Dealing with Mean People

I have been working on accepting the fact that sometimes people are mean. I am pretty sure it could actually be categorized as a fact of life. This is something that I have been trying to deal with since kindergarten when a girl in class stepped in my square foot garden of dandelions and buttercups. (Incidentally, I had asked her politely not to. I hit her, trying to defend my creation. She told the teacher and I got in trouble for not sharing.)

Anyway, I still have a hard time with this concept of mean people. I suppose everyone has a motivation of some sort, but I don't know what those motivations are so to me it just seems mean. When I was little, and someone did something mean to me, I would react in the same way any mature six year old would--cry and get my daddy. Lately that tactic hasn't been working, partially due to the fact that he is in Michigan and I am in Illinois, but also due to the fact that I am (dare I say it) no longer six years old.

I think that the excessive amount of hormones is not helping. These days my coping tactic has been to call someone, tell them what happened and fall into a pathetic universal crisis that includes "Why does the world have mean people," "Why is there no solution," and "Why don't we keep chocolate in the house???" Then I go find something that will make me happy. Today, this makes me happy.

The 1st post: Communication and Morning Sickness

Some conversations are just not meant to happen over the phone. Conversations such as these may include, but are not limited to, "I ran over your cat on my way to work this morning," "I don't think this relationship is going to work out," and "So... I'm pregnant." I guess I knew that when I started to call my mom last month. This wasn't planned, wasn't wished for, and (as far as my parents knew) not a possibility. You might say it came as a shock. You might also say she expected it. You know about mother's intuition...

As of now I am about two months pregnant. Other aspects of my life include college. I am a junior and a theatre student in Chicago. This pregnancy changes everything. I'm due in September, so I'm going to lose at least a semester's worth of time what with labor and all the other baby-having technicalities. I should also say that I'm terrified.

I have come to terms with all of this surprisingly fast. I suppose, between classes, homework, and directing a one-act in the upcoming theatre festival, I don't really have time to think about how screwed up my life is at the moment, but I really do think everything is going to be okay. My family is well acquainted with crises, which has included heart attacks, strokes, personality-changing traumatic brain injuries, and cancer. "A pregnancy, a baby, is not a crisis." That's what my mom said the day after I told her.

Despite my mental disposition, my body is not doing so well. For several weeks, any commitment before 10 a.m. was not a possibility. I haven't felt so sick for so many consecutive days since I got my wisdom teeth out, and even then they gave me drugs! The "morning" sickness has calmed down significantly. Unfortunately, I have begun feeling violently ill somewhere around 8:30 p.m., "night" sickness, if you will. I think being fully awake for the misery makes it decidedly worse.

My methods for dealing with morning sickness have been slowly and steadily evolving to an art. First of all, I constantly have a bottle of ice water with me. Something about the cool, unoffensive liquid seems to calm things down in the digestive area. (There was about a two week period where I almost lived off apple juice and saltine crackers.) I'm also working on keeping small amounts of food with me at all times. These come mostly in the form of crackers, chips and apple slices. I hate the fact that I can't eat like I used to. Being in college and in an apartment, it was so much easier to deal with when I was too tired, too busy, or too broke to eat. I'd just make some pasta or rice and will myself to operate on no protein. That doesn't work anymore. My body is completely dictating my consumption patterns. (At this moment I am at work eyeing up a package of Easy Mac...)

If I do not eat when I am hungry, I get sick. If I overeat, however, I get sick. Also, sometimes when I eat (like earlier today when I had an amazing slice of Chicago deep dish) I get sick just because. Greasy foods are completely out. Sugary foods are... well, old habits die hard. Slowly but surely, however, my semi-sweet chocolate morsels, spoonfuls of Nutella (if you don't know what it is, go buy it, sold next to the peanut butter), and pixie sticks are being replaced by fresh fruit, toast with cinnamon and sugar, and club house crackers. My only real problem has been soda... like I said, old habits. Whenever I drink soda, particularly dark sodas, I feel sick at the end of the day. I need to just not drink it... yeah.

Somewhere in this, the first post of this blog, I should tell you all what I hope to accomplish here. I think it's pretty clear that I'm not taking the short way out. I'm going to stick this out to the end. Whether that means keeping this child as my own, or giving it to someone else to raise, I don't know. But I have seven months ahead of me, and I know that somewhere out there, there are other girls going through the same thing. So I hope that maybe they stumble across College Baby Bump in their web-surfing and know that they're not alone. I don't know where life is taking me right now, and it's frightening, but I'm going to be okay. We're all going to be okay. Trust me.