* not with ink

Throughout this series, I've been thinking about my friends who feel their families are in some way "incomplete." That is, the family they long for or once had or almost had is not their current reality. There's a loss, a lack, an absence that stays with them. This is true for almost all of us, in one way or another. Maybe an adult parent or sibling has died. Maybe there is estrangement that can't be overcome. Maybe we've experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, or very early death. Maybe a divorce, or a widowing. Maybe there is simply the lack of a partner. We live in a world of loss, imperfection, and incompletion. We long for what we do not have. We grieve what we once held. This is not something we can remedy. But it is something we can give space for, something we can recognize and maybe assume, and treat gently.  -- I've loved the conversations that I have had both on and offline because of this series. Thank you all, once again, for particip

When I wrote about the possibility of infertility, many of you said I was courageous for sharing my story. I'm grateful, and, as always, encouraged by your responses and kind words. But can I be honest? This topic is way more scary to me. It's scary because my fertility is something I have no control over - there is no shame for me in that, no regrets or if-onlys. But my choices about career-building are exactly that - choices. I have agency in these decisions, and that agency opens me up to errors, fear, judgment, and so much more. And where I stand - not quite a year into marriage, with two terms left in my masters degree, it's all a tangled bundle of thoughts and feelings and desires and uncertainty, and internal pressure, and offhand comments, and impossibility. It's impossible to do it perfectly. It's impossible to have everything I want. It's impossible to defend my decisions to the world. This creates a great deal of inner turmoil for me