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Am I crazy?
Jan. 24th, 2013 04:22 pmI'm hungover, it's a cool morning in late September, and the floor has just fallen out from under me. At first it swells up from below, threatening to devour me like some beast. It's just the floor, the same cold hard tiled surface it's always been, but today everything is different. Today my tiny apartment, and it's cold hard tiled floor are trying to swallow me whole, and I almost wish they would.
"Mom! My sister wont share her kitty!" my younger daughter wails from their combined bedroom, but I'm not in the mood to play judge and jury over their latest war, I mumble something about being there in a minute, and they go back to wrestling over a toy neither one of them cared at all about yesterday.
I love my kids, more than everything, for years everything, every thought, every endeavor, every minute was about them, their needs, what was best. I walked out of my marriage because my husband, their father, didn't want them, and I couldn't imagine a world without them. I struck out on my own with no money and no life skills to try and build a life for us, a home, and every minute that followed for years after, was a struggle. The lights went out when I couldn't afford to pay the bills, when the job I had wasn't nearly enough to keep us all fed and clothed and cared for the way we needed to be. Finally now 4 years, 3 jobs and another failed relationship later I've found a recipe that works.
Yeah it was hard to get my head around taking my clothes off for money, how do you go from breastfeeding, baby-wearing, nerdy little secretary, to pole dancer, bar waitress? It was an adjustment, but after that first week where I made more money in 3 days than I had in the previous 3 months, it was an adjustment I learned to live with. Before I started working in one, I'd never set foot in a bar, and I was the girl who thought 3 glasses of wine was really excessive drinking.
Excessive drinking, like those tequila shots two weeks ago, what did I have? 10? Oh god that was stupid, the kids were away at a sleepover and I was out with the boyfriend, and we knew the bartender, Megan is a gem of a girl, but man, 10 free Tequila, I was looped!
I knew the next morning the sex wasn't a smart move, two weeks since my last period. But come on, I mean couples TRYING to get pregnant only have a 25% chance of conceiving on any given month right? I mean certainly the powers that be would forgive my one indiscretion.
Which brings me back to now, my life. I love my life. I have a job I'm good at, an enviable figure, I make enough to support my family without any hand outs. I have fun, and friends and a boyfriend and a life I love. I've built this house of cards on this job that I alternately love and hate, I drink too much, it's always a party when you work in a bar, but I'm not going to do this forever right? And without this job my life was crumbling. I will get out of the bar scene, when I'm ready.
I've moved up in the world, mostly out of the stripping and more into the bar-tending, Megan taught me, she was a great teacher, but you still have to dress the part, lingerie and heals, full make up, you have to watch what you eat, stay in shape.
So looking back down at this stick in my hand, with it's two pink lines, the world starts spinning again, the floor threatening to swallow me whole. I finally gather the nerve to say it aloud, just slightly more than a whisper, "I'm pregnant.".
If everything I've done for the last 4 years has been about my children, taking care of them, making the best for them, providing for them, if everything has been precariously balanced atop this job that is the antithesis of motherhood, I can't be pregnant.
But I am, and I can't honestly see myself not keeping it, I always wanted a third. Am I crazy? Probably, but I'm going to try desperately to make this work.
Edit 01/26/2013:
It's worth pointing out, that this is from the perspective of my mindset in September of 2011, baby Grace was born May 12, 2012, and has been nothing but a delight. Sometimes those moments in life wherein you feel you whole world is ending turn out to be wonderful new beginnings.
"Mom! My sister wont share her kitty!" my younger daughter wails from their combined bedroom, but I'm not in the mood to play judge and jury over their latest war, I mumble something about being there in a minute, and they go back to wrestling over a toy neither one of them cared at all about yesterday.
I love my kids, more than everything, for years everything, every thought, every endeavor, every minute was about them, their needs, what was best. I walked out of my marriage because my husband, their father, didn't want them, and I couldn't imagine a world without them. I struck out on my own with no money and no life skills to try and build a life for us, a home, and every minute that followed for years after, was a struggle. The lights went out when I couldn't afford to pay the bills, when the job I had wasn't nearly enough to keep us all fed and clothed and cared for the way we needed to be. Finally now 4 years, 3 jobs and another failed relationship later I've found a recipe that works.
Yeah it was hard to get my head around taking my clothes off for money, how do you go from breastfeeding, baby-wearing, nerdy little secretary, to pole dancer, bar waitress? It was an adjustment, but after that first week where I made more money in 3 days than I had in the previous 3 months, it was an adjustment I learned to live with. Before I started working in one, I'd never set foot in a bar, and I was the girl who thought 3 glasses of wine was really excessive drinking.
Excessive drinking, like those tequila shots two weeks ago, what did I have? 10? Oh god that was stupid, the kids were away at a sleepover and I was out with the boyfriend, and we knew the bartender, Megan is a gem of a girl, but man, 10 free Tequila, I was looped!
I knew the next morning the sex wasn't a smart move, two weeks since my last period. But come on, I mean couples TRYING to get pregnant only have a 25% chance of conceiving on any given month right? I mean certainly the powers that be would forgive my one indiscretion.
Which brings me back to now, my life. I love my life. I have a job I'm good at, an enviable figure, I make enough to support my family without any hand outs. I have fun, and friends and a boyfriend and a life I love. I've built this house of cards on this job that I alternately love and hate, I drink too much, it's always a party when you work in a bar, but I'm not going to do this forever right? And without this job my life was crumbling. I will get out of the bar scene, when I'm ready.
I've moved up in the world, mostly out of the stripping and more into the bar-tending, Megan taught me, she was a great teacher, but you still have to dress the part, lingerie and heals, full make up, you have to watch what you eat, stay in shape.
So looking back down at this stick in my hand, with it's two pink lines, the world starts spinning again, the floor threatening to swallow me whole. I finally gather the nerve to say it aloud, just slightly more than a whisper, "I'm pregnant.".
If everything I've done for the last 4 years has been about my children, taking care of them, making the best for them, providing for them, if everything has been precariously balanced atop this job that is the antithesis of motherhood, I can't be pregnant.
But I am, and I can't honestly see myself not keeping it, I always wanted a third. Am I crazy? Probably, but I'm going to try desperately to make this work.
Edit 01/26/2013:
It's worth pointing out, that this is from the perspective of my mindset in September of 2011, baby Grace was born May 12, 2012, and has been nothing but a delight. Sometimes those moments in life wherein you feel you whole world is ending turn out to be wonderful new beginnings.
