The Midi-chlorians Strike Again

A midi-what?

Midi-chlorians! You know...from Star Wars? Have you been living under a rock or something? Geesh.

Theres been an inside joke in my circle for the last 18 years. Not a joke really. More like our own folklore. That my completely amazing and incredible god-daughter was the product of midi-chlorlains. We were young when her mother, my best friend, got knocked up. Young, geeky, and absolutely certain of our newly discovered feminist principles which didn't allow for such an unsubstantiated obviously patriarchal machination such as "immaculate conception". So naturally, midi-chlorians. It must have been the midi-chlorians.

Its 18 years later and I find myself wanting to utter the same myth. Comfort myself with the magical idea that this baby growing inside me is made of just me and stardust. But reality intrudes. Realty, and the fact that unlike my friend's situation from so long ago, my baby's father is not going to disappear into the ether. But he's not here either.

Backstory: Hubby and I had already been sleeping apart for a year and were well into leading separate lives. We had "the talk" on Valentine's day over a bottle of wine and after he cooked my favorite meal... Cuz thats how we roll(ed).

I deteriorated pretty quickly while he ran off and did goodness knows what and with whom. Over time that changed. I began to heal and he began to mourn. The biggest contributing factor to my healing was a new man.

Not exactly new.
Just new to me.

Actually, no, not even new to me...

But it was like I"d been walking past the same sculpture every day for years, a sculpture I'd always liked, but someone had moved it. Turned it. Put it under different light. And suddenly that familiar sculpture was wholly new and amazing and changed the way I saw the whole world and myself. Irrevocably.

Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in
 love with a statue he had carved

As shakespearean as the forces that brought us together were, so to were the forces that tore us apart. Getting over 2 broken hearts in one year is really more than any one person should have to endure. Add to that being pregnant with the child of, but separated from, a man I'm still wildly in love with despite all the stress and tears our relationship wrought and its a miracle I'm still standing.

The situation is ridiculously complicated and not really all mine to disclose. But the reality of it is that I'm 7 months pregnant with the most powerful symbol of the strength of what we shared. He's here with me every moment and at the same time he's the thing I have to fight every moment not to think about so I can manage all the other realities resting on my weary shoulders. I'm about to be a divorced mom. A single mom of a newborn. Running a household and a business on my own. Playing a complicated game of strategy to manage the needs and feelings of my kids, my soon-to-be-ex, my "baby daddy", and myself. I feel wholly ill-equipped for the task and yet I do it every day. Some days better than others.

I still sleep alone and yet I don't. The baby kicks, my son climbs in and snores gently in my ear, the cat makes herself a home between my feet so that even in sleep I'm laden with the needs of all the beings depending on me to hold my shit together. So when the time of night comes when my eyes need to close but my brain won't turn off I can let down my guard. And I let him be there. Warm against my back. Arm draped over my belly calming the lively creature that is half him. And I can sleep.

In the morning I'll wake and cry for a moment at the loss of the sweet amnesia of sleep. And then the baby will wake up and kick me in the bladder and the day's tasks will begin. The dissolving of a union, the care and keeping of my earthside babies, the planning and maintenance of our home, the building of a sustainable business, the management of far too few resources, the nurturing of the little soul inside me, made of wishes and midi-chloirans.