The Dark Can Be Lonely When We're Together

Today my wife told me that she's been depressed lately thinking about the baby.  I sat with her on the couch and listened but in my head I was thinking thank god!  I don't know if it's because I was relieved that I'm not alone of if because I could tell she's been down and now she's opening up again to me.  Recently I've seen her acting down but I couldn't get her to tell me what was wrong.  That's so frustrating for me because I hate to feel shut out.  Part of that is my fault.  I know that at times I do the typical male thing and try to fix problems when all she wants me to do is listen.  Now I think she doesn't want to tell me about what's bothering her unless there is a possible solution or some new information.  The reality is that I do want to know what's going on or I fear the worst.  I think at times men just need to be told, "I need to talk and I don't want you to try to fix it or give me advice."  I don't seem to know when it's that kind of conversation until I've already upset her by throwing my thoughts at her.  I don't like that I do that. It's just a compulsion.  I told her that she can always talk to me even though she may think it will bring me down.  I hope she does.  Sitting in the dark can be lonely if we don't talk.

It All Feels Pointless

Everything just feels pointless. I work my ass off at my job but I don't feel like it matters. Best case scenario, I make more money. So what. I don't have a family to support. My wife makes enough to support herself if she needs to. I make enough to live in a decent place and buy the things I want to buy. As I thought about my life and the direction I was going there was always a family in the plan. Now what? Do I just go on like this forever. What meaning is there to my life if I don't have anyone to remember me. Now I just feel like I'm going through the motions everyday. I remember when I felt present and that was enough for me. I could wake up and just enjoy the day. Now I'm constantly aware of what is missing from each day. Even the good days don't seem to be enough.

I've been in a little better mood lately. It may just be because of the better weather or perhaps I just needed a little distance from all of those bad memories of March. No matter what it is it still isn't enough to make me forget. When my wife and I were out shopping today I had another baby staring at me. This happens a lot. In fact it happens so much that people who know me have mentioned it. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the way I look at them. Most people get this look of excitement when they see a baby that I'm sure they become accustomed to. The look on my face may be different and perhaps puzzling. I don't know. Seeing babies is still hard for me. I wish it wasn't. I have to be ready to spend time with my new niece in July. I don't want it to make me sad. That would not be fair to my brother and his wife not to mention my niece.

One Heck of a Bobmshell

My wife doesn't want to have kids. That's what she said last night anyway. We haven't talked about it much after losing the baby. She's scared to get pregnant again and that I knew. This conversation was different. What she actually said was that the last few days she has been thinking about it. This surprised her because for the past year she's been thinking that she doesn't want kids. Then she added that she's probably just feeling that way because her period is starting and she's emotional. Her statement was so matter of fact that I didn't know how to respond. I do want to have kids and I didn't know that she had already decided that she didn't want to try again. We tried for several years before she actually got pregnant and now she acts like she's given up. I would feel better if she didn't sound so rational when she said it as if it was a logical position. It makes me think feeling of maybe wanting kids is going to pass. It worries me that I didn't already know this. Major events in a person's life will change them. Know I'm starting to worry that this is changing us in different directions. I've been working out more, meditating, watching what I eat and anything else I can do to exert some control over my life. She has been partying more, searching for a full time teaching job less and focusing on anything fun. I'm acting like an old man and she's acting like college student. I hope we both find our ways back to the middle.

The Squeeky Wheel

I remember sitting in that dark room staring at the monitor for the ultrasound. This was the second time that we had done this. During the ultrasound the technician said, "Huh." My eyebrows lifted as I tried to figure out what the concern was but she just went on working. Then came another, "Huh." This time she typed some notes into the computer. "What's wrong?" I asked a moment before my wife could get it out. "Nothings wrong," she said with a strange emphasis on the word wrong. I recognized this emphasis because it's the same one I would use when my wife asks if something she cooked was bad. "Not bad.....just not as good as usual." (I love her to death but she has truly butchered some meals.) After the ultrasound was over and she was getting an exam from the doctor we mentioned something about it. He shrugged it off as no big deal. This being our first pregnancy we didn't want to come off as worrying irrationally so we didn't push it any harder.

A few couple weeks later my wife's water broke. We still aren't sure what that was about. Perhaps it was nothing but can't help but feel guilty. Maybe if I pushed harder for answers or made them look harder this wouldn't have happened. I wanted to believe that there was nothing to worry about and now I don't have a baby. Maybe I should have worried. I hate that my fear of seeming irrational won over my fear of something going wrong over the pregnancy. Later we were told by another doctor that it would have been treated differently if it was a high risk pregnancy. High risk pregnancies would be ones where the mothers had health issues, drug abuse or two previous miscarriages. Why can't all pregnancies be treated as high risk? This was just another procedure to them but it was the world to me. That sounded to me like saying I don't lock my door because I haven't been robbed enough times. Perhaps if I had been the squeaky wheel I could have gotten us more care and they would have caught something.

I Feel Violent Today

I feel violent today. It's a side of myself that I hate. When I was in my early twenties I could go out to a bar and find myself in what I thought was the right side of a fight. That's a little tougher now that I'm in my thirties. Today I went in the back room at work and just started punching empty boxes. To be completely accurate all but one was empty. There was one that I just thought was empty. It turned out that there were glass bowls inside. My knuckles are still red. There aren't too many socially acceptable times to be violent. I'm still waiting for the random mugging by a guy with just a knife or to walk into a robbery in progress but so far no luck. It feels like I have a huge amount of rage to get out of my system. Deep down I know that it won't go away by punching but it's the only thing that seems to fit. I don't really want to hurt anyone. I really wish that I could hang my punching bag up in this apartment. We do have a garage so perhaps now that it's getting warmer I'll buy a stand.

I Wish I Had Someone To Blame

It seems that there is always a new type of reminder to endure. Perhaps when I get through all of them I'll be able to just be myself. Last night I went to an Applebee's at the request of a friend that is an assistant manager there. All I needed to do was sit there at the bar and make sure that the bartender was ringing up every drink she served. The manager thought that was giving free beers to friends when they weren't looking. Easy enough. The problem came for me when I overheard the conversation of the three ladies to my right. They were all nursing students who were in their final stages of their education and were working in hospitals along with nurses. Then they started to talk about babies at the hospital. The detail of their conversation brought back far too many bad images. I tried to ignore it but Wednesday isn't exactly a busy night at the bar. I sat there alone just listening. After a few minutes I could feel that familiar anger coming back. This time I was angry at myself. Why can't I just let go. I know I'll never forget but really small things pull be back into the darkness and I'm tired of it. There are worse things that have happened to people than this. These girls were just having a conversation about their jobs like anyone would when out with friends. Why did I start to hate them? It was just for a split second but I could feel it starting. They didn't do anything to me. I guess I wish I had someone to blame. Now I have all of this hate and anger without a target.

Trnsformed For Nothing

When my wife told me that I was going to be a father I was thrilled. We had been trying for a while and it seemed almost unreal to hear that she was finally pregnant. Then I freaked out. I am not usually one to worry about the stereotypical gender roles but the need to become a good provider was overwhelming. Generally I discount the evolutionary argument for behavior but I couldn't help but think that this was hard wired into me. That week I became more assertive with the vice president of our company looking for answers about the promotion that she had been dangling in front of me for a year. I also started cutting expenses like I was throwing water out of a sinking ship. My whole outlook changed. It was amazing how strong those feelings were. Now what? I opened up a large space in my life and now it just sits empty. I feel empty.

Laying In The Bed I Made.

I'm sitting here at the computer because I feel like I have to get something off my chest. The problem is I'm not sure what that it. My mind will go too many places at once. It's hard to push it out in any single stream of thought. I have a lot of thoughts that I really don't want. For example, I'm angry at religious people. This doesn't make any logical sense. I don't believe in God. I never really have. Since I don't believe in God I don't have anyone to be angry at for this random act of nature. So I suppose I've become angry at all religious people as a substitute. Let me add that the hospital that we went to was a catholic hospital. When we found out that the death of the baby was eminent we had to wait for an "ethics committee" to decide if they could induce. 5 days of wondering what would happen while people discuss our situation based on their beliefs and not ours. Then the day of the delivery we had nurses pushing us toward decisions based on their beliefs and not ours. Oh and lets not forget that when we finally were able to pick up the pictures a few weeks later then we were told that they'd be ready, we had to go to the chapel to pick them up.

About a month ago an ex-employee of mine invited me to a wild game dinner at his church. I knew that I might have some issues but I appreciated the invitation. He usually goes with his father but his father but due to a major heart attack his father couldn't go. I went. It was no surprise that there was going to be a sermon involved. I don't believe in God but I do agree with the more universal moral points of Christianity so I didn't think it would bother me. What I didn't expect was the whole thing being about the miracle of childbirth with an in depth play by play of the birth of each of his three children. If I did believe in God this would have put a damper on our relationship.

The other thing that I'm preoccupied by is the fact that my wife is out with her best friend tonight. I still worry about losing her and being all alone. Maybe it's just that for the other shoe to drop feeling that many of you may know. To make things worse it was that friend that my wife was out with the night she cheated on me. It was our first year of marriage but I didn't find out about it for another year. She slept with a guy that she knew but didn't even like. This is another pain that I've been thinking about a lot lately no matter how much I don't want to. It was a long time ago and neither of us are the same people we were back then. I don't have any logical reason to believe that she would cheat on me again. For some reason dealing with the loss of our baby has brought this back to the front of my mind. Every time she goes out with friends I go to that dark place. Why can't things just be simple? The funny thing is that I know worrying about this makes me act like a person that I don't want to be and I can't help but worry that it's also a person that she won't want to be with. I wish I could just let go of all of this anger.

My eyes started to water as I wrote that last part. I wish I could actually cry. Why can't I cry?

Oops!

I've mentioned before that I'm worried about losing control of my anger. This past Sunday I did. Not violently. I just said something to a customer that I would normally never say. She was complaining to me about our prices and wouldn't let me get a word in. Then my mouth opened and out came, "Then don't shop here." Naturally this didn't diffuse the situation. I've been teaching people to run retail stores for 10 years now and I don't ever remember including that in the lesson. I know the lady was being extremely rude by the supportive comments I received from other customers after she left but it isn't like me to not have control over what comes out of my mouth. The next morning I called my boss to tell him what happens in case she calls in a complaint. He just laughed. Then he told me that he thought it was going to be worse by how upset I seemed about it. When I started the conversation with him I said that I said something I shouldn't have to a customer. I guess that made him think that I cussed somebody out. Nothing happened from all this but I didn't sleep at all Sunday night.

What I don't get is why am I so obsessed with self control. People make mistakes all of the time but when I do I feel like something horrible is going to happen. I can't help but think that this past year has shown me how little I can control in the world so I just want to keep a grasp on what I can. I gave up on trying to control other people years ago so that just leaves myself. Now I'm so distracted and moody all the time that I don't feel like I can control me either. Man I feel screwed up! I just want to get up, go to work, spend time with my wife and go to bed. Why does all of this other stuff have to get in the way of just having a normal day?