{Image via here}
And that’s all I have to say about that.
This morning I thought I was pregnant. This afternoon I know I’m not thanks to the gift of a highly accurate pregnancy test.
I didn’t even know what I was hoping for when I did the test. I really want to be not pregnant for New York. Somehow not being able to drink at all and feeling deathly ill are just not high on my agenda.
But I can’t ever conceive of doing a pregnancy test and wanting it to be negative.
Pregnancy tests are evil. Trying to conceive makes me absolutely insane. Even when I’m not actually trying to conceive it would seem.
And the pregnancy test was negative. And my head was relieved, but my heart was sad.
And then this afternoon I did another test. Which is so dumb. Because my levels would be lower being the afternoon anyway. Because I’ve already done a test and it was negative. As I said pregnancy tests = evil and me + trying to conceive = freaking crazy.
So now I have an afternoon of feeling grossly nauseous and it’s for no good reason. Unimpressed.
The only thing that was good about this is knowing that this standing up type of baby will not have to share with a newborn blob type of baby quite so soon. She can just keep on being the only baby for a bit. I don’t like pregnancy tests. I don’t like trying to conceive, even when we are not and it was kind of like trying to conceive by accident. But I do like the idea of holding on to just that little bit more of the Squishy’s precious babydom.
The day before yesterday Piper took her first tentative steps.
Yesterday she took a few more steps. Some were on purpose. Some she did when she wasn’t paying attention and just forgot to hang on.
Once she starts walking around I will probably have to accept the fact that she is a TODDLER. The horror. And I will have to start worrying about things like boundaries and discipline and consistency. Which is exactly why I like babies in the first place. High need and low maintenance. Far less complicated.
But then they become toddlers and every step they take away from you gets them closer to themselves and that has its own magic. But as they take those steps you can see the road stretch out before them and all the places that you will have to let go just a little bit more.
And then I think Bloody Hell. I am glad that I embraced her babyhood for as long as it was hers. Because you blink and it’s gone.
If people misinterpret what you write, it’s usually the fault of the writer who has failed in their expression of their intent. You don’t go around blaming readers for misunderstanding, any more than you blame someone for having the audacity to get offended when you get your foot caught in your throat. I believe that.
When I wrote this, it could have been better expressed. And it probably would have been if I hadn’t been writing at 11:30pm at night. But it will stand as it is, because it’s my blog and that’s how I choose it to be.
Even aside from the comments on the blog I asked the opinion of other people as well to see if it was offensive or not. The response was mixed. For the most part, people said they felt it was pretty clear I wasn’t talking about actual obstacles or people with disabilities or people with health issues. But for some people, what had been left unsaid there, in that negative space hit a nerve.
I’ve closed comments on this post because I don’t want it to turn into a thing where my words, or the words of my commenters in that post or this one are picked at. Sometimes I get to have the last word and I’m not apologising for that.
The nature of writing a personal blog is that it is personal. Sometimes intensely personal. And if people ignore it or love it or hate it, you care. And it means something that you care that much. It means that you are putting your whole self out there and you are truly invested in your own work and your own writing.
I don’t need people to agree with me all the time, but having people assume the worst of me was hard. People who I would have thought would know me so much better than that. Would know me well enough that even if the words looked black and white they would know that it wasn’t my intention. But they didn’t. And it was extremely disappointing and extremely hurtful. There’s no other way of saying it. It ripped my heart out.
But it’s a personal blog. That’s me out there, not just my words and I embrace that it affects me. If it didn’t affect me, I’m pretty sure that would mean that I was doing it wrong.
People assuming the absolute worst version of the words you have put out there in your own house is hard. People assuming the absolute worst version of you in your own house is painful. And I felt angry about that. White hot angry. An so incredibly sad too.
And I won’t lie. I cried. Alot. And people held my hand on twitter alot.
And when it was all over, all that was left was me and my personal blog and the feeling in my gut that a personal blog is exactly what I was meant to be writing and I would do it all over again.
But it felt like the space was taken away from me for a minute or two. And so I wrote this. And it’s mine again. Sometimes I get to have the last word.
A surprising amount of clothes survived through Riley’s babyhood. Some are even still white. A fact that amazes me since I always seem to forget the bib part of the feeding. So there’s a whole lot of Riley’s clothes that the Squishy is making her way through now. Because they were born in the same month, up until now the sizes have followed along pretty closely but now it’s getting cooler and Piper is still in 00s where Riley would have been in 0s at the same age so I anticipate some baby clothes buying in my future. What a shame. I’m devastated.
I’ve seen this skirt before
And really, possibly one of the most amazing things about sisters is that they are so different, right from the beginning and it just takes you awhile to notice.
{Image via here}
I believe that 99.9 percent of the time when people say ‘can’t’ what they mean is ‘won’t’. I believe that most of the time when you want to give up, what you need to do is push harder. I believe that sheer force of will is more important than almost anything else. I believe that persistence is more important than natural ability or talent.
I do believe in that 0.1% as well though. There are some things that are out of reach. Some things that you will never achieve, no matter how much you might want to.
But if you buy into the idea that you can’t, then you never will. You’ll find a way to talk yourself into that 0.1% even when it doesn’t apply to you. So I just don’t. I just keep pushing until either I make it through to the other side or I knock myself out on a brick wall trying.
When I was in my last year of High School sometimes people would say to me ‘but it’s so easy for you, your smart’ which was grandly insulting, because I wasn’t so much smart as I was driven. I worked really hard, propelled by fear mostly, through a series of exams and assignments until I finally made it to the other side.
Sometimes when I’m at the gym a staff member or someone else will say to me ‘geez mate, you can run’ which I love, because for someone who doesn’t really have a running bone in their body, that’s a huge compliment. But the fact is I can run because I don’t accept that I can’t. And sometimes, when I really don’t want to run the 9kms or so that I get through in an hour I’ll make myself run 12, just to prove to myself how ridiculous it is to baulk at 9. Just to prove to myself that I can.
And so whenever there is something that I will never achieve, or never be able to do, I take comfort in that. In my mind, I have a scar from hitting that brick wall every time I’ve failed at something. And those scars that only I see are my trophies. And they remind me that I kept pushing beyond logic or reason. And they keep me warm at night. If you could see them, you would see I was covered in scars. But I know, that sometimes as I’m about to knock myself out on that brick wall I bust right on through instead.
That thing that you think about when you are cheering yourself up on a bad day or that makes you smile when you have a quiet moment? Do That. Bust through some walls. Make some scars.
My name is Zoey. 
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