Dear 29-year old Jess in 2006,

I know everything seems so scary right now. You’ve been utterly unmoored from the life that you thought was what you wanted but turned out like a Stranger Things’ Upside Down, everything dark and ominous and opposite. You wanted the house, the husband, the 2.5 kids, all on a strict timeline before 30. And here you are – turning 30, but going through a divorce, living in the apartment over your parents’ garage, getting ready to be a student-teacher, and rebuilding your self-worth from scratch. No husband, no kids, no house, no job.

You can’t imagine that things will ever be okay. But, later this year you will meet Bryce, who will be the love of your life. You are going to discover that teaching is truly what you were meant to do. It is going to be a life that, in all the best ways, is unrecognizable from the one that shattered but was full of cracks anyway. Right now it feels like you are floating through space with no anchor, just flailing through uncertainty. But you will have the love you deserve, a job you love, and a cozy home. It’s going to be so much better than you can imagine.

Dear 34-year-old Jess in 2010,

Seems a bit of a humdinger, doesn’t it? Here you are, married to an amazing man, living a life full of dignity and laughter, nature and music, mutual respect and support – so many of the things! But… having a baby is proving difficult. You’ve accepted that you will need help from a fertility clinic. Before you got serious, Bryce told you of his male factor infertility so that was a given. But to find that you also have infertility diagnoses and the IVF that was supposed to be the answer for you yielded a poor showing? It’s a lot. You’re going to plow forward with notebook in hand, researching every possible option. Except one.

I’m here to tell you that yes, you are going to go through hell. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will work. And this sounds harsh and terrible and like the worst possible outcome, but trust me when I say… it’s going to be okay. More than okay. Give yourself grace when all you can see is the next thing to fix. Go ahead, read blogs by women who resolved without parenting. Dip your toes into all the possible options.

Dear 41-year old Jess in 2017,

You need this letter more than anyone. You are here, at the end of your 8-year quest, lying face-down in the plush carpet pile of a room that has just been divested of everything that made it a nursery. In this moment you know that you have nothing left to give a journey that has brought nothing but disappointment and heartbreak, the exhaustion of finding hope where there seems to be none and cultivating it like a tender perennial flower only to have it crushed, over and over and over again.

It hurts. You feel raw, empty, and numb all at the same time.

Do you believe me when I tell you that this seems like the end, but it is really a beginning? And a BEAUTIFUL beginning at that?

This is your chrysalis moment.

You are the goo, the deconstructed mess, your original plan (and also plan B, C, and so on) undone and unrecognizable.

It hurts in this space. All you can see is everything you’ve lost. You’ve failed so utterly at being a caterpillar. Your body did you dirty. Your life that you love so much is passed over in adoption. No rainbow baby “chose” you. There was no miracle. It seems that the weight of your loss drops you deep into a dark pit and you’ll never be able to climb any slippery roots to get out.

But this is a place of transformation. You are goo so that you can slowly reconstruct your life into something different, something with wings.

You are worth more than your dream of parenthood. That is not the only path. You get to redefine what you want your life to be, what you want your life to mean.

Do you believe me when I say you will emerge from your chrysalis, with beautiful but delicate wings? A butterfly is at its most vulnerable when it leaves the place of transformation – it needs to sit and rest and let its wings dry, let its body unfold and harden into its new form. You are the same – you need to give yourself time to dry, to feel the impact of that gooey time and cure into your new phase of existence.

You are the architect of your life. You decide to soar and pollinate projects big and small that you may not have had time for had you become a parent. Of course you can be sad, too – you can remember the time in that dark pod of goo, when you couldn’t recognize the pieces of yourself and it seemed you’d never see light again. You can think of the alternate life you thought you’d have and mourn what could have been. But those moments are short-lived, because you have so much flying to do in this remade garden that is your life now.

You are capable of transformation. You are a beautiful, fluttering, golden creature who has survived the goo and the unfolding to thrive in a brand new life.

Jess Tennant

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash