survivor’s guilt

hawkeye court, my childhood home

i know, i've been MIA. i've had so much going on that i got scared to sit down and even start writing because i was worried of what would come out and where it would go. my therapist insists i write, so here i am after avoiding her advice for the past month. i feel as though putting this down makes all my choices more real, and i know that sounds odd, but it's scary. i have to keep reminding myself that just because things could've been different doesn't mean that they'd be better, and that i don't need to be afraid to start over because i'm not starting from scratch but with experience. 

after wrapping up my second and final round of egg retrieval, i sat with relief and guilt - i couldn't figure out where this guilt was coming from. one night i found myself thinking about my hometown and childhood home. i grew up in a tiny two-bedroom apartment, sharing a room with my brother in our baby years, in a spot once called hawkeye court. they were university-run apartments that provided affordable housing for students. if my math is correct, i think my family's rent was maybe $280 at best. my dad was a phd student at the time who took on night shifts as a janitor to help make ends meet, while mom helped shape us into who we are today. i grew up around other kids whose parents were also students and often times international. we were fucking poor but being surrounded by other people in the same boat, it made life feel normal. i was oblivious to our circumstances, and i grew up quite happy there. it was tucked far off campus surrounded by large patches of green grass and tons of trees. i spent all my time outside biking, playing in the sandboxes, swinging, learning new sports, trying to catch bunnies, blowing bubbles, picking all the dandelions, and making new friends. it got demolished in 2014 and that day made me so damn sad. 

i think the reason why my mind went back to my childhood home was to remind myself how far i've come. i know that isn't a bad thing, it's a good reminder to carry with me. but, look, things have never been simply handed to me. life has never been easy or nice, so i get uncomfortable seeing how my life has shaped up. i have trouble trusting things because i carry around various experiences of what they call survivor's guilt, whether it’s tied to growing up poor, childhood trauma, sexual assault going into grad school, and the various degrees of mental, emotional, physical abuse by family and previous partners. i know that we're all built differently, but the only thing that's let me make it this far is something that isn't taught, and that's to survive and keep pushing forward - whatever that looks like. i've made it out alive and i worked hard to get here, but do i deserve it? how much was all of this luck, and what about everyone else? 

i’ve gotten so used to having to grieve something or someone every year these past several years, so the fact that life seems so simple and quiet right now scares me a lot. in the back of my mind there’s always that question of “what’s next? am i safe?”

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keep it simple

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ivf got this