Oh, the Drama

I used to romantically hope that I'd get to stay overnight at a hospital.  Something wonderfully tragic and terribly dramatic, like, say, appendicitis, would land me the opportunity to lay upon my death bed while family, friends, my unrequited love, . . . they would come to me, hold my hand, wipe my forehead, and tell me, that they loved me.  A scene from Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and any number of other stories I may or may not have read but was familiar with.  My girlfriend and I in high school would secretly pine for the opportunity that would magically place us, still beautifully intact and without too much pain, on an overnight trip in the hospital.  We dreamed of this while flexing our legs' calf muscles and asking the other if we did not think they were shapely and cut.

My sister will also attest to the fact that I could and tended to be. . . dramatic.  "Like the time," she begins, "you sat on the bed and cried for no reason.  What was up with that?"  And, I wasn't crying for no reason.  I sat there happy and thought of reasons to cry - all the negative, woe-is-me I could dig up - and then I cried.  My mistake was to let her watch the process.  It seems a mite absurd of anyone to do it.  But I did.  And my sister seems to have remembered it, and the absurdity of the moment.

Good thing we all get a chance to grow-up.  Silly me for ever wanting an overnight stay at a hospital.  (After 4 overnight stays for having a baby, I actually opted to stay home with the fifth delivery.)  And, along with that, I try not to bring attention to my calves - they are not cut.

My ability to create reasons to be upset has only marginally matured though.  And if I need a reason to beat myself up for being a woman all I have to do is dwell on periods.  And bleeding.   And then I go to the Old Testament and validate my feeling of "less" and "unclean".  And that gets me thinking about labor and that men don't really get it.  And I wonder why I have to do it.  'Cuz I'm certain I didn't and wouldn't have chosen it.  Which sends me on a trip to place blame on somebody.  And I start to thinking that there had to be another way to get kids here and therefore God is punishing us because he put this burden upon us.  And that takes me to Eve.  And how relatively scott free Adam got off.  Which takes me to Drew and how he has no real clue as to what I suffer, having sacrificed my aspirations for societal greatness to be a mother of all these young children, and suffering my monthly ailments.  And then, if I've done my mental part well, my husband will come home from work, prance through the door with a lilt in his step and a smile on his face, having been lauded by his boss for good work and maybe even taken out to lunch.  He'll grab a bite to eat, change his clothes and zip away in the evening to serve merrily in his church calling, leaving me with kids - again - and alone to wallow in the muck I've created for myself.  And I get discouraged and upset and my thoughts spiral lower and lower until I wake up one day and "get over it". 

And that's how it's done, people.  In it's irrational entirety, that's how I do it.  Or how it would and used to have been done.

Oh, how much I've come to learn in the last few years.  What burdens I've begun to lay down.  What truths I've found.  If nothing else, I've come to accept that some of the things I think I understand, I've actually misunderstood.  That, and the whole process, is really quite absurd and too dramatic of me.