No, it's not. It's a wild, scary, messy, and personal ride, especially that first day after
bad news. And I'd hesitate to write about the details of it here, except that I'm so afraid of the
faucet drying up. So why not? Here's a play-by-play report of my Sunday:
10:30 I'm waiting for a call from the RE, but turn off my phone while at a church service. It's a small service in someone's home. I'm able to focus on it only because I don't have much hope about what the RE will say. Mostly, I'm numb. I've been through this before.
11:30 Checking voicemail. Now I'm shaking so hard that I can barely punch the keys. Wanting so badly to hear joy in the RE's voice, but instead hearing the expected, "I'm afraid I don't have good news." He asks me to call back.
Why bother? I think.
There's nothing more to say now, is there?
12:00 After playing phone tag, we finally talk. It's another discussion about how donor eggs are probably my only hope, followed by another discussion about how at least I don't have cancer, just infertility. He's not insensitive. He's a caring guy and he tried his best. But when the only comfort someone can offer is to remind you that at least you're not dying … well, no, there really is nothing more to say.
12:30 I sit in a rocking chair in the host's living room, frozen except for the rocking, rocking, rocking back and forth. I can't think of one single thing that I want to do, that I'm actually capable of doing. I feel like a rat who's reached a dead end in a maze and just sits down, staring blankly at the wall. One wall is as good as any other.
12:35 Everyone is in the kitchen sharing lunch, so the room is empty except for me and one friend who wants to help but can't, so just sits there staring at me in a most awkward way. It makes me feel even more like a trapped rat. "I don't want to leave you alone."
Please, leave me alone, I think, but I can't work up the energy to say it in a tone of voice that I won't regret later on.
Even with you staring at me, the fact is that I AM alone with this.
12:40 Since there's nothing I want to do, I just do the next logical thing: join the people in the kitchen. I'm not capable yet of putting on a mask, so when they ask what's wrong, I explain that I've gotten some bad news. They ask with alarm, "Are you alright?" I answer truthfully, "No, but I will be eventually. Thank you for asking."
12:45 I listen to their conversation and eventually join in. At my little table alone, two women are discussing the different treatments they've had for breast cancer, and a third describes an awful genetic disease that is threatening her nephew's life.
I am NOT alone, I realize.
Not in this moment, anyway. Pain is not what makes me unique; it's the one thing that I share with absolutely everyone.
1:30 I go to the nearest park. I want to throw rocks and beat my fists against the ground, but the part of the park that's normally quiet is now full of parents pushing strollers. And beaming grandparents. I call my parents to give them the bad news. I am so sick of having nothing but bad news to share with the people I love.
1:45 As I watch the happy families strolling by, spending a Sunday afternoon in this most ordinary way, it feels like I'm standing at a pastry counter. I'm gazing through glass at a bounty of exotic, fabulous desserts, which I can admire but never actually touch. It occurs to me that the rest of my life may be like this: the world reflecting my failures back to me, every day, everywhere. It's the worst kind of self-pity. These are just thoughts, and I know better than to believe everything I think. But in this moment, I can't help it. I'm afraid that this feeling will never end.
2:00 I have to go someplace where I can have my impending breakdown / freakout in privacy. So I find some deeper woods and let it fly: pick up the biggest rocks I can lift and hurl them with all my strength. Pick up branches from the ground and smash them against trees, raining arrows of wood down on the forest. I rip the red thread off my wrist. (Long story short, it's symbolized healthy ways for me to seek refuge and maintain hope, and I've worn it since New Year’s Day.) Now I fling the bright thread into the dirt, grind it gleefully down with my heel, even jump up and down on it in a frenzy of destruction. I think of Stephen Crane's poem
"In the Desert": "It is bitter, bitter … But I like it, because it is bitter, and because it is my heart."
2:30 It's a full-on, self-indulgent, two-year-old-style temper tantrum. Once it blows over, I sit down, panting and sweaty, on a swing. Yes, there is a deserted playground in the middle of these woods. Everything is mocking me, I'm telling you. For a while, I just swing mindlessly back and forth, and cry.
2:45 Then I start to look around. I notice how TRASHY these woods are, with litter poking through the weeds everywhere.
What a bunch of pigs! Incensed, I start gathering the junk. Normally, I wouldn't pick it up with bare hands, or go charging off into brier thickets wearing sandals and white slacks. But what the hell. It's not a day to be rational. It's not a day to question anything that manages to rouse my energy, only to act wherever action is still possible. So I snatch up handfuls of discarded Coke cans, water bottles, candy wrappers. I leave behind the condom but pick up the paper that I realize, with a stab of pain through my chest, is a child's school homework.
These PIGS can have children, I complain under my breath.
These PIGS can have families, I rant.
And me? I guess I'll just be the old busybody who devotes herself to cleaning up THEIR mess!
3:00 I am being ridiculous. I feel maniacal laughter starting to bubble up from a place so deep it hurts, from some well I'd thought was finally, totally dry.
WTF, I think.
Who else would turn a temper tantrum / pity party into Litter Cleanup Day? But OK. I'm not questioning why right now. I crash out of the woods, arms overflowing with trash, march up to a dumpster, and throw it all in with one final CLANG of disgust. Then I wipe my filthy hands on my pants triumphantly.
Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart. Then I walk slowly back into the woods to retrieve my red thread. It's frayed and faded now, caked with dirt. Carefully, I fold it into the pocket of my ruined pants.
4:00 Back home, I still have some anger to burn off. I want to give the anger as much free rein as is safe, because I fear it less than the depression that's sure to follow. So I put on my iPod and run at top speed for three miles, with my angry playlist at top volume. Yes, I actually have an angry playlist ready to go for occasions just like this. It starts off with Hole's song "Violet," which is perfect for today. The chorus, if you can call it that, is Courtney Love screaming, "Go on, take everything! Take everything! Take everything! Take everything!"
4:30 Ouch. I am not used to running at top speed. I've been sedentary, especially just two days after egg retrieval. Now I feel like throwing up. I think about filling the Vicodin prescription I got on Friday, not so much because of physical pain but because I'd prefer not to be fully conscious now. I've never abused painkillers, but I've taken them before (during my miscarriage, most recently) and know that feeling when the buzz hits. I want it now—want it to hit me right between the eyes like a cattle prod. That's why I need to throw the prescription in the trash.
5:00 Instead of taking pills, I take a nap. I love naps.
6:00 Email the church leader to thank her for her message this morning, which was basically about keeping our hearts open despite our fear. Even with all of today's drama, her words have been percolating through my mind all day.
7:00 Dinner. This time it does not involve salmon, kale, avocado, pineapple, or other "fertility foods." It involves sugar. Sugar and a lot of chemicals I can't pronounce. Also caffeine. After weeks without my beloved coffee, I brew my third cup of the day and raise it high in a middle-fingered salute to the universe.
8:00 Start writing about today's news.
To be continued. I'm still careening from fury to despair, from the most embarrassingly immature self-pity to moments of totally unexpected grace.
You know that saying about how what doesn't kill you makes you stronger? That saying makes me gag. Here's what I believe: what doesn't kill you … doesn't kill you ... and some days that has to be enough.
