Wednesday, May 01, 2013

Sober Dreams

Each of us has a dream. We have an idea for how we want our lives to mature and the goals we want to accomplish along the way.

My dream for the last 27 years was to have a family. I wanted to be a mom so badly and every time I envisioned my future - I was always in the mom role. Not always the "wife" role but always the mom role.

As I am preparing to let go of that dream I am feeling utterly lost. I no longer know what I want out of my life. I have spent the last 8 years of my life (and my entire marriage) trying to have a family and now I am not certain who I am. I don't know what my passion is, what my goals are or even how to rebuild a dream that I have had for so long that doesn't involve having a family.

It's completely overwhelming and isolating. It's exciting and adventurous. It's thrilling and terrifying.

I have caught myself wondering if this is what it feels like to have a mid-life crisis. I look at my life and realize that it isn't anything like what I thought it was going to be. I have lost myself somehow in this drive to have a family. I lost sight of all other passions I had. I lost sight of my role as a wife, as a friend, as a daughter and sister. Almost every aspect of my life has drenched in fertility treatments, support groups, blogs, adoption certifications, research, testing, failed cycles, miscarriages and failure.

I have conflicting feelings on making the choice to live child-free. After having a dream for so long, it is extremely difficult to just let that go. However at the same time, I feel like I am a free basing crack whore coming down from a wild trip. I am definitely having infertility withdrawals and withdrawals from the dream I once had, from the identity I wanted and from the goals I sought to achieve. Now I am this freshly sober person fumbling around like a new born pony trying to find a different identity for myself, a different goal and a different dream. It is a bitch.  

How do you build a new dream for yourself after you have had the same one for so long?