Finish Line

Another grey day in between intermittent days of sun. I lift my sunglasses every few blocks but I can't tolerate the silver sky. I drive around in a darker day.

I'm not pregnant. And my husband has stated clearly that he doesn't want the burden. I know what he means is that he doesn't want to have another child with me, the burden of this particular marriage.

Before I hit forty no one could have told me what I would learn about being a woman and a mother. I never would have understood the sometimes deep calling to bring forth a child, despite circumstance. And how it can have little to do with fulfilling a purpose of marriage. Some beings have their own purpose. We can have all the pat answers for why conditions must be this way and that....but isn't it the way of nature to grow in the limbs of adversity?

That's how I have grown. I have given up most of my truest callings for relationship with a man. And that's my fault. Here I go again and this time I can't figure my way around it. Except to let go. Or force my will to get what I want and go that path alone. Worse, go that path alone while married.

My parents were older parents and they both died young. Though I have much older siblings, I lived most of my life alone, without home or guidance, safety or grounding. I don't want my daughter to be alone, and no matter what anyone says, I know that she will be alone. So that's the hardest part of letting go and moving on. I should be grateful that I have my daughter but right now I feel like I am turning my back on something else, something present and pulling on me, something calling me the way every real thing in my life has called me.

No one teaches us how to fulfill our purpose. No one can do that for us. And yet....those closest to us can say no, and that definitive shapes our destiny.

I asked for two more rounds of insemination, knowing that the odds of conception are so slim that I was simply showing up to complete a process. These last few days I carry the image of running a marathon, seeing the finish line, understanding there won't be another race and making peace with that -- and, wanting the feeling of crossing that line myself, from my own actions and my own will. Proper completion. But I'm on the ground breathing pavement, kicked in the knees at the home stretch.

It would be so easy to take the low road, and for some kind of sad comfort, I'm taking it here and there. The high road is around the corner and a million steps from here.