There but for the Grace of God…

My friend Mamjojo23 has a lovely blog with posts that often make me think. Her latest post reflects on how this whole “journey” (she describes it perfectly as “the Groundhog Day from hell”) has affected her now that it’s nearing its end.

I responded in a way that I know to be true, even if I don’t feel it sometimes. I have been trying to live my way into knowing this not just in my mind but in my bones:

Thanks for this. I’m not yet in the “retrospective” phase. I’m right in the hard, uncertain middle of it. Still in the middle of my FIRST try — never mind number two if we don’t end up with twins.

I have also learned to let the sadness pass through me and not dwell on it so much. Feel it, and let it go. But I still most definitely have PTSD that can be triggered without warning. A travel delay (that reminds me of the horrible travel day we had before my first miscarriage) can smack me down into a deep hole.

But I nose my way out of the hole faster and faster, and I always know I CAN nose my way out, even when I don’t yet see how.

That’s not to say I’m not damned tired of holes (and NOTHING else, at least when it comes to this particular life-altering endeavor). But it has been humbling in a lot of good ways. It helps me understand better, truly, deep down, that the sun shines and the sky rains on the just and the unjust alike. I don’t have any kind of special exemption from that. There but for the grace of God go I, in every way imaginable.

If this is the worst burden I ever bear, I can only be grateful. And if things get worse, I can still only be grateful, because even if I never get another thing in life, the universe has already given me so much more than I ever “deserved.” It was just a gift.

If I get this other gift, too, of a child or children to love and raise, so much the better.