Desire & Grief

Nothing I want is compatible.

I want a Real Mom.
I want to naturally conceive a child.
I want my husband to excite and interest me as much as Peter does.
I want to live in the United States (bigger house, more trees, better/cheaper food).
I want to work as a consultant child psychotherapist in the NHS.

So you see, no matter which way I move forward, there is loss. There is grief in going. There is grief in staying. I cannot see over the horizon.

I do not have a Real Mom.
My husband and I cannot naturally conceive.
Drew will never be Peter.
I do not live in the United States.

So, as long as I can contain all of that grief, I can focus on the only certainty in front of me: my masters begins at the end of the month.

If I leave Drew, I may have a chance at finding another Peter and may even then still conceive a child naturally. But I will not be able to afford my masters (financially or emotionally). I may even need to move back to the United States.

So, the cost of leaving Drew and moving back to the US is training as a child psychotherapist and working in the NHS. There's also a risk I won't find another Peter nor conceive a child naturally (biological clock is ticking hard).

The cost of not leaving Drew and staying to train as a child psychotherapist is spending loads of money on fertility treatments I really don't want, which we can only afford if we stay in our current house, which means avoiding Peter for yet more years, not because we don't get along but because we get along too well. I can't keep playing this game. It doesn't matter if he will never choose me. It doesn't matter what he wants or what he feels.

I can let Peter go. What I can't let go is how I feel. I think it's beautiful. I think it's amazing. When I call on that feeling, it comes with hope that I can feel connected to something (someone) in this world. That I do exist, that I can be seen. That I can hold someone in my mind, even when I'm thousands of hours away.

Something other than despair fills me. Something of my own; something made within me.

And I wish a world existed that could understand, that could make room for me today. I'm growing up; it's a step I chose myself. And in an ordinary world, were I an ordinary girl, my first love would have been at 13 not 30.

I tell myself: it's okay. What I'm experiencing now, they may not ever understand, but I do. I'm opening up. It can only be good, having feelings of my own instead of living off yours.

But it only gets harder from here.