One month to go

So many practical small things are involved with having a baby - figuring out space and stuff is more stressful than the birth itself sometimes. I suppose my wife might not agree - especially since she's starting to get really fatigued and losing sleep because there's a small giraffe in her abdomen. He's kicking up a storm, and it's possible he may come out running or wrestling or both.
When you think about having kids, there's always a nursery and a basement or attic for storage. Living in this city, most people have maybe a second bedroom. Considering how lucky we are to have a nice-sized one bedroom apartment in a a good neighborhood with reasonable rent, I feel ridiculous for complaining. But in regards to home and all of the deep psychological attachments to that concept there are several complications which make it difficult to be at ease.
First, the metaphorical 'home in body' situation. Pretty basic, constantly digging out how the closing chasm between my real and ideal form impacts my sense of self and stability.
Second, my brother finally sold the house we grew up in - which is good for him because he could not afford to keep it and he was able to avoid foreclosure. However, since my mom died that house has been one of the few places I can go and feel her presence. Not always a good thing and often a complicator in my relationship to my brother, letting the house go will be a healing experience in the long run. Mom held on to the house longer than she wanted to because, she asserted, she wanted my brother and me to always have a home that we could call our own. It was her grand effort at providing stability in a world where she found none for herself.
Third. The apartment we live in was my wife's before she knew me, and all of the furniture is hers, the decor, and all of my belongings that would not fit in an SUV are in storage, at my brother's house, or at my father's house (a two-day drive away). She has been generous and accommodating, but now that the baby is coming, my space and stuff needs are being seriously threatened. It's not just about having a dresser to call my own, or the type of bedside table that suits my needs, but reaches into issues of autonomy and safety and security. I think over the past couple of years I have gotten more relaxed and safe and secure here, but I had been living alone for most of my adult life. That's a lot of time. My wife bought me a turntable for Christmas, so I can feel safe that she will accept a portion of my record collection in the apartment. It's not about anything that she is doing or not doing - I think it is something that might take time to figure out.
There's more, but for now that's all I have. I wish I could wave some magic wand and stop thinking about and stressing about these things - it's not helping when we need to communicate about baby preparations - but that's not an available option. I think it's reasonable as a 39 year-old who got married late to have all sorts of adult needs for space and stuff that are particular to creating safe and secure home environments. Not inflexible, but not as flexible as a 25 year-old. I really pride myself on being able to unpack these things when times are tough, but I 'm having a hard time with this particular issue. I need to take a step back and define what I need to feel safe/secure and why, and how all of it ties into the loss of my childhood home, lack of safety/security growing up, and what I can intentionally create as home in all dimensions going forward.
I get so sad when I think about it all, chest-heavy and tired. As with most all things, I know it will work out, and that I have the love and support I need to make it all happen. Might not make it easy, but certainly makes it possible.

Continued Gratitude and mixed feelings

Even on the days when I wake up groggy from disturbing dreams, carrying some hidden anxieties or fears under paper-thin skin, I walk down the street and I feel lucky. It's a visceral thing, as real as the pain, but it's warm and solid and strong. I don't have to work for it as much as I used to, and it's not ringing hollow like a pithy bit of advice that people seem to sling about out of the discomfort of not knowing what to say.

I am grateful for this love I never thought I would have, from my wife and friends. I am so very grateful for this beautiful child that will be my expensive and exhausting charge for the rest of my life. I don't have any horrible illnesses, although I have some aches and pains that come from aging (and not stretching enough). My job is intellectually satisfying, even though it will not pay the bills if my wife does not get a new job by the end of next summer. I feel cared for and regarded as special by my wife and friends but sometimes these relationships take more work and energy than I want to expend.

I think the key to the gratitude is its coexistence with the crap, which for years I tried to run away from or numb or deny. Feeling all of it right now, thankful I remember to breathe, stand up straight, walk tall, eat my vegetables, and have patience. Truthfully, sometimes I have to force that through clenched teeth, but it generally seems to be some sort of autonomic response.

If I can only manage a whole night's sleep without feeling so unrested. I suppose it's normal to feel sad or stressed with all that's going on, maybe I have a tight cap on everything in order to get through the day and make things happen. Maybe being grateful and seeing the darkness is not enough. I don't have a lot of room here for my feelings and there isn't someone to take care of me anymore since my mom died. It could be I just need a little vacation but I'm not so sure. I think that's a cop-out.

I am worried about my brother, continually mourning my mother, missing my guitar and record collection that's stored in my father's house, wanting to make art, concerned about my wife's job situation, scared that I might not get the raise/promotion I need to move up and on and help support my family, mostly hate my body, feel distant from my friends and need my temporary injuries to heal so I can exercise again.  None of that is going to go away if I just have a vacation.

Maybe my gratitude is a side-effect of my realization that all of these things are just simply what is going on and just recognizing that there's only so much I can do about it all right now. Soon I'll figure out how to get my stuff from my father's house without having too much discomfort at dealing with that relationship. Maybe I can even get a record player and listen to the music. Practice on my guitar and finally learn how to play it properly (or at least double my repertoire to six songs). Do the art. Time takes care of the other things, the not under my control things. I guess. Still kind of sad this morning. Time to walk down the street and feel lucky again.

Daddy-brain

Okay so they say that expectant mothers can be forgetful at times due to resource allocation issues in their bodies. I wonder if it's catching? Yesterday, I was all ready to get our considerable amount of crap to storage (we seasonally store our stuff due to space constraints) and I could not, for the life of me, find the storage key. I literally turned the apartment upside-down, taking the opportunity to vacuum as I went. No time like the present for mulit-tasking.
So I had to go to the storage unit to get a new electronic card entry key thingy. The big stress-out of all that is that my former name is on the lease agreement. It gets tiring to update everyone when the paperwork is settled and I think there are one or two places I still have to go and deal with the name change. It gets to a point where you just don't feel like administratively coming out anymore.
Then I had to tear up a different part of the apartment looking for an old ID that would work. In the meantime I tore the calf muscle in my left leg rather badly. Which is a bummer because I just started running again after another unrelated injury was healed. Just got into the groove of going to the gym every morning before work.
After all of that, I went to storage, and they didn't ask for ID at all. Not once. Just gave me an electronic card key when I presented them with the account number. Even charged the cardholder on the account for the extra key. Seems like a ridiculous hole in security was in my favor, but I am considering moving to a different storage facility after that. Really? Just a number? The queen's jewels will not be safe there, I'm afraid.
The best part is that I got home, the same parking spot was empty, as if to say "I was waiting for you to come home," and my wife had made an awesome dinner.
Sometimes the stress of the little things gets squashed by the beneficence of the universe. Just sometimes. But I appreciate it all the same.

In the beginning

My wife is six months pregnant and I am starting to be able to feel the baby move around when I touch the lower part of her belly. I cannot describe how wonderful it feels, and each day I love my wife and child more and more. It's going to be a very quick (ack) less than four months until the baby is born - and we have a lot of work to do.

Our one-bedroom apartment needs a makeover and the storage unit is going to be filled to the ceiling, I'm afraid. On top of getting ready for the baby, my brother is in the process of selling the house we grew up in and I'm going to have to go and retrieve whatever of our late mother's possessions that I want to keep, and my own, very soon. It's a big tragedy that he lost the house (the mortgage is 2 damn high) and it's going to be sad to say goodbye to the physical memory of the space my mother inhabited. There will be no place left, after the house is sold, where I can stand and say, 'I breathed air here with my mother,' or 'I can remember her sitting just there and saying...'  It is going to be equally difficult to go through her things again, this time with a need to reduce her life to one or two boxes, as well as her parents and family (who are also all dead). 

I suppose I wouldn't be as stressed out right now if my wife wasn't unexpectedly laid off last week from her job of six years. There is no way anyone is hiring a visibly pregnant woman in this or any other economy, and there is also no way that my salary will be able to support us on its own. First things first, though. I may not be able to make anything better, but I need to be there for my wife emotionally as she goes through all that is involved with getting laid off. I went through all of that after 9/11 so at least I have experience. It's difficult to translate the sense of injustice and powerlessness and fatigue. On top of all of that, the hormonal fluctuations and moodiness that come with pregnancy is proving challenging for her. She's doing a lot better than many might, but that doesn't mean it's not a struggle, for sure.