the timing of a soul

I walked in from another moment of the specific pain that had haunted me for so long. It was caused by an almost opening of who I really was to another person, who could have been.

Another date and an Uber home in existential dread.

"I could have loved him, one day. . ", I thought, but it wouldn't have worked out.

While the first date had been magical and fun, he had spent our second date going into the details of losing his ex who struggled with their gender expression. I felt for him, but I couldn't help but be startled by the overwhelming weight of his sharing. It was so big and too soon.

I wasn't ready to share anything about myself that still hurt. I knew nothing I could share would make me feel better. There was no comfort he or I could give each other that would relieve the weight we were carrying. Despite this, he explained to me that he takes a while to open up, as we stood on the corner at the end of the evening. In that moment, I wanted to ask him, "do you know what it's like to find out you're pregnant twice? To have a doctor cry to you that she had failed you? To have your partner leave you on the hardest day of your life?"

But I knew it was immature and senseless to compare our pain. I knew it was an ugly side emerging, just trying to be seen.

Instead I stayed silent and gave him a hug goodbye, knowing it would most likely be my last time seeing him.

Whenever I am reintroduced to this pain, that I find so hard to name and identify, it's always a reminder that life would still be hard in similar ways, but just with new people.

When I got home, I untied my winter coat and unsnapped my bra from under my silk blouse. I slipped on baggy sweats and tied my hair back.

I had done all the normal things I do when I hadn’t eaten on a date and was disappointed that I had wasted a full face of makeup and hair. I heated frozen shrimp dumplings in my toaster oven. I scrolled for an old Spotify playlist that comforted me in the worst ways. I washed my face. I had unraveled a few hours into a ritual of retreat and over analysis.

As I did these things, I started crying to the familiar song, soft and suffocating. How it all felt too permanent, as if maybe this feeling never left, even when I felt healed and whole. I had always found it easy to connect to people, but this was always the issue. I could connect to anyone, even if I knew they would walk away without trying or they showed minimal interest. Even when I knew they weren't ready or they weren't right.

My glorious friends would say I was too kind and trusting, they would add that my vulnerability is a gift.

But I felt used and worn, and each time I tried to open up again, it felt like the elastic might not ever go back to its old self.

So what now? When I knew this was bad, do I walk away before it gets real? Do I cut him off before I can get hurt?

Do I finally listen to the that little voice I've been working so hard on hearing?

It was as if I was starting to change in the ways I had hoped, but nothing outside of my had. Finding a meaningful connection was still hard, maybe even harder now.

And like an advertisement on a tv screen, it popped into my mind out of nowhere without warning. I started thinking about when I would have had her. And I don’t know why I assumed this unborn life was female, but she was. Maybe because in-between the days of the first and second abortion, unsure of me still being pregnant, I had caught an earlier train home from work. I was still weak from everything, slumped on the seats of the train, observing a family across from me. There was a grandmother, a mother and a half asian toddler in between them. She was beautiful and innocent. And because my child would have been half Korean I had convinced myself she would look like this little girl. I was looking at my "what if" and didn't know she was still with me, because she hadn't left yet. It was like a goodbye to a ghost life I would never have, watching her laugh as her grandmother pretended to put lipstick on her.

As I went through the post-date routine, I sat at my kitchen island at 12:03, I googled my conception date to see when this unborn soul would have made it earth side and it was. . . today. February 20th 2023.

Shocked, I kept reading it and flipping to the calendar. I placed my phone down, unsure of how to process it. What my life could have been. Like watching through a screen, it felt like I was going through the motions of the director's cut.

I wrote a letter to her on a piece of paper and I told her how sorry I was. How I hoped she understood that it wouldn’t have been out of love to enter this world. How I had wanted so much more for her than I could have given. How I wasn't ready. How he wouldn't have been there.

I burned it on my stove. It crinkled and curled as it turned black and ashy.

I didn't feel any different, any less lonely or sad about what I had done. But in the same breath, I felt relief alongside the pain. Like two pillows holding up my soul.

I felt more home in who I was becoming. And while I knew all was not okay, I knew that this was not forever, even if it felt like it might never leave me entirely.