Week 6

   Well, Week 5 went OK, but Week 6 is going to need some work.  I skipped a day last week because I was going to help my sister-in-law move and figured I would need the energy, but in fact I didn't get to load the truck (for various complicated reasons) and I was only able to pick up a couple of things in the unloading process due to the fact that I was driving myself and had to stop to pee FOUR TIMES!  So, so much for that expected workout. 
   This week, though, I haven't made it out yet.  I know we're only two days in, but I'm gonna have to step it up tomorrow.  I actually got up early today, though, so that's progress.
   I haven't worked on the novel outside of planning -- making an outline and kicking ideas around in my head.  I have been engaged in a creative pursuit, however.  Recently, we were given a bed which I tried to refinish but instead decided to paint and use the headboard of the gifted bed in the guest room.  Hubby and I decided to build a platform out of the drawer section of the gifted bed, but alas I had to figure out what to do for a headboard.  I decided to take panel from the headboard off our old bed and paint it.  I gave it a muted gold over black background and painted a cherry blossom branch on top of that.  I have stained it, and all I have to do now is spray some acrylic sealer on it and add trim to the edges and it will be done.  OK, so it's not my novel, but I have felt pretty happy with the process and the results.  Since my daughter was born, I haven't really had many chances to do anything creative, outside of homemaking (cooking new things and decorating and organizing the house).  It hadn't occurred to me how much I missed painting and drawing... honestly, the artistic side of me was really stifled by being in relationships with artistic types.  That might sound like a cop-out, but I remember one of my boyfriends and my ex-husband both belittled my artistic endeavors.  I'm really blessed to have the husband I have now.  He believes in me and supports my decisions no matter what.  If I want to work, I can; or if I don't, I don't have to.  If I want to take classes, I can.  If I want to make things, I can.  I know maybe that sounds like how things are "supposed" to be, but I am so thankful to be in a relationship with a man who allows me to be whatever I need to be whenever I need to be it.
   Many times in relationships, we humans allow ourselves to become stifled by the relationship.  I know I'm guilty of this, but at the end of the day the only person you can't get away from is yourself; and if you can't be happy with that person, you can't be happy with anyone else.  I honestly really feel like I'm hitting my glide path in life.  I keep peeling back layer after layer and am finding the "real me."  Yes, that sounds cliche, but it's true.
   Even though I would have given anything to keep the pregnancy I lost earlier this year, I feel I'm a better person for having had the experience of miscarriage.  I know I'm more compassionate now, but now that the fog of depression has been lifted I am finding out more about what this life is really about.  I listened to the hell out of The The's "Phantom Walls" after I lost my baby.  By some crazy stroke of fate, I had CDs in my car and chose to play The The's NakedSelf album.  I have had it for years but never really listened to it.  I thank God that I came across the album and this song in particular.  It literally helped me survive one of the lowest periods in my life.  The lyrics of the song (found at http://www.lyricsfreak.com/t/the/phantomwalls_20136207.html) are as follows:

"Phantom Walls"
Sensed but unheard
As the curtain softly stirs
It is not just a memory
But it lives and breathes
Watching over you whilst you sleep
Kneeling beside you when you weep

Hey, don't be afraid
Don't try to run away
Because pain can be your friend
As it explains

The answers to your questions
Consoles you in blue reflections
Listens to your soul's confessions
Then leads you in new directions

So open your heart again
And feel the walls dissolve
Something's whispering to you
It's time to let go
Because the only thing that stays the same
Is that everything must change
Everything must change

Hey, embrace your pain
You cannot run away
And pain can be your friend
As it explains

The answers to your questions
Consoles you in blue reflections
Listens to your soul's confessions
Then leads you in new directions

And all the while that you were waiting
For love to keep the light from waning
It's pain that stops the heart from hating
That cures the mind of hesitating
That helps the soul in separating
From everything that it's been blaming
Everything's changing

   You can listen to the song at the following link: The The Phantom Walls on Youtube

   I guess I understood before this latest tragedy that pain is instructive.  As other humans, I've had no shortage of pain in my life... deaths, difficult childhood, divorce, etc.... but the miscarriage was easily one of the two worst things that ever happened  to me.  The other was my grandma dying right in front of me after a panicked drive to the local hospital back in 2002.  For various reasons that I won't go into right now, I thought I wasn't gonna get over that shit.  I'm still not quite over it.  Mostly, I just miss that lady, sweet Grandma Betty, so badly.
   The miscarriage, of course, was painful in a different way.  I was so excited about having another baby, and was already daydreaming about names and my baby girl being a big sister.  I was tracking the baby's development on a BabyCenter app and had taken to sleeping with my hands cupped over my womb, cradling the child I would soon know.  When I, my mom, and daughter were in the darkened room looking at the screen during the ultrasound, I knew that the baby didn't look right; so, when the doctor broke the news that mine was not a viable pregnancy, I wasn't completely shocked... which is not to say the air wasn't sucked right out of me... which is not to say it did not explode my whole universe.   
   The doctor told me that I could either wait to miscarry naturally (which could take a month or longer), take misoprostol, or get a D&C.  All I have to say is thank God for misoprostol.  You can read more about the drug and its uses on the National Institutes of Health's website. I got a paper prescription because I wasn't certain if or when I was going to get it.  By the time my husband got home, I decided that there was no use in continuing to be pregnant if my body wasn't nurturing my baby any longer.  Prior to actually having a miscarriage, I never really understood that you experience postpartum depression with a miscarriage just as you do after you have a healthy baby.  So, you have all the bullshit that comes along with having a baby, only you have no baby.  Not only was I grieving, I was experiencing a full-on hormonally induced emotional meltdown.
   Though I've experienced depression and required treatment with Prozac years ago, I was very much in denial about being depressed this time.  I guess part of me thought if I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, I would eventually feel better; but needless to say that didn't happen.  I would feel better for awhile and then worse for awhile, but even when I was feeling "decent" I was not my usual self.  Enter Life Version 4.0 Beta.  I knew if something drastic didn't change, I was going to have to go on meds.  So, here I am six weeks later... running two to three times a week, having nearly completed a painting for my headboard, and having developed what I think will be a very good idea for a novel.  All in all, I'd say that's a good first six weeks.  I can't wait to see where the next six weeks take me.