I went by L’s to pick up the carseat they bought me for J. It’s a leopard print number, he was running around the house naked as a jaybird but came out to see if it worked. A was crawling around under the coffee table – she’s going in for her operation next week – L was upstairs, round out to here with #3, exhausted.
We all make decisions in life – we choose certain things over others – or sometimes life hands you something you weren’t necessarily seeking – it’s what you do with it. I try to imagine had my life gone this way, lying in my bed at 38, my stomach round with baby #3, when baby #2 is barely crawling. What would I be writing in my blog – or would I be writing? I think about 10 babies conceived but not born.
I’m oversensitive to fluttering vibrations inside and outside of me. I remember getting pregnant in Cuba – I knew it happened when it happened. I remember getting on the ferry in Cozumel, the mother standing with her hideously deformed child, waiting by the dock. I touched my stomach – a sickening feeling came over me. Were all those unborn children better unborn?
I think about my marriage that was a one-way street and why even now, I am soft in the middle. Always soft in the middle. Most people don’t know this about me – they tend to see the hard ass on the outside – but it’s just marshmallow fill inside. I had to turn my own self inside out to find a framework, a structure to build on. So what if I am almost half a century old and just now figuring some of this out?
But do you try to do now what you didn’t do then? Or do you move to other things, other longings, satisfy other needs – selfless acts? selfish acts? Where to begin when everything right now looks so much different than I had imagined it would.
Maybe it comes in simple acts of forgiveness. Forgiving myself for not being stronger in my marriage. Forgiving myself for not being perfect in my job. Forgiving those around me who didn’t live up to their potential. Just simple acts of forgiveness and then call it a day – I’m lucky, fortunate, and have joy in my heart – it didn’t take a person or a baby or anything to put that in there – it is there, inside of me, untouchable – for everything I have never done, or will never do, I hope to do all I can and will do now and forever.