Even when I was down and out - divorced, jobless, homeless - it did at times seem bleak, but it never felt hopeless. It felt like something I had to go through and eventually I knew I'd be on the other side of it. I have worked since I was a kid - formally, since 17. I substitute taught, I worked administrative temp jobs, and I worked at Target as a cashier. I remember the guy hired me because I answered the question, Why do you want to work here? with "I need the money." He laughed. I guess that's not the PC answer, but it was the dead honest truth and after he chuckled he said, "Good, we need people who actually want the hours and want to work. People come in here and say, oh because I love the store or because I love people, etc. That's about the most honest answer I've heard all day, so you get the job. Start tomorrow." I never doubted that I'd get back on my feet. I doubted I would ever get married again...but I never doubted I'd find someone to spend time with or that I'd get a new place to live or any of that. It was sad, it sucked, but it was somehow, I don't know, doable. It was just a "tough spot" or a "rough patch." I learned a lot and grew a lot. The marriage I saw as an utter failure, turned out to be a true blessing because it forced me to be honest about all my sh** I hadn't dealt with and the amount of demons I was still battling that I truly thought I'd conquered. So, in the end, it was indeed resolved.
I'm sitting here with my teaching job, my beautiful new house, and my very real and happy marriage. So, what's the point of this post you're thinking? Well, I've found myself in a place that I cannot quite bring myself to talk about with really anyone because I feel truly as if no one "gets it" - at least no one in my circle. Even people in my circle that think they get it because they've experienced some of what I'm feeling, do not actually get it.
We've been "trying" to conceive a child for three years. We've done all the tests, we've been through a couple of procedures and yet, here we sit. Childless. I'm "like a mom" to a lot of people. In fact, every single day to 19 little people, I'm "like a mom" and to some of them that's no small thing because they do not have their biological mothers in their lives at all. I do not take that lightly and I thank God for it daily, sometimes even throughout the day I will think, wow, how could your mom have let you go? I won't ever pretend to understand. I know there are countless circumstances and situations that are desperate and they aren't anything I could comprehend because I'm sitting over here willing to go through needles, appointments, prescriptions, violations of privacy on many, many levels, and thousands upon thousands of dollars...not to mention the evil dealings of the insurance company, just to prayerfully conceive a baby.
I've been "like a mom" for as long as I can remember - starting with my little sister, then babysitting, then my niece, then my nephew and of course, for over ten years off and on, an elementary school teacher and tutor. Like a mom still isn't a mom. I know people think that somehow that's comforting to me or that somehow that is my consolation prize, but it isn't.
I know people who struggled to conceive and give birth and to even continue on the journey of motherhood and raising kids, teens, young adults. I know people who have done all the tests, the procedures, the doctors, the agonizing waiting. I know people who have conceived and lost babies. I know people who have lost children. I know people who have been to hell and back with their pregnancies, their kids, etc. None of it is "easy" and none of it came without a cost. I am, by no means, equating anything I'm about to say or emote, with any of it. There is no comparison in pain.
Let me reiterate that: there is simply no comparison in pain. It's your pain. It's your struggle. It's yours to deal with. And this is mine. I'm having to grapple with and struggle through this reality: I am childless. I do not know what the future holds, this is true, but I know in this present moment, I am childless in the sense that we do not have our own child. And there's a pain in coming to terms with the idea that this simply may be my reality. Period. I am 41. My husband is older than that. People sit with their children or child and tell me - oh yes - I know how you feel, etc. No. You have children - you're on the other side of all of it. You do not have to sit in your car after a workout that was supposed to make you feel good and didn't and reminds you that your body is getting older and that you are trying desperately to release it, release it, release it .... crying with the thought: It may not happen. Ever. You have got to be able to accept it. This is the reality. To watch your niece and nephew grow and grow and remember that you were going to raise your one with them so that your one wouldn't grow up without a sibling, but at least with cousins. To know that time cannot be stopped and the clock cannot be turned back. To wonder, what if I'd done this or that. To wonder, what did I do that this is my punishment?
I've sat in my therapist's office and had her tell me that it doesn't hurt less to not be hopeful. I think that's a lie. I think to be hopeful is to continuously stab yourself in the gut and slowly bleed. To be hopeful and have your period start again, another month. To sit and say, why? And to listen to stories of abused kids, and to read your files on your students, and to hear about moms on drugs or just vanished or who knows what happened to them. To say, God, I know I'd be a good mom, I've had a lot of "like a mom" practice...just give me one...just one. To bargain. To plead. To cry. To wish and hope and wait and think, maybe this month will be my miracle no matter what the doctors say. No. No. No. To have people say all the insensitive, hurtful, unaware, cruel and ridiculous things they say to you (which is why I never talk about it because I don't want to to hate well-intending people and I've already lost 'friends' over it) and to still be "hopeful" is just - a pain that's sometimes too much to hold.
I know I must release it. This is my only chance of being free. The trouble is, I play games with it...I throw it and then pick it back up. I throw it and get hit in the face with it or the stomach. I throw it and run after it. The letting go feels impossible - the dream of motherhood that I must grieve - but I'm learning to somehow "let it be." I've not succeeded, but I'm learning and growing and I guess that's better than nothing at all. To try and end this on a "positive note" - I do love my life and I do count my blessings and I do not take one thing for granted - not even this journey. I am learning one thing for certain - life is short and there is joy even in sorrow and there is beauty even in pain. Someday I will know the answers and for now, I just pray to move forward.
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