.stay at home wife.

It is a luxury to be able to stay at home, for sure.  However, I think that there are other people who would probably be better at it than I am.  Something happens to me when I am at home alone for days on end, I wind up spending way too much time on the couch.  I believe the scientific name for the process is "lazification."  This is, of course, in addition to fact that the more time I spend living with just myself the bleaker things around me look.

This is all to say that although I appreciate the fact that Leif has a job that pays well enough for me to take my time in finding a job (although this grace period can only last until December, when my loans are up for repayment), I miss working.  I miss seeing patients.  I miss waking up in the morning and having a purpose to my day that doesn't involve checking my Google Reader a dozen times or organizing spreadsheets for our vacation.  I miss the satisfaction I get from focusing on someone else's problems and working toward finding a solution for them.

Of course, for all the things I miss about working I can't say that I miss the anxiety that comes with the responsibility of handling someone's health.  That is no small thing for me.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that the responsibility I feel when taking care of patients is a huge defining factor of who I am.  My job will never be one that I don't carry home with me every night.

Right now I am in the process of obtaining my license to practice, which, after all the hoops I've had to jump through to get my degree because of my pregnancy (they were seriously going to make me wait an entire year to graduate because I missed a one-day seminar when I was in the hospital getting cardiac medication in the attempt to slow George's heart rate down...one day I will write a post about that nightmare), is surprisingly straightforward.  It does, however, take a few weeks to go through so my hope is that by the time we get back from Honduras I will have my license in my hot little hand and I can start the journey toward finding a job that suits me.  That is a process that I am not looking forward to, simply because I've learned that it will take some hard work and a lot of patience to find a job that is the perfect fit (if there even is such a thing).  And I simply will not compromise on that, considering how much time I will be spending at work the first year of my practice.

No matter how much I dislike the lazy, self-pitying person I am when I am not working I know that in the not too distant future I will look at this time with, not fondness that is for sure, but something akin to wistfulness.

By far and away the best part of having so much free time are my lunch dates, like the one I had today, with the apple of my eye.

.five months.

Five months.

It seems  like forever.  

People go through their days like they do every other day.  To most everyone else this particular day is like yesterday and it is like tomorrow.  That is the way this life works.  Our burdens are our own to carry.  To expect anything more is naive and unfair.  

In an hour it will have been five months since he was born.  In less than an hour and a half it will be five months since he was last alive.  

I wish there was more for him than this. 

I want him back.  With every part of who I am I want something that I can never have.  I wish I believed in something more than this life.

Time is hurtful.  

And the question keeps playing on repeat.  

How did this happen?

.flea marketing.

Yesterday Leif and I, along with our friend Jennie (God bless her, she has been my constant companion for the last three weeks), went to the flea market.  I love flea markets.  Stalls and stalls of dioramas into peoples' minds and their inner obsessions.  Incredible collections of cutlery, long parted from their sets.  Old maps, yellowed with age.  Wooden soda crates with names like 7up or Coca Cola scripted on the side.  Salt and pepper shakers for days on end...

Last year we made it a goal of ours to get rid of all of our Ikea furniture (even though I kind of love the place, like a lot) and replace them all with pieces that were more likely to stand the test of time.  Whatever that means.  The media cabinet was the last piece that needed replacing.  Well, except for the furniture we had bought for the nursery.  Those pieces still sit in our second bedroom, ignored and neglected for the most part.  

In almost twelve months we haven't been able to find something in the style that we both like that would also fit all of Leif's audio/visual components.  Yes, I am married to an electronic geek.  However, he is married to a nerdy scientist-type so it all evens out in the end.  We really weren't expecting much after many similar unsuccessful trips, but we were given a pleasant surprise in the form of a 50s/60s smallish media cabinet being sold for $45.  

It needs work but we tend to like projects so, good for us.

We probably won't have time to finish it before we leave but we will give it a shot anyway.  It is a good way to keep myself busy.  Busy is useful.  Busy keeps me living in the real world instead of inside my head.  A dangerous place for me these days.  

.under glass.

For years I've loved the art these two people create together.  Little snow globes, perfect and clear and strange.  Today I looked at the last one and became convinced that underneath that glass is a tiny version of myself.  

Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz

Huh.  Just noticed that this is my 100th post.  That's kind of a surprise.

.full moon horror movie.

Four million people in this city and only forty of us showed up for a hike under the light of last night's full moon.  Introductions were made but I don't remember any names.  Except for Bill.  It was Bill's 60th birthday and he said that you should do the thing on your birthday that you most want to do for the rest of the year.

I wish I would have known that last month.

Walking back far, far ahead of the group our conversation turned to horror movies, as is only natural while hiking alone back to the car under the light of a full moon.  We discussed how "We're almost there," is a phrase that should never be uttered while under these types of circumstances.  It is almost a guarantee that in the next forty five seconds you will be running for your life and that in the next sixty seconds you will be tripping over an unseen rock in the path thus leading to your untimely death, fifteen seconds later.  Other phrases to avoid while walking alone in the forest under a full moon include, "I think we are going in circles," "What was that sound," "I feel like we are being watched," "We can't turn back now."  

Luckily we made it back to our car with nothing scarier happening than my overactive imagination conjuring up a madman with every snap of a twig we heard.

.vamos de vacaciones.

Sun on our faces.  Sand between our toes.  Water on our skin.

And the best part...nothing but the sound of the crashing of waves and the songs of birds in our ears.

A sharp contrast from the incessant barking of neighbors' dogs, the shrillness of police sirens, and the apartment rattling whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp of helicopter blades that we are accustomed to. 

We are really, truly going on a vacation.  Aside from some short trips up to Portland we haven't been on a real vacation together in over two years.   Between my graduate program and then my pregnancy and George's death there just hasn't been a good time until now.   So we have decided to just go ahead and use some of the money that we have been saving for our future home and get ourselves somewhere far away from here.

We decided on Honduras.  First Copan to see the Mayan ruins and then Utila to see our pale skin turn an unhealthy shade of pink. Yes, maybe Honduras is a tad bit politically uncertain right now what with last year's coup d'etat and all.  But as my husband loves to say, "It'll be fine."

Honduras seems amazing but in all honesty until this morning this vacation hasn't even really stirred in me anything more than a moderate amount of relief that we will be away from this apartment and the hope that I may be able to escape myself for a little bit.  For quite some time I have been finding it difficult to be excited about anything.  Passing my board exam, a new career, possibly a new city...things which I should be excited about but I am not.  I've been so focused on the past that the future is no more clear to me than why Nicolas Cage is still paid to make movies.  And how could something as mind-numbingly bad as a Nicolas Cage movie entice any bit of excitement (except for Leaving Las Vegas and Raising Arizona, those are good but they are anomalies)? 

Acceptance of George's death and acceptance of the new path life has laid out before me has also flooded me with a sense of apathy the likes of which I've never before experienced.  The grief counselor I've been seeing these last four months tells me what I have been feeling is common.  With acceptance often comes a deeper sense of sorrow, which is why in her experience working with grieving parents it is often one of the more difficult parts of the process for people to experience.

These days I try to focus on doing things that I am able to find some happiness in.  Going on long walks, flipping through design magazines, vegging out poolside with a friend, taking photos, and the one thing that always makes me happy...spending time with Leif.  

Utila 

Utila 

 Copan Ruins

My hope is that in the weeks before we leave I'll be able to develop more excitement for our trip than I currently have.  I mean, just look at this place.  If I can't get excited about going there then maybe things are worse than I think.

.scienced.

The day after I took my exam Leif and I went to see an exhibit called Mummies of the World at the local science museum.  It was quite a broad collection of both intentional and unintentional mummies from Egypt, Peru, Europe, and Oceania.  Of course there were many of the usual mummies on display that we have all seen at one time or another or in some B movie.  Wealthy Egyptians with their mummified cats and the like.  But what surprised me the most and was honestly something that I was not expecting to see there was the large proportion of infant mummies in the collection.

The oldest mummy they had on display, and in fact one of the oldest ever found, was that of a ten month old child.  Named the Detmold Child, at 6,500 years old it predates King Tut by a thousand years.  Found in Peru, mummyologists (apparently this is a real word and trademarked, no less) have used CT images to ascertain that he/she had contracted pneumonia and that it had, in conjunction with a serious heart defect, ultimately caused his/her death.  The child was wrapped in linen and an amulet (also discovered through CT scans) was placed around his/her neck.  These wrappings have not been removed or disturbed but a replica of the amulet is on display next to the mummy. 

Nearly all of the infant mummies they had on display were very obviously well cared for in their deaths by whatever surviving family members had buried them.  It touched me to see that even in times when infant and child loss was so much more commonplace than it is now those children were still grieved and honored. 

After we walked through the exhibition Leif told me that sometime in the near future he wants to have a service for George.  We never had one and we haven't talked about having one in months.  When he died we were too unsure of what we wanted to do and who we wanted to be there.  We still don't know the answer to these questions.  All I know and something I was quick to tell him is that although I would be supportive of having a service of some sort I could not give up his ashes.  I'm not ready for that and I am not sure when I ever will be.

Despite what it may seem from reading the above ramblings of an insomniac who is writing this at 12:41 in the morning while waiting for the sleeping aid to kick in, the visit wasn't all about death and sadness.  In fact, seeing the things we saw in that exhibit didn't make me any sadder than I normally am.  The mere fact that I was with Leif, holding his hand in a museum in the middle of a work week, made the day a good one.

.L.

 .L.

 .B.

.L.

.B.

 .B.

 .L.

I think that the smart thing to do would be to wait until morning when I have a mind not beginning to feel the effects of sleep aids to reread this before posting.  But, I'm not going to.  I kind of want to see if it makes as much sense to me in the morning as it does right now.

Now, it is off to bed and hopefully I won't have to toss and turn too long before sleep takes me.