Epiphany?
Tonight I'm struggling with the question of if I'm not being as close to Kevin as I could/should be because of my personal grief and suffering as an infertile woman. I'm not saying that we're hurting or anything right now, things are really good actually. I'm just wondering why I'm not enjoying these days of life with just the two of us more?
What got me thinking about all of this was looking at wedding pictures from a friend from junior high/high school. We're the same age, and he only just got married, I've been married 8 years. I tend to look at the other friends pictures more... the ones who've been married this long too, and now have 3 kids... and then I feel so horribly behind. I mean I did envision having that many this long into marriage myself, and I feel like these other friends are living my life. But THIS is my life. Me and Kevin, and our two cats, and our two fish. I think what keeps me from truly just enjoying this for what it's worth is worrying about others perceptions. I don't ever want people to think that we don't like kids, or that we don't want to have kids. People come to their own assumptions and conclusions too quickly without knowing the facts and this has hurt me before. We left a church because of that. That was huge. But also, I have such a gift of time right now. People wonder what the heck I do all day... well, this is some of it, writing on my blog, and following the blogs of my friends. Social network sites too, and reading books, watching the news, making meals, light housework, and before I know it, it's 5 and Kevin's home and the evening unfolds and another day ends. Or I'm off to a doctors appointment and maybe another errand, both types of things end up being all day tasks as the drive out of our area is so long.
Even before the disability of arthritis or the loneliness of infertility, I've always been a person stuck in my head. Always writing down more than I'd ever share in person, but willing to share with friends, and pen-pals who would read my scribbles. This is much the same now with blogging. So I've always spent my time much like this. It gives me peace, and a sense of human connection.
I was reading about my personality type yesterday. My type tends to mentally hold many things in all at once, and tends to have a hard time expressing these thoughts when needing to. It's probably why I prefer writing so much more than speaking. I can write and rewrite, and edit myself until I feel comfortable that my words should hopefully get across what needs to be said. But I know the weakness in this form of communication is not everyone reads every word and can often miss things if they don't hear it.
I'm going off in tangents and circles, but that's how my type things. Everything is interconnected in some real way that effects other things, but it's not linear. It's true for me too in how I and the world around me interact, or don't interact... I was cuddling Siggy today, and I had so much joy and peace and love simply from snuggling with my sweet, submissive, and loyal pet. But my brain was spinning, going in circles of if someone is missing him, wondering about his previous family. Someone had to have trained him to be so good. I wondered if it was simply the wondrous work of his foster family alone? I focused on just loving him back, regardless of how he came to the shelter and then rescue, he ultimately ended up in my home, sharing love with me. God's timing brought me the right cat at a time when I needed him and he needed Kevin and I. I'm blessed to have this fur-baby. He gives me perspective. And Lord willing, someday I might have a similar story of a child too.
With much prayer and focus, and love and prayer from others, my haunting dreams on my flesh and blood child are no longer keeping me from sleep. I again am at peace with the idea that we are most likely going to adopt, and while that child still feels so real, I understand that she may only exist in my dreams, or she may be someone I have to wait much longer to meet, but for now, I know it does not do to dwell on why she isn't here right now.
Why can't I be a newlywed of 8 years? Is the honeymoon only that very first vacation, or month or year? Over time and with routine, why do we become complacent, wanting more than just simple love and romance? If I did have children, would I still have this emptiness and be feeling it for something materialistic? I don't want that. I don't want infertility and childless to be an object. I don't want it to be a distraction. My life and time right now is still simple, as it was 8 years ago. I should enjoy this.
I'm grateful our love is not like some marriages that resemble being room-mates. We love each-other and are invested in each other, but how much of a fine line is it between not feeling like life is enough to pushing each-other away for your own lives? I don't want anything to distance us from each other.
Kevin will be an amazing father, but day in and day out, he doesn't think of our empty house in the same way I do. This puzzles me. And I know it's not that he doesn't want to be a dad, just that who he is is someone so in the moment that he sees things not immediately attainable as separate from the now. To me that ability seems like a gift and a curse. Who I am is constantly trying to see the big picture, the future, and to have an action plan. I don't want to be sitting on my hands, I want to be ready to move at a moments notice when the timing is right. Somehow we both need to come to the middle and share our strengths here.
On Friday a couple church family members came over and helped me with my kitchen. I still feel awful that things are this bad and that I have to ask for help. I worked most of the time along with them, but even still I was leaning on counters and sitting a lot, my back simply did not want me to work through a complete task, which is typical, and how this problem started to begin with. Throughout the day we got to know each other so much more. It was amazing how much you learn about someone in the comforts of your home instead of the formalness of a different place. The companionship and friendship made me forget all my issues of shame and regret about why my house is in such sad shape. One of the ladies brought her grand daughter. At first I wasn't sure what to expect. It's not like a 4 year old is going to be much help with a days worth of housework. But she was a joy to have around. She kept breaking out into song, and listening to the stories and sharing her own. It was just so neat to have her there. It also truly made me feel special that someone thought about bringing their kid (grand-kid) to our place, sometimes we can feel a bit closed off, and really we are completely open to our friends with kids, I just worry about if they get bored... But she didn't. She loved my cats, and my coloring pages, and when I think back to other times when we've had kids visit that tends to be the case, I don't need to worry about them not having a playmate while here. I'm sure it's be nice, but I'm seeing it's not required. Maybe this can calm my fears of if my children will have friends from our friends and family or not. And hopefully we'll be able to lead our kids to see the value of people both older and the same age as them. But that issue of discipline, as much as I think about it now, really ought to be saved for when it will later matter.
I'm still humbled and ashamed that I have to ask for help, that I can't simply act out all the cleaning and organizing I know needs to happen here. But in my weakness God is blessing me. He's giving me gifts of kind souls, friendship, fellowship, love and support. There has already been mention of helping me regularly, which I know I need. I'm still hurt to have to consider such a thing, but after this first time of accepting help, I see it's not such a bad thing. It helps knowing these loved ones are doing it out of Christ's love and Christian understanding, I don't think I'd be as OK with this if it was simply someone coming in to fix this mess. One of the most wonderful things about this jump start in reclaiming my kitchen is the relief in not having this continue to loom over me. To see this burden lifted, it lifts my spirits, praise God for loving friends and giving hearts!
Right now, it's 2 am and I should be sleeping. It's the Lord's day, and in a matter of hours I need to be rested, making the au gratin I'm brining for fellowship meal and preparing for heading to church. But I can't sleep, not simply because my brain is going, but because my neck and back are messed up. I'm waiting for this cold to go away so I can take my injection again. Life is a puzzle, there is always one thing that must be in place before another thing can come together. I could take my injection to reduce my inflammation, but then I risk this cold becoming an infection, I know I shouldn't risk it. I've had pneumonia before, and I was miserable, if I can avoid ever having it again I would. But in the mean time I'm still dealing with my muscles, and I'll be sleepy, and whatever other consequences, but that should be better than pneumonia. Just like waiting on God's timing for children should be better than whatever might happen now if I simply had my wish and continued to deal (or not deal,) with these other things.
It's all circles, and puzzle pieces, fragments, and tangents. But God keeps making clear my path, I'll continue to trust in Him. Looking forward I may feel lost, but looking back I truly see the blessings of how our needs have been provided for. My heart mends, and I hold hope that the cracks in my heart that hurt me now, will also be healed someday.
What got me thinking about all of this was looking at wedding pictures from a friend from junior high/high school. We're the same age, and he only just got married, I've been married 8 years. I tend to look at the other friends pictures more... the ones who've been married this long too, and now have 3 kids... and then I feel so horribly behind. I mean I did envision having that many this long into marriage myself, and I feel like these other friends are living my life. But THIS is my life. Me and Kevin, and our two cats, and our two fish. I think what keeps me from truly just enjoying this for what it's worth is worrying about others perceptions. I don't ever want people to think that we don't like kids, or that we don't want to have kids. People come to their own assumptions and conclusions too quickly without knowing the facts and this has hurt me before. We left a church because of that. That was huge. But also, I have such a gift of time right now. People wonder what the heck I do all day... well, this is some of it, writing on my blog, and following the blogs of my friends. Social network sites too, and reading books, watching the news, making meals, light housework, and before I know it, it's 5 and Kevin's home and the evening unfolds and another day ends. Or I'm off to a doctors appointment and maybe another errand, both types of things end up being all day tasks as the drive out of our area is so long.
Even before the disability of arthritis or the loneliness of infertility, I've always been a person stuck in my head. Always writing down more than I'd ever share in person, but willing to share with friends, and pen-pals who would read my scribbles. This is much the same now with blogging. So I've always spent my time much like this. It gives me peace, and a sense of human connection.
I was reading about my personality type yesterday. My type tends to mentally hold many things in all at once, and tends to have a hard time expressing these thoughts when needing to. It's probably why I prefer writing so much more than speaking. I can write and rewrite, and edit myself until I feel comfortable that my words should hopefully get across what needs to be said. But I know the weakness in this form of communication is not everyone reads every word and can often miss things if they don't hear it.
I'm going off in tangents and circles, but that's how my type things. Everything is interconnected in some real way that effects other things, but it's not linear. It's true for me too in how I and the world around me interact, or don't interact... I was cuddling Siggy today, and I had so much joy and peace and love simply from snuggling with my sweet, submissive, and loyal pet. But my brain was spinning, going in circles of if someone is missing him, wondering about his previous family. Someone had to have trained him to be so good. I wondered if it was simply the wondrous work of his foster family alone? I focused on just loving him back, regardless of how he came to the shelter and then rescue, he ultimately ended up in my home, sharing love with me. God's timing brought me the right cat at a time when I needed him and he needed Kevin and I. I'm blessed to have this fur-baby. He gives me perspective. And Lord willing, someday I might have a similar story of a child too.
With much prayer and focus, and love and prayer from others, my haunting dreams on my flesh and blood child are no longer keeping me from sleep. I again am at peace with the idea that we are most likely going to adopt, and while that child still feels so real, I understand that she may only exist in my dreams, or she may be someone I have to wait much longer to meet, but for now, I know it does not do to dwell on why she isn't here right now.
Why can't I be a newlywed of 8 years? Is the honeymoon only that very first vacation, or month or year? Over time and with routine, why do we become complacent, wanting more than just simple love and romance? If I did have children, would I still have this emptiness and be feeling it for something materialistic? I don't want that. I don't want infertility and childless to be an object. I don't want it to be a distraction. My life and time right now is still simple, as it was 8 years ago. I should enjoy this.
I'm grateful our love is not like some marriages that resemble being room-mates. We love each-other and are invested in each other, but how much of a fine line is it between not feeling like life is enough to pushing each-other away for your own lives? I don't want anything to distance us from each other.
Kevin will be an amazing father, but day in and day out, he doesn't think of our empty house in the same way I do. This puzzles me. And I know it's not that he doesn't want to be a dad, just that who he is is someone so in the moment that he sees things not immediately attainable as separate from the now. To me that ability seems like a gift and a curse. Who I am is constantly trying to see the big picture, the future, and to have an action plan. I don't want to be sitting on my hands, I want to be ready to move at a moments notice when the timing is right. Somehow we both need to come to the middle and share our strengths here.
On Friday a couple church family members came over and helped me with my kitchen. I still feel awful that things are this bad and that I have to ask for help. I worked most of the time along with them, but even still I was leaning on counters and sitting a lot, my back simply did not want me to work through a complete task, which is typical, and how this problem started to begin with. Throughout the day we got to know each other so much more. It was amazing how much you learn about someone in the comforts of your home instead of the formalness of a different place. The companionship and friendship made me forget all my issues of shame and regret about why my house is in such sad shape. One of the ladies brought her grand daughter. At first I wasn't sure what to expect. It's not like a 4 year old is going to be much help with a days worth of housework. But she was a joy to have around. She kept breaking out into song, and listening to the stories and sharing her own. It was just so neat to have her there. It also truly made me feel special that someone thought about bringing their kid (grand-kid) to our place, sometimes we can feel a bit closed off, and really we are completely open to our friends with kids, I just worry about if they get bored... But she didn't. She loved my cats, and my coloring pages, and when I think back to other times when we've had kids visit that tends to be the case, I don't need to worry about them not having a playmate while here. I'm sure it's be nice, but I'm seeing it's not required. Maybe this can calm my fears of if my children will have friends from our friends and family or not. And hopefully we'll be able to lead our kids to see the value of people both older and the same age as them. But that issue of discipline, as much as I think about it now, really ought to be saved for when it will later matter.
I'm still humbled and ashamed that I have to ask for help, that I can't simply act out all the cleaning and organizing I know needs to happen here. But in my weakness God is blessing me. He's giving me gifts of kind souls, friendship, fellowship, love and support. There has already been mention of helping me regularly, which I know I need. I'm still hurt to have to consider such a thing, but after this first time of accepting help, I see it's not such a bad thing. It helps knowing these loved ones are doing it out of Christ's love and Christian understanding, I don't think I'd be as OK with this if it was simply someone coming in to fix this mess. One of the most wonderful things about this jump start in reclaiming my kitchen is the relief in not having this continue to loom over me. To see this burden lifted, it lifts my spirits, praise God for loving friends and giving hearts!
Right now, it's 2 am and I should be sleeping. It's the Lord's day, and in a matter of hours I need to be rested, making the au gratin I'm brining for fellowship meal and preparing for heading to church. But I can't sleep, not simply because my brain is going, but because my neck and back are messed up. I'm waiting for this cold to go away so I can take my injection again. Life is a puzzle, there is always one thing that must be in place before another thing can come together. I could take my injection to reduce my inflammation, but then I risk this cold becoming an infection, I know I shouldn't risk it. I've had pneumonia before, and I was miserable, if I can avoid ever having it again I would. But in the mean time I'm still dealing with my muscles, and I'll be sleepy, and whatever other consequences, but that should be better than pneumonia. Just like waiting on God's timing for children should be better than whatever might happen now if I simply had my wish and continued to deal (or not deal,) with these other things.
It's all circles, and puzzle pieces, fragments, and tangents. But God keeps making clear my path, I'll continue to trust in Him. Looking forward I may feel lost, but looking back I truly see the blessings of how our needs have been provided for. My heart mends, and I hold hope that the cracks in my heart that hurt me now, will also be healed someday.
Labels: epiphany, faith, family planning, love, marriage, midnight blogging, personality
posted by Celestial Freak @ 9/28/2008 01:26:00 AM
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