Saturday, December 5, 2009

Hope

We decorated for Christmas this afternoon.

I have been a little shy with the holiday this season, not sure if I want to fully commit to the traditions I'm usually so quick to jump into with both feet. This time of year always brings with it a feeling of expectation that you always have yet are never quite sure why, not sure what it is that you are waiting for.

This year as I was pulling out the decorations from the dusty storage bins and placing them purposefully on shelves and tables, I stopped when I turned back and saw this:



Just a cheap little decoration I got from Target last year. Usually a little too glittery for my asthetic, but if you can't use glitter at Christmas when can you? It wasn't the glitter that got my attention though, it was the word itself. HOPE. Suddenly seeing that word perched innocently on my shelf brought to a head the river of emotions that has been coursing through me for so long now. Hope is something I have had build up and crash down every month, every failed pregnancy test, for the last 15 months. It's something I've fought for, fought against, prayed for, and prayed to have taken away so I wouldn't be disappointed when I've let myself believe it might be fufilled. Right now hope seems to be as illusive as that expected something that comes every Christmas. I can't seem to find it, and oh, how desperately I want to believe that soon it will be my turn, that I will get to see that look of shock and joy on Cory's face as I tell him that we are going to bring a child into this world together.

But with each passing month my hope turns to fear, fear that it might never happen. And so as I turn towards Christmas and bring its colors and emotions into my home, I pray that I will let the spirit of this season give me hope again, that anything is possible at Christmas, even this that seems too big for the child-like wishing that comes this time of year.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Survival instincts

I have started and deleted numerous blogs before this one. I don't know why I am so hesitant to commit to putting down my thoughts in this way. I think it is the transparency of it all. The thoughts I have and the thoughts I share are, like most people, usually very different.

I used to wake up in the middle of the night and could not go back to sleep until I could get a certain thought or idea down on paper. For some reason since I have gotten married that feeling has subsided. I don't know why, it was like all of a sudden when "I" became "we" the thoughts I for so long kept to myself never felt fully mine anymore. For some reason I felt like writing down all these feelings and longings and not sharing them with my husband felt like betrayal. Then with each passing year I "needed" to write less and less, and now I hardly even give my journal a second thought.

I hope this blog will be a place where I can share those thought that are currently stuck inside my head, and get used to getting them out again.