Burlesque and Babies and Bubble Floating Dreams

Motherhood has not come easy for me. Most the time, it has felt like some exclusive ass club I somehow didn't get my pass into. Were they handing those out at conception or first introduction? In both cases, I may have been too fucked up to catch the angel or spirit or doctor who was supposed to be giving me my glittered and waterproofed pass into being one of those moms that all the other kids wish theirs would be like. (Drinking in May or epidural-ed in January--pick your poison.)

But it's not my little Duckie that poses the problem. I love that little girl and I will defend to the day I die that she is the best baby born in all of time ever. She's so mighty damn pretty we were told of her beauty while at the ER with her 104 fever this weekend. She's so fucking charming she can melt your soul to liquid candy with one glance. She's so freaking smart, I'm pretty fucking certain she's going to be all kinds of trouble in traditional class settings. (Have I told you the story of how I got kicked out of an English class? My last year of high school was done in my third year. I couldn't be in both gifted/AP/honors-whatchacallit English 3 and 4 at the same time. So I was placed in my very first ever regular English class. I was sent to a different teacher when the first accused me of being racist because I did not feel his assignment of coloring our pictorial interpretation of Beowulf on gridded paper was an appropriate assignment for high school seniors. The class I transferred to was an improvement in quality at least. But it was also led by a pompous, Mark Twain disciple. Thus my hatred for the author today. That and thinking Samuel Clemens at least was sort of a misogynistic bitch. I didn't end up reading much of his work, though, so don't quote me on Mark Twain and misogyny. Sorry. My blog should come with a warning: Prone to digress.)

So back to my point. I love my baby, but pulling this mom shit has not been easy. My BFF can tell you I never wanted children. Everyone was freaking shocked when I told the news. That I was pregnant and I had tried to get that way. Despite what I thought to be a very conspicuous Mother's Day floral arrangement and card I sent stating my desire to be a mom "as wonderful as mine" that year, nobody suspected a thing. We weren't even living together yet. I was working in a bar just graduated from college, and I didn't even have a rough estimate of how hard it would be to find a desk job...or even how much my baby's daddy made a year. We were trying to get pregnant though. People were shocked when I told my news to friends and loved ones. To say the very least.

I'm not sure how to tell this story at the moment because my writing fairies are evidently having pie slinging contests in my mind, splattering their different shoots of creativity all at a time. So bare with me. (Is that supposed to be bear? I just think bare is a cuter spelling. Wonder why ;).)

I never wanted children. That is what I told people.

I say a lot of things I don't mean out of fear of people seeing who I really am and not liking it. I think that's why burlesque has been so good for me. Because for once I'm actually showing who I really am. My playful thoughts and daydreams that I dance through throughout the day. Costumes I put so much care into. Even as a character, it's really me up there, and at times, it can be very scary that people who are important to me won't like it. But I keep trying at it because being myself feels like a cold rush of waterfall falling freedom down through my spine.

So if I did sort of want children and I actually had had names picked out for a good portion of my life, why did I say there was no way I would have children in a bazillion yonder years? I was afraid of what might happen if I committed myself to another person that much. What would happen if the person I made children with did not stay with me and I ended up alone? You can see where your father issues kinda blend with your mother issues at this juncture. I was afraid of never being as pretty as I once was and being too strapped for cash and time to achieve the sort of appearance and creative enterprise that I really desired to have in life if I thought about it. This is where eating disorders and parent issues collide and you create a big, ugly beast that stomps through your brain and appears at nearly every corner you turn in your life. I was afraid to ever be pregnant because I did not want to left bedraggled and sad to die without a mate. Pregnancy seemed like such a binding thing to me. Something that would make me want to stay with someone forever and hoping they didn't leave me because I wasn't pretty enough any more.

So on that hand, you have my bizarre insecurities that I am trying to stamp out like grease fires popping up in my kitchen. Let me tell you what the dream was though.

I was torn between wanting one child or two because it seemed with one you might be able to travel more and give her (hopefully) more of the things that make girls happy. But a boy could be fun to temper the hurt feelings that so often arise during a girl's teenage "I'm going to be a bitch because I just learned how to and got female hormone rages" stage. But really I love just having a girl and it would be hard to litter that with increased boy presence. I like men, not boys, and I can't stand the thought of dirty, nasty gym clothes being left about. But I really wanted to be a mom with creative little outlets that could become more full time once she was old enough to attend a school. When Duckie gets older, I would love to have the ability to have tea parties for her where I bake awesome vegan cupcakes from coconut milk and put lovely pastel frosting on top. I wanted to be pretty when my husband got home and be able to tell him I had gotten writing or costuming or whatever done that day. I wanted aprons and cardigans and pearls and cute dresses and kitchen-cooking heels. I wanted to be a Stepford wife channeling the spirit of a sweet little sex kitten. That's right, my loves, I wanted to be somebody's wonderful housewife with a twist. I wanted the time to do things that made me happy and in return I would give the people I loved a very happy home. I wanted to be a charming, well-read, very loved wife to a man that I could adore and trust.

So my fears were battling my dreams. Why then...did I decide to have a baby?

One time I made a very hard decision that not many people will admit to others. I'm not sure there's a wrong or right to the decision which is why I think putting laws in place regarding it must be done very carefully. It's hard to make a law regarding something that most rationally minded people would say might defy the boundaries of where right and wrong belong. For me, if I were to answer the question, I would say that it was right for the timing, but wrong for my soul.

I went through a very hard time my last year of college following that decision. I went through periods of basic substance abuse and experienced months of overwhelming sadness. I didn't eat until I was sick from not eating and I drank more alcohol than should ever be consumed. I was a drunken, emotional, sad mess. I was in graduate level classes seeking stimulus that was lost by that point for most my undergrad work. I watched my stupid 4.0 that was fucking hard to achieve because of the grade point rules in place at my school slip to a 3.7 and I felt disgusted with my inability to control my life. (Sigh. An A- does not count for a full 4.0 credit. It's hard to always stay above a 93.) I was a mess and if it were not for my ability to take both acting and yoga and aerobics those semesters due to my abundance of electives left to pursue, I might have not graduated. But I did.

And I grabbed onto steady ground as fast as I could. Steady ground that would allow me to carry out something I felt in my body I shouldn't have stopped initially. Think whatever you like, but when Duckie was born she emerged like a dove of baptism. She's just special and is meant to be here in the world with me.

So back to where you manifest your fears because you have to walk through them. In the throes of pregnancy, I asked a man to marry me sooner than we had planned on and it was done in a way I would always secretly be sad about no matter what I was saying. Because I was afraid of him leaving me and my baby.

Pregnancy was rough. I've had an eating disorder, and I knew it would be. Accepting weight gain. I had different potentially complicated risks that caused me to attend more doctor's appointments than usual while working a full-time, but hourly-paid job and take shots twice a day. (A word of warning for any of my lymphoma-survivor ladies--dependent on how long it's been since your treatment times I would suggest checking in with your oncologist just in case. Trust me...I know more than anyone that there is no need to rush a baby when her soul needs to come into your life. If she's meant for you, the timing will arrive.) I found my marriage wasn't what my heart really wanted in very many ways that I don't want to discuss here yet. I was miserable and depressed.

Well, of course things couldn't last in that state. My marriage came to a standstill of sorts last year, and in my head at times, even though I pushed for the separation and he just complied with it, I felt all my worse fears had come true. And no man would again ever want to make love to me for the rest of our lives because I already had a baby with me. It was around this time I turned to paying attention to burlesque, and I'm thankful I did. It has been the most sensually-sweet, sugar-covered surprise of a distraction, and I'm thankful for that. I know I wouldn't be feeling nearly as okay as I do if not for its debut in my life.

I'm certain that I have been battling postpartum sadness in slight degrees since the end of my pregnancy. When I felt strapped for time and love and was missing both in my life. Times are changing though which makes me wonder if standing my ground might just be the best plan to see how things go. I've been so scared of not having one thing in my life that I've neglected to realize I have a chance to have a different kind of just as wonderful experience with what I do have. Yes. I'm tired. Yes. I feel like I can never work long enough and hard enough to balance my editing position and my fiction and writing and my dancing and costuming and my beautiful baby girl and her time with me. Yes. I get really overwhelmed. But the more she looks at me and we see eye to eye on things, the prettier the view gets.

Someone who really likes to see me happy got me a session this week to see an amazing spirit helper who can help with energy. She was the first one who could see what I had been afraid to say aloud to anyone but the writer journal that got stolen: that my baby is a strong beautiful spirit that flits into lives like a fairy and leaves love dust for all the world to feel after she leaves. I'm hoping I might figure out some more insight into what kind of mommy I can happily be if my dreams don't turn out the exact color I thought they might be. How to learn to trust people when they are talking to you close enough to let you know everything will be okay if I just give a little faith in what I want my fate to be. When the energy-spirit you can't define but just know to be brings a sign into your life, you can't hesitate with the question of what everything means.

And there's still a chance yet, I'll find myself settled with with a holy trinity in my life living my girlhood secret wishes to be a Sweet Ass Housewifey. Some sexy Messiah to fall asleep next to me and bless the daydreams in my head into being. You just never know where things might go when you let your bubble-cased dreams float up and out to the sea.