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Monday, June 23, 2008

Catching up

I am so glad there's not a poetry party until next week...maybe next week I can grab some time to do it!
Belated Friday Five:
Summer Word Association:
1. rooftop: tar softening in the "hot heat": my mother-in-law's term for humid heat
2. gritty: sand between my toes
3. hot town (yeah, I know, it's two words): take-your-breath-away hot heat in the summers
4. night: velvet skies punctuated by fireworks flowers on July 4th
5. dance: it's too hot to dance in the summer!

And some thoughts on the movie, "Juno". Every now and then I respond to a movie or a book in a way that's out of proportion to the actual content. I've blogged before about the occasional cathart; "Juno" prompted one. If you haven't seen it, see it first. There are spoilers of a sort below.
I'm not really sure what got me. I didn't share the objections I heard so much about when the movie came out. For a kid who basically raised herself, I thought the lead character made the best decisions she could, and that she was often the most mature person around. Bad Jason Bateman, bad! But at the end of the movie, when she had the baby, and her dad said something like, "One day you'll be here on your own terms," I started to lose it. And when the adoptive mother sees her baby for the first time, that was pretty much the end for me. I basically lost the last five minutes of the movie.
I'm not really sure what got me. 99% of the time, the no-kids thing is fine. I'm content; I can't imagine how children of my own might fit into my life, and Ben and I made the decision, even before we married, that children are not for us. We love them, and especially Jamie the Exceptional One, but simply not for us. Several years ago, we learned that our deciding that was moot; I can't have children anyway. I took that much harder than I thought I would or should.
When we heard that Jamie would be coming, I was so happy for my sister, and so upset for myself. I can't even tell you what all I was feeling: grief and jealousy, to be sure, some self-loathing, which I'm mostly over, but there was so much more. Something about the movie stirred all that up. Perhaps it was the baby...both the birth and the adoption stirred something in me that I keep thinking I'm over, and keep sweeping under the rug.
Truth be told, for now that's my long-term management strategy. I'm pretty happy with my life. I like school (mostly). I love my church, and senior pastor, and all the great people at Ann Street. Ben and I are starting to feel like we've got a handle on our lives (there should be a sign here that says, "Warning: Danger ahead!"). And I rarely think about the whole kids thing. Mother's Day gets me a little...people don't realize, and there's no reason they should, that wishing me a happy Mother's Day makes me a little uncomfortable. And Ben's mom, who knows better, called him on Father's Day to tell him how much she wished he had a little Ben. But really, it's rarely a surface issue for me.
It's just that every now and then it sort of boils up. And comes out. And if I'm not at home with Ben, then I embarrass myself a little. I did Friday night, with "Juno" and my classmates, who fortunately had the class to do the exact thing I needed right then: ignore it until I got myself under control.
Which I am. At least for now. And that's good enough.
One day I will probably want to deal with it in more detail (like therapy). But in the meantime, I just know that from time to time I cathart. The pressure bleeds off (and it's always about stress of any kind, as much as the baby thing, don't let me mislead you). And I don't know why I blogged about it at all, except that maybe it was time to take one more step toward a better long-term solution.
Eh, who knows?
It's late, and I'm tired. And I may regret this in the morning, but for now, I'm publishing it. And I feel pretty good about that, too.

4 comments:

  1. I suppose today was one of my cathart days as well - as it seems we wrote about similar things in our blogs. It's nice to know that others are in the same inquiry.

    While you may not be giving birth to a child - it certainly sounds like you are giving birth to possibility and love. Kudos to you.

    Blessings,
    Patty

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  2. yup. glad you wrote. shall i bring over some chocolate? some iced coffee? some cool whip for the coffee? (the hell with the cholesterol thing)... and let's get that red cadillac that the red-head that used to be one gray's anatomy drives in teh commerical... and go somewhere deliciously fun... and then, then we'll talk.

    ReplyDelete

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