Hope In The Face of Absence

I’ve learned a few things about myself along the way.  I need a creative outlet or I get grumpy.   Yoga keeps me centered.  Running & kickboxing help me blow off steam. Piano quiets my brain.  

I am unsure if these are discoveries of self or simply coping mechanisms that I have used to blanket the fire. 

I have been given opportunities to explore & thrive.  Have I seized them or survived them?

Inside is this voice that whispers… it’s never enough.  Moment to moment; I expect too much.  I envy those that feel a calm in life’s pace. They live out their days cursing their own fate and yet their dreams all come true.  While I am here, still waiting for you.

This isn’t the kind of waiting most are used to.  Waiting in the line at the grocery store, waiting for your friend who is late for your lunch date, the doctor’s office; this waiting has its own misery but you know that eventually you will get your turn.  You may feel bored or annoyed but your faith is not tested.  This is much different.  This kind of waiting feels like you are looking down a deep dark tunnel in the path that is your life. There is no light beaming in from the other side.  You have no idea what to expect. You don’t even know the chances of coming out alive on the other side. You have two choices.  You can give up your faith, turn around and keep living just as you are without risking the darkness or you conger up all the hope that you can muster and you take your first step into that deep dark tunnel.  There is no reason to hope. No one has encouraged you that passing thru this tunnel will bring your dreams to reality.  That deep dark tunnel in my life represents my feelings regarding my fertility.

Hope. It’s easy at first. But it is the hardest thing to hold on to.  To keep hope alive you must be willing to risk constant disappointment.  When you can’t stand any more disappointment you move toward acceptance.  Just when you thought you found your own way around that tunnel it sneaks up on you… well, what can you hope for now?   Hope drives us.  It keeps us believing that there is something more for us out there. To me this feels like accepting that this is all my life will ever be.  I will never get the chance to see my own creation. I will never be able to see my husband hold our child. That hurts.

To fully accept your fate takes a courage so deep and faith so strong that you are able to truly let go. No more hoping and wishing. No more “maybe’s” and “some days. “ No more “hey, you never know.”  There are these stories that your friends tell you constantly. They think they are helping but really it’s just torture.  They say “oh, I knew someone who got pregnant right when they adopted!” or my personal favorite “I have friends that didn’t get pregnant for 10 years.”  That one is my favorite because I figured that would be us.  And here we are; we will be married for 12 years this September.

There is a new theory exposed every day it seems.  Could it be RX drugs, toxins or GMO’s?  Any one of these things could have taken my fertility away from me without even knowing it.  It leaves me wondering was it the ramen noodles in college? My shampoo? The laundry soap?  It could be ANYTHING! And yet, it could be NOTHING. I am in a constant struggle between hope and letting go. I wonder if one day I will be truly numb to it all.  Maybe that is what letting go is really all about. I’ve told myself that I am done and over it and yet I find myself squirming; back in its grips, anxious with my own reality; wanting my life to move on naturally. 

Maybe hope changes.  Instead of hoping for a certain future; I am hoping I am on the right path. I keep faith in my intuition. I am right exactly where I need to be.