All You'll Read Here is the Estrogen--It's That Obvious

I've had a fairly decent weekend so far. My twin brother, John, is in town this weekend for my mother's birthday. Things got a little tense on Saturday, but we passed right on through that. Mostly it's because 3/5ths of the people in this house right now are sick, which makes for frazzled nerves and bad attitudes.

It's been nice to have my brother here. I don't know if it would work for him to live here again--his personality is too big for this house sometimes--but I like it when he's around. It's nice to have one of my brothers talk about his ambitions and dreams because he actually has some. I'm proud of his accomplishments, even if they are in a field that I cannot even begin to think about fathoming. (Grad level math--horrifying, but interesting.)

Meanwhile, I have a tooth infection. And, to make matters even more complicated, it's one of my impacted wisdom teeth. As it turns out, they may have to come out faster than I thought that they would. It would be a big relief pressure wise to get rid of them--they push on the rest of my teeth, and some nights my mouth just aches. However, it's going to be awful on us financially. Plus, I had really hoped to be able to get them out during a break between semesters, so that I could have some recovery time. I guess life doesn't wait for me to make plans. You'd think this would be clear to me by now, but I keep stubbornly hoping that things like this are isolated incidences and that life will work for Jessica in the end. How delusional, indeed!

My dad, at least, has made an effort to help me today with this tooth pain. He brought me six ibuprofen, two acetaminophen, and a tea bag with some warm water on it. Then he tells me that I have to cram the tea bag in between my swollen gums and my cheek. My face was already swollen too. I can only imagine how comical I must have looked with my cheek all puffed out even worse. The worst part of the tea remedy, however, was the concentrated bitterness of the tea. Tea itself is slightly bitter. Tea without the luxury of water is horribly, almost unbearably bitter. I kept salivating and having to spit it out because it was too bitter to swallow--I made that mistake once and gagged.

Say what you will about home remedies, but the swelling has already gone down. The pain has lessened as well. If I hadn't tried it myself, I may not have believed it. I'll give my dad credit; the man does know what he's doing.

My husband is sleeping peacefully next to me. It almost makes me want to wake him up. I've been awake since 7 AM because, when I woke up to go to the bathroom, the pain in my mouth was a little too distracting for me to go back to sleep. I'm glad he's getting some sleep, but I'm jealous. I wish I could sleep the way that he does. He seems to be able to sleep through anything, anywhere, at any time. I have to be comfortable, I have to have a blanket, I have to have total darkness, etc, etc. Why is it so hard for me to sleep and so effortless for my husband? This is not fair.

I can't help but feel a little melancholy today. Maybe it's being sick and the tooth pain, but I feel the need to ruminate. I look at other people's baby pictures and I think, "When is my life going to start?" But it already has. My life has long been underway, and I feel like there's so much that I'm missing out on. I want JJ and I to wait for kids, but I really feel like I want them now. I look at other people's kids, especially Ciarra, Amie's daughter, and I feel this little tug inside. I want that for myself, for us, but I want my kids to have the good things they deserve. I want them to have the luxury of parents that can do things for them. I want them to have the luxury of parents who chose a good time to have them so that they could enjoy them to the maximum.

I don't want to wait until I'm 40 and it's too late. I don't want to keep putting off babies and saying, "It's not the right time" until the time has passed me by! I know I'm only 23, but 24 is less than a month away. It's not like rocketing into my 30's, but it's a reminder that time is passing. The more time that passes, the older I'm getting. I don't want to be the oldest mommy at the preschool. I don't want to miss out on something wonderful.

And what if I can't even have a baby? What if it's already too late? Then I spend the next 20 years in fostering/adoption hell until I can finally give a child the kind of life that they need and I need to be able to provide. And, of course, by that time, I'm too jaded and old to appreciate it.

I realize that all of this is me FREAKING OUT. I don't know, this is just what I've been thinking of lately. My uterus is screaming at me--especially right now. (It's that time of the month, HORMONE CITY! So, if you're wondering why I've gone temporarily insane, look no further for the reasoning.) Every time I hit my menstrual cycle, a tiny part of my brain goes, "Missed opportunity..."

Seriously, ignore all of this. In a week, when my hormones have regulated themselves back down to a cope-able level, I'll be so over this thought process. Right now, it's just not working for me. I'm estrogen steeped, and it's tainting the way I'm seeing the mommy thing with total jealousy. Green doesn't look good on me.