Happy Birthday
I’ve got a lot of feelings right now. I feel like they are all bottled up and ready to burst out (that’s what tears are right? physical feelings). Birthdays always get me thinking. I’m sure they do for everyone. I start to reflect on my life, where I am, where I’m not. All that sappy stuff. It feels really corny to actually say that out loud, but it’s still true. Birthdays are steeped in emotion from the day of birth so it’s not surprising that it’s a day of feelings.
I wonder if this birthday is invoking more feeling then usual because of infertility. Birthdays are a reminder that I have not given birth. That I don’t have a baby to celebrate. I don’t have the family I was promised. Another year gone. Another year closer to being too old.
Valentines day is also hard. It’s a punch in the gut to anyone who has lost their love. That love could have been a spouse, a child, a mother even a beloved pet. It’s a harsh reminder that part of your heart is missing. This valentines day in particular I am grieving with the friends I know who have lost their beloved this year. I want to hug them, and let our hearts be sad together. I want them to know they are not alone. That I’m sad too. I see you.
Remember when you really wanted something and it just seemed like you’d never get it? For me, it was a boyfriend. I remember wanting someone to live happily ever after with. I remember having a LOT of anxiety about what if my soul mate wasn’t cute?! (the horror!). I remember every song seemed to be both pulling me towards a happy ending and also showing me what I didn’t have. Everyone seemed to be finding the one, why couldn’t I? Now…I’ll admit that looking back most of my real life friends weren’t, but Hollywood sure showed a lot of love at first sight scenarios. As a kid, my world was shaped by what I saw, and I saw Hollywood and listened to love songs on the radio. I also saw some older ladies who had never found the one and my judgmental self was terrified I’d end up like them. I’m slightly embarrassed I was that wrapped up in finding a husband. I guess in a way I thought that if I could find the right one then everything else in life would magically work out. All the problems would be gone, I’d be safe. I’d be taken care of. I’d be able to relax. I’d be happy. All of this is to say, I was very wrapped up in my pursuit of a spouse, it consumed probably 80% of my thinking. Looking the right way, acting the right way, learn to flirt, but not too much. Learn to be funny but intellectual. Wear the right clothes, have the right hair style. Keep up. Don’t say stupid things. I spent a lot of time and energy controlling the variables.
All of this is to say I’m at the point where it seems like everything in the world is showing me what I don’t have again. Last night I watched Marry Me (the new J. Lo movie) and there’s a love song in it about finding a happy ever ending after us. Now, it’s obviously about relationships, but I heard it in reference to fertility and I being the ‘us’ referred to. Is there a happy after us? A movie clearly about relationships and I’m relating it to fertility. Oh brother. In thinking about it though, almost everything can be a magnifying glass on the pain of infertility if you are looking for it. A million examples flash through my mind that only someone who has experienced infertility would understand.
Another year. Gone. Part of me is really sad about that. I didn’t want this. I didn’t choose this. I didn’t do anything earlier in life to jeopardize my fertility. I can sit and cry and scream and curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor…but at the end of the day I don’t want to be sad a year went by without any happiness.
Another year is gone. But it wasn’t useless. It wasn’t hopeless. We aren’t one track people. Some of my life was sad and hopeless, but some of it was full of joy and happiness. All I have to do is go back through the pictures in my phone and see pictures of runs with my pup, travels, work accomplishments, home projects etc to see that life is full of emotions. We don’t get to only pick the fun emotions. We get them all. We don’t get to pick what is hard and what is happy. Life throws that at us and our job is to figure out how to handle and process it all. I am grateful for what I have today, and I am also grieving what I thought I’d have by age 31.
