eBear

It’s been soooooooo long since I was last here. It feels almost strange to come back and read old posts, review old goals and remember why I wanted to achieve these things.

I’m in a stage of complete transition. In about seven weeks, my life will be permenently changed: I’m due to give birth to my first child. And I’m terrified.

I’m scared of being a bad mother, of the birth process, of what’s going to happen to the relationship I have with my fiance, of suffering from post-partum depression, just terrified of everything.

And my fears are growing in magnitude the closer The Date looms. I think I’ve entered the “nesting” phase, because I’m freaking out that we don’t have the baby’s room completed, we don’t have a car seat, diapers…anything. In what will be the baby’s room there is a dresser, a bookcase, the antique rocking chair that my father was nursed in, and a second-hand play pen that has a change table attachment for the top. So at least the baby could sleep in there, and I can change him/her in the attachment. Not that it eases my mind at all, of course.

I feel totally out of control and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of STUFF that seems to be required.

A friend of mine today offered to lend us a few things: a bassinet, a baby swing, and an infant carrier. The idea of having these things did give me some peace of mind, until I mentioned them to my fiance and he said he didn’t want to borrow anything from anyone. I don’t totally understand why. We can’t afford to buy all these things, and I don’t want to buy them just in case the baby won’t use them, so borrowing seems like the easy way out, no? When he said ‘no’ to the idea, I just burst into tears. I couldn’t help it.

I’m trying hard not to focus on our lack of money, but it’s all encompassing to me right now. I realise that our situation is not at all bad, but I can’t help but feeling it is.

I’m working hard on “feeling abundant”. Not so successful.

Our neighbours have a beautiful dog they keep chained up 24/7. Why? Because they can’t be bothered to care for him properly. They’re too busy with their own lives. They used to keep him tied up on the far side of their house from us, so the barking didn’t seem too bad. But this spring they moved his house to the backyard, and it just seems he’s getting more and more vocal. Coinciding with them spending more and more time away from home.

He woke us up early this morning with his stupid barking, so my fiance went next door and rang the doorbell – the intention was to tear a strip off the owner. Turns out they aren’t home again; it was her niece who answered. Shortly after, the barking stopped. We arrived home tonight at 11pm, and he started to bark like mad; clearly no one is in the house, so my fiance went and let him off his lead so he’d be free to run around (which also makes him fairly quiet). But it seems our plan has backfired. He’s across the street somewhere, and he’s been barking for a good 30 minutes, if not more. I have no idea at what or why, but I swear I’m going to lose my mind.

I think in the morning, it’s time we called bylaw services. He needs to go to a home where they can properly take care of a dog. A home where he’ll get exercise and good food, and be interacted with. Sadly, he is terrified of most people because he hasn’t had anyone pay any attention to him.

My net connection is getting crummy again; I’ll have to vent more later.

Because life as I have known it for the past thirty one years is about to change dramatically, and will never be the same ever, ever again.

My perceptions of “importance” are shifting more and more each day, and I wonder if it’s for the better, or worse?

I have never asked my Aunt about this, but at some point, my grandparents “found religion”. I don’t know how long it lasted for, or why it ended or any other seemingly important details about it. I do remember that at the age of three or four, it was decided that I should attend a Catholic School for pre-kindergarten, and this made Opa very happy. I was baptized Anglican – after my father – and my step mother raised me as a member of the United Church of Canada, so Catholic School was pretty new and exciting. I mean, they had little foot rests in the pews of the attached church!

After one year there, though, I transferred to the regular public school. I can’t remember what Opa’s reaction was to that, but around age 8 while we were visiting my grandparents, I remember going to Church with them. They were enamoured with this new minister they had, and were excited for us to share in his service. The only memory I have of this visit was this minister: he was an excessively sweaty asian man who was almost aerobic in the delivery of his sermon (which makes me think it might have been a Baptist church, but I could be very wrong). He shouted, he slammed his fists on the pulpit when he wasn’t shaking them heavenward.

This was a side of my grandparents I have never witnessed before, nor really saw much of again. Thinking back on it, I feel as though I was given a keyhole to peek through into the lives of Gran and Opa as the people they were, not just the grandparent roles they held in my life.

Religion was never mentioned much past that time. When they’d come to visit us at Christmas, I seem to remember them coming with us to our Church, and how I’d park myself between them so I could hear Gran’s strained soprano attempts that came out more falsetto than anything, and Opa’s deep, accented baritone.

As I question my own faith and in particular, regular attendance at some secular institution, I often think back to these memories and realise that attending Church for me has been more of a role of an audience member at some weird circus than any sort of moving soul-stirring experience.