I just tried to go to sleep. I put my laptop away, told Sammy and Molly it was time to go "nigh-nigh," then padded into the bedroom, where Drew was already laying down, watching TV. I climbed into bed and snuggled with him for a while. He fell asleep spooning me, and I laid there, blinking in the dark, listening to him snore in my ear. I had to wake him up briefly to escape his grasp. I grabbed my book and came back out to the living room to read and drink a glass of milk. Both have been known to help me evade insominia a time or two before.
I just read these words:
"...I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that? The thoughts came up as usual--OK, so it will be--and then the attendant emotions rose, too. I began feeling frustrated and judgmental about myself, lonely and angry. But then a fierce response boiled up from somewhere in the deepest caverns of my heart, and I told myself, "I will not judge you for these thoughts." -Elizabeth Gilbert, from Eat, Pray, Love
They were a comfort to me--and quite pertinent after my post of only an hour ago. It seems I continually beat myself up for my thoughts lately. Maybe it's just completely fruitless to do that, because are we really able to control them? Am I doing my body more harm by trying to fight against them more, instead of just thinking them when they enter my mind? I think it is a good sign that I sit here and brood and obsess about the "possibility" of still being pregnant. Even with the negative test results of last week, I guess I still must have some glimmer of hope. It's good to have hope, but I think I fight so hard against any of these thoughts, because they have betrayed me so often in the past. Why hope? Hope only leads to disappointment. Yet it still pops up--still comes back, with a vengeance, after I punched it down.
Maybe I should just embrace the hope I feel now, until I get the next set of test results, then embrace the disappointment and sadness I feel when I receive them. Embrace each emotion as it comes, based on the current situation, and not try to squelch it. I've been feeling such a need to "protect" myself against hurt and disappointment that I think I am starting to make myself sick. And is it really worth it, anyway? Am I really any less sad or disappointed if I hadn't had any hope? Not really. I feel bad either way.
I guess there's no way to protect myself from feeling devastation. I want to make the pain go away and not come back, but I have to come to terms with the fact that it just isn't possible. I can't remember what I was reading or watching the other day, but a quote I "heard" really resonated with me, "These are the cards you were dealt, so just play your hand." Maybe the cards I was dealt are not what I would have preferred. Maybe these cards aren't going to allow me to get where I've always wanted to go in life--toward being a parent. But, I have to deal with them. It hasn't been an easy journey so far, but there are others out there whose journey has been even more wrought with difficulty than mine has.
I need to play this hand the best way I know how. But I guess what is difficult is that I don't know how. I'm learning as I go. And I guess, through this, I need to have more patience with myself. What a hard balance to find...I go back and forth between self-loathing for being so self-involved right now and remembering I need to practice self-love and patience because I'm so fragile emotionally right now. I wish I knew how I was doing.
For now? More reading, before I try this sleeping thing once more.
-Em
