Have you ever felt like you are stuck in time? Like the world just keeps on moving past you while you sit and watch? This is how I have been feeling lately. I’m just sitting here in my life watching other people live theirs. Watching my family, friends, and work acquaintances add to their families. I was contemplating this and I got a picture in my head of myself suspended in time while the world whizzes by (you know, like it does on those sci-fi shows).
I realized that this picture is inaccurate. I’m not suspended in time. I am aging with the rest of the world. I need to quit focusing on the external and focus more on my internal.
There is still part of me that grieves every day for the family I wasn’t able to create. I grieve for children that were never created, for traits of me and my spouse that will never be passed on to anyone. This piece of me will probably always be there. But, instead of trying to shove it aside, shrink it, or trying to put other things in its place I need to let it be. I need to accept that it is part of me and makes me who I am. It might be an experience that other people want to ignore, but it is an experience that I need to learn to embrace because it is who I am now. Easier said than done, right!
That's the key.... let it be, it's a part of you that cannot be buried or hid... That's what I'm working on- not to ignore the part of myself, knowing that it will also alienate some folks, confuse some other folks, and discomfort some folks- but it also educates, enrich and add to experience of folks, beside me- you know? :) Yup...easier said than done... yup... that's why I'm enjoying munching on Halloween candy. :P
ReplyDeleteEvery now and then I have that feeling. I most especially grieve the loss of the ability to pass down stories to the new generation - the stories I love hearing from my Mom about their own life history and my other relatives' stories. It's a good way to learn life lessons.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct in embracing what we can't change. I find that sometimes I do need to re-grieve the losses in order to move forward, but after that I have to focus more on the things I have than the things I don't have. Mustn't keep staring at the "holes" that IF creates - otherwise they'd suck me to the bottom of the darkness that I don't want to experience again.
nice to hear from you again, I missed your posts!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you - I am also workin on accepting that infertility is part of me and makes me who I am.
Hugs!