Purging

A common theme of pregnancy should be purging. Clearly, I've spent a lot of time hugging the toilet. But beyond the literal, I've spent a lot of time in the last few months purging myself of my bad habits, my material possessions, my years of anti-pregnancy prejudice.

Today I was cleaning my room and I was finding things from high school, like perfumes and lotions, pictures, random junk. It felt good to throw that all away. Before I moved from my ghetto house, I got rid of loads of stuff, and I like the feeling of lightening the load, even as physically and emotionally, my "load" is getting heavier. I'm trying to get rid of all this junk I've accumulated so it makes it easier to move when the baby comes and to adjust to this new person that I have to become.

Sometimes I'm happy that the relationships I do have now aren't based on drinking and being stupid. But it is also sad because once in a while I just want to get drunk and not feel sad or self conscious and dance and be stupid. I want to feel the confidence boost and the lack of inhibition that only drunkeness can bring, like damn right, I can get anyone in this room.

It's sad to realize how much of a support alcohol becomes. How awkward I feel in social situations without the comforting presence of a drink in my hand. Something to swirl, to drink during lulls in conversation. To drink away the nervousness, then purge myself of the stupidity in the morning, swearing I'll never do this again.

Deciding to have a child is just such a huge decision. It's not something that I can now wake up and say, well, I'm kind of over this, like a haircolor or something. I wish I could purge myself of this gnawing self doubt that cuts through me too much. Can I really do this? Am I making the right choice? Do I have the patience, the maturity, the maternal instinct, enough for what I'm choosing to do?

But no one wants to talk about that. There's still this crazy notion that all women have this warm maternal side and since I'm having (and keeping) my baby, I should be 100% committed to this. Hell no, I've got doubts. Every day. And they're not going to go away. I'm sure even when she's in college and I'm thinking about her going out and being drunkand stupid I'm going to wonder, Did I make the right choice? Did I just totally fuck up this other humans life? But no one wants to talk about that.

As I clean out my closets, I need to toss out a few of those skeletons hanging in the back, but I'm not ready to tackle those. I'm not ready to face a lot of these emotions that are lurking under the surface. The things that make me cry myself to sleep at night. The things that run through my dreams every damn night. Those will be there until I'm ready to face them. i hope I can throw those out sometime. I guess I'm just not ready to yet. I'll settle for an organized bookshelf and a clean floor for now.