I NO how you feel...
Today somebody wished me happy mothers day... I prickled at the words strung together. A friend defended me telling the lady (who was being kind in all reality) "don't go there." I am thankful for her.
It's difficult only having friends with children around me. I almost feel like I should be seeking out single friends. Even then there is no guarantee they won't have children or get pregnant. I've been friends with both scenarios. Sometimes I really dislike living in a military town. There is always a young couple beginning their family. Here I am... here...
I feel I am relegated to outsides of these little circles and cliques they form. People asking about progress in development, when they'll start school and their pregnancies and even though I've been around SO MANY of them, I can not really be apart of the conversation. It's almost worse when people try to include you, ask you to tag along to some event they're taking their child to. People ask which one is yours, or how old "your baby" is while holding someone elses child. I don't know know how many times people have asked if my friends babies were mine. Just a few days ago I was babysitting my friends kids, young and baby. People commented to me like they were mine... When a woman asked how old my baby was I quickly and with a flat voice "Not mine, about a month" She stopped trying to talk me, and for that I was thankful.
I've accepted my situation and all that it entails, but much of my feeling are still unhealed wounds. The right words at just the right time will rip open a world of emotional pain for me. Pain I try hard to hide, to ignore and let go of. I feel so guilty being so sensitive. I'm oversensitive anyway, but this is always the worst of it. Several of my friends tell me I have a right to be this sensitive. I wish I felt that it was alright to feel the way I do but I don't. I feel selfish. I feel like this is something I should just get over and move on from. I try to close the door. Move on. I try to let it go. No matter how I try to leave it, it's as if there's something stuck to me... In my heart.
My friends (most of them) are gracious and some are even protective. Most can stand by me support me, only a few know this pain... I wish they didn't. Some have been granted a reprieve and have babies now, therefore I no longer feel they comprehend my view. I know different, but the feeling is still there. The worst thing ANYONE can say to me is "I know how you feel" when they have not had my experiences.
One of the hardest things to feel was 'happy' for my friend when she had her second baby. By that time I had resigned myself to know my position. All reminders of my situation were like a hot stab pain in my heart, emotionally crippling and putting me on the verge of tears. I don't like to cry. My significant other kept making remarks about how I probably wouldn't put the baby down, or give them back once I held them. (I know my grammar is wrong, but I don't want to specify a person here) To be honest I didn't even want to go near them. I didn't want to hold them. I didn't want to touch them. It all hurt far too much. I still cared for my friend, I wanted so bad to be happy, I tried... hard. Now when that baby sees me, they put their hands up and ask me to pick them up. They give me kisses. They are happy to see me.
I can't count how many friends have had children around me. I don't mean in passing, I mean children I have taken care of, cared for, or were my friends children. I've literally lost track.
I will never hear the words Mommy from the other room, meant for me. I will never take my child to the playground, I will never celebrate a first birthday.. or a third birthday party with a ridiculously stupid party the child won't even remember.
I cringed the other day when someone asked me to take pregnancy pictures of them... I can't handle that. Yes I know I do photography, but that is just too much to handle. It was not the first time someone has asked that either, but I really wish it was the last. For as much as I LOVE taking pictures, sometimes it is hard to see parents fawning over their children, the younger the more difficult.
I see people who don't care for their children, who wish they hadn't had them... who don't deserve them (this is no one close to me) Yet, this is what I do. I take care of children. I always have. Even when I was a teenager, I was always the babysitter, the little mama. Now I'm the auntie, the caregiver, the confident to those who are older and afraid to talk to their parents.
My kitchen is covered with pictures drawn and colored for us by our friends children. I love them so much. When my friends move and their babies ask about me, or for me as the case has been. I miss them terribly like I've lost a part of myself. I don't know if I have that right, to have those feelings for children that are not mine. Nonetheless they are there and I would do anything for them.
This is my lot, this is my pain.
Many people have told me to just adopt. As if I could go to a store and pick out a child. They say it with such casual reference, I know they know nothing about the process and the money and the emotional ups and downs and the money and decisions and the money. We had an opportunity to adopt, it didn't end well and it was very painful for everyone involved. It is something that comes to my mind more often than I would like it to. It is a memory I wish would go away.
People don't think about the effect their words have on others. They say things like "Oh God has a plan." That's another one that REALLY pisses me off. It's right up there with "I know how you feel,"
It's difficult only having friends with children around me. I almost feel like I should be seeking out single friends. Even then there is no guarantee they won't have children or get pregnant. I've been friends with both scenarios. Sometimes I really dislike living in a military town. There is always a young couple beginning their family. Here I am... here...
I feel I am relegated to outsides of these little circles and cliques they form. People asking about progress in development, when they'll start school and their pregnancies and even though I've been around SO MANY of them, I can not really be apart of the conversation. It's almost worse when people try to include you, ask you to tag along to some event they're taking their child to. People ask which one is yours, or how old "your baby" is while holding someone elses child. I don't know know how many times people have asked if my friends babies were mine. Just a few days ago I was babysitting my friends kids, young and baby. People commented to me like they were mine... When a woman asked how old my baby was I quickly and with a flat voice "Not mine, about a month" She stopped trying to talk me, and for that I was thankful.
I've accepted my situation and all that it entails, but much of my feeling are still unhealed wounds. The right words at just the right time will rip open a world of emotional pain for me. Pain I try hard to hide, to ignore and let go of. I feel so guilty being so sensitive. I'm oversensitive anyway, but this is always the worst of it. Several of my friends tell me I have a right to be this sensitive. I wish I felt that it was alright to feel the way I do but I don't. I feel selfish. I feel like this is something I should just get over and move on from. I try to close the door. Move on. I try to let it go. No matter how I try to leave it, it's as if there's something stuck to me... In my heart.
My friends (most of them) are gracious and some are even protective. Most can stand by me support me, only a few know this pain... I wish they didn't. Some have been granted a reprieve and have babies now, therefore I no longer feel they comprehend my view. I know different, but the feeling is still there. The worst thing ANYONE can say to me is "I know how you feel" when they have not had my experiences.
One of the hardest things to feel was 'happy' for my friend when she had her second baby. By that time I had resigned myself to know my position. All reminders of my situation were like a hot stab pain in my heart, emotionally crippling and putting me on the verge of tears. I don't like to cry. My significant other kept making remarks about how I probably wouldn't put the baby down, or give them back once I held them. (I know my grammar is wrong, but I don't want to specify a person here) To be honest I didn't even want to go near them. I didn't want to hold them. I didn't want to touch them. It all hurt far too much. I still cared for my friend, I wanted so bad to be happy, I tried... hard. Now when that baby sees me, they put their hands up and ask me to pick them up. They give me kisses. They are happy to see me.
I can't count how many friends have had children around me. I don't mean in passing, I mean children I have taken care of, cared for, or were my friends children. I've literally lost track.
I will never hear the words Mommy from the other room, meant for me. I will never take my child to the playground, I will never celebrate a first birthday.. or a third birthday party with a ridiculously stupid party the child won't even remember.
I cringed the other day when someone asked me to take pregnancy pictures of them... I can't handle that. Yes I know I do photography, but that is just too much to handle. It was not the first time someone has asked that either, but I really wish it was the last. For as much as I LOVE taking pictures, sometimes it is hard to see parents fawning over their children, the younger the more difficult.
I see people who don't care for their children, who wish they hadn't had them... who don't deserve them (this is no one close to me) Yet, this is what I do. I take care of children. I always have. Even when I was a teenager, I was always the babysitter, the little mama. Now I'm the auntie, the caregiver, the confident to those who are older and afraid to talk to their parents.
My kitchen is covered with pictures drawn and colored for us by our friends children. I love them so much. When my friends move and their babies ask about me, or for me as the case has been. I miss them terribly like I've lost a part of myself. I don't know if I have that right, to have those feelings for children that are not mine. Nonetheless they are there and I would do anything for them.
This is my lot, this is my pain.
Many people have told me to just adopt. As if I could go to a store and pick out a child. They say it with such casual reference, I know they know nothing about the process and the money and the emotional ups and downs and the money and decisions and the money. We had an opportunity to adopt, it didn't end well and it was very painful for everyone involved. It is something that comes to my mind more often than I would like it to. It is a memory I wish would go away.
People don't think about the effect their words have on others. They say things like "Oh God has a plan." That's another one that REALLY pisses me off. It's right up there with "I know how you feel,"
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