I moved my things out of his apartment today. I tried last week, but all I did was cry and send weak texts and cry some more.
He had already redecorated me out of his life. Flowers and all. The walls were no longer bare, his things on the shelves I’d insisted we put up, and no sign of my existence anywhere except for the black and white courtesy printout of the first ultrasound of Nugget. My name might’ve been in the corner, if you squinted. Bless Dave for lifting the heavies and making me laugh. And smelling of whiskey. It is a new feeling, feeling like discarded trash. I don’t recommend the experience and I feel the karmatic guilt and pain of every break up where I have been on the trash tossing side. The painless upper hand, the view from the righteous road, and the blatant disregard for my wake are all catching up with me through this ultimate dumped process. There’s a lot to mourn. A lot. I feel it and I see it. I can’t seem to get ahead of this depression and I’m afraid it won’t be going anywhere until (hopefully) Nugget arrives (healthily). The anxiety is transforming... mutating every day I stay indoors, cancel plans, avoid texts, wake up at four am and go to bed at eight. I haven’t walked or yoga’d in a week and yet I’ve lost weight. I’ve had many people reach out... but if it’s not the hand of him.... I don’t know what to do. I’m fucking paralyzed with shame and embarrassment. The thought of leaving my house is mortifying and the offer of anyone to come over is equally burdensome. Even as I sit in my house, my mom’s house, hours on end... The knowledge and acceptance that there’s a kid coming out of all of this is slowly sinking in, but the sadness of it is sinking in with it. Like a tint or tone or veil. I’m trying to paint out of it. That’s what the articles say to do. i have the attention span of a gnat and mostly I just sit at my paint perch and cry, flip over my phone, check it, cry, and flip it over again. There are more tissue than canvas now. I even thought about collecting my tears in a jar to paint with... but even that’s too emo (and expensive and time consuming and efforted and driven) to come to fruition. As a visual thinker...someone who paints pictures for everything in her head... this corner... or dead end or turning point in my life feels like the bleakest thing I’ve ever created. I feel undone by my own hand. I have no idea what’s to come. I have very little control over it. My emotions run me and run me ragged. All the things I could stress about are turning into a heaping pile under the rug and pretty soon I’ll have to sweep it somewhere else cuz that’s where the crib goes.
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and just like that... I’m a single mother.
and just like that... he dumped me. Just like that. *snap* i don’t think I’m ever going to understand his actions...or decisions in this matter. I feel like he’s monochromatic and I’m color and the two worlds won’t forcibly blend without effort and sweat. my sweat comes too late apparently. my efforts weren't enough, went unseen, and unmatched and unheard. I can try to imagine... and assume... and even feel bad for him. And I probably will... for a few weeks. Or months. Or years. my mistake seems to be in thinking his love was unconditional, that we both were loving unconditionally. if i look at it that way, that we both weren't...the current circumstances are slightly easier to swallow. my mistake was in not asking him to define ''i love you'' and explain his love. i think about it as mistakes and it helps me chew the panicked questions like, "how can i/we afford to live now?" "how will i support myself and this baby?" "what will i tell this kid if/when he runs out on us later?" "is my life ruined?" would perhaps go down smoother. *snap* it's painful going over everything in our relationship with a fine wire comb, but that's all i've been doing the last five days. the fights we'd had, i've forgotten. the reasons for anger, i've forgiven. the foundation we were building... no matter how rocky... i took as secure. i was alone in my forget, in my forgiveness, in my foundation. goes to show how important communication is on both fronts. speaking and listening. i recently read a book on conversation that has changed my outlook on a lot. on myself. on him. on my family. on my future. which makes it feel all the more too little too late. it's not enough that one person in the relationship believes love is enough... you both have to. *snap* in my temporary state of pregnancy, i feel unlovable, unbearable, unreasonable, unwanted, and insane. *snap* so my quest for therapy continues and in the meantime i'm part of three support groups a week. a sacred pregnancy circle, a post pardum depression and anxiety group, and a general pregnancy support group. each different and in each one i'm the dark cloud of doom. i've never tried so hard at anything in my life... if things didn't come naturally, i sort of just let them drift away. instead, i sit there... husband-less and without a fancy SUV, tear stained, makeupless face, and explain my week of current sadness, my thoughts of wishing this baby would come out in clumps of matter and blood when i pee, and how desperate my future is without a job or savings. and the other women just stare at me. grateful, i'm sure, not to be me. they head home to their significant others and embrace them with gratitude and forgiveness... all the while thinking ''at least i'm not that crying girl in group...'' *snap* it makes me sad... so so sad that he has run away from me, that he's run away from us. from me. i hate myself for still being in love with him. i hate myself for thinking we can talk through this. i hate my denial. i hate this anger. i hate this hate. i hate these hormones. i hate this pregnancy. i argue with all of these things each night in my dreams. it's embarrassing and unsettling that even in my nightmares...he's kissing other girls, cold shouldering my tears in public, and shaking our baby to death. *snap* hormones are no joke. depression stings. regret is a bitch. and just like that... it's just us, Nugget. i never thought i'd be pregnant. actually, BE pregnant.
i assumed like any scarred catholic school girl that eventually that'd be my fate at some point... either by jason priestly or some by product of rape. i told myself when that time came, i'd nip it. nix it. abort. i told myself i prolly couldn't get pregnant cuz it had never happened before. lord knows there have been times where i prolly should've been pregnant. (wink wink) but i never was. i thought the plumbing was busted and it wasn't in my cards. i told myself that i loved other peoples children too much to ever interrupt that flow. other peoples children were so pure and needed tertiary love and i was and still am so filled with that emotion and ability to incredibly naturally that it seemed like a crime to diminish it in any way. let alone... the whole thought of being pregnant disgusted me. the way it lives inside your body like a worm, feeds off your blood and bones, only to slither out in fluid with pain. i was disgusted by the body changes, the physical inability to turn back one's figure from childbirth. the uphill commitment of it all. there's a word for all this--tokophobia. it's a real thing and i'm not the only one who feels this way apparently. i never thought i'd find someone perfect enough to want to procreate with. the endless search and the weighted settling... and all the running i've done from past partners. i thought i'd never settle down, never be pinned, never do ... what... i guess... i'm doing now. i think it all began with the little zygote of a thought, the one single stupid fucking heavy thought of: "huh... well.... this uh... this might not be that bad." that naive sentence filled with hope and instinct, expectation and choicelessness, love and future. it danced inside me when i thought of the chance to get to procreate with him. all the things i admired in him combining perfectly with all the things i have learned to love about me into a little human ready to love and need. and so i am pregnant. five months tomorrow. 20 weeks. period over 100 days late. and i'm terrified by my thoughts. past and present. i'm terrified every time i pee because half of me hopes there is blood because i'm so afraid i can't do this and i want to go backwards, however painful, however grieved. i'm terrified that in this pregnant isolation i've absolutely already lost myself and my identity. that i've lost my utter footing on this planet and the ground really is lava and i'm going to be swallowed up into the normal, typical, mundane, lacking life of a mother. i'm terrified my body will wilt. i'm terrified of the judgements of this child. i'm terrified that in my traditionally backwards actions of finding and being with this mate.... that he's made the wrong choice in me. i'm terrified by the weakness of that sentence. i'm terrified to need. so i've been drawing. trying to illustrate these fears. so far... even i'm afraid to put pen to paper on them. they're pretty fucking dark and i'm exhausted metabolically and emotionally by 3pm. i ended up sharing one of my digital drawings on a reddit group for pregnant folk and moms. it was loved, shared, upvoted, and gilded. and in my depressed state, i wish i could be moved by that in any way. i'd kill to be warmed by other peoples thoughts that are with me. anyway.... so i'm writing this. i'm going to have a show in february and i'm hoping to let all this out... all the fear and beauty inside me. i've got a few months to concentrate on it and all the time to cry over it.... all the hermit-style will to work on it... side anger: i'm a well below poverty level soon to be single mother who can't get mental health attention to save her life. i have health plan of nevada medicaid and it does not... do shit. sure, it gets me into my preferred obgyn so maybe i take that slightly back. i have called the lines, i have waited on holds, i have left messages, emailed, called, and called back to absolutely no avail. NONE. if i don't have a substance abuse problem.... ehhhhh "we aren't taking new patients..." we actually don't take that branch of medicaid..... "maybe i can refer you...." does sliding scale sound good? it's a cess pit of fucking exhaustion and dead ends. i've fucking given up. i can't imagine the plight of other folk with even more severe mental health needs than mine. i cannot... begin to understand. it's ridiculous. so here's to art therapizing oneself. |
Mallory Mishlerwhere i'll post the in's, out's, tween's, and twixt's of my world of art mixed with pictures, links, opinions, and rants. (oh, and curse words. lots of curse words) Archives
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