I have endometriosis. With the pain, frustration, and more pain, also comes infertility. We struggled to have our beautiful babies and are so lucky to have them. They’re funny and adorable and a lot of work. But I always pictured myself driving around in a minivan full of more kids. Remember that game MASH? I picked a mansion with a limousine because I thought I’d have a dozen kids. But unfortunately that’s not reality for us. We’ve tried and will never give up, but it doesn’t look like it’s in the cards. This emotionally kills me but I also know I have to move on.
We’ve been trying for the majority of our marriage and, well, nothing. As the twins grew out of clothes, there I would go stuffing every drawer, cabinet, and bin full of baby clothes for our future children that never come. And coming to terms with this has been hard. I’m definitely not fully there yet, but I did recently feel very motivated to clear some stuff out. Because getting rid of old clothes doesn’t mean there won’t be more kids. It just means less stuff. So I invited a friend over to help me declutter our house and start planning a new room for my husband and I to enjoy. We’re only getting older and we need to face reality.
We’ve dreamed of a quiet room with a desk for work and writing with comfy chairs for reading. There is a skylight up there and it’s nice to stare up at the sky or stars. We’ve already dedicated too much of our house to our twins and dogs. When we bought this house, we tried so many different scenarios for this room but nothing ever felt welcoming.
We pulled out large garbage bags for garbage and giveaways, and small Ziplocks for tiny office items we kept discovering among the mess. We went through bins, bins, and more bins, some of which I couldn’t even get myself to open. We organized and emptied bins, she even helped me organize my storage! As we cleaned out our third floor I actually held it together and I’m so proud of myself. We were openly talking about it and she let me blab on as she just listened. We can now transform the space into what we truly want it to be.
I loved how organized and unattached she was to our stuff. She taught me that it just feels so good to let go of items once they’ve served their purpose. And I’m still working on accepting our reality but at least she led us in the right direction because after all that we do, we do deserve a space to write, read, and relax.
