I found this in my drafts today and, at the time I wrote it, didn't plan to ever publish it...based on the title of the post. I left the title, though. I left the title because I was too scared to publish this six years ago, but thankfully, I can now. I don't remember even writing this post, but as I read through it just now, a flood of emotions and memories overwhelmed me. Thankfully, the pain and fear I had while writing this post have been replaced by a remarkable four-year-old boy. But I also know that others are still hoping and praying and may not end up with the same results that I did. I'm not sure of where I would be right now if I hadn't had my son, and I'm not going to make assumptions on how other people would/are handling going through the same struggle. But I'm putting this out there now because it's raw and it's real, and I'm so very thankful for the wonderful support system I had surrounding me during that time.
I hate platitudes. The things people say to make themselves feel better because they don't know what else to say in an awkward, painful situation.
Yes, sometimes we need to be told that things will be okay, that we will make it through, that no matter what, it's all in God's plan. But the thing is, sometimes it's not okay, and sometimes it's really not God's plan. We live in a fallen world. A world full of sin and evil. I'm not saying that God isn't in control, but I am saying that we suffer. Not because He doesn't love us, but because it's a part of life after the fall of man. It was never God's plan that we endure such hardships, but it is now, based on the choices of man.
So the thing is...sometimes you don't want to be told things will be okay, because they aren't okay, and at that moment you don't really know how they will ever be. I mean, I get that things will eventually have to be, because you have to move on, but in that moment, you just want to grieve, to fall apart, and have that be okay.
There are a few things in life that are so permanent and have no alternative. At this moment, I can think of three scenarios: the death of a child, something else bad happening to a child, and the inability to have one. There is no alternative in either of those situations. They just are. How do you deal with those? For the first...yes, death is inevitable, but the death of a child would be unbearable, and I hope and pray to never deal with the former, because I'm barely functioning through the latter. The absence of an entire person from your life that you inherently feel should be there is exceedingly difficult to deal with. You look at every moment, and there is a shadow there; a place where someone is supposed to be. Everything is affected, because that other person would change every moment.
But I don't know if I feel anything anymore anyway. I don't know if I'm actually dealing with things okay or if I've just shut down and am in a sort of denial/lost limbo. I feel like a failure. I feel like my body isn't functioning in the way it was designed to function. I feel like I have failed my husband, my daughter, my parents, so many people. I don't do well with the unexplained, and that is the abyss I sit at, looking out over the precipice, the depth and darkness, with nothing but unknowns staring back at me.
I'm good in a crisis. I'm good at looking to the future and understanding that God will carry me through, and ultimately, I will be okay, but I'm scared now because I have no guarantee that things will ever be okay. I was so sure the IUI would work. So secretly confident that it would take just the one time...and I was even a little excited at the prospect of twins. I looked at it as a reason, the process God had to take me through to get me to a place where I would be okay with that. But now I'm still searching. Searching for a reason. Searching for an answer. Searching for something that makes sense.
I find myself in constant conflict with emotion and reason. I would describe myself as very much both, and that's exceedingly difficult because I feel like I sometimes get caught. I can't just completely break down and work through my emotions because the reasonable part takes over, but I can't just reason my way out of the situation because my emotions are too strong.
Usually, I like the balance I find in emotion and reason. I believe that God blessed me with that because if I were only extremely reasonable, I would lack my innate ability to embody deep empathy. And if I were only extremely emotional, poor decision-making led by emotion could've been more of a reality in years past. Now, though, I don't know how to merge the two. I just feel caught, stuck in a place where I can't be rational or emotional because they are both vying for dominance.
I find myself dancing around the edges of darkness I have found myself at before. Places where Satan assaults me with lies in an attempt to move me away from God. I start wondering if I'm paying retribution for past sins. And then the guilt weighs in. Every sin I've ever committed weighs on me. Even with the knowledge that God has separated me from those sins as far as the east is from the west...I keep going back to that place.
I find myself wandering throughout the day. Going through the motions because I have to "keep it together". I have to teach. I have to be a good wife. I have to be a good mother. I have to do all these things when most of the time, I just want to give up. By the end of the day, I just feel numb...like drinking myself into oblivion wouldn't seem like such a bad idea...I mean I can't really feel anything anyway and at least that way I might could stop thinking.
I'm scared. I'm tired. I'm angry. I'm spent.
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