Tag: creating writing

No Pain, No Gain

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Last year, one of my goals in therapy was to find out more about my ability to have children.

I am a relatively anxious person. I spent the better part of 2019 on anti-anxiety medicine, which I eventually weaned off of at the end of the summer. I was having health complications and suicidal thoughts, so stopping the medication was the best option. I was prescribed a different medicine, but before I started taking it, I realized that I felt good. Like… good, good. So good, in fact, that I felt better than I did since before J and I broke up.

I was back. I was energized and motivated. I felt excitement about things. I felt emotions. A LOT of them. But all in a good way. I created a lot of art. I read books. I made lists. I was me.

Although my anxiety was doing better and I was feeling so much more fulfilled in life, I still had this gaping curiosity and fear about my own fertility.

So, I ordered this hormone test online called Modern Fertility. I just lanced my finger a little while ago, and as I awkwardly type this with a bandage on my left, middle finger, the sample is drying on a card that I send back to the laboratory. In 7-10 days, I will get my results. Typically, one should test every 12 months or so for the most accurate results, but this will give me some indication if things are okay or if I need to see a specialist.

Having a child is something I’ve always envisioned, and as I near 37, I know there is not a lot of time left. This hasn’t escalated my search for a life partner or donor; I haven’t even dated anyone in a year and a half. I don’t want to rush into a decision that may be for the wrong reasons or may not be right for me, because I don’t know the person well enough. I still need time to heal myself, too. Ideally, within 3 years I would like to have a child, if it’s still in the cards for me.

Depending on what my results are, I will know if there’s extra precautions or steps I can take to ensure my chances of conceiving in the future.

Either way, for today, I did one more thing on my “Amanda To-Do List”, and I am proud of myself. Since I started therapy a little over a year ago, I have made so much progress. Not only am I more stable and much more intrinsically fulfilled, I have also healed a lot of emotional wounds, learned the power of “no”, and created boundaries where needed. I have taken charge of my life instead of being a silent on-looker, who was essentially apathetic about whether the trajectory was heading to success or a tragedy.

The blood draw was a mere pinch, but the months that led me to today have been like being pressed tight in a vice, wrung out, then hammered full of nails.

I can lose a little blood for this.

Unsettled

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Is it weird that my heart breaks when my ex talks about his relationship woes?

The drive from Willimantic to Southbridge was nice. We needed to catch up, since it had been a few months since we had seen each other, and we text far less now that he has a girlfriend with whom he lives.

When I parked on the steep hill and stepped out of the car to find him on his front stoop, I wasn’t sure if she was there… if I should go introduce myself. Turns out, she had left the house before I arrived, so he got in my driver’s side and drove us to my mom’s, since I had just been driving for an hour. I joked with him that it’s fine, because I was too lazy to ever take him off my insurance.

On the way, we talked mostly about him—how things have been going with the girl; how involved he is with his church. We passed the cemetery I once peed in, because I couldn’t wait any longer, and I pointed and said, “I peed in that cemetery.” J replied, “Yup. And we were listening to Death Cab for Cutie. Fond memory of the early days.”

At my mother’s, he was his usual reticent self. While my sister chattered on about work and gardening, J pulled out his phone and silently played a game. Occasionally, he would say a word or two, but mostly he’d pause to look up at the tv and then back at his phone.

This might be regarded as rude, but it’s not. It’s just J. As soon as someone engages him in conversation, he’ll talk. He’s just always been the more introverted, quiet observer-type.

Out on the deck with my sister, I commented, “I was thinking about how quiet J was being and then I remembered J is always that quiet.” She goes, “Yeah. That’s J.”

It did not feel odd in the slightest to have him there with us while we celebrated my mom’s birthday. My sister provided a delicious dinner and we sat around and talked for a while. My belly was full, my eyes were stinging from cigarette smoke, and I was starting to get a headache, so very shortly after my sister departed, we decided to, also.

On the drive home, there was more serious talk about our relationships and god. It’s so fascinating to me how, now, we agree on so many things, that I give him advice and insight, and he listens and understands. We’ve traversed miles of communication barriers and selfishness in the four-plus years we’ve been apart.

We both wondered if we’d only ever be each other’s one shot at “it”. I told him that sometimes I thought so. Maybe that was our chance for love and we couldn’t do it. Maybe we are both destined not to find our “ones”. Those chances were buried just like the graves next to which I relieved my full bladder on one of our happy, free-spirited rides when love was young and rife with hope.

There’s only one other person since J who has remotely made me feel the way J has in terms of depth of connection and romance. In terms of overflowing emotion and true compassion and appreciation for their existence. He knows who he is.

But lately, I’ve just been wading endlessly in an ocean with a hazy horizon point. I can’t tell where I’m going, where I’m supposed to go, and what I’ll find when I get there.

Since I already have found what I’m looking for, twice, I don’t really know what else I’m supposed to uncover.

It’s been a long four years of feeling unsettled. Even when I was in my on-and-off-again relationship with my other ex after J, I never felt assured. I had no idea if he loved me or not, and he continually kept me dangled on some potential hope we might live together only to sabotage things and pull it away from me.

For years, I’ve learned only to trust myself. To love myself. And to know that even if I never find the “one”, I have enough self-love that I’ll be fine.

That doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t break whenever I think about the one who got away from me, or the ones who won’t give me a fair chance. That doesn’t mean that although I would not get back together with J, my heart doesn’t wrench and sizzle with anger that he’s dealing with immaturity or a person who doesn’t share the same aspirations and passions.

I want to cloak and protect him, maybe because we couldn’t protect ourselves from each other.

Maybe because I’ve been guarding and protecting myself for so long, it’s the only thing I know how to do.