My Stamps

I was married once.

Young and impetus, we married on a whim. Oh, we were in love. We thought we were different, you know. We were going to beat the odds. We endured a lot of life in a short amount of time. Difficult battles. Long dramas. Adventure and excitement. Wrapped in years, it reminds me sometimes of a novel I once read where I identified with the narrator. When it all inevitably ended, I remember saying, "I will never love anyone that way again. Thank God."

I don't compare my loves. Each is its own entity, its own being, and I have mourned their deaths as well as celebrated their lives. I married at age 20, divorced at age 25. Afterward, I felt like I had this large red stamp on my forehead. DIVORCED! And helpful, well-meaning friends said, "You don't have to tell anyone. The guy you are dating does not really need to know that you are divorced." And yes, that thought occurred to me. I didn't have to mention it.I only figuratively had a stamp on my forehead.

I went through a phase where I tried to sort of keep my sordid past to myself. My marriage did not end well. There was infidelity and lack of trust throughout the entire marriage, and it came to a head. I became even more than more than jaded. No, really. Men. Harumph. I didn't even think I could date them again, which left me to become a sort of cat person. "But I am allergic to cats," I would cry into my bourbon. "I can't even become a proper old maid." I sort of channeled the Princess Bride, "I will never love again." I thought every man was going to treat me in the way I had just been treated for the last four years. Though I look back now and see myself as impossibly young, I felt so old, so bitter, so weathered and so very pissed off. I became very good at pool, cut my hair short, and pierced various body parts that no one was seeing. And though I have remained friends with the ex-husband, at the time, I thought it was an impossibility. About every knuckleheaded, stupid, young, arrogant guy thing you could possibly think of, he did. And yet, I didn't want to divorce. It meant I couldn't practice the religion in which I was raised, even though to be honest, I wasn't really practicing it anyway. It meant I admitted that everyone in my life was right to say we were too young. It meant I learned a lot of humility very quickly. It meant I lost this person in my life that I vowed to love for better or for worse. And yet, I couldn't live in this impossible marriage and more importantly, I couldn't raise children with the sort of anger I felt towards this person I was supposed to love.

I tried. Once. To keep my secret. And it worked for a few months. I didn't mention it. I didn't mention my past at all really. Only vague allusions to another life in another city. But it became this thing. You know, the proverbial 800 lb. gorilla in the room. It ate me up. I had to tell him. I met with girlfriends for cocktails to discuss what I should do. I began thinking--here is this person falling in love with a lie.

These days, I have that same feeling. That feeling of being stamped: DEAD BABY! Marked as damaged goods. Sent back to manufacturer. And I have those same voices in my head saying, "But you don't have to say anything about Lucy. No one needs to know." I mean, sometimes bringing up Lucy's death is forced and I have to leave her existence to my own knowing. But I remember those words: here is a stranger befriending a lie.

We had neighbors come over for a Halloween party yesterday. One couple with an adult adopted son stopped by our house. We have known them from around the neigborhood for a couple of years, but this past summer, we really began stopping and talking, getting to know more about them, and realizing that we have a great deal in common with them. Except, you know, we never mentioned Lucy. I mean, I sort of thought when people were saying hello to Bea and I on walks last year, they noticed my belly. I was 38 weeks when Lucia died. It wasn't exactly as though I were hiding it. I was ignorant and blissful, and probably mentioned it in the way pregnant people mention it. "Oh, sure, my garden looks fine now, but who knows what it will be like after the baby comes." But they never mentioned it, and we never mentioned it. And sometimes Sam and I would walk off after chatting with them and whisper to each other, "Do you think they remember my pregnancy? Do you think they are confused too?" When they told us about their son's adoption, we wondered if perhaps, maybe, they too had experienced loss. But what could we say, "Do you have a dead baby too?"

Last night, at this get together, I came out of the closet. My growing belly popping out, and conversation moved into the realm of animals eating other animal's regurgitation. Actually, a newborn on someone's lap spit up on the floor, and Jack got interested. "Oh, Mother of Pearl," I thought. "I cannot see this." I am a puker. Let's just get that out there, blog friends. I vomit. In pregnancy. Not in pregnancy. If there is a norovirus, I will contract it. The other night, Jack the dog had an "accident" in the house. And by accident, of course, I mean, he purposefully shat  on the floor. When I noted the pile of crap in my dining room at 6 am, I promptly walked to the bathroom, gagging the entire way. Mind you, I had not actually smelled the shit. I just saw it. Sam woke ten minutes later to the sounds of my vomiting, and cleaned it up. Point being, talk of anything remotely disgusting can dramatically send me to the toilet. Here was a group of people, who didn't know I was pregnant, starting a conversation about one animal puking while another eats it. Dear Lord. "OKAY OKAY, Stop! I am pregnant, and if I hear puking stories, I am not quick enough to get around y'all to the toilet, and I'm sitting in front of the brownies." And the room stopped. Not exactly the quiet conversation where I introduce our new pregnancy and talk about the difficulties of pregnancy after loss I was expecting to have. And in the midst of crying neighbors, (They cried. Be still my heart at their compassion.) we explained to our other neighbors that Lucy died ten months ago. We explained why everyone was speaking in hushed tones, and asking about what kind of care I am now getting. And they teared up and understood the last year.

Last night, I felt okay about my stamp. I felt like it explained my strengths rather than my weaknesses. Illustrating how different this pregnancy is compared to Beatrice and Lucy, I remembered what I said after my marriage, "I will never love anyone that way again. Thank God." I will never take pregnancy for granted again, or be ignorant and arrogant about my ability to birth babies. Thank God.