When you talk about letting go (esp. letting go of complicated things), many times over your mind knows already what to do and your mind is totally ready to let go and has probably started to let go, but your heart will have to catch up and it's taking its own sweet time. The mind is knocking your head over and over again while saying, "You should know better! You should know better! Let go!" but then your heart is saying, "I'm not quite there yet, you know? I need more time." The mantra "be kind to yourself, be
kind to yourself" must then be repeated over and over and over again as
you try to let go of your own frustration.
Today is a friend's birthday and it reminded me of something that crossed my mind during TTC. I was born two days before my mom's birthday, so in a way I was her early birthday present. This fact never really raised to the surface of my consciousness until we started TTC (chuckle!). And furthermore, on husband's side, his eldest brother had the same birthday as their dad. At that time the idea of being able to get/give a birthday present this way (either for me or my husband) was really appealing.
I realize now that this was one of the things in my "baby dream package" that I had to let go of. This and the fact that I would like to be able to tell our child her/his birth/childhood stories the way my parents did. These wishes are just a few examples of the many, many, many layers of invisible losses. No wonder it takes a lot of time and a lot of work, especially when your heart is taking much more time to catch up. And no wonder it's so misunderstood, don't you think? When the world scratches its head and responds, "Loss? What loss? Get over it, I'm not comfortable with your pain!", what we truly experience is a complicated maze of losses or rows and rows of buried wishes (some of which we'll only find further away in the journey) and in the depth of it all, it's so overwhelming that it's difficult to even begin to explain it to someone outside the journey. All you can do is find your own tribe and take as much time as you need...
Anyway, this is something unrelated, but I'd like to share this gorgeous video clip with you all. Someone in the comment section wrote this: "this performance was dedicated to their former teammate, who died from
brain cancer. this was the song he used to perform with when doing the
individual competitions. usually group gymnastics have teammates
cheering them, clapping before/after each big feat, but for this they
remained quiet for their said teammate. so moving and so beautiful!"
As a Chinese descendant in Indo, in my younger years I struggled with the idea of belonging. I felt that the nation itself didn't acknowledge me fully as their own, so I wrestled with the idea that I wasn't a native anywhere. Where did I belong then? The Chinese (mainland Chinese) would have nothing to do with me as I don't even speak their language and I don't know their customs and their way of life. I wasn't interested in learning the language at all as it was a grueling process that needed money and determination (I chose to study English instead) and in my young mind at that time, I didn't want to be even more "Chinese" than I already was. I was bitter and angry for some years because of this.
A square peg in a round hole. That was what I felt. My saving grace was the fact that there was a big Chinese community in Indo and I had lots of friends that were in a similar position and I grew up with lots of relatives and cousins. When the riot happened in 1998, I felt sick to my stomach that my Chinese facial features could have made me a target of attacks (FYI my family was safe), but there were others who were in a similar position, so I didn't feel alone and I was definitely not alone. We tried looking out for one another as a group and we tried to stay home as much as we could. After the political situation got better in Indo, I started to be more at ease and the older I got, the more I came to terms with the non-native idea. I'm a citizen of the world, native to none and that's OK. Now, after having lived in Finland for a little over 8 years, I'm partly Chinese-Indonesian, partly Finnish, and partly Indonesian. Even with this hodgepodge of cultures within me, I can still find other people like me relatively easily through the wonder of the internet and as an expat in Finland, it's again relatively easy to find other expats and relate to them. Being a childless-not-by-choice woman, though, that took the isolation to a whole new level as regular people (even those that didn't lack empathy in other areas) couldn't really relate to this. The first time I used the world "infertile" in my emails to my closest friends, their reaction was so strong that it made me feel as though I had jinxed myself for using that word to describe myself. Yet I desperately needed the term to find my support group, to find those people who could understand and validate my inner chaos (and thereby validate that I wasn't a bad person just because I had my inner chaos). After we decided to let go of this dream, I started using the term non-mom or childless-not-by-choice (CNBC) as my self-identification in order to find my support group. That said, these days I've started thinking more about labels and how I'd like to call myself. All through these years there's one thing that never changes about me: I LOVE exploring my own thoughts and feelings and finding out why I feel the way I feel and then figuring out what to do with them. I enjoy the ecstasy of screaming out "EUREKA!" when I finally find out why I feel the way I feel, even way before I can figure out what to do with them.
So hereby I'd like to declare my current badge: I'm an Eternal Self-Explorer. Nice to meet you. :-)
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.
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?
