Projection

My life seems to be pulling in a few different directions at once right now, and it's exhausting. There are a lot of personal things going on right now-- well, not a lot, but a couple of big ones-- that I really can't talk to anyone about. Talking about it would probably help me sort it out, but that's not an option because there's no one that I'm close enough to and trust enough with it.

Derby was a good distraction for many reasons. The physical activity works out frustration and keeps me tired, the camaraderie I have with my teammates is phenomenal, and I tend to always be focused on one derby related event or another. Staying busy is great for someone with the tendency to get lost in their own head and go borderline crazy from time to time. Going to the gym and working out was another good distraction. With my knee being screwed up, that's out the window-- temporarily. (Even though "temporary" keeps stretching out for longer and longer, and is starting to feel more like it's permanent.) Without the distractions, I've got too much spare time to focus on the things I can't control.

I would like to have another baby. WE would like to have another baby. That would put derby on the back burner for at least a year. I know some people think that you just carry the baby for nine months, pop it out, and then jump back into your life exactly as it was before. A 20 year old girl on our team is pregnant, and when she announced it to us, she said she'd stay involved and be right back as soon as she had the baby. Most of the girls believed her. She believed herself.

I know better.

Having already experienced the birth of one child, I can promise you that's not how it goes. Not even close. The life you had before no longer exists. It is gone. You can't even imagine it now. In some ways, it's like it never was your life. Your new life-- and it is a new life-- now centers around things in the home. Feedings every 1-2 hours, dirty and wet diapers in between feedings, soothing a baby who's crying for no apparent reason, icing your swollen and unbelievably sore breasts between feedings, obsessing over whether the incision in the bottom of your belly looks okay, taking 10 minutes to pull your underwear down to pee, taking another 10 minutes to pull it back up after you pee, getting your underwear up and then immediately realizing that you have to pee again, breaking down in tears in the shower because how the hell are you supposed to live another minute-- much less another day making it from one second to the next-- meeting one of baby's needs after another in a pain pill induced fog on no sleep for ever and ever and ever and ever and everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Okay so it's not quite foreverrrr. The minute-to-minute struggle only lasts a few weeks. But even once that initial shock has passed and you've settled into some kind of routine-- or at least gotten used to not having a routine-- you're still a mom above all else now. And that does last foreverrr. For at least a few months, you're almost never able to do anything for yourself. Go play roller derby? That's funny! I was grateful when I got to go to Wal Mart to buy more formula. I was tethered to the house via a breast pump that I had to use every 2 hours (or risk springing a leak in public), and even if I hadn't been, I wouldn't have had the energy or the physical stamina to do anything more strenuous than sit in a chair in the movie theatre.

So. Even though I know all this, I still want another baby. Even though my Charlie is getting big enough now that I can take him places with me, or I can leave him home with Tim, or even with a babysitter sometimes. Even though things have only recently-- like maybe in the last 4 months-- begun to feel like a normal life again, I'd like to shake it up and have another one. Even though I'm 31 years old and I know that if I don't play roller derby now and if I don't get in good physical shape now, I may never. That thought hurts me. Still. I want another one, and I want him or her as soon as possible.

I also need to go back to school. I'll be taking one class this summer so I can renew my teaching license. The teaching license that I pray I never have to use again. In the fall, I'd like to start the Clinical Lab Science program, aka Medical Technology. The only problem is that I'd have to go do an internship for a semester at the end of the program (in about 2 years) and they can send me to almost any hospital in the state, and I have no choice which one. That could be hard to manage with a 3 year old-- much less with another little one. And roller derby? It would have to fall by the wayside. Again.

Adulthood and the decisions that come with it are a bitch, aren't they? I guess I should just thank God for the beautiful son I have, for the fact that I will most likely be able to play roller derby again in a month or two, and try not to look into the future for potential conflicts.

See? If I were playing roller derby, I wouldn't be writing this.