If all I cared about was the pain

then I should not have held
the baby, but I refuse
to reduce my life to
the reduction
of pain
if it means
I can never hold
the babies.

Charles Baxter once said the world could use more tenderness

I could go in stomping and snorting and pushing myself past my so-lowered limits again, but that doesn't work.  It didn't work last week.  It won't work this week.  This is a task that calls for delicacy, sensitivity, tender care of self, and concentrated attention, and I am not very good at those things, especially right now.  I remind myself that I love a challenge (in theory) and that I can't just keep galloping full-speed ahead as I have been because that didn't work, isn't working, won't likely ever work again.  Patient and tender attention to me and the now immediately around me: this is what I need.  Harder than self-destruction in small doses any day.

The Day of the Layoff (3)

A man going the wrong way in the parking ramp almost hits me, and I snarl in my head about how much it would suck to get hit by some jerk going the wrong way and then be late to find out if I lose my job.  And then I remind myself again that doing the right thing doesn't magically guarantee you safety and happiness.  I should know this by now.  (I should know this BY NOW.)  So why does every reminder that I live in a fallen world feel like a kick in the heart?

the list of things I should do

.
the list of things I should do

is much longer than the list
of things I have energy to do. 

I suspect that this
is how it will always be. 

I am trying very hard to be okay with that.
.

not mother's day

My sweet and amazing friend is pregnant
with a baby without a brain
that will die at birth or soon after.

"Although some individuals
with anencephaly may be born
with a main brain stem, the lack
of a functioning cerebrum
permanently rules out the possibility
of ever gaining consciousness."

I wrote the due date
in my calendar.
May 13th is
Mother's Day, and I
hate that this is so.  Why
couldn't the doctors know that
and pick some random other
not-Mother's Day day?  It's not
as if the exact date matters.  So
why that day of all days?

"There is no cure
or standard treatment
for anencephaly and
the prognosis for patients
is death."

They have decided to carry it to term
and they will love their little incomplete
baby until the day it dies.

"If the infant is not
stillborn, then he
or she will usually
die within a few hours
or days after birth
from cardiorespiratory arrest."

There will be a lot of
broken hearts over this.

"Reflex actions
such as breathing and
responses to sound or touch
occur."

I'm not sure if I wish
the child to be stillborn
to save them
from their little one
responding
brainlessly

to the sound of
mother's voice or the touch
of father's hand.

I'm not sure
they would want
to be saved
from that.




Fair warning I didn't get: the images are disturbing; quotes taken from here.

So, this new job - when do I get to feel like it's real?

After I get the email with the start date details that shows the background check is finished?
After my first day?
After my first paycheck?

I've got to figure out how to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. If it's going to fall, it will fall. I don't need to stress out waiting for it. Sheesh.

(Have you ever felt like this?)

Chicken

I volunteer at the State Fair every year; volunteers get a free ticket to the fair and a free meal. Our Dining Hall does not serve any "fair food."  There is nothing fried or on a stick.  We sell fruit, salads, and posh deserts like tiramisu and sometimes cheesecakes (and recently something chocolate and peanut butter that was out of this world).  We are famous for ham loaf, and our Swedish meatballs are deadly in a good way.  Pardon my drool. 

I have been volunteering at this booth for years, even after I left the organization that sponsors it, so I have tried nearly everything on the menu.  The one food I was never able to try was the baked chicken.  I can't cut meat off a bone anymore because of my disability, and my family lives a long way away, so they can't cut it for me. 

For some reason, I find it difficult to ask others to cut my food for me.  I can't imagine why it's embarrassing to have to do as a not-quite-30-year-old.  Long story short: it's easier to eat something else, so I usually do.

Today was my lucky day.  My partner at the cash registers (the only job someone as handicapped as me can do) teaches pre-school and has 7 grandchildren.  When I joked about wanting to try the chicken but being unable to eat it, she said, "Well, I'd be happy to cut it for you."

It was sooooo good.  It was worth the laughs I got from certain others.  Many thanks; I couldn't have done it without you, G!  You were an excellent meat cutter. 

Maybe that'll teach me to keep being a chicken.