Sunday, February 03, 2013

The edge of the world

No it's the world does not really have an edge, not literally but I feel like standing on the edge of a cliff. Time is that cliff, the future is that cliff. My life is half over and I feel like I'm too late.

I am just getting started on the career I was supposed to have, meant to have, at least 15 years ago. I will probably never publish, never teach, never really do all the good I could have if I hadn't been caught up in, well myself, my baggage.

I'm old, tired, I have no retirement, I have no child, and I have no idea where I will be living or working in a few months. I love someone I can't make a commitment to and of whom I can't ask a commitment of.

The end of Grey's Anatomy, season 7 says so much about how I feel about being alone. 
There is a reason I said I'd be happy alone. It wasn't because I thought I would be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It's easier to be alone. Because what if you learn that you need love? And then you don't have it. What if you like it? And lean on it? What if you shape your life around it? And then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It's like dying. The only difference is, death ends. This? It could go on forever . . .
This is so unbelievably me, it and the whole episode, ended with me in tears. Listening to Meredith talk to the baby that she is bringing home, to an empty house had me wondering if I would be crazy to adopt. The answer is of course it's crazy and no one in their right mind would hand me a baby. I have not been able to fully process the choices, the realities that have left me a childless mother, with no spouse, with tens of thousands of student loans to repay. I am not sure I can. It is just too much. There is so much grief around the parenthood thing, leaving what was in many ways a good enough marriage with a wonderful person, the loss of people, chances, and youth.

Yes, in many ways, I would be better off not being in a relationship but is that reason enough to leave. Yes, in many ways I would be a really good parent but is that reason enough to to do it.  Yes, in many ways I will be an excellent clinician, but can I make way, earn my keep by doing that.

I am standing on the edge of cliff, trying to not to fall.