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.

 

 

Another exciting break through in my novel drooling! My writing coach (my brother Kevin) encouraged me to take some time to consider my characters, consider my time line, consider the chapters. He reminded me it could all be tweaked and reordered. At first I was hesitant, I was afraid that trying to press the ramblings into a story would make me fizzle. So I sat down again tonight and just started barfing out words…my fingers were flying on the keyboard and I was only half-paying attention to what I was writing.

 

Then I stopped. I thought for a few minutes. When I started typing again it finally came out: a character. As the sentences marched across the page I felt so calm, and so capable. After another twenty minutes, the title popped right into my head. Little Ghost. I don’t know if that will be the title when it’s all said and done, but for right now I can’t stop smiling. It’s as if my little ghost gave me a gentle press, a reminder to listen to the advice of my coach. As if my little ghost was ready to come along and guide me.

 

I knew I could write 50,000 words, but secretly I thought it’d just be 50,000 words of shit. In fact I really had no idea how anything would ever take shape, and just expected to write 125 page blog entry. Finding this one character feels like getting struck by lightening. No, it feels like I woke up one day and finally lost 20 pounds.

 

I still look at my scar sometimes and marvel that my little boy was inside, then in minutes he was outside. When he arrived he carried a whole new me under his little arm. My little tiny son. He was such a person, such a presence. I would die if it would make him live, but that’s not what happened. The story is that he dies, and I have to live to keep a little piece of him here on earth. It took a lot of courage and strength for him to deliver the new me to me, so I’ve got to do something with it. I can’t just let it sit on the closet floor all wrinkled and dusty, for god’s sake.

I have a theory that the day before (or day of) a therapy session something monumental happens that will emotionally precede whatever you had planned to talk about all week. It’s like a reliable derailment of a planned progression. Sometimes, the day after therapy some monumental event will happen to prove whatever annoying thing your shrink said was right. Considering that I’ve long feared that attempting to write a book would be like undergoing therapy akin to that freaky rebirthing stuff, it shouldn’t be surprising that today went a little haywire. Instead of diving into my NaNoWriMo manuscript, I just want to angrily hash out today’s events. In fact I’m finding it impossible to even look at a word document right now.

 

So what’s the answer? I think I’m supposed to just keep writing. Maybe if all I can write about is my work day, that’s what I have to write about. Eureka! Either my tranqs just kicked in or I just got the point of this whole thing.

 

Gotta go!

Top Ten Most Awkwardly Slutty Halloween Costumes Seen by the Poor Lucky Me Team:

 

1. Slutty Bee
Bees are not sexy. They’re not even friendly. They are threatening and terrifying. They chase you around and sting you when you’re just trying to have a good time at the park.

 

2. Slutty Pirate
Pirates are really too dirty to be considered slutty. Plus, eye patches aren’t really a turn on, they’re more of a medical or warfaring necessity. That’s just my opinion though.

 

3. Slutty Teddy Bear
I disapprove of all child related sexiness. A teddy bear should be sweet, snuggly, or comforting, but never sexy.

 

4. General Slutty Person
This costume is for people who don’t feel like coming up with a costume, but don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to ho it out on Halloween.

 

5. Slutty Clown
Everything is wrong with a sexy clown. Face paint: not sexy. Child related thing: not sexy. Giant clown shoes: not sexy. Etc.

 

6. Slutty Angel
What’s the point of being a slutty angel? It makes you look like you’re unclear on the concept of angels. Slutty devil is a much better costume, because devils are probably way more uninhibited.

 

7. Slutty Prison Guard
Like clowns and pirates, there is really nothing sexually alluring about a prison guard. People aren’t like “Ooooo ummmm it’s so hot how you deliver food trays to people in solitary confinement. Ooooo yea work that big set of keys…”

 

8. Slutty Baby
Horrifying.

 

9. Slutty Gold Digger
Disrespectful to chaste gold diggers.

 

10. Slutty Construction Worker
Getting turned on by a slutty construction worker may indicate that you are a repressed homosexual.

Ok it’s go time! Thanks to the suggestion and support of a dear friend, I’ve committed to National Novel Writing Month.  I’m really really excited.  It’s not just the thrill of devoting myself to be a neurotic agnst-ridden self absorbed writer for a month.  And it’s not just that I will have a real purpose for holing up and obsessing about my feelings.  It’s also because I think I can do it.  I really think I can write 50,ooo words in 30 days.

 

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m having a tough week. Not soooo tough, I just feel kind of hard-edged. I feel like one of those Lego guys, all plastic and square. It’s hard to not default to drinking booze when I feel like this. Drinking, although it’s effects are unpredictable, can help put my skin back on. But I can’t be on a constant diet, have my life completely open on a blog, and get drunk all the time. So, I’m trying other things.

 

I think that the pills are making a big impact too. It’s harder for me to write, but the violent depression is gone. It’s still a struggle, but now my brain will tune in and remind me that these episodes will pass. If I can grasp at that concept when I’m really really sad (I can’t always get it) it usually just takes a walk with Tom and Ramona to snap me out of it.

 

That being said, I still feel so disconnected to the person I used to be. I wish so many things, but today I wish that the people in my life understood that I’m not the same anymore. The new me is a lot like the old me, it’s still certainly looks like me and sounds like me and cracks jokes like me, but it’s different. Actually I’m usually surprised to see myself in the mirror, looking just like myself. I always expect to look radically different.

 

I realized recently that the whole month of December might prove to be a challenge. The date we conceived, the date I got a positive pregnancy test, the date we told our families, stupid Christmas. You think when you suffer a tragedy that things will slowly get better. You think that as time passes your heart will heal a little more everyday. Really what happens is that just when you think you’re getting somewhere normal, you get hit in the face with a date, or an item of clothing, or any other little thing that you would never have guessed would just wipe you out.

 

What a charmed life I led before. I’m so lucky that I had no idea about any of this until the roof caved in.

The kitchen counter is filling up with stuff again. Unopened mail, picture frames lying on their backs, ipods and their snaking headphones, halloween candy, a confetti of crumbs, old gum from the bottom of my purse- peeling wrappered and crusty, a bowl of apples, a granite owl, two misplaced coasters and a thick metal bracelet spew across the granite countertop like the aftermath of a tsunami. I rip one of the envelops open and stare at the contents without inspiration. I suppose I should throw it away, but perhaps I should shred it. I don’t have a shredder. I could bring my mail to work and shred it there. Yes, that’s what I’ll do- so no reason to keep opening it here. I pile the long envelopes up neatly and pretend I’ll remember to put them in my purse tomorrow.

 

The dog and I walk under the EL for a few blocks. She doesn’t seem to mind the noise, and I enjoy it. The rattling roar hijacks my mind for a few seconds every few minutes. Sometimes I stare up at the passing train. The dog always manages to steer my shuffling feet towards the park, but I don’t mind because it’s narrow and full of trees and dogs. It’s a nice place to go. My preference is to just stand or sit watch the dogs play, and smile. But if I’m really happy or sad I’ll call someone, and chat on the phone. I try not to be one of those people who’s dog is misbehaving while they talk on the cell phone, not paying attention. Sometimes though, I am that person.

 

When we get home, she wants chicken jerky and a drink of water. I stare at the kitchen counter again. I open the balcony door so I can hear the EL again. The dog pushes past me, out the balcony door and stands looking down on Grand Ave. Her tails wags lazily. I join her and we breath in the smell of chocolate and traffic. I like to watch the dog sniff the air like she’s watching an opera. She hears Tom come in the door before I do.

 

I step in from the balcony and the fading evening light and walk right into Tom’s smile. The dog dances around his legs, I’m flooded with hope. Every time I see him, I’m flooded with hope.

I’m awake well after midnight. There is something about the night that makes me restless- it always has. Even in high school I would stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning- just reading books or writing in my journals. Occasionally sneaking out to smoke forbidden cigarettes. I have always dreaded lying in bed, eyes open, my mind spinning.

 

Sometimes Tommy Jr’s death feels so far away I can’t remember why I feel so messed up. The surgery and the hospital stay seem far away too. I think back on all the wonderful nurses who cared for us and I can’t even remember some of their names. At first I was so eager for our lives to fast forward pas the pain. It turns out that doesn’t work and I still feel so offended by the pace of life.

 

It’s the end of November. In a blink it’ll be Christmas. Another blink and Tom will be graduating from law school. While I sat in the hospital room breathing in the canned air and dreading phone calls from the NICU, I knew that time would be so precious. I miss those days more than any vacation, any time in school, any victory. I would give anything to be back in that room of rolling furniture and beeping machines. It was my own little womb where other people protected me and supported me and cared for me.

 

Towards the end I started being bothered by all the flowers for me, and not one “Its a Boy” balloon. I was so glad when Tommy Jr got a name tag with a dinosaur drawing on it next to his little incubator. Behind all the worry and the grief, I was still a mother who wanted her baby honored just like any other boy. It was impossible though, I understand that. Too many people were worried about me and too many people just didn’t know what the hell to do (myself included). If I had thought of it, I would have asked for an “It’s a boy balloon”. So many of my loved ones would have be happy, eager, relieved to be given a direct order that might lend me a little hope or joy. But I didn’t know I’d want it until it was too late. I remember so clearly when Tom Sr and I walked out of the hospital in the exact opposite way we had come in: slowly, alone, quiet, without a baby and without an inking of hope. I wished out loud that Tommy Jr had gotten a balloon or a cigar in his honor.

 

It’s getting later. The Sunday night clock is relentless. Tom just called for me from the bedroom. I hate how non-specific my sadness is now. That makes me feel more disloyal than laughing ever did. And worse, I know that the searing grief will get lighter and lighter, til it only haunts me on certain days or after seeing certain triggers. I think I’d rather wallow in the acute pain of my child’s death, then just let him become another part of my past.

 

Maybe you could help me. The next time you have a fine glass of wine or something, maybe you could just think to yourself “Here’s to Tommy Jr”. I’m just so desperate to keep him close.

My face crumpled and the tears started pouring out before my brain could catch up. I sat in the car crying and trying to put my finger on what the impetus was. It had been a few days- maybe more than a week- since I cried last.

 

I looked at the phone in my hands and I tried to catch my breath. Finally I realized that I was crying for all the ripples that came after Tommy Jr’s death. My shaken relationships, my paralyzed confidence, my feeling of being trapped and alone and wedged in all at the same time. Mostly though, it was the relationships. It’s hard to believe that people who say they love me just cannot understand what I need.

 

But that’s just what I think when I’m crying. When I stop crying, I know that it’s the easiest thing in the world to believe. As my wise sister-in-law pointed out, Tom and I are the only ones living every minute with this grief. Everyone else has their regular lives to go back to- just like I have done when my friends or family have suffered. It’s a fact of life. It’s the most normal thing in the world. And it can be utterly heartbreaking.

 

But before we all get too sad, I have to remind myself of the people who have been wonderful. The people who always answer their phones and say just the thing I needed to hear. I’m so lucky and grateful to have those people- and so many of them- in my life. It sucks that the crying jags are so exhausting and intense, but the good days are just even and quiet and good. They’re not explosive, they don’t leave physical reminders. They just pass in and out of the bad days like little ghosts. I have to write it down sometimes just to remind myself I have them (and I have them more and more often). I wish the good days were as wild and consuming as the bad days.

I was in Whole Foods this weekend and while wandering around the cheese department I heard two skinny yuppies talking about their new motherhood.

 

“It’s just so hard” said one “because when she was inside me she was so sweet and snuggley. Now all she does is shit and cry.”

 

“Oh I know” the other one said “and no one warns you might be annoyed or resentful or get sick of changing diapers. No one tells you the bad parts.”

 

I would have thought that I would have a bad reaction to overhearing that conversation. I would have thought I’d be angry or resentful or at least sneer at the two women. But instead I felt sympathy for them. It’s true, no one tells you the bad parts. I don’t resent them for not thinking that having a baby is the easiest, greatest most fun thing to do.

 

If anything, I just wish that I had a chance to feel the same things they’re feeling.

 

Poor little Tommy Jr. He’ll always be the perfect baby. He never had a chance to cry. He pooped once and Tom Sr and I rejoiced and called our family to report the news. One glorious poop. He thought it was hilarious to pee on his nurses when they undid his diaper. We all thought it was hilarious really. I got to help change his diaper twice, I couldn’t even do it on my own.

 

But he was gone before he could challenge our patience, or doubt our ability to be good parents. We’ll have other children, I know that. But those moments we had with Tommy Jr will be so different then when we experience them with our other children. I think they’ll be joyful tinged with sadness. I hope I don’t judge myself too harshly when I get frustrated by my next baby or all the life changes that accompany a living child.