Friday, July 27, 2018

The Life I Thought I'd Have

Yesterday I went for a drink with my tap class (once a month they do Tap and Tapas, so you dance and then you tipple, which is my kind of dance studio). One of the dancers is getting married this fall, and she was talking about house hunting. She teaches in a district that is in the far reaches of our county, and lives more centrally, and is looking at a long commute. She acknowledged that she might not always teach in that district, but that she has to look for houses that have good highway access because "you wouldn't want to move districts and then have maternity leave untenured; that's a big risk."

I sincerely hope that things go the way she is planning -- house, wedding, not long after, baby. But it has put me in a bit of a funk hearing that on replay in my mind since last night, because once upon a time I felt that way too -- so sure of how things would work out.

I remember when we were talking about getting married, before we were engaged, we had breakfast at this place that no longer exists and discussed the pros and cons of marriage. One of the things that weighed heavily on me was that I didn't want to be unmarried and have a child together, and I was straightforward from the beginning that I really wanted to have a child. One part of the discussion was that we could get married in a couple years, maybe four, but I indignantly exclaimed, "I'll be THIRTY SIX in four years! Remember? Babies?"

We did get married when I was thirty-three, a decent enough age, but I was an untenured special education teacher that first year. I remember thinking that I wasn't being positive enough because while I really wanted to get pregnant, and that was the Year of the IUIs, I had some relief that it didn't happen when I was still probationary and hoping for a tenure track position. I remember weighing in my head the impact of maternity leave on my newly-accumulating seniority, thinking on how much (or, then, how little) I'd be able to take and still be pretty safe in my job.

Clearly, all that worrying was completely unnecessary.

Still, hearing this young woman talking so optimistically about the accepted progression and be encouraged by other dancers (all of whom had children), "Oh, yeah, you don't want to go out on maternity leave untenured," as if it is a done deal, as if that is just what happens. But for me, it reminded me of the alternate reality that never unfolded, of the possibility I once felt but is forever lost to me.

We've also been in a mode this summer of really evaluating our house, and deciding if we should stay with minimal renovation to fix the garage as is and the poorly constructed back room against the garage, do a major renovation with the garage and back room and a room above the garage to enjoy the wooded backyard and gain more living space, or fix what needs to be fixed and move to a home that has a functional garage and more driveway and a basement that won't give Bryce a concussion, among other things.

We've met with a couple contractors and a realtor. And every time we talk about the addition, we mention that we had plans drawn up previously, but that OUR NEEDS HAVE CHANGED, and so we can have a different kind of addition since we really don't need additional bedrooms.

The first time we said that to a contractor I immediately teared up, because while it was a clean way to sum up "our entire vision of what our life was going to look like imploded and we're never having children and so we just want a house that works for the two of us," it still makes me sad. It's a heavy four words.

But it's true -- we don't need our house to be a family house. And, as Bryce said when we were chatting about it for the fifteen zillionth time, it's weird how our house really acclimated itself rather quickly to a home with no children. All of our furniture purchases, our revamping of the nursery to my office and the living room to have multiple seating options and be more open... it all worked seamlessly. It's almost like the house didn't want us to have children, which I know is a totally loopy and strange thing to say, but it feels sort of true. Even through our jokes of "what's buried under this house, ha ha" when things went so spectacularly wrong, there was truth of this FEELING that the house didn't cooperate with our wishes for children, that there was a weird incompatibility there. It doesn't help that Bryce had dreams of a dark and malevolent force that was somehow central in our house and there were several times in the two week wait where I got searing low belly pain at the same time that Bryce had a dream like that, which is just plain weird. But we could also just be grasping at any reason, no matter how unlikely, that things just didn't work out for us any way we tried.

Today though, the person we met with who is both a realtor and a renovator, he said, "It's fine that you don't need to have more bedrooms for you, but if you ever sell this house you'll want to have bedroom space added if you do an addition, because it will make it more marketable."

And then I got that feeling again like at after-tap drinks... EVERYONE ELSE follows the progression. OF COURSE, the likelihood of some other couple without kids who love gardening and woodworking and music and scads and scads of books coming to buy our home is not high. OF COURSE it's probably going to be people who expect to have a baby or two, who are looking for a family home. Because that's what people do. That's the expected progression.

Again the life I thought I'd have, but will never come to pass.

It made me sad. All of this talk about the house and how it's evolved is exciting, and it points to the life that we DO have, which is not sad at all. BUT. It opened wounds I felt were developing a thin layer of scar tissue, and left me standing in the backyard, weeping, just overwhelmed with this idea of our house as two homes -- the one that was supposed to be, and the one that it is, and how we have plans for both possibilities and only one will come to fruition. It was like seeing the ghost of the family we would have been like a transparency over our existing blueprint, able to be seen but impossible to grasp. Utterly intangible.

I was so, so, so very sad. I wept for the children that didn't come. I wept for the father Bryce will never be. I wept for the mother trapped inside me who will only ever parent indirectly, sideways. I wept for the life I thought I'd have.

I made Bryce concerned that I'm not happy. Which is not the case at all. I am happy, and so grateful for our life, our marriage, and our beautiful, cozy home. Our life is NOT sad. I am not mourning this life, because it is downright magical. I'm mourning the other life that seems further and further away, the one that I was once so sure could be ours with a little hard work and a bullheaded insistence that it HAD to happen for us just because no other alternative made any sense at all.

After standing there in my sweaty bathing suit top, covered in dirt from pounding in edging in my patio border garden, Bryce finally ignoring my pleas to not hug me because I was totally gross, I decided that the medicine for my melancholy was MORE GARDENING. I may not have a baby, or a child, and I may not need another bedroom for another human in our home, but I have a lot of plants and garden space. And I can do something about that.

I can create space for more plants, and beautify existing spaces, and weed out unpleasantness so that my beautiful flowers can grow unimpeded. I can eke out a little control over my life with hard pruning of out of control, invasive honeysuckle. I can chase the sadness away with a little sweat equity. I can then sit back and appreciate the life I DO have, where I can garden as much as I'd like and not have to worry about keeping an eye on my child, where I can sleep in because we decided to have Thunderstorm Wine last night to celebrate the first storm we were both home for, where we can go see Monty Python's The Holy Grail with John Cleese speaking in person tonight and not need a babysitter.

It was just what I needed. I pruned, I weeded, I pounded, I sweat, and I even discovered a little treat. I'll always be sad about the life I thought I'd have but don't, but I am so very fortunate for the one that did come to fruition, which has so much enjoyment and beauty in what we do have.

See all that edging, sort of like a raised bed? I POUNDED ALL TWENTY FEET OF THAT. 

This is what it looked like before, just sort of spilling over onto the driveway, messy messy and likely to wash away.
See that crazy bush to the left, against the fence?
GONE! And in its place a funky stumpy unicorn. 
While pruning I was visited by this little guy -- a wood frog! Never seen one in the garden before.

He's got neat markings. Cute little guy. I felt like he came by to say, "you're okay."
(Or I live close to woods, so he was just pissed I disrupted his habitat with my therapeutic pruning.)
Yesterday before tap, sitting under our redbud tree which is now big enough to sit under in the shade, admiring the garden and feeling real lucky.


19 comments:

  1. Even being a parent, I feel dissonant when people take for granted that they can have kids whenever they want to, and also time it nicely with other life events. It’s a whole set of assumptions that just got kicked out of our brains, permanently.

    I’m so sorry. It’s sad when expectations don’t match reality, especially when there is great beauty and potential in the expectation. You have found beauty and potential in the way things are, too. That’s wonderful.

    Although the whole idea of the house not wanting you to have children, and Bryce’s dreams of a malevolent force, has kinda got me creeped out, I have to admit. I’m usually not superstitious at all but.....

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    1. Thank you. And it is true -- infertility totally takes away any sense that there IS an accepted progression, or that there are any givens in life. It is good to seek and celebrate the joys in our life, it balances out when I feel horribly cast out of "the way things are supposed to be."

      And yeah -- isn't that weird and creepy? So weird. It is definitely a little loopy, but it really has felt like this house has a mild Amityville Horror piece to it. Once when we were gone on vacation our catsitter had this plague of flies, too... we never figured out what caused it and they went away eventually and there was no rodent corpse or anything, but it was like the house DIDN'T LIKE US AWAY. :-0

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  2. That is the way of grief. It never really leaves, although we may find ways to focus on blessings. Grieving doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate what we do have, it just requires to be let out now and again. Hugs, dear daughter. You are strong.

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    1. Thanks so much -- true, grief is definitively NOT linear. Ongoing, it is.

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  3. There is a quote I love, and I have no idea where I saw it, that just resonates as I read your words tonight. "When sadness was the sea, you taught me to swim." That's what came to mind as I read... that the two of you are there for each other... allowing each to feel your feelings fully, holding space for each other, catching each other, teaching each other. Really, teaching all of us too. xoxo

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    1. Thanks so much, Holly. That's a beautiful quote. We are so very lucky to have each other (Bryce and me, but also us and you!).

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  4. Dear Jess, I'm also very annoyed when people take for granted that they will become parents one day. I hate it because knowing about infertility could spare them so much disillusionment and prevent them from making all their decisions -which they might regret- dependent on the "parenting scenario"...

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    1. Yes, so true... I don't want to be that black-hooded death figure pointing at the future going, "Yooooouuuu tooooooooo could be infertile!," it's kind of a bummer, but at the same time it amazes me when it seems people have a blissful ignorance about that possibility. It seems the same people don't have any issues, either, so that's interesting.

      PS -- your blog is beautiful, but sadly I don't know French and my translate thingie isn't working. It's GORGEOUS though!

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    2. yeah I almost wish I could warn young people today not to take fertility for granted and not to put trying for a baby off for too long. No one ever thinks they are going to be the couple who has to have IVF. Your garden is so pretty!

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  5. This is tough. The feeling the house you love has been against you. (I know this feeling, oddly enough.) The feeling that others just assume they'll have what you wanted so much. And the feeling too that everyone just discounts the possibility that there are other ways to live, or even the need to consider that there are other ways to live.

    I am glad that your gardening made you feel better. And I'm not surprised that you had a little meltdown. These things come and go - you may have a thin veneer of scar tissue over the wounds, but that doesn't mean that every part is healed, or that you won't occasionally still knock against something and unexpectedly feel the pain and open the wound again. The good news as that the wound will heal over more quickly this time, and next time. And the fact that your beautiful garden helps this process is so lovely.

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    1. Oh no, I'm sorry you know the feeling that your home is conspiring against you... although I feel less crazy now, thank you. :) Thank you for the assurance that while this will keep happening, it will get easier to bounce from it. The garden really does help, god help me when these things happen in the winter!

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  6. Oh I hear you!! As I'm looking online at houses for sale (just looking at this point), I notice how different it is this time around. Last time I was looking for a house it was for a house where I could raise my children. And I found it. And we bought it. And then our children never came. So we sold that house and eventually moved out of state. Now I am looking around again and it is SO DIFFERENT. I don't care about school districts; I don't particularly care about how many bedrooms there are. I only care that it has at least a small patch of grass outside so I can get a dog again. But then my mother keeps telling me about resale value blah blah blah. I'm so glad that having kids works out for other people, but I can't base my next house on what those other people might want if/when we decide to sell it. I get so sick of living my life according to fertile people. I should get to live in a home that fits my husband and me without worrying about resale value according to other (fertile) people's needs and desires.

    Anyway, that ended up being a little rant there...

    I love your garden so much! I've never had one and the plants I bought for my new apartment's balcony have already died, despite my pruning and watering and giving them lots of love. Maybe I should start with a cactus hahaha...

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    1. Oh, rant away! It is interesting, isn't it -- that we don't have to worry about double-yellow-line streets anymore, or school districts, or safety concerns like creeks in the backyard. All those things matter not at all anymore. I wish that we could be like, "well, just resell to another childfree infertile couple! Duh!" but that might be weird. :) I wish it wasn't though. Our house is weird because we didn't buy it together with the thought of raising a family, I moved in after Bryce's divorce and now have lived in it roughly 5 times longer than his ex wife did, and it looks totally different. So it's like a refurbished home we created together, but not from scratch. If that makes sense.

      Yes, try the succulents, ha! They are very trendy and don't need a lot of care. :) Thanks for the garden love.

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  7. Ugh. I hate it when people just assume that they are going to get pregnant right away with no issues.

    I love the edging! That looks like something that we should do for our garden. Hmmm maybe for next year...

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    1. It's so annoying, right? And yet, if you don't know people who have gone through it, so possible. I mean, I NEVER thought that we'd take so long (and then have it be NOT an eventuality) when we were starting out, and we knew we had issues reproductively. I guess it's that whole youth, "it won't happen to me" thought processing.

      And yeah, thanks! That edging is great. It's also removable! I got it at Gardeners.com, a great supply company for all things garden and outdoor space.

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  8. Oh, yes, the progression. First comes love, then comes marriage...it can be hard to be the pioneer of an unexpected path. People don't expect it.

    That frog visit is so cool! And your yard looks so inviting and lush and loved.

    I wept a little with you. And then I felt all right with you, too. xoxo

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    1. "Pioneer of an unexpected path" -- such a truth. Thanks for loving the garden and my buddy the wood frog, and for the tears. It's all right, I swear it is, even when there's weeping. XOXO right back!

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  9. Grief. It waxes and wanes. Even in the midst of appreciating the good you do have in your life, life will not cease to remind you of the life you once imagined.

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  10. I so totally get this. I can remember having lunch with one of my high school girlfriends, not long after I got married, & her commenting that "You're the only one of us who did exactly what she said she was going to do!" (in terms of what I wanted to study & do as a career, as well as getting married). We just assumed the kids would come along, eventually. It's like, yes, everything was going according to plan -- until it wasn't. :p I was looking around our condo the other day & saying to dh, "You know I love this place, but sometimes I look around & it hits me, "How did I get here??!!"" I mean, my life is great, and I love the condo -- but this is NOT the way my life was supposed to go!!" Life is full of surprises, I guess... (good & bad!).

    Your garden is gorgeous!

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