I have started this entry in my mind more times than I care to admit. I have started it over and over in different ways, but each feels wrong:
You hear the stories- you hear the stories but you never expect to be one. To have one of your own to share.
My husband and I don't have a fertility problem, we have a cancer problem.
Have you ever jumped feet first, straight as an arrow, into an unknown body of water? let yourself sink slowly to the bottom just to find out how deep it really is? the air spilling slowly from your lungs as the water gets darker? Sometimes you reach it and sometimes you don't.
I haven't reached it. Not yet. The air is still spilling from my lungs, the water is pitch black, and I haven't reached the bottom of the pool yet. My toes haven't scraped along the floor even though the heaviness driving me deeper and deeper is relentless and becoming more familiar every day. And I think that is why I cannot seem to start, compose, or finish this post.
I've been drowning (to maintain the aquatic theme) for more than a little while now- been pulled down by the weight of unexpected and untenable grief and anger and terrible guilt. And I don't know how to make my head and heart meet because of- or in spite of- or to address- it, them. I don't know how to make my intellect and my emotion connect and converse and I certainly don't know how to let that conversation guide my words.
I know. This is all very cryptic. And absolutely none of it makes sense beyond some scary words and pregnant feelings. But I will grieve. And I will get there.
And I will tell my story.
Our story.
