There are some things you just can’t control. And it looks like birth might be one of them. You see, a few days ago I went to the lady doctor for a routine annual visit. And until this particular day, I’d kinda given up on talking to doctors about my depression. I just get tired of feeling so silly and whiny at the end of the appointment when they tell me there is nothing wrong with me - other than all the crazies in my head.
“Maybe you should see a psychiatrist to find out why you are really depressed. And they can give you the appropriate medication.”
“Ok doc. You’re right. I’ll get right on that,” I say to them. I no longer have the umph to bust out my phone-book-sized pile of medical paperwork that lists years of therapy, both conventional and non, and my countless attempts at varying unsuccessful treatments. But this time, as she looked over my chart, she... *gasp*... asked how I was doing! So after a long discussion about feelings, she promptly decided that my hormones were out of control and in one quick swoop... She took. Me off. The Pill. DUN DUN DUN.....
Was she serious? Could my birth control actually be making me more bananas than I naturally am? Was it possible for this teeny tiny tablet to make me monumentally mad? Or even worse, overwhelmingly sad? Although I’m still doubting that it’s the culprit, I feel like I’ve tried my hand at everything else. So this time, instead of taking drugs for the pain, I’m going attempt a lack-there-of.
Now my ovaries are probably having a party in there with all their new found freedom. I’m sure they’ve been holding up little egg-shaped picketing signs demanding their right to ovulate for years now and they’ve finally won their battle. Which is terrifying. Because kids are terrifying. What if my ovaries decide to overcompensate to make up for all the years that they’ve been denied access to ovulation and then in turn produce like 20 eggs at a time or something? I could become the first woman to become pregnant with a score of children. What would they even call them? Scoretuplets? I don’t want to find out.
Now I’ve thought about children a lot lately. I guess it’s because 90 percent of my close friends now have children or are well on their way to that lifestyle that consists of words like “potty” or “hiney” and meals of ketchup and chicken fingers. And although most of it sounds like the place where grown-ups and excitement go to die, I must admit that ALL of my friends that have children appear to be happier now. Now maybe this is just them lying through their Facebook statuses, trying to give a shiny- hiney exterior to the hell that their lives have become, but I think that at least part of their happiness is authentic.
When I go to the park sometimes, I watch moms with their babies and dads chasing toddlers. They laugh out loud and smile much bigger than the people like me nearby with their dogs that are picking up poop and carrying it around in bags. (Sidenote: Why do we do that again? Gross.) And I know that the parenting people are actually going home to even more poop than the dog people, and I know that my dog doesn’t cry all night long and he’s only puked on me once. BUT - they still seem genuinely happier.
Maybe it’s because they have something that actually gives them something back now. They have smiles and giggles and that baby smell with them all the time. They have a house full of sweet stuffed animals and new toys that every grown up actually wants to have in their home, but isn’t allowed to have until they give birth. And they have the feeling of being needed combined with an unconditional love that they give and get back. So it makes perfect sense why they might be happier. So maybe I’ve found my solution....
But no. I gotta set my biological clock back to daylight savings time so it can be sunnier a lot longer. Because after much time wondering if babies are the answer to happiness, I’ve decided that they aren’t. Because I know that until you are happy with your own life, you can’t be happy with another. I mean I don’t KNOW this, but it’s my educated hypothesis. So I shouldn’t plan, nor hope for, buying a diaper genie any time soon to fill whatever gaping hole might be in my current existence. Because I would really hate it if my kid came out of the womb with a giant scowl on their face that they inherited from their mother. But with no birth control, is this just one more element of my life that is out of control?
Maybe if I quit thinking about my life as being this out-of-control tumultuous tornado that just gives me vertigo, and instead think of it more as just something that is out of MY control, it will help me just give it up a little bit. Give it up to the hands of my doctor. Give it up to fate or God or the Universe or whomever really is running the show here. Because I am clearly not. And if I’m supposed to be, I should really be fired. And that way, if babies make their way into this reeling realm of mine, I’ll at least have someone else to blame for it. But who knows, maybe by that point, I will have replaced the missing estrogen and progestin that I’ve been giving myself, with a little self-made happiness hormone instead. And passing on that gene would make me pretty f**ing happy.
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