So, today is the last day of November.
That means that tomorrow is December 1st.
Which means that the day after that is my 29th (*cough*THIRTY-FIRST*cough*) birthday.
Oy.
I honestly never thought I’d reach this age without having children. I always figured I’d be done having kids completely by the time I was twenty-five… You know, after I’d Doogie-Howser-ed my way through veterinary school and cured cat cancer.
Ever heard that saying “Men make plans and God laughs“? …God has a sick sense of humor.
There are a lot of things that high-school-freshman-Tracy thought she would have done by age thirty-one. Things that have not yet happened. Like graduating from college. Or buying a house. Or knowing what I want to be when I grow up.
Actually, sixteen-year-old-Tracy probably thought that thirty-one-year-old-Tracy would be a grown-up, but here’s the funny thing: I have a hard time seeing people without children as “real” adults.
I work with a man who is married and has two little girls. He is in my age range, but I always assumed he was older than I am… Not because he looked it or anything… I just assumed. I recently discovered that I have a good four years on him. I am technically more of an adult than he is because of my age, but I feel like he is a more mature individual because he has a family.
Let me clarify. I believe that the twenty-seven-year-old HR rep with two kids that sits across from me is more mature than this thirty-one-year-old infertile cat lady. Today, he only spoke to me in quotes from the Will Ferrell classic, Anchorman, and yesterday when I mentioned cooking a meal in a Dutch oven, he giggled for ten minutes.
This is what I consider to be mature, only because he can reproduce?
I guess that’s how life works sometimes… I will officially enter my thirties no more of an adult than I was when I was sixteen.
Maybe I shouldn’t have tried so hard not to get knocked up back then. Hee.
Anyway, enough of this talk of maturity. Let me tell you about my phlegm.
The past week has been a whirlwind. Thanksgiving was great – lots of great food and company, and I drank an entire bottle of wine. Black Friday was nice too – the husband and I did some housekeeping, went to breakfast, and bought our first real Christmas tree together. Then we went to see a giant lights display at the Toledo Zoo, and I somehow acquired a Sister Wife.
The next day we went to a football party at our friends’ house, where we watched sports in the yard on a big screen TV in front of a bonfire. That’s what you call a perfect little autumn day, right there.
We also drank. A lot. Somewhere in there, I caught a cold. Probably from inventing drinks made with peanut butter vodka and something called Adult Chocolate milk, and sharing them with no less than six other people.
Sixteen-year-old-Tracy knew from experience that Thanksgiving meant cold season was in full swing, and that spending her birthday sick was just part of an annual tradition. She also probably thought that by the time we reached full maturity at thirty-one, we would have figured out how to avoid said annual tradition.
Yet another thing the teenage me had wrong… I’ve got some kind of sinus-y, sore-throat-y, mucus-y plague. Oh, and the cough has just begun. Hooray… Bring on the birthday cake. And Robitussin. For cold symptoms this time, not for thinning out my cervical mucus.
On the upside, I’ve almost completed my initial chiropractic treatment regimen, and have responded so well to the adjustments and physical therapy, that Dr. Bonecruncher is going to let me scale back my treatments to twice a month rather than twice a week. If I keep making this type of progress, I will probably only need once per month adjustments starting in January.
I’ve also talked to her about the acupuncture her office offers… She mentioned to me that it might be something great to try, and also mentioned looking into acupressure, which her office does not perform. Do any of you faithful followers know anything about acupressure for fertility?
Oh, and at the risk of taking on yet another half-hearted attempt at improving my fertility, I’ve recently been considering going gluten-free. I haven’t been tested for celiac disease, mostly because I know my insurance won’t cover a dime of it, but I’m looking into it. It would be a huge sacrifice, but I think I could do it.
Probably.
And who knows? Maybe cutting wheat out of my life altogether will improve my skin, which occasionally decides to freak out and act like sixteen-year-old-Tracy is trying to escape through my very pores. Ugh. That is the one thing I though I would enjoy about being thirty-one, but alas, I am infertile like an old woman and have zits like a young one.
Can’t we all just get along??
Just Stop Trying and It Will Happen... 