There are occasionally (rarely if I can help it) days when I daydream about how life would have been had I kept my son; how different it would be. This is one of those days.
I've been in Virginia for nearly a month visiting family and friends whom I have not seen in a year. Within this year I've done a LOT of processing: crying, reading, crying, writing, crying, spilling. Most of this process is to come to terms with what has happened--what I cannot change. Then, out of the blue, this subject pops up in such a way that makes me realize how bizarre and unnatural it is, and I can't help but dream of how it could have, no, SHOULD have been.
Today I was texting a friend about meeting on Saturday in a nearby town for a day at the theme park. He suggested we plan to go back to my parents' home afterward to "meet the rugrat." "Whose rugrat?" I questioned. "Yours," he specified. My heart skipped a beat. I know I haven't seen him in four years, but he HAD to have known the outcome of my pregnancy. Did he really think that I've been an active mom for three whole years? Apparently, he did. So I clarified, and he was appalled. He apologized, and I brushed it off.
But it got me thinking what he must have believed I was doing these past few years if I were a single mom: sleepless nights, focusing on raising my family, studying child development and alternative early education, occasionally taking a course here and there to eventually finish my degree, attempting to be a part-time professional, moving across the country with the man who I entrusted to be the father of my child[ren], being devastated when the relationship didn't work out... oh wait... that IS what I've been doing these past three years. The only difference is that I don't have my son.
Life isn't much different than how it would have turned out had I kept him. Similar struggles, similar outcome. But instead of having my little bundle of joy--the reason to live through the struggles--I have no one. I don't have memories of his first steps or his first words, I don't have his unconditional love and admiration, nor do I have the brilliant beautiful boy (that everyone says he's turned out to be) to be proud of.
So what was the point?
