Facing Truth... Content

Tomorrow I am going to turn 27.

Twenty seven.

Who am I?

I am me. I am a mother. I am a stepmother. I am a partner. I am a successful business woman. I am divorced – an ex-wife. I am a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a granddaughter, a niece.  

This year has been a long year of learning for myself. And if I could pinpoint what I’ve learn most about, it’s about learning how to be me.

For years I've focused on THINGS. I got married so young and lost myself in life in a way that I never got to figure out who I was. Don’t get me wrong, every step I’ve taken has been the step I needed to take, but I am sure I have taken the least direct route in life.

The warnings that come from elders as you go through life;

It goes quickly

Blink and it’s gone

Stay true to yourself

Don’t rush into things

Hang out with the right crowd

It will be over before you now it

And all of them seem wrong. Well at least to me when I was younger they all seemed wrong.

“No”, I would think;

High school is taking forever

I've been dating him for 6 months, we’re practically married

I know he is the one I want to be with

6 months of trying to fall pregnant is FOREVER

I’ll never get over the pain of this miscarriage, I will think of it everyday

I can’t leave. I said “till death do us part”

But now, I have perspective. Perhaps perspective that one day I will disprove, not dissimilar to the perspective that I've disproved from my life before.

In any case, right now, this is how I feel.

I am sure that as I write, my story will start to unfold. So in lieu of hashing out the past I will abbreviate a little.

I had an epiphany.

It felt sudden at the time, but I think I am actually experiencing it still. This epiphany, as they often do, changed my life.

I was judgemental. Jealous. Negative and ultimately unhappy.

I’d been living this way for so long that I don’t think I realised that I did it so extensively. I always smiled so I never felt negative. I had a great life, so how could I be jealous. But I was NOT content.

CONTENT

kənˈtɛnt/

adjective

1.

in a state of peaceful happiness.

"he seemed more content, less bitter"

Much to my now ex-husband’s dismay, I always needed more.

I don’t recall being this way when I was younger. In fact, I always seemed to have a lot of friends. As I got older however, I seemed to need to be the centre of attention. If someone was happy for someone else, I had to “knock them down a peg”. I was aggressive and even the simplest things caused a reaction.

The sad truth is, that often the people closest to me were the ones I hurt the most. Probably one of my lowest points in life, is this.

My ex (Andrew) and I were trying to fall pregnant. We had been trying for some time and I stumbled across a group of women online who were all in the same situation. We built relationships and attempted to support each other.

There was such a mix of women in this group. One was particularly strong. Happy. Even through it all had direction. The rest, well sometimes it felt like we were floundering.

You see, in this group of women, it was not uncommon for us to NOT actually be happy for one another. To use the word “unhappy” seems unfair. Because I think we all genuinely WANTED to be happy for one another…. BUT… it always seemed bitter sweet didn't it. Every time someone fell pregnant, it was like the world was holding a flashing neon sign in front of your face telling you how you were going to have to wait “FOEVER” to fall pregnant.

In others happiness, I often found my own pain. A pregnancy announcement might make me cry myself to sleep. It seemed so justified though.

But there was one woman. Who was fit, and beautiful and had had her life’s challenges to date. You see, she lost a set of twins when she was quite young. At the time, some 10 years later she was trying to fall pregnant again and was “trying to conceive” so gracefully. At least gracefully compared to me.

She fell pregnant, and I was unhappy for her. I told myself I was happy but if I am honest, I wasn't. I don’t want to “September 11”  my memory. I can’t recall the details but I am pretty sure I did something along the lines of not reading her blog any more. Not connecting with her on facebook.

Anyway, in the not too distant future after she fell pregnant, I did too. In the mail I got from her a photo frame that was for a baby. A caption “first smile”.

I didn't know it at the time, just how much that would mean to me.

Moments like these happen though, don’t they? Seemingly inconsequential moments that have the power to change you if you look close enough.

It took me years to process it. To get to a place of happiness in myself where I could comprehend what it was to be happy for someone who had something I wanted.

Getting to that place, took acknowledging that I was a fake fan. I wasn't really a fan of others. I harvested these secret feelings of jealous and loathing.

I smiled on the outside but seethed within….