What To Do When Things Suck by Lucy

Valentine's Day was not good.

So here I was, all freaked about the wedding and wishing desperately that I'd eloped when things suddenly came into horrifying perspective. The wedding will go on. Everything will get done, eventually, and the wedding is not about my marriage, which is what I'm really looking forward to, anyway.

The horrifying perspective came on Valentine's Day. Joy of joys, I had a gynecologist appointment that day. Happy Fucking V Day to me. I had made the appointment because I wasn't feeling well when I got my period. Which is like saying the Pope might be Catholic. Basically, when I get my period, I pretty much feel like dying. Nasty, nasty back aches, sleeplessness, pale pale pale skin (I have little coloring as it is, being 3/4 Eastern European and/or Scandinavian, so when I get my period, even mascara makes me look like a poorly done up hooker. Lip gloss makes me look vampirish), such bad bloating that the only comfortable position I can find is none. Literally, having my period is like being tortured, especially for the first two days. I can't even walk. Now imagine having a job that requires you to be on your feet for eight hours and being like that. So after six months of it getting progressively worse, threats from Omar, my mother, and my boss finally convinced me that I should see a doctor.

I sort of knew what the doctor was going to say. Six years ago I had what, at the time, was diagnosed as a mild case of endometriosis. When not treated, that can cause scarring and other issues that can affect fertility. Well, turns out, mine was never treated properly. And I have a tipped uterus (am I even spelling all this crap right??). Which basically boils down to: problems with fertility someday.

You know you're going to have a problem when the doctor reassures you that even if you do have a problem treatments are so advanced these days that it's not a problem. Translation: you're going to have a hell of a time getting pregnant.

Now, be told this news and have to go work at a maternity/kids/baby store that afternoon.

Yeah, I didn't handle it too well either. Cried most of the day, all night after I got in bed, and then all the next day. Omar has been very sweet and very supportive. It's weird. I always wanted kids, but now that I may not be able to or that I may have a lot of problems trying, I notice so much more about the babies that come into my store. The moms-to-be who bitch about being fat, etc, drive me up a wall. I want to tell them to shut up and be grateful they can have kids, but that's rude. Sometimes, it hits me at the weirdest moments and all I can do is cry. Other times, I know I'm being ridiculous. We're treating this for three months with a new method of taking my birth control (skip the sugar pills and go straight to the hormones so I don't get a period) so in three months (right after I get back from honeymoon!) we'll see how it is. It may be cured then. Maybe not.

The other method of treatment is to induce me into a postmenopausal state until I'm ready to have kids, in which case they take me out of it and drug me up with hormones and the like until Omar hits a home run. Needless to say, this option does not sound appealing. I'm only twenty-eight years old. I don't need hot flashes and brittle bones this young. God, even as I'm writing this, I'm trying not to sob hysterically.

So as if all this news doesn't suck enough, I called my mother to tell her about it and she told me that my dad's best friend's father died. Sounds like a tenuous enough connection, except he was someone I knew my whole life. I liked him and he was kind of like a grandfather to me too. He used to hold me on his lap and tell me stories when I was little and he always remembered stupid stuff that I did as a kid. Plus, my father had known him since he was eighteen years old, so this was hard. He was like family.

When I went to the wake on Friday, I didn't think I would be upset. Sad, but not teary. What. Ever. Totally lost it. Cried and everything. I don't know what was wrong with me, except I was suddenly sad. One more person who cared about people I cared about, people I loved, was gone. Another connection to my childhood, gone. Another person who had always had a good perspective on life, gone. Pep always had a smile, a kind word. He was the most generous man I ever knew. I used to wish, when I was younger, that he was my grandfather. My mom's dad was dead and my father's might as well have been for all the interest he showed in me. And if that sounds harsh, it isn't meant to be. It's just the way it was.

So I've tried, since Friday anyway, not to think about things that suck. I've tried to stay upbeat, positive, and smile. I've tried to be nicer to be my staff and not as impatient with them when they're being stupid. I've tried not to lose my temper with my mother, even if she is sometimes ridiculous about things to do with the wedding.

I don't even remember why I was so upset on the day before Valentine's Day about the wedding. I'm sure my mom had been bothering me about something, or Omar had forgotten to do something I'd asked him to do, or that I'd had the umpteenth redo of the guest list in my head and wanted to scream, or that once again money issues were rearing their ugly heads to interfere with what I wanted on my special day. Whatever it is, whatever it was, it's over now.

Now I just want to have a normal life. I want to marry Omar and hopefully have babies. I want my kids to have good memories of their grandfathers, like my friends do of theirs. I want to just be and not think about suckage. I want to keep thinking positive. I don't want to ache every time I see a baby. I want this treatment to work so I don't have to go into menopause prematurely or have the third option, which is surgery. I want to just be.

Is that so much to ask for, really?

The W Word

If I never hear the word wedding again, it's too soon.

Take my advice. Elope.