My flash nonfiction piece, “Not Done With the World” appeared today in the New York Times online (and will appear in the print edition of the 25 October 2018 issue on page A3). After a series of disappointments, setbacks, and heartbreaks for me these past two years in my writing career, this publication means so much to me. I’ve spent most of today thanking my friends and sometimes crying as I read their comments because now the trauma that LB and I hid from the world for so long is out in the open. Readers are now our witnesses. Friends are now informed allies who can better understand our pain. Not only have I been trying to tell the story of our failed family for so long now, which journals had been uninterested in publishing up until now (men’s voices being incredibly rare, if not completely absent, from essays about infertility), but I’ve also been trying to let go of this pain through my writing, which LB and I have hoarded out of shame, grief, guilt, and sadness for so long we cannot remember being without that pain anymore. It was our love that made us want to have children and it was our love that helped us accept that we could not have them. This (really) short piece tells the story of our trip to Prague where we tried to heal a tiny bit by borrowing some of the joy, curiosity, desire, and endless adaptability that comes with traveling, and using those things to glue our shattered life back together.
A Dream Come True For Me