Life Lesson

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that’s waiting for us.   
- Joseph Campbell

I don't know when I began learning this lesson, but if I were to guess, I'd say it happened shortly after I got married.  Almost nothing was as I had thought, the way I'd imagined, in my head.  One house you live in forever, a white picket fence, and a tree planted when each child is born - trees that will grow enough for a swing by the time grandchildren come to visit.  People tell you "marriage is hard work", but I didn't internalize that information until I lived it.  Marriage, and my life, was not a cinderella fairy tale, and I took it hard.  Thankfully, something made me stop.  Stop fighting my reality and really take a look around.  When I gave myself the chance to do that, I realized that I had a lot to be happy about.  So what if my life doesn't fit into some pre-conceived mold I'd created in my teens?  What did I know about life then anyway?  As it turns out, in spite of a rather unique path, I am happy.  Happier than I ever thought I could be.  I love my life, and I love where it's going, with one exception.  The exception being my secondary infertility and my inability to complete our family with a second child.  See, there it is again - I had always "planned" on 4 children.  Now, I would be over the moon to have just one more; I would feel more complete.  But I have to know in my heart that if I am only blessed with this one, beautiful child of mine, I can still have a good life - the life that's waiting for me.

(Will I be forgiven if I still hold out hope that my second child is a part of the life that's waiting???)

-DOC