A Wedding Anniversary

Today began with the knowledge that I would inevitably be mentally processing the contents of the past year of life throughout my waking (maybe also my dreaming?) hours. While I see the wisdom of focusing on the good and all of the blessings this year, there is also very real pain that has been lived because (and since) I got married. Sooo......... much like one of the find-own-adventure books from years ago, that's how I'll be publishing this: as a circumflexion if you will, that can be read from both vantage points; two stories that connect at the seams and occurred in concert.

How to read the information ahead: both relevant posts are linked below. You (the reader) will choose which experience you wish to continue reading. Each of those posts will have a preface on them that links them back to this post, so that it makes sense to the reader what they are a primer for...

Thank you to my readers - who I am both grateful to and humbled in front of, because this story lived out loud - especially this one - is a tough one to type. I am all at once vulnerable by the honesty and details that are shared within this story and thankful that they are no longer just lived and left to occupy my memory.

I have read so many blogs over the years, infertility blogs amongst them, and the beginning of my journey down this unlikely path was very much colored by feeling I had nothing to offer to the conversation. "How did I even belong in that conversation so early?" I reckoned with myself. I silenced my thoughts amongst the sea of pain that others expressed, because I believed everyone else's stories held more meaning, more pain, and were more worthy of telling. A void in my life couldn't possibly be as painful as the same void in other people's lives walking this path of infertility/subfertility/miscarriage/etc. Obviously, God pulled me out of that painful chrysalis of thought and I found the courage to begin chronicling my own steps on this path on this blog recently. My thoughts here are mostly indistinguishable from yours. We are the same in so many ways. And we write to make sense of this thing we cannot make sense of so similarly. We hope we are taking steps forward that will bring us to realizing our deepest dreams (coated in our deepest fears). We go to sleep at night (or not) believing we are doing the right things to achieve those dreams, and yet unable to be certain we are walking anything but a circle as we live in each moment.

I write today for the women who have not found the courage to give volume to their voice. If anything you see in these posts is something you relate to - please know that I am praying for you. Please know that you are not alone. Please know that this journey is purposeful and I wish I could encourage you to join this walk out loud with me. It is helpful. And it is in hindsight, post by post, that I am beginning to see that.

God bless everyone reading here and thank you for keeping me in your prayers. May there be brighter days ahead. And if for some reason there are not brighter days in store, then Lord please make my eyes unable to discern the difference between gray skies and sunshine.


If you would like to continue reading about the year in review was like, click here.

If you would like to continue reading about what the year ahead will bring, click here.