Baby no. 2

Women of my generation will understand what an incredible reversal in mode of thinking it is to feel happy when you don't get your period and sad if you do.

For the majority of our early sexual experiences, we take great pains to ensure we don't get pregnant. Pills before and after, condoms, spermicides...the works.

Then, one day, the opposite. A total shift in ideology and lifestyle. And we beckon it, welcome it, say thank you when we get a plus instead of a minus.

The one time we are happy to add rather than subtract. 

I have been waiting for that plus sign. Waiting for the second soul to take up residence in my body. And she (or he) is here. I am pregnant. Je suis enceinte. 

Our baby is due in January, 2014. I'm nervous about pregnancy, terrified by delivery and the pain I know I will endure, and worried about my time postpartum. 

But, mostly, I am grateful. I will endure whatever is to come, and it will all be worth it. A new life will join the human race. Maya will have a sibling. James and I will have another human bond. I will hold a tiny precious life inside and outside of me. I will help shape her destiny. She will be a beautiful person for however long she is allowed to be part of our world. 

We will be human together. 

We will be a family. 

Hair

Every friend is a 

Tragedy

Waiting to happen to you. 

The best friend who moves away and loses touch after her house burned down. 

I dye my hair red. 

The boyfriend who rapes you when you were just a virgin. 

I dye and cut my hair. 

The best friend who fell in love with you but wanted you to choose between him and her. And you could not. 

I grow my hair. 

The best friend you fell in love with while she was dating her dream man. So you fell in love with some little boy who was sweet and poetic and wanted you for one thing and one thing only. 

I cut my hair and dye it vampire red. 

The boyfriend who shares a liter of vodka with you and tries to slit his wrists in the shower in the middle of the night. You are so drunk, barely capable of wresting away the razor blades. You wake up from your stupor ready to continue, to lose yourself in the madness. To commit. But he decides not to come with you. 

I grow my hair and dye it ebony. 

The kindred spirit whose virginity you take knowing he may never recover.  The virgin who gives you one incredible moment of ecstasy before a roaring fire and you realize in that moment you could die and be perfectly content. But you do not die. You follow a separate orbit. 

I cut, dye, cut, and dye my hair. 

The older man who teaches you that there is a pain greater than rape, that wounds go deeper than any man can thrust. 

I grow and dye my hair. 

The girls who teach you how to party. How to separate your body from your soul. How to do things you find morally reprehensible. They teach you how not to care. They teach you a narcissism you never thought you were capable of. 

I cut my hair. Cut my hair. Cut my hair. 

The kindred spirit who shares your darkest secrets and you share hers as though they happened to you both simultaneously. Until the day arrives that you are torn apart by unfathomable odds. 

I grow my hair. 

The sister you unintentionally disavowed. Alone we suffered the heartbreak for years. 

I take my hair back to neutral. Back to its natural state. 

My soulmate broke my heart, so I broke his by carving it out of his chest and burying it alongside mine. 

I cut and bleach my hair. 

I return to neutral. 

I grow and dye my hair. 

I shave my head and buy some wigs. 

I grow my hair. I bleach my hair. I let it grow. 

And now the question is,

Do I let it return to neutral 

(whatever that is these days)

?

Every friendship is...

a Tragedy...

is not THE END. 

Hearts mend as they can 

Heal. 

Souls rebound as they are 

Ephemeral. 

And hair 

grows 

back. 

Juxtaposition, or Birthdays

Coming of age makes for poignant memories. While I cannot remember all of my birthdays, some images I simply cannot erase from my mind's eye...

19 years old. Spending Victorian hours with a man who will not touch me. A man whose touch I will not allow. Only touch my soul. I plead. A car explodes on fire in the dead of night. We circle it three times in awe.

20 years old. The Pyrenees mountains. A French boy's car. Curving, careening around the turns past thickets of trees in the dark of night. Headed for adventure.

21 years old. On a pay phone in a halfway house at 8:32 AM. The exact time of my delivery. A "happy birthday" from my mother. I am nothing if not unconventional.

22 years old. Sitting outside a café with a married man. He compares me to a lingerie model. A funny but deliberate joke. Our hands touch. He drinks my passion tea and threatens undying devotion.

25 years old. Poolside with my girlfriends watching a fire dancer's flames lick the nighttime sky. We drank, smoked, talked, and marveled at our youth.

30th Birthday

26 years old. Stunned with joy when the man I loved proposed on bended knee. Asked my best friend to be my bridesmaid. That was the last time I saw her or spoke to her for years. Sadly, her love was ending while mine was just beginning.

30 years old. A monstrous age to inflict on a lady. How cruel to feel so young, yet to be labeled a "grown-up."

31st Birthday

31 years old. Sushi with a side of suicide. I ate it and swallowed some pills with my wine. God help me, I don't know how to survive this birthday.

34 years old. Seaside with my family by my side. She covers him with wet sand from head to hand. Their laughter rises with the waves and falls with the setting sun. Together, we stumble over seaweed, build castles with buried treasure, and chase the dolphins in the sea. I teach my little girl how to pee on the side of the road. It is liberating. 

34th Birthday