Braxton hicks contractions... aren't my favorite. They don't hurt but they are not my favorite. They are practice contractions for your uterus to get ready to evict it's little tenant. I was begging Grace to move like she is right now earlier today. When people were looking and when I wasn't all hard in the belly. But no. She bounces around my uterus when it's hard and it's very uncomfy.
Here's something my new lifestyle changes last year and pregnancy has done for me. I am a talker. A writer. A reader. An information taker, maker, and lover. I love socializing. But the level to which I can... has decreased. I am wasted or pooped or even just .... satisfied. I don't need more and don't crave more... let's just call it what it is... attention. And then I need quiet. People think because I talk a lot I must be busy doing that all day. It's like running. If you get out of shape, getting back to it is exhausting. And you can't run as far. My talking marathon days are behind me.
And that's funny, considering I'm talking now on a blog. Something else I learned. I write a lot more when I am not talking. When you write, you might censor yourself. In fact, I know I do. I was writing for college papers. I was writing with specific professors in mind. I was writing with techniques and methodologies. I had theory behind my writing. Seems silly to say all that but I do.
I'm a contextualist. I observe cause and effect, and speculate. I like to imagine artifacts, belief systems, customs, people, and their words. I imagine them somewhat like I am walking into a museum exhibit. But less stale. Less posed. I imagine a scene like a detective does with all the action or like in a movie when everything stands still and the only person with a full perspective is the videographer, the director. Some people like the text, the objects, the things that speak for themselves. I see them as supporting roles of the larger thing, the story.
My techniques in writing for scholarship are nothing like what I do now. The cerebral and scholarly writing is excruciating. While blogging and facebook are more titillating. I don't have to rake my brain and emotions over the coals with the latter like I have to with the first. I don't have to reevaluate. I can just dump my emotions and thoughts and leave them. Like a piggy bank. Like a time capsule. And I can see myself change over time. I'm more passive. Less active. Both are valid in my eyes but they serve different purposes and cause different stresses and create different pleasures. But it's all words baby.
I get to be someone different. I get to be a girl I wasn't in school (college that is). My own thoughts are powerful and meaningful... to me. In their generic, numerous, and prolific styles, they are evidence of me. The me I show to the world online is planned. It is honed. It isn't everything that I am... but I find revealing your soul, your heart, your loves, your passions is freeing. So SOOOOOOO many people are afraid to just expose themselves to the world, as if it will weaken them. Maybe they'll feel violated online. I dunno. I never imagine that many people are reading. Am I naive?
Who knows. Maybe I'll read this decades from now. My children. Strangers. Would they actually learn anything? About me? About my pregnancy? I know for certain the internet today is so vast and exponential that it blows the mind. My writings are literally a grain of sand in the universe, one that is growing. That anonymity provides comfort in numbers that large.
But then I'm a part of something universal for women of age who procreate. I become a part of a club. I can talk all I'd like, but the discomforts (and their counterparts of complaining/martyrdom) are initiations for me into a different universe. One that is growing but infinitely more finite and more, well, human and visceral. Words can't help the discomfort of a contraction.
Having braxton hicks contractions is a bump in my easy going pregnancy that signals not only more bumps to come, but that the end is near. Now, I have a bigger belly. I have a little less energy. I need more time, help, water, and food. And rest. But until today, I was all this and... now uncomfortable. The faux contraction didn't come on with any warning and my back started to hurt. Thanks Braxton. Thanks a lot. This support tank top is so nice! Except it's thick, black, and warm in the summer months. I'll wear it anyway with the AC cranked. Can you guess what I'm doing now?
I hate to think this blog is just for complaining. That's the worst kind of writing. It skims the surface and doesn't dig deeper. So with my deep thinking mind I say... eff it! I am heading toward a lot of pain and a lot of exhaustion and I get to be a little timid or frustrated or scared, even if I don't want to be. Maybe reticent is the best term. AND you know what!? I'm more scared of being exhausted than in pain. The exhaustion lasts.... forever and takes forever to recover from. They have meds for pain. Time is a commodity and it's valuable and it happens to be the only thing that cures exhaustion. Time to sleep and rest.
SO here I am, sitting around my house eating well, hydrating, relaxing, and generally resting my weary mind in preparation for a long journey to come. I suppose the Braxton Hicks are just like little blisters and callouses on my feetsies that are toughening me for the challenges ahead and the rough trails I'll walk.
(This is ironic considering Kris rubs my feet with lotion almost every night and I lack any callouses for his hatred of them... who knew he was a feet guy. He's even said in so many words that I'm due for a new pedi. I went gladly).
Kris, oblivious to all and perceptive as a whipper-snapper (he's a mystery, you try figuring him out), is supportive in whatever vague way he can be. Grace, however, is persistently getting stronger and rougher testing my mettle. Between his tender love and care and her drilling me for oil from the inside out, I suppose I'll be prepared when the big day comes to let my body do what really it was meant to do.
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