Don't Ask

By nature, I’m a private person.  By that, I don’t mean quiet or reserved, but I have always been guarded about revealing my true self.  As many women do, I want people to think I have it all together when they look at me, thought that’s rarely the case.  In many ways, this blog has been counterintuitive to the way I carry myself in my daily life.

Nevertheless, here we are and one reason for that is that I needed people to know and understand why my life looks the way it does.  It seems the purpose has been served because I got through Open House and the first week of school without being asked one time whether or not I have children.  Either the word is out about me or I’m getting so old that no one cares anymore. 

It was different during our first few years of trying unsuccessfully to conceive.  I began to dread meeting new people and seeing old friends, both in my personal and professional life, for the chitchat that was bound to ensue. 

“Do you have children?” No. (At some point, I stopped saying, “Not yet.”)

“How long have you been married?” Long enough.

“What are you waiting for?” Awkward pause.

I never figured out how to deal with the questions without lying, forcing discomfort on the other person, and/or feeling my own blood pressure rise.  All I knew for sure was that I hated the expectation and ultimately the judgment.  Over the past several years with the explosion of social media, our already unnatural curiosity about private matters has been magnified.   I’m not sure I would be any better if I hadn’t been dealt my particular life experiences, but my best advice to my former self and for anyone else is simple: just don’t ask.

The intrusion isn’t limited to us childless folks.  It stretches to those who choose to (or don’t choose but still do) have just one child and to those who are waiting to become grandparents.   I’m sure similar questions are frequent for those who are blessed with more than the average 2.5 children per American household or had their children close together in age, and the same type of unwarranted questioning affects single and/or divorced adults.  The questions seem innocent enough on the surface, but to the person being asked, it hurts, sometimes in a more lasting way than you’d imagine. 

There is a difference between being friendly and being nosy.  If you aren’t sure which you are, scale back.  In most cases, the asking is completely innocent and simply seen as the easiest way to start a conversation.  Perhaps it is easy, if the answers are what you expect.  But for those of us who defy expectations, it’s anything but easy.  Find another topic for mindless chatter- the weather is always safe.  In some cases, there is genuine care, interest, and concern behind the questions.  But those of us answering can feel the difference.  We all should examine our hearts before we speak to such matters. 

I think I can speak for everyone whose life doesn’t fit into a perfect little box when I say this: please don’t evaluate my sanity or worth based on what my life looks like on the outside.  Perhaps that’s not the intent in asking such questions, but sometimes that’s what it feels like to those of us who spend every day intentionally making our own way and learning to love each day based on the path God has laid out for us.

I’ll even suggest a compromise.  If you want to ask, that’s fine, but please get to know me first.   There are certain questions that simply can’t be given justice on a first meeting or during a quick encounter in public.  So in short, don’t ask.  When the time is right, I’ll tell you and you won’t even have to ask.  Until then…nice weather we’ve been having…

The Woman at Target

(not to be confused with The Target Lady)

I don’t text and drive (I promise, Brent) but I do have a problem with texting and shopping.  In some ways, this is just as hazardous as it’s certainly no easier to steer a shopping cart with one hand than it is to drive that way.  Earlier today I was in Target, Cartwheeling with one hand and haphazardly pushing my cart with the other, when I had to stop dead in my tracks for a couple of toddlers in the aisle.  Then I heard a voice say, “Mom, wait for the babies!” I looked up and saw there were five small children: the toddler boy/girl twins who had originally caught my eye, the young girl who was calling for her mom, and a brother in between, plus a newborn on Mom’s shoulder.

“Five,” I thought to myself.  I’m pretty sure a few other shoppers were casting a sideways glance and making a similar observation.  However, while my wide-eyed glance may have looked judgy or rude, the truth behind my pause is that I was jealous.  Not just a little jealous, a lot jealous.  Let-me-stop-to-stare-for-a-moment-and-see-exactly-what-it-is-that-you-have-and-I-don’t jealous.  This woman looked sweet, respectable, intelligent, and amazingly put together to have five kids in tow.  My next, and all too familiar, thought was, “Wonder what God sees in her that He doesn’t see in me.”

The irony of this situation is that I never wanted five kids.  Two, maybe three, but if someone had told me when I was 20 that I was going to have five kids, I probably would have avoided marriage altogether to avoid the risk.  I’m perfectly happy teaching twenty-five kids for six hours a day, but if I had to keep five children alive for 24 hours a day, I’m honestly not sure I could do it.  It wasn’t about the number of children, or about the fact that they were adorable, well-behaved, perfectly spaced out age-wise and looked a lot like their mama.  I was jealous because she got what I wanted not once, not twice, but FIVE times.

Recently I described it this way to a friend: Every time anyone I know announces they’re pregnant, this feeling of abandonment and desperation washes over me.  I feel like an actor in an old movie, deserted on an island, waving my hands and jumping up and down, shouting at a propeller plane in the distance, hoping to get noticed and rescued.  Only the pilot never sees the stranded person on the first flyover and the person is left there alone and exhausted, breathing a deep sigh of disappointment, scrounging around for nourishment, wondering if they’ll ever be rescued. 

While I’ve come a long way in accepting and learning to embrace God’s plan for mine and Brent’s life, I don’t think these moments of jealousy, resentment, and sadness will ever completely disappear.  The fact remains that there’s something I want (desperately) and while I can’t have it for whatever reason, other people get it—sometimes without even having to ask—every single day.  It’s hard not to feel like God is flying right over my desperate pleas, looking the other way, maybe even choosing not to hear my cries.  But that’s where I’m wrong.  These emotions warrant strong adjectives because they ARE strong AND unwieldy- the jealousy is biting, the resentment is deep-seated and the sadness can be overwhelming at times.  But they are emotions, feelings…they are NOT truth and how much power I give them is up to me.

The truth is not found in that jealousy that wells up inside me in Target.  It is not found in that resentment and sadness that I still (much to my dismay) have trouble handling when a friend announces she’s pregnant.  All our minds and hearts battle with fact and fiction continuously, but the only sure place to find truth is in God’s word.  1 John 5:14 reminds me, “And this is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” 

It’s not that the lady at Target is better at catching God’s attention than I am and it’s not that He cares more about what others want than what I want.  It’s not that God doesn’t hear me or doesn’t like me.  It’s just that His will for my life is different than His will for theirs, sometimes five times over.  And that is okay.  Lest I forget…

I Can't Fix This

Countless times the last few years I’ve turned to my husband, tears streaming down my face, and said, “I can’t fix this.”  Oftentimes these meltdowns have centered on our inability to have a baby.  But many times, my heartache has stretched farther.  Infertility has threatened my self-esteem, my relationships, my sanity, and my faith. I’d like to say I’ve kept the upper hand, but too often, I’ve let it defeat me.

Whenever we’re faced with a difficult situation, we can only hope we’ll handle it with grace and with dignity.  As adults, we know better than to grovel, to panic, and to self-implode.  But the pain can be blinding, the circumstances overwhelming, and those are the times when our emotions overtake our intelligence, our maturity, and even our peace with God.  I’m a perfectionist, which really just means I struggle with pride.  Once I’ve let myself slip, I find it hard to find the motivation to even try to improve.  I continually battle the feeling that it’s all or nothing, and if I can’t have it all, I may as well have nothing.     

This attitude has been costly to my quality of life these last few years.  While there have been plenty of good days (the number is ever-increasing and I’m thankful) the bad days have been dark, hopeless, and biting.  Only just recently I’ve begun to face the truth that my attitude has been damaging not only to myself but also to those around me.  It’s nobody’s fault what I’ve been through, but I am responsible for the way I’ve handled it.  I wish I had handled it differently, but the fact is I did the best I could at the time.  Forgiving myself means pushing aside my pride: both admitting I’ve made mistakes and not letting those missteps keep me from moving forward.

I can’t fix the damage I’ve done.  I can’t go back and attend baby showers with a genuine smile instead of a fake one.  I can’t erase terse, unfeeling texts and e-mails I’ve sent in response to baby news from well-meaning friends.  I can’t unsay the lies I’ve yelled at my husband as he’s persistently tried to love me through this.  I can’t just pretend it’s not awkward with people I’ve distanced myself from, sometimes on purpose and sometimes before I’d even realized what I’d done.  I can’t get back the days I’ve wasted not growing in my relationship with God because I was angry with Him.

The only thing I have a chance at fixing is the future.  I can celebrate at that next baby shower for what God has given, rather than resenting what isn’t to be.  I can be genuinely happy for others as their families grow, remembering their journey is for them and mine is for me.  I can let my husband love me through it all and be thankful for all that we have, instead of fixating on the one thing we don’t.  I can slowly but surely work to close the gaps I’ve created with my bitterness, my envy, and my regret.  I can do all this by not wasting another day stagnating in my relationship with God all because His plan for my life didn’t match mine.

I can’t fix this.  But God can.  He specializes in redeeming our mistakes for His glory.  We only have to let Him.  Yesterday morning, I noticed a quote in my Sunday School book that spoke directly to my heart: “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” -Henry Ford  

Let us live like we believe it.

The Gray

Only recently have I begin to come to terms with the fact that (barring a miracle) Brent and I will never be parents.  It’s an unwieldy thought to wrestle with and I’ll admit that sometimes it overtakes me.  It’s not a choice we’ve made, and at the same time, it is.  Do I own this reality, or does it own me?  I’m not sure it will ever be a clear matter- rather than black and white, it feels like a murky gray through which I’ll forever be trying to navigate.

I’m not so good with gray areas.  I hate making decisions, rarely break the rules, and prefer to blend in.  Sometimes I wonder what God was thinking in choosing me, of all people, to walk this path.  I’ve second-guessed, procrastinated, questioned, avoided, denied, and mishandled just about every aspect of this journey.  Yet it seems to be the plan He’s allowed for my life, and, do I dare admit—with good reason?  It seems this gray area is teaching me far more than the black and white ever would have.   

In my early twenties, I would have sworn to you that my life had to follow a particular script in order to be complete.  Heck, if you’d asked, I would’ve typed it out for you, right there on paper, in black and white.  I had my lines memorized and my timing planned out, and you’d better believe I was ready to live out a “perfect” life worthy of a standing ovation.  Little did I realize the play wasn’t mine to write and the best acting in the world couldn’t save it.

More times than not in recent years, I’ve been clueless as to what the next scene would entail.  My tears blurred the lines on the page and many days, I was left with nothing but a big gray smudge of nothingness.  I’ve faltered, I’ve failed, and I’ve fantasized of starring in absolutely any role but that of my own.  But all the while, God was still writing my story, never giving up.   

There’s one question that has haunted me relentlessly in the depths of this fog: how can I live a "full" life if we accept this fate of childlessness?  But lately, I think I’ve had the question all wrong.  Instead, perhaps it’s this: would I really have ever lived a full life with the fate I’d have chosen for myself?  God knows our strengths and our weaknesses, our limits and our potential, our capabilities and our downfalls.  He knows not just what we need from the world, but what the world needs from us. He also knows that all we really need is Him.

We tend to view our surroundings and our circumstances in terms of black and white, right and wrong, fair and unfair.  There are certain thoughts, harsh realities, and uncertain futures that are nearly impossible for us to wrap our minds around.  Sometimes we have to realize there is no clear answer, no side we can take, and no guarantee.  Sometimes all there is the outstretched hand of our Savior, offering to lead us through the murky gray.  My prayer for us all is that we’ll take it rather than lose ourselves in the fog.  Because the truth is He knew best all along.    

Making It Look Easy

I’ve always prided myself on my strength.  I can push through just about anything in such a way that those around me don’t even realize I’m having to push.  I find it almost impossible to cry in front of others (except for my sweet husband- God bless him) and I’m an expert at putting on a happy face.  At times, my strength is genuine as I rely on God but at other times I’ll admit it’s more of just a really good acting job. 

This strength has allowed me to keep my pride intact these past few years.  I’ve attended and planned baby showers with perceived ease, stoically congratulated countless friends once they’ve worked up the nerve to tell me they’re pregnant, and warded off unsolicited advice time and time again with as much grace as I can muster.  I’ve developed a persona that I’m comfortable with, as much as a coping mechanism as anything else.  During a time when so much was being stripped away (my dreams, my womanhood, my naivety) I was determined to at least hold onto my pride… and for the most part I’ve been successful, for better or for worse.

There’s been little “in-between” for me.  While the bulwark of strength may have been a feasible approach for my public life, personally I could’ve afforded to let my guard down once in a while.  There’s a fine line between private and unapproachable, between dignity and conceit, between self-reliant and alone.  I’ve realized perhaps too late that my strong and steady façade has built walls that may never come down.  Pride is a dangerous thing.  In making it look easy, in some ways I’ve made it harder.

Don’t mistake my outward silence for inner peace.  Sometimes I can’t speak because there are no words that I could make you understand.  If I walk away or withdraw in a moment I can’t handle, it’s not because I don’t care- it’s because I care in a way that cuts to the core.  If you feel distance, it’s not that I wanted it to be this way- it’s that now that it is, I’m not the same person you once knew.  I might make it look easy, but it’s anything but. 

I realize now that I should’ve come right out and asked for more grace along the way.  We rarely get it right the first time around in this journey we call life.  I thought that by making it look easy, it would make things less difficult for my friends and family.  In truth, all they wanted was the real me, not the strong and steady persona I developed.  But there’s no going back now and at the time, I absolutely did the best I could.

A word of caution: if you’re surprised at how well someone is holding it together in light of their circumstances, it’s probably a façade.  If their outward appearance is strong, there’s probably another corner of their heart that’s unraveled completely.   Even if they’re making it look easy, it’s not.  Love them gently, with grace and forgiveness; I promise they’re doing the best they can. 

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” 

–Proverbs 16:18 

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” 

–Galations 6:2