap in the spare room and slammed our bedroom door shut. 

I tried to fall back asleep and ignore my guilt and the tantrums downstairs.  I tried to enjoy a little more time to settle my rage and change my attitude.  After a half hour of tossing and tears I dressed and went down, picked up the baby and hugged her tight.  I helped with her breakfast and had a snack myself and attempted to have a day that wasn't burdened with explosions.  I don't know when or how long or what prompted the comment, but at some point I was standing in the kitchen, doing the dishes maybe.  Or was I at the computer checking email.  In any case, he walked up to me and said, "For what it's worth Happy Valentine's Day." And he walked away. 

Since we weren't planning on going out to dinner we invited some friends over to eat with us.  We went to the grocery store and took early naps and bathed the baby.  At some point I even tried to get intimate, but was ignored.  So.  We busied ourselves with cooking and the dog and picking up around the house.  Dinner was a great success and by nightfall the tension had dispersed a bit, or was it the beer and lots of chocolate. Shortly after I went to bed he followed and we all slept.

The next day we had some work around the house: forward momentum was a must.  Crabby, learning-to-walk baby and dishes and pesky dog and plain old end of the weekend blues - a three day weekend no less - made the day seem restless and unwelcome.  We set off in stages moving the books from the first to the third floor and rearranging everything so it looked nice and neat again.  The motion and movement was a welcome outlet to my frustration.  The evening ended with homemade soup and exhaustion. 

I'm just empty.  I feel sorry for the world we brought our angel into.  I'm a fighter.  I don't give up, especially on something that I believe in.  But I'm dangling.  The blame is on me; he said he doesn't care.  He refuses to take even half the burden from me.  I don't want to go down a path darker than this crossroads, I will hold on because I must.  When is enough enough.  When can I be angry. 

The Land of the Living Lost

Gasp...plunge.  Two points to fragility.  A three pointer to the abyss.
Now really.  Is this necessary?!  How much can one person take?  I'm sick and tired and hateful.  I can't listen to anymore do-gooder platitudes and niceties along with their pats on the back and false smiles.  I'm sick of the bile burning in my throat.  I'm tired of my shoulders in my ears and the hammer in my head.  I resent the liars, cheats, destroyers of life.  I'm numb from constant combustion.  I sink into the scortched frozen lands far from Elysium.  A zombie.  Sterile and pointless.

Faith?  Hope?  Justice?  All dead.  See their beautiful landmarks in the endless green?  Ahhhh...Here lies Faith, reads the angel Gabriel perched high in concrete splendor, the mother of love and promises of protection.  May she rest in peace.  Over there the marble room houses her daughter Hope.  Hope was larger than life, and life destroyed her in jealousy.  What a lovely resting place for such a grand princess.  Now Justice...far off in the corner, simple...ignored.  Her stone reads...Justice was slayed by the human race, flawed and ugly with their greed and lies.

Don't worry, this too shall pass.  You are only given what you are strong enough to face.  You will get through this.  There are people in far worse situations.  Be grateful for what you have.  What doesn't kill you will make you stronger.  You have to think only of your daughter and family.  Stop panicking.  You will be ok.  It will all work out in the end.  Don't question what is.

The justice system failed since he with the most money wins...and let me take what you don't have and your ends won't meet.  All because of a part time job that he never would have taken if any of that were true. 

My head is exploding and my eyes bulging and under my fingernails bleed.  My body keeps twitching and my mouth is dry.  My teeth hurt and I taste iron in my throat.  My lungs are flaming with each breath.  I'm thirsty.  I'm thirsty.  I'm thirsty. 

I give up.  I really do.  Every time I feel like I've gotten a grip and I can move along something new comes at me and now I'm buried.  I'm walking the fields looking for my lost beliefs.  They are all here.  Eating worms.  I don't have the strenght to dig them up.  Maybe I'll just sit here under this tree.  I worked too hard to watch my life crumble like the mortar in my basement.

My basement.  It's a scary place - all stone and crumbling mortar - spiders and creepy crawlies are freeloading residents.  The inspector said it was in great condition...the foundation is solid.  The house I live in was built in 1880.  The day we saw our house we knew it was ours.  It felt like ours.  We felt it call to us to bring life back to its halls.  We had looked at so many houses already with dismay, and this house we had crossed off our list, but we needed to kill time.  And this house...this was the one.  The man and his wife before us lived amoungst the things of several generations and the filth of 7 years that they couldn't let go.  Our realtor held a tissue to her nose as we walked through the devastation of the zombie life.  The husband was physically, and from our perception emotionally, broken.  He walked room to room with us pointing out the love that he wanted to give the house, but couldn't.  We walked along enchanted by the house itself: the transom windows, porcelain knobs, original mouldings, plaster walls, original light fixtures, wavy glass windows, three stories of advnture.  The man and his wife were losing this house, this home, to the bank.  But we were going to save it we promised.

Our offer went in and the games began.  O another offer has come in...same specs...what's your second offer...we have to move settlement date...he did get the grass cut...we need to make it later.  Two months of nail biting and determination and settlement day arrived.  We arrived at the house excited as first time homeowners to do the walk thru...ahhh we would get to see the house empty.  The day had other plans...the man and his wife who had moved into a new home two weeks before had not vacated the property and in no way was it broom swept - our relator wouldn't even let us in the house.  The flurry of a devils doing unraveled.

Our relator feverishly got on the phone with others from her office and the man and wife's realtor.  What to do now?  How can this go through?  What...it went into foreclosure today?  He's swinging an axe in the yard yelling at the hauler you sent.  Do they still want to go through with it?  I sat on the curb and cried.  Yes, we wanted this house.  But.  3 hours after our scheduled settlement on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend we were wisked to the realtor office and told that we would do this in separate rooms and we wouldn't have to see the man and his wife.  We will build in left over monies from settlement to pay for a hauling company to come back tomorrow, the man is not right in the head, the wife's son needs this house sold, we will add a clause that forbids him from returning to the property...you could call the police if he does.  If we really want this we can do this.  They aren't making anything on the house...they owe too much.  Let me know what you want to do.  Papers signed, we were handed the keys, and we had to wait until tomorrow to go back to the property that we technically owned today.

Our relator is one of my best friends.  We were her first, and last client.  She gave me a hug, handed me a card and bottle of champagne and said she was sorry for our experience.  But we were happy, we loved our new house.  We were happy it was finally ours.  We would build our first home together here...our wedding was four months away.  Plenty of time to bring this house to life once more.

The next day I arrived at the new house alone.  The haulers that were ordered would arrive by 9am.  I had an hour to walk through alone for the first time since we decided we wanted to buy this house.  I unlocked the door, whose lock would be changed in a few hours, and walked inside.  I knew Nance said it was bad.  And I expected bad, but this was living hell.  The stench was suffocating and I couldn't open the windows.  I held my Teeshirt to my nose and did my own walk through.

The tears...they started...and I couldn't stop them.  The kitchen brought on dry heaves.  The sink was full of dishes and cat food and unidentifyable morsels.  The refridgerator was filled to bursting with spoiled food years expired, and jars, and cans, and boxes of leftovers...how could they live like this.  The bathroom tub was filled with mud and more dishes and mud and junk.  The floors were covered with animal urine and feces and trash and more trash.  The dining room hosted floor to celing phone books from years gone by from locations near and far and wires and cables and newspapers and debris.  The living room no longer even had a path.  I was afraid to go upstairs.  I walked into the first room and saw it just as I had on our first seeing.  The fly paper still hung from the ceiling next to the dead mother's bed.  I gaged.  The master bedroom was devoid of furniture but unwalkable with debris: pictures, clothing, dishes, chachkis, junk.  I didn't even walk up to the third floor.  I ran down the stairs and out the door and burst into sobs.  What had we done.  Hyperventilating I called Rich to tell him it was worse than we thought and I don't know what to do.  He reminded me that the haulers would be here soon and he'll be over as soon as he was done work, and so would my sisters with some bleach and rags.

The haulers arrived in parade fashion with their dump truck and pick ups and dungareed treasure seekers.  They saw me slumped and bleary eyed on the porch stairs, introduced themselves, and said that when they were done I will be able to call it my own.  I warned them that it was ugly, and they replied, "we've seen everything, don't worry."  I mostly stayed out of their way and watched in amazement how they systematically went room by room, they decided to call in more recruits and work separately.  They pryed off the storms from some of the windows and let the air in.  They stripped the caulk from the balcony door and swung it wide.  They pulled the dump truck on the lawn and just tossed from second and thrid story...look out below.  Every once in a while I would hear one of them call out...look what I found...and every once in a while they would ask if I wanted to keep something.  Then at some point I saw it pull up...the blue PT cruiser and the man and his wife dove into the dumpster after their things.

The haulers told me to stay in the house and they would take care of everything, and if need be they would call the police.  They will take care of this too.  I was paralysed.  I began to feel dirt like never before.  I knew I smelled like the house.  Now that stacks and piles were disappearing I realized that the entire house, floor to ceiling was grey.  Everything everywhere grey.  I felt grey.  I couldn't eat or drink.  I had no one left to call.  I waited and watched and held doors and bought hoagies from the deli across the street for my miracle workers.  At times I felt a pang for the man and his wife.  How did they get so desparate?  What happened to their lives?  Were they always like this?  How sad to watch your family history tossed with giggles into a dumpster.  Then I looked around and my pang turned to anger.  How could they let this happen?

8 hours, 4 dump trucks, 9 haulers, a hundred rubber gloves, 5 brooms, thousands of trash bags...and they were gone.

My sister came with 4 gallons of bleach and more rubber gloves and buckets and brooms.  We filled the buckets and started in the kitchen and bathroom.  We bleached the fixtures, the floors, the walls, the moulding, the doors, the sinks, the closets, and the shelves.  Then we worked our way into the main house and tried to get some grime from the windows and woodwork before we collapsed.  When she felt as grey as I, she stood up and said I'm sorry.  I thanked her, and she left for a shower or sandblaster to clean up.  By the time my husband came the house was empty and smelled of bleach and urine.  He entered and instantly turned grey.  But he hadn't seen what I had.  And never would know what it felt like when the house took its first breath after 7 years.  I felt the shutter and the heard the creeking and I wiped my forehead and said tomorrow we pull up the rugs.

That next day Erica came.  We donned masks and rubber gloves and clothes we'd be willing to throw away and cut and tore and shredded the carpets.  Floor by floor room by room we lifted one layer of grey out of the house.  The stench was corrosive, and the sticky ickiness left our stomachs upside down.  We worked for hours until the daylight started to sag.  Once we lifted the carpets we found rug sized linoleum: we lifted the linoleum to find newspaper from 1943.  We read headlines of WWII and the comics eerily maintained their brilliant color.  We saw advertisements and sale fliers from $.10 bread and and $2.00 dresses.  We hollared from one room to the next about the secret news under the floors.  For scattered moments the house told us her stories. 

We surveyed the house now bare of all carpet and bleach now penetrating the urine burn, and felt that she was thanking us.  One last item before we said good night...the stove...the avacado green stove with broken glass and food particles in its belly...needed to go to the curb.  We all heaved and hauled it outside amidst the piles of rolled grey bound in duck tape.  The green was so faded and worn it gave way to the twilight and knew it had met its time.  We locked up for the night, and knew that hour long showers would be the least of what we needed to feel clean again.  But tomorrow we paint the walls.

Day three of homeownership and we were having a painting party.  Slowly all our brave friends showed up to see the nightmare in person.  They would help us defeat the somber grey and stench of neglect.  Every room was abuzz with spackle and sanding and primer and bleach.  We had high hopes for this day.  Yet like everything else the party came and went with progress, but so far away from any sense of accomplishment.  Pizza and beer and laughter and cigarette smoke mixed with bleach and primer.  All the windows were now open and you could breath the air without gaging.  By the end of the day we hugged all our helpers and thanked them for believing in us and our home.  Some snickered on their way out in disbelief of the tasks still at hand.  Everyone was eager to see what we would make of our adventure.  For four months we painted and repaired and replaced and carpeted and built and decorated.  Our grey house was now alive with color and happiness.  We feel safe and protected and know that our house is thankful for the redemption. 

In almost three years we've put in a driveway, regraded the land, put up a fence, replaced walls, put in new windows (well mostly), replaced the stove, fridge, washing maching and some air conditioners, and converted to a gas heater and did a lot of rewiring.  We were ready to install the kitchen when my husband lost his job and I was 5 months pregnant.  All those things that enchanted us, now irritate, and there is no more money to continue with her transformation.  I sit here wondering if we will have to give up this house that I love to hate.  I wonder if she was not calling us to rebuild her, but a life sucking curse to all those that live within her frame.  I look around at the vibrant walls I decorated and think maybe they are too bright and we should go neutral.  I wonder...and I cry.

Xtra Xtra: Dairy Maid goes on date with Sandman

I'm tired.  No, actually, I'm exhausted.  My eyes are burning with weight and no toothpick is strong enough to hold up the fort.  The effort it takes to lift a limb...ugh...let me go make some tea.
...
...
English Breakfast with honey...so aromatic.  I don't think it's going to help me, but at least I can enjoy the moment.  Mmmm. 

I'm taking inventory: tired, but not depressed.  Huh....that's a new one.  Can it really be that I'm moving along the highway?  Have I accepted or merely tricked myself into forward motion?  Did someone labotomize me in my sleep?  Not possible...I don't sleep.  Aha...but I do...in luxurious four hour cycles thanks to a lovely invention called Playtex drop-ins with Good Start just-add-water-powder at 7:30 PM. Finally she has lost the bottle war and I'm gaining ground in the sleep battle.  I remember (in my previous life) my motto being, "I'll sleep enough when I'm dead." Those words from a former party queen are foreign now. I never would have thought that sleep deprivation could affect an insomnic so negatively. I'm used to four hours a night...after all I married a drummer...I live the rock star life...not anymore...and neither does he. 


You know...we try so hard to con our children away from the bottle to the sippy cup, yet here I am praising her acceptance of said infamous beverage dispenser. It's a good thing too because my boobs are protesting their continued use as milk jugs.  I'm preparing now for the end of milkmaid mom.  In months past this thought brought tears to my eyes and pain in my chest.  Suddenly, I'm like...they are mine kid, and it's time to give 'em back.  I mean really.  She's 10 and a half months old.  Are you going to fault me for falling short of that 1 year mark?  Have I done a dis-service to my lovely angel because I've introduced formula...gasp...for shame!  She's been eating baby food since she was 4.5 months old and is now eating little girl breakfast like waffels and french toast and sometimes shares a grownup dinner - if we have couscous and peas - her favorite.  Her nutritional needs are being met; she doesn't rely on my liquid gold any longer.  On weekends she let's my boobs engorge and ache, pushing the time limit longer and longer.  Finally they are giving up, or more accurately drying up. 

I've cut my daily pumps at work back to two.  It's amazing how much better my workday flows.  I actually feel like I can work and accomplish my tasks with less stress.  I used to watch the clock like no one's business, schedule real meetings around my appointments with the pump, would pick projects with limited time commitment, and generally believe that at the end of the day nothing really got done. I couldn't seem to multi-task at work for fear that I would lose track of time and miss my expression.  I pumped like it was my job and now I realize that I was only freelancing and my contract is almost up.  I don't need to keep that second job.  Milkmaid to mom will do just fine please. 

A small voice, who I picture looks like Whistler's mother, points her finger, "Failure!  You are her mother.  Your milk is her lifeline.  One year is not too much to ask.  You aren't trying hard enough.  She deserves more.  You selfish woman...".  I don't listen to her anymore.  Instead I listen to a gentle birdsong like coming spring.  I picture dresses and tops without a V-neck, new push-up bras, having beer and wine with friends - oooo and my precious martinis of yum.  I envision dinners out with my husband, maybe even some dancing and seeing friends play at the local pub while Anya sucks away on a beverage of vitablock nutrients in the arms of her aunts or good friends for the evening. 

Every morning I wake up and wonder, "Is this the day?"  Usually the ferocious slap, pinching and clawing at my face and neck after realizing there wasn't enough milk for her to fall back asleep is enough to tell me "no."  I have to convince myself that she will adjust.  I run downstairs to fix her a few ounces of formula.  She pushes the bottle away and twists her face into my chest.  After several tries she aborts and surrenders to the bottle and I rock her back to sleep before I jump in the shower...late again.  I feel success, then sadness.  I know she is hurt and confused.  I don't want to be the cause of that suffering.  Her whimpers as she falls off to slumber make my stomach twist.  But I know...I know.

I'm ready.  I hear the clock ticking.  I taste a hint freedom (in the guise of future vodka).  I feel the breeze and it tells me it's coming.  The weening process is as much of a milestone for me as it is for her.  We both hurt and don't want to let go.  I need to let go for her sake.  The frustration she feels from an empty source will hurt her more than a nourishing bottle.  I need to let go for my sake.  The frustration I feel from lack of sleep and a body not my own aches more than allowing her to grow into the strong woman I know she'll be.  Not too much longer...

...maybe this is the first real step out of my fog.

The Gardens

On an almost dirt road in Mt Sinai the little white house sat back from the road decorated by hydragas, lilacs, forsythia, mimosas, lillies, and the peach farm next door.  The house was flanked by fruit and vegetable farms, so rural and foreign to my fascinated young mind.  It was a world away, not earthly, magical. 

The old farmhouse was simple and antique, with squeaky wood floors and worn throw rugs.  The kitchen boasted metal cabinets and appliances that were an upgrade for the 1950s.  My great grandmother proudly showed hommage to the memories of the Kennedy family with lifesize needlepoint and silkscreens framed of the noble family - they blessed our meals in the dining room.  The second floor creeked and cracked more so than below, making sneaking about an impossibility and adding fuel to my already spooked dreams.  My great grandparents slept in separate single beds - pre-Brady Bunch - and the fragrance of moth balls and cedar lingered in each room.  Sterling Silver vanity sets sat atop  dressing tables and mirrors speckled with age protected each room.  The house breathed a history and knowledge of harder times, different times without technology, but also of family and togetherness and generations of tradition to share.

I hear stories of my great grandparents from my mother, aunt and grandmother.  Some I remember and can even picture, but others speak of the more sinister side of family and appearances.  I was too young to be touched by that darker side of my fairyland, and cannot connect those stories with my memories.  My great grandmother was a strong and proud woman.  She demanded and was firm in her convictions.  I remember her always in a dress and most often in an apron with her coke bottle glasses, giving her eyes a fish bowl appearance.  I have a memory of her sitting in the back yard with a tub between her knees fileting the fresh fish that would be our dinner...the smell of high tide bringing the beach to my playyard.  I see my great grandfather slumped on the couch in the family room watching TV, as was his favorite pasttime, in his long underwear and flannel in 90 degrees without air conditioning.  His cigar burning its fragrant smoke as incense offerings to his game shows.  The remote or "clicker" as he called it truely clicked and had only 5 buttons that somehow moved the dial on his monstrocity of a TV "box".  The bottons were yellowed from the nicotine and the TV black and white.

The back yard was an adventure calling.  To the right next to the shed was my glorious blueberry bush.  Daily I would ask the tree to share her delicious fruit and I would sit by that tree with my little fingers plucking plump berries one by one and savoring their flavor.  Beyond the blueberry bush was the endless garden.  The vegetables and fruits that filled my tummy were organic and fresh from this wonderland.  I'm sure the garden had an end somewhere, but to my little eyes the gardens joined the wood and went to a land that I was too small to travel.  Eggplant and squash, peppers and onoins, all kinds of lettuces and greens, tomatoes and green beans, potatoes and turnips: I also remember the strawberries and cherries and nuts and other fruits that appeared at every turn in the gardens.  The burst of colors from the flowers splashed across the greens of the vegetables.  Brilliant rainbows of color and fragrance...and bees.  Hrm...that's interesting...why don't I remember being afraid of them?  I would watch the little buzzing creatures flower to flower collect their pollen for the scrumptous honey I knew would be on my bread the next morning.  I would spend hours with my fairies in the gardens, exploring these wild lands. 

Where are my gardens?  My fairies have left?  Our modern world has turned nature into a machine.  The farms disappear every day and you can no longer pick fruit from any tree for fear of the chemicals they've been doused with to keep the bugs at bay.  Our honey bees are dying, leaving our honey supply in jeapardy.  Sure I can trek to Longwood Gardens for the scenery, but where will my little angel go to meet her magical guides?  What woods will honor her adventures and dreams?  I realize I've become as sterile as our world.  I am afraid of many things, with my fairies gone I am alone and fearful of the unknown.

My great grandparents have long since gone to the beyond as have my father's parents and my mother's father and my own father.  Anya has two great grandmothers, her Omi and her Pro-yiayia in Greece.  I am desparate to have her travel to Greece to play in her great grandmother's lemon trees that grow as tall as the second floor balcony.  I want her to meet her fairies in the olive groves and run with them along the island shores.  Why does this seem more like a dream?  How can I deny my child her birthright adventures because this modern world ate her financial stability?  I feel panicked because her great grandmother ages every day.  Without her the island is only a vacation.

I get angry.  I am afraid.  It would be so easy to hermitize myself, but at a detriment to my child.  Everyone drives too fast, doesn't play outside anymore, purchases goods that are tainted and poisonous.  Life will only continue to so-called-advance and the days of animal farm will be conquered by the matrix.  What kind of life will my child grow to have.  How can I protect her if I can't protect myself?  Where can I offer her adventures before the fairies are gone for her too.

Limbo lives here

Whose life is this?  I don't recognize it.  I don't know who I am or where I'm going or how to be.  Part of my identity crisis is natural.  Part of my identity crisis is contrived.  I can't look back and I can't look forward...so I peek to my side to beware getting side swiped.

The whole of motherhood and marriage are misunderstood.  Perhaps I was raised too old world.  Maybe the modern world scares me.  Possibly my dream world sucked me in too far.  By chance I watched too much Disney.  All I know is that the idependent, strong willed, stable, multi-tasker finds herself lost, confused, scared, anxiety-ridden, and out of sorts.  Everything that I once believed in seems false and lies.

It's not so dark here anymore, but definitly overcast with a passing chance of monsoon.  I spend each moment on the brink.  I'm aware of my facade this time.  I know I'm fragile.  I wonder if I just snapped and am broken enough to walk the line.  I feel the swell of panic resting below the surface...I can see its reflection shimmer in the breeze.  I'm mechanical and purposeful.  I just have to get through the next moment. 

My temper is back and so is my drive for control.  I have to stop them.  I don't know how.  I am numb or rage...watch yourself I might bite, but I'll retreat again - don't worry.  This is the place I was before and thought I was safe and free; I don't want to be here again.  I know I thought it was sun before, but turned out to be a pebble glistening in the moonlight...trickery. 

This holiday for kings hangs out behind my eyes.  I can tune in and chill as often as I like.  It feels nice to be enveloped in this rainbow of fancy.  Sound and vision are focused inside, and I can hide from the demons that dance their voodoo around me.  Problem is I have things to do, Lucy.  That's how I know I'm teetering.  I teeter at the office, I teeter at home.  I teeter. 

Anxiety.  Panic. Anxiety.  Panic.  Anxiety.  I know that's what this is.  This teetering.  The silly images and dreams that put fear in my head.  This isn't healthy fear...this is nightmare fear.  I have visions of disaster striking my child or my family.  Everything is unsafe and a potential emergency.  I'm in a perpetual state of just teetering.  I have enough sense to know these are unreasonable, but I can't name them to control them.  I used to be able to call my fears by name and send them out to eternal damnation in nothingness.  I was powerful over them.  I wonder if Alice can help me.  I'm afraid of Alice helping me. 

I have to stay afloat.  I have to find solid land.  I have to find me.       

Let me out

I know I'm trapped inside.  I can feel the yellow soak through my skin.  There is no light no tunnel no door just suffocating.  I can't breathe.  I can't breathe.  I can't.  Breathe.

Every time I feel like I've found the crack to crawl through I only find  new layer of suffocation.  Bitter and numbing, high to low, painful pitches: Can't you smell the dark?  I can.  It's suffocating. 

I try to think back to a time of true happiness.  I know I've felt it.  I've tasted it.  I've lived it.  But I can't find the memory.  Mechanically I can name...a few that made me warm and fuzzy.  Where have they gone?  I can't breathe.  I can't.  Breathe.

Where am I?  Who am I?  Why am I?  This place is terrible.  I want to leave.  Why won't you let me leave?  I hate it here.  This is no place for me.  How did I get here anyway?  O yeah...the rabbit brought me.  Silly rabbit...tricks are for kids.  Remember those days when the only concern was not being tagged "it"....remember that...damn it: I'm it.

I can see her, you know, Alice, in a big big chair, rocking.  Just rocking.  Her knees brought into her tiny chest, she's looking off into the distance, maybe thinking about tea.  Now I'm rocking.  I'm rocking.  I'm rocking and I can't breathe. 

I need to sleep.  I need some quiet.  I need for it all to go away.  I need for this place to leave me be and let me go.  I don't belong here.  Round and round and round with a pocket full of poseys: protect me from the stench of this darkness.

What do you want?  What I've always wanted.  But don't you have it?  And I do.  Then how can I help you?  It's all wrong.  I'm wrong.  It's wrong.  What is?  Ever after.

Now dasher and dancer, now prancer and vixen, on comet on cupid on donner and blitzen...but Rudolph he'll take you on a magic carpet ride.  Next stop Dante's kitchen.  Can you smell the suffocation?  No that's just an apple. 

The screaming.  Where is that coming from?  Stop.  Stop.  Fallen, every one of them.  Me.  Falling.  I can't breathe. 

      

It's just frozen milk

How many times can I call out for help and be unheard.  How many times do I yell that I can't take this and still I find myself buried in tears.  Sometimes an hour passes and you've forgotten.  Sometimes the night turns to day and you think I'm ok.  Sometimes that moment you just can't shut up and hear me and help me and at least attempt to save me. 

It's darker now than before.  I don't know how it happened or at what moment that light disappeared, but the fog caught up and is suffocating.  I was proud and strong and capable at least for a while.  I was getting out of bed and dressed with a smile.  I laughed on my way to work with my morning show and even stopped for coffee every now and then.  I had focus and got laundry lists of tasks complete without error.  I was able to put on some makeup and run errands and make small talk.  I was.

Every morning I showered and dressed and fed the kitties, gave the dogs a pat, blew my little snuggle bug a kiss and loaded into the car.  I can't say I enjoyed it, but I could do it without sadness.  I sat at my desk, made calls, did filing, scheduled meetings, prepared reports, attended meetings, planned events, smiled and asked how my co-workers were doing.  I went visiting and cooked and got some weekend cleaning done.  I rearranged rooms and made beds and shaved and shampooed, I even had my hair done.  I came home and grabbed my sweetness and hugged her and kissed her and fed her and played.  I could do more than sit on the couch and stare at the TV and be frustrated at lifes inperfections.  I had survived the dismal grey that crept over me, at least I thought I had. 

When my sweet pea was around 6 months I felt I was getting a grip, holding it together, and making the best of struggles.  The pain in my hips and legs and back had subsided; I could walk and run and bend down and play on the floor without excruciating pain.  I felt almost normal.  I was in a routine with pumping at the office and the baby was eating so much food that her need for breastmilk was decreasing naturally.  I panicked, of course, and take milk supplements every time I feel that I might be failing in the milk production business, but so far still milking - nine months strong.  I was excited for the holidays and even more excited to watch each milestone come to pass.  I felt like I could be a mom and a good mom.

A series of unfortunate events, as only they could be called, unraveled my delicate balance, pointing out the fragility and weakness of my facade.  I hadn't really realized it was a facade to be honest.  I thought I was coping and doing a good job at that.  It was plaster over lattice or the first ice on the lake: just a pretty surface with nothing substantial to sustain.  I felt schizophrenic again from laughter to tears and back in 60 seconds.  I noticed pain in my chest and shortness of breath, but this sickness is in my head.  I'm agitated and distracted and self destructive and insomnia-laden.

I'm breaking now, just teetering on the edge of broken.

Mom sold our childhood home.  I knew it would happen someday, I just never realized how hard it would be.  I spent every weekend over there visiting with her and being home.  The closer moving day came the more desperate I was to be in the house with the baby...to instill a sense of mommy's past in her, a feeling, a smell, a shadow.  I knew she would never remember having been there; that house will mean nothing to her; she'll never have known what mom's room looked like or where we had family dinners and holiday gatherings.  She'll never know the yard I played kickball or hide and seek in or how close all the neighbors were.  She'll never know the halls her aunts ran through or the handyman specials her grandfather did, she'll look at pictures of mommy as a little girl and have no recognition.  It broke my heart. 

I knew the house had to go.  After my dad died my mom struggled for years to hold onto it.  She went to college to get a good paying job to maintain the house that we called home.  The economy foiled her plans and she had to sell.  I hate thinking I'll never walk through those doors again or stop in for a pee-break while visiting old friends.  I'm sad just picturing our front yard, the whole neighborhood, the memories.

Adding insult to injury she moved 300 miles away to her birth place.  Her mother lives in Greece, her daughters live in Philly, but she moves to Pittsburgh where her sister lives.  She left her four daughters and only grand-daughter to live in a strange house in a strange neighborhood where we can't visit without a caravan of stuff and major planning.  She can't come for a few hours when we need her and she never calls unless I call her.  Abandonment is the feeling.  Right or not, that's the emotion.  I always picture the children leaving the nest, not the parents, I suppose.  Maybe I'm selfish and arrogant for feeling the way I do, but I can't just turn it off.  Now that she's settled into her new house, she will only stay a couple of days for Christmas instead of a week with her grand-daughter like we had thought.  I'm angry and sad.

Then our mentally (and physically) sick pooch had to be laid to rest just before Thanksgiving.  Syd came to us as a rescue the spring of 2008.  He was an omen as our friends and family say...if you get a second dog you'll end up pregnant.  Go figure that with Syd would come a mountain of challenges above my growing belly.  Syd needed special help since he was a rescue.  The poor pup was a year old, never knew what a treat or toy was and was starved for affection.  We trained him to walk on a leash, had play dates with his favorite neighborhood pup pals, we loved him.  Many trips to the vet, a day at Penn behavioral clinic and Prozac enabled him to assimilate into his new family.  Every day was work, but we were rewarded with licks and leans for our love.  Little did we know that a physical illness was slowly eating away at him, by the time it was diagnosed in October 2009 it was too late.

I had never had to put down a pet.  I really didn't know what to expect.  We knew it was time, even our vet who was working with us to find some way to help our Syd, said it was time.  Erica and I snuggled with him in the comfort room, petting him and cooing our love between tears.  The unknown is horrible.  Even though we knew we were doing the right thing, we would never know what Syd wanted or was there anything else we could have/should have tried.  He was relaxed and seemed content.  For the first time in weeks his breathing was slowed to a normal flow.  The zanax given at home prevented his normal anxiety, then the sedative took the rest of the edge off.  Then the final injections...it was an eternity from start to finish, but was over before we knew it.  Those last moments, when his body expelled the last of its air, are unspeakable.  Rest in Peace my sweet pup.

Now two big events do throw a wrench in anyone's even semi-functional life, so I expected to be off kilter.  I tried to cope the best I could, but apparently I was decieving myself.  I was short and testy and easily enraged.  The less control I had over my life made me want any sense of control even more.  I drove my husband insane with the picking and perfections and standards that I unhealthily projected upon him.  He tried very hard to keep house and take care of our ever evolving little girl everyday, all the while my freaking our about our finances and his drying up unemployment.  My head was running circles at lightning speed.  We can't survive like this.  I can't survive like this.  My child deserves more.  I worked too hard to get a good education and good job to end up with nothing in the end and even worse for my daughter.  I resented him for being unable to support his family.  I resented him for failing to do more than superficially help me with my ppd and stress.  I resented him for blaming me for his not feeling like a man.  I resented him for making me feel worthless, incapable, and ugly.  I resented him for making me feel like I couldn't be a good mom. 

At least once a week, sometimes just every other week, the inevitable fight occurrs...it's just frozen milk.  Most people call breaskmilk liquid gold, even more so when it is pumped by a working mom.  I would tell my husband time again, I even wrote it down, what the frozen milk rules were, and inevitably every week or so he would forget.  He doesn't understand what it's like to sit in a sterile office room 3 times a day with a machine and pump milk for your baby.  He doesn't get the emotional and physical response from the mom when she pumps into an empty bottle that someone else will feed her baby.  He doesn't get that feeding her is the only special moment I have with her, and everyday I lose 3 of those moments to a machine.  He doesn't get the pain I feel everytime I have to throw out milk that he thoughtlessly or carelessly shouldn't have thawed or pre-thawed unnecessarily.

I start out with the why and end up crying the what will it take for you to get it right.  I've been back at work since she was 3 months old...she is now almost 9 months old...6 months of the same information, and he can't retain it.  Then he says, but it's only frozen milk.  I can't stop crying.  Even more so when I realize that she is nearing the end of breastfeeding.  She eats so much food during the day we are down to 3, sometimes 4 (two of which are more comfort than anything), breastfeedings and that's it.  It's not just frozen milk.  It is precious and special. 

My other favorite argument is the we're just roommates themed one.  I don't know how normal couples get back to being intimate or survive the lack of sex drive due to sleep deprivation, pain or lack of self esteem, but I can't figure it out.  I try and try and on the off chance that I might be in the mood and we can actually pretent to be a married couple, it's not enough for him.  He blames me all the time.  I have to remind him that from when I was 5 months pregnant and the hip pain started right through til the end of August when I had the injections, I can't understand how he can even throw that time in my face.  It hurts me so much, and I can't fix it.  Then it just makes me want it even less.  I don't feel like a woman and I don't feel attracted to a man who can't help me through this.  I don't know how we can survive.

All my life I have been the peacemaker, the mender, the caretaker.  I took care of my father while he was sick and dying.  I have done what I could to rescue or help my sisters when they needed it.  I have always been the go to, even for my mother.  I have supported my husband in his wishes to be a muscian and music teacher and to deal with his own mental issues.  Now, now I need help.  I'm the one who is drowning.  And I don't have anywhere to turn.  Everyone just wants to look out for themselves.  Do I blame them, not really, who cares about someone elses problems when you have enough of your own to deal with. 

I'm in the dark.  I'm not anywhere I want or hoped to be.  I am failing my child, and I'm failing as a wife, and I don't feel human any more.  I'm tired of people giving me a few short words of enouragement and expecting that to fix everything.  For the first time in my life nothing seems worth it.  Christmas, which should be one of the happiest since it's our first with the baby, seems like a drole meaningless bother.  Family doesn't want to be family, money is painfully non-existent, and I keep getting told the baby won't remember anyways, so really what's the point. 

I miss the family I grew up with.  I miss the sparkle and surprise of the holidays with warm conversation and memories to be made.  I miss when stupid grudges didn't exist and everyone laughed together.  I miss my dad.  I miss my grandparents.  I miss cousins putting on plays for the grownups and being friends as well as relatives.  I miss everyone being together even if it was just for the holiday.  I miss a time when I was happy.

I have the beautiful, sweet, smart little princess, who I could watch and listen to all day.  Yet, I'm afraid to be alone with her because I don't think I can handle it.  I get frustrated and angry and lose patience because I can't cope with myself.  I need sleep, I need alone time, I need the dark.  She needs me to be awake and alert and focused on her, she needs the light and the love and the knowledge to grow into a wise, loving human being.  I get so few hours a day to spend nurturing and loving her, and they are frought with stress and sadness.  It's not fair to her.  I watch her dad read her stories and play with her and she just giggles and wriggles around.  I feel like she doesn't enjoy those things when I try and do them with her.  She senses my emotions.  I don't want to scar her with any of my pain.  I want to be her mom, but my vision of mom and reality's vision of mom are two different things.  I've begun to hate my life.  Even my one shining star isn't breaking into this darkness. 

I suppose I'm just delusional for a world that doesn't exist.  Everyone is dealing with a bad economy and stress so I need to get over it.  I suppose I'm my own problem.  I need to wake up and just do what I gotta do.  Well that just isn't working anymore.  I don't even want to go home.  I don't know where I want to go.  Nowhere feels safe.  It's horrible these palpatations and I can't catch my breath.  I can't stop and I can't feel normal.