inspiration and wonder

After a few years of doing yoga at home on and off to DVDs, I got up the guts to attend my first yoga class last week. While I'm not inflexible, I am unbelievably uncoordinated -- I have broken two bones in my lifetime by tripping, one of which occurred within the last year. Also, I do not have the yoga-y, flat-chested with a bubble-butt figure. Instead, I have a chest that gets in the way of everything, hips clearly meant for child-bearing and no discernible tuckus (as my husband lovingly calls it, including the "no discernible" part).

Tonight, 3 days after the first, was my second class. It is difficult; it is no wonder regular practitioners of it end up flat-chested bubble butts. In the middle of both classes, I was completely convinced that I would never do it again. But by the end of both, I wondered if it would be possible to go the next day, too. 

After the first class, I could totally understand why the yoga-types also tend to be the possibly-vegan, all organic type people, as well. After I left the class, I felt like I understood my body. I could feel my quads screaming at me for overworking them, I could feel my body craving water -- no substitute, it HAD to be water -- and I wanted to go home and throw all the junk food in our house away. The first time, I wondered if this was from some sort of culture-immersion  influence, but after tonight, I'm convinced it is just how in touch with your body you have to be during yoga that causes this reaction.

So far, I love it. I like the studio I found, I like the two teachers I've had. I like the buzzy feeling afterwards. I like the tingling in my recently-broken foot that feels so restorative. I like the quiet. I like the complete non-competitiveness of it all. I like the time away from my brain, and the anxiety relief it provides.

I was thinking tonight that I hope I stick with it, that I don't tend to stick with things. And then I thought, well, that's not really true. I quit drinking and never fell back. I started this blog 15 months ago and here I am. I'm going on three years without caffeine. I've been off gluten since September purely because of the positive reaction my body had to leaving it behind.  Maybe the intensity of the wellness yoga makes me feel will be enough, just like the rest. We shall see. 

No big revelation or rant today. I'm feeling well, and after last week, that's really all I want to say. I want to end this with a reading my yoga instructor read today just because I find it beautiful.

It is important in life to be constant. The ancients urged their students to look at the moon. It was faithful to its course. It was the center of the night sky. For thousands of years, children, women, and men looked up to it and found inspiration and wonder.

The moon keeps to its orbit. Silently. Unwaveringly. True, it has its phases. Its course, its movement, its path in life -- leads it into shadow and into brightness. Does it complain? Does it seek a different course? It does not.

Let the light that falls upon it change. Let its face sometimes be in shadow: The moon daily witnesses with its own body the play of shadow and light. It accepts that, and in so doing it uplifts all who see it.

The moon has its own primal power. It pulls on the earth; it pulls on the oceans and on the hearts and minds of human beings; it paces the seasons. The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished. 

Look no further than tonight's sky if you would want to know how you can be true to yourself.

              --Everyday Tao (edited slightly)

...how many Z's is that?

I have been trying not to write this post, because I am fairly certain that it will devolve into whining or ranting, and I am not sure that this is a healthy outlet for either. And I'm not sure I want to show you how mad I am at somebody for something that I have no right to be mad at them for.

As I have mentioned before, my husband and I are trying to get pregnant. Every book I've read said that after trying for a year for a woman under 35, it's time to figure out what is wrong. It has been over two years for us. I went to try to figure out if there is anything wrong with me in June, but once my GYN learned of my husband's medical history, she said that in all likelihood, the issue lies with him. I told my husband that she wanted him to get checked out before moving forward with me.

I know that this is a very difficult thing for a man, especially a young man who literally wants nothing more than to be a daddy, and so I decided not to push him into it. We both need to be ready for what we find out about from the appointment. I would gently bring it up over time, not to force him to get tested immediately, but to get him to think about it and deal with the idea of it a bit in order to get him to a point where he is okay with setting an appointment. I have a relationship with a counselor so that, whatever happens, I can talk to her about it; I asked him if he would be willing to do the same, and he started seeing a therapist a couple weeks ago. After his first appointment with his therapist, he set a date for his testing: middle of March.

We went out to a celebratory dinner last night because of a raise and a promotion I received last week, and on the way home we were joking about his appointment. We talked about how we both kind of hope that it is both of us, because then there won't be negative feelings about whoever has the issue. I told him that we both knew our medical histories when we got married, and we talked about the fact that we would likely have issues (which is why we started trying immediately). I told him that when I married him, I knew that with him came the possibility of not being able to have children with him, I accepted it then, and that has not changed a bit. This isn't a surprise to him or I, and finding out the issue lies with him, or with me, or with both of us won't surprise me either. What we do know is that if we want to figure out a way to have children that are half him and half me, we first need to find out whats wrong. I told him that we are both very loving people, and that we feel connected to every child we hold; if adoption is our only option, we will make for great adoptive parents.

And just to make it a little worse, my mother was finished with menopause by time she was 40, with it starting in their early 30's. So was her mother, and her mother's mother. I am 25 years old, and I can hear the clock ticking.

But this post isn't about our baby journey, really. Reader, I want you to understand my mindset when I tell you this next part.

Mike's sister had her baby. They gave her a ridiculous name -- cute for a baby, but, not as a legal name to put on passports and job applications. It is so unique that I can not type it here, or my blog will be found by searching her name. Suffice it to say, when I tell people her name, they ask me how to spell it and how many Z's are in it.

All through the pregnancy, his sister talked about how happy she is to be adopting the next one. Within days of having the new, beautiful baby, she's talking about adopting the next one. She doesn't work right now, yet her husband -- who is working full time -- splits night shifts with her 50/50. She doesn't breastfeed, but she pumps; and I can't help but think that's to make sure the feedings get shared.

And in the middle of it all, this wonderful, beautiful, quiet little baby. The kind of baby that, if all your babies were like this, you'd probably have a hundred of them. Whenever I hear a negative tone in her mother's voice, I think -- she has no idea what she has. She has no idea that not everybody can just make a little baby like it's nothing, and she's taking it all for granted.

You hear it, don't you? Even I hear it, and that's why I'm writing this post. My head is filled with jealous rantings about my sister-in-law for having this baby and every decision regarding her they make. I can't stand it. I am not happy that she gets this wonderful second child. This baby is less than a month old, and she's looking forward to adoption of the next one. While I dream of babies almost every night.  I often dream of having an adopted Asian little girl, and when I wake up, it has me researching Chinese adoption. And when I'm not dreaming of babies, I'm dreaming of puppies, which are my brain-equivalent to babies. I feel as if she doesn't deserve the baby she has, and my husband and I do. And I know how terrible that is.

In the family, only my mother-in-law knows about our issues, and that we're in the midst of getting them checked out. I so badly want my husband to tell this sister, so she can have some idea of what sort of hell I am in around her. I want her to know that the first time I went to the doctor for it was days before they announced that she's pregnant. I want her to know so that when she talks about adoption -- especially how  foreign adoption is a immoral fad -- she has the context that her brother and I may not have a choice but to adopt, and foreign adoption has many advantages. I want her to know that I take prenatal vitamins like my doctor told me to, and that there is never a time when there isn't a pregnancy test under the sink in the bathroom (it's an indicator I have hope, I suppose; but it mostly mocks me). I want her to know that quitting drinking was, in part, so easy for me because I knew it was a step towards being a mother. I want her to know that when people ask us when we'll have babies because they see how good we are with them, it takes everything I have not to cry or tell them everything. I think I want her to know all of this because I want her, too, to feel this pain. I'm tired of carrying it.

I know how terrible this sounds, and how terrible it is. But I don't know how to make it stop. I've talked to my counselor about it before, but I've never felt okay about it afterwards. I know that I am not supposed to attempt to make stop feeling a certain way; that it can't be helped. The only thing I can really do is change how I deal with it. I'm not sure how to.

dry holidays

My grandmother and aunt have a gambling problem. My maternal grandfather, aunt and uncle are active alcoholics. My paternal grandfather was an alcoholic as well, though he quit drinking after a drinking-related incident nearly killed him.

I've always said that I think I have an addictive personality, though I never had hard evidence until my alcoholism took root. I never gambled -- I refuse to by lottery tickets and will never go to Las Vegas. I know that I wouldn't know how to stop once I got caught up in it all.

The longer I go without alcohol, the better I know that I am truly an alcoholic. A few months ago, my husband was out of town, and I went to the grocery store (which remains the most difficult place for me to keep the beast at bay). I put alcohol in my cart, fully intending on drinking it entirely that night and hiding the evidence. In a moment of clarity I realized that what I was about to do was the sirens of my addiction, and just left the cart in the middle of the store and high-tailed it out of there. I am not proud of this, except for the end result: I still have not drank since the day I gave it up about ten months ago.

I'd like to say that I have control over my addiction, that I am fully 'recovered', but I would just be kidding myself. I know they always say the addiction is always there, but I liked to think that I was different. That it was a phase for me, and once I got over it, I could be a responsible drinker.

That was the hardest part about putting down the drinks -- the idea that never again will I taste an oaky red or crisp white paired perfectly with a meal. Never is a very long time. Finally, AA taught me to stop focusing on forever, and just focus on today. I can get through today without drinking, that's easy. We'll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to a friend's house for a thanksgiving dinner. We haven't been out with a group of friends like this since my realization that I was an alcoholic, and we knew there would likely be alcohol there, wine -- my particular poison -- especially. And there was: a carafe of white and red sitting on the table, everybody but my husband and I partaking.

It wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, but I did have fantasies of everybody being in another room and me escaping to the bathroom off of the kitchen with a bottle of wine. I found myself staring at an empty glass as wine was being poured into it. Luckily, it was cheap wine that I know doesn't taste good, so I was able to quiet the thoughts of, "It's just a little wine -- it tastes good, and it's Thanksgiving."  I was even able to take part in conversation without the presence of the wine completely enveloping my thoughts.

The holidays are difficult for an alcoholic, especially and introverted one with a messed-up family situation like me. But I made it through without any missteps-- my first holidays as a non-drinker.

slowly but surely

Therapy got intense there for a bit. I had one session where I could barely breathe, because I felt like I had to talk so fast to get everything that bothered me out. At the end of that one, my counselor asked that we would talk about my molestation at the next session, because she was concerned it was just beneath the surface and causing my mind to race.

I talked about how I thought it affected me, I talked about when the memories came up, but I couldn't say the words. I tried. And I tried again. I realized I had never even thought the words. I couldn't even replay the video in my head. My counselor suggested that I write a letter to my molester, and then do some sort of cleansing ritual with it -- whether it is to burn it, or send it, or whatever I saw fit.

I couldn't do that either. When I spent time trying to pinpoint why, I figured out that it was because I wasn't sure whether it was my brother's fault, or just something bad that happened that I was taking out on my brother unjustly. I talked to my husband about this, and he said: well, write a letter to Evil. Or, hell, just write down what happened. Do something.

So, I wrote the story down with the purpose of turning it into a piece of art. I sat down and just wrote stream-of-conciousness.

Something amazing happened: I realized that he brought me downstairs. I realized that I never took off my clothes. I realized that I was forced to touch him. I had no idea what was going on. I definitely didn't want it. And he knew what he was doing. I realized that my mother almost definitely knows it happened, and may have sent my brother away because of it, and since then has misplaced her anger over everything onto me.

None of it was my fault. It was entirely his responsibility. He was old enough to know better, because when I was at that age and realized what happened to me, I knew it was wrong.

I took what I wrote and printed it onto a page of paper. I spent time finding a quote about evil that resonated with me. I found it, and cut the words of the quote out of the story of what happened. Every cut I made into the story felt like excising a cancer. I felt lighter at every swipe of my xacto knife. It was a meditation on the quote through the fabric of this terrible thing that happened.

I took what was left of the story and pressed it in paint. I used a mix of colors that are not dark or moody, but have a tension about them when together. I put the painted paper on a canvas. I want the story to be accessible, just below the surface. When I showed my counselor, she was worried that I covered it in paint to symbolize burying it -- but that's not at all how I think of it. I wanted the story to come out of me and be subjected to my will. It's like writing on the cast when you've broken your arm: you aren't trying to pretend its not broken, but you are trying to take what it is and make it beautiful. I wanted to be able to make what I wanted of it. I put the story on backwards -- my version of turning it inside out, finally taking complete control of it.

I pasted on the words I cut out into the quote: "Very few people see their own actions as truly evil. It is left to their victims to decide what is evil."

Since I created the painting, it has become a source of refuge. When I think about what happened, I think: "I've been through that story. I know what happened, and I hold no culpability. I cut it to pieces. I turned it inside out. That story is mine, it is no longer just something that happened to me."

I don't know what I'm going to do with the painting. I feel weird hanging it up because it remains quite personal, but I feel weird putting it in the closet because I don't want to let myself be ashamed of it. I don't want to burn it, because I want to be able to look at it when I begin to forget what I've learned.

I brought the painting to my counseling session last week. I told her the story. No tears. No hesitation. I just said it. I showed her the painting. She asked if I had anything else to talk about. I couldn't think of anything...just brought up a few little tiffs that my husband and I had three weeks before, and that's just because I was reaching for something to talk about in the awkward silence.

Then, 10 minutes before the end of the session, we ran out of things to talk about. She told me that she wasn't going to schedule me for another session, because the use of a person like her is best when one needs to work through things, and I had this major breakthrough, have all the tools to deal with things that come up and am using them. She said to set up an appointment whenever I need to talk to her about something, and wished me well.

It's scary, but I know she's right. I feel like I'm getting out of a mental hospital. I'm a little bit scared that I can't handle the real world any more, without a therapist to back me up.

But, the truth is, I'm happy. I'm less irritable. When I am, I know why and I address it. My work isn't taking over any longer. My husband and I just went through a stressful move, and we didn't have a single fight during it.

Dear readers, I think I am approaching recovery. I'm not there yet, and I'm sure I have months or years to go. But I can feel that its nearing.

catch up

I have been absent from this blog and reading your blogs for just about three weeks. I feel sorry that I haven't spoken to you, Reader, as I might feel sorry for not speaking with a good friend i an extended amount of time. I want to catch up with you.

I had an annual review at work a few weeks ago. I am paid well for a 20-something with a bachelor's degree, but I am underpaid for my particular degree, what I can do and for the work my company utilizes me for. Headhunters have been calling. I did salary research before my review and found that I should be making between Y and Z, and I am only making X. It came to about 15-30% above what I make. Let me be clear: I love my job. I love my colleagues. I love my boss. I know I'm lucky to have what I do when it comes to workplaces. And that's why I let it go for so long. I gave them time so that I can prove myself and really show I'm not a risk. I feel arrogant talking about this, but I have been working hard in my to give myself credit where it's due, and my work felt like such a prime example that I had to seize the opportunity. So, after my boss gave me a rave review, he asked me for comments. And I told him that I love my job, but I'm getting these calls, and no matter how much I love my job, I can't ignore that I could be making Y to Z for too long. The conversation ended with my boss telling me that they can't lose me, and that he was putting in for a promotion and a 22% raise for me.

My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for quite some time. I have endocrinology issues and a history of ovarian cysts, and my husband had surgery when he was a young boy to ensure he would not become sterile due to his own medical issues. So, the fact that we have been trying to get pregnant and have not is not much of a surprise. But, I'm tired of not knowing why exactly -- is it me? is it him? Is it something fertility drugs could fix if we decided? So, I decided to see a new gynecologist while I live so close to a great hospital and finally get some answers. My appointment is on Friday of this week. I'm nervous as hell.

About a week after I made this appointment, I was helping his mother with something. While the two of us were alone, I said, "now moving on to happier news...." to which she said, "you're pregnant!"  I know my face gave me away. So I blurted out: we're not pregnant. But we want to be, have been trying, and are going to figure out why it's not working. This was not my place at all: my husband and I decided not to tell anybody until we know more just a few days before. But, because I got in the awkward situation, I really wanted her advice on it (she was a NICU nurse), it just came out like word vomit. Luckily my husband is very loving of this particular flaw of mine, and therefore quite forgiving of it. When the three of us had dinner that night, my husband teasingly said, "so I heard you and my wife had The Talk."

Two days later, his sister announced she was pregnant. Their marriage has been very unstable, they already have one child, and a year ago his sister made a big commotion out of the fact that she may never be able to have children again due to some scarring. And then 6 weeks of trying, and bam.  My husband and I had trouble feeling anything at all when they announced they were pregnant. I went numb when she said it, and had to feign happiness the entire evening. I cried in the backseat on the way home. That night, my husband and I went to our guest bedroom, held each other and just cried together in frustration. In anger. We wallowed in how it didn't seem fair at all -- here we are with this fantastic marriage and financial stability, and nothing.

It has been a week. Last night, Mike's sister rushed to the hospital with a possible miscarriage. They know that her body at least is acting as if it is pregnant, but it's too soon to tell if she is. I felt intense guilt, because in my heart of hearts, I didn't want her to be pregnant. I feel almost a responsibility, although I know, of course, I have none in the matter.