I haven't written in forever. I've started a half-dozen posts, but just didn't feel any of my musings were important enough to hit the publish button. We'll see if this one makes the cut.
As the holidays approach, and a new year is looming, I realize that I'm not the same woman I was a year ago. Not even a little bit. Nor do I know who I am becoming. That sounds very angsty and little girl lost, but it's not. I've begun to realize that the things which defined me before are different from now, and those that define me now will not be for much longer.
A year ago, and for a couple years prior, I was consumed to the depths of my soul with my inability to bear a child, and my yearning for motherhood through our chosen path of adoption. The decision to adopt wasn't a default kind of choice, it was more a premonition. I knew in my gut that I wasn't going to ever fall pregnant, but I fought a hard path to acceptance. I felt utterly alone when other women talked about their pregnancies and labors, I hated maternity photo shoots. I hated pregnancy announcements, ultrasound photos, and baby showers, and baptisms.
I was unhealthy in more ways than one. It was a period of such massive growth for Doug and me in our marriage, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses for our relationship, either. I had some very dark moments, and I wasn't always able to pull my attention away from my own pain to recognize that Doug was suffering, too. My poor health made me a poor wife in a lot of ways, as well. Because of those two interconnected things, my physical illness and the emotional illness it caused within me, my infertility became me. And because it was such a massive wound on my heart, I exposed it, was very open about it, because the more exposed you allow a wound to be, the less likely others are to accidentally bump against it. That too allowed it to define me.
Then I got a hysterectomy, fully committing myself to the reality that I would never bear a child. I swear Doug joined the Army Reserves that very week. It's almost as though there are pivot points in life, and that period in time was one of them. Everything was changing, we just had no idea how quickly. Everything back then felt like we were each holding our breath. And then came Joshua.
I smile and my eyes fill with tears just writing it. It seems almost a glossing-over of the miracle of his placement with us, of finally achieving our dream of parenthood, to say that Doug deployed then. But it really was just that fast. We were a family of three for something like two weeks, then Doug left for training for three weeks, came home for 12 days, and then we watched him get on a bus and leave. As quick as that, my identity was rewritten: deployment wife and single mom.
God's gifts are rarely given without strings attached. I'd prayed so hard for a child, and now I have one, but such a big part of my vision for our family is notably missing.
But the defining of myself, oh how that has changed with my new role as his momma. He is my job. And my joy. I used to be creative, and a perfectionist. My biggest struggle in becoming a single mom is the lack of focus I can apply to anything else. Jobs I used to take time and care and pride in, now are done as quickly as possible, because my "me-time" is limited. So that part of me, the last little controlling perfectionism I'd retained while everything else was out of my control, I've now had to grudgingly abandon. I've learned patience I mistakenly thought I'd acquired while we waited for him, and I've learned to adapt. I'm not angry anymore. I don't hate all those conventions that glorify pregnancy. I will never enjoy them myself, but I'm not as bitter about that. It's not supposed to be as difficult as it was for us.
In a few months, my role will change again. Doug's coming home. It seems surreal to me that one day in the not so distant future, I'll have someone to keep an eye on Josh while I do something as mundane as wash dishes, or throw a load of laundry in the dryer. Joshua will learn to say 'mama' and 'daddy,' because he'll have to specify which of us he wants, whereas now he cries, and he knows I am the only one who will come save him from whatever minor discomfort he suffers. I'll have to share him. I won't be the biggest person in his world anymore. I'll have the chores and perks of being a wife again. It'll be another challenge, another big change, another incarnation of myself: mother AND wife.
As the holidays approach, and a new year is looming, I realize that I'm not the same woman I was a year ago. Not even a little bit. Nor do I know who I am becoming. That sounds very angsty and little girl lost, but it's not. I've begun to realize that the things which defined me before are different from now, and those that define me now will not be for much longer.
A year ago, and for a couple years prior, I was consumed to the depths of my soul with my inability to bear a child, and my yearning for motherhood through our chosen path of adoption. The decision to adopt wasn't a default kind of choice, it was more a premonition. I knew in my gut that I wasn't going to ever fall pregnant, but I fought a hard path to acceptance. I felt utterly alone when other women talked about their pregnancies and labors, I hated maternity photo shoots. I hated pregnancy announcements, ultrasound photos, and baby showers, and baptisms.
I was unhealthy in more ways than one. It was a period of such massive growth for Doug and me in our marriage, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses for our relationship, either. I had some very dark moments, and I wasn't always able to pull my attention away from my own pain to recognize that Doug was suffering, too. My poor health made me a poor wife in a lot of ways, as well. Because of those two interconnected things, my physical illness and the emotional illness it caused within me, my infertility became me. And because it was such a massive wound on my heart, I exposed it, was very open about it, because the more exposed you allow a wound to be, the less likely others are to accidentally bump against it. That too allowed it to define me.
Then I got a hysterectomy, fully committing myself to the reality that I would never bear a child. I swear Doug joined the Army Reserves that very week. It's almost as though there are pivot points in life, and that period in time was one of them. Everything was changing, we just had no idea how quickly. Everything back then felt like we were each holding our breath. And then came Joshua.
I smile and my eyes fill with tears just writing it. It seems almost a glossing-over of the miracle of his placement with us, of finally achieving our dream of parenthood, to say that Doug deployed then. But it really was just that fast. We were a family of three for something like two weeks, then Doug left for training for three weeks, came home for 12 days, and then we watched him get on a bus and leave. As quick as that, my identity was rewritten: deployment wife and single mom.
God's gifts are rarely given without strings attached. I'd prayed so hard for a child, and now I have one, but such a big part of my vision for our family is notably missing.
But the defining of myself, oh how that has changed with my new role as his momma. He is my job. And my joy. I used to be creative, and a perfectionist. My biggest struggle in becoming a single mom is the lack of focus I can apply to anything else. Jobs I used to take time and care and pride in, now are done as quickly as possible, because my "me-time" is limited. So that part of me, the last little controlling perfectionism I'd retained while everything else was out of my control, I've now had to grudgingly abandon. I've learned patience I mistakenly thought I'd acquired while we waited for him, and I've learned to adapt. I'm not angry anymore. I don't hate all those conventions that glorify pregnancy. I will never enjoy them myself, but I'm not as bitter about that. It's not supposed to be as difficult as it was for us.
In a few months, my role will change again. Doug's coming home. It seems surreal to me that one day in the not so distant future, I'll have someone to keep an eye on Josh while I do something as mundane as wash dishes, or throw a load of laundry in the dryer. Joshua will learn to say 'mama' and 'daddy,' because he'll have to specify which of us he wants, whereas now he cries, and he knows I am the only one who will come save him from whatever minor discomfort he suffers. I'll have to share him. I won't be the biggest person in his world anymore. I'll have the chores and perks of being a wife again. It'll be another challenge, another big change, another incarnation of myself: mother AND wife.
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