When I was a child, I used to believe in God. I used to believe in reincarnation.  For the last few years, I would have classed myself as “atheist”.

I now have not one, but two books on why God is impossible – and I believe every word. I wouldn’t say I believe in God now, but something has changed. Maybe these “wise woman” have just been around the world before. I don’t know. I have got steadily more stoic in recent years. Maybe I have become TOO practical. I have started to believe ONLY in things you can prove and in medical science. It is likely I am swinging too far the other way through this (Trevor would definitely think that). Maybe I AM grasping at straws, but I know the natural stuff can’t hurt me.

I used to do lots of things that relaxed me. I went to yoga regularly, I had long baths, I read books, I even watched TV occasionally without sitting with a laptop on my lap and working as well. Multitasking. I think now I just do everything all at once – and badly. Likely I am doing all the things I am doing badly, and certainly it is bad for me.

Even now, I have found it impossible to just sit still and relax. I get this from my parents. I have actually seen my dad almost hold my mum to the sofa and say “just sit down, woman” as she flits around trying to do too much when she is sick. I need this!

Steve took this on the moving ferris wheel with his iPhone. I wanted to store the picture somewhere. Yes, maybe I shouldn’t have gone to this as I am still recovering, but I had a great time, took it physically really easy (sat down the whole time), and maybe (just maybe) getting out of the house and smiling will do me some good?

I took this one from the top of the ferris wheel.  Not very sharp as we were moving.

10/14. I am still waking up crying. When will this ever end? I spent most of the day being extremely quiet. We gave away our tickets to a food & drinks fair we were supposed to attend yesterday but I feel okay to go to Treasure Island Music Festival on Sunday. Steve picked me up and we had VIP parking so I didn’t have to walk too far. It was perfect. We sat at a blanket at the back and listed to Gossip and the XX and left before the end. The view of San Francisco as the sun sets is spectacular. I love this city.

My friend Kelly sent me a bunch of gifts that were all so incredibly thoughtful. The jade came with instructions about it’s healing properties and to keep in near you, so I put it on my keys.

It reminded me of a few years ago when we rode to Tierre del Fuego, a production designer gave me a silver angel that she said would protect me on my travels. I just figured “Sure, why not?” and put in on my motorcycle jacket. That angel has been to the tip of south america and back! The things she must have protected me from! Those photos are here, and there is a blog about that somewhere. Wow, things really turn full circle. (That angel is still on my motorcycle jacket to this day! I feel like I have never really thanked her properly for that.  Thank you, Cherie!)

I think I am having a spiritual awakening. That is what the call it. And now everybody is going to think I am a weirdo. From a nervous breakdown to a spiritual awakening? Wow – how clichéd is that? (Incidentally, see this TED talk, where the speaker talks about telling her therapist she is having a “breakdown”, and her therapist replying that she is having “a spiritual awakening”?  It took me 2 full days to make this realization, and a therapist could have told me that in 5 seconds?)

Kelly’s package is so thoughtful, There are bath salts. I used to love taking a bath and yet I haven’t taken a long hot bath in years. This will make me. There are also calming candles and joss sticks. It is so weird, but when I was at Oxford, I always had candles and joss sticks around me. People made jokes about how many candles there were. Just one more thing I have forgotten!

It is ironic that the only bra I can wear right now is one that is a sports bra (that I wear when working out to be fit and healthy). I can’t go without one as I have nowhere to stuff my ice pack!! I just ordered 2 supersoft wireless bras online (yes, Amazon Prime, I love you!). Funnily enough, when my mum had a reaction to her antibiotic, she had the same chest pains and I remember her talking about having to buy soft bras. Ahhh, if only there was an M&S nearby. That is where mum got all of hers.

Also ironic is that Trevor put the laundry in for me today specifically because I needed these bras. When I unloaded it to swap it into tumble dryer – they are the only thing that shouldn’t be tumble-dried. I will still have to wait to put them on – ice pack is just lying on my chest right now. It is 1pm and I still have my PJs on.

I remember a friend comforting me on one of the miscarriages. She said she wished she had taken some time off work to let her body try and take care of things by itself. I thought at the time she was being a bit of a hippy freak, but now I think I understand and agree. I wish I could go back 5 years ago and just slowed down – just a tiny bit.

I think I am turning a corner. I have found a reason to shower every day. (You wouldn’t believe how much I dread it – it all seems so much work.) But one day I shower because Jen is coming to give me a massage and I don’t want to smell, the next day I shower because a friend is coming over to drop off dinner and also because I want to put on the necklace Peggy gave me (in case it really does have healing powers) and I don’t want to get it dirty! My life is hard, huh? These are the things I have to shower for 😉

You know, I used to go to yoga 3 times a week, and somehow I stopped that. I used to love just monging out and listening to music, but Trevor doesn’t like it and we haven’t made enough time to be apart so I haven’t done it in years. (I have Lana De Rey on REPEAT right!) I think I used to do a lot of things that gave me a bit of time to unwind – but somehow I stopped doing all of them. I became “too busy” for yoga, massage,listening to music, etc. And filled my hours up with crossfit and working… Why am I only realizing now, 10 years later, that people need a bit of downtime?

I talked to a friend’s recruiter today. She told me she was calling from an agency and I started the conversation with “No, thanks, I am not interested”. Luckily, she got to me before I put the phone down and managed to blurt out “I am calling about so-and-so…”.

I sang my friend’s praises. She asked me to list the top few things about her – I told her she could get anything done and are amazing, great ownership, I would hire them again in a second – and that actually we have been trying to for a year. (All true.) She asked me the worst things about them. I told her I couldn’t really think of anything but they could be a bit acerbic. I don’t think she knew what that meant. She repeated “assertive” so I decided that was okay too, and we went with that. LOL.

I was on the phone to her ages – she wanted to know about recruiting at Zynga. I ended up giving her all the recruiters names (and looking up and spelling their email addresses for her). I told her what positions we were and weren’t hiring for. She wanted to know what we might use agencies for, and I told her what we sometimes outsource and how to do it.

I am actually starting to worry now that I might have put the phone down on her in the last week. I have done it several times in the past few weeks as agencies keep calling me. I think they probably see me on LinkedIn, read the news about Zynga and troll their contacts to find someone to fill their slots and get their commission. I have been offered quite a few jobs in the last few months, but I am just not interested in them – which is why I have started putting the phone down. Don’t call my cellphone spamming me. If you must do it, use email! I normally just say “I am not interested, thank you” and put the phone down before they say another word. I really hate phone spam. We used to have what was called a “Zapper” and you connected it to your landline and it would “zap” anything that came through tagged as spam (which was most of it). It was one of the reasons we finally got rid of the landline. I will be pissed off if we start really getting spam to our cell phones. (I know that political spam is excepted from the national “do not call” list. Trevor got a polticial spam voicemail the other day! I probably don’t get these because I am not a citizen so I am not registered to vote!)

I went to bed pretty early last night and Trevor was still awake. When I woke up this morning, the dishes were done. I think I have just realized that the house may not be as spotless for a few days if I slow down, but it will be just fine. Trevor will take care of it if I just let him.

Trevor would also take care of me, if I just let him and stop trying to micromanage everything. He microwaved my soup for lunch and refilled my sparkling water, without being asked like one of those perfect husband you always hear about..

I am trying to be a bit more zen… and not such a nut job! I really feel like I might end up a bit more spiritual through all of this. It is okay for me to be desperately sad. It is okay to cry. I feel like I am strong and I will get through this. I just wish I could speed it up – but some things just take their time. This must be one of them.

I have believed in the strength of women for a long time. I have started to think there really are “old souls”. I told Jen yesterday that I thought she might be one and she just nodded slowly in that way she has and said “I’ve been told that a few times”. LOL! I think some of the problems I have is that I am not a wise woman. Maybe my soul is brand spangly new and hasn’t been around the world a few times and learnt that to slow down just occasionally, and eventually, everything will be okay.

I DO KNOW how this sounds, btw. Until recently, I didn’t believe in souls or god or anything like that. But it my darkest times, I think I have started to believe in “something”. Maybe this is grasping at straws like Trevor says. Maybe your brain does it to protect you from pain, so you feel there is “something” looking after you. I don’t know. Clearly I don’t have the answers, I just do know it is all going to be okay.

I am going to have children somehow. I don’t know how yet. Maybe I will get pregnant naturally. You hear all the time that people do it after excessive trying, when they just relax. Maybe they will be mine and Trevor’s children, maybe I will adopt. (Maybe Molly is one of the wise woman, and her vision of me with twins is accurate. She says she is never wrong with her visions – again, I thought she was a nut job when she told me, but maybe there is a kind of magic in the world.) Maybe we don’t need to understand everything in the world for some of it to be true.

And maybe all of this is bullshit and I will be back to my uptight disbelieving self when this is all done. (Is it okay to believe in Stephen Hawking and black holes, AND to believe there is a kind of spirituality somewhere in the world?)

I must be feeling better. I managed to steam the lasagne that Tiffany brought over and top with grated Parmesan and I roasted the last of the pine nuts. I served it with butternut squash sauce, but the sauce was a little sweet. (Trevor had warned me he thought it would be, and he was right.)

I opened the first of Brian’s salas, a nice hot one. it was delicious.

As part of taking care of myself, I need to cook better things. The doctor thinks I have chronic heartburn and indigestion from the antibiotics – so it probably wasn’t a good idea to have a curry on Tuesday “as hot as you can make it” and a couple of swigs of Kona’s whiskey! For a couple of weeks, I am going to have to eat bland foods. And I know people keep banging on about the evils of dairy, but there is NO WAY I am cutting down on cheese 🙂 .

TO BE CLEAR, I AM NOT TAKING ALL THESE DRUGS!!

Until recently, I haven’t been to the doctor’s in years. I didn’t even get a dentist until I fell pregnant this time. I have never had a gynecologist. I am never sick. I don’t get a flu shot and I haven’t taken antibiotics since I moved to America, I don’t take tablets for a headache – but now suddenly, I have a shelf full. The divider between tradition and new medicine starts about in the middle – although they were all recommended by my regular doctor/nurse. I am currently only taking the probiotic and the follic acid, with chamomile tea. I ordered the magnolia extract online, and I think I might start that tonight. That is supposed to be good for relaxing too.

On the right you have Ambien, Vicodin, Valium, Tylenol (plus a triple dose of acetaminophen), not to mention the antibiotic. After the first couple of days, I stopped taking all of these. After a regular check up and ultasound, the doc says that the uterus is starting to look better and I can stop taking the antibiotics. THANK GOD!

I took follic acid and the fish oil when I was pregnant. Hopefully I will get pregnant again and take both. Right now, the doctor told me to take a triple dose of follic acid, to try and get my body ready to get pregnant again. (4th time lucky?)

Doc also recommended the sage tea and cabbages to stop the milk coming in, as well as the probiotics, the magnolia extract and acupuncture. I got the sage tea online and we did the cabbage leaves too. It all seemed so ridiculous to me that I joked I should sleep with a rabbit’s foot under my pillow, just for luck.

When the ultrasound showed I was having complications, it is a shame I chose to ignore all of the over-the-counter NATURAL stuff! (I actually ignored anything I had to leave the house for, it was just a coincidence that the “medical” drugs she handed out in the clinic and Trevor picked up the others for me at the chemist.) Maybe if I had bothered to find out what probiotics were, and taken them as she directed, I would be fine now. Oh well, I have them now. (Mags brought me round some so strong they have to stay in the fridge. That reminds me, I should take one now!)

If I manage to get pregnant again, I will take the fish oil again

Yesterday, I finally realized I am having a breakdown, I told Steve and Trevor. Steve came home in the middle of the day and just found me crying and held my hand. I called Trevor at work and asked him to come home and look after me for a couple of days. He made us a salad for dinner and we started watching a movie but I fell asleep on the sofa around 11pm and he put me to bed. I woke up at noon today (for the second time after the calming tea made me fall back asleep -yay). Trevor and I cuddled for a while before I got up to shower. Maybe cuddling can help calm you and your body down. I haven’t spent the time to just do that for a while – I always wake up and start doing something.

I have decided I need help taking care of myself. I called Jen and asked her to come and give me a massage. It is amazing. Why haven’t I done this in 10 years? Jen says in all the time she has known me (at least 9 years), I have always told her I hated massage because I couldn’t relax into them. I am going to try and relax now. I have also been thinking about trying to get to an acupuncture appointment. I don’t really want to leave the house, but Jen says that some of them will do a house call.

I am going to take at least one more week off work. I have been going into the office as much as I can (which isn’t very much). One day Chris T drove me to work and back; yesterday Tiffany gave me a lift in and I got a taxi back. I feel like I can’t face the walk right now. I am also thinking that maybe I should dial back the amount of work I am doing from home and really take a couple of days off. I can’t early next week because I am throwing a narrative conference. Thankfully, friends at work are helping to do all of the agenda and all of the paperwork for the hotel. I couldn’t do this on my own right now. I will need to be in good shape by next Monday to host it.

I have told 2 sets of friends not to come and visit me today as I still feel overwhelmed and I cancelled the dinner I was supposed to go to. I am finally getting it… I should be resting!