My Quest to become Honest, True, Chased by an Elephant

Lost | May 17, 2010

I’ve been feeling lost, in more ways than one, lately.  I have made some really positive changes in my life, and improved many aspects of my life, but I still feel like I’m treading water, looking for something I can’t identify.

I attempted home-schooling.  It was, shall we say, not a success.  I’m okay with this — I understand it’s a lifestyle shift, and one that doesn’t work for our family, at least right now.  I don’t mind that it didn’t work out, any more than I’d mind not finishing a book or a movie that I didn’t feel was offering anything good to my life or my family.  But I sort of had this vision that I’d love home-schooling, and be great at balancing everything, and I’d just be teaching the kids, while they all paid rapt attention to me, as I swept around the kitchen, baking bread, with a baby in a sling.  And with just one school-age kid, it seriously wasn’t working!  I think I feel a little guilt to myself, for not being able to do something I thought I could.

I joined a gym, and signed on with a personal trainer.  I’m proud of this move I’m making for my own health, and I’m learning and doing new things, each day, and pushing myself physically, farther than I thought I could go.  My body is definitely becoming more muscled, and on a good day, I can see some of the changes in a mirror, and I’m pleased then.  But it seems like, more often than not, I notice the bad parts — what hasn’t gone away since my working-out efforts.  Now, admittedly, I’ve only been doing this for two months, but I thought I’d have more noticeable results by now (not entirely my fault — the “sales guy” that gives the presentation for why you need a personal trainer showed me this graph of my expected progress, and said that I should expect to see the biggest changes within a month or so, and after that, it would drop off, until by the end of the year, I’d be basically fine-tuning my wonderful in-shape body.  Now I don’t feel quite like I’m getting there, although I’m doing the exercises called for religiously.  Part of the fault lies with me, though — I haven’t changed my diet long-term, and although we eat fairly healthy, we definitely like to indulge!)

I was pregnant.  For just a short, glorious few weeks, I had the delight of knowing I was nurturing a new baby in my belly.  Then one night, as I stood from saying a family prayer, I felt something.  I excused myself and went to the bathroom, and discovered what I most hoped not to — I was miscarrying my baby.  I am “over it” at this point — not crying and thinking about my little bean every moment, and physically fine, but I still mourn what was there.  And I am excited to try again — I know that one more baby is waiting to join our family.  But I feel slightly lost.  I shouldn’t be trying to conceive now — I should be telling my friends and family that we’re expecting.  I shouldn’t be buying ovulation predictors — I should be taking out my maternity clothes from boxes.

And I can’t help but wonder and worry that it was something I did.  I know that there is very little a healthy woman can do to cause a miscarriage, and that in all probability, there was just something wrong with the genetic material forming the baby, and my body made a clean sweep.  But I still wonder, did I run that bath too hot?  Was it that day before I knew I was pregnant, when I sat in the sauna to put lotion on?  Did I exercise too much?  When I dieted before I knew I was pregnant, did I not eat enough food to sustain the bean?  I know the answer was none of the above — that little body just wasn’t ready for the earth.  But I still miss it….  And feel lost.