Bawling with Random Strangers

The fact that I'm having another baby five years after my first, is in a way a mixed blessing.  I keep trying to remember my last trimester with Ava and the following blur of months spent lactating, hardly sleeping, and getting used to zero muscle tone.  I remember it was hard, but there are things I've forgotten.  And that's what is a mixed blessing, because it's been a few years and those days seem very distant so in a way I am looking forward to them.  That's how I know I'm crazy.  If I had just come out of those years and my baby was, well, still a baby I'm pretty sure I'd be scared witless because I'd have a much clearer memory. 

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and as I sat observing all the other expectant mothers in various stages of pregnancy I couldn't help but question the news that the birthrate is the lowest it's been since the last slump, which was 1981.  The year I was born, and there were plenty of us for me to question if that really was a low birthrate year as well.  Maybe it just doesn't apply to Utah.  Maybe if I lived in Washington I'd stick out like a sore thumb, but around here I blend right in...er...so to speak.  *Side Note* One time I told my husband that a friend of a friend I had met at one of his flag football games the week before acted as if she didn't know me when I checked her out at Lowe's.  I didn't know her well and I wasn't too hurt, I just found it odd.  Later he told me he had mentioned it to our mutual friend and Brig's exact words were, "Well, you know, Denise is pretty unique looking.  It's not like you forget someone that looks like Denise."  I remember wondering vaguely if "unique looking" was meant as a positive or negative thing.

Anyway, while I sat there reading my self-help book a woman came in dressed in a sweat suit.  Her hair was in a disheveled ponytail and she sat down at the check-in desk and promptly burst into tears.  Of course I kept re-reading the same sentence over and over again.  In the end curiosity won out over courtesy so I kept my eyes down and did the rational thing...I eavesdropped. 

Front Desk Girl:  "What's the matter?  Can I help you?"

Bawling Stranger:  "Nothing's wrong.  I just....sob..."

Front Desk Girl:  "Well something's the matter.  Here's some tissues."

Bawling Stranger:  "I'm sorry...sniff, sniff...I...sob...just...had....a...baby."

I imagined the whole waiting room nodding their heads collectively.  Of course.   You just had a baby.  You're bawling your eyes out to a stranger.  And that's when I started to get apprehensive.  I by no means had full on postpartum depression, but I was definitely a bit of a basket case for a few weeks.  I remember crying to the nurse on Thanksgiving because everyone was at home with their families having turkey and pie and I was in the hospital exhausted and overcome with all sorts of emotions trying to get my baby to latch on and having absolutely no success. 

At one point I sobbed, "It's just my grandma's banana cream pie is the best (cue a cascade of tears) and there isn't any pie here at all!"  I'm pretty sure the same nurse a while later upon asking her if she had any children replied, "No, not yet.  It's pretty good birth control working here."  I remember feeling slightly insulted but feeling too sad to really care.

And here I am with a baby due around Christmas.  I wonder what I'll be bawling to the nurse about this time.  My grandma's Christmas ham or my mom's homemade sweets.  Probably both.

All Liquored Up at Mini's

Hello my lovelies.  These little beauties are from a cupcake shop in Sugar House that unfortunately for my hips is just a two-minute drive from my house.  The one on the left is called Breakfast at Tiffany's.  The one on the right is called Pretty in Pink.  I've tasted both and they are delicious.  The frosting is really what makes them.  Butter cream frosting.  With a name so descriptive you can't pretend ignorance at what exactly that frosting is made up of.  Sigh.  Every time we drive past this place Ava will say, "It's been a while since we've had cupcakes, huh Mom?"  And I'll say, "Yeah."  Knowing full well we had some just a week ago.  But I digress. 

The thing about Mini's Cupcakes is if you are a Mormon like me it's probably smart to ask what is in the cupcakes.  I made that mistake just yesterday.  I had a few minutes to kill before picking up Ava so I found my car making a right hand turn into the parking lot.  I entered and was surprised to see an employee there I had never seen.  How do I put this gently?  He was kind of creepy looking.  He had a penchant for wearing berets and that never sets well with me.  Never trust a man in a beret.  It's like someone casually wearing a sombrero.  Dee, dee, dum.  It's totally normal to wear head wear from other countries.  Whatever.  But I tried not to let my eyes drift upward scornfully to his beret while I ordered a Pretty in Pink for Ava and hmmm, let's see, something new...a Lemon Drop for me. 

I just love lemon flavored things.  So refreshing.  If you ever need to say Let's be friends, I love you, I'm sorry, Make out with me then by all means buy me a tasty lemon bar.  So good.  Did I mention I'm having a few cravings?  So obviously I let that yummy looking Lemon Drop cupcake mellow in the seat next to me until I could make it home and devour it ever so slowly, savoring each bite..not!  You know I inhaled that mini cupcake with more ease than the man on the flying trapeze.  Driving while chowing down a frosting laden cupcake...it's a gift.  Man that cupcake was so moist!  So drenched in lemony lemon.  My taste buds did back flips in my mouth the whole way home. 

I thought to myself...that cupcake was too good to keep to myself.  I need to tell the world about this!  So today I decided to dedicate a post to it.  I got online and looked up Mini's Cupcakes and clicked on Menu because I needed to tell you what made me want to shout Hallelujah! to the heavens.  Oh.  Huh.  Would you lookie there?  ...soaked in Citron Vodka....  Well I guess there's a first time for everything!

First Day of School

Ava started preschool last week.  I expected to bawl.  But I didn't.  She was just so sure of herself.  All I could really feel was proud...and relieved she is not like me.  I would have been wrapped around my mother's leg and screaming my head off if she had tried to make me go to preschool.  Instead she kissed me and her daddy goodbye and didn't look back once.  I stood in the hallway for a few seconds seeing if she'd look around for me, but nope, she was already playing and saying hello to other kids in the class.  All I could think is, she doesn't need me so much.  And even though there is some sadness mixed up in that, I'm happy. 

After all, don't you shoot for that when you're raising a child?  Giving them the skills to one day be able to do it themselves.  She asked me the other day if she could stay with me forever.  I told her that one day she'd probably get married and leave me to be with her husband.  Her eyes welled up with tears and she said emphatically, "Never!"  I chuckled and gave her a hug, knowing that one day all she'll dream about is getting out of the house and leaving me behind. 

While being separated I learned that the old cliche is true.  You can't go home.  It's not the same and it never will be.  I appreciate the town I grew up in.  Although it wasn't like I remembered it.  My memories of childhood there were shinier, bolder than what the place is now.  The intense emotions and experiences of childhood and adolescence probably made it seem so.  It was a safe place for me for a while.  When I needed it to be.  And really, what more can you ask of a place? 

Denise's Days of Our Lives

I realize it's been three months since I posted anything, and well I just had a lot going on and didn't feel like writing.  Or reading anyone's blog either.  Nothing personal, just dealing with drama.  I started watching Days of Ours Lives when I was fourteen.  Only during the summers because it came on before I'd get home from school, but as anyone who has ever stopped and watched a bit of a soap knows you can tune in months...years later and still know what's going on.  

I didn't watch DOOL for quite a few years because of work and school, but as soon as I was home most weekdays putting my one year old down for a nap at the time DOOL came on I started watching again.  It starts out the same way.  You just want to see what the characters are up to.  You snicker and roll your eyes at the bad acting and the corny flash back scenes, congratulate yourself on getting a life and feeling sorry for the people who actually do watch this rubbish...but then and you don't know how it happened...it's two years later and you're posting on a DOOL online community board discussing fictional character's lives.  Having heated debates about whether Sammy should be with Lucas or EJ.  The funny thing is as soon as my life started getting a bit too dramatic for my own taste I dropped that show cold turkey.  Haven't missed it.  Isn't life full of enough drama and tragedy as it is?

I'm here to say that it is.  I'm here as PROOF that it is.  I'm here to update who ever is still out there waiting anxiously for my return to this oh-so-important blog.  This blog has never been about trying to sugar coat the images of my life.  In fact I think I started it because I wanted something real.  Some truth in my life, because I'd been running from problems within my own life, trying to smile on the outside when all I really felt like doing was crying.  And oh yeah, I love to write.  And because I have too many embarrassing moments to keep to myself. 

The facts are these:  I'm pregnant.  I moved back in with my husband and we are trying to make things work.  Things aren't perfect, and they probably won't ever be.  Life is imperfect and so is love.  In both things you have to find balance.  What things you are willing to lay to rest and what things you are going to fight for. 

Thoughts about current events:

1.  Telling a good friend at work I was pregnant a few months back and the funny look that came over her face as she said, "Congratulations?" 

2.  Telling my friends and family I'm pregnant and just knowing what they are thinking, because everybody does and I don't blame them...When and under what circumstances did THIS happen?

3.  Getting charged $100.00 a therapy session so the therapist can make me bawl.  I don't need to pay someone to make me cry.  Sylvan Learning Center commercials already do that for free. 

4.  Receiving an email at work from said therapist about a book she thinks my husband and I should read, and I can't help but snort and crack up while fellow co-workers roll their eyes at the separated, pregnant, drink sipping from the bosses mug girl like here we go again. 

5.  Title of the book, How to be an Adult.

6.  A ward member in SLC saying after I've told her I'm pregnant... "So this wasn't planned?"  For a second I kind of wanted to say, "Yes, in fact it was planned."  But I can't ever keep a straight face when I'm lying so I didn't. 

7.  Being happy that I'm pregnant although the situation isn't ideal.  I love babies.  I love being pregnant.  I love that my daughter is super excited to be a big sister and that the baby is a girl. 

8.  Explaining to Ava about how you feed a baby and without blinking she says, "Oh, like a cow."  Exactly.

So there it is.  The truth.  A page right out Days of Our Lives book.  Minus all the devil possession/who the baby daddy/amnesia/quasi European accent/beautiful people storylines.  And I'm owning it.  I'm back from the brink of divorce...and five months prego.  I dare you to find a suitable greetings card for that situation!



 

Poetry...Words that Make me Feel Naked

Stand

I splinter
Your words like a steel rod
Through the rotted wood of my self
I kneel
On the floor picking at the pieces
Grasping with bloodied fingers
I search
For the glue that can bind again
My self, my worth, my love for you
I stand
On my two feet, wash my hands
The crimson drains down until the water runs clear, then...
I leave

- Denise Cooper Smith

Hope in the Middle

I lay my body home
In your vast arms, Mother
The sun warmed earth of your face
So familiar to this weary soul
Hold me, Mother for a little while
All my sadness and toil spill from my eyes
Wet the soft grass of your cheeks
I whisper my troubles to you
My broken things,  my care worn heart cracks
Seeps invisibly into your core
You bear my burden, you keep my secrets
Does it cost you, Mother?
I am sorry for it
A wind plays over the grass and ruffles the leaves above
Seems to scold her loving reply, "Husssshhhhh!"
I drain my sorrow and sigh on your firm shoulder
Your tears fall from heaven, mingling with my own
Cleanses my hurts and fears
I sit up, able to observe your beauty without burden now
The trees reaching towards God, the work of your nourishing being
The rivers flowing overland as your life force
What's this, Mother?
I lay my ear to your womb
A seed lays buried, hidden for now
Although I can't see it
It is there, churning the soil
A spring blossom after so much winter
I thank you, Mother, for this secret of new life
I lift my eyes and thank my Father
For small joys
In the middle of my pain
Hoped for
Now received

- Denise Cooper Smith

I'm still Alive and Well...and Embarrassing Myself

I first wanted to say, thank you.  Thank you for all your comments.  I read all of them and cried and then I read them all again and cried.  I feel so blessed to have you in my life.  I was again blessed to find employment so quickly and I have been working for the past month.  It hasn't been an easy adjustment for Ava and I still deal with every night her begging me not to go to work and every morning having to hold her while she cries and again begs me not to go.  Although it isn't easy, it is necessary and I'm trying to make the most of it.

Since last post was so heavy I thought I'd share an experience I had at work recently.  It was last week when I naively thought I'd seen the last of that white stuff called snow.  The place I work has a soda fountain in the break room.  I limit myself to one mug a day of the hard stuff.  Anyway I was at my desk working, sipping on my Coke when I needed to get up and ask my boss a question. 

I stroll over to his desk and explain the situation when I'm shocked to see snow falling from the sky.  Mid-sentence I exclaim, "Look it's snowing!" and point out the window.  My boss swivels in his chair and right then my hand clasps around his mug, although I think it's my mug, I take a long draw and expect the bitter sweet liquid to tickle my taste buds when I realize it's water.  Instantly I know I've made a fatal error.  I zoom the mug back down like a bandit just in time for him to swivel back around.  I realize that anyone who might have been observing the scene may have thought I purposefully tricked my boss.

I look at the straw and there is a pink lip gloss stain on it.  At this point I'm stuttering trying to explain what I had intended to explain all the while the color is rising up my neck and into my cheeks and I'm suddenly feeling hot and uncomfortable.  My mind is working about a million miles a minute.  Do I tell him?  Do I tell him?" I am mortified.   Then a very juvenile thought pops into my head, like when I was in middle school, if you shared a chap stick with a boy it was like kissing them.  I just kissed my boss.  The phrase echoes in my head and suddenly I want to laugh, to just get hysterical right there in front of the unsuspecting fool.  I just kissed my boss.  The tell-tale pink lip print silences my rising hysteria and I'm looking at my boss and he's looking at me and I realize he's stopped talking.  He explained what needed to be done and all I could think about was if he might have some contagious disease.  I smile weakly and march back to my desk. 

I should have told him.  What kind of a freak doesn't confess something like that?  He'll find out anyway when he takes a drink and tastes my strawberry flavored lip gloss.  Can I tell him now though?  He'll know I initially wasn't going to tell him.  While my mind becomes a whirling dervish and my underarms kick into overdrive I keep stealing glances at that mug of his.  It's like I'm afraid that straw is going to form lips like an object in Harry Potter that has been enchanted.  I imagine it yelling my guilt to the whole room.  "Shut-up straw," I mutter under my breath and continue on with my work.  I never told him, and there's this certain weirdness there now that I'm sure he senses.  One of these days I'll confess, if that blabber-mouth straw hasn't already.

What is Lost and what is Gained

I don't really know how to begin this post.  I've debated on when and how I'd break the news.  I need this blog...and that is to say, all of you more than ever.  The good news is I'm not dying, so you can breath easier there. 

Last week I boxed up my meager earthly possessions and those of my daughter and I moved up to my parent's house.  It wasn't a decision made easily or rashly.  I've spent many hours on my knees pouring my heart out to my Father in Heaven.  The truth is my marriage hasn't been right for years.  It takes two people to make a marriage work and it takes two to make it fail.  The first thing most people wonder is what went wrong.  There are many things that went wrong, many things I could have controlled and many I couldn't control.  Out of respect for my husband I'm not discussing those things here. 

What I did want to say is that although I am at peace with my decision I mourn what was lost. You plan out this future with someone.  You picture the years rolling out before you like waves on the sea.  Then suddenly the ship is knocked off course, you drift for a time and then shipwreck on a beach.  And that's how I feel right now.  Although I have the love and support of many I feel as if I am the only survivor of a shipwreck.  I must decide what to do next, which path to go down, find a way to move forward and live.  The future that I had assumed to be mine is no more. 

Although the situation is painful for all, my greatest desire is to make it the most tolerable for my daughter.  On the car ride home the other day she said that she is sad that we don't live with Daddy anymore.  She then asked why?  How do you explain to a four year old something that is hard to understand even for yourself?  I told her that Mommy and Daddy make each other sad and that I didn't want to make Daddy sad anymore.  I told her that although Mom and Dad won't be living with each other anymore that we'll always be her Mom and Dad and that we'll always love her.  She then said something that broke my heart.  She said, "Even if I make you sad?"  I said that even if we make each other sad that she is my baby and we'll always be together no matter what. 

My greatest regret, and I have a few, is that I will never be able to give that precious gift to Ava of years of growing up seeing her mother and father love one another.  I know in this culture, dominated by idealized visions of families being together forever that many see divorce as sin, a dark mark upon the person that has made such a violent upheaval in their lives.  I know, because like so many things, I used to judge in the same manner.  A divorce where there is no physical abuse, and no infidelity is often a puzzlement to those who are on the outside looking in.  My sister-in-law asked me if I was terrified of starting over at the age of 28 with no college degree and a daughter to take care of.  I'll tell you what I told her.  I was more afraid of staying in my marriage the way it was and was more terrified of living that way for the rest of my life than I was of leaving. 

I hope I can continue on with faith and hope.  There are moments and days when I feel so stricken that I want to lay down on my bed and sleep for days or cry for days.  But there is always Ava right there with me and she needs me and I need her.  I also need who ever reads this blog of mine.  I've felt so isolated for so long and this blog has been a lifeline for me.  I don't ask for help often, but I'm asking for it now.  Please don't give up on me.  And if you remember say a little prayer for our family.  I honestly can't envision a time when laughter comes easily again or my smiles don't feel forced but there is the hope and that's what I'll hold to.

Love, Denise