Nebula and Void; January 19 2020

Let’s try putting a positive spin on things. Let’s step out of our heads, into a world in which optimism is possible.

An uncertain future could mean the start of a whole new miraculous journey. Having everything you ever knew and relied on stripped away could, theoretically, set you down a path towards something better. So what if you already made lifelong commitments under the pretense of safety? So what if the future you thought you were heading towards was a happy one?

We’re being upbeat.

Or maybe we’re being sarcastic, because in this current climate, ‘comfort’ is the ultimate goal. However we can get it, however much we can get.

I had that. I had the comfort of an unshakable relationship, so I thought. And I made decisions based on that comfort. I had a child.

It’s weird, how we came to the decision to have a baby. What we really wanted was to adopt. Give a kid a stable, supportive home, you know? I knew I’d never pass on my genes, didn’t think it was right. There’s some internalized ableism there, but the fact that, my genetics – my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome – has made my life miserable, and I didn’t want to pass it on. So, if I was going to be a parent, I thought the only moral way to do it was to take a child in.

There are so many unwanted children in this world. So many kids in the system who will wind up passed around or in abusive situations. I still feel sick, thinking that I had a part in putting a new life into the world and taking away some other kid’s chance at a happy home? But the reality was, I’m on government assistance, and they flat-out won’t approve someone like me to adopt.

So we talked about it a lot, my partner and I. And we still decided to do it, for her to provide the egg and the genetics portion, for me to carry the baby. We were so sure of ourselves. It instilled us with the belief that together, we could put one good-hearted, relatively well-adjusted individual into the world. Change the future by tipping the scales, one person at a time, towards an accepting majority.

Again and again, I said I would never do this alone. Could never. She agreed, said she couldn’t fathom doing this with anyone else. We were her ideal team.

So I still don’t know what changed. She didn’t talk to me, when she decided there were other avenues she didn’t want to rule out. I don’t know why she thought we couldn’t figure out a way to have the most out of the future, together. I don’t understand why she came to this decision after we’d made a permanent, irreversible decision together.

I’m surrounded by people who still love me and want to support me through this. Still, I’ve never felt so alone. So trapped.

There isn’t a single positive spin I can put on my situation that make up for what I’ve lost.