This Room Is Full Of Memories, And Shadows Of The Past Remind Me, Of All The Love I Gave In Vain, And All The Hurt I Feel Inside Me

--"I Want You Back", Bananarama

In the course of preparing of writing chapter fourteen of The Carisa Meridian I had difficulty dredging up that not so pleasant memory. Even though it's been well over ten years now, going to that clinic both times is something that never quite fades. It's no secret that I tap my rich history of anecdotes for material. I've never had a problem of placing myself in my stories. But there are some experiences even I cringe at the thought of placing down upon paper for all to read.

It's weird. I don't think I had this much trouble remembering or wanting to remember when I wrote the first clinic visit chapter six years ago. Maybe it was just fresher or my mind. Or perhaps I was just more determined to preserve the memory in a work of fiction. I re-read that chapter and I'm still amazed about how much of myself and that day I see in the chapter. The only thought I have when I read the new chapter, though, is how much I shied away from describing, especially in comparison to that first chapter. It's true that first time was a little more blunt in its awkwardness and overall sadness, but the second time wasn't as neat and tidy as I made it sound in this latest chapter.

It's got me thinking about a few things regarding the decisions she and I made back in 1998. I haven't quite gotten to the point that I would rescind my entire life after then, but it has got me pondering what might have been. As Lucy puts it, it's like staring down the wishing well at a life not quite you're own.

Adding fuel to the fire is the show I'm currently finding myself engrossed in, Life Unexpected. I see that tale, of a girl finding the parents who gave her up sixteen years ago and I can't help but draw parallels to my own life. Except in my case, they would have been--what--ten by now? And there would have been two of them. I remember having this discussion five years ago with my cousins. I remember telling them that, if she and I had had the twins, they would have been five by then. Even that thought was sobering because it still was perplexing how even then I could have felt so young and yet old enough to have had possibly toddlers running around.

I don't even know what my life would be like if I had had fifth graders by now.

Or what's worse, if I go back just a few more years with Lucy herself, I might have had a tenth grader by now. Scary.

And yet, there is a school of thought that at thirty-four the idea of having a child that old isn't all that unlikely. There is the thought that I'm not getting any younger and my aversion to kids is only theoretical. I have a lot of supporters telling me that my tune would have changed once presented with the actuality of the situation. Everyone has an idea of how they'll handle a change in their lives, but most people don't know what they will do once shove comes to push until they are actually pushed into it. I could be sitting here wondering what I'd be like, one way or the other, till I'm blue in the face. But the actuality of the situation is that I really don't know how I'd react because it never happened.

They never happened. And I don't know if I'm worse for not having gone through with the experience or worse if I had. I guess I'll never know.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers