Tagged: Honest Scrap

Jamie passed this one along. Tagged me, actually. Here is her list.

Here are the rules. I'm going to break them, but I'll list them.

A.) First list 10 Honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!
B.) Pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of Honest Scrap. (I don't know enough people for this one, but y'all get to read about me, 'kay?)

1. Having lost a child gives me a different view on things. Having almost died in that process has added to that different view. Sure, I still get worked up about stuff, but I look at things a little different. Things that I was saving for God only knows what reason, I use them. A box of beautiful Crane stationery isn't going to help me if I'm not here. (That was the gift that I had been saving.) Candles are meant to be burned. Dishes are meant to be used. People are meant to be cherished. These are things that I learned from that. The big lesson learned? Take it in, process it and let it go. I need to remind myself of it, though.

2. I don't look forward to telling K- about all of the pieces of her birth mom's history. I don't look forward to telling her that her first mom has HIV now. I don't look forward to sharing with her that she abused drugs while pregnant with her. She had numerous jail stays while pregnant with her. I don't look forward to telling her that she has other siblings that she most likely will never meet.

3. I hate that no matter how hard I've tried, I cannot cure my husband's digestive illness. We don't know exactly what it is, but we do feel that it is bacterial. He just keeps getting dumped into the IBS pile, but no one does investigation. Sure, he had an endoscopy and a colonoscopy, but when the last doctor told him that "[he] should be happy because he has a great wife, great child and great life and that he has to go out to tell the people in the waiting room bad news." MY HUSBAND FEELS LIKE CRAP AND NO ONE CARES!

4. I admit that when I'm in the presence of pregnant women, I don't want to look. I love babies. I love them to their rolly polly rolls and back. I love the women who carry them. I however still have the twinge to wish that I could have successfully birthed a child. It's not at all that I'm unappreciative of K- or her own personal story at all, I just would have loved to have gone the whole way. I would have loved to give birth to a baby. I would have loved to breast feed a baby. I had a friend tell me about a month ago how sorry she was that I missed nursing my own baby. I am too. I can't even tell you how sorry I am.

5. I understand that I did the college gig, but my chosen profession is not one overflowing in money. My husband's chosen profession is not one overflowing in money, either. We did not choose professions that would make us grand money. Our agreement before we married is that we would always have jobs that we loved. When the jobs were such that we didn't love them, we moved onto others. We are very happy with our lives. We don't choose to be monetarily rich. We don't feel like we are losing out.

6. One of my biggest fears is that someone will try to steal K-. Yes, she knows stranger danger and all that. She is supervised, but I try not to hover.

7. Another of my biggest fears is cancer. I watched my grandmother die of colon cancer. I just recently watched my aunt die of brain cancer. I had another aunt die of lung cancer about a year ago. My grandmother has stage 4 small cell lymphoma. Cancer is a disgusting disease. I've seen it eat away at beautiful, wonderful people in my life.

8. I fear that I'm not doing enough with K-. I want the kid to have a life, but I want her to succeed. I 'm fearful that I'm too hard on K-, but we want her to be respectful, kind, considerate, honest and all that stuff that you try to mold children into.

9. I take things way too personally. I try not to, but just yesterday I was fearful that I would lose my job. When I came into work, the floor manager told me that she "needed to talk to me and was sorry that J- wasn't there. (My coworker.)" Basically, she didn't want to tell me what was going on and by the time that 2 hours passed, my coworker and I morphed it into someone was losing their job and I blew it out of proportion. If someone complains about the way that I've helped them, I worry terribly. If I snap at someone, it kills me. If my husband grumbles at me, I do take it in a very personal, failure kind of way. I often feel like I'm not doing enough as a mommy or a wife.

10. I stress myself out. The last few weeks I have been wrought with anxiety attacks that have been waking me up out of a sound sleep. Just the other night, I finally gave up on sleep, knowing what the end result would be and went to watch TV on the couch. I clinch my teeth so hard when I sleep that I wake up with a migraine sometimes. I clinched my thumb in my fist so hard that I've done something whacked to it and I really need it looked at. It now will lock and do this weird click-hinge thing. Out of nervousness, I'll crack my toes as I sleep all night long and hardly be able to walk in the morning. I'm generally a good sleeper, but lately that's gone to crap.

So in a nutshell, there is my Honest Scrap. Take it or leave it. It's one steaming pile o' poo.