Once again, I started leaving a comment on someone else’s post that got a tad too long.  I decided to break it out and write my own post rather than take up all of her real estate by plopping down what amounts to a house-size comment on her property.  So go over and read Justine’s Happiness Jar post.

Like Justine, this is exactly the type of project I would bookmark and then never make.  And if someone made me one, I have a feeling that it would sit unused on my kitchen counter or desk.  As I read her post, I realized that it’s one of those things I am drawn to and annoyed by at the very same time.

Part of it is because it is inherently unhelpful with a false helpful exterior.  If you scratch with your nail at the “this is helpful!” surface, you can see just how useless the jar is within three seconds.  It tells you — in retrospect — that you were happy at times this past year.  Which should be apparent if you are doing any sort of exercise which demands that you look back at your year, such as looking at an old calendar or rereading your blog or thinking.  The majority of us can rationally say even during a shitty year that some good things happened in the last 365 days.  We do not really need a jar to collect those things and remind us on December 31st.  So… what?  So we can have tangible proof of happiness in case we don’t believe ourselves when we tell our internal self that we didn’t spend the whole year weeping in darkness, even if it sometimes feels that way? (Yes, I’m looking at you, 2003.)

Perhaps Alton Brown’s unitasker manifesto has seeped into all facets of my life, but I want the clutter around me to serve a purpose.  Make me an “I don’t know what to eat” jar where I can drop menus from restaurants I like and recipes and slips of paper recounting particularly good meals.  Whenever nothing sounds good to eat, I can open the jar and rummage through there for inspiration.  Or make me an “I want to write but I don’t know what to write” jar where I can drop post ideas and story ideas and character names, and whenever I have the urge to write and yet don’t know what to write, I would reach in there and grab out the ideas.

Those two jars would be useful.  They would move my life forward instead of asking me to stand in place and look back.

But that’s not really why I’m down on this jar because there are people out there who convince themselves that every moment of their year was dreck and they perhaps could use a jar so they could remember that good things happened too.  Even so, I’m down on this jar because I’m a tad sick of the happiness bandwagon.

Which could just be the bitter, black-hearted punk rocker who resides inside my left ventricle popping up to Bikini Kill your Pinterest ass.

Or it could be the realistic side of me that believes that all these happiness-focused projects are to the detriment of our well-roundness.  Why are we so obsessed with happiness?  We have people writing obsessively about how we have to be happy as if it’s the only emotion we should experience. Why are there so many Pinterest projects that focus on happiness?  I like to be as happy as the next person, but I fear this movement to be happy all the time, to focus on happiness all the time, to strive only towards happiness and wash every other emotion off our body as if it’s someone else’s vomit.

I fear it because this movement assigns a value to happiness, which means it also inversely assigns a value to non-happiness.  Every other emotion then becomes something we want to sweep under the rug, move away from, get rid of, get past.  And no, no one wants to exist in a constant state of sadness, but if that is your life at the moment, you shouldn’t receive the message that your life is a grey mess with no Pinterest worth.  That your life is something that people should want to avoid, work past, get out of.  Is the type of existence we should want to change and move away from.  Has less value.

Humans need to experience a wide range of emotions.  Doing so creates empathy.  Teaching people to focus on happiness doesn’t create empathy, it reduces us to striving for one emotional note.  A great emotional note, but a single emotional note.  I want to teach my kids that there are a lot of emotions in this world — we even have some that we don’t have a name for that takes us paragraphs to describe.  Because when we only teach happiness, we take away coping tools, we create a fear of sadness (and — I believe — that extends to become a fear of mental illness in general, especially depression), and we make them Stepford-like individuals who only want to focus on the pleasant and never want to do the hard work of relationships.  Since, you know, healthy relationships can sometimes be messy.  Only unhealthy, surface relationships never dirty your white kid gloves and look happy from the outside all the time.

So I don’t want to only focus on happiness.  I don’t particularly want to feel sadness, and I don’t aim to feel it, but when shit happens, I allow myself to feel it fully.  Even when it’s scary.  Even when it feels terrible.  Because I think not doing so is dangerous.  I allow myself to feel boredom, to feel hopelessness, to feel anger, to feel annoyed.  My goal is to not allow myself to stagnant in any single emotion, nor is it to talk myself into an emotion.  I don’t talk myself into anger over things I’m not enraged about any more than I want to talk myself into happiness if I don’t feel bluebirds fluttering around my heart.

If I was going to make a jar at all, it would be a “shit that happened” jar, and I would dump everything from the year into it.  The good, the bad, the little tangible reminders of the whole year.  All of it.  Because it would be nice on December 31st to say, “whoa, I had a year.”  Not, “I had a lot of happiness this year!” but “I experienced a pu-pu platter of emotions this year, and that experience makes me a better writer, a better friend, a better community member.”  Because one I think has value to all the people around me, and one I think has value only to myself.

Though I actually probably won’t make the “shit that happened” jar mostly because I have a blog, and my blog is my shit that happened jar.  Every December 31st, I can go back through my blog and see what happened to me that year.  And I hate clutter.  And a jar would just be clutter.  Unless it’s a “what should I eat” jar or that writing idea jar.  Both of those ideas rock, so excuse me because I have to go Pinterest them.

P.S. I would love to see the focus also shift from personal happiness to creating situations that could lead to happiness for others.  But that’s a post for a different day.

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form: The list is now closed.  The March list will open 2/27
  
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. Waiting For Baby (iui, pcos, weight loss)
3. Hobbit-ish Thoughts & Ramblings (parenting after RPL, cooking, books)
4. Where the *bleep* is our stork? (infertility, pcos, ttc)
5. Elana’s Musings (pregnancy, parenting, randomness)
6. Unexplained Rantings (foster-adoption, infertility, peace)
7. IVF Over 40 (pregnancy, genetic testing, scientific research)
8. Dragondreamer’s Lair (parenting, secondary infertility, life)
9. One day at a time (adoption, IUI, donor sperm)
10. How I Spend My Dash (twins, parenting, life)
11. Blithe Traveler (travel, family, adventure)
12. Breathe Gently (IVF, PCOS, 1st-pregnancy)
13. Bébé Suisse (pregnancy after loss, switzerland)
14. Lamenting the Lentil (unexplained infertility and loss)
15. Life Of An Army Wife (army, infertility, crafting)
16. Tesseract (life, humour, philosophy)
17. A Bliss Filled Life (infertility, open adoption, parenting)
18. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, family)
19. Punch Today In The Face (PCOS, motherhood, #3 on the way)
20. Ready For My Bundle (pregnant after ivf, family, smc)
21. Who Shot Down My Stork? (iui, unexplained IF, humor)
22. The Great Big IF (IVF, parenting, grief)
23. The Empty Uterus (IVF, unexplained infertility, life)
24. Donating Hope (donor gametes, faith, SIF)
25. The Write Mama (parenting, infertility, embryo donation )
26. Plans Change (parenting, adoption, infertility)
27. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (donated embryos, parenting after IF, baby #2 @ 46)
28. Dreaming of Dimples (IVF, inspiration, infertility)
29. InDueTime (life, infertility, grief)
30. Thought Provoking Moments (life, pregnancy & loss, IVF)
31. Team Harries Beats Infertility (faith, holistic, health)
32. Comatised (family, cancer, survival)
33. zeroguarantees (life with suro-twins)
34. Simply Suzy (adoption, life, over 40)
35. FrozenOJ’s Concentrated Life (ttc, infertility, life)
36. My Lady of the Lantern (parenting after infertility and loss, motherhood, random bits)
37. Uttley’s Take (books hops giveaways)
38. Invincible Spring (ttc, recurrent loss, life)
39. Old Lady and No Baby (egg donation, miscarriage, life)
40. Mine to Command (fertile BFF, IUI, delays)
41. Dancing My Way Through Life, Loss, and Books (life after loss, books, ballroom dance)
42. His & Her Infertility (pcos, adoption, pulminary embolisms)
43. Wycliffe Pitneys (faith, missions, pregnant after loss)
44. Living Our Miracle (embryo adoption, premature ovarian failure, motherhood)
45. Baby On Mind (infertility, adoption, embryo adoption)
46. Air Force Mummy (pregnancy, parenting, RPL)
47. for all that we hope for (endometriosis, doula-ing, ch-ch-ch-changes)
48. IUI to Roux-en-Y (pregnancy, IUGR, induction)
49. Overworked Ovaries (IVF #3, infertility, life)
50. SecretSanctuary (parenting, faith, prepping)
51. Searching for the Missing Piece (adoption, infertility, life)
52. Rainbowmaking101 (loss, ivf, twins)
53. Non Sequitur Chica (IVF #1, home improvement, misc)
54. The 2 Week Wait (infertility motherhood humor)
55. A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus (news, life, food)
56. Ready For My Turn (infertility, loss, donor eggs)
57. Brittany’s Joy (lifestyle, diy, decor)
58. Just Another Infertility Blog (infertility, loss, life)
59. Lil Family Blog (lesbian, parenting, health)
60. Getting There (adoption, life, parenting)
61. Life As I Know It (twins, parenting, life)
62. Sweet Dreams are Made of This (adoption, recipes, life)
63. Tales from Our Yellow Brick Road (pregnancy after loss)
64. The Closet Infertile (loss, miscarriage, IVF)
65. Reese’s Rants and Raves (bed rest, pregnancy, infant loss)
66. Fallopian Groove (infertility, early miscarriage, humor)
67. The list is now closed.  The March list will open 2/27

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is purple, the next month it will be green, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

We had a partial snow day yesterday so we read a chapter of Harry Potter 4 before school.  We’re post Goblet of Fire spitting out the names and now navigating Ron’s reaction.  We spent just as much time discussing how Ron views Harry’s life vs. his own as we did reading the actual book.  I think I had glossed over just how jealous they are of one another and how they react so differently to their personal jealousy back when I read these books to myself.

Ron sees Harry as having fame and attention — exactly what he wants because he comes from a large family of overachievers and thinks he lacks an element that sets him apart from his siblings. (Until, you know, Book 7.  But he doesn’t know that yet.  And beyond that, I think Mrs. Weasley would have disagreed with Ron’s self-assessment.)  He is so massively jealous of the adoration his friend receives.  And Harry sees Ron as having family and love — exactly what he doesn’t have seeing that his parents are gone and his only living relatives hate him.  Who cares about the adoration of people who don’t really know you (but only know your fame)?  He would much rather have Ron’s situation of a big, loving family who care for Ron simply because he’s Ron.

So they’re both jealous of each other, but Ron expresses that jealousy towards Harry whereas Harry swallows that jealousy in order to stand as close as he can to what he wants.  Ron lashes out, pushing Harry away, and Harry keeps his sadness in check in order to keep coming back to the Burrow.  In neither case is the jealousy itself problematic — people are going to feel what people are going to feel.  It’s only the expression of that jealousy that becomes problematic.

It also leads to the hidden message that runs throughout the books: anyone can find fame — it happens for the best and worst of reasons — but it’s much more difficult to find love.  So if you can only choose one — fame or love — go with love every time.

Chew on that.

*******

My friend introduced me to the world’s greatest app, which also comes in website form: donothingfor2minutes.com.  The website isn’t as good as the free app.  You have 6 choices of duration of time with the app and 4 different moving visuals.  I’ve been mostly using the waves coming in.

I left the phone on my bed and ran downstairs to get something, and when I came back up, the kids were both lying on top of my blanket, watching the ocean for 2 minutes.  Blissed out.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Don’t Go Slick” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori and A
• “Fear” (Relaxing Doesn’t Make Babies)
• “Who am I?” (Stumbling Gracefully)
• “Those in Glass Houses Will Throw Stones” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Photo Finishing” (Blood Signs)
• “Six Years Without Her” (An Expat’s Journal)
• “Forty Weeks” (Baby-Making Merry-Go-Round)
• “Unresolved But in Transition” (The Infertility Voice)
• “Don’t Save the Date” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Cristy.
• “Jinx 2” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Life after Infertility” (La Belette Rouge)
• “The Exhilarating Tension Between Being and Becoming” (Baby Smiling in Back Seat)
• “The ‘I’ Word” (Stumbling Gracefully)
• “Help. I’ve Fallen, and I Can’t…. Oh, F*@k It.” (Schrodinger’s Catbox)
• “The Burden of Hope” (Something Beautiful)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Single Infertile Female has a post on what happened when her nervousness intersected with her first foster care class, and she overshared the details of her life.  I found this post so touching because it was so human.  Through words, she manages to package the excitement and anxiety of the unknowns and the thrill and the fear all wrapped up in one group discussion.

My Scar Smiles at Me has a post about time, especially the happiness and fear of it moving quickly.  On one hand, the days passing at a good clip means she’s that much closer to the finish line.  On the other hand, the days passing at a good clip means she’s that much closer to the finish line.  But it’s the ending that made me catch my breath.  It’s just lovely.

It’s above because it straddles two weeks, but I also loved La Belette Rouge’s post giving concrete advice on how she stepped away from treatments.  While prepping for a panel at a conference on the topic, she puts into focus all the ways she reached the point she’s at where she has let go and resolved her infertility.  It’s a moving post, but it’s also an important post.  It literally holds out a hand to the reader.  I especially loved this side effect of being a speaker: “In talking about my process of letting go I got to see how far I’ve come.”

Mrs. Spit’s “You Will Dazzle Them“… What can I even say to do this post justice?  Except that I think it should be required reading for middle schoolers on a daily basis, and after that, perhaps moving to required reading once a month like a vitamin.

Lastly, Life as I Know It has two posts that stuck with me this week.  One was about her son’s reaction to specialized parking spots as opposed to her own thoughts.  The other is about mentally marking her sons’ due date; how this date still holds meaning for her even though they have a birthdate.  And more than that, discovering she isn’t the only one who thinks about that date.  Loved both posts.

The roundup to the Roundup: Ron and Harry’s mutual jealousy.  Most relaxing app/website in the world.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 18th and January 25th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

NIH is recommending that the disorder PCOS, which can be a cause of infertility, be renamed to make the parameters of the disease clearer.  I want to stress that “can be” because just as NIH is stating that the name can become an impediment to understanding and diagnosing the disease, PCOS itself is so misunderstood that many believe once they have a diagnosis in hand and start Googling that PCOS is an automatic, do-not-pass-go route to infertility.  It’s not, though it is a very common cause of infertility.

The best explanation I’ve ever read about the disorder and the history of defining the disorder came from Shady Grove.  In that article, Greenhouse also discusses all the former names of the disease, because this wouldn’t be the first time it has switched names.  It has been called Stein-Leventhal Syndrome, Syndrome O, Syndrome X, and functional ovarian hyperandrogenism (because the base of the diagnosis is elevated androgen levels).

The largest chunk of me is for the renaming, mostly because I think having “ovarian” in the name creates a mental limit as to the long-term effects of PCOS.  This isn’t a disorder that falls into the background when you’re finished using those ovaries to build your family.  It’s the disease that keeps giving, creating a plethora of lifetime issues, such as problems utilizing insulin which can lead to a greater incidence of diabetes, another disease with long-range effects.  You’re at a greater risk for the largest killer of women: cardiovascular disease.  So yes, I think taking the emphasis off the ovaries in order to convey that women with PCOS need to be concerned about a lot more than family building is important.  Which is not to diminish its effect on family building.  I am only pointing out that this disorder has its fingers in so many other areas of the body than the reproductive organs.

And yet, we just finished talking about how names are important, names define us, names are more than just a mass of sounds that convey what we’re talking about.  It’s disconcerting to have a name change.  This disorder has weathered name changes before, but all of those changes took place long before the disease found its way into the collective consciousness of the infertility community.  In entering our brains, in becoming a commonplace term that we know and understand even if it’s outside our own diagnosis.  There is also a sense of ownership that comes from usage.  There are still places I call by their old name, even when someone formally changes the building’s moniker.

What do you think of changing the name of PCOS?

A few months ago, we received a gift card for $75 when Josh’s aunt was closing up his grandmother’s accounts after death.  I know the natural initial thought is: what fun.  But we were also told the gift card would expire on January 21, 2013, and we suddenly felt a tremendous amount of pressure to get something that would honour her and help the kids remember her; a final gift from their great-grandmother.

By the time we returned to thinking about the card, we had two weeks left before it expired.  My stomach was in knots every time we thought about it.  We couldn’t put it toward a trip because we needed to use the money by the 21st and we hadn’t time to travel.  While there were things we needed insofar as home repair, there wasn’t enough time to make an informed decision.  We didn’t want to squander it on groceries or media.  We wanted the gift to be monumental, yet we had no ideas what sort of gift would feel monumental.

We finally decided that we would get the Fallingwater Lego set, and then take the kids to Fallingwater in the spring.  It would honour his grandmother’s love of art and travel.  It would be fun for the kids.  And it would rewrite a location casualty into something beautiful.

We were down to the final day of the gift card, the morning of the 21st, and it was time to commit to this idea.  And I wanted to throw up.  I literally couldn’t handle the idea of going to Fallingwater.  But we had no other plan.  So we started to throw out ideas.

We would get a guinea pig to become Cozy Jackson’s best friend, and we’d make a movie about them called “An Unlikely Duo” about their epic rodent friendship.

We would get a clock for the kitchen so we could look at the time and think about Grandma every morning while we eat banana muffins.

We would get a few seasons of Doctor Who because Grandma liked the BBC and we like aliens.  It’s a win-win.

We would quickly put it towards a plane ticket to… somewhere.

We would get each child a piece of jewelry gifted posthumously from their Great-Grandmother.

And the clock kept ticking down.

At 9 o’clock with three hours to go, we finally settled on a book and a clock; not things that we were particularly jazzed about in terms of being final gift-worthy, but which felt okay.  We started filling out the order form online, and as Josh went to pay, he looked down at the card and said, “Melissa, this expires in 2021.”

I got the letter which clearly told us to spend it by 1/21/13.  So Josh called the gift card company and spoke to customer service who informed him that no, it expired in 2021.  Josh dryly told him he would circle the date on his calendar.

I don’t know if gaining an extra eight years has really helped us in the long run.  I have a terrible feeling that we will forget about it until 2020, and then stress about it for a year.  But I can’t even express how happy we were on the 21st when we all skipped upstairs, granted clemency from decision-making for the time being.  The gift still to come, so in a way, her life not really over.