Over the weekend I read the book “Born to Run”. Sunday I bought Nike Free’s. Monday and today I ran like a lunatic escaping the asylum, and I felt better than I have in a long long long time.

I’ve been working our consistently and hard since July, but yesterday I finally noticed that I am in pretty good shape. That was as shocking as it was inspiring. When I noticed my heart rate was pretty low (for me) after interval training, I thought I’d try to keep running- just five minutes. Then ten. Then fifteen. I kept running and running until I begrudgingly stopped to shower and get ready for work. I thought all day about running after work (I was talked out of it by more experienced athletes. I tortured my co-worker by shouting at her, hour after hour, about the book and the running and the shoes. I took the shoes out of my gym bag and made her hold them and comment. She continues to humor me with enthusiasm.

Today I went straight into the run, and made it three miles. I feel like a different person. I couldn’t even run the mile in 8th grade. I hope that this will crack the shell around me.

Thanksgiving was fun. Although I missed being with my brother and sister in law, I enjoyed spending time with the rest of my family. I felt good, happy, light, relaxed. I drank too much, I read too much, I napped too much. Tom and I got out of town for a couple nights by ourselves, and we had such a good time being together. I’ll never stop marveling at how easy our marriage is. I don’t know how we ever choose each other, but I’m so thankful we did. He says all time time “Aren’t we so lucky?” and I smile back and nod. I don’t believe in luck though, I don’t even really believe in prayers. I don’t believe I have the power to intervene or alter the future. But I’m grateful to have some one beside me who can face the future, and pick up the pieces of the past.

I’m back at my desk. It’s Sunday night and the clock is racing forward. Somehow I’m living the same life I did before. Only this time I’m curled up inside myself, hiding from the people around me, scared someone is going to really want to talk to me. Because now the pills keep me buttoned up, but when those buttons pop off…it feels like I’ll never get back in control.

I want to give up the pills and just let myself out, but I’m afraid. I can’t write when I’m taking them, I can’t laugh as quickly. It’s like the exchange for being even tempered is to give up the only things I liked about myself.

I was able to get a three hour nap in on Sunday. Three and a half hours if you count the time after I woke up and just started at the wall for a while. I didn’t write a word all weekend. I was too busy aimlessly worrying.

Having Tom in law school- especially as he approaches finals- gives me a lot to worry about by proxy. Then I can worry about hurting our families’ feelings if we don’t go to Christmas, I can worry about my job, my dog’s rickety hip, my finances, how cold it’s about to be, and my failing attempt at writing a book. All that before I even have to get to baby-making-worries. So pretty nice, I’ve got a pretty full worry agenda.

I’m thinking about taking a break from therapy, because there are only so many weeks I feel like I can go there and say “I’m worried I’m worried I’m worried” while refusing to do anything (other then exercise) to alleviate my anxiety. I mean anything healthy. I do several unhealthy things to get through each day.

Speaking of unhealthy things, Tom and I went to a well-deserved dinner at Ron of Japan last night. We ate until we broke out in hot sweats, then decided to walk home. We had a leisurely stroll along Michigan Ave, and Tom stopped me under a streetlight. I thought he’d tell me how pretty I look in the light of the street lamp (that’s my favorite compliment he gives- “this is such a great light for you”. Instead he said “On no honey! I think you might have gotten a little burn from the hibachi grill!” His wide eyed innocence was so endearing I almost didn’t have the heart to reveal the true culprit of my red face. But I couldn’t leave him there worrying that I had sustained 2nd degree burns from the steam of the egg sauce.

“It’s ok dearheart” I replied. “I’m just drunk”. Oh we laughed and laughed and laughed and walked the rest of the way home a little more slowly.

Ugh. And in that “ugh” please read all the swear words you can think of, even the old timey, quaint ones, even the really filthy ones that you’ve heard but would never dare to use.

Ugh, I didn’t get the writing job I applied for. I guess they didn’t want someone who would be perfect for the job. They must want some braying, stupid, cliche-wielding, turd. What they don’t know is that I can be that too! I can be whatever they need me to be if they’d just give me the job.

I can’t remember ever trying really hard to get a job and not getting it. No that’s not right. I mean I don’t ever remember applying for a job that I felt was really going to change my life, and that my hopes were so high up I had the courage to do other things in my life I was dreading (starting my book), and was so inspired by my renewed interest in life that I even started losing weight…then didn’t get the job.

But that’s how it goes sometimes I guess. I found out on Tuesday, so I’m finished pouting now.

Awards show week is over and went off without a hitch. It was a great couple of parties and no one said anything weird or upsetting. I am starting to feel more normal these days, especially after surviving these events.

Winter is rolling in with pitch black evenings and cold gusts of wind. Lately I’ve been wishing that my spam-box was my in-box. Today, for instance, I have the following email subjects in my spam folder:

Don’t settle for what you can afford!
Lasik special starting at $299- Schedule your free evaluation now!
Are you looking for some fun?
Is good Men & Girl

I don’t know what the last one is, but the other three are very appealing. Well, maybe I wouldn’t get Lasik surgery from a place that spammed me, but I am looking for some fun and sick of settling for what I can afford. Are there people who respond to these emails? Could it be that they are the real deal and I’m actually being suckered by my cynicism? I think I smell an informal survey coming…

In other news, this week begins awards season in my industry. Wednesday and Thursday are local parties, then in early December I go to LA for more parties. I’m trying to stay positive and confident- I’ve lost 20 pounds now and have been working hard at work. I have nothing to fear…except some one asking me when I’m planning on having children. Or remembering that I was pregnant but not knowing what happened.

Can I get little cards printed up with a short version of the story and hand them out to people who ask me uncomfortable questions? Actually, wait, I think that’s a really really good idea. I probably won’t even have to use them, they’ll just be like a social safety harness.

I’m still stuck, but I’m determined to inch forward. I keep going to the gym, I keep writing, I keep getting out of bed everyday. I can’t remember sometimes if this is how my life always was. Well that’s not really true, because I remember I used to think I was pretty funny. It was a vanity actually.

I have graduated from always wanting to talk about how my grief to always wanting to talk about my minor accomplishments. I brag loudly, braying about my exercises and successful days at work. My old self winces at my child-like need for soothing praise. Is that different than how I used to be?

I feel like I’m trying to squint my way past Christmas. Every time someone brings it up I act like I don’t speak English. I can’t stand that it’s right around the corner, and I’m pretty sure this is not different than how I used to be. Or at least I can’t remember a time recently when I wasn’t dreading Christmas.

I keep telling myself that this blog is keeping my pain frustratingly raw. Many days I sit down and want to chatter about what I did over the weekend or something I’m looking forward to. But the easiest thing to write about is how I feel; that’s what bubbles up the fastest. Now I’m trying to write a book and am finding that I can’t write about myself anymore. If I don’t turn this into a work of fiction it really will be a laundry list of my shifting emotional state. Bore. I want to write a story.

It really feels irresponsible to be trying to bury myself in writing and not be smoking cigarettes. My desk is disturbingly ash free. There is not even a greasy glass of red wine or a can of beer to urge on my creativity and fuel some self-loathing. F*cking anti-depressents and a glass of water. That is what I am reduced to. It should be illegal to try and write under the influence of anti-depressents.

I don’t know. I just don’t know what to do. It’s about to be winter- it’s pitch black by 5pm. It’s been six months since I went into labor. Six long months. Six short months.

Since I started writing my NaNoWriMo I’ve been trying to think of my son as my little ghost, instead of my dead baby. He’s not gone, dead. He’s here with me, with us, he’s everywhere. For some reason I like to talk to him in the gym shower- there’s something about that really small, brightly lit space that makes me miss him and feel his presence. The psychic told me too that I’d feel him when I was around water.

I was tying to figure out why this week felt so different- I’m back to being so depressed and so hollow. I finally figured it out (at the shrink’s office): 6 months is as long as the doctors said I should wait before conceiving again. I mean, they said 3-6 months. We’re one day past 6 months. I guess my lady bits should be good to go. Sigh. Now it’s all up to my brain.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy

Life is very difficult because on one hand you are very thankful to be a human but on the other hand you feel like, “as a human shouldn’t I have accomplished more?” For instance: I am not a photographer for National Geographic. I am also not a frequent contributor to Harper’s or The New Yorker. As far as I can tell I’m completely wasting my humanness.

It seems pretty ridiculous to have opposable thumbs, a big brain, hundreds of thousands of years of genetic mutations and intellectual discovery, and I don’t even host a late night talk show. I don’t even write for a successful television series. I’m not saying I’m so great, I’m just saying I’m human, and I think that should count for more.

Others of my kind have sent rockets into space, have written operas, have established new governments and religions. I haven’t done any of those things. I haven’t even won any awards of recognition or hand built an alternative fuel car. It’s like, what am I even doing? Where is my time going?

Perhaps it’s time to really make note of how I use my days. A diary might lend insight to where I’m losing the precious hours that should be devoted to solving the oil crisis and becoming fluent in Russian.

We missed our November support group meeting which I have mixed feelings about. I like being there to show new-comers that they’ll survive the grief, but I don’t like going because really I want to talk the whole time.

In a perfect world, I would have my own support group, made up of my friends and family, and Tom and I would just sit there for two hours once a month explaining how we’re feeling, what we’re afraid of, and what we need from the rest of the group. It’s unfortunately not a very realistic plan, but I really think it would help us both.

I was so determined to make January my start date to try again to get pregnant. But the more January 1st looms, the more scared I’m getting. I just cannot believe there will ever be a time where I’m strong enough to face the realities of my next pregnancy. I also can’t help but worry about leaving my little ghost behind. My little boy, my little fighter, my little Mr. Perfect. Where will he fit in when we have another baby?

In NaNoWriMo news, things are going just ok. I think I’ve lost sight of my plot again, and am back to just free writing to keep my head above water. I still have high hopes that I’ll finish, I just hope I don’t finish with a big pile a crap.

I don’t think I ever posted this on my blog. Today I watched it because I was missing my little boy, and remembered that you could see him in this video.

I was so proud of getting through my 5 minute stand up comedy routine- it was for Stand Up 101 at Second City. I was 14 weeks pregnant, you can see little Tommy sticking my tummy out. I took for granted that I would have a certain future, a certain life. When I watch this video now I marvel at that person on stage. At the time, that was the scariest five minutes (well I went a little long…) I had ever been through.