I am still not in the greatest of moods, but before I get into it, let me mention a few things I forgot to mention earlier.

Tom stapled up some chicken wire over the top of the walkway that separates the kitchen and back room, down a couple of feet on each side. I then made a flower arch. It’s OK-looking, but nothing great.

I let Andy know about Ma’s stroke the day it happened and was afraid he’d use this as an excuse to be pushy and call so much, but he hasn’t, so that’s nice. I haven’t been in the mood to talk to anyone other than Tom.

Next door hasn’t been here in days, which is wonderful. All I’d need is for them to be there, decide to party, and have to deal with that on top of everything else. I am soooo damn depressed. Am I ever gonna be free of this depression? I fear the answer is no.

I know I want a child and that I can never have one, but all else confuses me. Tom tells me to talk about this daily and don’t bottle it up, yet the reason he said he needed to wait to read all I’ve written lately, is cuz he’s not in the right time frame to read something he believes is depressing and negative. It’s depressing alright, but to me it’s reality. Not negativity. I want to talk to him, but it’s not that easy. He doesn’t believe or understand what I truly feel and if all it does is depress him, then how can I talk to him easily? Why does he want me to? I also fear that my talking to him about my wanting a child is making him feel like he’s not good enough. He told me that as long as he has me, he could never feel deprived, no matter what he has or doesn’t have. Before that, though, he told me he too, feels the sadness over not having a kid now and deprived of it, just like I do. What really is on his mind? I feel I’m getting mixed messages from him. Is he deprived or not? Does he want me to talk or not? Does he feel like he’s not good enough or what? And when I do talk, he always insists I’m fighting with him and am angry at him. I’m not angry at him, but I am frustrated for a few reasons. Cuz of the mixed messages and not knowing if he really understands, feels what I feel, or if he feels that my desire to have a child is selfish, he’s not good enough, or that what I’m saying is depressing him. I also wish he wouldn’t think I intended to fight. I don’t want to fight or bring him down. Another thing that frustrates me is how he just doesn’t believe I’m sterile. I know I’m sterile. I hate not being believed and I know I’m right about this. My logic, my woman’s intuition, and everything else tells me so. In a way, I wish we could just go to a doctor and just see if they can just tell us who’s right so we could at least put an end to the who’s right or wrong on that and then take it from there, but he’s so sure I’m OK and that we’re gonna have our own. He tells me we’ll do whatever I need, even if that means getting a doctor involved, but that wouldn’t be very easy for me to do for such reasons as my fear of God and my fear of hurting him by doing that and I don’t want to live with the guilt trip that he and myself may put on me for it. How can I talk to him when he tells me he doesn’t want to read what I’ve written at this time cuz he thinks it’s depressing? Yes, I’m sure it’s also one of those things to try to instill patience in me and maybe a little bit of a punishment by not reading what I’ve had to say about all this, but you see how confused I am? I feel that he’s (not intentionally) a bit contradicting. If he’s not in the right frame of mind to read what he doesn’t want to hear now, then why would he want to hear it from my mouth? He thinks I’m depressing and negative, fighting with him, and he doesn’t believe a word I say about the sterility; therefore, it makes me want to try again to just shut up about it and try to convince myself I shouldn’t want or have a child, anyway. Talking about it still has me depressed and very emotional and I shouldn’t want or have a child. That would be wrong and selfish of me. Tom should be enough. I am blessed in several ways. Why can’t that be enough?! I have a life and a husband most women would kill for. Most women tell me they regret being a mother and that they give anything to go back in time, not have kids, and have the kind of life I’ve got. So why then, would I want to throw it all away and risk my health and marriage and drive myself more insane than I already am with the burden of a child? What is wrong with me? I wish he were here right now, cuz there’s so much I want to say to him, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He says he does and that he does understand me, but it’s hard for me to believe this. Oh, he understands me and can listen to me more than anyone else ever could, but there are some exceptions. Besides, he already knows how I feel and why should he have to hear it? It is wrong and selfish of me and I don’t want to make him feel bad in any way and he has enough shit going on with his mom right now. Then he said something like it’s OK for me to tell him I want a kid and be sad about not having one, but then he said something about me arguing and being manipulative. Manipulative? I don’t quite understand that one. I just don’t understand him. I just don’t know what he really wants and when I think I do, it seems that that’s changed or I’ve misunderstood him.

Another thing that really annoys me is the same old story about the lack of time for sex. He makes me feel like it’s all cuz of me and that it’s my fault that we don’t have time for sex, while he says there’s no one to blame. He said, “Why can’t you say, OK, life will be one thing after another, there won’t be much time for sex, but I’m gonna do what I can do to put forth my best effort at making time.” It’s not that easy. Not when we really don’t have that much time. And not when there are the other factors he brought up - our schedules, the fact that I wake up slowly, the fact that he prefers sex closer to when he wakes up. So, the time is there actually, but there are so many reasons that make it seem like there’s no time. He can’t function sexually when he’s feeling certain things or when certain things are going on. Even he admitted that compared to most people, he can’t have sex in a lot of situations. He requires things to be a certain way for that. He’s not a machine who can make himself perform sexually under most circumstances. For example, if you take 10 possible situations that could be going on in life or that he could be feeling, most people could carry on in bed during about 7 of those things. He can only do so with one or two. Things have to be just right and he needs a lot of free hours, but free hours are rare cuz there’s always something going on. Then he said something else that really confused me and that’s about how our schedules don’t always match up. Yes, I know this, but we still have hours every day. He knows there’s not a damn thing I can do about my schedule and that it’s totally out of my control, yet he brings that up and I don’t think my schedule is really that big of a deal, as far as our time goes, or the main problem and reasons why we don’t get to have more sex. Or more sex for more often. I really believe that the main reason is cuz of my emotions and life’s events and that he’s got so many reasons and excuses that he can’t carry on sexually. I’m not saying he’s doing this deliberately or making these things up, but I think that in most ways I’m way more flexible when it comes to time for sex. He, on the other hand, needs this and that to be the case or not be the case when it comes to sex. He says he can have sex with me when I discuss my emotions and am sad, but not when I’m angry with him. He makes it sound like I’m always angry at him, but this isn’t true. I’m not always so angry at him, like he believes, he takes my need to constantly say what I believe as a way of arguing with him and I think that many more things about me and life, do snuff his desire for sex. This is why it’s not so easy to talk to him. And I believe the main problem for his lack of sexual desire is about me and life’s events. Not our schedules and not this bogus anger I’m supposed to constantly have towards him. He takes so much of what I say way too personally and is way too sensitive.

Since I can’t stop life’s events from happening and people from having strokes or dying, all I can do is change me, but that’s not so easy, either. I told him I’ll try harder to work on my schedule and be up more when he’s up, but then he says that’ll just make me sick and that there’s a happy medium in there. I don’t have to be either up all the time or asleep all the time. How am I gonna know when to stay up and when not to, I asked him? Then he says, “Well, that’s the thing. You may not always know this.”

Gee, that helps.

I just don’t know what I’m doing or saying anymore. I’m just so confused. Every time I think I’ve got the hang of what to do and that we’re on a roll in and out of bed, it gets all screwed up and as mysterious as God’s ways are. What do I do? How often do I do it? What do I say? How often do I say it? Be spontaneous he says, well, that doesn’t always work. If he walked into the room right now and said to tell him everything I’m feeling and then we’ll have sex, I don’t think I could. I still think that sex is making things way too complicated and interfering with so much. Each time we have sex and I see that I’m as still as sterile as can be, it still kills me, even though I’ve always known I was sterile. Each month, when my rag comes, it’s like I die a little more inside.

I feel trapped, hopeless, helpless, confused, scared, sad, and frustrated and I know I’m in a no-win situation that there’s no way out of. No way to make it better, cuz like I said, just when it does seem to get better, the shit hits the fan again. I’m right where God wants me. He’s up there laughing his ass off at me right now, I just know it.

How do I know what really is the right thing to do? He says the best thing to do is to not go to a doctor. What if it is the best thing we could do? He says I don’t need meds for this depression. What if I should take them, even though I’ll still have my bad days, feel what I feel, and have side effects? Do I do one thing a certain way for a period of time, then try another way if the first thing doesn’t work? And for how long is long enough to try certain things? Is there any way for Tom and I to do what makes us both feel happier and comfortable at the same time? Cuz it always seems that it’s either one or the other and that we can either do for me or do for him, but not for us. It’s hard when one person believes one thing and the other believes differently.

What I knew would happen, happened. I have more than a few spots, but I could hardly call it a period. Each period gets lighter and lighter. I haven’t needed any Ibuprofen or big pads and most of the spots are what I wipe off and only a few have made it onto the liner. I knew this was going to happen and that no miracle could ever suddenly happen, so why does it still tear me up inside?

Later...

The rain has stopped (my tears have dried up). The thunder has quieted (my fury has eased up). But the ground is still wet (my problems still exist).

I lay in bed for nearly an hour and I cried and I cried so hard. Why? Why? Why? was all I kept asking. Why did God punish me and hate me so? Why did he make my schedule something I can’t control just cuz I can dance? Why did he refuse to help me help myself off the cigarettes cuz I can act? Why did he sterilize me cuz I can sing? Am I ever gonna know a world without so much depression and rage? I’m so sick of this 80% rage and sadness and 10% tranquility. Being depressed can really hurt a lot, just like being physically wounded can really hurt a lot. I’m depriving my husband of my full potential as a person and my full abilities as a wife, due to this lack of control over my schedule, my never-ending rage and sorrow due to the sterility and I can’t function very well. I’m afraid there’ll come a point where I either kill myself or can no longer function. I keep forgetting things we need. I forgot to tell Tom we needed lettuce and toilet paper and I feel I haven’t done enough around the house. I’m getting air-headed, forgetful and I’m having trouble concentrating.

If I don’t go to a doctor, nothing will happen. If I do go to a doctor, nothing will happen, but I’ll also have to risk more trouble from God and I’ll feel like Tom feels I’m manipulating him, going against his wishes, and that I don’t care about him or his feelings.

I checked once again in the 3 encyclopedias on AOL. One didn’t say anything about sterility, one couldn’t tell me anything cuz I couldn’t find DES, and the other confirmed my worst fears. “Various reproductive disorders with female and male off-springs.” I printed it out for Tom to see, even though he’s still gonna tell me I’m OK. What if it’s an act? What if he really believes I’m sterile? Would he tell me so? Or could he possibly just not want to deal with it? Not want to go through a slew of testing, doctors, appointments, time, money, and deal with me being told what I already know and don’t want to hear?

There’s so much more I could say on this subject, but after all I’ve just written, I’ll finally take a break from it all, if I can, and write about other stuff. If there’s some other thought or thing Tom and I discussed that I forgot to write down, I will.

I wanted to cut myself so bad. Although it wouldn’t unsterilize me or make me happier, I wanted to do it so bad. It was so hard to restrain myself, then Andy called. He asked, “Why didn’t you call me?” He could tell I was crying.

He still hasn’t seen or spoken to Quinn, which is good, but he was pissed off at Laura and a coworker. The coworker went off on him and called him names. Laura still won’t do her fair share of chores and expenses. He needed me to listen to him vent. 

No problem. But how much could I cheer him up and make him feel better? I was a wreck myself. Nonetheless, we both bitched to each other about the things that make us sad, pissed, and scared. I guess I made him feel better. That’s what he told me. I guess I felt a little better after writing, singing, crying, pounding my fists into my thighs and arms to keep from cutting myself and talking with him. The problem is still there, though. Always has been. Always will be. I told Andy I was lucky to get two weeks with no emotional fits and we were lucky to get two weeks without some crisis occurring somewhere and with more time together. Go for the two weeks, he told me. Is that all I ever have to look forward to in my life? An occasional two weeks? I guess so.

Andy also played me a tape of something I’d totally forgotten about, that he said would make me feel better. It was a tape of me singing a song he wrote in June of ‘89 on his 4-track with the voice-over and with me playing the guitar. It did not make me feel better. I sounded like a fucking 10-year-old and it was all nasally. If I just didn’t sing with that nasal sound, which I still can never seem to help with all my training and practice (must be the ciggies), maybe I’d sound much better than I do. Anyway, he’s so glad he found this tape. He said it made him feel better. I wish he’d destroy it!

I wish to have a child. I can’t have a child. I wish to be able to deal with not having a child and not always have it on my mind and spinning my emotions out of control, so I could be a better wife and so my husband doesn’t have to feel brought down, not good enough or like I’m angry and wanting to fight with him.

I am only a dreamer whose wishes could never be granted.

Later...

I made spag for Tom. It’s about the least I can do for my husband.