When Plan B doesn't work...
Plan B
I am standing on a London bridge, talking to a friend and telling her that I am going to be taking some time out of a few of my commitments to pursue adoption, ‘because, you know, adoption has always been my Plan B’. She gets it and nods, and I say, ‘I’ll see you when I am out the other side!’.
Out the other side meant, to me, that I would be a Mum. A Mum to an adopted child.
I remember thinking afterwards that it was suitable to have that conversation on a bridge, and one that I have always loved. Because I felt as if I was on a bridge, a bridge that was going to lead to the rest of my life.
Except this bridge crashed and burned, and I crashed with it
And when I did see her on the other side, I was sobbing and I was broken and I had received the worst news I had ever had.
My dream of adoption – my solace after infertility – was over, because I had been turned down, and in the most painful way possible.
I can’t pretend that anything positive came out of this experience except perhaps knowing that underneath my broken fragments was an unbreakable strength.
But there is life after Plan B
It’s called Plan C, and it is not second best, but it is different. It doesn’t come after Plan B, but lives next to it, like a parallel universe. And even if it hasn’t entirely healed me, I have the consolation of knowing that I am living my best possible life, given everything that has happened to me, and, more often than not, I am happy, and I allow myself to be happy.
A life of meaning, and of joy
Happiness now does not mean that my Plan B did not matter, because it did, but it does mean that I am making the best of every day, and I am refusing to be defeated and I am worth it, I am worth a life of meaning and joy, and I will make the most of it.
I am mending my broken fragments with gold
In Japan, when pots are broken, instead of throwing then away, they are repaired with gold and thereby made more beautiful:
www.lifegate.com/people/lifestyle/kintsugi
If I can help you to mend your life when everything seems broken, then please do contact me: