Aven Kane

Your new life isn’t picture-perfect, not by a long shot. You and James still need to make sense of the next chapter of your marriage, and you both awaken some days slogged down by a feeling of heaviness that no amount of positive affirmations or gratitude journals can shake. You recently resumed taking your anti-depression medication, and your chest still constricts almost every time you see a newborn baby giggling with its parents.

Little by little, however, you are beginning to heal. It’s a slow process. A quiet one. But, bit by bit, you can feel your imaginary life—the one where you and James succeeded in starting a family—slipping away from view.

Maybe that life exists somewhere in an alternate universe. You like to think it does: a universe where James calls the kids to dinner, and he’s smiling and breathless, with a frying pan in one hand and a tea towel flung over his shoulder. You’ve just gotten home from work, and you’re both frazzled but happy. You exchange one of those knowing looks where you savor in the mutual recognition that this life you have created is hard, but it’s beautiful, and it’s yours. And you’re so proud of it--and of yourselves for making it--that you feel your hearts may very well burst through your chests.

It’s a gorgeous life, this one, but you can’t stare at it too long, or it starts to burn your eyes. Instead, you lovingly tuck it away in a corner somewhere or maybe up on a bookshelf where you can still see and feel its ambient glow.

That’s a nice thought, isn’t it? The idea that, if you promise not to look at it for too long, you can still somehow access this reality and use it to warm the nights when your real-life house is just a little too cold, a little too quiet?

Because it is. You and James hardly know what to do with yourself in the evenings now. In the absence of doctors’ visits, procedures, and plans, your days are now punctuated by a distinct lack of structure. Most nights, Lexi the German shepherd and Fella the pit bull snooze while James reads his books and you write in your journal. You listen to neo-classical music, light candles and incense, and enjoy cups of tea before wandering off to bed when you feel sleepy.

It’s not a bad life. In fact, it’s pretty idyllic in lots of ways. Most of your parent friends would probably kill for even one evening like this. With all your recent world traveling, you and James are the envy of your friends in more ways than one. 

And that’s okay. You have stopped resenting the injustice of this. You also don’t (typically) feel the need to say you would gladly trade places with your friends. In fact, you no longer know if you truly would.

You occasionally still catch yourself thinking unexpected thoughts, like: “When we have kids, we’re going to encourage them to make mistakes when they’re young,” or “We’re going to teach our children to show compassion to everyone they meet.”

Invariably, right after one of these thoughts appears in your head, you remember that you and James aren’t going to ever have children. Then, you are usually struck by some degree of bewilderment: Really? Never-ever? Not even one? 

But maybe those thoughts aren’t coming quite as frequently anymore. And when they do, they tend to pass quickly, like the ever-changing tides at your favorite barrier island. If you simply sit with them until they diffuse, they tend to drift away with the waves soon enough.