Living in the “And”
It’s been over 6 months since I’ve written here, and while there is lots to catch you up on, there was an anniversary of sorts this week that I need to get off my chest.
Tuesday morning, September 21st, Facebook reminded me of the following post I made on September 21, 2020.
It stopped me in my tracks. I felt like I got the wind knocked out of me and had to remind myself to take deep breaths.
That house. I’ve looked at pictures of it over the last year, of course, but I’m careful not to focus on it too much. But seeing that post took me back to that morning when we loaded the last bag into the car and drove away. It took me back to the feelings of failure and regret and grief that I felt often during our life there, and very rarely feel here. It took me back to saying a final goodbye to the life I always dreamed I would have.
It’s so much more to me than just a house. It’s a physical representation of the life we didn’t have. It’s the embodiment of the dreams and plans that didn’t come true. We knew which room would be the nursery. We knew what renovations we would need to make if we had more than 1 or 2 kids. We joked that our kids would never be able to sneak out of the house as teenagers because the stairs creaked loudly.
Walking away on that day, just over 1 year ago, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. There were many hard parts of the journey to move out here, but leaving the key on the counter and walking to the car to drive away will forever be imprinted on my memory. I literally walked away from the life I had wanted since I was a little girl.
And I haven’t allowed myself to look back. I am very careful not to ask any of my friends in Durham if they have driven by our old house. I don’t want to see pictures or know what changes they’ve made. I don’t want to think too much about the family that bought the house.
Not a day goes by that I am not so incredibly grateful that we are here. I absolutely love our life. I love where we are. I love that we are creating a life that works for us and makes us happy. I love talking about the future, and wondering what our life might look like in 10 years. I love living for now, and not living for what might be.
And still. And still, sometimes the grief over the life we didn’t have can knock me off balance.
I talked to a friend recently and told him that I have had to learn to live in the “and.” I can love our life now, and still grieve what we don’t have. I can be absolutely certain that this was the best decision we ever made, and still feel waves of sadness for a life that never came to fruition. I can be so excited by who I am now, who I’m becoming, and still feel intense grief for what I will never be.
And even though I know this, even though I KNOW that being happy now doesn’t take away the grief over what we never had, it still surprises me. The intensity and depth of the grief still takes my breath away and feels like a physical pain.
There are so many things that we will never experience. I’ll never know what it feels like to be pregnant or give birth. I’ll never get to see my mother’s face when I tell her that I’m having a baby. I’ll never get to watch Chris as he holds our child for the first time. I’ll never see our child take their first steps, have their first day of kindergarten, or graduate high school.
And at the same time, it’s because of what we DON’T have that we’re able to have everything that we do. If we had kids, I would likely have never known the freedom of being able to radically change my life. I would never have experienced the excitement for what is to come when Chris and I talk about how we might like to live in Thailand, then maybe Portugal one day. I would never have known the freedom of being able to build exactly the kind of life that made us happy.
After almost a year in Hawaii (can you believe that??), I can say I am happier than I have ever been.
And still.
There are reminders everywhere of what we don’t have. The pain is not as fresh as when we made the decision not to have children a few years ago, and it’s less than it was when we left the house for the last time 1 year ago. But it’s there. And it still manages to catch me off guard. It still manages to sneak up on me.
Life is not perfect and it never will be. Moving to Hawaii has been an incredible journey that I would repeat a million times over. But life is still life, and your grief and pain don’t disappear just because you move to a different place. I got away from the physical reminder of our hopes and dreams, but it will always be with me.
And so I live in the “and.” I love our life, and I’m sad for what we don’t have. I would make the decision to move to Hawaii a million times over again, and I hurt for the life that never came to be. I have zero regrets about our life now, and there are times I wish so much that it had turned out differently.
And this will likely never change:
I’m incredibly happy for what we have.
And I grieve what we don’t.