Hooray for Staycations!

We've been staycationing since we got married, back before the term was cool (or at least before I heard it. For any other people living under a rock, a staycation is a vacation where you stay at home).  I'm glad they finally gave it a hip name, because back in my day it was known as, "we're too poor to go anywhere but we had to use up this paid vacation time at work."  The past few years we've had some pretty cool staycations.  Usually we do one overnight trip and spend the rest of the week doing close to home days out.  It's a great way to hit museums, parks, and all the other stuff you always forget about then wish you had time to see.  Last year we had the mother of all staycations (for me, at least): a trip to the beach!  We went to the Indiana side of Lake Michigan and played in the sand (it was a bit too cold that day for water), we stayed at a b&b, and we walked around the outlet mall.  I could not have asked for a better time.  

Maybe that's why this year's staycation seems so lackluster.  Maybe the beach just could not be topped for me.  What it comes down to is planning.  Or lack thereof.  We didn't plan on having a week together as a family right now,  I was supposed to be taking a separate trip and Husband would stay here with the kids.  But my plans didn't work out so we ended up with a week together.  Now don't get me wrong, anytime together with my family is great, but as far as vacations go this week is kind of a bust.  We didn't  plan anything big, so we've just been waking up and saying, "ok, what are we doing today?"  For some people this probably sounds great, but not me.  I do not do well without a plan.  Or rather, I do not do well with half a plan.  If I could spend the entire week in bed with a big stack of books and a big bucket of cookies, I would be a happy camper.  It's this idea that I somehow need to be entertaining, but don't know how, that bugs me.  So I feel like this week is more stressful than a regular week, though at least we get to be stressed together.

And another thing:  when did my kids get so spoiled?  And I don't mean that in a cute way either.  I mean, every day we have done fun, kid-oriented things, and every day we get whining and fighting and just a general disappointment vibe from them.  I think things have gotten too entertainment focused lately.  My kids have been indulged in their cases of the "Gimmes," and now we're paying the price.  I think it's time to go back to the world in which entertainment was reading library books and drawing pictures and making cookies together every Monday.  It sounds very quaint and old-world to a lot of people, but it's the way we lived a year ago.  Somewhere along the way we've all gotten sucked into various adventures that have led us to feel like we need to go to Chuck E. Cheese or movies or whatever else all the time in order to have fun.  Let me tell you: taking two preschool aged children all over the city and letting them hang out with a bunch of other preschool aged children is NOT FUN.  When I figure out what is, I will let you know.

woe is me

I'm always amazed at the amount of personal information bloggers are willing to share.  People are willing to share their innermost feelings with, basically, the entire world.  I think I would have a problem doing that, if I actually thought anyone was reading my dribble.  BUT, thankfully, I do NOT think anyone is reading my dribble, so I have no problem whatsoever.

On June 28, 2001, I miscarried my first pregnancy.  Obviously this means we're coming up on the nine year anniversary of that.  At that time I was twenty, a college dropout, living in my abusive boyfriend's mom's apartment, and had just quit my $8 an hour job.  I was a real winner.  My baby was a twelve week old fetus and already I was a candidate for Worst Mom of the Year.

I don't really know how miscarriages affect other people.  I guess it all just depends on your situation.  For me it was pretty much the worst moment of my life, and the day is burned into my memory forever.  I mourn every summer around the time that it happened, and I mourn every January, when my angel would have been born had it made it that far.  I remember that I didn't want a baby.  I knew I was in a bad relationship, I didn't know how to get out, and having a child was only going to make it harder.  I remember how sick I felt.  I had terrible migraines every afternoon.  I remember all the things I unintentionally did wrong, like eating bologna sandwiches.  As much as I thought I didn't want a child then (or ever, really), I remember how much love I felt for the little miracle inside me.  How for the first time ever, I truly believed in God, because there was no way such an amazing thing could happen without a higher power's hand.

I remember that the night before I couldn't sleep.  I stayed up all night watching tv.  I watched all the reruns of Seinfeld I could find, then watched Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors on cable.  I didn't like it.  I remember the indescribable pain, unlike anything I've experienced before or since (including the two live childbirths I've had).  I remember the EMTs, and how kind they were with a scared kid.  I remember that, even though I was scared and unprepared for motherhood, I never once felt relieved that my baby was dead.  I only felt burdened and dead myself.

Over time it has gotten a little easier.  At first I hated every single pregnant woman I met.  I couldn't be around them.  I compared all of them to myself, and tried to figure out why they deserved a healthy baby and I didn't.  I tried to make impossible bargains with God.  Dear God, I will give up all the good things I have if I can just have my baby back.  Dear God, if you give me my baby back I promise you I will run away and never let that asshole know she exists.  I'll protect her from him.  I'll do anything if you just give me my baby back.  But He didn't...  Then eventually I met and married and got pregnant the right way.  I was so scared.  I didn't want to go through it all again.  I didn't spend a waking moment not terrified until I started feeling my son kick.  Then my worries slowed down a little.  I've been blessed with two healthy sons since then, and for a while I stopped spending so much time thinking about my little one that wasn't.  But for some reason this summer feels harder than the last couple.  I wish I understood it and could stop it.  I wish I could stop thinking about how old my boys' big sister would be.  What she would look like or act like.

I've taken now to wishing my whole life had been different.  That I'd never moved back to this area, never met that guy, never gotten pregnant.  I wish I'd stayed where I was, followed the original plan, experienced a completely different life.  If I had that alternate universe life, I wouldn't be so sad right now....  I know maybe that's not entirely true, and I know that if I hadn't experienced all the bad, I could never have had all the good I do now, but it's still hard sometimes.

And there you have it.  My entirely too personal tale of woe.  The end.

One month (or 14 years) later...

OK, I took an accidental hiatus there.  I can't really tell you what happened, because I had no idea so long had passed!  I think I was in a funk and the world just kept on turnin' without me.

I'm here before you today because I had a moment of self-discovery today.  I wish I had more of those.  I wish, when I did have them, it were positive things I discovered.  How does that saying go?  "And if wishes were....." something...  Point is, it just ain't happening.

Today's self-discovery goes like this.  OK, wait, a little background on how this came about:  I have this habit of reading EVERYTHING that people tell me to.  It's a pretty new development.  I used to be really picky about what I read.  Then I realized I was running out of things to read.  So now anytime anyone mentions a book, I immediately look it up and, if the library has it, I put it on hold and add it to my big stack.  Luckily I no longer work in a bookstore, or I would do absolutely nothing but haunt the library.  Or go in debt buying a crapload of books.  Oh wait, that already happened.....

So a week or so ago a friend of mine mentioned a book.  I don't know if she was even recommending it to me, she might have just been babbling.  As soon as she mentioned it I hit the library's site and put it on hold.  I didn't even realize it was Teen Fiction.  Once I brought it home and saw the cover, I almost considered tossing it aside, but I thought, "what the heck?"  Well, I couldn't put this book down.  It was a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, except with a happy ending.  It was totally formulaic, but sometimes that's just what we need.  And if you're going to follow any formula, shouldn't it be the Romeo and Juliet formula?

I am a hopeless romantic.  I am a sucker for a love story, for a happy ending, even for a sad ending as long as everything was sacrificed for love.  So this book had me hooked.  And then I finished it.  And I put it down.  And, though it had a saccharine ending, I felt kind of sad, and kind of angry.  I kind of wanted to smack a teenage girl in the face and tell her that what that was, was total fiction.  Life isn't like that.  Love isn't like that.  Love does not conquer all, especially when "all" is race or class wars and you're 18.  In other words:  I am a nasty, bitter old woman.

And the funny thing is, I found love and I married a super awesome guy.  I have a great life and a great marriage, and I'm not even just saying that in a fake way.  But he's someone I met after I'd experienced way more than I wanted to.  I met him after I'd dealt with the heartbreak of losing my first love and many other, even more traumatizing tragedies.

When I was a teen, I read too much and watched too many sappy movies (and soap operas).  I had grandiose ideas about the world and about love.  I believed all that stuff about how true love would come and it would be great and I would marry my high school sweetheart.  And that you could put someone through all those trials and make them jump through hoops, and if they REALLY loved you, they'd do it.  But it turns out, they kind of won't.

If I were writing a novel aimed at teenage girls, here's what I'd say:  it doesn't have to be complicated.  Sometimes love can just be fun.  And you're young and have no responsibilities, so why not just let it be fun?  It won't always be that way.  I wish I hadn't been such a melodramatic child.  I really regret that I didn't enjoy my First Love.  I long to go back and have a relationship that isn't complicated by bills and kids and work and baggage; all those responsibilities that come with being a grown-up and being in a grown-up relationship.  I wish I could go back and tell my teenage self not to be such a drama queen and not to over-think EVERYTHING.

So for every young girl out there, and maybe for every old girl, I dunno:  Enjoy love.  Make it fun.  Don't worry about what will happen tomorrow.  Don't test people unnecessarily.  Just because your dad abandoned you doesn't mean every man will.  Look for the best in people, not the worst.  Recognize that your first love (and maybe many other loves) probably won't work out, but don't worry about it, just enjoy every single minute you have of it while it's there.  Don't miss out on any opportunity (unless, of course, it's illegal; then just weigh the pros and cons) because you WILL regret it later.

I am bitter.  And ashamed.  And regretful.  Life isn't a novel.  Sometimes that's good, sometimes bad.  Some things don't have happy endings.  But, then, some things do.  My life has taken many strange turns over the years.  Most of them tragically dull compared to the lives of the characters in my stories, but strange all the same.  Then one day I guess the gods decided they'd had their fun with me and would give me a rest, and they sent me a soul mate.  I tried to make everything complicated with him too, but somehow it all settled down into this life, with this person, in this city, with this house.  And somehow, though it's all incredibly "normal," it is unexpected and satisfying.  Hmm, maybe I'm not quite so bitter after all.