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Monday, January 23, 2012

To Feel vs. To Know

What I know is often overshadowed by what I feel.  I'm not sure if that makes the crazy/hot scale true, or if that's just the joy of living life with estrogen.  Either way points me in the direction of this "female-ness" I've been dealt.  Sometimes it's just hard to be a girl.

Today, I don't feel well.  I feel tired and frustrated, and those feelings call reinforcements so that every single frustration I have felt rears its ugly head in the hours I've spent trying to lift my head off this couch.  All of those frustrations lead to one over-arching feeling:  failure.  That's how I feel despite what I know.

Next month, Favorite and I will have been working on a family for seven years.  This month, I will have been trying to lose weight for four years.  May, we'll be married for nine years.  Today, I still don't quite get what it is to love him the way I should.  Yesterday I was reminded that I'm fourteen years into the exact same lessons I started at the beginning of this Christian journey.

Always feeling.  Always forgetting.  Trying to remind myself:  God is good.  And not in that congregation-repeats-"All the time"-and-then-says, "All the time, God is good" sort-of-way.

BigBro wrote to me once, "Some people say that faith is the absence of doubt.  I don't think that's true.  Faith is believe in the face of doubt because we know He is faithful."  What I wonder is when taking thoughts captive becomes easier business?

Typically, infertility does not define who I am.  It does not rule my day or change my purpose.  I feel pangs as the result of its presence in my life, but it is rarely the one thing I think about all day long.  Buford Betty summed it up best:


Infertility makes you feel like less of a woman. I mean gosh, the one thing I should be able to do as a woman, I can't freaking do. And it doesn't just affect me... I've got a husband who wants to be a dad. I've got parents who are dying to be grandparents. Sometimes I can't help but feel guilty for making everyone around me wait. I've seen infertility kill marriages and friendships. And I totally get why. I think some women dealing with it just completely lose themselves in the anger and depression. I don't ever want to be that person, but I certainly understand how someone could get there. I think I generally have a great attitude about the whole thing. There are lots of bloggers out there who blog about infertility. Their whole blogs are dedicated to infertility. There are a few good ones, but most of them I find depressing. They seem to encompass this very "woe is me" outlook and I don't want any part of that. Infertility in no way defines me... it's just something I'm dealing with. So while I like to update y'all on our progress and sometimes vent here and there on my issues with it, it's not all I'm about. It's not what I want to be known for. 
 I get her.  I don't want to be "woe is me" either, but sometimes living the truth means living these moments where feelings and faith collide. 

I don't doubt Him.  I don't love Him less than I did two years ago.  Sometimes, when I feel a little much, I just wonder where His purpose is and it it isn't more evident more often.

1 comment:

Brooke said...

You're an extraordinary woman. I clearly can't understand how you're feeling, but I just want you to know that I'll be praying for you and thinking about you. From what I gather, you have a strong desire to perfect yourself, from how you love your husband, to how you decorate your house, to how you appear, how you teach, how you live- and I think everyone has that desire. But I really "feel" like you don't give yourself enough credit sometimes. The fact that you're able to express yourself in words, is something I can only hope to be able to do someday. It's a gift in itself that at least you know how you feel, and you know how to express those feelings with words. I admire you. <3 I hope you have a great day :)