Opening Up

There are a few things about myself that I sell myself short at, one of them is my ability to relate to other women. More specifically, relating to women my own age or around my age. It's not that I don't want to make friends with them, or have them be a part of my life. Its mainly that I have this secret, this "thing" that makes me different from them.

And the difference isn't just tastes in movies, or whether I prefer ranch dressing with my fries instead of ketchup. (Mmm fries.)

It’s a "thing" that makes me feel like an outsider in a room full of women...most of whom just happen to be mothers.

The "thing" that separates me from the norm of this circle of women is...infertility.

I chose to keep our our infertility a secret from everyone except a few close friends. I kept it a secret for so long, that I had become more of an intovert than I already had been prior to our IF diagnosis. I had realized that once people found out that we couldn't have children, we became open to insensitive comments, inappropriate questions, and useless platitudes. It had become easier to keep things to myself, rather than share them with others.

I also learned that keeping a secret takes hard work. Retraining myself to open up to people, takes even harder work.

I had the opportunity to hang out with a friend from church earlier this week. L is a very sweet person and a great mother. We hung out at Target (my favorite), and had coffee at the Starbucks inside the store. It was a lot of fun hanging out with L and her two kiddos, but I was still slightly nervous and flustered the whole time. I just hope I didn't scare her away...or bore her to death.

*facepalm*

Now that I'm aware that I do this, I will try to not be so guarded when a friend wants to geniunely hang out with me. I will try to remember to relax and be myself. So, to my friends who are reading this, bear with me. I'm trying to open up, but it will take me a while :)