Grief and My Soul Sucking Alien

So tonight my husband and I went on a date for Valentine's Day. We watched the movie "The Vow". The premise is that a woman wakes up after a car accident and has forgotten the last 5 years of her life, including meeting and marrying her husband, losing and meeting friends, fights with family, switching towns,  career paths, and life goals.  So much happened to change her life and she has to start all over again, discovering the same beliefs and convictions that led to the changes in the first place. She had to rediscover who she was and is.

Life transformations and transitions are interesting things. They seem to always sneak up on us, as if we haven't gone through them before or as if we don't know that life at 50 will be different than life at 20. So we stumble along, whine a little "Not AGAIN! How many times do I have to change?!", and ultimately feel lost, over and over and over. Some of us, if we're lucky, are found for a while. We have those periods of clarity, of who we are and why we're here. So many ways to talk about it, depending on your belief system. The planets aligned or everything came together or even God worked through me.

The past 3 years or so, especially the last 2, feel surreal to me, as if my memories are from another lifetime. The constant pressure, stress and side effects of fertility treatments and challenging health tainted everything I did or thought or felt. I'm not saying it was all bad or all good. It was both, just like life usually is, but somewhere along the way I lost myself. I tried not to. I tried really really hard not to. However, if you know me, you probably realize being around me often was kind of like listening to someone sing just slightly off key.

Since we decided to halt the fertility treatments for now (and most likely for good), a weight has been lifted off me. I kind of feel like a giant soul sucking alien parasite has been detached from my back. When it was detached, my life- body, heart and mind- went out of whack. I had to detox from the alien nasties or something. And now, at times, I can finally see more clearly, before the nasty returns.

The trouble is, this alien nasty is grief. And grief never leaves us. Not really. Funny how I've become a grief educator just as I experience some of the most heart wrenching grief I've ever experienced. It's not as if I haven't felt the loss of a dream before, the loss of a potential future being erased. But the dreams of babies who have my husband's eyes and my freckles are somehow different than the dreams I've had before. They feel more tangible, even though they are still ideas. When I was younger and I lost my faith in "The System", when I realized I could not really "Save the World", I never thought I'd get over that heartbreak and be able to hope again, to trust in a better future.  It was so very real to me at the time, that grief for intangible things. But with time, I did dream again, I did imagine a future where I can change the world... just not how I thought I would when I was an invincible teenager.

So right now, my faith is pretty low. I'm being honest. There are moments however I remember other times when I thought my heart would break. And guess what? I got through them. The grief is still there. A memory of a heartbreak, but those wounds no longer cut so deep. There are times I'm not sure I'm going to emerge from this abyss, but then I remember and I can at least have hope for a day where the pain is not so sharp, not so mind/heart/body twisted up.

Something about times of need heighten my awareness of music and song. Two songs speak to my dark place. One is a hymn from the 1880s, Uncloudy Day. Here is an excerpt:

Oh, they tell me of a home Far beyond the skies
Oh, they tell me of a home So far away
Yes, they tell me of a home Where no storm clouds rise
Oh, they tell me Yes, they tell me Of an uncloudy day

And another from  Florence and the Machines new single "Shake it Out"

I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
'Cause I like to keep my issues strong
It's always darkest before the dawn

The ratty familiar blanket of grief

Grief is like an old blanket surrounding me. Its comfort isn't from softness, but from familiarity. Actually, it kind of chafes and often suffocates, but its an old friend by now. No matter what, it never leaves me. A constant in an ever-changing world. Through the weave of my blanket, I see the world distorted. When I should see the happiness in others, all I can see is what is not mine. I distantly recall others talking about how selfish grief made them feel, but I didn't truly understand. Now with every pregnant belly and smiling pictures of young families I see, I feel bitter, bitter feelings. Envy. Rage. Jealousy. Vicious and Cruel, it beats up my heart and soul.

No matter how hard my life was, I never wanted to be someone else. I never regretted my past. When I was flat on my back, looking up from where I fell, I would wipe the tears, smile, and get back up, looking forward to a better time. But in this dark place, I have begged and pleaded within my heart, that somehow, someway, I could be delivered, replaced, released from where I am now. There have been moments of despair so strong, I see what makes one bargain with the devil.  My heart is not allowed to make decisions for me these days. I cannot trust my usually sharp intuition about people, places, and emotions.

It is not in every moment that I feel like this. In fact, I have some very amazing, sun-drenched, soul-healing days. And moments that I see so clearly, even through the fabric of grief, that I can feel the acceptance and love of the universe deep within my bones. But the dark times are more terrfying than they ever were. They well up from within, like a geyser of black oil.

I'm not sure where to go, now that I've found this violently cruel place in myself. How does a mystic, a seeker of truth and beauty, turn so dark inside? Where is redemption, where is solace, where is forgiveness? I am not short-sighted or blind. I know my suffering is almost trite and so utterly common. There is  limitless amounts of suffering in this world.   But, it is now my turn to struggle with the experience. The grievances in my past, though some are terrible, seem so petty now.

The truth, ah yes, if I'm honest with myself, is in my anger. How can I feel connected to a universe I feel so betrayed by? Because I CANNOT accept that my infertility, my broken body, isn't someone's fault. Either it must be mine, or it must be the universe's. This is not some fluke, some accident of converging factors. This is my life. This is my future. There is NO freaking mystery here. It's not sacred or divine. It is pain and suffering. Out of the trillion and one threads of the future that lie before me in this moment, none of them are really in my control. The LURE that is supposed to encourage me to make positive choices is not present in this moment, because the choice is taken away from me.  And, yet, the universe is not something I can just ignore. It is all around me. I am made of it, body and soul. So I rant and rave at it, like a petulant teenager who wants to be free, but can't leave home.

Let me tell you the irrational and crazy thoughts that wrap around my strangled heart. One, I'm unworthy. Somehow the universe sensed this darkness in me, even when I didn't.  Two, I really am meant to be a vessel, a tool, for the universe to use. Therefore, I am allowed only so much happiness to distract me. Or perhaps, to be a better tool, I needed to be worn down with a bit of my own suffering. Three, from what the doctors told me, I really did have a choice when I was younger. I could have easily gotten pregnant at 20. I made my choice, now I have to live with it. And of course, this leads to thinking of infertility as a punishment for wrong choices, doesn't it? Four, I am a burden to my husband, I am broken and barren. What kind of partner makes him suffer for my problems? Five, I was made for this... to be a hospice chaplain, a preparer for the journey of death. Life and creation don't belong with someone like me. That is for other people. Six... well, the list is endless and ever changing.

I found myself thinking thoughts that would give up all my ethics and ideals just to be given the chance of conceiving. And with those thoughts, my anger, hurt, and despair now mingles with guilt and shame. I do not believe we are meant to be selfish creatures. We are meant for more than that.

The balm to my soul? The place I've found that allows me to keep moving forward? It's not a pretty happy place with rainbows and flowers. It's the rough, burlap blanket of grief that comforts me. An acceptance that pain and suffering is just part of me now. It's not bravery or courage, not really. Just the hard reality that this is who I am now. If by some fluke I became pregnant tomorrow and had a life with several of my own birth children, this pain would not disappear. It would still be a part of me. I may find a future that has more happiness than there is in this moment. I may adopt and surround myself with people to give my love to, but this blanket will never leave.

Where is my hope now? It is that this blanket may someday be a mantel, a cloak I wear with pride and love, as a place that I have been, a place I visit occasionally, but never have to linger as long as I am now.