When Harry Met Sally

October 23, 2009

I've been home sick with the flu today. Ugh. I have to remind myself when I'm sick that I also tend to get a little more emotional and that it's not just that I'm losing my grip on things. That being said, I had a bit of a When Harry Met Sally moment this evening. This is how it started.

I was making some plans for February (Yes, February. I'm a planner, what can I say?), and I realized that in March I will be turning 35. 35. Wow. (If you're a Harry and Sally fan, you probably already know where I'm going with this.) Okay, so that was the first thought in my breakdown movie moment.

The next thought you may file in the TMI category, but if you read my blog, you know that there really isn't too much information that I don't share. So the next thought was about my cycle. It's been a little off, and other than the post-surgery-post-pregnancy-underweight time in my life, my cycle has never been this off. Some posting I read on the j-pouch site months ago kept going through my mind where a woman wrote about going through early menopause. So of course that's where my neurotic mind went, right? What if I'm going through early menopause? You wouldn't think that would be a big deal, especially since Jeremy and I have decided to adopt, but still, the thought caused some fear.

Thought number three followed suit: I'm going to be an older mother by the time we have our baby. Yeah, yeah, I know that my generation is having kids later and later in life. I understand that, but still, this wasn't what I had in mind.

And so were the thoughts that tumbled around inside this fevered head of mine when I talked with my sister this evening. (And here is when the When Harry Met Sally moment arrived.) "I'm going to be 35 soon . . . and I don't have a baby!" I sobbed to her. I think I had as much snot coming out of my nose as Meg did during that scene too. As the sobs kept on coming I felt a little puzzled for a minute because I didn't realize I was so sad about this, but I decided that if the tears wanted to come, I should probably let them (a very important lesson I've learned in this process). And then I realized what this was all about as the words fell out of my mouth and into the phone. "This wasn't how I saw my life," I explained to my sister. Yes. And there it was. That was the loss I was grieving. The loss of the plans I had laid out for myself and my life many years ago. This was not where I was going to be at this age.

I'll admit that the conversation with my sister turned a little negative then. I started complaining. I didn't want to think about all the blessings I've had. No. It was pity party time. There really aren't people who will argue with me when I do the pity party thing. What are they going to say? "It wasn't so bad, losing your baby and your colon." No. I have to reign myself in on my own when I start to pitying myself. But I went there anyway. "Couldn't we just have something good happen to us?! Haven't we been through enough already?" The therapist in me can recognize that this too is grief. It's anger over the loss, and that is normal and healthy and necessary really for healing to happen. I'm just not really comfortable with anger. I feel guilty for feeling angry. But that's a whole different topic. Anyway . . .

Sara managed to talk me down by listening and understanding the helpless feeling I have at not being able to control the things that happen in my life. It felt good to let loose and cry. I guess I got it out of my system. For the night anyway (smile). (It also made me miss my sister a heck of a lot.)