Chapter Five
Nine months have passed since such a hopeful time when
Stephen and I learned that his vasectomy reversal surgery went perfectly. Yet I
did not get pregnant. In fact, we recently learned that Mother Nature did not
consent at all to our plan. Stephen, it turns out, is one of the very few
recipients of this surgery to develop scar tissue that has completely
re-blocked the passageway. We were both devastated by the shock of this news.
It’s as if we imagined our little human into being and had to grieve the loss
of that creation. We felt frustrated, indignant, exasperated, disappointed and
very sad. Then we both, in our private thoughts, began to note the perks. A
close friend upon hearing this, observed that this behavior is typical of
people with high resiliency. We size up the circumstances and facts, then we
shift and focus on the bright side. The brightest side of all is that we have
each other and precious Eva. And so we are celebrating the freedom of
spontaneous outings, solid sleep opportunities, travel adventures, spoiling our
pre-teen with attention that she no longer admits to wanting and general
financial ease.
Financial ease…what a phrase! It means so many different
things to different people. It’s been six months since I began the process of
unwinding myself from my previous career and identity. In doing so, our family
income was cut by almost half. But let me tell you, I could not feel richer.
Here’s why. Once a person, our household, has enough resources that their basic
needs are securely met, any additional resources are purely
convenience-producing rather than happiness-producing. There have been plenty
of psychological studies around happiness to prove that money is simply not a
factor, once the threshold ensuring the basics has been crossed. That means
that most of us in this country have the means to live a wealthy life. If we
define wealth by an abundance of resources to meet our basic needs, we are
golden and the mind shifts to experience this feeling of security. Of course,
if we are prone to senseless spending that subtracts from our sense of security
then we have another problem…looking for happiness in material goods and
frivolous services.
Authentic and lasting happiness actually comes from a
combination of physical and mental health, positive connection to self and
others (relationships), a frequent connection to nature, meaningful
contributions (work or community service), and opportunities to learn new
things for personal growth. To me, this translates to choices that I can make each
day: eating healthy food, meditating, riding my bike, positive self-talk,
giving my full attention to the people I love, spending time outside whenever
possible, building my business as a service to others, reading, learning and
revising my thinking and behaviors to integrate a new perspective or skill. And
so it goes for me. Things I’m proud of these past few months include volunteer
teaching a cooking class at the teen center once a week, helping to establish a
new holistic health school in our city, designing my own logo and brochure,
taking an entrepreneurial excellence class with a colleague in health coaching,
building my own website and writing regularly for my blog, riding my bike for
errands and starting #justbiketally to celebrate transportation cyclists of
Tallahassee, learning to use multiple forms of social media for communications
and marketing, fostering animals for the Humane Society, attending more closely
to friendships, spending more leisure time with Eva – really listening closely
and practicing non-judgment, traveling to the Virgin Islands and then to Berlin
to visit one of my most inspiring old friends, learning Tai Chi and deciding
that I don’t love it, and participating in as many community events that feel
like a pleasure rather than a burden.
So there.
Resiliency. Happiness.
It absolutely sucks that I can’t have a child with the love
of my life. But it also brings its perks, and I refuse to waste time whining
about it when I can be enjoying all of the above.
