Ghosts and Fairy Tales

It's Tuesday and my period is now, officially, a week late.

Not "oooh you could be pregnant!" late but "you took your last progesterone pill how long ago??" late.

I am a bloated seamonster of a life raft.  If you were capsized off the shore of Malibu with 7 of your friends, I could easily seat all of you on my monstrous body and dog paddle you to safety.

If it doesn't arrive soon, when it does come out I will be able to fully reenact the elevator scene from the Shining using only my vagina. The role of sad, twitchy, horrified, tormented Danny will be played by my husband.

(Source.)

My favorite character on True Blood is a medium.  I've been re-watching my DVDs in preparation for it's return on Sunday, and just saw a whole mess of episodes involving ghosts.

It's funny - no matter who you are or what your beliefs are, you are undoubtedly an expert in the rules of theoretical ghost.

Many-a-time we have all smugly shook our heads at a ghost in a movie or in a book, and thought "dude, you're not the same person anymore, and you're holding on because of a problem that no longer matters and that you can't do anything about. If you just let go you'd be way less hostile and see that there are good things in store for you - everybody knows that, ya Jerk."

So lately I've been wondering at what point in my infertility am I officially a ghost that's holding onto a life that just doesn't exist.

In many ways, I am absolutely already a ghost of the person I once was. There was a time where Knocked up was funny, and not a freaking Greek tragedy.  There was a time when I thought that ultimately, always, the universe's scale would eventually tip in favor of fair. There was a time I wasn't in a total panic that I would hit a certain age, and my personal tragedies would be something so obvious and tangible as being childless that I would constantly have to explain it.  Or at least be aware of floating, unspoken questions.

When I'm being optimistic and determined to plod forward, I don't know if I'm being a woman with an admirable amount of humor and hope, or if I'm some haggard looking, depraved, see-through version of myself that's holding onto something that just doesn't want me and missing out on the things that do.

I've never been one for fairy tales, but my body is starting to feel like the troll under the bridge between Childless and Mother.  No matter what attitude, medication or comedy I bring to it, it is dissatisfied and won't let me cross.  There is obviously, at some point, some intangible shift that happens.  One minute I'm a tap-dancing example of hope on that bridge, but at some point I'll be a petulant child who's wasting time, unable to back away from rejection with some of her dignity intact.  

At what point does hope become blind stubbornness?  Does giving up on a fairy tale happy ending show grace and maturity, or the soul of a quitter?

I'm assuming sometimes there's a point where you have to look the troll in the eye and say, "screw you, if the other side of the bridge doesn't want me, I'm going to rock the shit out of this side".  I wish there was a way to not feel guilty about contemplating that point, like I will inadvertently curse myself like a fabled witch just for thinking it.  I wish there was some way to know when that point is, and to assure myself that it's not coming soon.

I genuinely don't know what or where the difference is between being a woman who is determined to right a wrong in her life, and being a stubborn ghost mourning a life that just doesn't exist, fighting the inevitable and missing out on the possibilities in the process.  Or maybe it's me, being reborn into my life when I give up the ghost of a life that will never happen.

(Source.)

Okay, so I'm a little uncharacteristically gloomy due to hormones. Just because it happens to coincide with my grandparents 69th wedding anniversary, it occurred to me that today it's been a year since my last egg retrieval. I have been listening to far too much Velvet Underground and John Lennon's "God" on repeat for any sane person.

On the upside, I tickle myself?

I was running out the door to go to an appointment, and a religious solicitor caught me by my car.  By my car.  I said "I am in a hurry.  Also, I just believe in me...  Well, Yoko and me."

They were not so tickled.