Miscarriage.

Nothing and no one can begin to prepare you for a miscarriage nor for the permanence and absolution that comes with the loss. At 5 1/2 weeks pregnant, there is very little to honor the tiny existence that represented a lifetime of hopes and dreams inside of me. All I have are the tears and the blood that I shed as the windows that looked out into my family's future shatter before my eyes in little pieces, leaving behind the realization and the painful reminder that so much of this life is completely out of my control. 

This baby was a she in my mind. She was due on April 1st. She would have been a springtime baby, sharing a birth month with my husband and learning how to smile right around my 40th birthday. My son Jude was going to have a hard time watching me nurse another child and we would have to work through that. Jude would be about ready for a regular bed and we would pass his crib on to her. Her name would have been Esme. I knew all of this from the beginning, that's how much blind confidence I had in this pregnancy, and I feel foolish and ashamed at times to have been so cocky, to have believed I was immune to losing her.

On my way home from my doctor's office, I played over in my head the heart-wrenching ultrasound and the conversation that followed, "it doesn't look good," she told me, softly and kindly, "that is not a 5 1/2 week old baby, it appears as if it's going away, but you're smart, you'll know, only time can really tell." 

I walked through a Whole Foods with a mask on my face and bloodshot eyes, trying to track down a box of sanitary napkins as I felt my baby slowly come out of me in little pieces. When I passed by the flower section, I stopped and stared at the orchids. It quickly dawned on me how badly I needed something living, something besides my tears and my pain, to honor my child. I could've taken the pristine white one, but, hidden within its shadow, stood a smaller version of it, in muted shades of purple and yellow; one that appeared as if the colors were fighting to come out but never truly would. 

At night, I laid in bed, crying and holding that stupid fucking plant, wanting my baby back and knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. This is miscarriage. Loss. Powerlessness. Silent mourning beneath the covers, gripping onto our pain. Trying to breathe beneath the flood of whens and whys; the flashes of moments in the weeks leading up to it that might have caused our bodies to betray us like this; wondering what we might have done, where we went wrong. Wating as the dream of the child inside of us slowly falls out in clots and cramps and bright, red agony. It is vacant, empty, diminishing symptoms and fading visions that brought so many smiles to our faces in the weeks leading up to it. It is unfair. It is ambiguous and confusing. There is no over-the-counter urine test you can buy that indicates a miscarriage. We don't get to know so much as we get to be reminded of its presence with every trip to the toilet and every sharp pain in our abdomen. 

This is a mother's burden; our love is equal to our pain, we can't have one without the other. We absorb the flaws of nature as our own, we blame ourselves no matter how often we're told not to. We bury our sorrow, our shame, and sometimes our own children with it...and then we move on, and the world around us is none the wiser. My heart aches for myself, my husband, and for every mother in this world who had to say goodbye to a tiny little dream and who had to silently carry with them all of the sadness, shame, and anger that comes with such a loss. 

This morning, I officially passed my little girl. I dug her out of the toilet and examined her remains, holding in the palm of my hand the placenta and the collapsed amniotic sac, knowing somewhere inside of all of that, was the tiny little seed that would have one day become my baby. When we're ready, my husband and I will bury her and our dreams of the life we would have shared together under a tree near the lake, where I imagined we would have family picnics, and we'll say our goodbyes. I'll go back to selling real estate and Paul will return to his electrical work and I'll look at our son, Jude, and our two basset hounds and be reminded of our blessings and the aching in my heart will slowly subside. Because that too is miscarriage, it's moving forward, it's gratitude and acceptance, it's the reality of how beautiful and harsh this life truly is. 

For this moment though, I will mourn and I will dedicate this piece to my sweet Esme, the life that never got to be, but will remain in my heart until I can one day be reunited with you again. 

Confessions of a Well-Meaning White Woman

I am ashamed to say this on paper and publish it for the world to see, but I've seen so many of us well-meaning white people saying, "we have to be better." Improvement starts with admitting where we have fallen short, so this is my confession, this is where I've fallen short.

Yesterday, I was called out by one of my black girlfriends on Facebook for posting images of police taking a knee during the protests. In my mind, I thought the images signified hope, but my dear friend brought up two very specific points, neither of which I had even considered up until that moment. One is the conviction that it's a PR stunt, and two is that it negates the validity of the negative feelings and fears that black people have against cops. The first reaction I had, which I kept to myself but mulled over for quite a while was, but what if it's not a PR stunt? I know she's angry but maybe some of these cops really care. My second reaction, as my heart thumped and my hands shook with discomfort was to apologize then delete her, because the child within me wants to run when faced with the challenge of having to look at myself honestly and accept that my deep-rooted actions and beliefs have caused harm to an entire race.

But then I read her comment again, and again, and again. I stared out my car window, parked outside my apartment, considering her words and the gravity of their meaning. It was then that I realized I may be far more blind to reality than I'd like to admit. I began to think about how often throughout my life I would hear about a black person being beaten or killed by a police officer and how, every time, I thought to myself, he/she/they must have done something to provoke it, cops just don't go killing people for nothing...right? I believed in equality and justice, but I clearly didn't see that I was giving preferential treatment to my fellow white people while ignoring the cries for help from the black community. It was with this thought that I had to accept that I have spent a good portion of my life, living beneath the protective veil of white privilege. I might have believed myself to be against racism, but I was propagating an opinion that was immersed in it.

Of course, this narrative didn't begin with me, it was everywhere; my family, the news, teachers, the parents of friends. It didn't begin with me, but for a very long time, I didn't question it either, and, therefore, I perpetuated it. I grew up in a suburban bubble where officer friendly came to our school once a week to visit us and my white friends were buddies with their parole officers in highschool. I worked at a local bar when I was 19 and served beers to the boys in blue at the end of their shifts and, for the most part, they tipped me well. They were always kind to me. They let me go when I cried my way out of speeding tickets. They comforted me when I got in a car accident. They turned up the volume on their radio when I rode in the back and was escorted home. These guys would never. The problem is that I failed to consider that they would just never do it to me, or my white friends, or my polite white parents.

Being a well-meaning white woman, I believed I wasn't part of the problem. I received an excellent education and was raised with compassion. I believed that because I didn't discriminate and because I welcomed people of all color into my home, that I was not racist and had nor ever would be a contributor to racism. But the fact is, when my friend said to me, you're negating our fears and experiences, you're propagating a lie, I was both devasted and shocked. I would never do that! This is her anger and frustration speaking! But that's the problem, I never really listened and when I thought about it, I knew she was 100% right on all of it. Posting pretty pictures of sympathetic police officers was basically telling the world there isn't really that big of a problem. As a white woman, I have failed far too long to listen. The black community has been screaming for help for centuries and up until now, their cries have fallen on deaf ears. It took smartphones and social media to open my eyes to these realities and that is a testimony to how privileged I truly am, it is a testimony to how very little I have actually listened.

I am not proud of this part of me nor the fact that I've carried it with me into my adult life and, although I can't turn back the clock or any of the damage I've done, I can educate myself and I can listen. Change starts within each of us. It starts with recognizing and admitting the harm that we've done and the pain that we've caused. I will never know what it's like to live in black skin, but my eyes and ears are open. To the black community; I see you; I hear you; I am with you.

Pre-Natal Musings

Paul was always meant to be a father, myself, I'm not so sure. It's not that I don't enjoy being a mom, but I need to come up for air far more often than he does. He's down there exploring and I'm down there drowning.

I try to picture us with the easiest of lives. No Jude, no Oliver; just him, myself, and Simone. Maybe Paul would have never been too torn up about growing old without a child of his own since he never knew any different. But, watching him now, our current life together, leads me to understand that it couldn't have happened any other way. In a sense, we've both evolved. I've learned not to take myself so seriously. Paul became Jack fucking Pierson. We're definitely both happier, but with far less time and resources.

So here I am sipping wine and eating sushi, enjoying a metaphorical "last supper" as I'm going to call it. My IUD was removed this morning and we're going to start trying immediately for number two. I've been back and forth on the idea of it for quite some time, but the final decision came to me the other day while I was writing. If something happens to Paul and me, I don't want Jude to feel like all he has it his extended family, siblings drive one another absolutely crazy, but they also need each other. I want Jude to have an abundance of love from as many angles as possible. I want him to be truly known by more than just myself and Paul. Paul always knew he wanted more than one, there was never a doubt, he wants a big family. He wants to study our children and their every move and expression from the eyes of someone who is both thoughtfully brilliant and madly in love with his subjects. I could watch him all day with Jude if he didn't get so insecure by my doing so; his backward hat; slender fingers; the curve of his forearm muscle as he stands, hand on waist, watching Jude with amusement, his half-smile revealing so much more to any observer who's ever legitimately adored a child.

Luckily, Paul still looks at me with the exact same amusement and adoration, which still surprises me since everything about who I am as a wife and mother is completely unconventional. He tried so hard to convince me in our 20s that, like myself, he didn't want marriage or children either. I held to that belief well into my middle 30s. It wasn't until we called off our wedding and went into couple's therapy did I start to feel my undying love for this man. I was, for so long, angry and terrified when it came to him, anybody really. But it was when I let him see me, really see me, and he began to let me see him, really see him, that I began to understand raw and authentic love. It wasn't long after that we were married and pregnant. Of course, this is a rough synopsis and there is a lot more meat and guacamole in that taco than I'd care to dive into. But yeah, I wanted to build a family with him, to create a unit, where we would always have each other.

I've been riddled with anticipation and anxiety since my doctor yanked that IUD out of me (I still don't understand why she wouldn't just let me do it myself out of the comfort of my own home, a glass of wine and a little bit of marijuana can work wonders on DIY medical procedures). The fact is, Dr. Axelrod, during a virtual check-up I had with her at the beginning of the week, basically told me to piss or get off the pot, in far gentler terms. At nearing 39 years old, she kindly reminded me that although we don't know when COVID-19 will die, we do have a pretty solid idea of the life-span of a biological clock. So, there we have it. I'm going to try to get pregnant in the middle of a pandemic.

Paul and I did put the cart before the horse a little bit. Most people would hope to own a home before starting a family, by doing so, things like Murder Hornets and a deadly virus infecting the world's population would not affect us so horribly, as I've now grown to realize the benefits of a backyard and ample space for each of your cohabitants. But that's not the direction we took. Bad decisions triggering bad circumstances triggering bad decisions; a large chunk of our adult lives was the embodiment of the domino effect. Truthfully, I don't know what came first, the decisions or the lousy circumstances. But I can say that even as a Realtor, I still stare in awe at the young buyers I work with, preparing to purchase their first home. I want to meet their parents, I want to shake hands with the brilliant people who managed to screw those heads on so perfectly. Are they in matching, plaid, GAP shirts? Or maybe one is sitting in her study writing an essay for the latest Harvard Psychology Textbook, while the other is preparing his final testimony in a social justice trial. Whatever, they definitely aren't my parents. It's not that I'm saying these kid-buyers have all the answers or are making the kinds of decisions I would have even wanted to have the privilege of making in my 20's, it's just the fact that they have the option.

I do believe that we have the ability to raise loving and compassionate children. We may not own a big home and our debt to income ratio is pitiable, to say the least, but we have very attainable goals as parents that we both hold true to our hearts. We want to ensure that our children know love and compassion and that their dreams are properly supported. For me, personally and most importantly, is that they grow up bearing witness to love, forgiveness, and vulnerability. I want them to view as many resolutions as they do arguments between Paul and me since my siblings and I were never given that as children and I grew up believing violence and abandonment were the answer to every relationship problem I was faced with.

These are my hopes for my family. Financial stability, a large home, and getting out of quarantine would all be pretty rad too, but I believe all of that will come in time.

What in the Actual Fuck

Yes, I'm stoned. Because that's what mothers do! This evening, I literally had to pin my 20-pound son to the ground with my legs just to get him to stop moving long enough to let me put his damn diaper on. Seriously, this is not easy. He lost his running-around-the-house-naked privilege two nights ago when he pissed in 5 different places, with one of them being on our living room window. The cord to the blind was saturated in urine. When I discovered the puddle, my 18-month-old son hopped off the radiator and ran into the kitchen. I began wiping it up and shortly after started to wonder where Jude had gone, why was he so quiet. Then I saw the first of multiple tiny turds near our bookshelf, I Hanseled and Greteled the little crumbs of shit as it lead me into the kitchen where I discovered a low key, but still shocking pile of poop near my son's foot. I lifted my head and we locked eyes for only a moment before he picked up his knee and stomped his foot directly into it. I screamed and ran over to him, lifted him over my head, and beelined it for the bathtub, only to discover, en route, my 7-year-old basset hound eating each individual turd on the floor, licking his lips in between.

What the actual fuck is this? They said it would be hard, that I was prepared for; but my son's shit being licked off the living room floor by my dog's tongue; the violent wrestle with a little beefcake, literally 1/10 my size; me singing "I Will Always Love You" as I imagine throwing him out the window while he kicks me in the knee cap repeatedly; none of that I could have ever been prepared for.

Oh, but he is cute. He smiles and giggles at the most outrageous moments; My husband's offensive wit; A loud belch after a quick dinner; Oliver getting hit in the ass by a bouncing rubber ball. He growls, coos, whispers, but doesn't speak yet. Motherhood is the biggest cluster fuck I have ever experienced. I love him, hate him, resent him, adore him, battle with him, and, sometimes, hide from him in the bathroom just to breathe and reset before facing his twelfth temper tantrum of the morning. At the end of the day, I need a cocktail, within an hour I miss him, and I can't help but sneak into his room, risking waking him, just to stare down at his limp little body, sleeping soundly in his crib. I talk about him, almost nudging his name into completely unrelated topics just to chat for a moment about his tiny butt, his big belly, and his gut-wrenching smile.

Seriously, what in the actual fuck is this?

Making Him Beg; Because, You Know, That's What Grown-Ass Adults Do

Quarantine brings out the worst and best in me, that's a lie, it absolutely only brings out the worst in me. Paul and I have been on a three-day fighting bender with just enough time to recover from one before the next one begins.

Two nights ago I got angry with him because I decided to stay up and watch a movie and he had been looking forward to having the night to himself. He began questioning me about why I was staying up; I thought you were trying to catch up on sleep; wait, you're watching a movie, I thought you weren't going to watch TV all week. I kindly asked him if he was looking forward to having time alone, with all the sweetness and sincerity I could muster in order to bait him into answering honestly to which he replied, yes, a little, I like having the place to myself sometimes. And that was the end of it. I scooped up my things, told him I didn't want to be anywhere I wasn't welcome and went straight to bed. The next day was riddled with ugliness and drama.

You should have talked to me about going to bed late and prepared me, we had a plan! 

While you cancel your plans all the time, at least, for the most part, I do what I say!

It was literally just one big vile shit show between two clearly overgrown teenagers. In the end, we begrudgingly sat on the bed, cross-legged, with our heads down, mumbling apologies for every stupid thing we said to each other.

I'm sorry I made the jacking off comment.

I'm sorry I told you that you should stick with a bedtime. 

I'm sorry I yelled at you and said you were a manipulative liar.

I'm sorry I was such a dick to you.

Honestly, this should have been the end of it, but you hurt the pride of a woman such as myself and it never ends there. He told me he loved me and I gave my final speech for the evening.

Paul, I am a prideful woman and I made you a nice dinner last night and ordered you new shoes and in return you made me feel like a burden in my own home, so from now on I am going to come straight to the bedroom after we put Jude down until I feel safe to spend time in my living room with you without fearing I'm not welcome.

I'm cringing at the recollection. So, of course, he did what any slightly unnerved husband might do, he went into the living room and blasted my favorite movie on TV, the music of Quentin Tarantino chimed through the cracks of my bedroom door as I fought not to listen and to continue with my resolves.

This morning, after a strangely great night's sleep filled with dreams of bringing down Don Draper and giving myself a shag haircut with a pair of craft scissors, I sipped my coffee and realized what a fucking child I am. I actually want my husband to become pierced with such extreme loneliness that he eventually comes into the bedroom begging for me to come out and visit with him, the kind of plea that's gift-wrapped in promises of never being so foolishly misguided again. I don't honestly think these things in my brain when I'm concocting my little plans, I swear to God I don't. It's always the clarity later that brings a plethora of eye rolls and mortification as I slowly begin to realize that I am actually far more calculating and immature than I give myself credit for. Until I feel safe to come back into my living room. For the love of God is that not the most dramatic thing you've ever heard from a wife who is adored by a stupid and sometimes selfish but wonderful man?

I'm sure that I'll be on my couch watching Inglorious Basterds by the end of the day, for now, I just have to get up the courage to peel myself off the bed and face him with a smile of surrender. We are definitely both idiots but I am without a doubt, the most prideful and vindictive of the two of us.

2020 is Still Our Year

After speaking with others, reading posts, and the many virtual gatherings I’ve had with friends and colleagues, I’ve grown to realize that, much like myself, there are many out there who feel devasted by the current circumstances; so many dreams appear to have been shattered; financial goals deferred; significant life events canceled. We’ve been forced to both mourn our losses and celebrate our lives in isolation for something that we don’t understand but greatly fear.  I have learned through both humor and tears, that, on some level, we all feel as if we’re suffocating beneath the weight of this uncertainty.

Like so many of you, I believed that 2020 was “going to be my year.” This was going to be the year I made a name for myself in the Real Estate industry, the year I bought a home for my family, the year my husband and I went on our first vacation since 2018. Jude would attend his first Cubs game, visit his first water park, and go to his first music festival. I share these sentiments not to separate myself from the rest of you, but to let you know, I’m right here with you.

It’s recently dawned on me how very fleeting timelines and schedules can be and that I desperately need to change my perspective on what this year means to me, my family, to all of us really. This will not be the year we thought it would be, but that does not diminish its significance. This will be the year where our character and resilience are challenged, both as a people and as individuals. We are, quite literally, being forced to be still with who and where we are in our lives. We have nothing but time. As one of my dearest friends recently put it, “when do you ever really get this chance and how do you wanna come out? Why not emerge differently?” 2020 is now our year to reacquaint ourselves with the parts of us that have long been neglected, it’s our year to learn how to be still, to uncover the little treasures of opportunity that pop up along the way, to be more creative with our goals and ambitions than we’ve ever been in our lives.

2020 is the year I’ll finish the two children’s books I started back in 2017. 2020 is the year I will finally learn to play the piano. 2020 is the year of gratitude towards those closest to me as I begin to realize more and more the true power and grace of human connection. 2020 is the year that my husband and I come together in a challenge we’ve never been forced to face before as we collaborate on how to help get one another’s needs met in spite of our current limitations. 2020 is the year I learn how truly resourceful we can be.

Yes, I’m scared, I hate uncertainty, I can’t stand feeling powerless and, frankly, being quarantined inside a 900-square-foot apartment with an overactive 18-month-old is kind of my own version of hell, but this can still be our year. It’s not about lowering our expectations, just restructuring them.

As long as a tree lives, it grows no matter what obstacle stands in its way; when faced with a barrier, it may need to deviate from its natural course, to bend, stretch, and curve, but it never ceases to grow. Keep growing my dear friends, we’ll make it through this, sending my love to all of you.

Salvation

I find myself reflecting a lot lately on salvation and how lifevests are thrown to us in unfamiliar forms, from unfamiliar places.

I never wanted kids and I never gave a damn about real estate. Now here I am, a mother of a 1-year old boy and a Real Estate Broker. I so obstinately stuck with the path I firmly believed I was meant to be on that my tunnel vision blinded me from every opportunity that came my way and led me to believe I was destined to suffer.

I'll start with my son because he is where everything began. Although, let me just say, my testimonial to having a child is my experience and mine alone. By no means is any of this to say that people should have children to fix their problems or that those who choose not to will be faced with limited solutions to their problems. Get that shit out of your head fast because it's a mindset that will set you up to fail.

Two days ago I was nursing my son on the kitchen floor because that's motherhood and children are natural opportunists, and my sweet and curious little boy reached up and took a little grab-a-grab for my right sideboob with his two, tiny little fingers. At a point in my life, this would have devastated me. Having spent a good portion of my youth struggling with a severe eating disorder, I saw no humor in saddlebags and muffin tops or the dreaded sideboob for that matter. But I had to laugh when I felt his sharp pinch, especially after the continuous reassurance from my husband and sister that they "don't see it."

There's something to be said about the all-consuming force that drives family life. The am I thin enough and am I beautiful enough line of thinking has been replaced by does he weigh enough and is he happy enough. I can no longer sit for hours trying to figure out who I am, what my purpose is, and how I'm viewed by the rest of the world and I have to say, I never imagined it could be so liberating. I believed I would be giving something up and it terrified me, but my mind was a black hole that swallowed up every self-centered fear and negative belief that came way. Yes, I was so self-centered and had no idea I would be saved from my own railing narcissism by a child. I never went into motherhood with the belief that I needed someone to change me, but I also did not understand how badly I needed to change.

So here I am, still actively working on myself in therapy, twelve pounds above my comfort weight and making money doing something that was not in my big plan. Granted I still want to write and still dream of writing something beautiful and honest one day that will maybe rock one person's world, but for now, I sell Real Estate and I'm paying off my student loans, planning vacations and contributing to a college fund for our little dude. This is what drives me now, it's not glamorous or Instagram worthy, but in its own special way, it's fucking awesome. Stripped of the vanity and the shackles of the childish belief systems I clung to as a means of defining my existence, I was gifted a purpose in a place I never expected to find it, here in my home, among my two Bassett Hounds, my curves, my husband, my fine lines around my eyes, and my beautiful, beautiful son.