Life Outside the Matrix

I'm reading lots about labor & delivery and about the stay-at-home/work-and-use-daycare decision these days. It's all starting to feel a bit overwhelming. Being pregnant is like a vacation from reality - everyone seems happy for me, I'm pleased and excited that my body seems to know how to grow another human being, it's fun feeling the baby move, I imagine that being a mother will bring feelings of fulfillment and an outlet for nurturing. So I'm just going through the days like "lallalala..." But in the back of my mind I know this isn't reality, and the occasional visions of the future feel like cold water in my face: glimpses of real life outside the Matrix.

For example, I imagine being in the middle of labor and realizing it's more than I can handle, after all, and feeling powerless and frantic with pain. Or holding a squalling newborn who just can't be soothed, meeting my husband's eyes with concern - "oh no, what have we done?" Or trying to run errands with a toddler, having my kid hit me or do something else "unacceptable" in public, and not knowing how to handle it, and feeling like a failure as a mother. Or maybe worst of all, seeing my husband's shoulders sag and feeling that I brought this all on him, that it's my fault he's getting worn down with responsibilities.

I still have the sense that parenthood was my idea. I feel like somehow it's my job to make sure it turns out ok, that having a baby around is "fun," that raising a child won't hurt our marriage and in fact will bring us closer together. What if these things don't turn out to be true? What if, through no fault of her own, she's a fussy baby or has problems or sucks all our time and energy so we never have any good time as a couple any more? It's not that he expects me to make parenthood a smooth ride when so much of it is beyond my control. All the same, if I fail, we might drift apart under the strain. And I can imagine that we'll both resent the control the baby has over our lives and schedules. So many of the nice things we take for granted now, like peaceful evenings shoulder-to-shoulder on the sofa, or fun outings with friends, will be thrown askew by the introduction of a third, needy, person to our stable dynamic.

And then there's the morass of working and daycare. I keep changing my mind about what to do. I feel concerned about trying to breast-feed for the first year if I'm working, and about being stretched too thin if I try to hold down a job, keep my marriage strong, stay in touch with friends and family, and be a great mother too. On the other hand it feels important to me to earn enough money to pay my own way, and to carry half the weight of our child. I'm also afraid that if I step off the career track I might not be able to get back on - and this isn't about just me and my ambitions, it's about our family financial security. I can't expect my husband to carry us all on his own. And I don't want to. If I quit working and stayed home, it would feel like something I'd have to re-justify to myself every day, and I'd constantly worry that I was less of a person for making that choice - in my own eyes, if not his or my friends'. No judgment on others here, every family does what's best for them. I just can't figure out what's best for us.

In a way I guess this just highlights the larger issue that I'm really not sure where my career is going, so I don't know how much of my energy I should be putting into it right now. The impending arrival of a baby just throws a spotlight on any preexisting problems a couple might have - health, financial, housing, work. Well, we will muddle through somehow. I keep reminding myself that, all things considered, my quality of life is probably in the top 1% of people in the world. Elsewhere, people are digging through garbage just to try to feed their kids, not worrying about the effect on their sense of self that parenthood will bring. That's what it's really like outside the Matrix. Really I have no excuse to be anything but happy.

Wide-Eyed Innocence

This morning my eyes seemed a little wacked-out, and my vision wasn't as sharp as usual - but I didn't think much of it, since they're often wacked-out. I do a lot of reading and other close-up work. Anyway, a few hours later I glanced in a mirror and noticed that my pupils were scarily dilated. Aha! No wonder so blurry. But - why? I was pretty sure the hallucinogenic mushrooms I'd consumed the previous evening had nothing to do with it. The concussion following that run-in with the circus thief in the back alley was also probably just a coincidence. I looked up dilated pupils online and found out they're a symptom of cocaine use, brain tumors, and various other scary things. "Get to a hospital immediately," was the general consensus. "If left untreated, the condition can progress to death quickly."

So then I tried to forget I had ever noticed my dilated pupils, and guiltily went about my regular work. Two hours later, my eyes seemed back to normal. Sometimes, I guess, dilated pupils are just a symptom of it being a Friday morning in March.

Facing Some Limitations

Pregnancy is finally catching up with me. So far, I've been humming merrily along, answering the daily "So how are you feeling?" queries with "Great!" and marveling to myself that pregnancy doesn't really feel any different. Aside from little things like having to roll to the side and push myself up with my hands (using my stomach muscles to get up seems to trigger sharp, sudden pains), I haven't had any inconvenient symptoms. I regularly walk home from work, which is about three miles, stopping partway to load up on groceries at the store. There's an element of pride about it for me - that despite pregnancy I can still do everything I did before.

But I think I'm finally getting to my limit. Recently I've been on my feet a lot during the day and have done an unusual amount of walking to various events in the evenings. The kind of thing I'd think nothing of if I wasn't pregnant. But at some point last night, about two miles from home, mildly lost, on a dark street in the rain, puffing as I hurried up a hill on my way to a movie screening, I felt the baby kick and suddenly felt a pang of apology for what I was doing. It's fine for me to skip dinner and hurry off to some event, when it only affects me. The equation is more complicated now though.

Later, after a marathon (not literally) amount of walking, I felt unexpectedly sore and achy. I could feel my stomach and inner thigh muscles crying out whenever I took a step, and my hip joints ached. I never used to feel that way before I got pregnant.

I've also reached the point where it's apparent to others that I'm pregnant, so when I get on the bus someone usually offers me a seat. I always say no because I feel awkward turning someone else out of their seat just because I managed to get myself knocked up. I feel like they're offering just to be polite - hoping I'll say no. But lately I've started wanting to say yes, and wondering at what point is it okay to give in.

People Who Shouldn't Have Dogs

This morning I saw something kind of awful. It was a pair of golden labs cantering along side-by-side, taking quick happy glances at each other as they ran, almost literally kicking up their heels with pleasure at being outside on such a day. Everything was washed with sunlight and the hedges in front of the apartment buildings were blanketed in banks of snow. It was so lovely - but something about it seemed weird, and then I realized it was that the dogs were out on their own, without an owner.

"Are they loose?" someone at my bus stop asked, and someone else said, "Yeah." The dogs ran kind of aimlessly up the block, then turned and ran back down, and abruptly raced out into traffic. A woman nearby cried out, "Oh! OH, NO! God, I can't look," and clapped her hands over her mouth in horror as six lanes of traffic screeched to a halt. The dogs made it across the road and gallivanted off.

Just then my bus pulled up and I got on, out of sheer inertia. Even as the bus was pulling away from the curb I was thinking about what I should have done. I should have gone to catch those dogs. I was already late for work, but so what. I should have run after them until I caught them. I could use my scarf to loop through their collars to hold onto them. I could take them into my apartment and shut them in the bedroom while I called the humane society. Or I could look at their collars for ID tags that might have their address. About halfway through the bus ride I realized I'd seen them before, leaving a house in a neighborhood about a half mile away. The owner was some guy who followed after them as they trotted down the street. He didn't have leashes on them that time, either, but at least he was with them. I'm so angry at him for being careless with his dogs. Why can't he walk them on leashes like he's supposed to? and take care that they don't run away? I blame him for putting them in danger. Perhaps even now he is frantically driving up and down the streets looking for them, out of his mind with worry. I hope so.

It reminds me of the guy I saw loading his pickup, on the side of that same road not too long ago, with his puppy hanging out with him. The dog was just gazing at the guy with adoration, sitting in the road watching him. Cars had to swerve into the next lane to avoid hitting the dog. The guy didn't even notice. Someone said to him, "Watch that dog," and he absent-mindedly snapped his fingers at the dog, which moved closer to him but still not entirely out of the road. But honestly! You wouldn't set your infant down in a lane of traffic while you're loading your truck, so why would you let your dog sit there? I hate it when people are irresponsible with their animals.

The Friend

Last night my friend called, the one whose calls I dread. I didn't even realize I dread them until I picked up the phone and she said "Hello," and my heart gave a kind of unhappy thunk, just the way it does when I hear the particular squeak of the side door when mi amigo comes in to start his rounds. What's wrong with me? I should be pleased to talk to friends, right? But both relationships just make me feel kind of trapped and obligated. I don't feel like I have any control over either of them. I'm always desperate to leave the office on time so I won't get trapped in a language lesson (and smooched - he is always very affectionate in greeting me, more so than I'm comfortable with). And when my friend calls, I just know I'm going to be asked to do something I don't want to do.

The heart of the matter is that we're very different people. She's very adventurous and has a kind of wild, disorganized life. So what's fun for her - like going at the last minute to a steel drum concert in a shady part of town - isn't fun for me, and she makes me feel like a wet blanket for not wanting to do things like that. Sometimes I think, much as I admire her courage, that we're friends only because we've known each other through turbulent times.

Last night I was in my pajamas and all ready to spend the evening cozily reading. It was a blustery, cold night outside, and I'd walked partway home, so I was tired and so glad to be indoors. Then the phone rang and my friend said, "I need to ask you a favor." I said, "Sure. Just please don't make me go outside again tonight." But indeed I did have to go outside. In the end I had to cook her dinner (because her life is wild and disorganized enough that she hadn't had any - which is fine, I didn't mind that), and then we drove over to her apartment in a sketchy neighborhood and packed up some of the stuff she didn't get a chance to take when she moved last week, and loaded it into the car, and drove to a different sketchy neighborhood to unload it at her new digs. It was so cold and I was carrying heavy stuff, just like I didn't want to do. And driving in a bad neighborhood late at night, which I hate. My friend is very blase about it and confident - after all, she chose that place to live. She even talks contemptuously about people who are scared of bad neighborhoods. But it upsets me. I would pay twice as much to live somewhere safe.

After I left her place, I drove back through the bad neighborhood and got lost, of course, like I knew I would. I was just trying to follow the same route back, but the streets didn't look familiar. I drove up and down, pulling U-turns on side streets as I searched for the turn. I got honked at when I pulled over. The car was starting to make some weird shuddery noises and sound like it was going to break down. I felt paranoid and vulnerable every time I had to sit at a traffic light - trapped again - trying to avoid eye contact with people on the streets. Finally I got home.

Even after I had locked the deadbolt on my apartment and was back in my pajamas drinking hot chocolate, I still felt miserable. It was like the experience made me sick, and I couldn't shake it off even though it was over. Probably part of it is pregnancy hormones, telling me, "Don't do that. OK, you did it. Don't do that - ever - again." But I knew from the start that I didn't want to, and I still had to. Ugh! I wish these things weren't asked of me.

Advice columnists always say that no one can take advantage of you unless you let them. But I don't see where I was allowed to say no. She needed to pick up her things last night, because she needed clothes for work the next day, and I'm her only friend with a car, and there was no way for her to get from the old digs to the new digs on public transport. And no good reason for me to refuse, except that doing that kind of thing makes me feel sick inside - which she wouldn't have understood. It's true that she could have planned better and gotten the stuff she needed last week. Or taken a cab. Or asked for the favor during daylight hours on a Saturday. But she didn't, because to her driving around late at night isn't a chore and certainly not scary, it's a "wacky adventure," and why would anyone refuse except to be unreasonable and mean? Even now I can't find the words I could have used to tell her no.

Monty Guinea Pig's Flying Circus

I have a new ambition for my guinea pigs. I will teach them to play soccer. It will enhance the Traveling Guinea Pig Circus immeasurably - so far, the only trick was jumping through a hoop, which, granted, is very impressive and something I'm sure people would pay good money to see. Who else in the world has managed to teach their guinea pigs to do such an amazing trick?? But soccer cannot be far behind. I have great faith in the inherent ability of the pigs to learn pretty much anything for the sake of food.

Last night I took the first step and taught them to touch the soccer ball (actually, a ping-pong ball) with their noses in order to get food. They picked it up pretty fast, and were even able to remember it for periods of time lasting from 1-3 minutes. Longer than that, and they would forget and have to relearn it. I'm using Official Animal Training Techniques from the pros (a verbal cue and instant reward - Temple Grandin says that if animals don't get a reward within 1 second of doing a behavior, they won't make the connection).

Anyway, as soon as they have that down, I will make them push the ping-pong ball a few inches in order to get the reward. Then I will make them move it in a particular direction. Then I will build little tiny goals that I will set up on opposite sides of the play area. Then I will teach them off-sides and scoring and out of bounds, and knit them little soccer jerseys, and we'll be on our way to fame and fortune!