I've had a lot of things floating through my head lately. I do need to emphasize that these thoughts flow through, and rarely do they actually stick long enough for me to form a coherent diaryland entry about them. I have really been struggling lately to keep my head above water, and I will confess that I've done a piss poor job of it at best. I can't concentrate long enough to do any homework whatsoever. I have to force myself to do any assignment, and things take me twice or even four times as long to complete.

Yesterday I found myself staring at the computer again for the millionth hour, looking for another distraction to prevent me from doing my homework. At four in the afternoon I just gave up. I decided that I NEEDED a day off. I pushed back from the desk and ran myself a bath. I got my long-time favorite book from adolescence (A Ring of Endless Light, by Madeleine l'Engle) and gave in to the siren's song of exhaustion. This morning I emailed my sociology professor and told him I felt rotten and I wasn't coming to class. This afternoon I am electing to miss my ethics class. I need a break. I need rest.

I think I'm anemic. I think I want to feel better. I think I want to have a night's sleep where I don't wake up feeling like I just hiked 15 miles. I am exhauted. I feel gross, and fat, and sick all the time. Headaches, fatigue, muscle pain, brain pain, anxiety, worry, lack of sleep, insomnia.... it goes on and on. But nobody wants to read about how uncomfortable I am. Laundry lists of body issues are boring and tedious. I hesistate to write about this stuff because I know there are people out there who would give almost anything to be in my position. I feel guilty for feeling like shit. which, of course, makes me feel worse.

I think I am going through a tunnel. My baby has his own physical birth canal through which he must travel. I have one too, but mine is far less tangible. I feel my brain working its way around this concept of conception. I'm giving up everything to become a mom. I am sacrificing my vanity, my body, my health, my sense of security and naive confidence in the future for this creature I know so intimately yet have not truly met. I am up all night trying to just get from one day to the next, debating whether I would be more functional if I slept the remaining five hours of night or if I just stayed awake reading online journals. Somewhere in here is a person coming to grips with an absolute life change. In less than 100 days I will have in my life another person for whom I am entirely responsible. He will survive by the milk my body produces. He will grow with our language and our humor and our idiosyncracies. He is mine, yet he is independent of me in less than 100 days.

I am becoming mom. My body pains and general discomfort all symbolize this transition. I will never again be the person I am today. This may be a very self-indulgent diary entry, but it is my diary, after all. Who could have predicted that becoming mom involved this process of feeling like absolute crap?