Chillax, Will Ya?

Oprah’s 10th Anniversary Special Edition of her magazine was dedicated to “Living in the Moment.” Oprah magazines are perfect for airplane rides, and I picked up a copy in the Denver airport on my way to Savannah a couple weeks ago. I was actually looking for a book to read, but nothing was jumping off the shelves.


Two flight attendants were standing nearby, discussing the titles on the shelves and some of their favorite reads. I had to jump in, because David Sedaris’s book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, was on the shelf. I grabbed a copy and turned to one of them and asked, “Have you read this? It's my favorite book.”

“I've heard him speak on NPR,” the tall, blonde one said. “He seems pretty funny.”

“He's life changing,” I replied, with a touch of drama. “I'd like to be the female version of David Sedaris, at least in the literary world I mean.”

A few years ago I went to one of David's readings at the Met Theatre in Spokane and stood in line to have him sign my book. I approached the table, handed him my copy, and said, “I've sold many of these books for you. I kind of lurk around in airport bookstores between flights and peddle them on your behalf.”

“That's very generous,” he said. “I'm glad you're doing that.”

He took my book and scribbled on the inside cover and handed it back to me. I opened it and read his inscription as I made my way into the theater. “Carrie, Thank you for making me rich. –David.”

“Are you a writer?” the blonde flight attendants asked. “You look like you have a very interesting job, whatever it is.”

That caught me slightly off-guard. “No. But, I'd love to be a writer,” I replied. “I have all kinds of jobs, really. I'm a patient advocate in prosthetics, I like to do public speaking now and again, I write to entertain myself, I’m a mother to two boys and I'm a surrogate mom, currently,” I say as I pat my big, round belly.

“Wow,” the other girl said. “You do have an interesting job.”

“Have you read this?” said the blonde, handing me a copy of Eat, Pray, Love.

“I tried,” I replied, “But…”

“I know!” the other girl interrupted with a look of disgust on her face. “It's nauseating, right? Like who can get divorced and pack all their stuff and head to Bali to find herself and meditate with Yogis and live in an Ashram and stuff? I started reading it and I was like, ‘Oh lucky for you Elizabeth Gilbert’ but that's not reality.”

“Yeah I guess that's true,” I said. “When I got divorced, I didn't know how I was going to work, raise my sons, pay the heat bill, maintain my sanity… I suppose if I could've gone to Bali that would've been nice, but…”

“Oh we gotta go,” the blonde said to the other as she looked at her watch. “Good luck to you with everything” she said to me. With that they took their roller bags and clip clopped away in their high heels. (Sorry David - I missed the sale).

With none of the books grabbing me, I plucked an ‘O’ Magazine off the rack. Interestingly enough, it was one article, “Failure Is the Only Option,” by Elizabeth Gilbert that resonated with me.

Her premise was that women are “stressing themselves sick over the pathological fear that they simply aren't doing enough with their lives.” I find myself falling into this fear pattern regularly. I chronically create lists of things I want to do, like learn to play guitar, travel, learn to speak Italian, write a book, create a motivational speech and go on tour, but then I also fill that same list with things I have to do like, fix the boys bathroom toilet, replace the fence boards on the fence, clean out the garage, and fill the holes that the dog dug in the backyard.

My list of tedious “have to tasks” grows, and it's those that get picked off first, maybe because they’re easier and there is less chance of failing at fence board replacement than there is at learning a foreign language. Learn to play the guitar has been on my list for five years. I even had a special prosthetic device made in order to strum with my left arm, but it hangs on the stand where the guitar sits and has sat quietly for years collecting dust. Sometimes, I’ll pass by it and look at it and think, “I’m such a failure.” Why, knowing that it’s something that I really want to do, have I not just done it already? Because someone might twist their ankle in the backyard in the dog gone holes?

Somehow I think if I don't get all of the little things done, everything will collapse around me. If I'm not the perfect mom, the perfect friend, the perfect volunteer, with a perfect body, I am somehow failing. Elizabeth Berg's point that failure is the only option, rings true; especially when you set yourself up, the way that I do.

It is in our failures, where we learn our true way. “This is how maps get charted,” she writes, “by taking wrong turns that lead to surprising passageways that open into spectacularly unexpected new worlds.” This is how we map our lives.

If I had stayed married, today would be my 15th wedding anniversary. Fifteen years ago today, I walked down the aisle and pledged my love and loyalty to someone that I shouldn't have. But I wanted to be the perfect daughter, hosting a perfect ceremony, for my perfect friends, all the while knowing that I was making a perfectly huge mistake. But in that failure, was my only option to receive the most wonderful gifts of my life; Davis and Chester.

Though, my marriage was a failure, by taking that wrong turn, I opened a passageway to learning who I am and what I'm about. I still try to be too many things to too many people and I focus too much on my list of things to do versus my list of things I want for me, but I'm working on it.

Right now, I need to stop feeling like my life is on hold. I am guilty of doing this with the surrogacy. I need to start being better at living in the moment, and appreciating these moments more. But, for cryin’ out loud, it's hard to appreciate heartburn, gas, exhaustion, and cellulite. There’s not much I can do about it right now, so I need to just figure out a way to relax into this a little bit.

At my doctor's appointment last Monday the nurse who weighed me in asked me, “So are you enjoying this pregnancy?”

“Ummm, I enjoy my boat in the summer and cold beer and bikinis more,” I said.

She half smiled and looked at my chart. “Oh, you are due right in the middle of August. Your summer will be kind of…”

“You can say it,” I replied. “Screwed?”


“I was going to say, ‘short lived,’” she said.

“Yeah. That too,” I replied.

I feel like I want time to move by faster right now so that I can get back to “my life” but the reality is, being a surrogate and being pregnant right now is my life and I just need to find the content space to allow myself just to be in this moment, without thinking what this moment could be if I weren’t pregnant. It’s hard though. It goes back to “I want to be the perfect surrogate” that doesn’t complain, that is happy to be pregnant, etc. and I try to tell myself to feel that way, but it’s not how I feel and I feel guilty for that. Ugh.

And so I call Busse, the one person I can complain to because she knows exactly what this is like. “I’m trying to enjoy this moment and embrace the experience,” I tell her dryly.

“Dude, when you’re walking through fire, you don’t stop to smell the roses, do you? It’s OK to not like being pregnant. You’ve worked harder and longer at this than you did your own kids. I HATED being pregnant. It’s OK to admit you’re not enjoying it sometimes,” she says. “We get so wrapped up in this cosmic notion of finding the lesson in everything, but sometimes, the lessons don’t come until much later. So, go ahead and complain, dude. You’re so hard on yourself!”

She is a great one, my best friend, because she can speak to me in a way that gives me permission to be me; more permission than I give myself sometimes. She absolutely knows me better than I do and it is very refreshing that she can bring me back into my skin and tell me it’s going to be alright if I just let my guard down now and again.

“You gotta let yourself relax and just be OK with not being OK sometimes,” she says.

I know this is true because I put so much pressure on myself to be everyone’s everything that it’s exhausting to keep a happy face on all the time. I feel like I can’t talk to Max and Bob about my “woe is me” moments because I volunteered to do this! And, when I complain to Max, his stress level and anxiety goes through the roof and it makes me feel worse. I can’t complain to Tim, because I have taken him along on this ride whether he likes it or not and for me to admit that some days, I want off this ride seems so selfish because he can’t get off either, and he never wanted on in the first place.

I have to have a conscious attitude adjustment and talk myself off the ledge multiple times a day. I want nothing more to be the strong, admirable woman who sacrifices her own needs for others’, but damn it, sometimes, I just want my life back. And, here we come full circle back to the point that there is no “getting my life back” because this is my life now. I’m charting the plot as I write this.

There have been so many comical and heartbreaking turning points and so much uncharted territory that we've traveled, that not only is this helping to create the map of my life, but its mapping all of our lives, as well.

I think of Chester, who comes home after school and greets my belly with a shake, placing both of his hands on either side and pushing his forehead against my stomach. “Hello little baby! Hello you fat, fat mama,” he says looking up at me. “I love this belly!” he says as he pats it and wiggles it around in his hands. It was just two months ago that he was navigating through his feelings and anxieties about this pregnancy and now, he’s in a very good space, happily poking and patting my stomach and smacking my big behind.

Davis constantly jokes about my weight and yesterday, he hid a pan of brownies from me before he went to school because he knew if he didn’t, they’d be gone when he got home. He also taped a note to the fridge that said, “No Ma!” and taped a bag of Doritos to the door that I could eat instead of his brownies. I later found the brownie pan in the linen closet upstairs, but I didn’t touch them. But he and I laugh together about my belly and my butt and my “eating habits” and it has brought us into this funny bantering phase that offers an entertaining element to our relationship. Maybe going through this with me will make my boys more understanding and patient as their wives go through bearing their babies.

And Tim. Talk about uncharted territory. I could not be more grateful for this amazingly generous man that I have. About five years ago, we talked about having a baby together. He would be an incredible father, as kids just gravitate to him. He’s this giant, kind hearted, sweet man with a knack for engaging children. At night, he places his hand on my belly as we lay next to each other in bed and tells me how proud he is of me. I wonder if it hurts him that this baby isn’t his. He doesn’t show it, if it does. He is absolutely my rock. Our lives have completely done a 180 degree turn because of this. He takes it in stride and I try to stay strong for him so he doesn’t have to carry me all the time, though he does willingly and without hesitation, always concerned for my happiness and state of mind.

We’ve all taken a detour and the detour that will hit Max and Bob in four months will change the course of everything for them forever, as kids will do. They are anxious for time to pass so they can hold their daughter and I am anxious for time to pass so I can return to my routine, though if we all just take a step back for a moment, we can see that we need this time together to transition into the next phase of our lives.

So, maybe my map will take me on some exotic vacation when this 22 month pregnancy comes to an end and my feet have cooled from walking through this fire, like it did for Elizabeth Gilbert when her marriage was over. Or maybe it will take me to a publisher who will help me write and share my stories one day, or to a musician that will help me learn to play Moon Shadow on my guitar. Or maybe, I could just relax a little bit and see what this moment holds and not punish myself for wanting time to pass while at the same time, not losing the moment entirely by wishing it away. I need to just “chillax” as my sons would say.

It’s a very fine line, but it sounds good for now. And, you know what else sounds good?

Brownies.