You’ve probably noticed that there are triggers all around—at the mall, in the mail, on TV, in the streets. So this week’s Whiny Wednesday topic is this:
Being caught in public by surprise feelings of loss or grief
Whine away, my friends.
The Circuitous Route to a Dream
By Lisa Manterfield
All of us here are experts on the circuitous routes of dreams. Sometimes we encounter insurmountable obstacles out of our control, and sometimes we never make it to our destinations at all. Sometimes our dreams get shunted aside, and sometimes new dreams take their place and the circuitous cycle starts all over again.
About 20 years ago, before I had even met the man I wanted to have children with, I had a dream of becoming a writer. As I lived in Los Angeles, I imagined I would become a screenwriter. I’d never written a screenplay, but I’d seen one and I liked movies, so I started writing. It was horrible. I rewrote it, but it was still horrible. I wrote another one and that was horrible, too. My writing dream went off the rails.
Finally, I realized that perhaps screenwriting wasn’t for me. I liked movies, but I loved books. So I tried my hand at writing a novel instead. It wasn’t quite as horrible, and it had potential, so I kept working at it, kept taking classes, and kept learning how to write a book.
And somewhere in the middle of that I started trying to have a baby. I didn’t know how to get myself through the heartache and frustration, except to write about it. My novel got pushed onto a siding, and I wrote endlessly about my quest to have a baby. I wrote in my journal, I wrote in my workshops, I wrote blog posts, and eventually I had enough stories to write a book. Instead of making up stories for my novel, I wrote I’m Taking My Eggs and Going Home. I started this site, and I kept writing about my infertility, and then I wrote another book about all I had learned. I was officially a writer, but it was far from the dream I’d originally envisioned.
Finally, I got back to my dream of writing fiction. It’s been a long and circuitous route, but unlike my dream of motherhood, this one is coming true. And now, my first novel A Strange Companion is making its way out into the world.
The story is vastly different from my original bad screenplay idea, and while the concept has remained unchanged, the themes of the book have been colored by my life experience. The book is about a young woman, mourning the death of her first love, who believes he’s been reincarnated into the body of a little girl. (This part is purely fictional!) But, what the story is really about is the many ways in which people deal with grief. You might not be surprised to hear that much of what I learned from infertility and other losses has found its way into the book. The assumptions people make in how we should grieve, how long it takes to get over a loss, and the slow, circuitous route to making our own way to letting go are all part of my own experience. I have to admit that the book is richer for this. In fact, I’m not sure I could have written this book without my hard-earned experience. A circuitous route indeed.
A Strange Companion comes out on April 4th. As you can imagine, this will be a big day for me. After all that has happened over the past 13 years, I am ready to have a dream come true.
You can find out more about the book and read the opening chapters over on my website. It’s also available for pre-order in eBook format, with the print version coming later this week.
The greatest gift anyone could give me is their support in making this dream a reality. If you’d like to help, please grab yourself a copy of the book. Buy one for a friend, too, if you’d like. If you enjoy the book, tell everyone you know. (If you hate it, please keep that to yourself!) And if you’d like to write a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you bought the book, that would be the most wonderful gift of all. Thank you for your support.
It Got Me Thinking…About What’s My Worth?
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
I’ve long been a L’Oréal customer, and I’ve appreciated the range of colors and ethnicities of their spokeswomen. So much of the fashion and beauty industries are focused on the very young and very skinny (and very white), to the point that it’s still refreshing to see new role models who look like me and my peers—and who look like who I aspire to be in coming decades. This sends a positive message to girls and women, I think, that beauty comes in all sizes, colors, shapes, and ages. Brava!
The slogan I’ve long associated with this brand is “Because I’m worth it,” and I’ve always loved that message of strength and self-confidence. Spokeswoman, Susan Sarandon is quoted as saying, “It had to do with women becoming the masters of their own lives and decisions,” and again I say Brava!
I continued to read the brief article, egged on by the teaser: “So what does being ‘Worth It’ mean to Sarandon?” I wanna know, I wanna know…oh, crapamole! “(Hint: it involves motherhood).”
I’ve spent the past several years trying to determine for myself what is my worth, especially as I’ve grieved and healed, and grieved and healed some more while struggling to make peace with being childfree by circumstances. I’ve done my best to embrace that I bring value to the lives around me by being a devoted friend, involved auntie, and contributing team member. I’d pretty much convinced myself that my life has meaning even though I haven’t fulfilled society’s expectation that the only role women should aspire to and revere is motherhood.
Having put so much hope into finding a positive and uplifting message that accepts and celebrates every woman, I felt deflated by Sarandon’s response (and the brand’s apparent endorsement). Again, I am put in the heart-wrenching, possibly defeatist position of having to ask myself: “Am I worth anything?”
So I need your help today. In the Comments, please share with me—with all of us—how you define your worth. Let’s compile a list that helps us remind ourselves that we have something to offer the world, that we have value, that we are worth it—whatever “it” means to us.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
What Do You Wish You’d Known About Life Without Children?
By Lisa Manterfield
I try not to drag regrets around with me. It doesn’t help to dwell on how things might have turned out differently when it’s too late to do anything about it. But sometimes, there are things I wish I’d known before I’d hung my heart on the idea of having children.
I wish I’d know how common fertility issues are.
I wish I’d known what questions to ask at the very start of our journey.
I wish I’d known where to find real support.
I wish I’d known how valuable that support, once I found it, would be.
I wish I’d had a wise mentor to help me see logic when my poor emotionally-addled brain couldn’t make sense of anything.
I wish we had talked more about how long we’d try, how far we’d go, and what we would do if it didn’t happen for us.
And I wish I’d known that we would be okay as a family of two.
What do you wish you’d known before the start of your journey?
Whiny Wednesday: Infertility Amnesia
A friend of mine went through infertility hell a few years ago. When we learned of one another’s journeys, we were both glad to have an empathetic shoulder to lean on.
Then she became a mother, and developed infertility amnesia.
I’m not begrudging her the celebrations, the constant Facebook posts, or the incessant parenting talk. I get it; I’m sure I’d do the same in her situation. But the final straw came last week.
A group of us gets together about once a year and we’re starting to plan for this year. We usually go out for dinner, or bowling, or drinks and dancing. Several of us in the group don’t have children and those who do are always glad for a childfree night of adult fun.
This year, the new mom suggested we change things up and do something family-oriented and include the kids. “Maybe a beach picnic or Disneyland.” I kid you not.
Thankfully one of the other parents shot the idea down, but I had to wonder how she would have felt five years ago, in the thick of her infertility hell, if someone had made this same suggestion.
She would have felt excluded and she would have been upset. Which is just how I felt when I got her email.
Today is Whiny Wednesday. Who or what has done you wrong this week?
Why Childlessness Does Not Make Me Less of a Woman
By Lisa Manterfield
“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.”
~Anaïs Nin
There’s an idea going around that not having children somehow makes us “less of a woman.” I don’t subscribe to this idea.
As this quote by author Anaïs Nin states, I am many, many women, and “mother” is only one element of me.
I am a writer, friend, wife, cat mama, reader, thinker, curser, fighter, nature-lover, spider catcher, traveler, cook.
All these women are fluid. They ebb and flow in me as needed. And when one of them isn’t able to fulfill her purpose, the others quickly rally to fill the gap, so I am always whole.
I am never less of a woman.
Whiny Wednesday: Pressure to be Amazing
Often we feel pressure to do something incredible with our lives because we won’t be doing the other “incredible” thing: being mothers.
In the past it’s sparked some healthy discussion, so I thought I’d use it as this week’s Whiny Wednesday topic:
Feeling the pressure to do something else amazing instead
Let the healthy discussion begin!
Three Things You Love About You
By Lisa Manterfield
Valentine’s Day can be challenging, full of triggers and missed experiences and what-ifs. So as thoughts turn to love this week, let me ask you:
“What are three things you love about yourself?”
A friend asked me this recently, and I was shocked to find myself stumbling over my answer. I couldn’t even name one thing.
I think many us (especially we women) were raised to be modest, not boastful. We often have no problem telling someone else what we admire in them, but can’t then turn the spotlight on ourselves. And even when we do, we can so often point out all the areas for improvement rather than the good things we see in ourselves.
Fortunately for me, my friend is persistent, and she wouldn’t let me off the hook. So here are three things I love about myself:
- I’m honest.
- I will always stick up for the underdog.
- I am not a quitter.
So I challenge you now. What are three things you love about yourself?
It Got Me Thinking…About Working with (Other People’s) Kids
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
In an interview I did recently, a woman shared with me what she went through when she faced 40, single and childfree. “I had to reassess my situation and consider the fact that perhaps it wasn’t in the cards for me to have a child after all,” she said. At the time, she decided to switch careers and return to school to get her teaching credential. “I figured, well, that would be my connection to children and the next generation, and I was okay with that.”
I’m here to tell you I had a physical reaction to her comment. I mean, bully for her, but I would so not have been okay with that trade-off. Even after years of healing, I still can’t imagine feeling “okay” spending my days with other people’s children while grieving for the children I could never have.
But as we know from reading the stories on this site, every woman has her own unique experience of grieving, and every woman has her own unique journey to healing. I think it’s remarkable that here, at Life Without Baby, we openly share our experiences and learn about options we hadn’t thought of for ourselves.
Join a Conversation
With that in mind, I took a tour around the Forum Discussions on our LWB Community page. Have you checked this out yet? What a remarkable source of information, inspiration, support, and compassion.
On this topic, you’ll find “Learning to be around children again” in which LWBers offer suggestions from volunteering in schools and instigating relationships with kids of friends. (One woman, a skilled figure skater, offered to teach her non-skating friend’s kids how to ice skate—love that!) In “You may think I’m crazy,” another woman shared how volunteering in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), holding and comforting babies, helped comfort her through her grief.
On the flip side, a Discussion titled “No interest in volunteering…thoughts?” asked “Does anyone just NOT want kids in their life?” That’s a conversation you’ll want to visit if you are fed up with people who keep telling you you’ll feel better if you’ll just focus your energy on nurturing other people’s kids.
There’s no right or wrong way to go about your healing, only what feels right to you. And to help you on your journey, I encourage you to scroll through the Discussions and contribute your thoughts—and take in the love and advice from other commenters. If you don’t find a conversation that speaks to what you need, start one!
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
Whiny Wednesday: Being Lonely Without Children
Some years ago, a young relative asked why I didn’t have children. I gave him an explanation that was honest, while also being appropriate for a young boy.
And then he asked me, “But won’t you be lonely?”
To this I responded that I had Mr. Fab and that I’d be fine. But actually, I think he may have hit a nerve, because even though I value the quiet time I have, sometimes it can feel a little lonely.
It’s Whiny Wednesday, what truths have hit a nerve with you?
