Moving Along: Part 2

Since this is a public blog I won't say much about my job situation but let's just say that things have been rough in that part of my life.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch Lassie is turning in circles and barking!
"Bark Bark!"  "What is it girl?  Is Timmy in the well again" "Bark Bark Woooof Whine!!"  "The Barn is on fire again?"

Okay where were we..... Oh yes.... as my grandmother lay in a coma slipping away my daughter, with an unparalled gift for bad timing, decided that she needed to tell me right that moment that she thought she was pregnant.  Excellent.  Barely 20 years old.  Not done with high school.  Never had a job.  I was so grateful that she gave me something else to obsess on besides my dying grandmother.  But, as it happened I had to start funeral arrangments the very next day and so I folded it up and tucked it away in the back of my mind.  I was hopeful that she was over reacting since she could only have been 5 days along at that point.  Seriously.  This put me over the edge.  My brain was either completely dead--- as if my cranium was filled with oatmeal.  Or buzzing with ADD energy.   Sadly the buzzing was usually when I was trying to sleep and the oatmeal was my daytime brain activity.  
 Once I got past the memorial service I had to unfold my brain note and start to deal with the baby situation.   In hindsight I realize that I was waltzing through the textbook stages of grief. 
At first I was in shock.  Shock gave way to denial.  She probably wasn't pregnant.  Who can know you are pregnant that soon?  Maybe she was lying and just looking for attention.  When the doctor's blood test came back positive I had to accept it.  She was pregnant.  Then I got angry.  Really angry.  So angry I couldn't talk to her for fear of what I might say and regret.  During that time I spent a lot of time in my car.  In the dark.  Out in the desert where it was quiet and I was alone.  Except for my constant companion-- food-- usually an ice cream cone.  So of course I have gained all the weight back I lost last fall which is very very discouraging. 
But my self-hatred can wait for another blog post, lol. 
But I was angry about that too.  I was angry at my daughter for screwing up her life and my life and the baby's life.  I had many pity parties out there in the dark.  Complete with dessert of course.    Here I was trying to live my life right when I was constantly getting trashed by other peoples decisions.  And I knew I was going to get stuck paying for everything.  So plans I had to travel were going to get put aside.  Again.  The anger gave way to fear.  Lauren was a special needs adoption and she came to me with apnea and as a failure to thrive.  I had to make her eat.  And the stress of the fear of her heart stopping or forgetting to breathe took a terrible toll on me.  What if her baby had problems.  How could I live through all of that again.  What if she didn't take care of it and it would be up to me to raise it?  I was doing a great job of beating myself up over what I perceived as a total failure as a mother (and a wife and a woman etc....)
This was a dark time, friends.  Very dark.  Very lonely. 
And everything going on in my life was turning me into someone I really didn't like.   And it feels like all this has been going on forever--- though it really has only been a few months.
I decided that I was going to have to find a way to pull myself out of this funk.
I decided that I want to be happy and excited to be a grandma.   The way I was raised (long ago and far away) instilled a mindset that created a paradox:  how do I happy about the baby and still unhappy about how it was coming to be?  I had been raised that you simply do not accept these situations because to do so is to condone the lifestyle.  You have to hold on to the anger and the disaproval so the wrong doer knows that their choices were not okay. It is disapointing that she has not embraced my values.
I finally decided that since she knows that I am sad that she has choosen the path she has I can move along.  I will be supportive of her as best I can.  I am not going to throw her out.  I am not going to try to force adoption on her (a post for another time) and I am going to let myself fall in love with this new little one on it's way.  I am going to work on being myself again.
I know that you all have your thoughts on my spirituality and I am glad you let me be who I am so it probably will come at no surprise that I take comfort and strength from what King David said of the Lord in Psalms:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me, 
    your right hand will hold me fast.¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being; 
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

So I can settle down then and try to enjoy the ride.  God's got my back.  He has Lauren's back.  He even has that tiny little baby's back!