a testament to my time in therapy

So I started nursing school for real-real last month.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy, even without the added complications of everything going on with Sid, and the acting out from Spagett, and the stress of walking into a giant unknown as Sid is medically retired from the Navy...

I thought I knew what I was getting into.  And I was wrong.

I barely passed my first exam.  BUT I PASSED.  However, on my first summative skills check-off, I failed.  At first, I felt all right about it: I get the chance to redo, so it's not the end of the world, right?  RIGHT?!  But when I started to talk to one of my old professors about it, I burst into tears.  Right there in the middle of a crowded hallway, dressed in my uniform, I cried like a wiener.  It was the culmination of all that's come before: Sid's cancer, everything.  And it went on and on.  I went to see our nursing retention coordinator and sobbed in her office for probably an hour.

One thing she said that really stuck with me was that there are student nurses who come into her office in a worse state than me, and they don't have nearly as much bullshit going on in their personal lives.  She said that I was holding it together admirably, that she actually didn't even know how I was managing the amount of stress I must be experiencing.  I told her it must be a testament to my time in therapy, and she laughed.

I walked out of her office, not exactly feeling better, but feeling as though I wasn't fighting this uphill battle alone.  School has only been in session for a month, and I'm already blown away by the support I'm receiving from my professors - old and new -  and my fellow students.  It's been amazing and humbling and inspirational.

Nursing school isn't what I expected at all.  In some ways it's a lot better, and in some ways it's a lot worse.  I can't even imagine what next semester will be like, and truthfully, I'm trying not to think about that when there's so much going on right now.

to the two gay men in Celebration, FL in '96

I'm sorry.

I know it's been 16 years since I saw you holding hands in Celebration, FL, but I have to admit, I think about you two a lot.  Probably a lot more than is considered normal or sane.  It's just that my mom and her boyfriend said a lot of shit about you guys that I'm sure you heard, and you ignored it.  And I laughed at what they were saying, because I was 12, sheltered and ignorant.

You would be justified in thinking that they were bigots raising bigoted children: I would think that, without doubt, if someone heckled me in such a manner while I was out just living my life.  I assure you, those two adults may be bigots (among other things, which I'm not getting into here), but the three kids you saw have grown to be fairly respectable adults.  We're not without our issues, which is another story entirely, but we're definitely not homophobic.  Hell, at least two of us aren't even religious anymore.  These apples, for the most part, fell pretty far from the tree.

I wish I hadn't laughed.  I wish I had known better.  I wish I could go back and shake my mother by her shoulders and demand an explanation; why did she think it was okay to act like that, to teach that kind of blind hate to her children?  But mostly, I wish I could tell you two that I'm sorry.

What happened that day should never have occurred at all.  Ever.  To you two or anyone else.

I'm sorry.

gender roles

We chose not find out Spagett's sex for one simple reason: we know that if we find out, the family will glut us with heavily gendered toys and clothes. And we simply don't care for that. We think it is stupid and unnecessary. Babies are fairly genderless little beings, and we as parents, we as guardians and family and even strangers, are the ones who push them into assigned gender roles.

Case in point: Sid's father insinuated last night that we were keeping the sex secret from him for some nefarious purpose, then went on to basically say that he could not buy anything for his grandchild until he knew the sex. Because what if he buys a baseball glove and it turns out we have a girl?

Let me just say that he is incredibly lucky he did not say that to me. As it was, it was said to Sid, who chooses to let that kind of stuff fall by the wayside more often than not.

We have a registry, one that Sid and I put together after much discussion over each individual piece. We deliberately left out "gendered colors" such as blue, purple and pink - even though neither of us harbor any particular qualms about dressing a child of either sex in those colors - because we did not want the family to get ideas and make assumptions. We only put two big-ticket items on the list, and the rest were affordable, inexpensive necessaries, all in gender neutral colors: clothes and towels and socks and burp rags and crib sheets and hats. If you are shopping straight from the registry, Elder Manson, there's no need to say that you can't buy anything simply because you don't know the sex of the child you are shopping for! It smacks of blackmail, quite honestly! We made the registry the way we did so that everyone - yes, even you! - could buy what they chose and could afford. We really did have family in mind, believe it or not!

Before we decided to have a child, Sid and I had many discussions about gender roles. If a son of yours decides he'd like to wear a skirt one day, will you tell him no? I wanted to know. If he wants to play with Barbies, will you tell him he can't? What if we have a child who is intersex? Will you choose their gender, or let them make their own choice? Both of us had lots of questions for the other, and we both had lots to say about what was important to us. And in the end, we were in total agreement. I won't even attempt to lay it all out for you, but it boiled down to this: Whether boy or girl or intersex or whatever, our child would not be forced into society's gender roles. We would never be the ones to say "little boys don't play with dolls" or "little girls don't play sports" and try to dictate who they should be, what role they should play.

We know that once Spagett is born, there will be no avoiding the gendered gifts from family. We know it is unavoidable. We know that we are fighting a battle in which we are clearly outnumbered. But we also know that it is up to us as parents to make sure that Spagett will grow up in a home where it is perfectly safe to be a little bit different. And we can do that!

maybe not such a good friend

I've been something of a nonentity online lately. I felt like all I'd be doing when I posted was whine, and bitch, and moan, so I just didn't say anything. There's only so much you can say before you start repeating yourself, right? I felt like a broken record.

Still do.

That friend who was there for me throughout MY EPIC FAIL... well, suddenly she's not seeming like such a great friend. I've mentioned her shenanigans before: now that she's pregnant, it's all she's capable of talking about. And it hurts, oh does it hurt. I told her, I can't even pass the infant department in stores anymore without struggling against tears. So she shows me the crib she's going buy. Seriously, who does that? It's just brutal.

So I'm sitting at my computer, trying to keep it all in because Sid is sitting at his computer right behind me, and she starts sending me a metric shitton of her ultrasound pictures. I downloaded them and put them right in my Recycle Bin, didn't even look at them. She said, "does that look like a girl to you?" and I said I didn't know, rather than tell her I hadn't even given them a glance. She wouldn't have taken the hint anyway.

When she started linking to pictures of the babies born at the hospital she's having her sprog at, saying "they're so ugly, I don't want an ugly baby!" I lost my shit. I told her I had to go and logged off of Yahoo Messenger. For the record, those babies weren't ugly, at least to me. Then again, my expectations throughout this entire clusterfuck have gotten progressively lower and lower: at this point I just want a child to call my own, I don't give a good goddamn what gender it might be, what it looks like, anything like that. It's pathetic and desperate, but she of all people should fucking know what that feels like, considering she's been there her goddamn self.

WHY DO I PUT UP WITH THIS? I keep telling myself that eventually it will be easier, that it cannot possibly hurt this much, and be this difficult, FOREVER. But so far, nothing is getting easier. I still cry every time I talk to her, every damn thing she says cuts right to the quick.

I ranted to Sid about it, and he said he understood, then proceeded to call me a bitch. He was joking, but that showed me that he truly didn't get it at all. As I've said before, sometimes I just want to hear someone close to me tell me I'm NOT crazy, I'm NOT a bitch. I can't talk to anyone about this, only Sid, and even he doesn't get it.

I know this is normal, to feel as though you are the only person in the world who is struggling like this. I know that no matter what I tell myself, or what Sid says, I am not crazy, I am not a bitch, I am not the only woman feeling like she is going to come apart at the fucking seams. But, god, it feels like I am.

sanctity of life, my fucking ass

This pisses me right off. I've heard of the Neumanns, heard of what they did to their daughter, and reading that article made me furious. People think it's okay for them to just sit back and let their child die? People are so afraid of hurting religion's precious little feelings that they don't want to outright condemn the actions of those nuts? Because I have no trouble at all calling a spade a spade, here: the Neumanns are fucking murderers.

Some religious people like to talk about the "sanctity of life" when referring to the cute little eensy aborted fetuses. The baaaabeeeees deserve life! God wants them to live! Look, if your religion also condones letting a born child suffer and die for lack of medical attention, you have no fucking call to be talking about "sanctity of life". Kara Neumann was treated like trash, discarded and left to rot. Where is the sanctity in that? She was a ten year old girl with hopes and dreams and her whole life ahead of her. And her parents shat it away in the name of God. They let her suffer, watched her lie motionless, moaning and unable to speak or move, until she died. And they did this in the name of God.

What makes the Neumanns any different than the parents of Sanam Navsarka? Both children suffered until they died, if for different reasons. Both girls were neglected. Both died because of their parents actions. And yet we will condemn the actions of Zahbeena Navsarka and Subhan Anwar, call them murderers - charge them with murder - but Leilani and Dale Neumann did it for God, did it for religion, so they'll only be charged with reckless endangerment? In my eyes, they're equally culpable.

There is no sanctity in neglect, no sanctity in murder. And no sanctity of life, judging by the actions of the Neumanns.

the firing squad

Sid's Christmas party is fast approaching. I've decided that I'm not being nice: if any of the other wives want to talk to me, they will refrain from asking (yet again) about The Manson's Continued State of Childlessness. And if they are unlucky enough to want to broach the subject, I'm not afraid to tell them OH, MY KID? FLUSHED IT DOWN THE TOILET. HOW'S THINGS WITH YOUR SPROGS? I suspect I'll be the life of the party with a sunny attitude like that.

You know, in the military, having a kid really is kind of a status thing for the wives. It's the one thing they all have in common, the one thing they can safely talk about when they secretly hate each others' guts... so where does that leave me? I don't want to tell them if they ask, but I'm sure they've heard: it's why Sid was sent home early from that hurricane bullshit, after all. They know.

I hope to FSM they have the good sense not to open THAT can of worms at the fucking Christmas party. Because if they do, well, I'm going to make damn sure it's the most socially awkward moment of their adult lives.

this is why I stop at one glass of wine

My mom is a raging alcoholic. She will get shitfaced and say and do things that no healthy, sane person does when sober. Recently, she propositioned my sister's fiance during one of her drunken episodes, and this has sparked much drama. She is a diabetic, she does not need to be drinking like this: no one should, first of all, but for someone who is supposed to be strictly monitoring their blood glucose, this is definitely not okay.

This, all of this, is the reason I do not ever get shitfaced. I will not be my mother all over again. I'm like her in a lot of ways, but in this? I refuse.