chesneycat

Happy birthday kernowgirl!


Wow, how long have I known you for now? Eighteen years plus a bit, I make it.  I still feel rather embarrassed over the vast discrepancies in our gift-giving that first year - I got a copy of Dragonflight, my first Pern book ever, and you got some coloured pencils from me in return.  Go me!  I suck!

You know, I probably wouldn't know any of the other people on my extended friends list (or MOM, or AMCF) if it wasn't for her, so you can all blame her thank her for getting me started in the fandom.

*raises a glass*

Cheers!

Well, the interview yesterday went okay.  Could've gone better, could've gone a lot worse.  I think I was very convincing with some aspects, but less so with others.  I won't be surprised if they turn around and say 'thanks, but no thanks', in other words - besides, the fact that I'm not an x-ray astronomer automatically makes me a bit of a wildcard.  If I don't get the job, that'll be the main reason.

Staying with Jo and Ben on Wednesday night was interesting, to say the least.  Seeing her, I didn't react as badly as I'd expected I might, though there were of course tears in a few places during the evening.  She's looking wonderful, and at 31 and a bit weeks, pretty enormous.  We talked a lot, and I felt her daughter's back through Jo's tum, but not any kicking/movement.  And all the while, wonderful, wonderful mental disconnections were being made.  We may have shared the same EDD, but I'm not pregnant, not in a position to be getting excited about a new arrival, none of that - and there's nothing like the evidence of your own eyes to kill off all those should'ves.  It'll get easier again once she's born, which almost certainly won't happen on the exact Day of Doom.  More disconnections in the future, anyway.

But there's more.  She's a good friend, and was very sympathetic to how I was feeling... but.  But.  Her empathy could only take her so far, and there was a real, tangible gulf in our mutual understanding of each other.  I'll get to her position one day, I've no doubt of that and I'm in no hurry to gain that understanding - I want to get to step three before I start worrying about steps nine, ten and eleven.  But miscarriage is one of those things that... yes, you can imagine it, sympathise with it, but the reality goes (or can go) so much deeper.  Infertility, too... I think she sensed she'd almost crossed the line when she (almost) implied that I should 'relax and it'll happen'.  I am relaxed, and that won't make it happen, because I do happen to be one of those people who is biologically Fucked Up.  But that's not the point.  The point is, this experience has changed me.  It's brought Jez and I closer together as a couple, and it's made us different people.  I hesitate to say 'better people' - that's a rather subjective thing, really - but I'm leaning in that direction.  Everything has deepened.  I'm still getting used to my new skin, and I find it hard not to react to everything I feel.  How can I describe this?

Hands up if you've read Bujold's Curse of Chalion and/or Paladin of Souls. (If you haven't, they're worth reading. If you have, you'll know what I'm about to say, I expect.)   There's a concept in those stories which goes roughly like this.  The human soul isn't big enough for miracles, unless it goes through a heck of a lot of stretching first.

That's where I am.  I've been stretched.  Unlike the fictional protagonists, I don't necessarily have a miracle waiting in the wings, but I've changed and grown, and I'm quite capable of finding/making my own.  So, when I was hugging Jo goodbye yesterday morning, a little voice in my head asked whether I'd swap places with her, if I was given the chance.  As I drove away, it suddenly sunk in that I was mentally recoiling in horror at the very thought.  Give up all of what I've learned, all those changes, all that growth? I couldn't possibly squash myself small enough, or cut away enough of myself to fit in to the mould of someone who hasn't walked this particular path.   Back in April, before anything happened, I accepted the possibility that it could, and arrogantly asserted my willingness to shoulder it - better me than someone who's been through enough already, or couldn't cope.  Well, that kind of innocence was never going to last very long.  Now, though...

Now, I genuinely wouldn't change a thing.
 

As seen on another forum:

"I guess it's just really lonely to realize that pregnancy is such an open, public display and celebration, while the whole topic of m/c is such a closed, private pain. No one else walking down the street knows about my m/c. No one can tell by looking at me that some very important hopes and dreams died and slipped away at the first of the month."

I still can't face ringing up a university friend of mine, El.  I think her baby will have been born by now, or sometime in the next few weeks.  I don't just want to congratulate her, I want to get back to being a proper friend.  The last time we spoke was after christmas, when I rang to congratulate her on being pregnant, and inevitably I ended up having to explain to her WHY I was breaking down on the phone.  I'm not sure I can face that again, or at least, not right now.

These aren't memories I want to rule my life, or to be the focus of everything I do.

But sometimes I feel as if society wants me to conceal them completely, to lock them away and perpetuate the taboo.

Neither choice works for me.  I can't just abandon the meaning of what I've gone through. And I can't blithely throw my grief in everyone else's faces.  I feel so guilty for not keeping in touch with these friends because of this, but isn't friendship a two-way street? Why should I be the one to make the first move, even knowing what it'll cost me in those first minutes of explanation.

Yeah, I know.  If everyone only went half-way, no-one would ever meet in the middle.  I have to do this.  Just... not yet?

On the plus side, the bleeding stopped this week, and everything seems to be in working order.  Hooray for small blessings.

Last night, we threw a bit of a half-term party.  It was meant to be a BBQ, but the weather was pretty cold and cloudy, so it became an indoors pizza-party instead.  Nice seeing a lot of the teachers and a few of my work friends together.  Everyone was impressed with the size of the garden, as most of the people there haven't actually seen our house in daylight before. Chesney was also a hit, as despite the loud music/voices and a few shouts of "NO!" whenever he got too close to the strawberries and cream, he spent the entire evening moving from lap to lap.  I'm going to spend the next week getting hairs out of my trousers though, and I'm sure everyone else is going to be doing the same.

Weirdly, we found out that two of our friends have just been through the same thing we have pretty much (i.e. post-heartbeat disaster), but about a week earlier, so I probably wasn't the best hostess to everyone else there.  These things happen so often, but it's kept so hidden, except when it's not.  I think they, too, have grown from the experience, and that's what it is.  Just life, and experience.  Nothing to be afraid of.  Anyway, some interesting discussions were had - we agree that a science background can make basic acceptance easier, not that it helps at all with the rest of the mountain.  But the main question was about life, consciousness, souls and all that.  An eight or nine week embryo really doesn't have much scope for consciousness, but the spark of life's there already, and they're amazingly tenacious.  As far as souls go, my totally non-scientific opinion is that they grow out of love.  These were lives worth grieving for, if only because we loved them.

Anyway... the party wound down at about 1am, which was about right seeing as a lot of us are working today, and the teachers are still zonked out from teaching.  I got Jez to drive me in - he didn't drink an entire bottle of wine, unlike myself, and I'd prefer to give myself a couple more hours before getting behind the wheel again.  No obvious hangover yet (aside from a touch of dehydration - why did I forget my pre-bed pint of water? Why?), which surprises me, but I guess I took things fairly slowly over the evening.

Must do it again some time.  Preferably when it's sunnier.

Ah... and the whole fandom debacle.  Well.  I've been following it for a few days on fanficrants and also over at fandom_wank, and my reactions have been a mixture of laughs and raised eyebrows (both of which were heavily tinged with a large dose of WTF? at Six Apart's complete lack of clue), and annoyance on behalf of the groups who really shouldn't have been caught up in the Great Strikethrough.  I mean, they even bahleted serious literature communities, which is getting pretty close to the level of book-burning.  But even so, some of the stuff that's gone and reappeared does make me a little uncomfortable (and by some, I mean a very tiny minority).  Yes, it's fictional, and yes, it's not actively promoting any nastiness, and yes, the disclaimers are all in place.  But I think I see some of it in the same category as foxhunting... the enjoyment that the participants get out of some of the... edgier? journals/communities seems a little too much, and a little misplaced.  To be blunt, some of it is just too... squick, and I'm uncomfortable just knowing it's out there.  But who am I to judge?  There's fanfic porn, and then there's fanfic porn.  Mileage will vary, as they say.   But honestly, wielding the big delete purely on the basis of listed interests?  The sheer stupid of it all beggars belief.

My oldest friend (we've known each other since we were both about 9 years old, when our respective parents were posted in Naples) told me last night that she was pregnant.  It's excellent news, as she was starting to get rather concerned about why it was taking so long.  It's all VERY exciting.  And a little weird, in one very specific way, but I'll explain that another time.