The Shit We Don't Talk About

I wanted to make this second blog post so soon for a couple of reasons. Firstly, to see what it's going to look like for me to "schedule" this to post next week. Creating my own blog site has actually been fun for me. I have no clue what I'm doing but I like it. Secondly, to build off of what I talked about in my intro blog post. That shit about being a 29 year old female.

I have a complicated relationship with social media. I say that as I created my own Instagram to promote this blog - soon to be "business" platform - of mine. I think I would have avoided it if my best friend was not adamant that it was a free marketing tool. I mean... I know, but damn. I have no idea how to create content. Not only that, I have not had an Instagram since 2016. Do you know how many changes have been made to apps like Instagram in the last 7 years?! I do. It's a lot. I had an easier time creating this blog site than I had re-teaching myself how to use Instagram. So if you stumble across my Earthbound with Myra accounts in these early days, I'm sorry. I'M TRYING.

Social media, specifically Facebook, have become difficult for me. Not just because I'm technologically repelling them, but because of the shit we don't talk about. The babies. The wholesome, perfect family pictures. I bet you think I'm about to say something like, "fuck those people and their perfect little families," right? Wrong. I love those posts. I thrive on seeing my friends, my family, people I graduated high school with and haven't spoken to in years - living their best lives. It brings me genuine happiness, and it brings me genuine happiness to support them. But when you are a woman in your late twenties, those posts and photos start taking on a whole new meaning.

Do I want a baby? Should I have a baby? What if... I don't want that? But do I want that and I just don't know myself? Why can't I just want what everyone else wants... Why can't I just know that it's what I want? Or don't want? *Internally screaming* "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

If you've ever asked yourself, "what is wrong me?" in regard to life choices like this, then go fucking subscribe to this blog. Just kidding. But you're in the right place. I can be firm in my decision to not want something, but then hop on social media and damn, do I want that? Am I so easily persuaded? Why is it that when I enter the cyclical mindset of "I do want this" that I physically feel so much apprehension? Am I just not ready, or is my biology playing tricks on me?

Social media makes it nearly impossible for me to process my own thoughts, beliefs, wants, and needs in this pivotal stage of my life. For as long as I can remember, I never wanted my own children. I never wanted to carry or birth a child. Then in my adult life, I had Serenity. As I started to get older, I was really banking on her... to be my child. To be my family when my parents and my husband are gone. Then we lost her. And suddenly each one of those posts I saw were like a weight on my chest. I had subconsciously made a plan for my future that involved her being there with me. Now that plan is wrecked. It was replaced with a fear of dying alone. Wow, where did that come from? I was not even thinking about that before 7 months ago. Now there exists a new pressure to make a decision that I never thought I would make to begin with. Do I want a family? Am I in the right headspace to make this kind of decision?

Not only that, they say you don't know what you have until it's gone. This really hits home for me. As hard and trying as it was to have a teenage stepdaughter, a child of trauma, under my roof... I would bring it all back. When I dig deep, I realize I really loved being a mother figure to her. She had other parental figures in her life, but being the one she picked up the phone and called "mom," through tears after wrecking her car, was such a privilege to me. I was so proud that she called me first, that she called me, "mom." I felt fucking special. I remember picking her up from the crash site and driving her home telling her, "You are my daughter. I love you. I don't have other kids Serenity, it's YOU." I didn't want her to die. That sounds stupid because of course I didn't. But it was the first time I was slapped with the reality that there was a love and bond very deep for me, and the thought of losing her riddled me with anxiety - death anxiety - on a daily basis from that day forward.

There are women who never experience death anxiety until the day they birth their first born child. I had experienced death anxiety before, but never to the degree that I experienced it that day and all the days that followed. The emotions existed within me before but I hadn't recognized them until I voiced those words to her that day.

My coping mechanism has always been to use humor in hard times, to make light of my life for the entertainment of others. I think James and I are very similar in this way. The jokes I made about our life and our household are never ending, because parenting her was one of the hardest things I will ever do in my life. That said, the lows were low, but the highs were so high. It was one of the hardest, but also the most gratifying things I have done in my life. The simple fact is that I realize now that I miss it. I miss being her mom. How bizarre for someone who never saw themself becoming a mom to begin with.

And now - attending baby showers, birthday parties, seeing my friends children on Facebook... I love these things in my life. That quite literally is life. I cry tears of happiness with my friends when I find out they are pregnant, I shower them with gifts because I'm just so excited, and I feel proud to be called "Aunt Myra," knowing I'll never have true nieces and nephews of my own. But right now, it's painful. It's a lot harder than I ever thought it could be.

I really never saw this coming.

This may be my story and my circumstances, but I think this feeling is shared among many of us. We're not talking about it. There are couples struggling with fertility, and experiencing the grief of a miscarriage that I know must relate to this in their own way. There are women my age that simply want a family but have not found the person to build it with. Every time we see those posts, attend those life events - which by the way, feels like every weekend at this age - that pressure is there. So not only are we dealing with the transition from our 20's into our 30's and all the physical changes that come with that (thirty, flirty and... hurting... am I right?), but now we're living in this mental pressure cooker of "now or never," that we have created for ourselves.

Times are changing. Couples are having children later in life. I know this, and I cling to this. It gives me that peace of mind that I crave for an impending decision I know I must make. But it's fucking stressful out here ya'll.

Luckily, we are not alone in it. That is the comforting part. The hard part - we are not alone, but where the fuck is everyone? It can feel isolating. Isolating when we're unsure if there are others who can relate, and the topic becomes sensitive (or least it has for me), and we wonder if we should speak out. In the end, the only immediate action we can take is to choose our own health. This can also be difficult. For me, I knew I would not be able to stop attending life events. It would do more harm than good to my well-being for me to withdraw. Instead, I chose to deactivate my personal Facebook so I could get my head on straight, to decide what it is that I do want without the outside influence (societal norms as I jokingly like to call them now). Then I wrote myself the "permission slip" to not think on this again until winter, while I work on my own mental, emotional, and physical well-being. I am still processing grief, after all.

This has not been easy. This has been fucking hard. For all choices, there are consequences. As I stated before, I love seeing my friends, my family, their children. This choice can cause me to feel incredibly disconnected at times, because I live so far from the ones I love. But this was something that needed to be done for me in the same sense as quitting my desk job, and cutting out alcohol.

What does choosing yourself look like for you?

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My goal for this blog and this career path is to inspire you to dig in, to discover what these choices look like for you - and then give you the tools and encouragement to pursue them as an accountability partner. I am on my own journey and in the thick of this with you. The reason I really chose to write about this so soon is because it is such a large part of my journey and more of an introduction to who I am. I want this blog to be real, and raw. I want it to document my own behavioral changes as I navigate this entirely new life, because that is ultimately what I will encourage my future clients to pursue - daily, sustainable behavioral changes. How can I effectively help clients choose and maintain their overall well-being when I have not experienced it for myself?

Take Frank Jackson's example of the Knowledge Argument, "Mary's Room," to drive that home. To paraphrase: Mary is a scientist who knows everything there is to know about the science of color but is forced to study it through a black and white room with a black and white television monitor. When she emerges from her room and physically experiences color, seeing a ripe tomato, if you will - does she learn anything new? Is their attainable knowledge to be had simply from experience? The argument tells us: YES.

I beg you to watch this (much better) summary of the experiment below:

I believe this. I believe there is attainable knowledge to be had from experiencing something. Very simply put, it's the same concept to me as working at the gym that I love and have consistently used for the last year - I can sell the product because I have experienced it and have a knowledge that someone who simply read the website description could not.

This is ultimately what I am trying to achieve here. I am in the thick of it with you, learning through my own experience. I am in the process of implementing my own behavioral changes, so I can more effectively help you to implement yours. If you made it to the end of this blog post and you can relate to what you have read here, reach out. Let's start talking about this kind of shit.