Is There An Escape Button?

Sometimes I really wish that I didn't have to deal with this.  With anything, actually.

Normally, I don't consider myself a quitter.  In fact, anyone who knows me will tell you that my stubbornness and my fight are two of my defining characteristics.  The first time I went rock climbing, the instructor pointed out three paths to the top, saying, "This one is nice and easy with a lot of foot holds.  This one will require some creativity, but it's not too difficult.  This one over here is basically impossible, even for experienced mountain climbers."  And I started on the last one.  Without hesitation.  I didn't make it to the top, of course.  I fell.  But I fell trying.  And as I screamed and plummeted through empty air before my rope went taut and I could feel the support of my harness, I had no regrets.  I was ready to try again.  Because that is just who I am.

But something about this is starting to kill that in me.  And since that's one of my defining characteristics, it feels like it's just killing me.

Lately, I've been fantasizing about dropping out of law school, quitting my job, throwing out the drugs and deciding that I'll figure out children later, and then moving to some small town where no one knows me and starting over.  Taking a month or so off before just getting some boring retail job that doesn't suck my soul out of my nose and dangle it mockingly in front of me.  Or, I don't know.  Just something random.  Be a lion tamer.  Or a robber barren.  Or maybe just like a really nosy neighbor.  Something, anything, completely different from my life now.

Because right now, I can't catch a break.

My boss is such a stickler for attendance that he actually got mad at my husband for missing a total of three days last year.  He missed them in order to attend two weddings and a funeral.  But apparently we should have chosen two of those three events and said "Sorry!  Can't come!" to the third.  So no break there.

Law school has "breaks", but the work is so brutal that both Thanksgiving and Spring Break are NECESSARILY spent studying, Winter Break is only a couple of weeks and full of holidays and other such non-break events, and you can forget about taking summer off because you're expected to work AT LEAST full time, and probably with a commute that's about an hour to avoid competing directly with everyone in your entire class.  So no breaks there either.

And obviously, taking a break from infertility isn't a real thing.  I wish it were.  I wish that I could just turn my feelings off, put the effort on hold, and happily carry on with my life for a while without thinking about how badly I want a child and how completely ineffective my efforts in that regard have been so far.  But I can't do that.  It's basically all I think about these days no matter how hard I try not to, and despite the fact that there is exactly NOTHING new to think about because this process is the same freaking thing month after month.  Waiting and then trying to control things and then waiting and then starting to hope and then waiting and then planning even though you tell yourself not to and then waiting and then total, utter despair.

And then waiting.

Clomid v. Finals: the Clash of the Titans

Whose freaking idea was it for me to start Clomid the month of finals?  WHOSE?  I would like to have some words with that person.

Because finals are stressful.  And a law school final is a very special kind of stressful that requires full attention, full commitment, full dedication, and approximately half of your soul.  Per final.  If you have more than two finals (as most people do) then you are beyond soulless.  I am very sorry.

It's nice to not be a 1L anymore (meaning in my first year of law school), because 1L finals take like 150% of your soul and also all of your joy and your tears and your will to live.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you that every single day I went to the law school last year during finals I walked in on someone crying.  In the bathroom.  In an empty classroom.  In the middle of the hallway.  Crying everywhere!  Dreams shattering!  Sanity crumbling to bits!

Due to support from Husband and family and my own willpower, I was not one of The Criers and I did pretty well through the process mentally, emotionally, and academically.  So I didn't really think much about taking Clomid right before finals, because if I can handle 1L year, I can basically handle anything.  It did not even occur to me that there would be an issue.

But even if I had thought about it, I might have taken it anyway because I was completely sure that I would fall in the weepy camp of Clomid takers, and then worst case scenario I could just pretend to be a 1L again and not a single person would question my tears.

But I do not fall into the weepy camp.  I am firmly in Camp Rage, and if I cry they are tears of fury mixed with blood and I drown you with them while I laugh.

So when you take finals, which are already very stressful and frustrating and soul-killing, and you add in my new habit of reacting to every little thing that annoys me with PURE AND UNADULTERATED FURY, what you get is me on a month-long wrathful rampage.

So yesterday, my boss said something very disrespectful to me, my clinic didn't come through for me on something my client NEEDED, and I didn't have time to address either of them because I had to start studying for Evidence which I am not at all prepared for and which I need to GET prepared for in, oh, two days (one of which has 7 hours of church commitments already carved out of it).  I can't even tell you how many times I punched my pillow or screamed or angry cried.  Husband literally backed away from me slowly at one point.

Basically, I am a fire-breathing Godzilla and I am barely leashed and at the slightest provocation I WILL BURN THIS ENTIRE CITY DOWN SO THAT NO ONE HAS TO TAKE FINALS.  NO ONE.  Heaven help me if I'm still this rage-y when my period comes.  Who knows what I'll do.