Meanderings & progress

Can't believe I haven't posted since November. Between Facebook and Twitter, they filled some of my social needs. But now I need to post, anonymously, about my own internal everyday struggle. 

Who am I, really? 

What am I? 

Why does this process have to be so hard?

and...

there is light ahead. I can feel it, and sometimes I can even see it. Feeling like I am emerging out of a very long tunnel, years long, decades long, from the time I was a little girl, fooling around under the bushes in Scotland with the other little boys and girls... and earlier. Crushing on a little boy and a girl in San Antonio; one I could talk about and one I couldn't. 

Does it really go that far back? Does it really include boys -and- girls? Why are these answers so hard to uncover, why do they take so long to surface? 

I wish I could go sit on a beach or a mountaintop somewhere for a week, a month, a year, to try and figure all this out, and meet and love someone, and have told everyone, and it'd all been accepted with love and open arms, and with nothing but good wishes for my happiness.

But reality intrudes. Achingly, honestly so. I have not picked this path; it has picked me. I want to be a mom. I want to be happy. I want to be with a lifelong partner who gets me, is not perfect, but who can garden and tend me lovingly. And me them. I have a belief that this cannot happen with a man right now, maybe never. It's been too long since I had even a glimpse of that deeper connection. But I believe it's possible. Ergo the light. 

And then ... what does it matter? Why do I care what others think? Why is it not enough to be happy?

And reality intrudes ... hatred, fear, misunderstanding, fear, hatred. Mistrust. Perversion. Sadness. Disappointment. Danger. The last frontier of discrimination.

The picture of happiness, motherhood, grandparenthood, will not unfold the way originally envisioned. But it will unfold.

I am determined. I am strong. I am true.

IUI #1

IUI #1 today. The wildest thing sprang into my mind right at the moment of truth: 'there's no turning back now!'

I voiced it to the nurse, who laughed, and the receptionist (whose style is rocking), who laughed, and to the acupuncturist afterward, who said 'are you feeling some ambiguity about this?' and then it wasn't as funny.

Am I? Short answer: yes. Doing this by myself is not what I pictured when I fantasized about becoming a mom in my twenties and thirties (can't hardly believe the thirties are almost over...). So ambiguity is something I'm feeling. A realignment of values, expectations and dreams is well underway, and not done yet. 

Stay tuned, Self.

SMC meanderings

Self reality check: countdown to first IUI. Teetering between 'omg what if it works the first time out' and 'it hardly ever works the first time.'

This process has steadily progressed since the get-go: but this a.m. I got scared. Scared of post-partum, scared of no sleep, scared of being exhausted and stressed with no one to back me up. Fear of me at my worst. 

Yet, the sense of empowerment from walking this path alone is thrilling. My buttons get pushed and each time I feel this intended child is stronger than anyone's doubts, including my own. 

 

for future: 

Meditations on lonely and alone