May 26th - What Could Have Been

This is a weird time for me for several reasons, but the main reason that comes to mind is because of what the next seven days represent. It represents what could have been and what would have been coming to an end for me and beginning a new for someone else. The more I think about it the more it sort of boggles my mind and leaves me feeling empty. It's that empty feeling that I am having trouble wrapping my head around.

May 26th, 2012 would have been a very difficult day for me. It would have likely been the most painful day I had ever known and it would have likely been one of the most emotionally trying day. May 26th, 2012 which is only one week from today would have been the due date of the child I lost while I was in a restroom at school. It would have been the day I would be VOLUNTARILY handing over my parental rights and responsibility as a parent, to someone I entrusted to do the job I think I am/would be too young to handle. It would have been the day I gave birth to a child who's biological father is in prison and will be their for more than 26 more years because he is a rapist.

A part of me is really sad as this day approaches, but another part of me is relieved. It's that since of relief that feels weird to me. It feels like my mind is in contradiction with it's self. I was only pregnant for a little more than 7 weeks, and I only knew I was pregnant for the last 30 days before I miscarried. However, in those short 30 days I felt this huge sense of responsibility that kept me grounded and kept me glued together. In a lot of ways I realized that I loved the child that barely had a chance to grow inside of me. It is that love that is a contradiction of sorts. I ask myself how it is that I can love someone I never met, and someone that ONLY came to be through the evil actions of an evil person. That's not an easy quandary to answer. I think on the surface it is really easy for me to view the abduction, rape, pregnancy, and miscarriage as one event, but when I dig into my emotions deeply they aren't one event, just a sequence of events.

Every action in life rather it's purposeful, accidental, or directed toward us because of another's actions will affect us. Most of the times the effects are so trivial we don't even notice them. When it comes to sexual assault the effects of another's actions toward us are long reaching, and it reaches deep within us ripping at our emotional fortitude until sometimes it is destroyed. I guess I separate the rape and the conception because I am reasonably certain that the goal of my rapists actions were to traumatize my emotions and violate my body in the most selfish and evil of ways, but I cannot even imagine that any part of his actions were driven by a desire to impregnate me.

I was pregnant as a result of the rape, I did have a miscarriage as a result of stress and a possible hormonal imbalance, but they were the result of an ever expanding set of events that propagated from his actions. By that same logic my therapy, blog, poetry, current job in a clinic, and possible future education plans and jobs also stem from his actions. Just because these current events and possible future events propagated as a result of my rapist's actions, it doesn't mean that all the things that happen because of that turn in my highway of life will be bad things. I am reasonably sure that I will go to school with the goal of becoming some sort of mental health professional and that the possibility of those events becoming beneficial will be more than likely possible. So I can easily conclude that my pregnancy could have also been a good thing even though the event that led to me being pregnant was horrible.

I think it's that realization or understanding that I have that gives me this contradicting feeling. I literally miss the child that I was denied to bring to full term and find a mom and dad for them that would treat them the way they deserved to be treated, but I so totally and completely despise the means at which I became pregnant. It's just weird to me that I can (in very generic terms) love the results of a horrible situation, and even miss the potential long term results of the same horrible event. I'm probably not making any sense.

One thing is certain, and that is that May 26th will be another day of the year that will hold significant meaning to me for the rest of my life. I have this list of dates in my head that seems to be growing. A list that will remind me of the things I either wish never happened or wish could have happened under different circumstances. I am sure that each year around the 26th of May I will wonder what could have been. Who would this child be at age one in 2013, at age ten in 2023, and what their life would be like when I have gray hair and am in my last few years of life? All of that wondering of what could have been is pointless because that branch of my family tree was cut off at the trunk. I can wonder about what might have been for the rest of my life but that branch would still be severed. I think that bums me out a bit.