I don't want to become a bitter woman, someone who is fourty or fifty and can't walk into a mall without glaring at the happy new mothers with their baby strollers and gerber babies. I'm scared I am turning into this woman. I am afraid sometimes she is sneaking up on me and I don't even know it. I spend so much energy sometimes keeping myself from that place, trying to sound and think brave and positive, and one small thing will send me reeling, send me into the orbit of Planet Bitter.
I feel like I've read so many websites, books, pamphlets on how to survive this, and for a few months the advice works, but then out of the blue BAM!!! I'm flat on my back and crying once again. I know inside that this is life. We spend some time in a peaceful place and then we move on, not expecting fear, pain and sadness to be around the corner. And when we run smack into the unholy trio, we wonder if that peaceful place was real, were we kidding ourselves? No, I don't think so; I think it's just life; and it sucks.
I have come to the conclusion, right or wrong, that I think there are only two things that will stop this madness for me: having a baby or coming to the place where I can walk away from it for good.
My God, I ache with sharp pains through my whole body to think of the second and my soul aches for the first. I suppose this pain is the seed of great poetry, songs and literature; but frankly I could give a damn.
I can't walk away, so I keep hurting. I do think, however, that there are temporary fixes. As much as I get frustrated that nothing seems to help for the long term, I think there are benefits to what I have been doing, just because I've gone all depressive housewife this month doesn't mean my Qi Gong is a wash. It means I have to work harder to do it, it means I should look for ways to do it more maybe. It was a help, it still is. The peace I find from it lasts a few hours, but it's more than I had before.
We're going to go to counseling. Dan is hopeful that it will be something more long term, I want to be, but I'm not which is creating some tension; the first I can remember of it's kind since this started two years ago. I suppose that means we've done pretty well all things considered, most couples need counseling long before this and some have serious problems because of the process. The fact that we haven't I feel means that we had an incredibly solid relation before this all began. I'm grateful for that, I couldn't handle problems with Dan on top of all this too.
We couldn't get the people who owned the house we fell in love with to lower their price so we had to walk away last week. So, let's just say that last week was a supremely shitty week. It's adding to everything though. Not getting a house that we could look at and say "We can see ourselves with a kid here" made me feel like maybe it was a message; maybe we were also hearing that we weren't going to have children. I know that's bogus, inside I do. But sometimes things like that carry a weight that is hard to shake. I still think about it sometimes. But it's not true, not at all. why do I think that it could be? Maybe my fundamentalist upbringing that teaches signs in every little thing (but sees fortune telling as a sin...sometimes I think this is a contradiction, but whatever). But God isn't like that. He would tell us if he wanted us to move on, to change direction. We've asked him often enough to do just that!
Now we're looking again...we've seen about 40 places...and I'm sick of looking. I'm at the point where it's like "Let's just buy a place! Forget loving it, liking it is good enough!"
And honestly, I feel angry that I'm at that place. Aren't we good enough, loved enough to have something we love? To have the fulfillment of dreams and desires! Don't we, just maybe because we are loved by God, deserve such things; and I know that's a dangerous word for many Christ followers but....Seriously. Why do we have to settle? Why don't we get a place we love, a child to love, WHY?
I'm at the end of myself I feel right now. End of my patience, end of my tolerance, end of my ability to smile and say "Well, it will all turn out for the best". I don't know if I can do it anymore.
Getting through the day has been easier the last few days, and then BAM! I feel like I've been shot. But...this is life, I guess. Like I'm the only one who feels this way, please! We all do, don't we? It's just that we don't say it, we hide our pain because it's embarassing, because people don't know how to handle it. And I know there are times and places for this. But I'm talking about how we are as a society. Few people can simply cry with some without trying to make it better...if you can, you have a gift. If you can't, let me encourage you to learn. We all need that. Shakespeare had it right "Prick us, do we not bleed?" All of us bleed, cry and wail, we just do it alone most of the time I think.
What next? Well, I'll grit my teeth and pull myself out of the gravitational pull of Planet Bitter, it may take several tries, and I may be pulled back many times, but I don't want to stay there. So I'll keep fighting, even though I'm so tired of it all that I feel like I can barely lift my head.
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