Sick Thanksgiving

I guess it was a good thing I didn’t have a new placement just before Thanksgiving because I was really sick. I spent nearly all Thanksgiving day in bed and paid the price when I forced myself to go to dinner at my aunt and uncles house. I slept from 6:30 pm until 9 am the next day. I felt better Black Friday but to play it safe, I stayed home and read a book in my pjs all day. Not really what I wanted to do on my long weekend vacation, but you’ll have this now won’t you? I keep hoping that the volume of calls I got last December for potential placements would be the same this December, but still my phone remains maddeningly quiet. I think I have fairly given up on getting a placement before Christmas and expect to be waiting well into the new year. With the paltry placements I have been presented, I think my wait could be extended for many months to come. In my feverish dreams, I saw tiny baby’s and, like a twisted Roesch blot, I saw the form of an infant sucking it’s thumb in a shadow during the pastor’s sermon at church on Sunday. It’s safe to say I have baby on the brain. If only these images would morph into a real baby and end my tiresome wait. There are two placements of sisters I am waiting to hear about still but I guess after a few weeks with no updates I give up hope and resume my laborious wait for my baby.

 

So, I have been kind of seeing someone. I know this blog is about infertility and chasing my dream to become a mom and not about my love life (or lack thereof), but I also use this blog as a sounding board for myself, so here goes. We met through match.com. He was in Montana at the time (so let’s call him Montana) working on harvesting fields of wheat, but he was originally from PA, not too far from where I live. We began talking via the match.com website, then exchanged email addresses and finally phone numbers to text. We talked on a near daily basis the entire month of August, September, and October. He had originally planned to come home the end of September, but he stayed to help his cousins (he was living with them) in their business since one of their workers got hurt. He came home in the middle of November and we went out twice – once to Panera just to talk and once for dinner. He is polite, kind and thoughtful and we always have a nice time when we go out, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on, that bugs me. And I worry that it is me. Flaco has been gone, long gone, and good riddance – most days. I wouldn’t take him back no matter what he promised because finally having distance from him I can see him for who and what he is – a narcissistic, self-centered, over-sexed asshole. I loved him, wholly and freely and with total disregard of other’s opinions of him. Falling in love with Flaco was easy and fast. Now, nothing seems to be easy. Montana is very careful to never mention the future and he never makes any promises of what “we” can do, he plays it safe at every turn. To be fair, he was hurt too. He was never married, but he was engaged and he moved to Ohio to be with her. He worked for her father and even stayed on for over a year after they broke up – that is until her father hired the new boyfriend. He had bought a house in Ohio which he finally sold, after having renters, while he was in Montana. Maybe I just don’t know how to date. I never really did it. It’s not like Flaco and I ever went out to dinner and a movie in Nicaragua. And I didn’t date in high school or college either – I just never found anyone who was interested. I guess the thing I can’t put my finger on is fear. I’m afraid I will get hurt. Just like the adage about getting back on a horse after getting bucked off or you will never ride again – once bitten twice shy. Just like waiting to adopt, I need to be patient and let this thing unfold into whatever it will be. I will say, that Montana is the nicest guy and least creepy guy I’ve met from a dating website. I guess I just wish he wasn’t as hurt as I am, so that at least one of us could be coming at this thing whole. But, I guess at our age, that isn’t likely. Part of me wishes we could just fast forward past all this awkward getting to know you stuff, to the part where our relationship is comfortable, like a good pair of jeans that are broken in to fit perfectly, rather than the starchy new ones that don’t want to bend to the curves of your body. We’re starchy. And I get the sense that, hurt or not, he moves cautiously, whereas I charge ahead like the proverbial bull in a China shop. So, we will hopefully be going out again on Wednesday and see where this goes. He doesn’t yet consider us boyfriend and girlfriend. It’s like trying on a pair of shoes you like a half dozen times before deciding to buy them. I don’t think he’s decided he’s buying anything yet. Here’s an example – the day after I was sick he text me and said that he thought about sending me flowers but didn’t know if I would like them or if it was too early for that…. And, another example, when he told me he would be alone for Thanksgiving because his parents were going to a wedding in Missouri and would be flying out on Thanksgiving day, I said my parents always had a standing invitation for any friends of mine that would like to join our family to celebrate. He declined, saying it was too soon. Sure, meeting family on a holiday when everyone is there and in rare form, could be daunting, but we are all pretty inclusionary so to us it makes sense. Me personally, I would rather be with someone than alone during the holidays. But, his 16 year old brother stayed home with him, so he wasn’t totally alone (and I realize here that I should mention he does live at home with his parents but in a part of the house that has been converted into an apartment and he is the eldest of 7, his youngest sister is only 13 years old!). He offered to help me put my Christmas tree up and I think I will take him up on this offer because I have never done it by myself. I thought about not getting a tree again this year, since I’m the only one living in the house, but I really want to be in better spirits this year and I just love love love love love the smell of a Christmas tree in the house. Plus, despite cramping an already cramped space, it is cheery to have a tree all decorated and lit up. I’ll put some garland and lights outside too and have a merry little Christmas. I can’t live in the shadow of what happened forever, it’s time to shake off the hurt and pain and just jump back into life. I can’t live my life waiting for something good to happen, I have to make the most of every day I’m given and find the happiness in small things and joy in simplicity. So, bring me some figgy pudding and a white Christmas!