It’s no sur­prise that I con­sider myself a pre-​​cursor to a Fan­girl.** And I say “pre-​​cursor” because I cer­tainly am not one that is com­pletely obsessed with my favorite char­ac­ters or actors; Johnny Depp notwith­stand­ing (of course). And I cer­tainly don’t “role-​​play” like some fan­girls and fan­boys do. Call it being a prod­uct of grow­ing up as an ado­les­cent and teenager in the early 80’s … but I con­sider myself more a Pop Cul­ture enthu­si­ast, than a Fan­girl. I know more Pop Cul­ture trivia and par­tic­u­lar TV shows/​movies than I know any­thing about Manga or RPG char­ac­ters in the lat­est PS3 game.

Or as Cee Lo Green might say, “I guess (s)he’s more XBox. And I’m more Atari.”

So it shouldn’t be a sur­prise that, last night I was on the couch watch­ing Spi­der­man 2 in HD and read­ing the Wolver­ine & Jubilee*** comic at the same time. After all, my num­ber one Fan­boy (aka Hubby) was also on the couch next to me read­ing his entire pile of comics and was the one respon­si­ble for choos­ing our TV selection.

In the midst of watch­ing the movie, I caught a line that Peter Parker (as Spi­der­man, of course) said to the bril­liant but obses­sive sci­en­tist, Dr. Otto Octavius. While Spidey tries to talk Doc Ock (the “evil” alter-​​ego) out of con­tin­u­ing with his highly volatile, “this-​​could-​​implode-​​the-​​world” exper­i­ment, a bit of the pas­sion­ately kind Dr. Octavi­ous comes out and says, “It was my dream … ”

And Peter, unmasked by this time responds back to Dr. Octavi­ous and says:

“Some­times to do what’s right, we must be steady … and give up the things we desire the most. Even our dreams.”

Now … as many times as I’ve watched this movie before (thanks to the Mas­ter of the Remote, aka Hubby), I don’t think I’ve ever picked up on that line before.

Wow, was all I could think when hear­ing that line. How very insightful.

Maybe it’s because NIAW 2011 had just con­cluded, but I def­i­nitely had my Infer­til­ity Jour­ney in mind. And I cer­tainly thought about how my jour­ney had ended by liv­ing child-​​free.

As I’ve said count­less times before, mak­ing the deci­sion to stop pur­su­ing other options to build our fam­ily was not an easy deci­sion. At all.

That deci­sion came only after years of deal­ing with so much emo­tional trauma. Like feel­ing as we’d been left “behind” as we watched mul­ti­ple fam­ily and friends have chil­dren of their own. Or feel­ing that I was a “fail­ure” because I couldn’t give my Hus­band the child he so richly deserved. Or feel­ing like an ungrate­ful child because I couldn’t give my par­ents the gift of spoil­ing my child(ren). Or that I was sim­ply — and excuse my X-​​Men ref­er­ence here — a mutant for not being able to do what seemed like the rest of the human pop­u­la­tion could eas­ily do.

So yeah, let’s just say that — except for the love that Hubby & I had for one another — there was noth­ing steady about trav­el­ing down the Infer­til­ity road. If any­thing, going through the emo­tions of extreme hope (in the begin­ning of each monthly cycle) to extreme dis­ap­point­ment (at the end of each cycle) can very much be com­pared to being on a non-​​stop roller coaster.

NOT the movie version

To finally get off the ride … to finally get a chance to breathe … That gave Hubby and I an oppor­tu­nity to think; to weigh out our options with­out all the emo­tions get­ting in the way. After all, we were talk­ing about our dream; the one that involved hav­ing a large family.

Hear­ing that quote last night? It was a good thing. Because what it did was cement the deci­sion that Hubby & I had made … to live our lives with the pos­si­bil­ity of no chil­dren … as the right one for us. It con­firmed that we had to regain our san­ity out­side of the emo­tions and focus on where our next path in life would take us. In other words, we had to find a way to remain steady.

And in the end … well, we did exactly what Peter Parker had said in that line. We gave up the one thing in life we very much desired. We gave up our dream.

But despite it all … I know I can count on one thing in our lives that will always remain steady. And that’s the love that Hubby (my TV-​​remote-​​hogging, comic-​​book-​​loving gem-​​of-​​a-​​guy) and I have for one another.

.

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Related Posts

Emily’s not a Johnny Depp stalker … no she’s not!

Emily talks about her jour­ney to Child­free Living

Emily com­pares Infer­til­ity to episodes of free-​​falling

Emily talks about that dream

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** Fan­girl: A rabid breed of human female who is obe­sessed with either a fic­tional char­ac­ter or an actor. Sim­i­lar to the breed of fanboy.

*** What can I say? I think Jubilee was always under­rated in the X-​​Men. And I totally loved the rela­tion­ship between her & Wolverine.