Operation Leave Long Island: Phase One, Initiate

In keeping with my "quick, get everything medical done right away before your providers realize you've just COBRA'd yourself and make you pay out of pocket before coverage is effective again" theme, I went and got the second part of the "odds something is wrong with your kid" test done today. Usually getting blood taken is a traumatic event for me...I just don't like it...it grosses me out...but today was a breeze despite the large amount of blood they had to take. I'm guessing it was easy because they had me in the Princess Room, which is a room at my lab that has all of the Disney Princesses on the walls. I was able to pretend I was Mulan for a few minutes and thusly distract myself.

COBRA did already catch up with me in another way today. Of course, my prenatals were up for refill. I suppose Target Pharmacy is exceptionally diligent at checking patient eligibility and realized quickly that I was not technically covered. Even though COBRA is retroactive, you have a sort of waiting period where you pay out of pocket for services until you make your first COBRA payment. Then you're covered. LAME. I can't make that huge payment right this very second because of the move and needing to keep some money in the bank for an apartment down payment and moving expenses and what have you, so I'm either gonna have to pay the 75 bucks for a month supply of vitamins or buy the over the counters. I can't decide what I'm gonna do. I have one pill left so I'll sleep on it. I literally could; it's the size of a pillow.

In bigger news, tomorrow, Dustin and I are heading up to Scranton to check out the apartment we have our hearts set on. The tentative plan is that we'll only be up for the day in the hopes that we find a place. Then we'll come back on Thursday, rent a truck, pack it up Thursday night with the help of Dustin's ridiculously strong brother Dylan, finish packing up Friday morning and head up to Scranton where Dustin's mom and sister are gonna help us unpack. We happened to find a place just a block from one of Dustin's new offices in Scranton. It looks like at least some of the time he'll be in Wilkes-Barre, which is the town about 20 minutes south of Scranton, but Scranton is much cleaner, safer area. For less than the cost of the studio apartment we just moved out of, we can get a "luxury suite." Huge one bedroom, wood floors, washer, dryer, central air, brand new building in the most "upscale" part of Scranton. We kind of have all of our eggs in that basket at the moment...strangely enough, other places I've contacted for apartments haven't gotten back to me. When we were casually looking, I heard back from people right away. Now that we actually have to get our asses up there because Dustin starts on Monday? Radio silence. I'm hoping this is an omen that the "luxury suite" is meant to be.

Dustin's new job also called him today to offer us a hotel room in the city for a week if for some reason our apartment search bombs. How nice of them! We are hoping we don't need it (we just wanna move and get on with our lives...plus we got the family help this weekend) but the gesture is so nice. EVERYONE I've met in PA so far has been MUCH nicer than any random stranger I've spoken to here. Today a woman behind me on line at CVS actually CLICKED HER TONGUE IN AGGRAVATION because I was taking too long picking out candy at the register. (It's HER fault I bought all three that I couldn't choose between because I was rushed. I also blame her for the fact that I ate all three about 20 minutes after I got home. I'm like the grandpa in the nursing home in Look Who's Talking.) Conversely, when I was in Scranton last, I asked for directions from the Starbucks barista who actually pulled out her blackberry and looked up exact directions for me and then complimented my hair, which I KNOW looked like shit that day.

I had lunch with some former coworkers today...sort of a goodbye lunch. They're great women. I'm gonna miss them.

After lunch and hanging with the Vampires (blood suckers at the lab) Dustin and I busted butt to get the rest of our crap either packed up or thrown away. We made the executive decision to trash as much stuff as we possibly could before this move. We did such a good job, we only have like six boxes of stuff. It feels sparse. But we realize that a lot of our furniture...including our old bed, couches, coffee tables and end tables....were just gross. We couldn't imagine having a baby around furniture that I bought before college. I get a little nauseous thinking about how much bong water, cigarette smoke, take out food, beer and other nasty elements were in the fibers of that crap. So, everything we could get rid of, we did. Dustin's Aunt Laura had some nice furniture she was looking to get rid of, so we're taking that. There's a HUGE outdoor flea market up by The Compound that I'm really looking forward to checking out for cool furniture once we have some income. And all the other stuff we'll build up slowly.

I've never had anything really NICE as far as materialistic things are concerned. Certainly not things that I've ever bought for myself. A few months ago, I bought a couch. A really small couch that is made out of like, burlap, but I have a feeling I'm never going to be able to get rid of it. It was expensive (to my budget) and whenever I look at it, I'm like...proud. When we were leaving the cottage, Dustin asked me what furniture I was really attached to. I didn't even pause before I said "just the couch." I didn't even want the bed in which our child was conceived because it definitely only cost me 89 bucks at some blow out bonanza in 1998. So the burlap couch is coming with us, along with a kitchen table and two mismatched chairs I actually found at random salvation armies. We have an old tv stand that probably has about 2 months of life left and a stout dresser from Dustin's house...and that's IT. Pregnancy hormones make me tear up when I look at the very small amount of possessions I've managed to accumulate in 31 years of life. I don't consider myself to be over materialistic...but I should probably have more than THIS. Everything you own should probably not fit into a corner of your baby daddy's dad's basement.

There are times where I feel like there are reflections of your life no matter where you look. Inwardly, at your environment, at your friends, your family, your home...everywhere you turn there is something that reinforces who you are and where you're heading. I suppose we can choose to look at these things and have them define us, but I don't think I want to give anyone but myself that much power. And even that is extremely dangerous because it's true that I am my own worst critic. On a recent particularly bad day, I woke up and focused on my toes, which had gone weeks without a pedicure. My PJ bottoms had streaks of actual dirt on them because I couldn't even afford to go to a laundromat. My favorite comforter was resting across my body in such a way that I could see two burn marks from my trashy smoking in bed days. Feathers were coming out of my pillow. I sat up and caught my reflection. My hair was shaggy due to not having a proper haircut in months. My eyebrows had grown back in to their natural 1980's Brooke Shields state. My skin was very pale thanks to constant worry and my eyes were puffy from crying myself to sleep the night before.

I got out of the bed that wasn't mine (we have been sleeping in one of the guest rooms at Dustin's dad's) and padded across the basement I called home, averting my gaze to the half opened boxes I had been living out of. I went into the bathroom and shut the door, sat on the floor and cried. That heaving, sobbing, gagging cry that makes it impossible to breathe out of your nose for several hours afterwards. The footfalls above my head of the people who actually own this house made things worse, reminding me that I had nothing. I felt like nothing. I cried for my child, who had no choice but to be brought into this situation. I cried for my teeth, which hurt thanks to pregnancy, but would go without seeing a dentist I couldn't afford. I cried for my cats who have been uprooted traumatically several times (especially poor Wednesday who has never been anywhere for more than a few months.) I cried for the hole I saw myself in and the inability to immediately solve a problem. I cried so much that I fell asleep on the soft bathmat I did not buy for a few hours.

Dustin let me have this moment, perhaps realizing I was too far gone in despair to help or perhaps too terrified to see the beast that had taken over his once sane and normal baby mamma. He called to me a few times, making sure I hadn't drowned myself in the toilet, but kept his distance. When I awoke, shivering from laying half on a bathmat and half on cold tile, I still felt like crying. But something in me...maybe it was hawkeye, maybe it was that caveman survival instinct, was telling me that I couldn't keep on like this. That it wasn't helping anything. That no matter how much I cried or worried or slept on the bathroom floor, it wasn't going to fix the situation. I padded back out again and saw Dustin sitting on the couch, his strong brow knitted together in worry. I apologized and blamed pregnancy hormones. He embraced me and said, "It's going to be ok. I promise."

He couldn't promise something like that. He was/is just as worried as I am. But for that one second I allowed myself to believe that everything was going to be ok. Hope is important. Without hope, all you have is a pregnant woman in dirty pj's crying on the bathroom floor.

Here's hoping tomorrow is the beginning of new, wonderful things.