Friday, Oct. 15, 2010 10:12 a.m.
incomplete
Sometimes I just really wonder what it is like. I focus on imagining the experience. I try to make myself feel it. I piece together all the things I've heard with all the things my body has felt in other circumstances...and I try to force its recreation in my mind. Afterall, isn't pain and feeling only in the mind anyways?
I remember that importance I'd feel right before all of my donation retrievals. Knowing that there was potential and significance in my own body; that my health mattered, not just for me, for another potential life. Those periods lasted only a matter of days each - but it's all I've got to go on now.
It's not hard to imagine the disbelief that something on a screen is residing deep inside me, yet unseen and unfelt. I've already seen other things on a screen many times - I know what I look like on the inside better than most do. I can't feel the things I see there, but I trust the screen that they are there...and I can easily understand the disconnect and initial disbelief of seeing another existence there.
Just like girls often do as children, I sometimes stick out my stomach and look at my body and wonder. What if I couldn't suck it back in? I try on tight fitting shirts to see what a bump might look like with clothes. I think about the empty space that is now my uterus - I've never had anything in there; it's never lived up to its purpose. It's empty. And I'm acutely aware of the void that exists within it.
Through the much more thorough understanding of my anatomy that I've gained in the past several years, I can focus my mind and thoughts in certain locations in my body. I know where things are happening when...and where they would if I was ever given the chance to experience it. I try to imagine childbirth. Perhaps not the pain, but the pressure, where the weight would be what it would push up against.
I'm sure many would laugh at me, especially those who have experienced the actual physical manifestation of it. All I ever hear is that you can't know what it's like until it happens to you. That I can't know. That I'm forced to be ignorant to it all.
I wish I didn't feel incomplete.
Thursday, Aug. 03, 2017 - hello?Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014 - strange dream
Monday, Oct. 06, 2014 - catholic and friends
Thursday, Sept. 04, 2014 - changing. and I need to go to bed.
Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014 - dreams of dying
Chapters of My Life
Motherhood
Sept. 2011 - now Being a mother.
Isolation&Infertility (&pregnancy)
Aug. 2009 - Sept. 2011 Working from home in a job that I love...that comes with a loneliness I hate. A husband who works too much, and continued failure to start a family. Slowly spiraling, forgotten, into social invisibility. Accepting and experiencing the potential of pregnancy.
First-Year Teacher
Aug. 2008 - Aug. 2009. pretty much the hardest job I hope I ever have. and all the while trying not to admit my secret turmoil over longings for/attempts at/failure to produce what's supposedly supposed to come after love and then marriage...
Optimism
Aug. 2007 - Aug. 2008. finally accepting that becoming a normal grown up is not just inevitable, but preferable. better job situations for both of us. working freelance as a studio teacher, and becoming an egg donor.
Fading Dreams...
Dec. 2006 - July 2007. student teaching, being poor, consistent job rejections, trying to save face while feeling hopeless.
To Live a Life Worth Death...
July 2006 - Nov. 2006. thinking about death a lot, accepting life and my eventual end. career and passions - beginning the path of contribution to what I will leave behind...
Identity Crisis/Marriage
Oct. 2005 - Apr. 2006. new job. new career. new last name. new husband. new life. who was I and what was I becoming?
The Official End to Childhood? II
June 2005 - Sept. 2005. preparing for a life that still felt like pretend. was I really a 'grown-up' already? weird.
The Official End to Childhood? I
Feb. 2005 - June 2005. losing my virginity, getting engaged, changing my career, selling our childhood home...slowly losing everything that held me as a child... (Meet Mr. Mom 4/05 - 5/05. working/travelling on production of my 4th & LAST reality show ever.)
Quarter-Life Crisis/Unemployment
Sept. 2004 - Feb 2005. no steady job for 5 months - definitely not a good place to be. oh, and I fell in love - which is a good place to be, but it kind of only adds to the confusion.
Postlude to the Prelude
Apr. 2004 - May 2004. I had no clue what things were being set in motion...but everything has changed from there.
The Simple Life 2
Mar. 2004-Apr. 2004. not the deepest thinking period of my life, but I learned a heck of a lot about production of a reality tv show.
L.A. #2 - The Real World
Aug. 2003-Feb. 2004.the big move. transplanting my life. ironically not only working in the "real world", but also AT the company that makes The Real World.
That Weird, Here Nor There, Summer
May 2003-Aug. 2003. a college graduate, but not yet in the grown-up world. just existing. and waiting. and thinking.
Goodbye College
Jan. 2003-May 2003. it's a weird thing, the last semester of college. lots of thinking about what lies beyond.
The Semester From Hell
Aug. 2002-Dec. 2002. it was kind of like I tried to cram 4 yrs. of growing-up experiences into one semester.
I've Changed?
Apr. 2002-Aug. 2002. after L.A. and stuck right in-between the two most intense "finding-myself" semesters of my life!
L.A. #1 - Interning/Discovering
Jan. 2002 - Apr. 2002. I finally stepped WAY outside my comfort zone and went where I had no freakin idea what I was doing. Living outside your bubble for awhile really makes you see differently.
Beginnings/Depression
Aug. 2001-Jan. 2002. who I was, and sometimes who I still am. how it started and how it was before.