Babies & Grief

I don't necessarily think I've had it worse than anyone else...we all have our crosses to bear...but a lot a lot a lot of crappy stuff has happened over the past 10 years--from the relatively minor like a divorce, and the worst breakup of my life, my dog dying, not being able to get pregnant; to the stuff I wasn't sure I'd be able to survive, like my brother (who was my absolute best friend in the world) being killed, leaving California and a life I loved (directly related), the whole IVF roller coaster, chemical pregnancies, a late miscarriage...I have been through a lot.

I always see these things as like rocks, and each time something new happens another rock, big or small, gets put on top of me and I have this very real feeling that someday there are going to be too many rocks and I am going to drown. This is something I worry about, more than I should. My parents, especially...they're realtively young and healthy and there's no reason to think they are going to die anytime soon, but they will probably die before me and that thought totally freaks me out. I don't see it as the natural order of life...I see it as something that may be the last straw...the last rock that makes it so I can no longer survive. To some extent I'm being melodramatic...I mean, what do you do when bad things happen, except pick up the pieces and keep going? Still, the fear is there.

And then there are these babies, which, God willing, we'll be bringing home in a few months time. Babies, in my mind, are the opposite of the rocks that have been piled on me over and over. Babies take some of the rocks away. This is kind of complicated to talk about...I wanted children desperately before all this bad stuff happpened, and I want kids for many reasons, but part of the reason I've wanted children so badly is that I feel so strongly that I need something happy and positive and life-affirming in my life to balance out the bad. I don't expect life to be wonderful all the time, but year after year and bad thing after bad thing happening...it's time for something good to happen to balance things out, right? I want my friends coming to a baby shower, not a funeral. I want to be the person other people call with their problems for a while, not the one in constant need of being talked off a ledge. And of course if I was unable to have children I would find some way to bring that happiness into my life...I have been trying for all these years to do just that...children are not the only answer... 

But. I guess my point is, good and bad are supposed to happen in everyone's life. I have had so much bad all concentrated together, have been so bogged down by grief. And I know more is coming...it's unrealistic to think nothing else bad is ever going to happen for the rest of my life.

But for now, knock on wood, I get a respite. I get some happiness to hopefully take some of this pain I've been carrying around away. I get a chance to catch my breath before the Next Bad Thing.

And for that I am incredibly grateful.