flares

I sat on my hands when the latest NY whatever adoption article came through. I saw the article about the State Department number of international adoption showed up in the paper, read it, had a few words with M about it, and buttoned up. Read more today about a kid raised on violence and now charged with 5 counts of murder... the senseless waste of his potential... and then I read the article about how more younger couples are going though IVF.

The article featured a young couple in their 20s going through their second round of IVF, unsuccessfully, I might add. It wrenched at me, to hear their hope and wails of anguish reported in the paper for strangers to read, so like our own except not plastered all over the state. I thought, "Should I blog about this?" Then I realized that I was in a really bad mood. Yes, I was angry. I was *pissed*, as we say in the States, stinking mad. I was mad that they had been unsuccessful. I was mad that the paper did a fuckin feature on this. I was mad, even that they had what seemed like an accurate depiction of the odds of success--1 out of 16 eggs of every woman under 35, or 21% for women *over* 35. I was even mad at the thought that some assholes would take this to complain about those poor f3tuses that don't survive. What about those of us who DO survive that experience?? I was just mad with a low-grade growl of ire.

I realized that I can't even write about these small stings. I don't even WANT to. it seems so trite to catalogue the ways in which the world is obliviously misinformed about such things. It's not worth it to me to drag the carcass out again to chew it over at any opportunity. I have to think about it as little as possible or spend my days in outrage.

I don't know why I just now noticed that I am so angry. I'm not angry all the time, at everything. I'm mostly happy, feeling good about my marriage, my work, about life. But it's all the things that have gone wrong, the limitations and misdirections and bio-mistakes that have frustrated and hurt us for years, all the unfairness of the situation.

There's no one place to put the anger. It's not that I can direct it to anyone in particular, and that's perhaps just as well. I don't want to dump this load of shit on an innocent bystander. So I avoid even reacting, thinking, feeling. Obviously, I have lots of work to do to resolve this, but I'll be damned if I am hurried along in this.

M is very good to talk to. I can't even remember what he said, but it was very validating, very wise. God, I love that man.

I think he said that IF leaves an indelible mark on a person. He reminded me of friends we know who went through a similar hell, how he had casually asked them something, even years before we went through our own shit... and even though they are a good 10 years older than we are and went through their IF stuff 30-40 years ago, it was clear that it still hurt. She told me once that they had had their kids names picked out in *high school*. She also told me once, "When I see someone with their child, it still hurts a little, inside." What she meant was, it hurts a lot, frequently. And it still hurts us, now. You can't wipe that away and pretend it doesn't matter.

M's opinion is that I am in a stronger place with the pain because I am more angry than depressed about it, that somehow the anger means that I am taking back some power for myself in this place of helplessness. It's an interesting theory... I agree with it in other contexts, but not sure how I feel about that here.

I could say the anger concerns me, but that would not be so. It's a righteous anger, and nobody can take that away from me because it would be "better" for me to let it go. I'm not letting it go, because honey, then I would be depressed, and I don't want to live there any more. If I didn't have my anger, I wouldn't have a place to put my helplessness, and let me just say that would be totally self-destructive for me. So the anger serves some function. But then where do I put my anger? Ah, ha! I will tell you.

I think I don't want to think or feel it much because I *don't* have anywhere to put it. I don't want to live in that town. But when these little jabs come out, it flares up again. So I look at it, acknowledge it, maybe even have a conversation. Then I bank the fire back, put it back in the box in the back of the closet so I can go out and live the rest of my life. Better living through judicious repression, I tell you.

Yes, I'm still angry. I think it will always be there.

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