Mourning All That Will Never Be

I go back and forth with my mourning. Just when I think I've processed everything there is to process, more shit comes gurgling up. Thrown in my face. Tearing my heart into tiny little jagged pieces.

I mourn for that baby girl that I suspect was abused as an infant. About 2 years ago, I recovered a hazy memory of a baby in a baby bath, one toy navy boat, and my uncle. Due to the fact I was in a baby bath (you know, one of those little baths you place inside the actual bathtub),  I've estimated my age at 6 months, maybe a year. Because I'm so young in this memory, I consistently and constantly question this memory.  But when I'm feeling healthy, I try to tell myself to just accept it, not to question it to death. My point in all that is that I feel I never stood a chance. Corrupted from the beginning. What could I have been if this any of this had never happened?

I mourn for the girl who might have been happy.

I mourn for the girl that might never have suffered depression, anxiety, PTSD, insomnia, chronic headaches, and IBS.

I mourn for the girl who didn't respect her body, or even herself.

I mourn for the girl who may have been outgoing. I mourn for the girl who may have been popular, who may have made the cheerleading squad. I mourn for the girl who may have become homecoming queen.

I mourn for the girl that got bullied for being different. I mourn for the little girl who looked in the mirror, and only saw glasses, braces, chubby cheeks, and a mushroom haircut.

I mourn for the girl that may have been a doctor. That may have gone to law school.

I mourn for the girl that may have had children of her own.

I mourn for the unborn babies she will never have, and the experiences that won't darken her doorstep. She decided when she was 12 that she would never have children, and now she is 32. Childless. Stuck with a biological clock that never started ticking. Only the memory of the day the decision was made.

I can vividly recall that day when I was 12. I was terribly sad that day. This wasn't unusual. It was summer, and I was laying on my back in the grass in the backyard of my parents' house. The clouds weren't flying by especially fast that day, they were just big fluffy air masses lazily making their way across my field of vision. Like large, white cotton balls among the brilliant cerulean sky. I heard shrieks and happy screams of the neighbor kids riding their bikes up and down the street, throwing rocks at each other, playing games. Those happy shrieks felt like a knife to my heart, and in the moment I told myself I would never have kids. I would never subject another human being to the awfulness that was life. How could I willingly bring someone into the world when everything hurt so bad? I could not, I would not. And my mind has never changed.

I mourn that I will never have the experiences that all my former friends are having right now. Some of them have 3 to 4 kids! Pregnancy announcements and baby pictures fill my Facebook feed. Sometimes I smile, with tears in my eyes. Sometimes I just have to close the laptop, the pain is too great. I mourn that I will never experience "the greatest of all loves". I mourn that I will never see my husband's happy face when I tell him I'm pregnant. I mourn that I will never see that grin when his children take their first steps. Say their first word. I mourn that I am selfish and I worry about who will take care of me when I'm old.

I mourn for the girl who only felt hate and anger. I mourn for the people she hurt when she was younger, and didn't know any better.

I mourn for the girl who saw forgiveness as weak.

I mourn for the teenager who could never let go.

I mourn for the girl who spent half her teen years and all of her 20's numbing herself with alcohol, painkillers, and benzo's, with absolutely no inkling of "why?".

I mourn all of this. And then I try to let it go.

This is life, take it or leave it. I could sit here all day with the "what if's?" and the "who knows?". Everything that has come to pass, I cannot change. I can only try to accept it.

After all, it's made me who I am today.