100 Words Per Mile: Reflections - 2

As true as all this is, it isn't just my story.

When you’re struggling to get pregnant (or in my case, to impregnate), resentment becomes par for the course, and the longer things go, the more poisonous that resentment can become.

This week I covered the timing of my niece’s arrival and the resolve my wife and I found when we held her for the first time.

Also this week, in the present, my niece spent the night. She’s six years old now, a mathematical wiz, and very good at hide-and-seek. There was a good five minutes (which felt like thirty) that I could not find her in my house.

We weren’t even playing hide-and-seek. I was making English muffin pizzas and she decided to disappear quietly. Fortunately, she was in a bedroom closet, laughing to herself. Kids, man.

I was reminded as I tweaked this week’s entry that anything is rarely exclusively your story. There’s been this trend in recent years of speaking “your” truth, which exists, but remains only a fraction of the larger picture. Knuckleheads have hijacked the language to help them pick sides. To be #TeamSo-and-so. If we dig our heels into “our” truth and ignore the complexities, feelings, circumstances, and dimensions that don’t belong to us and paint the totality of the truth, we’ll never grow.

100 Words Per Mile is evidence of my growth. These reflections are evidence my growth continues indefinitely.

From my brother, my sister-in-law, and my niece to the other family members and friends who’ve yet to make an appearance in this thing, it’s all our story. I believe that.

I’m fortunate my resentment never got the best of me or my wife. It required a safe space within our marriage, the room each of us needed to say some of our worst thoughts aloud without judgement—but we never meant any of it. Once we gave the ideas life, we lowered the stakes and we were able to help one another navigate our thought process so we could find the words we actually did mean.

But even that required blunders and patience. I used to never say any of my worst thoughts out loud to my wife, and while I never felt poisoned by it all, it did push me to escape in unhealthy ways. And in a way, seeking escape is what dooms us all.

I also covered this week how my wife kept me from pushing myself too hard. It’s funny how that’s evolved, how she isn’t the only reason for me to take care of myself. At 34, I’m in the best shape of my life, in every sense of that word, shape. My priority motivation is other people.

Time. Patience. Grace. We all need it if we’re going to get better. Who we are at our worst moments doesn’t define us. I’m reminded of that every day. When my niece says, “I missed you, Uncle K-Bob,” I can’t imagine a world without her. My anger was a cause for pause. It was a reason to engage with an exercise that would get me through it all. Now, I can hardly believe I felt it at all.

I’m speaking from a place of privilege, though, where things worked out for me and my wife. Others don’t have that luxury. Would I feel so reflective if my mind were still preoccupied with our infertility? I’m not sure I would.

But that’s just my story. My niece’s story? It’s got absolutely nothing to do with any of my shit. She’s something else entirely and we’re all lucky we get to bear witness.