Turtle

I haven't posted here in a month. Truth be told, I haven't even been reading blogs lately, much less blogging. I realized last week while chatting with a friend that I've been "turtling"--pulling my head and limbs into safety, shielding myself from the world, because apparently the world has gone insane. I'm trying to get through without going batshit crazy, and apparently that has lately meant cutting off most of the interactive online world. Blogger, Facebook, all that: I've been MIA and struggling to even care.

The country where I grew up blew up into civil war (again) just days after my parents flew out. While one side (the side we support, remarkably) has technically won, the violence goes on. At this point I rely on the news my parents give me. Most of the news centers get it wrong, anyhow. Contrary to popular opinion, it is NOT a religious conflict, among other pieces of disinformation.

The reality of politics and legislation in this state and region and nation has shot my blood pressure through the roof. It's all or nothing for me: either I tuck my head down and shut my mouth, or I'm ranting. I need to find a career counselor. I've never had a back-up plan for an alternate career: now I may not have a choice. I need to be prepared.

I hate politics. I hate most politicians. I hate the greed and corruption and rampant corporate capitalism that has washed over us all and isn't even pretending to care about 98% of the population any longer.

I wish I could just pull into my shell indefinitely.

Grief Has No Logic

Several months ago I had to lay to rest--and mourn--the death of a dream that I didn't even know I had. Or would ever have. Every now and then, however, it shimmers into my periphery, and I have to once more let it go.

I don't know why it came into mind this morning. But it did, just for a moment, as MTL and I were stumbling around in quasi-waking states getting ready for work. I turned and saw him brushing his teeth, and my gut clenched for a split second.

I will never have a biological child with My True Love.

We will never have a child that is born from us, together, fully ours.

My grief doesn't even make logical sense, really.

First, I don't want another pregnancy. I don't want to deal with a newborn again. There are ways in which I fear it, because of the PPD that shadowed those three long years. I also don't want a vertical c-section scar, as shallow a reason as this is, but that is what I would get: I was told that if I had another pregnancy, they wouldn't want to use the same bikini-cut entry point because three abdominal surgeries have built up too much scar tissue there. And with my medical history, we can't risk labor.

Second, MTL had a vasectomy years ago. Combined with my (much-loved and effective) Mirena IUD, the chances of getting pregnant are so infinitesimal that if it happened, we'd know it was God saying Thou SHALT have a child. So there. And I imagine that it would cause some serious initial issues, since (1) getting pregnant with an IUD is generally a Bad Idea and (2) MTL would be seriously wondering about paternity.

All that aside: we don't want more children. We have five, combined. We have enough.

Apparently there's a part of me that doesn't care. There's a part of me that hates the fact that we will never have a child that is our love made flesh. There's a part of me that, as much as I love my boys, as much as I am growing to love his children, yearns for that biological connection to him and is angry that we will never have it. There's a part of me that resents that other people have that connection to him and to me instead.

My sister just had a child. Both MTL and I have been all aflutter about how adorable he is and getting mushy about babies in general. We both have a soft spot for them. We miss the smell and feel of our babies, all the things about them that go to that mushy center.

(We don't miss the poop or the crying or the sleepless nights, though. We're not that crazy.)

And that part of me, the part that doesn't care about all that, the part that isn't based on logic, is insanely jealous. Not only that she has a baby, but that she has a baby with the man she loves.

I don't have that.

And I never will.