March 5, 2009
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Running Without Shoes
I had a dream last night that I had to escape from a rapist while barefoot and pregnant. Not pregnant in the mild, mini-bloat way I really am now. Huge pregnant. Cautionary whale pregnant (1).
Typically, my dream-self thinks on her feet, she is quick and athletic and smart. She is prepared. She runs faster than bad guys, nuclear missiles, fires, tidal waves, tornados. She uses teeth and claws. She’s saved my brothers, my husband, my cousins, my staff, my cat. She knows exactly what to do.
But last night, dream-self didn’t have a plan. She was scared out of her mind. She was clumsy. She’d forgotten where she put her shoes.
***I had a real-life melt-down a week and 1/2 ago.
I love Shaun’s mom. I really do. We can talk at the kitchen table for an age. She is hilarious and generous and warm hearted. She wants the best for people and has dedicated her life to making this world a better place. Regardless: I am 99% certain that woman lives with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. The situations she invents to fret about are elaborate to say the least. Her worry seems an all-consuming, devouring, crippling force.
While mom-in-law has consistently expressed her anxiety and fear about Shaun and I’s life-choices, offering her reassurance has been nothing more than a mild annoyance, a small bruise. We’ve always been 110% confident in our decisions. Plus, at the end of the day: we live out of state and have never asked for anything but a few rides to/from the train station.
The decision to have this baby, though, is different. We are scared shitless and can’t possibly reassure anyone right now, least of all a relentless anxiety-riddled woman. I can’t physically do it. I’m the one in need of reassurance, damn it! Usually I bristle under that type of attention, but now, in this, I need it to keep moving, keep breathing. I need it to be able to keep telling myself the story of how this all turns out okay in the end. It’s not so much that I think Shaun and I will be bad parents. It’s more that, like my dream-self, the only thing I despise more than relinquishing control is asking for help. And as the weeks tick by, I’m realizing that both are required–not for me, but for the little human hatching in my uterus.
The melt-down in itself was ridiculous. Rage, tears, more rage. I ranted on the sidewalk. I made grand sweeping generalizations. I vomited pad thai. But in the end, I’m glad mother-in-law gave me the catalyst to admit my fears, to articulate them, and have the subsequent difficult conversations (2).
***Since the melt-down, I feel closer to my mom than I have in a long time. Not only has she been a wonderful listener, full of concrete plans-of-action and generosity, but I’m also glimpsing another side of her.
My mom is just as fiercely independent in nature as I am, but when the situation called for it, her desire to do what she thought was best of me over-rode that. When I was little, my grandparents watched over me from dusk until bedtime, five days a week. My mom and I even lived in their house for a time. And I never thought anything of it except that I loved being around my grandparents. I could just be projecting here, but I’m beginning to realize that all of that didn’t just happen. My mom had to make admissions. She had to ask. I’m guessing that was a really hard thing to do.
***Dream-self did not end up getting raped last night. The taxi she was trapped in slowed in traffic. She stumbled out of the car and flagged down a female jogger running roadside. She jogger ran with her to a gas station where a giant, mastodon of a woman armed the ladies with metal snow shovels. The three hid together in a mildewed mop closet. The plan was to only use the shovels if the rapist opened the closet, but at this point, dream-self was mad as fuck. She waited until rape-man was in range and smashed his cocky face in.
For the record, dream-self is usually more escape-artist than violent revenge-seeking furie. She’s just chalk-full of ferocious mother-bear hormones these days. Also, it appears that dream-self has a little posse now, a network of people watching her back.
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What’s the last difficult thing you’ve had to learn?Faux-Footnotes:
1.) The phrase “Cautionary Whale” is a direct rip-off from the movie Juno.
2.) In the interest of full blog disclosure, my summary of the melt-down is a lot more mature than the actual events. “Subsequent difficult conversations,” was more like me sobbing on the phone to my mom in ways I’ve not sobbed since I was sent to my room for being a little bitch to a poor neighbor during a boat outing when I was six. I’m talking big, shame-filled crocodile tears.
Comments (4)
I had similar bouts of anxiety while pregnant with my daughter and the betrothed and I were in much less stable places in life than you and Shaun are. The only thing I can tell you is that when you meet the current resident in your womb face to face your world changes in an instant and providing for them, loving them, and creating stability for them becomes a driving force so large that absolutely nothing can stop it.
What a terrifying dream! I’ve been seeing quite a few of my friends having babies, most of them unplanned. They go through ups and downs, too, but in the end, things generally do work out. I’m sure they will for you too.
Having never been in your position, I can’t guess how you must feel anxiety-wise. I appreciate your honesty, though. I feel like all I hear from people who have children (and thus, had been pregnant) is how this or that is wonderful. And maybe some things are – I’m sure some things are. But what is also important to know and to think about is the scary parts and the unknown parts. And even the parts that just aren’t wonderful. You hear about morning sickness, but not about scary dreams or being very anxious. So, for that, I thank you.
@thinlizzy17 - The canned question most people ask is: “Are you so excited?!?” I think it is easier to just give in and give the person what they want and say, “yeah!” But I doubt it’s like that for most people. First of all, because excitement is a completely inappropriate word for the happy emotions. “Excited” is winning an all-expenses paid vacation. “Excited” is meeting your best friend that you haven’t seen in an age at the airport. “Excited” is a first date with a wildly attractive and funny person. Pregnancy lasts for 9 MONTHS. That feeling just can’t be sustained for longer than a few hours. So no–I’m not excited. Instead, I’ll be going about my business and suddenly, unexpectedly, I’ll feel a warm happy fuzz in my heart. Or I’ll be walking to work and see a baby looking at me and feel that it’s on to me–that it knows somehow. When they smile back, it is funny. Like a little inside joke.The anxiety comes from finding oneself knocked up in the midst of a hideous recession. We live on 1 & 1/2 incomes at the moment. Shaun works in publishing, which has done nothing but lay-offs since October. Even when he tries to get stupid day jobs–cell phone salesman, Best Buy manager–the market is flooded. He’s gone on a few interviews where they say, “oh,we really liked you but we had to cut the position you interviewed for.” I know things will pass and have to get better. But in the meantime, life doesn’t stop. And we’re in that weird place where we make too much to qualify for public assistance, but hardly enough to cover our monthly bills. You know–just like everybody else in this country. I’m guessing if anyone gets into an in-depth convo with a pregnant lady these days (one who can do a bit of math and listens to the news), they’d feel an anxiety similar to my own.