i've been on this journey of healing.

a friend of mine came up to me during church recently and told me that he could sense that my greatest desire in life was to have a child of my own. my jaw dropped. i mean, how did he know? i thought i was doing a good job of playing it off like i don't want children (because i'm old and have lost hope more and more with each passing year), but he was right; he is right. i want to have a child of my own. (that's the first time i have been able to say that aloud in years.)

sure, there are different ways of being a mom and i am reminded of this every mother's day (adoption, spiritual motherhood etc), but what i really want is to be able to experience a child growing inside of my womb and feel it move around; what i really desire is to be able to nurture him or her and help them grow, give my baby a strong name (i have a list tucked away just in case) and pick out cute clothes that i don't end up wrapping and bringing with me to someone else's shower.

the thing with desiring something, though, is that we have no way of knowing whether or not it will come to pass, and there's risk in that; there's risk involved in longing for something so deeply and speaking it aloud, and this is no different; admitting that i want to bare a child at the age of 39 (with no prospects of marriage at this point) is scary. hope is scary.