It’s Like, Well, Yeah

A lot has been going on! I moved. Really liking the place. We’re going to be comfortable here, I think. Yes, I said we. Jack came home Wednesday!! My baby is back. I’m mama again. He’s been in bed for over an hour and I can hear him upstairs singing and whooping. I am so in love. His little face is the best thing in my world.
Crappy thing is — he’s upset about being away from his dad. He’s in a new home, adjusting to being back with me. And now I have to send him to my mother’s for the next few days because his daycare doesn’t begin until the 22nd. I feel awful that he has to be away from me when he should be getting used to his new home and getting into his new routine. Hopefully he’ll feel alright.

So big problem. I overspent. Like wayyyyy overspent. Don’t know how I’m going to make it through the month, but I’ve got to try! Putting anything possible on my 21% interest rate credit card. (No. Not joking. It’s really that high. I’m really that stupid. And it’s really my only credit card.) I still have to pay insurance (health & auto), daycare, auto registration, college loan, etc etc… An assload of rent on the first… Hope everything will be ok. I should get my bonus in September, so even if I have to live paycheck to paycheck over the summer (something I’ve NEVER had to do–ever), by September I should be fine & back on track. Financial anxiety is the worst kind of anxiety. Starting July 1st, I’m going to keep every reciept and track where all my money is going. I’ve never done it, and I think I need to. I wonder how much I spend on medium regular Dunkin Donuts coffees every month. I shoud probably do some positive vibration work with finances too! Maybe that will help.

Aaaand, I don’t even want to talk about last weekend with P right now. I don’t know if that’s going to happen any more. Not sure I can keep doing it.

And what’s with all these auto commercials using kids? I don’t get it.

What is it with these men? Last night I went over to the base club. My internet wasn’t yet hooked up (it is now), and the club has free wi-fi access. So my Mac & I went over there to cure some boredom. It was surprisingly hopping over there last night. I later found out that there was a Navy recruiter’s seminar for the last 3 days of the week.
So I’m sitting there, minding my biz, chilling on facebook & dlisted. I see some guys look over at me a couple of times. Well, one of them eventually approaches me. He asks me if I’m bored. I reply that yes, I am. He says then he came to the right place. So we chat for a while. His name is Steve. He has a one year old son who he adores, and another baby on the way in December.

We chat for a while. He gets me to almost immediately friend him on facebook so I can join his mafia (which I don’t play). It was a lot of small talk & chitchat. Then eventually it got to where he wanted me to go home with him. He tried so hard. I must have turned him down 25 times. He said he thought we would have fun together. I asked him what kind of fun we could have that he doesn’t have at home? He got really quiet. Didn’t really want to talk about that. He said that he & his wife don’t have sex very often. Quarterly. I feel for him, but, I don’t see as how this is my problem.

And frankly, I’m somewhat offended that he would see me as the kind of girl who would go home with him after knowing him for all of what? Two hours? Maybe.  Had he been single, honestly, I would have given him my phone number. He was attractive. Nice enough, although, he would say something, then after I repeated it back to him, he would change his mind. He did this a lot. It was kind of annoying after a while.

I’m kind of toying with the idea of going over there tonight just to play… should I?  And also. What do I have a sign hanging over my head, “Married? Inquire here.” Why aren’t I attracting nice single men that I am also attracted to?

Ok I’m going.

**He wasn’t there**

For some women, it’s devastating. Finding out you lost precious life. The potential for it. Creation.

For me, finding out is confusion. I don’t know how it would have affected me had I actually realized it at the time. And now, I can’t say for sure if I suspected what was going on and chose to deny it… or if I truly didn’t know. It’s weird saying it out loud.
I had a miscarriage.

I definitely knew something strange was going on. I also knew I could not–COULD NOT–get pregnant with him. I mean, I physically could, but I couldn’t let that happen. But I did–we did–even if it was only briefly.

My doctor told me a large number of women miscarry before they even know they’re pregnant. I suppose I fall into this category. I knew I had pregnancy symptoms, but I brushed them off as bad PMS. Even though I don’t typically get pms at all, never mind bad pms. The cramping. The swollen nipples. Something odd was definitely going on. And I ignored it. I sat in a steam sauna capsule and heated myself up to 118 degrees almost every day. I drank too much alcohol during that time, too. Something was tickling the back of my mind — be careful Cheryl. You could be pregnant. But I ignored the little voice. I did what I wanted to do.

There’s no way to know what caused it. Could have just been organic reasons. It typically is. Whatever the reason, I’m not pregnant anymore. I miscarried. Is it bad to feel thankful? Had I stayed pregnant, I would have stayed pregnant. I of course would have accepted the consequences and accepted responsibility for what I had done. Even if I would have to go it alone, which I likely would have. But I’m not in that situation. Things either worked right or didn’t work right, depending on which way you look at it.

When you play with fire, you’re likely to get burned.

I hope it was organic reasons and nothing I did. I got a birth control prescription from the doctor today. This kind of episode likely won’t happen again. In time I will hopefully stop reflecting on it. It’s all so surreal.

It couldn’t have been scripted more perfect. Except for that “perfect” wouldn’t exactly be how I remember that night. It was 10 years ago now. I was just 18 years old, about to leave for Air Force boot camp. I can’t remember now whose birthday it was, but I’m pretty sure it was somebody’s birthday. I drove down to my friends, Kristin & Kerry’s apartment. I only got in one minor collision on the way. I was almost there, too. I stopped at the local BK for some food, and on my way out of the drive-through, I got trapped in line, and someone backed into the front end of my Pontiac. It wasn’t even my car–it was my mother’s.

Well, I finally made it to Kristin’s. We were all sisters of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority. Several of the sisters were there. Someone invited some guys over, but it was just us girls for a while before they arrived. I don’t remember much before the guys arrived, but I remember quite well when the guys did arrive. There were only 3 or 4 of them–to our 10 or 12 girls. 10 or 12 apparently very horny girls. I watched from the couch as the boys were mobbed. One was slightly more mobbed than the others. He stood in the center of their circle, looking a bit bewildered as my sisters attacked him. They commented to him at least 14 thousand times in 2 minutes that he looked just like Pacey. You know, Pacey? Joshua Jackson? From Dawson’s Creek? He told the girls his name was Mike. But the girls insisted he be called Pacey. I watched from the couch, somewhat embarassed that my sisters were so ferocious and insistent.
Mike looked over at me and caught my eye. I grinned a “sorry” towards him. And then like something out of a movie, he put his arms out to move the girls aside so he could get through them. He approached me and sat down on the couch next to me. “Hi. I’m Mike,” he introduced himself to me. The looks on my sorority sister’s faces went from the kind of excitement you get from a puppy at the pet store whose cage has just been opened, to that of utter disgust. Their upper lips curled. Their eyes narrowed. And they dispersed. There were other guys here anyway, right?

Mike and I talked pretty much all night. The only part of the conversation I remember was when we were in Kerry’s room, laying across her bed. We found a list she had created. It was a list of no less than 50 attributes her future boyfriend had to have. Mike and I read through her list, and he demonstrated each of those qualities, whether he possessed them or not. His sense of humor. His hairless chest. His sensitvity. Etcetera, etcetera. He was adorable. He was charming. And I… had sincerely zero interest in him. I had a mission. I was joining the military, and I could see no reason to get caught up with any guys, no matter what they looked like, or how charming. And I was serious. Anyone who knows me personally knows how serious I can be when I am being serious. Seriously.

After a while, Mike and I went outside for some reason. We sat on a couple of stones beneath the bathroom window, talking. Then he had to pee. He got up and walked off into the wooded area behind the house.
That was the last time I ever saw Mike. I don’t know where he went, but I didn’t wait for him to return. As I had sat there waiting for him, two of my sisters entered the bathroom over my head. The window was open and I could hear them clearly. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I had already been sitting there, and they were a little bit loud. And the window was directly over my head.
“I don’t know what Pacey sees in Cheryl,” one of them bitched.
“Oh, I know, he could do so much better,” the other remarked.
My eyes grew to the size of saucers. I couldn’t believe my ears. Weren’t these girls supposed to be my friends? I had paid my dues the same as them last semester! Literally! They didn’t know I was sitting out there, hearing their every word. But I sat there and listened. And when they finished peeing and bitching about me and Pacey-whose-name-was-actually-Mike, I got up and stood in the front doorway. I glared at them as they came out of the bathroom. I didn’t say anything, but I wanted them to think that I had heard them–which I had in fact.

I was so upset. I didn’t even care about Mike. I didn’t make him talk to me. I was just being myself. I didn’t approach him. I didn’t try. I didn’t want him. I didn’t kiss him. I  just treated him like a person.

I rushed into my friend Kristin’s bedroom in tears. She was just getting into bed with her boyfriend. I announced to her that I was leaving, that I couldn’t bear spending the night in the same house with those sisters who dared to call me friend. I told her what I had heard. Kristin really was my friend. She sounded as hurt as I was. She insisted that I stay the night and not drive the hour home. She said I could sleep in her room, where no one else but the three of us would be allowed, and I could go home in the morning. And that’s what I did. And I never saw Mike again. And I hoped to never see those sisters again, either.

A few months ago, one of those girls from the bathroom friend requested me on facebook. I really considered not accepting her request, still bitter about the whole thing. And honestly, I never did really jive with her even before that night. We both had the same big sister in the sorority. I think she felt sibling rivalry or something. Maybe she felt like our big sister should love her more, being her first little. But I was her baby sister. (And I was cuter.) But I accepted her invitation anyway. Maybe she would see what a kind person I was. What a good life I have had the past 10 years. I posted a photo that had the other sister from the bathroom in it. I’m sticking my swollen tongue out, showing my shiny piece of tongue jewelry. She was laughing. I used to argue that we didn’t buy our friends when we were in the sorority. I argued that we would have been friends even if we didn’t have to pay dues. But maybe I was right for a different reason. We didn’t buy our friends. They were never our friends, with or without the money.

Too proud to say I miss you.

Too afraid to feel it.

This is the flower I got for my mother for mother’s day. I came “home” this weekend. Wanted to get some good sleep. And I did. This morning, I woke up before 7am feeling fully rested. When was the last time that happened? So I got dressed and went for a walk. There’s a trail that runs along the backside of the property. I don’t know how long the trail is, but it was a beautiful morning, with the sun filtering through the spring foliage. I’m thinking of leaving to go back to Chicopee early so I can stop along the way taking pictures. I saw some photogenic areas along the way here — I took a different way home. But my mother has invited some family over today, and so I wonder if I will be able to make it out before dark. I hope so.

It’s strange having mother’s day without without my child in my arms. Soon, though. And I don’t think I could ever let him go again. Kevin thought this time away from Jack would help me find who I am. What I discovered was that…

I am a mother.

And there’s no one else I would rather be now.

I wasn’t going to do it, but I did it anyway.

I applied for — and got — base housing. $1400 a month for a 3 bedroom, utilities included. There seems to be a lot of kids in the neighborhood, which I’m glad for, for Jack. It’s on a dead-end street, and it’s about 2 minutes from work. I think I’m going to have to get some potted plants to spruce up the front. Maybe a wind chime? What do you think? I can’t do so much since I’m renting but… this looks… pretty bad. I am glad it’s an end unit. And it has a garage and basement.

Jack is coming back to me next month, so it looks like I’m going to have a place for us to live. I’m SOOOO excited. I got my application for the Air Reserve Technician job I’m going for. I decided I’m going to go for my bachelor’s in web development rather than graphic design. So I’m going to hopefully be taking more classes as I work full time. But at a much, much slower pace than I had  been at. Heck, I may wait until 2010 to start even. Get some quality time in with my baby boy. Go on some New England hikes. Take some New England pictures. We aren’t far from Connecticut and upstate New York (I think). We should have a pretty good time adventuring around. Last week I got a GPS so that I could do things like that. I want to feel confident finding my way around this new place I’m going to be living.

SO! A great new life is up for grabs!

Tomorrow marks the end of a very long 7 weeks. I’ve spent the last 7 weeks here in Mississippi, at Keesler Air Force base. Overall it’s been a good experience. I’m pretty happy with my decision to be back in the Air Force. I’ve met some great people while I’ve been here. Firstly, Cheryl.

I love this woman. If there was one person I could bring home with me from this tdy, it would be her. I feel like I could honestly tell her anything, anything, and she wouldn’t judge me negatively for it. I think she is an exemplary mother and wife.  She is patient, she works hard, is so intelligent, and very, very beautiful. She has a stunning smile, and she smiles with her whole face. I want to be like her.

Then there’s Sabrina.

I admire Sabrina. She is another woman I desire to be like. She is so free. So smart. She isn’t afraid to be a woman. To stand up for herself. She isn’t afraid of living. And it sounds like she has. She is the life of the party. Wild. Free. I could learn a lot from her. I’m excited because she wants to set me up with a long time friend of hers. I don’t know what I’m more excited about — meeting that man, or getting to spend more time with her, in her life.

And Joy.

Oh, Joy. I love the way you think. I love your emotions. I like the way you feel things. I wish that things were better for you at home. There is so much spirit inside of you. I want him to hold you, to breathe you, to love you. I can close my eyes right now and see your smile, and hear your voice. I wish I lived near you, and we could be close friends. You are adorable, and I am definitely keeping a piece of your spirit with me.

And of course, J.

J, you drove me crazier than anyone here. But I wouldn’t change a thing about you. You fascinated me. If it wasn’t for you, I know I wouldn’t have laughed nearly as much as I did. You are a great story teller, and I feel lucky to have met you, and to have been friends with you. Even if it was only a 6 week friendship.  I envy the people who get to be part of your daily life. I wish I was one of them.

Those are just four of the people I am happy to have met here. Those are four fabulous people. They are largely the reason I love being part of the Air Force. The AF gave me the opportunity to meet these people from all over the country (GA, PA, ID, CO), that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. But it’s also the harder part of being in the service. Having to say goodbye to those people. Cheryl, Sabrina, Joy, J… I’m truly going to miss you. Joy & J have only been gone a week, and this place stinks without them. Truly. I say goodbye to Cheryl and Sabrina tomorrow, but hopefully not forever.