Buying The Bear
2003-11-03,

This has been quite the weekend.

It started, of course, with Halloween. I managed to get home by 8pm, which has been unusual of late. The kids were already back and done with the trick/treat gig and were home running sugar circles about the backyard. We had friends and their kids come down to our neck of the woods from lakeside (thanks again for coming out, btw) to participate, as well as some neighbors. Hot cider and Presti's Doughnuts were had by all by the fire. There was almost no sugar induced screaming or tantrums-- all in all, a huge success.

Saturday brought on one of our few days to actually sit altogether and eat at the table (me mainly being the one who's absent) for breakfast, plus one (Hil had a friend for a sleepover-- we were sure to hide the candy stash before heading to bed to assure that they'd actually sleep). The an actual quiet day at home, which was an excellent change of pace. H and I decided to splurge after dropping the kids off t their dad's in the evening and we went out to see Intolerable Cruelty, in which Ms. Zeta-Jones proved herself to be one of the sexiest women in existence. And I certainly wouldn't mind being Mr. Clooney when I grow up. Not to mention that the movie was pretty good. Not your typical Coen Bros. fare, but still enjoyable.

Then Sunday came and trashed me out again. I was only having fun, wasn't hurting... wait-- that was someone else. Anyway, Sunday was nice and slow. We woke up, read the paper, contemplated buying a lamp for the living room, took the dog for a walk in the meadow at the end of the street. We ended up staying in the meadow for at least an hour, sitting in a grove of cedars and recharging our nature batteries for a while.

Then we did indeed go lamp shopping. First was Bed, Bath..... AND BEYOND!!! (I always want to say that like a superhero) wherein we found a cool, iron, viney-looking torchiere. It was pricey, so we thought we'd look around a bit more. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to go to Pier 1, a place I wouldn't normally associate with lamps. But in we went regardless. Of course we found no lamps we could even pretend to tolerate. But I did come acros this cute denimy stuffed bear; cozy, the kind of bear you could drool on...

And, suddenly, the evening was about babies.

Sometimes it just sneaks up on me/us, the baby thing. Sometimes it just takes something small to spark up the anger and frustration and misery and it smacks you all in the face all at once. And there we were, crying in Pier 1 over a denimy bear you could drool on. Interest in buying lamps? Gone. After much discussion in the car, we decided to walk about World Market to distract ourselves for a while before going out for some Big Salad at Ruby Tuesday's.

It was during dinner that it hit me... all the anger I have about not being able to father a child, all the self-pity and depression, have nothing to do with whether I still actually want a child. This problem is one that will never go away, will never change. So why suffer? I can't say that I suddenly shrugged off the pain, but I certainly shifted it toward a different direction.

So after a bit of hemming and hawing over my plate of salad, I told my wife that I wanted to buy the bear. It was one of the hardest things I've ever said, but I wanted to buy the bear.

It may be quite a time before we actually have someone to give the bear to, but it'll be waiting, patiently, to get drooled on.

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