Hole where the hope was.

So after feeling a decent amount of relief, sanity, maturity, at the decision to stop trying – and failing, miserably - to have kids, I find myself teary and sad today. Again. Not so much for the loss of children I’ll never get to meet and love and know but for the absence of hope. Every time we tried, even though we tried to be as realistic, and pessimistic as possible – because sometimes is a horrible, heart-breaking monster, we still had hope. You just can’t help it. Brief – often clamped down on quickly - discussions about our possible future, possible names, possible gender, possible gene combo’s running around. And in deciding not to try again, we have made a deliberate choice to give up on hope. And giving up on hope is really fucking hard. As humans we seem to be programmed to continually hope and hope when all is burning to shit around us. That is our natural state. We’ve seen this, this resilience in people that means you can’t just give up, lie down and blissfully let it all be too much. We saw it in Thailand after the Tsunami, laughing telling their stories of running for their lives and the demolishment of everything they knew. It seemed crazy to us that they could survive and laugh about it, move on. But we do. So this choosing to move on from hope feels unnatural and has made the decision all the harder, hard enough to take 6 and 1/2 years, 9 miscarriages, thousands of dollars, 6 or so specialists, hundreds of tests, to make.

And not just the giving up on hope, but I realized today I actually have to figure out what to hope for next. And probably something more than enough money for a room with a few cats while senility takes my own name and everything about my life. Therefore, the plans for what next. Where next. How next. And the realization that comes with it: this what, where, how is not the same path we have had in mind for the past 8 years. It may not be the same path for us. It is very likely to be a totally different cross country experience for us. We’ve had the same goals – ish and the future of children and never ending debt and sacrifice has kept us moving forward together – ish. As much as you can be when you’re two very different people of the opposite gender. Now however, now it is a little different. Now our paths are about to divide significantly and we are both in agreeance that we are committed to each other and in pursuing our own next hopes. Mine O.S and his completing his PHD. It is a significant juncture. It is a difficult juncture. Which is why, when I thought things might be getting a little easier, requiring a little less “courage”, it seems it’s still time for tears.