I’ve been blogging for a long time now. It’s part of my life. I’ve been blogging for 14 years now, and here at No Kidding in NZ, I will soon have my 10 year anniversary. When I began writing here, I had already been through infertility, and those early, painful years of adapting to my No Kidding life. I have readers here who are at a similar stage (and age), and I have readers who are more recently navigating their No Kidding lives without children. Sometimes, when I am writing, I have to balance the dangers of repeating myself with the dangers of assuming that others know what I have written before. This was at no time more obvious than my post a few days ago, and a comment that was left there. I didn’t want to make the post long-winded, and so I edited in and out and in and finally out again, a particular phrase acknowledging that my words might be painful to others. Perhaps I should have left it in, because a commenter clearly struggled with my suggestion that we can feel good about our lower environmental impact. I understand this. I’ve also heard this before, in much blunter language! I wrote about it here.
It is really hard to move from the idea of a life that we wanted, that we had hoped would bring us joy, to the life that we had actively not wanted. In those early days, weeks, months, and even years, after ending our journey, any suggestion that life will not be so bad can feel like a betrayal - a betrayal of our pain, a betrayal of the life we had wanted. Feeling any joy in our new No Kidding lives can also feel like a betrayal. I get that. I felt it. Even when I knew it wasn’t true. And so, when those of us who are much further on make comments that there are advantages, or silver linings, to our lives without children, it can really hurt. Not in the same way, I think, as when people with children tell us how lucky we are to <fill in the blank> because we don’t have children. But it can hurt nonetheless, because it feels like we are diminishing or denying their pain, betraying our own history of pain.
If I have done this, I apologise. I don’t want to make anyone feel that I am not fully recognising their pain. I don’t. I’ve been through it. I remember it. I’ve written about it frequently. But I no longer feel it in the same way. And I write this blog, not to complain about the many things we have lost (although I feel free to do so when I’ve felt isolated, ignored, dismissed or forgotten), but to talk about my life and No Kidding lives as honestly as I can, the bad and the good, what helped me to heal, and hopefully, to a small extent, shining the way for those who follow.
When I talk about the good things about my life now, many of them are because I don’t have children. I wrote a whole series on the Gifts of Infertility pointing out the positive things that came from that, and came from my subsequent childlessness. I can feel much better about my environmental impact now than if I had children. That’s a fact. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t want children enough. It doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten the pain I felt. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel sad yesterday when it was Father’s Day in NZ and Australia, and my husband’s brothers’ wives were sending photos of their celebrations for their husbands, without a word to my husband. Ouch. It doesn’t mean in any way that I deny the tremendous pain that I know many people are enduring, as they begin to navigate their way down that road less travelled or decide to walk through that forgotten door in the Infertility Waiting Room.
But denying ourselves experiences of joy, of gratitude, and of appreciation for our new lives is just as sad. We’ve already lost the life we thought we would have. Let’s not lose the life that we do have now, or the one that we can build when we have begun to heal. That would be tragic, such an unnecessary loss upon so many other losses. I would hate to see any of my readers do this.
But it takes time, to heal. It takes time to lose the feelings of guilt and betrayal. It takes time to say good-bye to our losses, and embrace our new lives. Many people struggle with the very idea that this might be possible. They might even get angry at the suggestion that they will heal. That’s completely normal. I get it. But when they give themselves time, when WE give ourselves time, it is also completely normal to move through the grief, to appreciate our new lives, and to see and cherish the silver linings.
A selection of my posts that address this from various angles:
Gifts of Infertility and 2020 No Kidding Healing Project
Childlessness, pain and healing
A message to those who are hurting
It's really a BothAnd, isn't it? (Like so many things in life feel to be, the older I get). It's loss and it's gain. At the same time.
ReplyDeleteTime does seem to be the deciding factor. At some point, it does seem healthy to be able to shift from Either/Or to the more encompassing and expansive BothAnd.
One part that's so helpful about your space is that you show what BothAnd looks like.
BothAnd is a perfect way of describing it.
DeleteI always said, when we were facilitating our pregnancy loss support group, that you never realize just how far you've come until a new person/couple walks into the room.
ReplyDeleteTime is such a great healer, but it does take time for the healing to begin and a shift in perspective to emerge.
Well said.
DeleteI feel so good after I read them. One of many things touched me so much is this one (https://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2015/09/gifts-of-infertility-series-23-our.html ) . I realised my grief can hurt people who I love and care.
ReplyDeleteWe either go forward through hard times or we stop. You are always clear about that. Some times people cannot see that through their pain and grief, you have walked the walk and continued. This is so very important for everyone to see and remember.
ReplyDeleteThank you for every word you post. YOU HELP.
I remember feeling like everything was so raw, so gaping, that I couldn't imagine when it would be possible to see an upside. All I could see was the scars, the sharps containers in the basement, the contents of our nursery stacked up by the front door waiting to be picked up, the utter emptiness of a room with dents in the carpet where the crib was that no baby ever actually slept in. It's so hard to believe that it will get better in those moments, and even after when those memories sneak up on and gut you. But you and others ahead of me helped so much with slowly realizing that there WERE silver linings, and I could enjoy them without the guilt of betraying my losses. That part took the longest and is still a work in progress. Thank you for making so many of the stages of this journey through that forgotten door visible, and continuing to put out there the good side of a life without kids that were desperately wanted. 💜 Your honesty and ability to shine that light for those stumbling through the dark is so appreciated.
ReplyDelete