A few years back I read those words in a book. "Beware nostalgia", Jean Vanier said in reply to someone who was wondering if she had left her previous mission place too soon (Jean Vanier Essential Writings, page 56). I never really thought much about those words, though they stuck in my mind. The other day, though, the words really spoke to me personally.
Jean Vanier's words and the conversation I had with some friends helped me a great deal in dealing with my nostalgic feelings and angst. Suffice it to say that if friendship were an entity, I had been holding on to its dying body all these years because I couldn't yet let go of the nostalgia. I kept holding on to the good that we had had together, hoping that the body would function better if only I kept on trying to give it CPR. However, my efforts only made me more resentful, because an imbalanced friendship never works. I tried lowering down my expectations a few times, but apparently the CPR I kept on giving to the dying body only acted like a venom to my own psyche. The venom of unmet expectations. When one wants and longs to give more time and effort, but one needs to hold back because the other party cannot give as much anymore, it is a loss. It is devastating to turn a forever friendship into a no-strings-attached (acquaintance-like) friendship.
The body of friendship was dying, so I had to let it go completely. No more holding on to nostalgia to keep the body alive. This time I arranged a sea burial in my mind. I placed the dying body on a raft and set it to burn. The waves carried the burning raft away to the darkened horizon. After a while, my gaze turned to the sky, where the stars were twinkling away...and I feel lighter.
glitter-graphics.com
One of the places I visited on my last travel was Highgate Cemetery. When I was there, I couldn't help thinking of all the texts or quotes written on the stones. I haven't noticed any additional texts on the gravestones here in this village, though I haven't really looked, either. Yet walking around Highgate Cemetery, which was filled with so many texts or quotes, made me think of how people choose them for their loved ones. Those texts range from "beloved by all" or "in loving memory" or "finally together again" or "he/she was much loved" or "at peace with God". My hopeless-romantic part love those different texts. :-)
My logic, though, is a different matter. I've given up any thought of how I'd like my body to be dealt with when I'm gone because it depends on who will be left behind and that person(s) left behind may not be anyone close to me because half of my family lives in Indo. That said, though, this tablet managed to reduce me to near tears as I was leaving the cemetery through the gift shop:
Anyway, here are some lovely quotes by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (many more in the link below):
“We run after values that, at death, become zero. At the end of your life, nobody asks you how many degrees you have, or how many mansions you built, or how many Rolls Royces you could afford. That’s what dying patients teach you.”
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the
sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed
only if there is a light from within.”
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Note: I've been a bad blogger and blog-hopper lately. I got sick twice already this year (both times on antibiotics), been so busy with work and other things in my life (including lovely travels). Kinda overwhelmed now with the thought of having to catch up on things, but I'll do it slowly. I'll be less busy in a few weeks, so I'll blog hop then, but now need to share this post.
A while back someone wrote me an email, saying something roughly like this, "Ummm...I don't know the details of your infertility history, but I recall that you've told me that you've moved on. However, I notice that you still share links about infertility and you still write infertility-related stuff in your wall posts in FB and that makes me worried that you haven't really moved on at all."
Cue the sound of me falling off my chair. Okay, not literally, but it seriously made me shocked on several levels. First of all, how dare she tell me whether I have moved on or not, especially since she doesn't know the details and doesn't bother to know the details! I couldn't help but think that she thought I was in denial or something!
Secondly, I felt cold all over a few seconds later because her email left me with this thought: "Is that what the general public think of when they see my infertility-related links in my FB? That I haven't really moved on?" What a staggering thought!
I then asked another individual about her opinion whenever she saw an infertility-related link that I shared in FB. Her response was different. She said, "Well, I know you enough to know that if you tell me X, you mean X. So if you've told me you've moved on, then I know you've moved on. Secondly, it's a huge part of your life, so it's only natural that you'll want to talk about it."
What a relief! But then again she knows my story and she knows the details. Even though she probably doesn't understand fully, yet she has followed my story, but what about the general public? It's not that I care that much about what other people think, but what is staggering for me is the possible misconception about moving on in general (specifically in a case of a childless-not-by-choice life).
Anyway, I explained to the person who emailed me that childless-not-by-choice was like losing a real person. The difference was that I didn't have any memories to hold on to. And if she thought that moving on meant that I had to stop talking about it completely, then she had it all wrong. After all, if you've lost a person dear to you, moving on after your beloved's death doesn't entail never talking about that person ever again, because you loved him/her and even though he/she is gone, you still love him/her.
Just wondering: has anyone of you ever encountered any conversation like this?
A friend sent me a link to an interesting article about holding space for someone else, but at the end of the article, I found out that there was another link about holding space for yourself first before you can hold space for other people.
The first article reminded me of the struggle I had with jealousy, grief, anger, etc. in the beginning of my infertility journey. At that time I felt the desire to fight them and chase them away, but after some exhaustion and failure, I began to wonder if I was actually supposed to just embrace them as they were without trying to fix/change them and whether the act of embracing them would enable me to be less judgmental when someone else was experiencing those (ugly) feelings that I tried to keep at bay.
Anyway, here are the two articles:
Haven't been blogging or blog-hopping. Been busy with work, being sick (yeah, I finally couldn't avoid it in the end), busy with life and some travel plans this year. I'll catch up on blogging later.
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In the beginning of my infertility journey, when I wore the badge called "infertile", my close friends' reaction took me by surprise. After that one year was up, their reaction made me think that I wasn't supposed to call myself an infertile (just yet) and it made me wonder if I jinxed myself if I used that term to describe myself. For me at that time, though, it was more of a clinical term. I needed a term to call myself so that I knew where to find more info on what to do next. That meant reading a lot of infertility blogs out there for my research. After a while, though, that term began to grow on me. I got used to it and other people started to get used to it, too. So from then on I wore that badge while I tried to navigate life in all its complications of wearing that badge. I clung to that badge, trying to find connection, understanding, support, and direction.
After we decided to turn to childlessness-not-by-choice road, slowly the title on the badge turned into "infertility survivor". The further away the healing took me, the more endearing the badge became to me. Funny how the old badge called "infertile" had a totally different feeling to it. I wasn't ashamed at that old badge, but that badge carried a whole different world to it. That badge contained so much confusion due to the roller-coaster ride that we went through each month. That old badge was a mother lode (pun intended) of chaos and brokenness.
These days, though, I've felt another shift. These days I no longer wear that badge daily. I even forget to put on that badge sometimes. I've just realized this recently, especially after talking to a mother about her challenges the other time. She openly told me stuff that made me felt privileged to be the listener and to my surprise, my "infertility survivor" persona didn't appear. Instead, when she was confiding those private stuff to me, what appeared was just "Amel the human being". That way I could respond to her accordingly. In the past, sometimes the infertile/infertility survivor persona automatically appeared and it took every bit of my power to take a step back and focus on the other person's story first instead of focusing on my pain/grief/needs.
Anyway, I can't believe it's almost the end of March already! Where did time go? However, I do enjoy the coming of spring (I've also been enjoying some Easter chocolate LOL!) and afterwards summer to Lapland!
Been busy with stuff, so haven't been blog-hopping or blogging much. Haven't had too much inspiration, either. Plus I'm now spreading myself even more by trying to write more regularly in my Finnish blog, so I need time to recuperate in between.
Anyway, for those who want to see the article, here goes. It's a mobile phone photo.
Other than being busy, I'm trying not to get sick. My boss is currently sick and I hope it won't spread to us, because we're already having pretty full schedule now that the winter holiday season has started amongst us. That said, I've been rewarding myself with some alcoholic-filled Easter chocolate at home ha ha ha ha ha ha...
These beauties are really good!
I'm PMSing at the moment and I've been a crybaby (as usual, getting touched so easily/crying so easily if I see/watch/read a touching event/story). The other day I saw a touching scene on TV between a mother and her daughter and I instantly shed some tears without any twinge, any pain, any grief on my part.
There was an instant when I thought to myself, "Oh, how beautiful it is to be able to have that moment with your own child" but it was more like a moment when you see someone else's magnificent photos (your not being a photographer yourself nor do you attempt to be a photographer) and you're so touched by their beauty that you can't help blurting out, "WOW! To be able to witness all those moments/places and to be able to capture them in their glory must be something!"
I want to write this down for future use, as this is the first time I've felt something like this. That moment surely felt surreal.
That said, I felt something when I saw an article on myself in the newspaper (it covers Lapland). You see, a few weeks ago a reporter contacted me because he was writing an article on expats in Lapland and I agreed to be interviewed. I assumed he was covering other expats, too. Turned out the article was only about me (Doh! My introvert side cringed!). Anyway, during the interview I told him that we had no kids because the interview was also about what kind of services that expats needed or what challenges expats were facing. I mentioned our childless state to let him know that I couldn't give any input in terms of daycare/school and stuff like that. And no, he didn't ask why we were childless.
The article came out last week and when I read the part where "she and her husband have no kids", I felt something. I searched my heart to figure out what I was feeling...I believe it was fear/worry. Fear/worry of being judged by random people. It was hard not to wonder what the article readers thought about that sole fact. It was one thing to let selected people/my regular customers know that we have no kids, but I have no clue who else the readers of the article could be and how many of them had read the article. It was not only the scale of the article (as opposed to talking one-to-one), but also the fact that it was written in black-and-white for the public eye to see, I suppose.
However, funnily enough I was also somewhat glad that the article mentioned my age (the reporter was very polite, he even asked me for permission first if he could ask about my age or not with a very apologetic look on his face he he he...), because people here think I'm younger than my real age. Even though people here don't pry about children as much as Indo people, a few of them have blurted out, "Ah, you still have time" when I told them that we had no kids (without giving further explanation).
