I finally got to meet the new baby next door. He's cute. I can't remember his name, but he's really cute.
His mother is a lovely woman, who looked a little tired when I last saw her. This is her second child. The older girl is two and as lovely as her mother. I'm told she's a little jealous of all of the attention the new little one is receiving. Because of this I allowed her to hand me several "crunchy" bugs that I would not normally touch. What can I say? I'm a giver.
I brought a card over, with a gift card for pizza inside. I feel pretty strongly that the mother should get at least some presents after she goes through giving birth. Everyone wants to give the baby something when all he did was show up. The mom does all the hard work and the least she deserves is a night off from cooking.
I said something like, "I told Jason that I wanted to bring this over before, but if anyone had woken one of my sleeping babies I would have stabbed them in the throat." It's possible this is exactly what I said.
She said, "You and Jason did it right. Have twins. Only do it once and then you're done!"
I opened my mouth to say something like, "Well actually, I didn't meet Jason until the twins were 21 months old. We didn't get married until they were five. My first husband left me when I was ten weeks pregnant. Oh and also? I always wanted to have one more but my body is a big dickwad and I could never get pregnant again."
I didn't. I stopped myself. I smiled. I accepted a few more crunchy bugs from the beautiful blond little girl and waved goodbye and went down the block for my walk.
That's my story, I guess. Nothing to be ashamed of.
Also? Nothing to tell.
It's not me anymore. That's not my life now.
It's not necessary to tell everyone everything. I have a really terrible habit of doing this. Especially, for some reason, when I'm at Lowes. For example, at the return desk,
"Do you need this bag?" asked the lady who was processing my return.
"Yes, I'll use it to pick up my dogs poop."
And while checking out,
"Do you work at that company?" the cashier asked while gesturing at my t-shirt.
"No, I borrowed this t-shirt from my dad when I was at his house one day and my nephew peed on me."
I mean, really. Why do I do that?
And why would I tell the neighbor about my past? Maybe if she and I were friends, not just neighbors. Maybe it would come up someday in conversation. Maybe it would be okay to let her know, just for whatever reason.
I don't want her to feel sorry for me. I don't want her to think I'm strong. I really don't want to be defined in any way whatsoever by what happened in my life sixteen years ago.
I just want to be me. I know that all of this crap is part of my crap, but I don't want to think about it every day. I don't want to be defined by it.
I hope that's not weird.
3 comments:
Oh I do the same thing! And I don't know what happened to me, because I used to be a very private person. But just yesterday I practically told my life story to the guy at the cabinet store. :-)
Not weird at all. In fact, I think it's kinda awesome.
Having been through traumatic shit & infertility issues of my own, I completely understand. After much therapy, I think I've figured why I did it (and don't do it anymore). I think when you've gone through something like that, you're almost desperately (even if subconsciously) wanting someone else to understand. To tell 100 people in the hopes that 1 will say, "OMG... I've been there too". And maybe also, it's because we're self conscious because we've done a shitty job at hiding all of this excess baggage that's peeking out all over the place & we feel like we need to explain it. It takes time and acceptance (and sometimes therapy) to realize that you don't have to justify everything. I don't have to tell everyone that kids are 7 years apart because of infertility and miscarriages... I can just listen to whatever it is they're saying (usually something about "Oops"), acknowledge that some people are ignorant ass hats, and move on. Trust me... there were many times when I would launch into the whole thing, which usually left them glassy eyed and speachless, but it's just not worth the effort. My life is my life. Judge me if you want to. People who really care know the right questions to ask. Everyone else can think what they want and then suck an egg.
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