The Change

Fruits of the Crone by Brian Froud

It happened so quietly, like some ninja in black, slipping out the window onto the rooftop of the house, down to the yard and past the wall into the night, in some old black and white movie on Saturday morning when I was a kid.  When I woke this morning I realized it had left me and I had never noticed.  I can’t seem to remember when, just that it is gone now. 

Change happens to us all the time.  But when the first one happened, I noticed and I expected to be more aware of this one.  I was expecting it, I knew it would come but, I thought that I would notice somehow.  That there would be some sort of symptom to tell me that it had happened.

Fourteen years ago I conceived a child for the last time.  I miscarried six weeks later and the following week I allowed a surgeon to sever the pathway.  Conception would never again be possible.  I have regretted that decision and grieved for the loss.  But my body was never really aware of what my mind knew.  It did not change who I was.   This is different.

Even if it were still mechanically possible, my body has reached that state where it is no longer capable of creating or gestating life.  That possibility is really over.  And I have a choice to make.

I can grieve.  But I have already done that.  For years I did that.  It doesn’t feel right to grieve for this change.  It feels as though grieving would be saying that my life is over, that there is no reason for me to keep on living, that love and pleasure and joy are no longer possible for me, that I have no purpose and nothing to give or look forward to.  And this doesn’t feel like that to me.  That actually comes as quite a surprise for indeed, I expected that it would.

What this does feel like is a new life.  Like I have been reincarnated again, but with all of the knowledge and wisdom and understanding gained in the previous life intact.  Like I get to start over without having to start at the bottom of the staircase.  It feels like I spent my life until now climbing a tower to reach a door and now I have opened the doorway to find a new world, that the adventure is just beginning and I have lost nothing, like I can start the journey with all the tools I could possibly need and the knowledge of how to use them.

It seems so very strange but, it feels like a cause for celebration.  I give thanks for the change.