Motherhood

Still Pregnant.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Still Pregnant.

At 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant, I know this mutant being inside my stretch-marked balloon of a belly could make its way through its escape hatch any day now. I’ve been describing the feeling, at least emotionally, much like being on a roller coaster with a very long and steep incline, slowly click, click, clicking up it, unable to see exactly where the peak is but knowing you’re getting there… soon… and knowing once you do, you won’t know what’s up or down for a while, and no matter what, even now, you can’t turn back.

I’ve been reading maybe too much about all the things that can go wrong during childbirth and also how much it’s going to hurt. I’m not anti-epidural, but I dislike the idea of anything touching my spine, and the side effects that epidurals can cause. I’ll probably get one anyway. I’m hoping for a fast and easy labor but I’m not expecting one. I’m just preparing myself emotionally for a 72 hours of horror and hopefully a healthy baby and reasonably fast recovery in order to move on, safely, to being a mom and such.

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Poetry & Poetrish

On writing.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on On writing.

There is the world where gravity is gravity, 
and the written world, where it may be not.

Stories slipping in silence through the still moments of the night, black text, glowing white screen, eyes hazed, words flow and reformat the physics of gravitational force. Words strung together one after another form impossibility, or, implausibility into another reality — fiction.

Words are dangerous in their ability to mimic truth. Lost in story, one can easily forget gravity is still law— that, writing is a gift of invention and freedom locked in a straight jacket, blindfolded, handcuffed, and surrendered even prior to battle. At best, a story has a beginning, middle, end, and readers who care to find meaning inside of it. At worst, it is a torturous illusion of fantastical maybe shattered the moment one looks away from the page.

Yet there is a delightful gift in sculpting, not writing, words — each night returning to the same story, as if you weren’t its author, and diving into its plot as if you’ve never read one of its letters, surprised by your plot twists, your character choices, your moments upon moments of reality reflected in another dimension: stories in sleepless solitude seducing slumber.

Life cannot be punctured, only minded.

Life becomes routine — adulthood swallows us all.

But words never grow up. Words can take risks we never would.

Illusion is not the enemy.

Failing to imagine what if is.

Mental Health

I don’t know and other thoughts.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on I don’t know and other thoughts.

As life goes on time blurs into this endless stream of unadventurous survival. Some, with terminal illness, are well aware of how life is a synonym for dying. Others can avoid the thought of death as much as possible, putting it off until the last possible second, only to come to terms with their mortality with age or accident.

Bringing a new life into the world has always struck me as strangely selfish and cruel — yet I’m doing it anyway. You can say creating life is creating death much the same. The only opportunity as humans we have to avoid dying is to have never been born at all.

Continue reading “I don’t know and other thoughts.” →
Motherhood

Week 37 and Letting Go of Potential Loss

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Week 37 and Letting Go of Potential Loss

“Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything’s ok and everything’s going right.” Accurate, Alanis. My pregnancy thus-far, despite needing medication to actually get pregnant, has been otherwise complication free. Knock on wood. Yet, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you…

I’m now three weeks away from my due date, which means baby can come any day — though as a first time mom I’m slightly more likely to deliver closer to my due date or after. I’m hoping baby stays in and cooks until August, even though my hands and feet would appreciate a break from the swelling and arthritic-like symptoms that being this pregnant tend to cause. I’m hopeful my body will return to normal once baby is out.

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Politics, Etc.

Pride Month and Prejudice

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Pride Month and Prejudice

It’s Pride month, and it’s time again when rainbows take over the country and remind us why we have a long way to go for true equality, and also why some men look better in tight shiny pants than women do.

In all seriousness, the last 25 years has both progressed us forward and moved backwards. We live in a society today where the Supreme Court says it’s ok for a private business to refuse services to a person or couple because they are “religiously opposed” to who that person is. But, at the same time, we have many more GLBTQ role models in the media, and although there is still a challenge for public figures to come out, being honest about one’s sexuality no longer banishes you from a successful career, especially in the public eye.

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Mental Health

Death as Depression’s Cure: Thoughts on America’s Obsession with Happiness and How to Help our Depressed and Anxious Nation

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Death as Depression’s Cure: Thoughts on America’s Obsession with Happiness and How to Help our Depressed and Anxious Nation

Following a rash of celebrity suicides lately, as there is following any major celebrity suicide, there’s increased talk of mental health through social and national media. What isn’t talked about as much, though mentioned, is that the national suicide rate in the US has increased by 30% since 1999. That’s not just a minor increase — this is a major public health crisis.

The question is — what can or should we do about it? Some quick stats to get the conversation started: the annual age-adjusted suicide rate is 13.42 per 100,000 individuals. There are 123 suicides per day. This is the 10th leading cause of death in the US. Men die by suicide 3.53x more often than women. The rate of suicide is highest in middle-age white men in particular.

Continue reading “Death as Depression’s Cure: Thoughts on America’s Obsession with Happiness and How to Help our Depressed and Anxious Nation” →
Mental Health

Survival.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Survival.

I want to write all of the details to process what happened today, but I should not. I can only share how hard it is to be in the situation many “adult children” are — in seeing a parent in poor health getting worse and worse, and the other unable to take care of them. I am glad I was here to handle this morning only because I can’t imagine what would have happened if I wasn’t. What would have happened if I hadn’t woken up to cries for help at 5am or the decisions that came after.

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Random Musings

I Used To Sleep Until Sunrise

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on I Used To Sleep Until Sunrise

Wide awake at 3:33am. 3:33am. The past few days. It’s always “feels like 7 or 8 or 9” and “did I oversleep my alarm” and panic sets in then glance outside and see there’s no sun yet and so it must not be that late it must be just before sunrise no it’s 3:33am…

Adrenaline rushes through my veins. Dream dissolves instantly, and I don’t remember what it was, but something in it, or maybe a baby swirming in my stomach, or maybe both, causes me to wake up.

Eyes wide open.

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Motherhood

10 Weeks Until My Due Date

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on 10 Weeks Until My Due Date

My “On Time” baby can be here in as little as 7 weeks. I thought by this point of pregnancy I’d be feeling super pregnant and baby would feel inevitable. But, with the exception of a few kicking/punching parties at regular intervals throughout the day (that I can barely feel), and the reality of the heaviness I feel when I move due to weighing 202lbs when I started out at 168, I don’t feel pregnant at all. I don’t feel not pregnant but I’m not yet at the point where I truly believe my enlarged stomach is caused by anything more than a few nights binging on, say, robotic Oreos that wiggle every so often while being digested.

But, surreal or real, baby is coming very, very soon. Life will change forever. It’s crazy to think that after 34 years of independence my biological clock has me yearning to throw that all away in order to nurture a human life. I’m excited and terrified. I have no idea what it will be like. My maternal instincts, other than being a good listener, are nil. When people hand me their babies, especially very little ones, I typically give them the death stare and they take baby back. I’m afraid of how fragile they are, how little, how much of a person they are (in needing certain things to stay alive) while not at all able to ensure their own survival they are.

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Poetry & Poetrish

Touch.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Touch.

Transparent is the touch felt with greatest intensity.

The sun’s rays tattooing heat onto skin at high noon, or 
a gentle breeze swaying up and down one’s spine, 
lifting a strand or two up and over a thousand times, 
a welcome tickle.

By the seaside, shifting sand so fine,
the particles go unnoticed racing through the air, 
yet a layer of gritty golden dust, in extant exposure,
scratches every ounce of exposed flesh —

much like the

space

between 
eyes 
and 
limbs 
and 
fingertips —

rivers of atoms dancing, 
intercepting two heartbeats
jolting concealed currents 
in all directions

viciously hot, like the sun,
sweetly gentle, like the breeze,
rough in its repetition, like the sand.