Life, and its prices

I was watching the news tonight.  I'd been at a stressful meeting all day, and was feeling emotional.  And then there was this item on a news programme.   A woman was appealing for help to find a house that could be rented by her children.  (Note:  She is living in Christchurch, where rental properties are now scarce, following the earthquake.)  Her sons are in their fifties, but both are intellectually impaired, with the mental age of toddlers.  This poor lady, so well spoken and so loving, needed to find a house for them to live in, after they have to evacuate their current property for it to undergo earthquake repairs.  Sadly, she felt that she had been turned down by landlords once they became aware of the condition of the two brothers.

They have full-time around-the-clock care, but still this woman was the main person in their lives, their caregiver, their protector and protector.  She's probably about my mother's age, and she talked about how it was her duty to look after them.  From the moment they were diagnosed, she shrugged, she knew it was her duty to do the best by these boys.  "That's what we do, when we decide to have children."  The two brothers were looking at her, and her husband (not the men's biological father, but certainly their "real" one as he had been with them since they were little), with such love and adoration.

Okay, by now I was in tears.  This wonderful woman had done everything for her sons.  She had no choice, but she was still doing everything.  But neither she nor her husband are young anymore, and she won't be able to be their protector and defender for ever.  Not only will she not have the support of her sons when she needs it, but she will have the worry about how they will go on.  I was in tears at the thought of how these men will cope and deal with the loss of their mother, whether now or in 20 years.

A friend (who also is unable to have children) said to me last year, when a New Zealand couple lost their IVF-conceived triplets in a mall fire in Qatar, "what we went through wasn't as bad as what those parents are dealing with."  I wasn't prepared to get involved in a "pain olympics" kind of discussion, but  acknowledged their terrible terrible loss. But last night, watching that item of the woman and her sons, I knew that I felt luckier than her.  Yes, she loved her sons.  Yes, she has no doubt had many happy times with them.  But the price she has paid for that.  Oh, the price ...

Ouch, whine, drink

My mother-in-law will turn 90 in a few months.  Yes, that's right, 90.  Probably older than most of your grandmothers!  So of course, our minds have turned to the big event.  The social organisers of the family - the sisters-in-law (of course) - have had discussions, and plans were hatched.  But they all depended on Brother No. 1 (with apologies for the insensitive but in some ways surprisingly apt Khmer Rouge reference).  Brothers #1, #3, and  #4 have all lived overseas for many years, but #3 and #4 both return much more regularly.  Brother #2, my husband, lives here, only a short distance away from his parents, and in recent years has felt that we can't really move because they are aging and becoming more needy.  I've whined about this from time to time  .And so, emails were sent, and efforts made to see if all brothers could get together.  Unsurprisingly, these were unsuccessful.

Scene set.  Father-in-law sent out an email noting that it was unlikely to happen. He feels sad - he believes he will die without ever having all his sons together in the same room again, and this belief was the main impetus behind our efforts to get the brothers together.  I feel sad for him.  But then he lost me.  He said in his email that the prime reason for a get-together would be seeing all the grandchildren get together - cousin meeting cousin.  Not a celebration of his wife's longevity (he's a good deal younger).  Not the opportunity to see all his sons together again under the same roof.  No, it was the next generation. 

And yes, as my husband pointed out (and I knew this but I wanted a whine), my father-in-law reflects on his life and worries about the "continuation of his line."  And yes, I do still feel sorry for him that he doesn't have his sons and his grandchildren around him.  Heck, he only has 50% in the same hemisphere.  I get that.  I do.  He's old, and sad.

But still.  Ouch.  Unintentional as it might be, the snub hurts.  Clearly, our attendance is largely superfluous.  Irrelevant.  The last 13 years, when we've been the only relatives left in the country, feel as if they count for nothing. Because we didn't produce grand-children.  And, after all the efforts I made to try to arrange this reunion, after taking the risk that Brother No. 1 would blame me for pressuring him to return, after the time and energy and frustration that I have invested in this family, in keeping them in contact with each other, in ensuring that the grandparents actually see some of their grand-kids, that hurt.


The irony is that, completely unrelated to any of this, my husband and I are hatching a plan that might mean we won't be around at the time of the proposed reunion.  And despite my hurt, I still feel guilty about that.  Guilty as charged - childless with a conscience; a conscientious irrelevance.  No kidding. 

Time for a drink.

Disclaimer:  This was written when I was hurt.  I know I shouldn't write posts when I'm hurt - so don't be surprised if I delete this tomorrow!

Sharing about sharing

Telling, not telling, opening ourselves up to criticism, judgement and support; is it being vulnerable, or ensuring we have a wider support group?  Is it setting ourselves up for hurt, or for having  people with us  who know what we are going through, and can help us?  This is one of the issues we all face when we are facing infertility, or down-stream when we have come through the other side, and are either living our lives with or without children.

The need to tell, to connect with others who understand, is of course why so many of us have come to blogging, both writing blogs, and writing comments on other peoples' blogs.  But even here, we have the same issues.  Do we open up and say everything, or edit our thoughts and our opinions?   When we're blogging, of course, we are also vulnerable to accusations of over-sharing.  

I've talked about it before, and my conclusion has always been that we are all different, and we should all do what is right for us at the time.  And what is right for us when we are going through the difficult times might not be how we choose to handle "life after infertility."   I was one of those who chose not to make it public knowledge, though my immediate family and close friends knew bits (not all) of the story.  They knew about the losses, but not generally about the IVF. 

Yes, I hear you.  Here I go again.  1, 2, 3, Roll your eyes!  But the reason I'm addressing this is two-fold.  First, I keep seeing the issue come up, whether it is a question about Facebook sharing, a post written and removed (but it still makes its way to my feed) about reactions to a pregnancy, or discussions of our responsibility to speak out, to spread awareness of our situations.  To tell or not to tell is a real question for us all.

So I was interested to see what Brene Brown would say about sharing and over-sharing, in her book Daring Greatly.   We share to connect, that's clear.  But when we share with someone, anyone, everyone, where there is no existing connection, then we are perhaps "over-sharing."  The response of the those on the receiving end might be, as she suggest, simply to wince, feel awkward, or  (and this is my addition), as many of us have found here on the internet, to be on the receiving end of judgements, nasty comments, and even abuse.  If we are at a stage where we are very vulnerable, hurting, sad and alone, then over-sharing is both a reflection of our pain, reaching out desperately for understanding, but also - if we don't receive the support we want - yet another disappointment, another example of where we don't "measure up."

However, this doesn't mean we shouldn't share.  Because Brene Brown believes that receiving empathy when we are vulnerable is absolutely important.  She believes it banishes shame, and it restores that part of us that feels good about ourselves.  Her advice is advice I love: 

"We share our stories with people who have earned the right to hear them."

That sentence articulates completely why I don't explain to strangers why I don't have children, or why I didn't adopt, or why I waited so long to have children.  (Well, except on this blog or the Huff Post!)  These days, I'm feeling a lot less vulnerable about having no kids, and so I will talk about it relatively freely. I'm a pretty good judge of who I can tell, and who will respond supportively or with interest, and who will be embarrassed, or judgemental.  But I am still cautious.  I retain the right to choose whether or not to share, and I never feel obliged to share.  And even if, these days, I don't believe the basis of any negative comments I might receive, it doesn't mean they won't hurt, even as I tell myself to brush off the comments.  Ultimately, it's my pain, my truth, and I get to choose who sees that. 

So who do we share with?  Brene Brown's advice is to share with "people with whom we have ... relationships that can bear the weight of our story."

I love this too.  How often have we shared things with people and discovered they never talked to us again, or that friends and acquaintances stepped away, because they couldn't cope with our pain?  Or we were offered platitudes and advice to "get over it?"  Those relationships invariably suffered.  Or they were never strong enough to cope with the weight of our story.  And the people who stuck through this with us, who responded with empathy and not judgement?  Those are the connections we will keep and cherish for a long time; those are the connections that will grow.  And many of those connections are ones we have made here, or on other blogs.  Sharing when you receive empathy is the best medicine.  


Sharing.  I'm sure there's more to say.  I'll try to give it a break for a while!

To my commenters

You may have noticed that I've had to resort to introducing a word verification step to commenting on my blog.  I resisted as long as I could, but eventually the spammers beat Blogger's excellent spam-detecting mechanisms, and obscene comments were appearing on some of my posts.  Mostly on an old post, I will admit, but I still don't want readers coming across them accidentally.

I've kept the ability to comment anonymously, as I've received some really lovely and moving comments from anonymous commenters.  I know how hard it is to put your name (or even a pseudonym) to something that is so deeply personal, especially in the early, painful, raw days.  And so I want to be able to keep this facility as long as possible.

For those of you who hate word verification, you are not alone.  I posted this on A Separate Life last year.  But equally I hate the sites that restrict me to logging on with disqus, or only allow openid  or wordpress (for some reason I come up as aseparatelife rather than Mali, and it doesn't always allow me to link to my blogger blog), so I'm going to stick with this for now.

I think it's a case of damned if I don't, and damned if I do.  So if you're annoyed at this - feel free to curse at me.  As long as you manage to comment.  If you can't, or have difficulty, please email me!

Do as I say, not as I do

As a consultant, I've designed and taught several courses about marketing, in particular, about marketing your services.  After all, there's not much more personal in sales than selling yourself, your thoughts and abilities and personality and style.  It's not easy.  You may be a brilliant consultant because you understand your clients, they trust you, you develop insight, and you tailor your approach to each individual client and their specific needs.  You may be a brilliant consultant because you are an expert at what you do - leading your city, country, or even the world.  But unless you're able to

a) explain your value in terms your client understands and values, or
b) actually put yourself out there in front of potential clients, put yourself out to be seen (and yes, judged),

then you won't get the work.

I'm terrible at the above.  Well, no, let me qualify that.  I am skilled at knowing how to do it, but point b) gets me every time.  Call it fear, call it a lack of self-belief, call me shy, or call me a coward.  I wish I was better at self-promotion, at acknowledging what I'm good at (and I'm very good at that), and at convincing others.  Heck, forget about convincing, saying it (or believing it) in the first place would be a good idea.

I think this blog is the same. I know what I need to do, and how to do it, to live a good life, to embrace my future.  And I think I'm more succesful with this than I am at my own self-promotion.  But just because I think I have some of the answers, or sound as if I might know what I'm talking about, doesn't mean it is always easy.  It doesn't mean I always manage to embrace my life, to shrug off negative comments as if I'm coated in teflon, or to always be happy.  I can't.  And that's okay.  And I think I need to acknowledge it here, that I have moments or even days of sadness, that I often take a step back before I can step forward again, that I don't always follow my own advice.

Coming to terms with our life-style will be a life-long issue.  But our lifestyles - whatever they might be - are a life-long issue - whether it's coming to terms with not having children, or a partner, or the career we wanted (or not being able to figure out what career we wanted), or not having the health, the friendships, the body, the partner, or the money etc we wanted.  All these things are our issues.  And too often we focus on what we don't have, rather than what we do have.  That's natural and normal.  But sometimes, if we focus to an excess on what we don't have, it is neither natural or normal.  But unfortunately, too often, it is encouraged by the societies in which we live.

And in this focus on what we don't have, we open the door to feelings of disconnection* and we invite in shame.  I think that that stops us reflecting on what we do have.  And so often, and certainly in my life, a lot of what we do have, the good things in my life, are a direct result of not having something we wanted.  And you know, that's not a bad thing.

Yes, I'm referencing Brene Brown and her thoughts on shame again.