Thursday, July 31, 2008

times that i've expected one thing and got another:

-when i was younger, i guess I expected to get married and have a kid, but I never expected it would come so soon, or that I'd still feel like myself.
-I expected to be some kind of high-powered journalist who stomped around in power suits (a la Murphy Brown). Instead, my career has been a little...um...slower in taking off.
-When I was a scrawny, awkward kid, I expected to be hott when I was a teenager, like I was a cast member from Saved by the Bell. Instead, I was a scrawny, awkward teenager. I'm hott now though, so it's ok.
-I had no expectations for who my husband would be, except that he'd be very adult and wear suits a lot (I don't know what it was with me and the suits. My husband says 'fuck' a lot and mostly wears polo shirts -- unless he's doing his all-black architect thing
-I kind of thought it was possible that my child would be ugly. I have no idea why. Anyway, he is cute! Yay!
-Due to a very religious upbringing, I kind of thought I wouldn't even make it to this age, and that I'd be swept up in the Rapture? Which I was supposed to be happy about? But instead dreaded and jumped everytime I heard a loud horn or alarm? Instead, I'm still here. But I'm still a little nervous about the whole rapture thing.
Well that was kind of a downer, wasn't it.

I am currently not so much inside my head as I was last night. As a matter of fact, I am "working," screwing around on the internet and watching Judge Mathis. I don't know why I have this weird attachment to Judge Mathis - he's not as sassy as Judge Judy and doesn't really dig into dumbasses the way she does. Also, he has the sleazy charm of your friend's overconfident, younger-woman loving uncle.

I have been much more enamored of the internet lately. I think because of this year's round of Blogher posts. A lot of the ladies from he blogs I read daily went and I think the whole sense of community and bonding with fellow weirdo writers sounds like a good thing. Especially to me now, when I feel like I'm kind of floundering in that arena.

I actually hate every entry I write on this damned thing and find it incredibly boring. But I think deep down, I'm not a bad writer, just gotta keep at it.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

loss

I'd like to find the words to talk about how much being a mother hurts. What I mean is, how once you have met baby and felt that indescribable perfect/mushy/overwhelming feeling, there is the dark underside of pain and loss.

In the past few days, I have stumbled upon blogs written by women who have lost very young babies. I have gotten sucked in, and then, suddenly and without much thought, I've cried.

Having the good in life, for me, right now, feels like the bad and dark and painful are lurking around the corner. And who is to say it's not? Those women had perfect innocent beautiful babies. How could we live in a world where such hurt is possible? How can I stop some disease, some sick person, some anything from stealing my baby from me? I want to gather everyone I love around me and keep them there. I want to enjoy my baby without imagining the horrible possibilities.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Black Woman in America

So...I'm watching CNN's Black in America special.

I've missed most of it this week because of a conference from work. So today's topic is The Black Woman. Yikes.

The plight of the black women is a touchy, painful subject. There is so much that can't be captured. Our feelings about our hair, our skin, our features. Our feelings about our black men (and sometimes the white women they love). What we can accomplish, what we can expect. We live in a world that has been desegregated, a world where Oprah is the queen of everything, but we still carry wounds that haven't begun to heal.

So far, the show has profiled a single, poor black women who has had 5 children out of wedlock and two single black women who have education, but not a man. But I haven't seen myself. I'm educated, I have a black husband, I feel pretty comfortable in the working world. Am I an anomaly? Just lucky? I don't know, but I do know I've already seen these women. I want to see change, I want to see happy women, successful comfortable everyday women. Am I naive in thinking they are out there?

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Aahhhh

One of the things about my life that's changed since having a baby is that those moments where I don't have one person attached to a boob, and another person trying to attach himself to other places (ahem) are so freaking sweet.

Like right now. I cannot imagine a better scenario that me, kicked back on the old futon with an ice cold coke and some shrimp fried rice watching tv.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Right now I am feeling very tired, very lucky, very overwhelmed and very ungrateful.

Tired because, duh, I'm always tired. Lucky because I get to spend most of my days with my baby (which, since I'm breastfeeding, cuts out a lot of pumping annoyance) but overwhelmed because - oh shit, I spend most of my days with my baby. While "working" (the less that is said about that, especially on the Internet, the better). I feel ungrateful because even though I know life is sweet right now, I can't help but focus on the things I don't have. Well specifically the money I don't have to buy whatever it is I think I want at the moment. But it's also the life I don't have. The courage I don't have. The gumption I don't have.

My husband tells me he gets tired of my whining, which actually makes me feel like I made the right choice in marrying him. I need somebody to kick my butt sometimes. I need to be woken up.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

And here I am again. This is part 3,423 of me trying to blog a little every day. I feel like my brain is slowly turning to mush, what with the baby and the stupefyingly dumb coworkers I have, so I'm one again trying to appeal to the right side of my brain to not give up and jump ship.

The good news is that I'm not nearly as frightened of my baby as I was the last time I wrote here. I can usually tell what he's crying about and I don't feel like I'll never ever leave the house again. I'm not gonna lie though, it's just easier some times to stay home. I can understand how people have kids and get fat and watch tv all the time.

Things that are going on right now are:
-being a momma is forcing me to keep doing stuff even when I want to go to bed
-I feel creatively retarded right now, like I'll never be where I want to be as a writer
-Today, Jerryn and I had our first fight where I was not afraid it would be the end of our relationship...I could let it go for a while without feeling the need to call him immediately and resolve the issue.