It happens to be Infertility Awareness Week. It also happens to be almost two years since my last blog post. So, you know, it also happens to be when I've had a little time to think and therefore post.
I read something yesterday that stuck with me: "I feel like I relate to people who are grieving the loss of a close
family member, because I regularly feel the ache of grief in my chest.
Grief is a major part of what’s going on inside my mind and heart. It’s
difficult to articulate because I’m grieving a lack, not a loss" ( http://www.hopeduringinfertility.com/to-my-mama-friends-infertility-niaw/.) Grief. It sucks. And it really, really sucks when it is "a lack, not a loss."
Grief is how this post all ties together. Since I live in and out of active grief, I am often processing it. One of the fascinating (and bizarre,) side effects is that I find myself processing all sorts of grief. I am ALL over the place. I grieve the loss of my father at a young age and the fact that I didn't get to know him better as an adult. That actually seems pretty normal to me. And then I find myself grieving for all sorts of other things. My first love, who fell in love with my roommate. Being jealous for too much of my life. My lack of adventurousness. The lack of spending regular time with the friends of my youth. A friend who, once I revealed my heart, revealed his - that he was pursuing someone else. Being fat. The grief and the weight of guilt, the guilt that I have carried most of my life.
In some ways, I think this is SUPER healthy - I'm a firm believer in processing things. Also, I think that the addition of antidepressants to my life has helped my brain and my psyche become "unstuck." So, I find myself having revelations and realizations about things that happened 5, 10, 20 years ago. (A humorous side effect of this is that when I've shared some of these with dear friends, their responses are typically, "well, yeah." It makes me laugh and also be thankful that I have friends like that.) In other ways, I sort of shake myself out of these reveries and make myself be present in the here and now.
The grief of the past seems easier to process. I've processed it before, and it has some definitive answers: "they are together because they are a way better match than the two of you would have been. Things worked out as they should." The ongoing, new grief is agonizing. I never know when it will pop up, and I never know when I will end up in tears. (Cows with their calves on the side of the road? Why not cry?)
So, thanks to all of you who are walking with me through the crazy grief. It helps me laugh at the days to come with you by my side!
*If you have a friend who does not have children and it is not by choice, this is a great week to give her a hug! And him! It is hard on both!
