RIP

I am, unequivocally, a girlie girl. Always have been. Always will be. When I was young, my primary mode of transportation was prancing with a bit of skipping...well...aside from the rollerskating phase. I also twirled a lot. If I wasn't wearing a dress, I was pretending to wear one. And, most times, when I pretended I was wearing a dress, I was also pretending that I was falling in love, or dancing with the man of my dreams or fixing dinner for my husband and six children.

Yes. Six.

Until fairly recently, I had the names of those 6 children (well, 6 for girls and 6 for boys) written on a slip of paper and tucked away in a memory box. Within the memory box, along with cards and notes and photos, were cut outs from magazines that reminded me of other things I'd imagined when I was pretending I was wearing a dress: a wedding gown, a bouquet, a crib, living room furniture, patio design ideas, color schemes. There was also a list of qualities I thought the man of my dreams should have: humor, kindness, a love of British comedy, musicality, and nice shoulders.

I threw those things out a few years ago, preferring to leave the specifics in God's hands...and so I wouldn't seem so anal and crazy. Or, at least, so there wouldn't be actual proof to that effect.

Then, last Wednesday, me and my ovaries turned 38.

And, then, yesterday, I decided it was time for my pretending to come to an end. It was time to stop pretending as if the whole man of my dreams and 6 kids thing was a certainty that I was just waiting on. It was time to let that dream die and move on.

Move on to what? I have no idea. I never had a back-up plan. And, while I should feel like the whole world and limitless possibilities are open to me, I don't. Quite the opposite. Because, I've never wanted anything else. Well, there was the whole FBI Profiler/Supreme Court Justice phase, but really that was more of a superhero fantasy than anything else.

Right now, I am just grieving and hurt and confused and sad and, if I'm honest, angry. I know it won't last. I know God is near to the brokenhearted and I know He has promised to work all things together for the good. I trust that this "good" will not remain raw and painful for long and that as my dream dies, he will give me a new "desire of my heart"...and fulfill it this time.

That's what I'm crying out for, anyway.