Long sigh.

The only thing worse than starting a bad novel is perhaps finishing a good one.  I am about forty pages away from saying farewell to a host of well developed characters in a new novel, House Rules.  It's about a single mom who is raising two boys, one of whom has been diagnosed with a form of autism. 

I have few rituals or indulgences in my life.  An ice cold beer, with clamato juice, a slice of fresh lemon over ice, about three evenings a week; changing into horrid pajama pants and David's tee-shirts after dinner; slipping into a deliciously hot bath each night; and reading.  I read during my tub, I read half a page while having a quick pee, I read if David is watching something truly uninteresting (hockey) on TV, and I simply want to be near him.  There isn't much else.  Oh, well, and cooking.  Cooking is my passion.  I could literally spend all day in a kitchen, bursting with ideas for textures, mixing flavors like colors on a canvas.  I get overwhelmed in an ordinary grocery store, much less an open air market or exotic spice isle. 

Okay, where is this going... well.. during one of the nights where I indulge in a beer and clam, while in a sinfully hot tub, interacting with the characters in my latest novel, I often have a few moments to think.  I try not to, really.  I prefer to hit the ground spinning my wheels and my mind at 6:30 in the morning and crawl, bone tired and mind numb into bed at 10:00 at night, without thinking.  Mind you, I have a full time staff of five people, hundreds of files going across my desk, and at least thirty phone calls to deal with, plus my input on the house renovations, being a great daughter to my elderly mother, putting the finishing touches on my still-at-home (thank god) twenty-year old son and being somewhat of a great wife and partner to my husband.... but I usually get through that without thinking too much.

Thirty months.  I finally counted tonight.  It was stupid to do it, I know, I know, but I did.  Thirty months of this little ball of 'want' curled up in my stomach where I thought a child would be.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people have started to ask me if I have considered a surrogate.  It shouldn't sting, and I try to react with grace, when I tell them that there's nothing wrong with me.  But it is surprising, even though, I guess it shouldn't be.

Of course we still have hope.  We got the ball rolling on our next frozen embryo transfer... June 23rd.  Seems like a season away.  I don't know whether or not to feel hopeful.  See what happens when I think?  I start to wonder, and hope, and dread, and be nervous, and wonder if having a baby is more like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.  You believe in them when you're innocent, but fall on your face into a pool of glass shards  few times and you start to avoid the mere thought of such things being true.  You start to work more, and have less quiet time.  You keep the noise going in your mind even when it's quiet in the room, so you don't have to think about the squirming, crying, nursing babies you've watched come into the world, from a safe distance, of course.  So you don't have to think about all the women around you who are happily carrying their husbands' babies.  So you don't have to take time to separate the pure joy and wonder of seeing newly swelling bellies from the total sense of loss and pain in your own.

Do I also have to start avoiding my indulgances... simply because they free my mind from the intense pressure of work and allow me time to think?