You Don't Ever Really Stop Wanting It

I will say there are some things you don’t get used to and things you never stop wishing for, even if your head knows better.

It was almost 10 years to the week before Ryan died after getting cut open for the second time and an 8 hour surgery which tied together 3 years of incessant pain that a doctor told me I wouldn’t have the same chances others would get to have a family.

It was a different type of grief and I didn't even realize it. Everyone around me was relieved. Understandably so they were glad that the 3am drives to the ER because motrin wasn't strong enough to keep me asleep through the pain. When I would get sent home, never getting past the triage nurse. When I lay fetal on a hallway floor because I couldn't even sit in a chair. Treating what a nurse later told me when she looked at my chart was probably the equivalent of being in labor with 800 mg of motrin. For 3 years. They were relieved but what they didn't know was for every time we went to the ER there were 10 other nights where I would hyperventilate to wear myself out so I could pass out until morning and take the next 800mg. They were glad to not see me get up in the middle of the school day to throw up in the girl's bathroom and then come back to my chair - classmates not worried because they knew for me that was "normal". They were glad that after 3 years of no answers I was "fixed". I couldn't understand why it wasn't a relief. I didn't feel fixed, I just felt different. The physical pain was simply replaced with some different pain. 

It wasn’t ok when I was 16 and it’s still not ok now. Ryan was the first man I was ever willing to take a chance at suffering for. Seeing a negative pregnancy test month after month and when that “+” finally showed up not being excited but being terrified if it would last long enough. Miscarrying. Over and over. Or getting further but having a premie too young to never make it out of the NICU. I made him that promise that I would try and I let myself believe that it was something I could actually have. I loved this beautifully sacrificial and compassionate man so much I could only imagine how wonderful it could be to make him a father. Being the one to give Ryan one of his just 5 bucket list dreams was in some ways selfish. He was my other half…so in making him happy I was by default satisfying myself.

You don’t get used to watching everyone else get their happily ever after: a person that loves them unconditionally and enough time to do the same for them and others. I’m tired of being robbed of things something so basic. Or being robbed of a love I worked so hard to support. Who I tried to save. It’s still hard sometimes to hold someone else’s baby, even though my head has had almost 11 years to try and negotiate with my heart. It's still hard to watch someone else’s husband put their arm around their wife’s waist or even just rest their hand tenderly on their girlfriend’s leg. 

You don’t ever really stop wanting it. You just try to.