I’ve always known that life has a way of changing when you least expect it.
One minute, you’re walking along at a pace your comfortable with and on a path you recognize. Then suddenly and without warning, something shifts and everything is different.
Sometimes it’s for the good. For the amazing even. You meet the love of your life. You get offered your dream job. You win the lottery.
And sometimes it’s for the bad. You get diagnosed with cancer. You lose your spouse. You find out that someone you hold dear has deeply betrayed you.
Occurrences that you weren’t anticipating even 2 weeks ago suddenly have the power to change everything. To morph your life completely.
One thing I’ve learned in my life though, is that nothing is stagnant for long.
And the truth is, I’m kind of counting on that right now. On the ways in which life can change. The twists and turns that we never see coming. The unpredictability of it all.
Because right now... I am stagnant.
I would love to tell you all that my tears have ceased. I even thought for a second that they had. So I would love to tell you that my dip in mood has risen and that my spirits have officially lifted.
I would love to tell you that, but… I would be lying. I'm embarrassed to report that I'm still being reduced to a blubbering mess almost once a day. Usually without warning or expectation. I’m not sure what the problem is exactly, but I don’t like it. I even went out and got myself a tanning package at a local salon, based solely on the hope that a little sunshine would lift my mood. For a girl who has to have something removed at the dermatologist’s office at least once a year – this was probably not my smartest move. But at this point… I am willing to try anything.
Because the prolonged sadness that I can’t even explain is not suiting me at all.
I saw Teeny yesterday for the first time in a month. She's fresh back from a trip to Hawaii, which she left for just days after my return from surgery. I had been anxiously awaiting my time with her. Craving those needles and their healing properties. So sure that this bout of depression is brought on mostly by a post surgery shift in my hormones. A shift I have full confidence that my favorite acupuncturist can fix.
Of course, as I lay naked on the table and tried to explain to her my current mood, the tears rolled down my face. I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t force them away. And I was in varying stages of breaking down for the rest of our appointment.
Teeny of course was amazing. Talking me through the trauma my body is still recovering from. Explaining the biological components in all of that. And even encouraging me in my grief. In my need to let it all out.
At the end of our session though, she sat and talked with me for a bit before finally saying “The light is not out of your eyes. Your soul has not been crushed. You’re still there. Fighting to come back to the surface. You’re there. You just have to get through this.”
And for some reason, I found comfort in that. In the knowledge that as down as I have been feeling lately, Teeny still sees the light in my eyes.
I realized that one of the things that has been setting me off the most lately is people asking me what I’ll do now. What my plans for future motherhood will entail from here. It is a perfectly understandable question, given how singularly focused I was on that goal last year. The people in my life just want to know what the plan is. They want to know how I'm going to fulfill my dreams of becoming a mother.
The problem is that as soon as I try to answer that question, my lip begins to quiver and the tears begin to form.
Every. Single. Time.
I sat at dinner the other night with someone I consider especially near and dear to my heart, and was astonished at how truly incapable I was of keeping it together throughout our meal. I couldn’t talk about any of this without the tears running down my cheeks. In a public place! A restaurant with other people around!
And even as I sat there crying, I found myself wondering “Who am I right now? Who is this girl?”
I don’t think I would have cried so easily with many other people, but the truth is – those tears are brimming to the surface every moment of every day right now. Fighting to get out. Just waiting for an excuse to escape. And I think the reason those questions have now opened the floodgates so easily is because… I don’t know. I have no idea. I am at a loss for how to answer.
For the first time in my life, I have no plan.
And it’s because for the first time in my life, there is an obstacle that I no longer feel confident in scaling alone.
I tried. I put everything I had into trying. I attempted to carve out the life I wanted and force parenthood as a single mother. So convinced was I that being a single mother was better than never being a mother at all.
But it didn’t work. And now, I can’t help but feel like maybe these weren’t decisions I was ever meant to make on my own.
And so the truth is – I am waiting. For that shift. The moment in time when everything will yet again change.
I am waiting to see what comes next, before I try to determine what to do next.
The truth is that right now, I can’t imagine myself doing anything. I don’t want to go through IVF again. I have sincere fears about adoption. The idea of living a child free life makes me want to vomit. Nothing sounds right. Nothing sounds good. And all I want to do is stick my head in the sand and not do anything at all.
But I realize, even now, how quickly all of that could change. How easily I could be persuaded to move one direction or another if I was simply given a push.
I could meet Mr. Right tomorrow, and it could turn out that having his hand to hold is all I need to feel confident in pursuing IVF again. Or he could be an adoption advocate, and someone who could help to ease my fears as we navigate that road together. He could even be a father himself, and I could find myself happily entering the role of step mother, no longer longing for anything more than that.
And there is always a possibility I could get that miracle too. It's a slim possibility, but it's always there.
With one brief meeting though, everything could change. The path that seems so murky now, could suddenly become clear.
And I know that. I know that I could pack up my bags to travel and find myself so enthralled by Greece that I never want to leave. Or becoming enticed by an orphanage in Thailand brimming over with children in need of love.
I know that I could go to the grocery store tomorrow and meet someone who changes my entire world view.
And right now, that is what I am counting on. That shift in the universe when everything will change. For good, or for bad; the moment in time when the stagnation will end.
I can’t make any decisions now, because I have no idea what is coming next. And I feel like I need to see around that corner before I can figure out where my path is going to lead.
So for now, I am trying to push the tears away. Attempting to answer those questions with a stiff upper lip. One that doesn’t make me seem as though I’m giving up, or as if I no longer care. One that simply makes it clear that I am waiting.
Anticipating all on my own the point in time when everything is going to change.
Because it is coming.
The moment that will change everything.
That will light the way to whatever's meant to happen next.
Change will be coming.
When I least expect it….
ADSPACE
