Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

August 5^th, 2017

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance was like a shooting star, by the time you saw her, marveled at her beauty, and made a wish, she was already gone.  For the 17 days that I knew I carried her, I loved her and was honored to know her, even if most days I didn’t believe she was there.

I have spoken publicly about my miscarriage of her on Facebook, but I wanted to put something more permanent down on paper.  The date of my last missed period was April 21, although I did have some bleeding for a few days in June.  Dr. Hirsh, my OB/GYN believed that her conception date was in June.  Dr. Brown and the ER told us Sarah had stopped growing at 7 weeks, so his date didn’t line up with the June date.  Jay and I believe that she was conceived May 5^th, so she was a Beltane baby, which would have made her about 8 ½ weeks old when I miscarried her. 

The night of her conception was a lovely night.  I had started working on uploading my book that day, and was feeling fine.  My periods have been coming more regular, since I cut mom out of my life last year, and so I wondered if I might be fertile.  I kind of counted days and guessed.  Hey it was Beltane, time for love, sex and fertility, right. 

That month I began to develop breathing problems in my left lung.  It hurt when I laid down at night, I could feel something kind of squeak in my lungs, each breath felt like a rubber band was around me.  And I was exhausted, more tired than I had ever been in my entire life.  We hoped at first that it would just go away.  I was facing my own imposed deadline of trying to be finished with the book by the first of June.  I was tired but other than that I felt good, happy, and my negative thoughts seemed to have stopped.  I missed my period in May, but I thought nothing about it.  This often happens when I am under good or bad stress, no big deal right.  The doctors had told me it would take a team to get me pregnant, and 14 years of unprotected sex, had yet to yield anything. 

My breathing problems continued, as well as pain in my heart.  Of course being a big woman I am always fearful.  After about 6 to 8 weeks of this exhaustion and breathing problems I decided to risk going to the doctor, and being told it was nothing.  My regular doctor was out, so I saw a friend of his, who spent I think a sum total of 3 min with me.  Blood work, ex-rays, and a urine test later, with no pregnancy chaser (cause I told them I could not get pregnant, I wish now I had, or they had at least asked why), and no answers.  They gave me a steroid and an antibiotic, and no explanation to my problem.  Two weeks later I came back, with the same problem.  I saw my regular PCP and he said, “Well your heart is a little enlarged.  I’d like to get you in for an echo, and a CAT-scan right now.”  That was Friday night, Father’s day weekend.  Again I was asked, “Are you pregnant?”  I glared at him and told him, “No way.”  Again I regret that I didn’t say, “Why the fuck not,” and have the damn test.  Maybe she wouldn’t be dead; I’ll never know.

I did not want the cost of going in the hospital.  So we made appointments to see a cardiologist for later in the week.  When I was asked what I wanted to do I said, “I want to talk to Jay.”  So I went to his office.  He said, “You’re going.”  So we went and spent 24 lovely hours there.  For the CAT-scan they tried to put an IV, so they could give me contrast.  I blew all 7 times they tried, had a panic attack in the middle, and finally they had to do it without it.  Nothing there.  I had an Echo.  It took a month for the results to come back and be relayed to me, it was fine.  Blood work all normal, and no they didn’t do a pregnancy test, even though I asked for one.  So Saturday morning the doctor comes in and says, “Well we don’t see anything on the CAT- Scan, your blood work is fine, you’re heart is not enlarged, and since your EKG was okay we think your Echo will be too.  We don’t know what’s wrong with you.” 

Here I was in the same place, in the same hospital, with the same people I was 10 years before, when I had been given the same diagnoses.  I had pain, and no one knew why, or really honestly didn’t seem to care.  I was fucking livid!  And I told him about having been checked in to the hospital all those years ago, about my excruciating pain, and that the doctors said, “Oh it is your hiatal hernia causing you hip pain, and pain in your vagina.”  (I was later diagnosed with IC and pelvic girdle dysfunction.)  This doctor upon hearing this said, “I would see a GI doctor.  It might be your hernia.”  I was so fucking mad, I damn near threw him out of my room.  I turned away from him, he got the idea and left.  I was so mad I ripped off the heart monitor!  Jay had gone to get breakfast for himself.  I was so mad I had to throw something!  So I stripped my bed, his bed, dirty towels and put everything in the hamper.  I packed my stuff, and just waited. 

Bobby Joe and Amy, cousins who are more like an Aunt and Uncle to me, came in about that time to see me, brought me coffee, and I just cried in Amy’s arms and feel apart.  Here I had spent all this money I didn’t have, to be told, once again, that there was nothing wrong with me.  I asked the Doctor, “Is it psychosomatic?”  He said no.  I had explained to him that being a crazy, fat woman in the South doctors don’t take me seriously.  He had no explanations for my breathing problems, and seemed honestly like I was just another number and he didn’t care. 

We left there and went to Wal-Mart.  Tired of being asked if I was pregnant I bought a test.  I thought, it was be negative, so I bought a cheap one.  They are always negative, so why waste the money.  Jay and I have this system where I pee on the stick and then give it to him.  He doesn’t tell me anything unless it is positive.  But this day he was at work when I took it. 

I took the test and when the results came back positive I said, “I can’t be pregnant.  I don’t get pregnant!”  I called Jay and said, “Hey hunny.  I just took the test and there is a plus sign.  I’m not sure what to do.  Is that good thing?”  He confirmed that it was, and I could hear joy and shock in his voice.

We were both in shock and hesitant to believe it.  We had been through fertility medicine, and when that failed I was told, “Go home and lose a hundred pounds and it might happen.”  We gave up hope and have learned to be contented living without children.  Several of my childhood friends are now grandparents.

We were in shock and tried to not be too happy, because we knew it could be a false positive.  We found an OB/GYN who took high risk clients and when I talked to them on the phone they said we did not need a blood test to confirm.   We told a few friends and family.  We had to wait until Jay’s next pay check to afford the $100 co-pay to see the doctor.  So in the mean time, I read my cards again, and they confirmed it.  The Sun card came up again, just as it had in my reading a few months ago.  I called Mother Mari and asked her to do a reading to confirm my pregnancy.  She read my runes and she was told I was carrying a girl.  I knew that already, but didn’t tell her.  I had asked the sex of the child to my runes, and been told it was a girl too.  So we named her Sarah Ophelia.  What we had always wanted to name her.

I started a group of letters to her, and wrote often.  I fed her regularly, with the best food I knew to give her.  We even began to read to her.  And I rested, which I hated because I had so much to do.  I had cramps most of the time I was pregnant with her, on my right side. 

Some days I believed it, and some days I didn’t. It was too much for me to comprehend.  Even now it seems like it was all a mistake or a dream, but knowing an impossible thing is possible, I think changes you.  I thought of her often and then would forget I was pregnant and go back to what I was trying to do.  I worried constantly how we would feed and clothe her, afford to by her school supplies.  I began to read books on pregnancy, and went to the Thrifty Peanut to buy a few. 

Sunday we took Precious for Swimmy day at the lake.  It started bleeding Monday.  With IC there are times when you can have an irritant and bleed from your bladder, in fact most of the time I have microscopic blood in my urine.  I thought I am just having a flare, but by Tuesday I was passing small clots.  I believed it was coming from my bladder but by Tuesday night I could not tell where it was coming from.  Wednesday was the big day.  Jay took the morning off work to take me to the OB/GYN.  They took me in for an ultra sound, and I informed them I was having an IC flare and was bleeding.  They had never heard of IC.  They could not find her with the belly monitor, so they had to do a vaginal ultra sound.  Now under ideal conditions this is fairly painful for me because of my IC, but I was in so much pain that I was screaming, and biting my hand, and Jay’s hand to keep from screaming more.  I just wanted it over with.  They never could get good pictures.  I think because I was jumping around too much.  Finally the tech stopped and said, “I don’t know what to do.  This should not hurt her like this.”  When I got off the table I nearly collapsed, but stopped myself.  In pain Jay and I hobbled to the bathroom to put on some clean panties and a fresh kotex.  I think I was miscarrying at this point, and that is why I was in so much pain.  My cervix somehow did not seem right, like it was not as strong as it usually was.  I’ve just looked it up, and I wonder if I was already in early labor at that point.

We went in to visit with Dr. Hirsh, and she confirmed that I was in fact pregnant.  I cried I was so happy.  I showed her my period dates and she believed that the baby was about 4 weeks.  She wanted me to come back in two weeks and we would do blood tests and all that good stuff.  She was great and I really liked her.  I hope to see her again at least as an GYN.

On the way home, we called the family and told them we were confirmed.  We asked Kenny and Lucy to be Godparents, and they agreed.  I was so happy.  It was a wonderful few hours.  Jay dropped me at home.  There was a lot of blood and I was passing bigger clots.  We didn’t know what was going on.  He looked and said it was coming out of both.  He went back to work and I tried to rest, but I had problems.  I felt like I was having a period, with cramps that went down into my legs.  I had trouble sitting on my pelvis, so I laid down.  I just could not get comfortable, so I ended up laying on a pallet on the floor.  I called Pam and talked to her about 5 and told her I was in a lot of pain, and I just wanted someone to talk to.  We chatted for a while and then I called Lucy, and we began to plan my baby shower.  I told her I wanted to do it around Halloween, “A boo for the Boo,” was going to be our theme.  We talked about my pain and my bleeding and they both soothed my fears that spotting was normal in the first trimester. 

Jay came home and from then till about sunset it seemed to just get worse.  I just could not get comfortable, I could not stand, or walk without pain.  Finally I ended up leaning.  I keep going back and forth to the bathroom thinking I had to poop, but nothing came out.  And there was just so much blood.  I finally was in so much pain that I made him call my urologist and then the OB/GYN’s office.  They both said to take me to the hospital.  At one point I remember backing myself into the corner, because of the look on Jay’s face.  I started crying saying, “I’m sorry.  It will go away.  There is nothing wrong with me.”  I was terrified of another hospital bill and that I was miscarrying.  He called the boys at the fire station. 

The ambulance came down the road, and out of it came our friend Paul.  I cried, that it was him.  He is such a good man, and damn good nurse.  Before he even opened the back door of the truck, I was handing him my paperwork with my meds on it, driver’s license, and insurance card.  Jay was running around behind me packing my bag, tending to the kids, and putting Star and Henry away.  The pain I had been feeling at that time seemed to be coming in waves and intensifying.  At no time, during my entire hospital stay was I told I was in labor and having labor pains.  Even when I asked the nurse again as we were leaving the ER, “Why am I in pain?!”  I was told they did not know.  I had to go and talk to two nurses after words who confirmed that yes sometimes women who miscarry, do so with labor pains.  My pain was coming every 10 min or so.  Just this intense wave of pain, then me screaming, and finally it would subside, long enough for me to feel okay again, and then it started all over again.

I arrived at the hospital screaming my head off.  Once in the ER room the stupid doctor comes up during a contraction and asks, “How are you doing?  Are you on any meds?”  Paul had already given the nurse my list with meds on it and all my info.  I was in no capacity to talk and very pissed off at that point.  I finally was able to say to him, “She has the list.”  And at last the nurse confirmed to him that she had a list of all my medications.  Jay arrived about that time and I am not sure about what happened in the next little bit.  I was given a total of 8mg of Morphine.  That shit is awesome.  Makes you feel warm and fuzzy and forget your problems.  Gods no wonder it is so addictive, and it works almost instantly. 

I was sent for another ultrasound with much bickering.  I told him I had already had one today.  He told me he had no access to those records, which is a lie because it was all done at the same hospital, just a different branch, and all of their records are tied in together by computer.  Thankful this time I was high and it didn’t hurt that bad.  My tech said, “They couldn’t get clear pictures?”  When I told him no he stifled a laugh.  I asked him what he saw, and he answered, “The doctor will have to tell you.”

Dr. Brown came in about midnight to tell me that, “You have a UTI and you are miscarrying.  Your baby stopped growing at about 7 weeks and there is no heartbeat.”

I said, “So she’s dead.”

“There is no heartbeat.”

I asked if I would have to have an abortion, and he told me, “No, you should pass it in the next day or so.  You won’t even know.  It’s just a little clump of cells.” 

I asked him, “So I killed her, because I didn’t believe I was pregnant.  My negative energy, and somehow my body killed her, with too much worry, too much stress.”

He just looked at me confused, and then at Jay who told me, “No you didn’t kill her.”

I was loaded up with antibiotic and sent home.  It least the UTI explained why I was peeing blood.  We stopped to fill our prescriptions and have a snack.  We got home about 2 in the morning.  Jay left for work a few hours later, but came home early to be with me.  That morning I passed something that was about 6 inches long, and my pain stopped not long after that.  In it I could recognize an umbilical cord and a tiny little right leg, and the rest I couldn’t.  It was a mash of cells.  I know y’all think I am gross for reaching my hand in the toilet to retrieve it.  But I could not stand the idea of my daughter’s finally resting place being my septic tank.  I wrapped what I found up in tissue, and gave Jay a chance to look at her.  Then I wrapped her in pink tuile, circled her with dried flowers and herbs just as I had so many fur babies before her, folded it all up and tied it with a black ribbon. I rocked her for a few minutes, sang to her, and cried.  Holding her felt no different to me then holding any other child.  And I knew in that moment that I really have been a mother for more years then I care to count.  She was just a different species.  And her life was no more and no less important than my other children.  Jay and I walked out to our little grove and buried her in Holda’s Well.  The same place we had buried Punka so many years before. 

I’ve spent the last three weeks or so resting.  The first week I bled so much I didn’t know I had that much blood in me.  I made calls to my PCP and OB/GYN who were sad to hear that I had lost the baby, but unless I was soaking a pad an hour that I didn’t have to come in.  I have not seen a doctor since I was in the ER.  It took a week for all the pain to go away and two for all the blood to stop.

I have been exhausted, board out of my mind and frustrated for the last few weeks, until this week when I have finally be able to work a normal schedule.  You clean up after the dogs, wash clothes, write, do dishes, repeat.  My breathing has returned to normal, and after talking with a nurse friend of mine, she believed that it was related to the pregnancy.  That the baby was putting such strain on me that it was aggravating my asthma. 

I have been very open about the miscarriage and losing Sarah.  I posted on Facebook the morning after, and received wonderful comments, messages, and phone calls.  I think this honestly helped me get through this.  I was struck by the number of women who opened up and told me about their similar experiences.  Making those phone calls to Beau, and my family were some of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  It reminded me of when Momma Muriel died. 

Friday I posted to my yarn group and told them they had all asked what they could do for me, I said I need hugs.  Our attendance had been low lately being that its summer, so I asked if they would all please come to our regular meeting.  And several of them made a point to show.  It was very healing for me to sit with them and talk about all of this, and to listen to them tell their stories of losing their own babies.

I called a cousin who had been through a similar experience.  She had delivered an 8 month old stillborn.  She was told she could never have children.  She has PCOS to, and erratic periods so she thought nothing of missing them for so long.  She had no symptoms of pregancy.  She told me point blank, “I went to a dark place after my child died.  I will not let that happen to you.  So if you need to call me and cry and scream, I am here for you.”  I think we spent an hour talking on the phone, and it was wonderful. 

Jay has been wonderful through this all.  He has been my rock through both hospital visits, and the grieving process.  I have yet to see him cry though and that worries me.  I think he has just not been doing it in front of me.  I am continually asking him, “How are you doing with all this?” and he says, “Good baby.”  He told me in the ER that night, “I don’t care if we lose the baby.  I just can’t lose you.”  I told him, “I’m not going anywhere.” 

The other day when I cleaned her grave and showed him, he got a little teared up and sad.  I think now that I am better, he might be able to process all this a little more.  That is her grave on the picture above, circled in white quartz stones. 

The cards tell me that another child is imminent, and I hope so.  At least now we know it is possible, something we didn’t know before.  So I am taking my prenatal vitamins, and doing deep breathing exercises to try to keep my root and sacral chakras open and cleared.  Preparing to become a vessel for the next child.  I told Jay last night, that maybe Sarah came to open the door and clean me out physical, emotionally and spiritual, to prepare me for the next time she tries to come into our world.  Jay thought it was good that I could look at it like this.  I saw my councilor on Monday, and shocked as she was about all this news she said, “Ilsa you realize that if this had happened a year ago, you would have been a basket case.”  I agreed.  My life is in order now.  I am who and where and what I want to be in this life.  It took a long time, and as hokey as it sounds, I think I am ready now. 

Ilsa

I love you

Jay calls me the next day and tells me he loves me.  I sink on the bed by the phone and tell him, “I love you too.”  Loving Jay has never been the all encompassing, obsessive and compulsive love I felt with Mike.  Loving Jay is soft and gentle.  It is easy like breathing.  It just is.  I could not believe I had found a guy who liked me for me.  I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not to get him to go out with me.  Jay has never asked me to be anything else but myself. 

On January 2^nd, 2003 we have our first unchaperoned date.  I was so nervous getting ready.  I remember telling my mom, “I have to make sure I have enough money for dinner in case he makes me pay half.”  We go to a little place and I order a hamburger.  I tell him, “Now I’m getting it with onions, ‘cause I love onions and I will have bad breath after words.”  He tells me, “I’m getting mine with onions too.  Guess we will have bad breath together,” and we just laughed.  When the bill came I asked him if I need to pay half.  Charlie would do that to me, ask me to dinner and then make me pay half.  Jay looks a bit offended.  “I asked you to lunch, a gentleman always pays!”  I just smile and tell him about Charlie and me,  and how I had made sure I had enough money with me just in case.

That is one of the best things in the world about Jay is that he is such a good listener.  I think more than therapy, more than the 12 steps, having a friend and being able to talk to someone openly and honestly about my past, has been tremendously healing for me.  Knowing that he would kill the son of a bitch for me if he could does a girl a whole lot of good.  Never once has Jay ever said to me, “Quit telling me stories of your ex.  Stop comparing me to him.”  Granted Jay always comes out with a compliment after the comparisons.  Example, “Mike would always tell me when I was sick that it was all just in my head and that I was not really sick.  You know what I love about you.  That you believe me and take me to the doctor when I’m sick.” 

That Saturday we are standing in a Wal-Mart checkout line.  He is standing behind me, holding me and kissing my neck.  I am making baby talk with a cute baby in front of me.  He looks at the child and whispers in my ear, “What do you think?  In about a year? Year and half?”  I sputter.  Thank the Gods he can’t see the shock on my face.  Is he’s asking me when I think we will have our first child?  I begin to unload the groceries onto the conveyer belt.  I said, “Did you just ask me what I think you asked me?”  I think he has just asked me to marry him.  I did not know that at the moment he said it, he had meant it as a joke.  But he said later, once he heard himself say it, he meant it.  He never expected my response. 

I begin with, “I have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome.  The doctors have told me I have a 10% chance of ever conceiving on my own.  They have told me it will take a team to get me pregnant.  I think you are the man for the job.  Yes.”  I look up.  He is smiling and his bright blue eyes are sparkling.  I follow up with, “if we can’t conceive we will adopt.  If we can’t adopt we will raise dogs.”  Now for those following along, we have not even known each other a month yet and we have not slept together yet either. 

I’ve pondered over the last 24 hours how to tell you the next part.  If you knew me in person you would know that I talk about sex a lot.  I think we have to demystify the subject and remove the taboo against it.  If we don’t talk about sex it makes it harder for those of us who have been molested, sexually assaulted and / or raped to talk about our experiences.  I’ve watched the world change a lot on this subject in the past 40 years, but we still have a long way to go.  I am of the opinion that sex is a sacred and private thing between consenting adults.  I have never been one to participate in recreational sex.  Mike always told me, “You have to separate sex from love.”  I have never been able to.  When I make love I feel it is the exchanging of souls.  I think it should be a magical experience.  It is the great rite.

In this culture and I feel more particularly in the south, women are still demonized for wanting sex or having a high sex drive.  While a man who has sex with many partners is considered voracious and a stud.  Men who save themselves are looked at as being religious zealots.  But then there are those men, who have been passed over by life or by women for whatever reason and have had little or no experience in loving.  While their circumstance is unfortunate it should in no way be belittled.  They are no lesser men for this position in life, and I feel they should not be chastised or embarrassed by this.

Jay kissed like a dream.  The way he kissed me, was like he knew what he was doing.  We began to have conversations about making love.  I was not ready quite yet, despite the fact we were technically engaged, and that was fine with him.  In our conversations Jay made me understand that he had never been with anyone.  At first I was a bit shocked.  He had to convince me, but yes it was true.  I was also his first major girlfriend.  Now Jay was not a religious zealot, he had just been passed over by women. Their loss is my gain! I’ve asked him over the years why there were no real girls before me.  He has told me he has always been painfully shy around girls and by the time he got up the courage to ask them out most of them were taken.

There had been a girl before me.  Her name was Monica.  She had been his childhood sweetheart.  They had been kissing buddies in Kindergarten and first grade.  Then he had lost contact with her.  She had come back into his life his Jr. year in high school.  They tried to meet for coffee several times, but they never could get their schedules right.  She died tragically in a house fire about six months later.  Jay was heartbroken and always lamented what could have been.  He’d been on a few dates with a girl in college but other than that his experience was limited. 

I knew it would be my job in life to teach him, and I was happy for the job.  When Jay and I began to talk about sex I gave him my 4 rules to follow in bed:

1.       Don’t be afraid to laugh.
2.       Don’t be a afraid to fart.  With any luck you are going to be twisting in some odd positions.
3.       Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
4.       Don’t be afraid to speak up and ask for what you want.

My first experience had been terrible.  I didn’t want that for Jay.  I wanted his first time to magical, and it was.  It was magical for both of us.  Jay is as giving, compassionate, and as loving in the bedroom as he is in real life.  Such a complete change from what I had with Mike, and what I had only glimpsed at with Joe.  Jay has never asked me to do anything I was uncomfortable with, was against my moral compass, or that I found degrading.  I have never once had to beg. 

I think the best part is that 12 ½ years later he still wants me.  I have a little saying, “first husband wouldn’t touch me.  Second one won’t keep his hands off of me.”  Jay always has his hand on my butt in public and at home.  It’s his way of saying, “this one is mine boys.  Touch her and there will be trouble.”  I like that.  I like that a lot. 

Ilsa

 

From where I sit

So I want to give you a little about my creative process, describe where and how I live for you.  I forget sometimes that you are not here with me as I write that you can’t see what I do.  And then I have the images of who and what you, dear reader, might be.  Am I your favorite blog you like to read as you are riding on something, exotic to me, like a subway.  Do you live in the city?  Are you lying in bed with your wonderful Wi-Fi.  Or are you at a public library.  Do you suffer from panic and anxiety like me?  Are you thinking of becoming Pagan?  Did you find me by Googling something about any of the above subjects or did someone suggest this to you on Facebook?  Who knows?  I figure, at least for a while, people who read this blog and follow me, will be people I know or they will be friends of friends.  I wonder how you see me.

I am 39, a woman, large, and of German and Scotch-Irish decent.  I was raised in Logansport, Louisiana but all my people are from Keatchie.  My family has been in this area for about 5 or 6 generations.  My husband Jay and I live on about 22 acres in northern Caddo parish, which is in Northwest Louisiana, USA.  We have a farm with, as of this writing, 6 dogs, 3 goats and a pig.  Those numbers change frequently.  I live in a trailer about 600 feet off of the main road.  I life so far back that I cannot get internet at my house, as the cable man told us, “we cannot give you internet as the signal would be too degraded.”  As for satellite internet, I do not have a clear view of the Southern sky and have been told I would have to cut my trees, something I refuse to do.  Now Juno, who lives in the house in front of me, is only about 300 feet off the road and has cable internet! 

I am also plagued with a cell phone problems, as in they don’t work out here.  I get one bar on my cell phone in my yard.  I have to leave the property and drive about 3 miles, towards the interstate before it will really work well. And what is worse is the house phone is based off a cell signal, so it does not always ring when someone calls, or I can talk for about 5 minutes before I lose my signal, or my personal favorite, you go to dial out and you have no signal.  Ugh!!!  I am lucky I have a tablet that picks up an internet signal, but I just have to go outside to use it. 

So my stories are typed up on an old IBM think pad, that someone gave me some years ago, and now refuses to connect to the internet. I am typing in Microsoft Word 7, and listening to James Taylor’s Before this world.  I try to write every day.  My stories are saved to a Gig stick.  In a few days I will drive the 7 miles into the closest town, go to the local library and upload these to my blog.  This is why I post so many stories at one time.  You are getting a week’s worth of writing at a time. 

Out my window I can see my porch, my car, my flags, onward to the goat pen and barn, a little farther to Juno’s house, and then finally I can see a tiny portion of the road and some cars as they drive by.  Our place is heavily wooded.  We have lots of wild life and lots of wights or fae. 

Have you ever seen a movie called “Conagher?”  It’s a great movie if you get the chance to see it.   In it is a lonely widow woman, Evie.  She is so isolated that she begins to write and ties these bits of writing onto tumbleweeds.  She says in the end, “I had to talk to someone.” I agree.  My life is very isolated.  I often do not leave my farm for days at a time.  At first it was because we were tending animals, then it became because I didn’t have the gas money.  I may see no one for days but my husband, Juno and her partner.  Trips into the big town of Shreveport take a while to get to, and then we never know if my anxiety is going to be good enough that day to go or not. 

I try to write every day, but some days that just does not happen.   Most days it does.  I have never written this much in my life.  I started writing about age 12; when my teacher told me I had the gift.  I never believed it, because there was another girl in my class who could write circles around me.  Over the years I have written when the muse descended.  I’ve written short stories, tried to start novels, and even got about half way through writing a book.  But one night I burned it all, and gave it back to Gods.  Telling them I no longer wanted this burden, to please find someone else to write these things. 

There was a time in my life, between Mike and Jay that I wrote an article in the local news paper called, “The Prodigal Daughter.”  It talked about the news in Keatchie, but also there were stories of my life.  I published one 500 to 700 word article a week, and some weeks it was hard to write that much.  I began to have a fan following and I began to understand I did have the gift.

That was the last major writing I did.  I am now writing, on average 1000+ words a day.  In eight days I have written eight articles, with titles for four more.  I have never, ever done this!  The only thing I can think is it is the Buspar.  My anxiety level has finally gone down enough that I have time and space in my brain for this.  And it just all keeps pouring out. 

I came up with the title of “The unexpected life,” because I never expected to live this long.  There were times in my life when I believed I would be an academic.  As a child I wanted to be an oceanographer and later, during college, I dreamed of becoming an anthropology professor.  During those days I never dreamed I would one day run a farm or make a living dog grooming.  Living the life I live now has definitely been unexpected. 

If I had talked to 14 year old me I would never have believed that I would ever marry, moved away from my family, or even be alive 25 years later.  Like so many with depression I felt my life would be short, and I have never planned for anything more than a few weeks in advance.  There is an old saying, “if I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have planned better or taken better care of myself.”  Now almost 40 I am looking at a life that I hope to go on another 20 or 30 years if I am lucky.

I am coming to the end of my child bearing years.  Many of my friends from high school are already grandparents.  You now know, or will know from later articles that I am infertile.  I have finally given up hope.  I have begun to break up my collection of baby items I have kept all these years.  Family heirlooms are now going to be passed to other family members.  What hurts the most is I have no one to pass my knowledge along to.  No one to tell my stories to and no one to sing songs too.  No one who will remember Jay and me after we are gone.  No one will put us on their altars and bring us treats on our birthdays.  We will just be gone, but I guess that is the lament of many childless couples.  But maybe if I keep writing and posting we might have a little piece of immortality, living on in cyberspace. 

Ilsa