I’m NOT Pregnant!

[imood mood at time of entry: tired]

I got the lovely opportunity to take my very first pregnancy test in a Wal*Mart restroom around 12 A.M. this morning. At 22, no less. That’s practically a record for some people, considering that some folks have their first kids at 15 (14, 16, 13, etc.).

I never did come back to update about the vacation sex and everything else I did that weekend, but there were condoms aplenty and no real reason for me to worry about ‘being in the family way’. ‘Ya know?

But then I had this spotty period and weird stomach cramps that may or may not have had everything to do with the dairy I was eating. Long story short, I had managed to convince myself that I just might be pregnant with the child of a man that I didn’t want to have anything else to do with. I mean, he was there and was sort of sweet and all, but I never had any plans to see him again in my life. If I could help it. I do have to ride the bus when I go back to Austin.

All of the worry went on this weekend and by Saturday (September 8, 2007), I had gone from the firm ‘I’m having an abortion if I get pregnant’ stance I have been holding on to for years to a ‘Maybe I’ll keep the baby, even though I am flat broke, because this could be my only chance at it’ way of thought. It was crazy, because I had been feeling all maternal in the strongest way for the last year or so and I had really been considering the terms on which I would start my family.

I know that I don’t really need a father for my future children, but I suppose that it would be nice to share some of the responsibility with another person. You know, seeing as how I’d have to work and my mom is already stressed beyond her limits. There is only so much a person can do and it seems like everyone is asking everything of her (and me!).

I wanted to go by Wal*Mart Saturday (technically early Sunday morning) after my shift, but my mom wasn’t feeling up to the drive and we stayed home. The next day I all out demanded that we go, because I simply couldn’t stand not knowing. Plus there was the fact that I was coming down with a cold or something and I wanted to get the cheaper medicine out at Wal*Mart.

Since I was still on the fence about keeping the would-be baby or not, I absolutely insisted to myself that I take the pregnancy test before I took any more medicine (I am going to assume that Imodium AD is not best for baby). I also didn’t want to freak my mom out about a non-existent baby if that turned out to be the case, so I deiced to pee on the stick at the store and get it over with.

I bought one Equate test for a very reasonable four bucks. It was a brand that I used other products lines under the same name with past success. It did everything and had everything that it promised. What’s funny is that the test said to set the test down on a flat surface for three minutes. My test results started showing up in less than one. I was that not pregnant (Yes, we’re going to pretend that is a real phrase)!

I sort of laughed in amusement and joy. But I do have to admit that I did wonder about the What If. Loads of people I knew in school are either married, married and divorced, or have children by now. We’re all just barely in our twenties for cripe’s sake! See, at first I thought the one or two people I would run into were just stupid to start out so young without establishing their careers first. But then as I ran into more and more people who have already started their families, I do admit that I had a moment of self-doubt.

Logically, I know that I am not set up to take care of a child. I can’t even take care of myself half the time and would have had to save up for an abortion, because my other bills would need to be paid on time. I just can’t figure this stuff out sometimes. If even my ex, Cris, that I had a disastrous relationship with when I was 18, is getting married this month, then what the hell am I supposed to think?!

Here was a guy who chased women and cheated and lied and couldn’t get his shit together. Well, couldn’t get it together with me. But now he’s managed to become engaged to someone? What the hell?

I saw him a couple months or so ago and we had a sort of strained conversation. I was washing my clothes at his grandfather’s laundromat and his grandfather wasn’t there. He let me in to the store and gave me a free soda. He also apologized for the way that he had behaved four years ago. I thought it was a very admirable thing, seeing how his actions did help shape how I have viewed men, especially Black men, ever since. At the time, he didn’t mention anything about him having a fiancee. In fact, he made it seem like he was still the same old Cris, a woman chaser who cared quite a deal about money and how he looked to the world.

I actually found out about the wedding from a third party. Or two third parties, you could say. I happened to be talking to two more high school acquaintances that gotten married and/or had children already.

It was just that him apologizing and then turning around and running into the worst type of Black man (loud, obnoxious, possessing a feeling of divine right, repulsive, and generally living up to the ‘all Black people are ghetto heathens’ stereotype) that struck me as odd to see side-by-side.

At this point, work, drama, work drama, being sick with god knows what right now, the fact that if I hadn’t wasted my money and/or paid bills I could have made it to Germany by now, are all sort of swirling together to crush inward on me. Sometimes I feel as though I am headed for a break down. Other times I feel like I just have to make that little start that’ll get everything rolling. Most of the time when I’m not distracted by work and family drama that I STILL haven’t gotten around to writing about and video games and fandom, I just sort of feel depressed by this barrier that’s just there. You know? Like there is just something right in front of me that keeps me from moving forward more than an inch at a time.

But then I have to think about the Inch (see bottom for a snippet of the movie version) in V for Vendetta, and it seems like everything in the world, like I’ve just managed to hold on, like I’ve pulled off some great giant trick that everyone should point to and admire.

I just don’t know sometimes.

And now I’ve been threatened to be sued by the hospital. I’ve called and talked to them and they’ll accept small payments, but it doesn’t make me feel 100% better. It makes me not go into a panicking fit, but I’m still this close to having a hospital sue me for money. It’s not as though I could just not have gone, because my temperature was shooting up the scale and I thought that I was going to die. No joke there.

But that is to be expected in America when you have no money and no insurance and nothing spectacular to your name. I never did get around to cross those entries to this journal and I will get around to it. Eventually. I’ve been saying that for over a year now, but I mean it at this point. I really should have saved something that personal here in the journal that was set for that sort of thing.

I’ll probably leave the lobby soon enough to go home. I’ll play Kingdom Hearts for a while and then go to sleep, I guess. Tomorrow (Tuesday, September 11, 2007) I’ll go to the doctor and hope for the best. I bought that medicine from Wal*Mart and took some, but I’m pretty sure now that I didn’t get the right stuff. Since I was guessing blindly, I just chose what I knew I needed regardless (Tylenol) and what I thought I might need (Loratadine).

Well, I’m just rambling now. I need to code this and post it before I get out of here. I hope that everyone is doing okay.

Danielle

Valerie: It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and apologized to no one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must NEVER let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the worlds turns, and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that, even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you.

I have to say that I rather liked the movie version of this letter better. It flows well and I wish that I had the entire thing to post.