Watching the wheels

While I've kept up a pretty good pace of posting here since losing my job in July (and after all, I do have more time to think and write these days), my blogging output has slowed a bit over the last week or two. Perhaps it's my usual November funk kicking in (& I will have a new post about that before the month is out).  Perhaps it's just the regular ebb & flow of blogging -- sometimes I am bursting with inspiration and ideas and things I want to say and writing mojo;  other times, not so much. And then something will happen or grab my attention, and I'm back on my keyboard again, tapping out another post. ; )

The inspiration for this post comes from Sarah at Infertility Honesty.  A few weeks ago, she wrote about her struggle to pick up the pieces of her life and deal with her grief, post-infertility treatment, and it's stuck with me since then. A few excerpts: 

"Infected with the “next step” disease like most infertiles, I wrestled with the adoption question every day, along with the slight time urgency my age brings to the table. 

"And then a funny thing happened. Summer started to feel good...

"As I’ve told people since January, “HOW we are doing is infinitely more important than WHAT we will do. Time to live that, and forego living with the limbo that comes from trying to force something that can’t be forced...

"A temporary step back could be a good thing. All will be there for me when I return. Flailing attempts to grab at ambiguous at best chances to create life no longer apply. I’m not going to actively pursue a career at the moment, so what? I don’t think the world will suffer much for me embarking on a new career at age 43 or 44 vs age 42, and I know I won’t either.  Plus, I’d be crazy not to take advantage of this space my husband’s and my hard work, risks, and sacrifices have earned... 

"For whatever reason my so what summer finally unveiled some joy in my home, more joy in my marriage, and a contentment that is attached to just being."

Her post (and I'd encourage you to read the whole thing) ended with the lyrics of a John Lennon song -- and although I knew the song very well (from the Double Fantasy album, released after his murder in December 1980, about the years he spent away from the music industry and out of the limelight as a "househusband," raising his son, Sean), I read the lyrics anew (& heard the song in my head) with a shock of recognition.  Suddenly, I could relate -- REALLY relate.  I had a whole new appreciation for how Lennon must have felt when he wrote it.  

I loved Sarah's post, and the Lennon song, because they so perfectly explain where I'm at in my life right now and how I'm feeling -- as well as how I felt/feel about stopping infertility treatments and living without children -- "no longer riding on the merry go round" of infertility treatment, desperately trying to grab the brass ring of motherhood.

I have often tried to explain to people that pregnancy loss and infertility treatment was like a roller coaster ride -- and that we decided we didn't want to hop off one roller coaster and then climb onto another (donor egg, adoption, etc.).  I know it's hard for some people -- both inside and outside and the ALI community -- to understand ("Don't give up! It will happen, I know it will!  Are you REALLY going to live without kids?  You would be such good parents! Have you thought about adoption?" etc. etc. etc....), but we were exhausted and spent and reeling from all the ups and downs of the past few years. We just wanted to stop riding roller coasters, and get on with our lives. And it didn't take us long -- a few weeks' vacation walking on the beaches of the Oregon coast -- to realize we'd made the right decision, painful as it felt. 

As I've written before, I'm finding some parallels between that time in my life and right now -- dealing with sudden, perhaps permanent, unemployment/earlier than expected retirement.  People want to know, "So, what do you do all day?"

I know there are those who can't imagine retiring (because they simply can't imagine a life without work, they need the money, or both). Others tell me I shouldn't even think of retiring at my age -- I'm still young!! I still have so much to offer!!

Perhaps. (Realistically, no matter how great my resume, I know there are a lot of similarly talented, suddenly unemployed 50-somethings wandering around right now looking for work. As with infertility treatment, I know the odds, and they are not on my side.) I like to think that yes, I may still have a lot to offer -- but I now have the advantage of offering it on my own terms, how, when & where I want.  I spent the past 28 years in a high-pressure corporate environment ("the big time") -- working and commuting 10-12 hours a day, asking "How high?" when other people said "Jump!" I'm in no hurry to return to that kind of life (if ever).  Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. 

A certain amount of riding on the merry go round/roller coaster is a given in life.  But sometimes it's nice to get off when the opportunity arises, sit back & watch the wheels go round & round.

Take it away, John. ;) 

People say I'm crazy

Doing what I'm doing
Well, they give me all kinds of warnings
To save me from ruin

When I say that I'm okay
Well, they look at me kinda strange
Surely you're not happy now
You no longer play the game

 

People say I'm lazy
Dreaming my life away
Well, they give me all kinds of advice
Designed to enlighten me

When I tell them that I'm doing fine
Watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time, boy?
You're no longer on the ball

 

I'm just sitting here
Watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll

No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

 

Ah, people asking questions
Lost in confusion
Well, I tell them, there's no problem
Only solutions

Well, they shake their heads
And they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them, there's no hurry
I, I'm just sitting here doing time

 

I'm just sitting here
Watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll

No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go

(Another song from the "Double Fantasy" album, "Beautiful Boy," provided the quote that appears in the sidebar of this blog and has been part of my online signature since Katie's stillbirth:  "Life is what happens while you're making other plans.")

Understanding the journey

#MicroblogMondays: Drawing a blank

Today is rare day for me. I turned the page in my datebook & realized I was looking at a blank space. Like, totally, entirely blank. No appointments or places that I absolutely have to be (a lot fewer of those since I lost my job) -- but also no birthdays or anniversaries to note, no bills to be paid, no reminders about whether they're picking up yard waste (raked leaves) as well as recycling & garbage, no TV programs I've flagged to watch. Nothing. Nada.

It's not very often that this happens. The next completely, totally blank date on my calendar is Dec. 29th. (Although I'm betting there will be a few more of them in 2015, now that I am no longer working.) 

I suppose some people might find that blankness terrifying. I find it liberating. :) 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

Happy Halloblogoversaween :)

Here's a slightly scary thought: not only is today Halloween, it's also my seven-year blogoversary.  SEVEN.  It's hard for me to realize that this blog has been part of my life for that long. If you had asked me, seven years ago tonight, whether I would still be here seven years later, I probably would have said no. Surely, 16 years after Katie's stillbirth, 13 years post-fertility treatments, now in my 50s, approaching menopause, I would have run out of things to write about by now? 

Apparently not. ;)  Here are a few stats: 

Number of years blogging:  7
Published posts (including this one): 832
Average # of posts per year: 119
Average # of posts per month:  10
Published comments: more than 6,300
Page views (tracked since May 2008):  266,685 
Followers:  146

A lot has changed in the blogosphere these past seven years: many of the bloggers I followed when I first started blogging have disappeared. Some of the absentees, I know, achieved their dream of motherhood and are presumably, understandably busy. Others just vanished (some with explanation, some not) and I wonder what happened to them, whether they achieved their goals and (regardless), whether they are happy today. A handful remain (& I am so happy you're still hanging in there!). 

One big change: when I first started writing here, there were just a few blogs dedicated to living without children after loss &/or infertility. (Most notably, Pamela Jeanne, who is still blogging at Silent Sorority, was already out there with her original blog, Coming2Terms.)  Today, there are a lot more of us in this corner of the ALI community -- and the numbers are continuing to grow.  There's a growing segment of the population that does not and will not have children, for whatever reasons, and increasingly, we are speaking up and writing about our experiences -- about the many reasons why we are living without children, and why it is not necessarily a bad thing (even when it's not the life we once wanted for ourselves). The media & the public are starting to take note, to listen and to learn. Overall, I think that's a good thing.

As always -- thank you all for reading/listening, commenting and just being here.

Blogoversary #6 (2013)
Blogoversary #5 (2012)
Blogoversary #4 (2011)
Blogoversary #3 (2010)
Blogoversary #2 (2009)
Blogoversary #1 (2008)
First post

#MicroblogMondays: Dishing about my new dishes :)

Thirty years ago (!), pre-wedding, along with a "good" china pattern (Stephanie by Royal Doulton -- sadly, seldom used), I registered for a set of everyday dishes from Eatons department store (long gone from the retail scene). The dishes were made by International China, a pattern called Aurora Twilight Blue, mostly white with a light blue border around the rim.  The entire set of 8 place settings plus several serving pieces cost $99.99.  My mother ordered them for me as a wedding gift and had Eatons ship them to my future father-in-law's house in Toronto.  They were waiting for us in our midtown apartment when we returned from our honeymoon.

Those dishes have served dh & me well over the past 30 years -- but along the way, some of them have been broken, and others have been chipped and scratched -- so I've been looking for a potential replacement set for a while now. I originally had my eye on some Denby stoneware, but even on sale, it's a little pricey, particularly for two recently unemployed/early retired 50-somethings.

Then a couple of weekends ago, I noticed a sale at the mall on a pretty (and reasonably priced) set of dishes -- plain creamy white with subtle ridges on the rims. They're branded with the name of the infamous TV chef Gordon Ramsay, but they're actually made by Royal Doulton (I guess I have a "thing" for Royal Doulton, lol). 

They didn't have white in stock :(  but offered to order some for me, and they arrived on my doorstep a few days ago. I also got the matching serving pieces (bowl & platter, teapot, creamer & sugar bowl with lid), which were also reasonably priced.

I love them. :) 

What do you think?  What kind of dinnerware do you have, and how long have you had it?

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

#MicroblogMondays: And the best place to see fall colours is...

Maybe I'm a bit weird, but I've always liked cemeteries. The only one that has ever remotely spooked me out was the Old Burying Grounds in Halifax, which was directly behind the hotel where we stayed five years ago and engulfed in damp shadows, thanks to the huge old trees overhead. It first opened in 1749 (!) & closed in 1844.  That's pretty old! 

When I was about 10, I would ride my bike to the local cemetery & wander around by myself, reading the inscriptions on the markers. (I can't imagine any child being allowed to bicycle off by themselves today, let alone to a cemetery, but I digress...) My best friend had a baby sister buried there, and I would often stand beside her grave and wonder what she would have been like. (Her mother was one of the first people to call me when we lost Katie.)

When dh & I were first married, our apartment backed onto Mount Pleasant, a huge cemetery in midtown Toronto. We would take long walks on its winding paths, marvelling over the elaborate crypts -- some of them as big as houses -- where some of Canada's leading families rest (the Masseys, the Eatons, the Westons...).

Being interested in genealogy, I'm always up for a cemetery ramble, particularly when an ancestor is involved.

And since Katie's stillbirth, there has rarely been a week where we haven't paid at least a brief visit to the cemetery where her ashes are interred.

Some of the best places I know to enjoy the fall colours at their prettiest are cemeteries -- especially  the older ones with big old trees. Case in point: here's a picture from a ramble dh & I took yesterday through an older local cemetery (not the one where Katie is).  Nice, huh?



That's dh on the left. :)

(OK, this post wasn't quite micro... I'll get the hang of it eventually, lol.) 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.     

Recent reading

After reading "The Gift of Wings" by Mary Henley Rubio earlier this fall -- probably the definitive biography of L.M. Montgomery (which I reviewed here)  -- I dove into two other Montgomery-related books that had also been languishing in my gargantuan to-read pile.

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume V: 1935-1942 as edited by Mary Rubio & Elizabeth Waterston, is the final volume of Montgomery's journals written before her death in April 1942, and the one volume that I hadn't read previously.

In some ways, I wish I had read this before tackling "The Gift of Wings," just to round things out  (also, that's the order in which the books were published).  On the other hand, Montgomery self-edited her journals, and barely wrote a thing during the last two years of her life. She is not always specific about what is happening, making sometimes cryptic references to certain people and events. In that respect, it was helpful to have read Rubio's book first, as she fills in some of the critical blanks and sheds new light on Montgomery's journal entries. (I did have to go back to "The Gift of Wings" at certain points while reading the journals to remind myself what the heck she meant.) 

As much as I love Montgomery, and as fascinating as it is to get a glimpse into her personal thoughts and feelings (however guarded), I have to admit, this is not a happy or cheerful book, and in some respects it was probably the hardest volume of the journals to get through. As it begins, Montgomery and her family had just moved from Norval, where her husband had lost his job as Presbyterian minister, to retire in Toronto. While Montgomery mourned the loss of her home in Norval, where she had led a mostly happy life, she begins on a hopeful note: her lovely new Tudor-style home in the suburb of Swansea was the first she had ever owned, and she was now closer to the intellectual and social circles of Toronto she desperately wanted to be part of.

But her husband's mental and physical health continued to deteriorate;  and she obsessed over her two sons -- their educations and love lives in particular. (Who said helicopter parenting is a 21st century phenomenon??)  Her oldest son, Chester, proved to be a huge disappointment to her, getting kicked out of engineering school, barely squeaking through law school, knocking up a girl from Norval, secretly marrying her -- and then running around with other women (and that's just for starters...!).  Her younger son, Stuart, was in many respects the "golden boy" of the family, but Montgomery frets over his studies as well, and especially over his ongoing friendship with a Norval girl she deems highly unsuitable.

It is difficult -- and, yes, sometimes a bit monotonous -- to follow as Montgomery tries desperately to keep up appearances and hold everything together, spirals into depression, ceases writing her journal all together -- and then dies at the far too young age of 67. The final entry is heartbreaking in its brevity and despair.  If you are a big Montgomery fan, though, and have read the other journals, you will need to read this to complete the full picture of this amazing author's life.

*** *** ***

About five years ago, Penguin Canada began publishing a series of 200-page books, written by notable Canadian authors, about "Extraordinary Canadians." Emily Carr, Lord Beaverbrook, Lester B. Pearson, Big Bear and Nellie McClung were among the first subjects, followed by Norman Bethune, Stephen Leacock, Mordecai Richler, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Glenn Gould, Rene Levesque, Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin,  Marshall McLuhan, Tommy Douglas, Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, Wilfrid Laurier and (yes) Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Extraordinary Canadians:  L.M. Montgomery was written by the novelist Jane Urquhart. While not as thorough or detailed a biography as Rubio's "The Gift of Wings," this is a great basic introduction to and appreciation of this beloved Canadian author, set in the context of her times. It also details her ongoing impact on Canada and on writers, both Canadian and generally -- including a lovely personal story about Urquhart's mother.

(These were books #13 & #14 that I've read to date in 2014.) 

*** *** ***

Some other recent reading of note:

• As I commented to a few childless-not-by-choicers online, when people ask me why we didn't "just adopt," I think I'm going to start handing them a copy of this Toronto Star column. The blog it refers to/links to is also interesting reading for anyone thinking of adopting through the public system in Ontario.
• A recent New York Times article noted the rising number of books & blogs designed to help parents "[navigate and transition] through the emotionally rocky waters of becoming an empty nester.”  (!)  The amusing part for me was seeing how many of the suggestions could just as easily serve as advice to couples navigating and transitioning through the emotionally rocky waters of accepting a childless life after infertility and loss -- such as transforming the child's bedroom (intended nursery) into a crafts room and finding a new community through social media.
•  Loved this piece from Huffington Post, "The Other Quiet Mom," which (appropriately) popped into my feed on Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day. So familiar, and it describes me to a T:   "Few ever realize how frequently and repetitively other mothers tell their "stories from the front" -- of pregnancy, labor and delivery, newborn gazing, breastfeeding -- unless they are one of the mothers who must master how to avoid tears just to be able to stay in the room...  stories that end with "and then they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat" generally stop a conversation. So these recollections tend to be kept inside, ratcheting up the aloneness that feels like it can smother a mother who has lost a child."  
• Much has been written over the past week about the move by Facebook & Apple to offer egg freezing to its female employees as part of their benefits. There was a lot of good reading on the subject to be had, but I wanted to point out one article that appeared in today's Globe & Mail.  While I have my doubts that today is the "golden age for working mothers" that careers columnist Leah Eichler describes, I was intrigued by her theory that "Infertility treatment might be the new maternity leave." (Caveat: this was written from a Canadian perspective, where -- compared to the United States -- most working women are guaranteed a fairly decent maternity leave.).  

While pushing egg freezing is rife with ethical complications, this move suggests that the physical act of bearing children will be more discussed at work. This change couldn’t come soon enough. While many companies laud their generous maternity benefits, we almost never discuss the no-man’s land before the baby, when many women yearn for that little miracle but their bodies have other intentions. Undergoing fertility treatment has none of the glamour of pregnancy, yet it can take up much more time and energy, not to mention have a huge impact on your wallet. Many of us, myself included, keep these painful episodes to ourselves but they can affect our professional lives in a major way. So it’s time to bring infertility out of the closet at work...  

Despite the prevalence of infertility, few companies or workplaces appreciate the impact it has on their employees, [author Reva] Seth said. 

“IVF and infertility are what maternity leave was two decades ago … and just like we needed to have discussions and best practices on pregnancy and maternity – we now need to do the same with IVF and infertility,” Ms. Seth said.

Thoughts?