Dream State

While trying to find a document that I actually do legitimately need, I came across this document that I wrote trying to capture a dream I'd had and how my real life and my dream states kept bumping into each other that summer. Before you're too tempted to read too much into what it says, know that I wrote it in 2015, a few months after a failed IVF cycle.

I read through it and thought it was worth publishing here. You may disagree. I don't care.

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I don't always remember what's going on. I forget things I shouldn't, but the doctor has been helpful. Treating two patients together to help them conceive is not a task that just any doctor is up to taking on, but he does seem to know what he's up against.

Day 37: the sunrise

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs.

I've always liked watching the sunrise, but I'd rather stay up and wait for it than wake up in time to see it. I'm a classic night owl. I can train myself (and at times have) to wake up early, but I can spend months on my trained sleep schedule and then throw it off staying up until 2 am just one time.

It's hard for me to balance the fact that I am productive in the wee hours of the night against my need to be places and doing work in the mornings. Grad school now is teaching me to squeeze out productivity whenever I can and sleep as much as possible, but it's a hard balance to strike when I'm still trying to maintain friendships and my marriage.

But I digress.

Sunrises in Rexburg were some of my favorites. On hard nights, I would wait until my roommates were asleep and the parking lots were empty and sneak out sometime between one and three am. Sometimes I would walk to the park, other times I would wander campus. If I waited long enough to go walking, people would just assume I was on my way to an early morning janitorial job. (Side note: I did try that for a while. It was awful.) Once I had a car with me, I would drive just outside the city limits and fly up and down the hilly roads. I'd find a good hill, park facing the east, sit on the roof of my car, and write in my journal until the sun rose. As soon as orange started spreading across the sky, I'd set my journal down and watch. I took pictures a few times, but those usually fail to capture the majesty of the entire sky lighting up for the first time in the day.

When Casey and I were on our first date, we watched the sunrise together. Living west of large mountains meant we could only see the sky go quickly from dark to light, but as we sat in the car together, watching the mountain, listening to the White Album, and holding hands for the first time, I couldn't help but think how nice it was to have stayed awake long enough to let the light shine on us together.

Day 34: Candy

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

Oh, candy. It has long been near and dear to my heart. I have, for most of my life, inserted candy into non-candy locations. I served candy at my wedding reception. I sold candy in grade school when I didn't have an allowance. I would take on Warheads or Atomic Fireball dares in elementary because it would mean a free piece of candy. I still live for the early Christmas season when the Hershey's Candy Cane bars hit the shelves (I had my first one of the season yesterday). As a kid, whenever I heard someone mention liquor, I would automatically fix it to "licorice" in my head. I always keep a little candy on hand, in case of emergencies. You know, candy emergencies.

The candy stash is not a new phenomenon of course. I have been keeping candy on hand since I figured out what candy was. When my family lived in California, I could usually keep Airheads on hand. Because they were so flat, I could hide them in between the bed slats and mattress of the upper bunk. Impossible for intruders to find, which didn't keep my brother from trying, of course. One day, this brother, Lars, went into my room hoping to find the secret location of my candy stash. He had no idea there were Airheads between the bed slats and mattress and he didn't think to look there. He poked around in my dresser, my sheets, and my pillowcase, and the sugar was nowhere to be found. After giving up on the upper bunk area, he jumped off the dresser he had climbed upon. I'm not sure exactly how long he lay there on the floor, unsure of what to do, afraid to be caught in my room but in pain. My mom first realized something was wrong when she called everyone in for dinner and Lars wasn't rushing to be the first to the table. She found him, there in the middle of my floor, his leg broken.

All for candy.

Day 33: Halloween

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's full of ghosts and ghouls, witches and warlocks, mischief and mayhem. And candy. Can't forget candy. And costumes!

I've always loved dressing up. Whether it's on Halloween or in my grandmother's basement, wearing clothes I wouldn't normally put on has always been enjoyable for me. Most weeks, going to church feels like playing dress-up. I play the role of a god-fearing woman who's hoping her lesson will go well in Sunday School. When I go to events on behalf of UIRC, I'm dressing up like a woman who knows her shit and will absolutely educate you about infertility.

The costumes are only a part of what makes Halloween so great. When I was a kid, I had a completely irrational phobia of death. I thought I could be kidnapped and murdered at any time. I thought I might fall off a bridge and drown, despite being an excellent swimmer... and despite there being no rushing rivers to fall into in my hometown. I just knew that I was going to meet a gruesome end before I got the chance to turn 16 and start driving (the epitome of human existence in my 10-year-old opinion). Halloween though made death less frightening. The ghosts and witches were more funny than scary, and after every Halloween it got easier and easier to get past my fears.

I remember one Halloween I finally embraced my fear of death and embodied it. I borrowed a lab coat from a man at church (he was a dentist), made myself a name tag, and went out as a figure I barely understood but who did not seem to have any fear of death: Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

Day 32: Beauty

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

Beauty. What is beauty? I've been thinking a lot about the way that societally we do a disservice to literally everyone by talking about beauty.

I think about Marilyn Monroe and the myth of her size 16 pants that really don't match a modern size 16 anyway.

I think about Audrey Hepburn and how her slight frame, admired by so many, was caused by war and poverty and prevented her from returning to her passion, ballet, after WWII.

I think about Farrah Fawcett and the way hundreds or thousands of girls worked tirelessly to get their hair to sit in just that same way around their faces.

I think about Winona Ryder and how quickly the world dumped her over a five-finger discount.

I think about Janet Jackson and the cruel comments I heard about her wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl.

I think about Britney Spears shaving off her hair, a marker of female beauty, in a desperate act after being marketed and sexualized for nearly her entire life.

I think about Ariana Grande and how no matter how incredibly she performs, everyone wants to talk about the length of her skirts.

I think about Rihanna doing her damnedest at New York Fashion Week this year to broaden the scope of what can be beautiful.

I think about the men sitting behind closed doors, deciding what women will get to wear this year.

I think about the hundreds of teenaged girls I've interacted with over the past years and how desperate they are to feel beautiful.

I think we need to delete the word beauty from our vocabulary.

Actually... maybe we'd be even better off if we were all blind.

Day 31: Mourning

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

I don't remember what mourning looks like anymore. I can't tell if I am still mourning or if I've moved beyond it. It's been more than a year since it happened and I don't know yet if I have achieved the return to normalcy that I have coveted for so long.

I mean, how normal can it be when you send in an application that will change your entire life two months after a tragedy?

It seems to me that mourning is just more subtle these days. I don't always hide or unfollow my friends with giant baby bumps or new babies. It's easier every day to be okay. But okay also makes me feel like I should be taking next steps again, moving back towards shots and in vitro and blood draws, and then I'm filled with anxiety again, knowing I'm back at square one.

People always try to make me feel better. Asking if I have any frozen embryos (I don't) or if my insurance will pay (they won't) or when exactly I'm planning to try again (how should I know?). I appreciated the other day in my Spanish seminar when the teacher noticed my heart tattoo, presumably for the first time, and asked about it. I explained the poem and the miscarriage, and, in a very blunt but welcome way, asked, "Doesn't it make you sad?"

I forget what exactly I said but I know that it doesn't. The tattoo reminds me that I experienced a real thing, and that for a couple of months I had real hope and a chance.

Sometimes when I'm lying in bed with my hand supporting my head and the mark I chose fully visible, my husband leans over and kisses it. And I remember the hope we shared and the joy I felt more than the pain that followed.

But has the pain ever really left? That I can't say.

Day 30: Road Trip

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

I don't remember a time before road trips. When I was a kid, I thought that everyone went on regular road trips all the time. Even in my twenties, I remember how hard it was to wipe the look of shock off my own face when a fellow missionary said he'd never left the state before. We were standing in the SLC airport and he didn't know what to do at the security checkpoint.

I've driven thousands of miles on my own, and more with friends or family. We took regular road trips in my youth, once a year at least to visit my maternal grandparents in Arizona and most years to Lake Powell with my dad's family, and it was rare to go a whole day without jumping in a car to go somewhere.

The summer I turned 16 we drove from southern California to Nauvoo, Illinois. I remember complaining that we weren't going the extra four hours each way to see Chicago. As we headed back home, we all remarked what a fun and interesting trip it was and wondered how long it would be before we saw the Midwest again. The next summer we would move to the Chicago suburbs.

When I was 22, my mom and I drove from Utah to southern California. I asked her to leave me there with friends, which she obliged.

Two weeks before I turned 24 I drove south along most of the USA-owned west coast with my cousin Chelsea. It was the time away I needed to separate myself from a toxic ex, and my first time in both Oregon and Washington.

In the past year I drove from Salt Lake City to Denver, southern California, Seattle, and Portland twice. Road trips aren't just vacations for me. They are a way to step away, literally and metaphorically from the stress of daily life.

I wonder where I'll go next?

Day 29: Birth Order

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

I've always loved being the oldest. I didn't always love the responsibility, but it had some solid perks. I got to sit in the front seat of the car more than any of my siblings, I was able to drive everyone around first, and I got to get out of the house more often than any of my siblings did. It felt powerful sometimes to walk out the door as a teenager while my four younger siblings had to stay behind.

It's strange though, being the oldest. It also comes with more expectations, more rules (in my case at least), and a strange kind of disconnect from my siblings. I was a quasi-authority figure over them a lot of the time, and I took that responsibility too seriously more often than not. I wielded my age over them more than once and it took time to outgrow and shed those ideas I had about my position in comparison with my siblings.

The other thing is seeing the way my siblings were raised differently than I was. Not that my parents purposefully tried to treat me differently, but as many parents do, they eased up on many of the rules that were so strict when I was young.

It takes a long time to realize that you're wrong about some things. I thought for a long time that being older made me better than my siblings. I know better now, but I wonder how different our childhoods would have been if I understood, even when I was in charge, that everyone of us were equally important, valued, and loved. I thought that being the oldest meant I was more special than anyone else. I am special, but not any more than you. I'm sorry it took so long for me to realize it.

Day 28: Indulge

I'm writing Ann Dee Ellis' 8 Minute Memoirs in place of #NaNoWriMo.

I don't feel like a very indulgent person, but I think I am. Anytime there is a sale on something I've been sort of interested in? I indulge. I had a long day and there is ice cream in my freezer? I indulge. A band I love is coming back to town? I indulge.

I don't think I over-indulge. I tend to spend within my means, with occasional exceptions. Usually the month of December winds up being a little over-indulgent. Mostly for me. It gets harder to resist those bags of Lindor truffles from Target when it's 30 degrees Fahrenheit and threatening to snow.

What is life though, without a little indulgence? Don't get me wrong, I don't think I need to try everything--not by a long shot--but I want to try a variety. While I'm here.

Grad school feels indulgent. I quit my job so I could think about a topic I love all day every day. I sleep in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm taking an extra class because I want to speak a third language. I read books for pleasure on the bus up to school and I leave campus whenever I am ready to leave for the day. Casey cleaned up his 5 year old laptop because it's nicer than the one I bought 7 years ago. I listen to podcasts and music throughout the day and I am writing more than I have in years.

It doesn't sound incredibly indulgent, I know. Maybe you'd rather hear about the time I took a deep breath and wrote a $10,000 check, or hear how many points I've racked up at Sephora. But anyone can do those things. I prefer this.

I Lie

Sometimes, I sit in church and watch the babies play. I'm not at a stage where I'm particularly bitter at their parents for subjecting me to the presence of babies, no. I simply sit there, watching and trying to let myself enjoy them.

One such Sunday not long ago, one such little person was bouncing on his mother's lap and I watched, softly giggling at his attempt to consume a long string bean he'd gotten his hands on. He kept squishing it between his gums and then pulling it out to observe the damage. The woman next to me noticed too. She leaned over and in a low voice asked me, "Sister, do you have a baby?"