Missing Out

Do you ever feel like you are missing out? I have been feeling like that a lot lately. I know it is bound to happen when you reside in a separate province from family and friends, but lately I have been feeling the sting of it most sharply. Permit me to whine for a moment will you?

It was a quiet Thanksgiving. We missed out. Mom and Dad usually come here for Thanksgiving, but they had a wedding on the weekend and didn’t come. In desperation I even tried to farm myself out to some of the church members, but they were busy with their own family stuff. I did get some looks of pity though. That was…nice. I was so desperate for turkey and stuffing we went to the local buffet restaurant just to get some. We pretended it wasn’t as pathetic as it sounds. Sigh

On Tuesday, I phoned home to talk to my sister who was out for the weekend. They were all there (Mom and Dad, both my beloved sisters, and my dear nieces and nephews.) I was missing out. (Oh ya, the husbands were there too. They usually get overshadowed by the sisterly bonding and the antics of the children). And I was in Saskatchewan. Missing out. Again.

And then there is today. The big one. The event of the year. The Grand Poobah of all things to miss. As I write, my mom and my sisters are on a plane flying to the USA for a Women of Faith conference. The very conference that my sister and I have been planning and dreaming and scheming for almost a year now. The one with all details carefully and happily planned…from the conference to the hotel, to the shopping at Mall of America, to the…sniff, visit to…*catch in my voice*…IKEA. But I am missing out. I think I may have to stick my head in a blender.

We had no idea. We had no idea when we started planning this, that I would be 5 months pregnant. How was I to know? There was no way to predict this. And there was no way I could predict the extreme exhaustion I would feel, and how this baby would suck the very life out of me. (There is a reason they don’t advise children after 35.) There was no way I could predict the horrible, debilitating backaches. There was no way I could sit for 2 days straight, unless somehow I could smuggle in a lazy boy and a couple of pillows. Basically I knew when the Doctor frowned on the whole idea, and informed me I would have to wear compression stockings to prevent the blood clots that run rampant in my family, that the idea was dead in the water for me.

So I am missing out. And this time it really cuts deep. And I don’t mind saying, I'm feeling quite despondent about the whole thing.

But then…I’m not missing out on everything. I get to have a baby. And I get to feel this little one squirm around. I get to dream dreams for him or make plans for her. I get to think of names and nursery colors. Somehow that sweetens the whole sourness of this day. Well, that and chocolate. Trust me, just because I can see the bigger picture, does not mean I’m not wallowing in a grieving hole of chocolate filled sorrow. That is something else I am definitely not missing out on.