Catching Up, 1.

I'm trying to catch up on old thoughts from this last year that I want to remember.  I don't have much time for writing these days, but I'll try to hit the big moments that I don't want to forget.  Which for me means that the next few posts could follow the format of, "I was down on myself and then..."  Bear with me if you want to.  It's been quite a year for me.

ON BEING PREGNANT...AGAIN

This last pregnancy of mine was difficult in a holy-heck-what's-happened-to-my-brain sort of way.  With that same slow subtlety that a belly starts bulging in pregnancy, I felt distraught girl creep into my mind and then expand her space until normal me (?) had been squished into nothingness in the corner...

which is a great time to visit family I think.

Every couple of years Spouse-the-Tall's family gets together in the mountains of Utah and eats, plays, talks, takes pictures and such.  The last time we'd all joined up I spent my mornings running up and down the mountain road.  I was fit and firm and ready to PR in a half-marathon a week later.  This time me and my lumpish middle stayed back at the lodge while Spouse-the-Unpregnant hiked up Timpanogos.  He called me from the peak with top-o'-the-mountain glee just oozing from his larynx.  He told me he wished I was up there with him.  I couldn't even respond.  After he hung up, I went into a room by myself and cried.

I'd been privately combating anger at him for weeks.  I felt anger at my kids.  I felt anger at my friends.  I felt anger at slow people, fast people, thin people, chubby people, people who like books and those who don't.  The only thing that kept me smiling was habit.  That and maybe the squished part of me balled-up tightly in some obscure crevice in my mind that was trying to shout in it's own Polly-Annish way, "Hey, that person is real nice, just great in fact.  Maybe you should relax a little!"

But Distraught Girl didn't wanna listen.  She wanted to run.  She wanted to go for a hike in the mountains.  She wanted to do something adventurous by herself in her sleek, strong body and not come home for a week.

I was spiraling and not up into the stars.

Then I saw my sister-in-law standing with her baby during a lecture at the lodge.  I offered to take him.  Quite frankly, I'd been eyeing him for a while and pretty much knew that I needed him.  We walked out of the room, he and I, and into the hallway.  I bounced him lightly in my arms and looked at his eyes that looked like my own kids' eyes. 

And that was it.

Holding that baby, that warm, soft piece of innocence, made me remember why I'd given my body and freedom away six years before.  When my sister-in-law eventually found me and took her baby back I truly didn't want to let him and the first feelings of peace I'd had in months go.  But it ended up being okay.  He was kind enough to leave me with a good thimble-full of hope.  And hope does wonderful things against anger, let me so testify.

I think I'll always look at her boy and feel grateful.