So, first cycle over.

I’ve learned a few things.

Like it’s impossible not to hope even when I try.
That wondering if I’m pregnant makes me feel like death is following behind me. It’s a shadow behind every footstep and a chill under all my thoughts. Life in my left hand and death in my right.
That trying not to be affected by it, not to give it meaning, not to feel anything, is the loneliest place. It hurts more when I try to pretend I’m not hurting.
The road other people walk, or pretend to walk, or tell me to walk, is not my road.
Trying to bring a child into the world makes me miss everyone I have ever loved, who they will never get to meet.
That it’s possible to step far enough back from the world that all the ideas that have trapped me, the standards of beauty I’ve hated my body for, the approval I’ve worked for, the trying to find a place to belong are just ideas. I can smile like I’ve seen the joke and it’s a little sad. I can see how I’m consumed by things of no importance. I can see how it’s all just moments, strung together, heartbeats, the song of a bird in flight. (Bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky) This is my life (ending one minute at a time) and it’s brief. (Sometimes I wonder was she ever really here at all?) Joy washes in with one wave and sorrow with the next. This is what it is to be alive, and I’m grateful.

Life is brief.