Weekend Retreat:

Weekend?

It is early on Saturday morning and I am up, showered, and about to go to PSAT training even though I didn't get in until 11:15 last night because of school obligations that weren't really obligations but totally were, if you know what I mean.

This year continues to frustrate me to no end. I am trying to be positive and reflective and address the role that I've played in making this a crappy year for myself but still. Sometimes (more and more frequently, I admit) enough feels like enough.

Doctor.

So.

Doctor Round 1 - We found out, essentially, nothing.

J. has to have several round of tests/analysis done in the next couple of weeks and then will see another Doctor at the end of April who will then let us know how he feels we should proceed.

Apparently, our options are for J. to have the surgical procedure or to have sperm extracted through a less invasive procedure; the extraction would then involve IVF procedures for me, though.

Not sure how I feel.

I guess I think we should do whatever statistically will make the most sense for us.

And we won't know what that will be until April.

Which is frustrating.

I'd like to get on with this.

Also - terrible work. Hate it. Trying to be positive and start over but I just can't wrap my brain/heart around how to do that. Just sort of want to run away and start fresh somewhere else at something else entirely.

Weekend.

We went back to work on Monday. It was fairly terrible. I dreaded going back and didn't want to get out of bed in the morning.

Which is upsetting.

I loved my job and I loved it hard for the past three years and this year has been difficult and I am not loving it so much anymore.

It makes me feel really sad. Like I don't belong there anymore. Like what I thought I'd found didn't really exist in the first place.

Friday?

How did that happen?

This week I was supposed to:

• organize the office
• purchase knick-knacks for the dining room
• hang curtains in the dining room
• organize the closets downstairs
• plan my entire next unit
• finish grading late work
• get packets together for next Wednesday's presentation
• walk; a lot; everyday
• join WW again

This week I:

• sort of half organized the office
• purchased a covered antique butter dish and matzah ball salt and pepper shakers for the dining room (but also got a pair for Karen and Josh and Ellen and Ira)
• walked; a little; every day
• spent too much money
• ate out or ordered in every day except for Tuesday

I am feel unproductive and pressured. Had terrible work nightmares last night about not being ready for things. The sort of anxiety dreams I have only at the very end of August.

I am going to plan right now.

Appointment.

Decided to keep looking for a doctor and made a new appointment to meet with a new doctor Jay is sort of satisfied with March 12th. So, of course, until March 12th we both be separate bundles of nerves who avoid discussing what is making us so nervous until one (or the both) of us accidentally drinks an entire bottle of red wine.

Not that this has happened before.

I would think that after eight years of togetherness, six years of co-habitation, and almost four years of marriage we'd be more comfortable talking about things that make us uncomfortable. We are, however, not. I am also not comfortable with total daytime nudity or smelly farts when I'm not also farting. Also, I still hate football. And wish he didn't spend my money buying sneakers.

And this makes me think of something that occurred to me this weekend. We were out shopping for apartment stuff. I wanted a jewelery stand I'd seen at Urban Outfitters (it's a white tree...really great...love it) and to hunt around for other stuff for the new china cabinet and bookcase configuration we have going on in the dining room. In buying this stuff and then arranging it here back at home, it made me feel like certain spaces in the apartment (i.e. every room except for the living room) is mine. Like, the way the bedroom is decorated? Is pretty much how my bedroom would be decorated if I lived alone. And the dining room? There is no real J. there either. Primarily because he couldn't have cared less while we picking out the furniture...and does not really care at all about things like where does all of wedding serve ware go. But still.

Are all homes like that?

Or, more interestingly, how does he feel about that? Does he feel like a guest in his own bedroom?

I love our bedroom. I spend most of my time in the apartment there. I mean, in the new apartment, the living room is downstairs and is sort of dark and we haven't made it seem warm and cozy yet, so I guess it's understandable. But I've always, in all of our apartments, favored our bedroom.

Also, to be honest, if I asked J. if this whole bedroom thing bothered him and he said yes? I'm not sure I'd be so open to changing much. Like, if I were to say, "J., what would make you feel more at home in this room?" and his reply was, "I would like to hang these needlepoint guns I got for $1 at the Salvation Army in 1998," I'd probably have to say no.

Although he doesn't have needlepoint guns. That would maybe be kind of cool enough to squeeze in. So perhaps that was a bad example.

Unrelated thought: I never want to go back to work ever again. I don't want to plan another lesson or grade another late essay. I don't want to see my children or put my sad lunch in the teacher's refrigerator EVER AGAIN.

Not good. Many weeks left in this year. Oy.