Looking back on the early years

Something I saw or read or heard last week got me thinking about the early years of loss and grief and pain, and how different life feels now.

I haven’t forgotten. I can still see that younger <Mali> clinging desperately to the internet relationships she’d made who got her through many of the hardest days and the absolute distress she/I felt when our internet went down for a few days (horror – can you imagine that happening now?), the loneliness of being ‘other,’ the shame and the guilt, the lack of hope she/I felt for my future. I remember the gut punch of opening a cupboard and seeing the folic acid  bottle that I had kept “just in case.” And I remember the almost staggering shock at the realisation that I would be “one of those people” who didn't fit into mainstream society.

I think it’s important that I mention this some 20+ years later, because I want anyone who might find this site to know that it was never “easy” for me, for my readers and commenters, for any of us. I can and do remember that without pain – which is, if you might recall, how I define “getting over it.” Not that the pain doesn’t arise from time to time, not that there are never ouch moments, not that the world doesn’t make it easy for those of us who are living a No Kidding life. No, simply that I can talk about and remember those years largely without pain. The Mali who went through those emotions is different to the Mali* who writes here now.

It gets better. So much better. Life is pretty wonderful now, even the difficult parts. That’s because I embrace it, because there is no other choice. There’s so much to be grateful for, to appreciate, and yes, even to relish in our No Kidding lives. I don’t know if I’d have believed it back at the start. In fact, I think I might have fought against the idea, as I have seen others fight against it over the years. But simply deciding to look forward, to have hope for something new, and to embrace life honours the pain of the Mali of 20 years ago. She/I deserves to enjoy life now. And so do you!

 

 * Apologies for talking about myself in the third person, but it seemed appropriate, because the Mali of the early 2000s is not me anymore.

Turning trauma into art

"Writing about trauma is more than simply documenting experience—it's about illuminating life on earth. It's about transforming tragedy into art, and hoping that somehow that piece of art may help someone else who's gone through something unbearable and who doesn't yet see that there truly is a light at the end of the dark tunnel."

— Tracy Strauss, Poets and Writers Magazine, Sept/Oct 13

I found this quote some years ago and have been meaning to show it here. Not that I would describe this blog as “art!” But the idea of writing about our traumas, about our losses, and about our recovery definitely applies to this blog, and to the blogs of so many of my readers too. I love that it recognises that writing about our own traumas helps others feel less alone, that they can read our stories and see themselves in it, that they don’t feel quite so isolated.

I love too that it recognises that writing about traumas can provide hope that maybe things will improve. After all, when we find our lives are going to be spent without children, it is not a static situation where life as we had planned it stops. Where there is initially a vacuum because our lives are not filled with the children or grandchildren we had hoped for, life and light and joy will fill it. In particular, hope fills that vacuum, although it is directed somewhere new. There is, as the quote above mentions, light at the end of the tunnel, and we all find solidarity and friendship and joy through the third, feared and neglected door of Infertility’s Waiting Room.

I know all of us who blog in our No Kidding world talk about this – the pleasure of discovering that life goes on, and is good and rich and full. I apologise to those who find it repetitious. But I do think it’s worth repeating for anyone new who might find this blog. And it's worth reminding those of us who have been here for a while too, and may have the occasional lapse. It gets better. I'm not kidding.

Being thankful for connections

I’m thinking it is time to post some positive things about my life, without children. So today, I’m just going to talk briefly about connections.

The first is to thank you all. I’ve made friends blogging here, and on my ectopic site. I often talk about it, but I love it when we cross the barrier from only chatting on No Kidding topics, to being involved (however distantly) in each other’s lives. Sharing book or Netflix recommendations or bread recipes (thanks Klara!), dropping a note to a friend, or meeting each other in real life or real time (eg zoom/Skype/facetime), having already known each other for years. I’ve said many times that internet relationships are real, and I’m grateful for them. It’s a gift that I talk about a lot, but I continue to value you all, and feel the need to express that again today.

Moving on though, I find that as we grow older, we aren’t the outliers in the same way. Many of my friends now have children who are adults and have left home. They have so much more time to spend with us. We are all free and easy (elderly relatives excepting) together. An example was this last weekend, when my husband and I went over the hill (some might say we’re already there! Lol) and spent the night at my friend’s house. We had a lovely catch-up, went out for dinner and a movie (socially distanced), and ended the evening chatting around a fire under a big, starry sky. Their kids are grown, and we chatted about them (my husband actually helped out her son when he joined the same industry years ago) but they were not the focus of their world any more.

Over breakfast the next morning, we got talking about the human need to find meaning in life. Unlike some parents, they did not feel that it was their meaning in life to have children. (Even though they were both devoted parents.) We talked about the need to connect with other humans. At times in our lives it might be harder to do that, when we find many of those people we are around are focused on their children, or when we need support in our later years (and I’ll have more to say about that in due course). But in between, it definitely gets easier, the world feels a bit more inclusive, and there is much fun to be had.

If you’re just starting out in this journey, or if you’re surrounded by people having children right now, know that you’ll find your connections, in real life and online. And it gets easier.

 

 

 

No Kidding 2020 Project: Day 19 - Liberate

I’ve never wanted to wholly conform to society. As a little girl, I groaned when I was given a doll for Christmas, because even then I liked playing outside and other active things (until I learned to read). I was shy and obedient, but I never wanted to be judged or have my activity proscribed by others’ views. As I’ve probably said before, I think I was a feminist from the moment I was born, so when I got married (which was quite young), I didn’t change my name, despite not knowing any other woman personally who had kept their name. (Though when I moved to Wellington I met a number, and in fact almost all my best friends who have married have kept their names too.) I certainly didn’t want to have children the moment I got married, and resisted all that initial pressure. So it was a surprise to me when I decided I did want to have children, and then of course, a surprise when I couldn’t.

Now, as a woman without children, I am by definition a nonconformist. Especially when I am a woman-who-wanted-children who loves her life-without-them. Or perhaps not? Because if there is one thing that life teaches us, it is that most of us have to learn, at some stage, to love what we have (or don’t have, as the case may be). Perhaps I’m just doing the predictable thing?

The truth is there is real freedom in not having children. The obvious things are freedom from sleepless nights, from early morning wake-ups, holidaying only in school holidays, expenditure on children and their activities, freedom to follow my own interests, spontaneity, travel when and where I like, etc. The list is endless.

But there are other freedoms too. When we learn to accept and experience our No Kidding lives, we break free from society’s norms, from our grief and our past and our what-might-have-beens. We are liberated from our own more limited expectations of ourselves. Perhaps we break free from our own stereotypes?

Personally, I know I broke free from stereotypes when I was forced to confront the question of what is “success” and what is not. I did this in terms of infertility, where “success” stories usually mean those who end up as a parent, rather than a broader definition of those who survive and go on to live a happy and meaningful life.* But I also did it elsewhere in my life.

My values didn’t change – they had always been the same. But I found that, in breaking free from stereotypes, I was able to fully recognise how important my values were to me. I could choose to embrace them without feeling that I was letting anyone (including, perhaps especially, my younger self) down. None of this might have been obvious to anyone else, but they made a world of difference to me, my thoughts, my level of contentment, my authenticity. I let go of a lot of things. But in doing so, I was able to begin to fully embrace myself, and my No Kidding life.

Liberation. It’s both the result of, and the penultimate step to healing, living and enjoying our No Kidding lives. Liberate!

* See The Real Success Stories

Painful pandemic reminders

I was “chatting” with some other No Kidding bloggers the other day. We were all, to various extents, struggling with the lockdown. In general, I’ve been finding it okay, but that is probably because I’m in NZ, where our risk has been limited by very quick movement into a lockdown. We are still in a period of uncertainty, but I’m not seeing cases of COVID19 rise exponentially around us, as some of you have been, and that has made life in lockdown much easier. On the down side, I haven’t had a coffee for three weeks! (I don’t make coffee at home because a) I make terrible coffee, b) my husband hates the smell of coffee, so it’s best NOT to make it at home, and c) I’ve always been able to use it as an excuse to pop out and get a nice flat white - until now!)

What is hard, though, and what some of the other No Kidding bloggers were also struggling with, is to turn my mind away from the pandemic that has the world in its grip, and write something here for those of us who didn’t have the choice not to have children. But even in a pandemic, reminders are still everywhere. Discussions on-line about parents struggling with home-schooling, or with bored children, or with the noise of a full house are everywhere. Fun videos families have made together are swamping social media. The Prime Minister designated the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny as essential workers in her press conference, and talked about the Teddy Bear project to put bears and soft toys in your house windows to provide amusements for children when they go on walks. Yes, even when we escape the house to go for a walk, we are constantly reminded that we don’t have children. If this is still painful for you, my heart goes out to you. It’s never easy to be reminded of what we have lost.

And even though it’s not painful for me any longer – or rarely, at least – and even though I have taken some delight in a house up the hill from me, that has posed and dressed their teddy bear in different ways over the last two weeks (so far I’ve seen their bear playing cricket, going skiing, dressed in the national soccer/football uniform, being a chef, and working on a laptop!), it still reminds me that my house is quiet, that I have no children to delight in dressing a bear or decorating trees with Easter eggs cutouts, or do some baking with me (as my niece did with my sister a day or two ago). Or, as I did yesterday, make homemade marshmallow (a NZ specialty)eggs with me. I brush these things off these days. But they still cause little pinpricks in my psyche.

And you know, that’s okay. It’s okay because everyone is feeling a little vulnerable right now. So if you’re feeling a bit more vulnerable or sensitive than you are usually, then that’s okay too. It’s one of the lessons I learned best during infertility and when recovering from it. That it’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to feel sad. Remember, we’re all with you, doing the same thing. We’ll get through this together.

Arohanui. (With love.)

The stories we tell ourselves

An old blogging-now-Facebook friend of mine posted a quote from one of his friends. I read it, and just had to share.

"Our greatest sufferings and our greatest joys come not from our experiences,
but from the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences."

- Jeanette Westlake

 I see this time and again, both with myself, and others. It is very relevant for those of us who have grieved the loss of parenthood in our future. We suffer because we have, for so long, told ourselves how happy we will be when we get pregnant/adopt/become parents. We suffer because we have told ourselves it is the only acceptable outcome. We suffer because society tells us it is the only acceptable outcome, and we've come to believe it. We suffer because we tell ourselves what we've lost. 

Part of this is, of course, the normal process of grieving a loss. The length of our suffering is often affected by how long we continue to tell ourselves that we are suffering a great loss. And the turning point in healing is when we start to observe, and accept, that we can find joy in the future. I remember feeling huge hope that I would be okay when I allowed myself to feel the joy of the little things. Telling myself that all was not gloom and doom, allowing myself to laugh, to enjoy a view, to feel the sun on my back, all helped me change the story I was telling myself. 

That's why I blog here, and why I know many others blog. Because we've got to the stage where we know we are okay, and we want to reinforce that by telling our stories to others, to help them know they will be okay too. And maybe it will help them to change the stories they are telling themselves.

Loss is not always just loss. As I've written in my Gifts of Infertility series, there are a lot of positives that come from loss. And even when we feel the loss acutely, because we've changed the stories we tell ourselves, we know that the pain won't last. We know we'll be okay. And that way moves aside suffering, and makes room for joy.

It is indeed all about the stories we tell ourselves. And importantly, the stories we tell others.

 

Building friendships

I recently read a comment (here, on Lisa's Life Without Baby site) that broke my heart. A No Kidding woman said,

"I just accept that I will never have good, close, friends."

That is devastating. There were other, equally sad, comments. I do understand why someone may say that. They've felt isolated - by society in general, and specifically, by people they know and perhaps loved. They've felt that no-one understands, and perhaps that no-one wants to understand. They've felt rejected. And so they have built a wall around them for self-protection. By accepting they won't have good, close, friends, they have tried to eliminate that disappointment that so many of us feel when we are rejected anew.

We've all experienced it at some level or another. The men and women who don't know how to have a conversation with us unless they're talking about their children. The women who ask us about our children, then turn away when we say we don't have any. The awkward silence when they realise we might have wanted children but couldn't have them, for whatever reason. We've heard the election speeches talking about "our children's future" and felt left alone and forgotten. I could go on. We all know how it feels. And it is natural to want to protect ourselves against feeling that rejection over and over again.

I can understand this too, when we are first coming to terms with the life that we have been given, learning to accept that the life might not have been the one we decided we wanted. When the pain is raw, we feel the slights (intended or not intended, and sometimes even imagined) acutely, and all too frequently. It's natural to withdraw for self-protection, nurse our wounds, and give ourselves time to heal. I would argue that this is actually necessary for our healing, and for acceptance to begin. But only to an extent.

I've opined before on friendship and our expectations. Are we conditioned to expect too much from our friendships? Do we want too much of our friends? Do we want friends who are always available, who can drop things to go out with us without notice, who are always with us? Or (or as well), perhaps we want friends who are all understanding, who can empathise with us the nuances of our No Kidding lives, who recognise the grief and loss that we've felt? This is not unreasonable. But are we realistic in our expectations? Do we want friends who are all things to us, all at the same time? How likely is that?

I've written before that I have a childfree friend who doesn't really understand how I felt during my losses and early No Kidding years. But we share a love of travel, and so when we get together, that's what we talk about. She's not interested in a whole lot of other things I do or care about, but we have one or two things we both love, and that's where our friendship is focused. It is the same with other friends who are parents - perhaps we share an approach to business, a love of international politics, a love of food, or books, or exercise. None of them really share in my interests 100%. But that's normal, right? We're never all things to one person. And thanks to the internet, to messageboards and support groups and blogs, I have my No Kidding needs met. I get empathy from internet friends, bloggers and blog readers, and they also support and amplify my interest in the intellectual, societal, and political issues around our No Kidding lives. My husband can't do that, and neither can any of my friends and family. But that is okay, because I have you. These might be different relationships than with a friend who lives down the road who I can meet for coffee, or a real-life friend who now lives overseas, and they are no less legitimate, or important to me.

Sure, one friend in particular drifted away from me in those difficult years, as she focused on her children, and I focused on my losses, even though I was desperate for companionship, to know I'd been seen. But I know I was lucky with most of my other friends who were parents. We found the areas where we could enhance each others lives, and focused on them.

That's where I think it is useful to start. Looking for mutual interests, and the issue of whether they or we have children or not becomes secondary. Because I think that is what we learn as acceptance grows, as we embrace our future. We learn that our lives - with or without children - are so much more.

I will say that it becomes easier too, in our 40s and 50s. Children grow up, and leave home, and parents have more time on their hands. Whilst some grieve the absence of their children, others relish it. They, like us, embrace the positives of life when not actively parenting. And yes, grandchildren arrive. But they're rarely going to take that 100% attention that children require. I love hearing about my friend's grandchildren. Not endlessly. But they are part of their lives, and I want to share in their lives. Besides, these days, discussions amongst my friends seems to centre far more on the increasing dependence of their elderly parents than on their independent children.

But perhaps key to my friendships is that I don't expect to have all their attention all the time, and they don't expect to have mine. We all have different commitments and needs. different interests, different priorities. Accepting that makes friendships easier, and more relaxed, I think. But I don't think it limits the levels of intimacy possible in a close friendship either.

This is not to say I have it all sorted. I don't have a wide group of friends, probably because I haven't worked in an office for over a decade. I know I need to get more involved in groups - I'm thinking about joining another bookclub, or a photography group, for a start. I wish my many internet and overseas friends lived closer. I sometimes get lonely, though that's not necessarily unusual. Nor is it a result of my No Kidding status.

I think that if we limit our focus or friendships to those without children, then we are the ones who will suffer. Sure, it might be harder or take a little longer to find friendships in a society that is filled with people with children, but I don't think we should ever stop trying. Please don't resign yourself to never having "good, close, friendships." They are out there. For all of us. We just need to be open, without forcing anything. After all, connection is key to our survival, to our emotional health, to a happy life. We need to build it where we can. Because haven't we already lost enough?