a full and busy life

I received a card from Ines yesterday reminding me that, after loss, we have to relearn our relationship to happiness. What wise and comforting words. Happiness is not gone forever - though somedays it feels like I was only ever happy in a past life centuries ago - but we have to learn about it over all again, from our new place in the world.

I have been feeling today, not exactly happy, but something... I'm feeling a bit turned on and tingly. I've had an idea of taking a writing workshop this year, or, better yet, hiring a writing coach. There's money for neither in my budget right now, but I'll think about that later. Today it has occurred to me that my writing could be one day be good and that it simply needs help: structure, plot, craft. It needs the work I have never yet in my life put into it, and for some reason it seems perfectly reasonable to do so today.

Most of my morning was spent cruising the web for potential writing workshops. I found myself blowing past the ones entitled "Writing Your Soul," "Speaking from the Heart," and "Wise Women, Wise Words." Blah, blah, blah. If nothing else, the death of my baby has released me from decades of intense navel-gazing (though I guess you wouldn't necessarily know that from my blog!). I've taken those workshops already. I don't need help finding my voice, I need help putting my story together. No offense to the beautiful MotherHenna and others who do heart-centered creative work - I do admire their work so much. But if my writing is going to get anywhere, it does not need gentle coaxing: it needs an outline and a big red sharpie. And maybe a buzz saw.

On top of this, I think I am starting my MotherWoman training next month. Despite my very confusing relationship with motherhood. I am going to be a backup facilitator for our local babyloss support group, and just maybe possibly start a stepmom support group. Sometime, maybe.

Then there's Amherst, a few miles from my new town, where a quite well-known writing program exists and offers training to those who want to run writers workshops, especially for those whose voices have been silenced. So now I'm thinking maybe in the future that is something I could do and offer to our babyloss community, which seems to be silenced everywhere but online.

Also I have a ton of supplies in my house to start making from-scratch, non-toxic body care and house cleaning products. And also some big root cellaring and planting projects on the horizon. Not to mention all the vegetables from our CSA stashed around the house that still need to be cooked.

And did I mention I am interviewing for a new job?

I am humming with possibilities today. But here's the sucker punch: tomorrow I could be face down in the dirt. Goddamn grief. Goddamn being cheated out of my daughter. I was face down in the dirt 48 hours ago and could be again so easily. I don't know how to get traction. Everything is harder and slower than it used to be.

This laundry-list of a post is mostly for me, so I don't forget. So I can look back and say, oh yes, I felt good this day, and I had plans, and maybe those plans are still possible. One day. I'm told by professionals that IVF will eat my life - and, I assume, spit back out all my humming, well-intentioned plans, like bitter seeds. That extra time, money, and energy for writing, canning, helping, earning, learning, living, living, living...? It will go to trying having another child.

This. This is why some people turn away from IVF. This is why some people stop "trying."

We aren't going to stop trying. We will probably do IVF. I just hate this. She's supposed to be here already. I'm supposed to be here with my 17 month old baby, wondering if it's time to go back to work, wondering if we can swing money for a writing workshop. My life is supposed to be full and busy. I want it to be full and busy again - and it will be, one way or the other.

But the fullness I long for seems a long way off. I want to leap ahead now, to age 45, and see - child or no child? I will be able to live with it either way, because I'll have to. What I can't stand now is the in-between time, with my head and heart swirling with dreams, and my feet stuck in the mud. And this silence that follows me around the house all day.

2011, what should I do next with my life? I want to fill you with good things. Please don't screw me.