There are times in my life that I am at peace with not having children or being CNBC - but then there are times you feel like something is missing. Trying to understand where the feeling is coming from is difficult, if not impossible. Is it society? God? Human selfishness?
Did I miss God's calling in a small window I had to conceive? Am I feeling society's pressure? Is it my own human selfishness in my deep motherly instincts?
For a while I can be at peace with where God has me in life, I spend time with other people's kids - feeling fulfilled, feeling motherly, feel like I made a difference. Then there are the times I second guess, I feel like I have failed. I feel like there is a void in my life.
Am I suppose to make more of a difference in a child's life? I come home from work and hug the dog, love on the cat... but then they go back to sleep and I am sitting here alone. I feel I still have more to give at the end of the day.
Am I wasting my life? Am I selfish in not sharing my life by not having a child? I want to say 'stuff-it'. To kick these feelings in the can and again find peace in where.
Then the whispers start again...
"You are not enough."
"You are not a mother."
"You have failed."
"You are not complete."
"You are NOT, NOT, NOT...."
They get louder and louder. As my pastor said today, "We live in a culture that celebrates WHAT people do and not WHO they are." I have done a lot in life! Worked corporate, owned homes, small businesses and more.
But WHO am I? I am a christian. I am a wife, a friend, a supporter, an encouragement to people in my life, an aunt and more... None of this society thinks or an illness diagnosis can take away from me. We have to learn to be a light in the darkness of this society who want to make you into their mold. YOU ARE YOU. YOU, are not what society says you have to be.
I am NOT a soccer mom of three kids, I AM ME. And that's ok... I am not a stereotype.
But... da da da dummm.... Does an understanding and acceptance of yourself make it any easier to deal with the daily flack from society? I don't know. Does it make it easier when an older lady asks if you have children and you say "No". She answers the stereotypical "well you are young, you still have time". Softly I answer, "I am sorry, but I am infertile and cannot have children." Uggghhhh.
The conversation stopped. She didn't know how to speak to me after that. Because I hadn't accomplished what she & society felt I should. She didn't know how to speak to me. She couldn't see ME & WHO I WAS. Only what I hadn't done.
Please don't look at people by what they have DONE - It doesn't make WHO they really are.
I love, I give, I care, I cry, I feel....
