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).
You know how sometimes you only start realizing something after talking about a certain topic with someone else/other people? Well, the other day I was talking online about inner circle and I suddenly realized that my view of what I call my inner circle has changed.
In the past, before infertility, I used to have a specific group of people as my inner circle in my sacred chamber. I believed with all my heart and soul that they would be there forever. I believed that they were my chosen ones and that nobody else could take their places. Infertility shredded that view to pieces and now my inner circle consists of random empathetic people who enter that sacred spot and stay there for a while with me and my pain. I am thankful for and cherish those people and their presence in my sacred chamber and then let them go. I more than welcome them if they happen to drop by again, but if they don't, I'll cherish the moment that they spent there with me.
P.S. Here's a view of the gloriously pink sky outside today. It was -25'C when I took this photo.
A dear friend of mine has just lost her husband on NY eve. It came as a shock, even though I knew he had been sick for a few years.
The other day I had a long text chat with her and it was uncanny how many similarities there were between her grief and my worst infertility grief. When I shared with her what happened during my worst moments (I had never shared these with her before), she said that now she understood what it felt like as she had felt it, too. And when I shared with her the other feelings I felt (anger, self-pity, jealousy, bitterness, guilt, etc.), she began to open up about those feelings, too. She said that she wouldn't wish this experience on her worst enemy and I told her that was exactly what I felt at one point in time.
Grief connections. If I hadn't experienced infertility, I wouldn't have understood this kind of experience and if she hadn't experienced this loss, she wouldn't have understood what I felt. Granted, the both of us wouldn't have wished to have this kind of connection in the first place, but I'm thankful for this grief connection. This is one of those moments when I believe with my whole being that my pain isn't for nothing and I dare say that my pain is worth it.
Rest in peace, dear friend...
The other day at work I had this amusing encounter.
Two customers (a man and a woman) that I've met on and off came to the store together. As far as I know, they're not a couple, but who knows? The woman is more or less my age, maybe slightly older (i.e. nearing 40) and from the bits of chit-chats we've had, I don't think she has children. I don't know anything much about the man, but he's quite new in town.
The woman then asked me if Santa came to our place and I was feeling cheeky at the moment, so without thinking twice, I put on a wicked grin on my face and replied, "Yes, but it's a secreeetttt!"
Both the man and the woman went "OooooohHHHHHH!" when they heard that and the woman added, "Is this the kind of secret that will be revealed in 9 months?"
In a split second lots of thoughts were whizzing through my mind. WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?! Where did that come from? Mental forehead slap! Of course! D'oh! I shouldn't have said it like that!
I immediately corrected her, "No, no, no, no, NOOOOOOOOO!"
Then the man said, "Maybe she's got a Ferrari."
I smiled and said, "Yes, a flying Ferrari!"
After the exchange, I couldn't help feeling amused with the fact that the woman immediately thought it was pregnancy, whereas the man thought it was a Ferrari.
