I realized something about myself last night. I realized two things, actually. One: I think in terms of getting through things, like, "if only Obama gets elected, everything will be okay," (done!) or, "if I get pregnant, all my problems will be solved." The revealing thing last night was that in the elated moments after my guy won, I had a call from a doctor friend to discuss my disappointing fertility and there I was, five minutes later: down in the dumps, thinking about my next hurdle to cross. Like: check the election off the list; now move on (drudgingly, cheerlessly) to the next problem.
Do I think once I achieve the things I want, I will be "fixed?" "Enlightened?" That I will have achieved happiness, perfection, success, maybe even Buddhahood, that ultimate goal? I am reading, in Basics of Buddhism, about the ten states of being, e.g., Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Humanity, Rapture, Learning, Realization, Bodhisattvahood, and Buddhahood.
The other thing I realized last night was much more pedestrian, but also more important in some ways. The conversation with my friend was to get a second opinion about a very expensive test that my doctor, Dr. A., says I should get. Expensive, like, three-grand-out-of-pocket expensive. When my friend asked me why the doctor wanted to give me this test, all I could say was, "I don't really know." Steph suggested I take a very different and more simple route, an ultrasound. It should cost, she said, a couple hundred dollars.
On the way home, with Marc, and Lex sleeping peacefully in his carseat in the back, we turned off the radio for a minute and just talked it through.
Then Marc dropped a bomb.
He really should reconsider this law gig and become a therapist, methinks.
I have realized in the past month how badly I want to be pregnant again.
I have realized that I have this kind of fog around my own fertility, many questions about whether my very harrowing birth with Lex a few years back caused some sort of uterine trauma that has made me infertile.
And that I am terrified to find out.
But that not knowing is killing me.
And that I am not asking very well for what I need: information, and a plan.
And that I do not feel laid back or calm about any of it.
In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin says something to the effect of, "I wanted to take myself more seriously, and also less seriously." I so know what she means. I want to be laid back, calm, Zen. And yet it may be that the only way I get there is to take myself more seriously.
On today's to-do list: write another email to doctor, asking for more information and a better plan.
Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Boddisattva, Buddhahood, Dr. A., enlightened, fertility, infertility, Obama, ten states of being | Permalink.