I had the odd experience the other day of feeling trapped in a lunch that I couldn't wait to get out of. This may not surprise many people upfront, except that my lunch was with Ethan and Steve (they were fine), two Bates-Clark medalists (for the best economist under 40), one of whom also has won the McArthur genius grant, and a nobel prize winner in economics. Lunchtime conversation was definitely at a higher level than normal, with little to no contribution from the three of us in the peanut gallery. Fascinating, but all I could think of was how I was trying to make up two hours of missed time and that the computer labs all closed at five, meaning the only way was to take a short lunch or work on the weekend. I figured (as lunch ticked slowly past the hour mark) that I could probably, without offense, excuse myself since I was the only hourly-paid employee at the table and everyone there (to my knowledge) had had that experience and could sympathize. But I lacked the courage to speak up - the last lunch I voiced an opinion ended up with my pathetically limited knowledge on the topic being battered into the ground (once bitten, twice shy) - so there I sat, trying not to fidget or shred my napkin or roll my eyes or look at my watch. I got out after ninety minutes. The reason I was two hours behind already was from a lunch the week before. I wonder why I worry about these things - I could just write down two fewer hours on my timecard this week. Emily isn't holding me to a set schedule and at this point I am sure to finish the project before I leave, possibly even by next week if I keep up my full-time travails, so there is no real reason to worry, no real need to be present every hour of the workday. I still worry somehow that that's cheating, that I'm slacking, that my work ethic isn't enough. Like Sue said so fatefully, six years ago, that I have no drive. No ambition. That would be worse than being two hours behind.
The first box came today. I think it may have come a few days ago but with the office closed for the holiday and my lack of reading skills prior I missed my opportunity and had to wait. But there it was, a surprise. Stacked on top of the box I was expecting - old christmas presents that never managed to fit in the suitcases: four glasses from mexico, a japanese teapot, a flour sifter, a cloth cooler, two blocks of blue ice. Crate and Barrel. We knew what was inside - only one person had bought anything - but we hadn't seen it yet, didn't know who it was from. I am still not sure about the teacups. The outside color is perfect, matches the plates from my grandmother, but the inside is a lovely winter white that, of course, looks fairly awful with the white plates and bright white bowls. I wasn't sure but I put them on the list - let Ethan decide, we can always exchange them for plain white. But tonight he wanted to wash them, put them away in the cabinet he had just cleaned out for the purpose. If we take the labels off we have to keep them. I know he says think of them as the first dishes we start our new life with. They're not perfect, just like us. Cliched, or he wouldn't have said it, but decided and true. We have shared so much together for the past five years that it seems silly to get a little choked up about two cups and saucers but suddenly getting married seems real again, seems different. I am still not sure what that difference is but it is there and, as it seems, growing.
I found out today that I've been pregnant for five years. Sounds odd, I know, but that explains why I haven't ovulated, maybe even the pounds I may, or may not, have gained (hard to tell without a scale around). I always knew the pill did something to the ovum, it had to or you couldn't be safe the whole time the way the packet promises but I never understood exactly what. Then last week I read that it suppressed ovulation. Fine and dandy, if a little odd. I had a momentary panic about if my body would remember how, when the time came, and then brushed it off as silly. Of course it does, just give it a few months. Then today I finally understood in full - the estrogen and progesterone mimics the hormones of a pregnancy, suppressing ovulation, building up the lining. I had to sit for a minute after I read that information, digest it. It is not stated so directly in any other literature I have read thus far, academic, medical, or even the fact sheet that comes with every prescription. I am not surprised, now that I know why - for some reason I am vaguely disturbed and almost saddened by the news which stands in contrast to my stated (and actual) very strong desire to not have a child in the present time. I think somehow to find out that the last five years of blood have been a sham is the worst blow, almost as if it makes me less of a woman. The feminist writing I have been reading, not only responsible for my current shameless/righteous writing, makes me feel ashamed of my discomfort - why should I be upset at the fact that I have been prevented from full fertility, when that in fact was my goal? Why should the method matter, so long as it is temporary and relatively harmless? But it takes me back to a dream I had a few years ago where the trauma was even more clear. I was a surrogate mother, really just a host - the fetus was implanted, like a ball of dough expanding, until suddenly it was cut out, returned to the rightful mother, snatched away in an instant and I felt more bereft, empty, alone than I had in a very long time. I woke up because of my tears, hands pressed against my stomach looking for the child that was there and then gone. I cannot explain the dream, the motivation for it, my heartfelt reaction (I mourned, literally mourned, for a day). I cannot explain my present uneasiness. I wonder at my own connection of womanhood to motherhood, which seems to be the only real link between these experiences, and I am frightened by the meaning and responsibility therein.
First, for yesterday. I was thinking about Christmas yesterday, about going home, eating almond danish and turkey, teasing my sister and driving out to see the lights. I wasn't planning on changing anything this year - I would go home, Ethan to Florida, and we would meet up after the holiday. We've done it for years, so each of us can see our families, spend that time with tradition and history of it. We don't have our own tradition and so there is no real loss. But I am scared of that this year, frightened of being in my house again without him and it has nothing to do with our impending marriage but much more so with my sister's. It had always been the four of us (and then the others in the afternoon) - stockings, breakfast, presents, food, pie, a movie, bed. I didn't mind being away from him because I had my nucleus and the bonds were tight enough to hold together. But now that my sister has entered the land of the shmoopsies (it really is quite gag-worthy) time at home doesn't feel like home anymore. It has become full of my lack. A week at Christmas, another one at June - why I was so irritable, so ill-content, became clear in hindsight and the recognition does nothing to heal the problem.
Second, for today. Ariel said it last night, as people often do - Well, you have a new family, now. I disagree. I think I will always disagree. If they mean the in-laws then there is no contest but what most often is referred to is the two of us, now and in the future. Depends on the speaker. Ethan as my family, me as his, us as ours - I don't buy it. Somehow in my upbringing became the entrenched idea that a family is something with children, with multiple generations or multiples of the same generation - and no, two people choosing to be with each other (of whatever generations) is not good enough. I feel strongly enough about this to bristle slightly when I hear the two of us referred to that way (yes, I realize how irrational and pointless that is) and I have an urge to call down my rhetorical lightning and teach the poor speaker a lesson but to no avail - in truth there is no point. I have never really thought about why the terminology bothers me so much, why the knee-jerk reaction is there but off the top of my head (likely influenced by all my recent journal reading) is the fact that most people do mean parents and children when they speak of families in the most general sense and I either resent or fear the implication that the two of us is not good enough or surely temporary - that our relationship, once legalized, is still not validated by society until there are little midget liebskis running around (certainly aren't many tall-genes in the ancestors). The past few weeks have done a lot to shove this topic in my face, mostly in the context of third-world/developing world women, and despite my societal differences I find it hard to keep myself distanced from their situation. I imagine myself worn out from childbirth, constrained in my whole adult life based on what culture and husband dictate to me. I listen for authoritarianism in Ethan's speech, I wonder at the way society has trained me to be a "proper" woman, grooming me subconsciously for a smooth domestic life. I fear the expectation of America once I am a happily married fertile woman instead of a free hoyden running amok with the other heathens cultural convention. Pressures from the older generations, expectations from the younger. Doubtless I am blowing the whole affair monstrously out of proportion but it is the first real thing to dampen my enthusiasm and make me wonder at the necessity of the legal process, the paper signing. I don't need that and the attendant expectations - but of course, it's what's expected.
