Babies.

It is everywhere.

"We're expecting!"

"I'm pregnant!"

"There's a tiny [insert last name] on the way!"

"We're overjoyed to announce the arrival of our little blessing!"

"There's precious life growing inside me!"


I can't. I just can't. I know I'm probably going to Hell for it.

I remember being a teenager and listening to a lot of my friends (mostly girls) talk about other girls because they were jealous. They seemed so embittered because so & so had this much money, or because so & so had this boyfriend, or so & so's boobs were bigger, and so & so had such a nice body.

The whole time I was growing up, I never understood jealousy. My dad was an alcoholic and never really around, my stepdad was dysfunctional as hell, we never really had money. All my friends got to be involved in all sorts of things I didn't because of not having money. My friends had good dads that supported them. They had nicer homes, didn't have younger siblings hanging on them all the time...But I was happy. I was really happy. While all my friends were at cheerleading practice, I taught myself how to do front handsprings. I made up my own dances. I learned how to sing...really well. I climbed trees, I played my trumpet and became the best. I caught crawdads. I roller-bladed. I designed page after page of clothing and listened to all the music I could get my hands on. I couldn't always do what I wanted, so made my own fun. I really enjoyed my life. I could do pretty much anything I set my mind to. I could run as fast as the boys and I could do every dance move any of the girls knew. I was able-bodied and I was healthy. What reason did I have to be jealous of anyone? That's the way I thought. I couldn't understand why my friends struggled with jealousy. And the older I got, the more I prided myself in not being that way. It made me feel good that even though I had an 'excuse', I wasn't jealous of anyone else.

Then I was sixteen. I had really grown into myself and I was gorgeous. I wore a size 4. I had beautiful long hair, I was smart, I had the boyfriend everyone girl had a crush on. I went to a private school for a short amount of time, I was in a play, I had a quirky sense of  style and wore every article of clothing I owned with the utmost confidence. Around that time, girls started being jealous of ME. It felt good, honestly. I felt good to be the one whose life was coveted.

Then I was 19. My second semester in college. My boyfriend and I had long since broken up, my stepdad had left. I struggled with bouts of depression, but I was okay overall. I had more good days than bad at that point. Mom and I were running a pretty tight ship, though. Things at the house were going well. We were closer than we'd ever been, and for the first time in a long time, the environment and income in the house with completely predictable. I was two sizes and approximately 30 pounds heavier by now, despite running, eating extremely healthy, and getting plenty of rest. My [new]  boyfriend Adam seemed to like me the way I was, though, I had very few stretch marks, and even then, they were in incredibly discrete places. I still looked like myself. People still recognized me. It was the first day of the semester and I was feeling fresh and confident. Wearing my favorite Led Zeppelin shirt and eager to learn. I heard someone running down the hallway toward the open door. It was Adam. He pulled me out in the hallway and said, "I just talked to your Mimi. Your house burned down."

I will never have a definitive adjective to describe the change that took place in me that day.
Adam drove me thirty miles to my hometown, and when we got there, it was gone. Nothing was salvageable. As ashes fell onto my skin and into my hair, I lost the strength to stand, think...reason. In that moment, I changed. I became someone completely different than the girl who'd left for school that morning.

In one day I went from being an all-around happy, resilient and optimistic teenager to being abysmally depressed. There is a laundry list of what I was on a daily basis:

-angry
-purposeless
-defensive
-pessimistic
-unfocused
-anxious
-restless
-lonely
-empty
-shiftless
-forgetful

The list goes on. Every single day ran together in a huge blur. I had poly-cystic ovarian disease that was spiraling out of control without my knowledge because I'd gone so long without insurance. My hormones were so out-of-whack that my this time I was pre-diabetic and had no idea. So my blood sugar was malignant while I was undoubtedly dealing with a form of PTSD. I was out of control. I cried all the time, I withdrew from the entire semester at school, because I couldn't even focus on what the instructors were saying. I pushed myself to be normal at work and I worked myself to death. On my days off, all I wanted to do was drive. It was the only thing that felt normal. Because if I was driving, I could pretend like everything was normal...like I could go back to my own house. Then I would run out of gas (literally and emotionally) and go back to my boyfriend's house, where I was temporarily living. I would snap back into reality and realize everything was shit and all I owned was in a Rubbermaid bucket of someone else's clothes I'd been given.

That was, I think, a key event which made me into the person I am now. After that day, I became jealous of everyone. Almost every single person with whom I came into contact just honestly pissed me off. They pissed me off because they had a dad who gave a shit. They pissed me off because they had their own home to go back to. They pissed me off because they could carry on a normal conversation without crying. They pissed me off because they could concentrate in class well enough to stay enrolled. No one knew how to even talk to me.

My boyfriend's best friend, whom I asked to stop making fun of my emotional posts on Facebook and being condescending because I just couldn't handle it anymore sent me this, in reply:

"...I am terribly sorry for your house burning down and for all that you have suffered, but don't for a second think that you know what my life is like. That in itself shows that you are not as mature as you are trying to act. My house may not have burned down but I am not short on problems in my life. Don't just go around assuming since your house burned down that you automatically have it harder than everyone else. It's sad that my little harmless comment on Facebook has sparked all this but you felt you had to tell me how you feel so it seems because of that it has come to this point."

I felt helpless, I felt misunderstood. This message almost solidified and embodied how much just how much no one I knew could really wrap their mind around what it was like for me to lose every single thing I owned.

From there, things went more and more downhill. I never bounced back, honestly. Since then, more has happened. Hard things have happened. Physical and emotional battles beyond what most people face. Beyond what most people even know about.

I am 24 now. NO one is jealous of me. I like the things I do, but I hate the things I feel. That is the best way to describe where I am in life. I have realized after losing literally every single thing I owned that actions are what last; not things. But the emotional scarring has made me an ugly person inside. I won't even try to lie and say it hasn't. People have actually made repeated jokes about me not being able to catch a break. I am at a standstill with my weight. I have now collectively gained 100 pounds. I am a size 18. Sometimes a 20. Adam is now my husband. We had an extremely small courthouse wedding after being together almost six years. In that time, I have probably had 5 or 6 periods. My doctor informed me just a few months before the wedding that I wasn't ovulating, therefore I couldn't get pregnant. I had assumed as much, but never really wanted to say it aloud. My lows are lower than ever, and I have full blown panic attacks now. I never knew how terrifying those could be until I started having them myself. All I've wanted since I met Adam was to be healthy, get married, and start a family. He is a wonderful man and I know he would be such an incredible father. I long so badly to know what being a mother feels like. What seeing a wonderful father feels like. To remember how it feels to carry out everyday actions comfortably, to not swell, to not be anxiety and depression-ridden, to be confident in myself. I understand jealousy; mine is crippling.

I have hidden every single one of my pregnant friends from my news feed on Facebook.. I literally can't see the posts without crying. I physically hurt inside when I see sonograms, or news about cravings or feeling babies flutter for the first time. I've never wanted something so badly in my life. I am a jealous person. I covet. I hate it. I remind myself daily that I could have it worse, and that's what gets me through. I feel so guilty for feeling the way I do, but it's just where I am right now.

I don't want to cause anyone guilt with this post; it's just a shot in the dark, hoping that someone understands where I'm coming from. An attempt at trying to get these thoughts out, so I don't just sit down and cry again about wanting a family. I am working on myself. If you're my friend and you're pregnant, please know I love you. I am just busy being an idiot and questioning God. I want to feel like Hillary again. When I look in the mirror, I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow in a her Shallow Hal fat suit. There isn't a good ending to this really except for the whole "short poem" that's circulated a few times:

I hate not being pregnant
I wish I was drunk
The End.

Wait...that's not how it goes, is it?