Sustenance

You know sometimes when you’re just in a hurry to capture a moment so you don’t really read over what you’ve written and then you look at it again in the cold light of The Next Day and you realize that maybe you didn’t really capture the moment after all?

You don’t know?

Oh.

I read my last post over after I posted it and at the time, it pleased me. I have been mulling over the fact that I am getting so many more dumbfounded “Huh. Well.” responses to this pregnancy whereas with my last one it was all “HEY I THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER BREED! LET ME BUY YOU THINGS!” The nature of the beast, I suspect, with the second children, plus with the work people it’s also a bit of strategizing (when can I get her job?) and judgement (she’s just here for the benefits! sloot!).

The latter I know well. In the past I have been the woman in the office who looks askance at the woman who comes back from maternity leave just long enough to rearrange her desk and get pregnant again. I was the woman who was replacing the woman on maternity leave, both times, same woman. And at the time I couldn’t put my finger on it – why did it bother me so much that this woman was having babies?

My assumption and judgement was that she didn’t take her job seriously. That it was just one more way in which she was lazy. (she was rather lazy) That here I was, busting my ass, doing her job better than she ever did and she was just floating around, being pregnant and using it as an excuse to not work. She didn’t really CARE about the job. (not that I did either. But I did a better job of pretending.)

Many, many years ago, did I mention? Many. How young I was.

I am aware that people are thinking those things about me. My job offers killer benefits and if I were the planning type and the breeding type, which I still insist I am not, despite evidence etc. I would choose this job as the place to spend my childbearing years. I don’t blame people for thinking that’s what I’m doing. Using the system.

It still seems a little skeevy to me to use the system because it implies abuse of The System. Of course in my mind, The System has historically earned the benefit of the doubt. I was raised to fear it, to bow to authority. I have developed my own modifications to this bow over the years; I give the finger behind my back, I make funny faces when The System’s head is turned, but come right down to it, The System is my master. It’s all-encompassing. It drives me – not the need for money or the need for stimulation or the need for any kind of fulfillment but the simple need for work and the unspoken agreement that whatever it takes, I will work; to contribute, to pay my share, to not be a good-for-nothing who doesn’t work.

My work ethic is a WWE wrestler with some serious ‘roid rage.

Understand, these are deep-seated values that I have been struggling to overthrow for some time. The rules do not apply to the general public, just to me. I know that everyone’s path in life is different and no one is provided the same opportunities as anyone else. Some people, for example, don’t do shit jobs they hate because they have too much self-respect and I admire those people greatly. But I can never quite move myself those last few inches until I am one of them. Key in my emotional makeup is that sometimes we have to suffer to get the things we want, if we are lucky enough to be offered them.

The other day I was telling a co-worker about the pregnancy and I mentioned that I most likely (98.7%?) will not return to work, that work, ever. She said, “I’m surprised you lasted this long.” She meant because the job uses about 10% of my brain and leaves the rest to rot in a pile of leaves under my desk. I said, “Well it was never an option to quit.” And it honestly never has been. Though I have said, over the years, that I could quit whenever I want, it’s not actually true. My forebrain will not let me quit, no matter how badly my hindbrain knows it is the right thing to do.

It’s inspiring really, that my hindbrain has taken over so boldly in forcing my hand with this pregnancy. I guess hindbrain and biology go well together. The question whispering in the back of my backest head, of course, is: what if something goes wrong with the pregnancy? Will I still quit my job? But I am steadfastly ignoring that whisper at the moment and I invite you to join me.

When I started this post I referred to my last post and how I meant to convey all of the above in a few pithy lines. The Next Day, I read it again and realized what I had actually conveyed sounded more like, “hey check my hot body! dude didn’t even believe I was pregnant!” Um. That is totally not what I meant. My body is, well, it’s 14 weeks pregnant and I believe it displays this quite adequately.

And originally this post was just the first and last paragraphs but all that other goop inserted itself and who am I to deny you more goop? And, of course, some shots of me to prove that while I am, indeed, hot, it is definitely not the kind of hot the kids are talking about in their rap music.