Plans

I interviewed for a job yesterday.  Its a job that pays too little and requires too much.  Just what I'm used to.  I applied because I need something to do.  My life is so unstructured.  I don't get out of bed until 9:00, creeping closer to 10:00 each day.  I stay up late doing who knows what.  I need some purpose, so I'm looking for a job.  Not a career, just a job.

I haven't interviewed for a job in 4 years, so I was a little rusty.  I didn't really prepare for the standard interview questions.  I have been so happily immersed it the world of motherhood that I really had to dig deep to remember my work life before Jonah.  I find it funny that the job of motherhood is inappropriate to reference in professional interviews.  When they asked me "Tell me about a difficult work experience and how you resolved it?" I wanted to tell them about trying to teach Jonah to sleep through the night.  I wanted to tell them about Jonah's cleft palate surgery, how I held him and tried to stay calm when he was in so much pain. Both experiences are so much harder than anything I've ever dealt with at work.

"What adjectives would you use to describe yourself?"  I wanted to say incredibly strong, hopeful, devastated, confused.  I think I said adaptable, passionate, creative. 

Here is the question that really got me.  "What are your plans for the next two years, what are your goals for the future?"  This question almost made me laugh. I have always been goal oriented. I like to have a plan.  I like to know where I'm headed and that I'm achieving something.  I like to put things on my resume.  Four years ago I would have had a great answer for that question.  Instead I said,

I have spent a lot of my life achieving goals, and working on plans.  In the last year of my life I have had all my plans turned upside down.  I wish I could tell you where I'm going to be and what I will be doing in two years.  I wish I could plan that far in advance, but I can't.  All I can tell you is that I want to be involved in something important, and I will do my best at whatever job I am given. 

I don't know if they liked that answer.  It felt honest, although not the whole truth.  I do have a plan.  I want to be a mom again.  I have come to realize that pregnancy is not always as easy and effortless as so many teenagers make it look.  It may be months, or years, or eternities.  I cannot plan my life.  I can hope.  I can wait.  I can try.  I can pray.  I will do all those things and try to appreciate the days I am given, the opportunities that present themselves and the love that comes my way.  And maybe someday I will get a job.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.  Woody Allen

Anger

Monday, December 5th I felt angry.  At least I think I felt angry.  I am a middle child, a peacemaker.  Anger and I haven't spent much time together, at least not in public, so it is a hard emotion for me to decipher.  It always comes in combination with frustration, sorrow, guilt and so many other messy emotions that it can be hard to distinguish.  On Monday it came with the feeling of deep irritation and self-pity. 

Why Monday?  Monday was the day Jonah was scheduled to have a major cranial-facial surgery.  His surgeon planned to take a bone graft from his skull to build up his cheek bones to support and realign the orbits of his eyes.  We would have spent the better part of this week in the hospital.  When the surgeon described this procedure to me months ago I felt like throwing up.  It was so hard to think of putting our Jonah, our beautiful healthy child, through such a difficult operation. It was hard to think of a doctor changing Jonah's appearance, because I loved him just as he was.  But we put our trust in the surgeon, had faith that it was the best thing for our child, and put the date on the calendar.

So Monday morning I couldn't figure out how I should feel.  Should I feel grateful that Jonah did not have to go through such a difficult surgery?  Should I resent the fact that I am not in the hospital with him right now?  Should I wish in my heart to feel the fear of sending my child into surgery?  It was just too much for me.  I couldn't bring myself to feel grateful that he wasn't having surgery, and I couldn't wish that he was alive to experience such pain.  So I chose to feel anger. 

When I'm angry I don't really lash out at others, I just shut down.  I stop talking.  I stop writing.  I just stop and feel sorry for myself.  I let myself feel frustrated for a moment by all of the challenges we have faced in the last two years.  I begin to label the things I hate.  I hate that Jonah died.  I hate that our bodies are imperfect.  I hate that I carry a genetic disorder that I could pass onto my children.  I hate that other people in the world are careless and negligent of their children, and yet their children live.  I hate that with all the medical technology in the world, no one could save Jonah from the tiny fruit snack I gave him.  

I am academic enough to acknowledge that anger is a normal part of grief.  But as these moments of anger have come I have found that there is a difference between feeling angry and being angry.  Letting myself feel anger is cathartic.  It is like a good cry, it releases the built up frustration of living in a world that is beyond my control.  But being angry is something different.  It is not a release, but a holding on.  It is choosing to dwell in the difficulty of that which is beyond our control.  As I laid in bed, wallowing in my misfortune I recognized that I do not want to be angry.  

Monday night I was able to tell Jordan how frustrating life is, of course he already knows.  He made dinner for me (egg, cheese and bacon biscuits) and bought me a cherry coke.  He got me out of the house and reminded me through his presence that I have so much to be grateful for.  That gratitude seemed to expose my anger for what it really was: sadness, heartache, disappointment, and longing to be with my beautiful, perfect boy. 

Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9