the nightmare after christmas

just when i thought the gloom of christmas was over. just when i thought i could send off 2009 for good. the perfect end to top off the year from hell.

after working all night, on a floor full of sick infants, the day after christmas, this pediatric nurse, clad a brightly colored name badge with an angel pin attached, pink snowflake christmas scrubs, a police officers wife... got the first fucking speeding ticket of my life.

you've got to be kidding me, 2009. seriously. although, i shouldnt speak too soon. there are still 5 days left. a plane could crash into my house, my husband could be diagnosed with cancer, i could require an emergency hysterectomy, he could get shot in a riot working new year's eve in downtown charlotte, or our hearts could just stop beating for no reason in particular. oh wait. no. that only happens to babies. i can scratch "heart might stop beating for no damn reason" off my list of worries for the remainder of 2009 written on the dark cloud above me.

he says i was doing 61 in a 35, but he wrote the citation for 49 in a 35, which was "doing me a big favor." through tears i thanked him genuinely and politely. he said "your safety means more than any speed limit anywhere" and went on and on about how im a nurse and he bets ive seen the result of accidents and he's tired of peeling people off the cement and what would happen if someone pulled out in front of me going 61. i wonder if i told him that even though my safety means something to him, that it means nothing to me, if he'd take back the ticket? i played the policewife card after the ticket was written, so i knew it wouldnt do me any good. but when i said "my husband works for CMPD", he said "oh does he?" as if that might have made an honest difference if he'd known it beforehand. so he went back to his car, and i cried some more. he pulled back up beside me and said "are you going to be ok?" and i said "yes." and he, quite kindly, said "what's going on..." and i said "you wouldnt believe me if i told you..." and he said "what is it...?" and i said "it's just been a hard year." he said "well, be safe. go home and get some sleep, you deserve it." i should have told him. i should have taken the photo out of my wallet next to the license and registration he had just returned to me, and said "see this little girl? this is my newborn baby. and she died that day. and i just spent her first christmas without her." i really, really wonder what he would have said. i should have told him, should have told him. i want to tell the world. i mean it when i say he was being kind, especially when he realized i was crying over more than a stupid speeding ticket. i feel like i could have told him and then discussed it with him over coffee. i had a conversation completely in spanish last night about my daughter. this mother asked if i had a nice christmas, and i lied and said yes. she asked if i had children, and i didnt lie and said yes. she said "una nina?" and i said yes. and i always hope these conversations end there, and a lot of times they do, but it didnt. she asked, still in spanish, how old is my daughter. i said 5 months. she said what i believed to translate to "aw, what a tiny little baby, how sweet!! who watches her?" i lied again and said my mother, because that's who WOULD have been watching her. i realized later, i should have said my father, because that wouldnt have been a lie. one oppurtunity to talk about my daughter, even in spanish. that's one more person in the world who knows about her. as i left the room, thankful that my limited spanish allowed this conversation. i pretended; i said to myself, so that's what it feels like to talk about your child with pride. then a missed oppurtunity to tell a nice policeman, who'd just slammed me with a friday-night-holiday ticket, how he'd just made my christmas match the rest of my year even more appropriately. i wonder if a policeman's wife pediatric nurse mother to a dead newborn baby would make him think twice about everyone else he tickets for the rest of his career.

i pulled into my driveway and made a conscious, valiant effort to remember to either keep the garage door open and/or shut off the engine. i stared into my rearview mirror, a panoramic view of only my bloodshot, tearfilled eyes. i am such a broken woman. these tears arent for a speeding ticket. they arent angry toward a police officer just doing his job. they arent just tired eyes from being up all night. they are the eyes of a grieving mother, and i still cant believe they are mine. i still cant believe my heart in fact does keep beating for no reason in particular.

i say with a grain of salt, i hope im not pregnant. because im about to go take my category D anti-anxiety drug and hopefully not wake up until december 27, 2110. or at least not until january 1, when this year from hell, the year my baby died, the year the world ended, is over. seriously 2009, kindly crawl back up into your mother's womb and die.