Wishing for my alternate life

I read an interesting quote today from San.dra Bull.ock in an article about her marriage to Jes.se Ja.mes (who, of course is on my current favorite show, Cele.brity Appren.tice!):

"You don't have to give birth to someone to have a family," Bull.ock says. "I'm not going to spend two seconds of my life wishing I had something I don't … I just want people to admit that there's no one way to live your life."

Hmmm.. sounds like someone dealing with infertility. Maybe you all already knew that, but I'd never heard it before. Not that I think about San.dra Bull.ock's life all that often, but if I were to, I guess I would figure she just hadn't been married that long and that I'd probably see the announcement of her pregnancy (most likely via IVF or surrogate, because that seems to be the only way babies are conceived in Hollywood) on the cover of a magazine in the check-out line any day now.

So I googled it and found this:

At the premiere for her latest film, Infamous, actress San.dra Bul.lock reportedly got angry with a reporter who asked her if she and her husband, TV Host Je.sse Jam.es were expecting.

While jumping in the reporter’s face and pointing her finger, Sandra allegedly shouted, "Oh my god, that is just a disgusting question. And you know what? What if I couldn’t have kids? You know what? That’s the way you make women feel when you ask them that question."

Can you believe she said that?! Apparently that was back in 2006, and some articles go on to quote her saying something about having "stagnant ovaries."

Who knows. Her situation might be very different from mine, it might be completely due to her age (she's 44), and, of course, she still might end up doing ART and conceiving. And, not to mention, maybe she's not infertile at all, and maybe I'm completely wrong in reading into her quotes (but come on, it is kind of like gay-dar....infertile-dar?). None of that matters, though, because I am really sharing all of this for one reason - what she said in the first quote I posted above. Specifically, the part I made bold (okay, go check). 

I, for one, spend A LOT of time wishing I had something I don't have. That's my full-time job (if only I got paid...) and probably where a lot of my misery comes in. 

Interestingly enough, this isn't the first time today I found myself thinking about this very thing.

This morning, I was watching a segment of the interview a morning news show did with the woman who had the face transplant (God is speaking to me through the media now! He probably thinks, "Well how else am I supposed to get your attention?"). It really hit home to me when she was asked about her old self and what she thought when she looked at old pictures. She said how foolish it seems now that she worried about the way she looked at the time and then said, "I want to be positive. I want to move on. When I woke up from that surgery, I thought, 'It's 2009. Everything's going to be great from here on out.'"

The reason that I relate that to infertility is this: We might not have an "old self" we are longing for, but we have an "alternate self" that we surely do. We long for that life that we never had, the one where we had babies in our mid-twenties and had three, maybe four kids by now. The life where it came easily and we decided when to conceive. The life where infertility is nothing more to us than an issue a friend of ours is dealing with, something we spend a moment feeling sorry for her for, before going back to caring for our little ones.

I spend a good amount of time longing for that life. And it's not even a memory I pine for. No, it's a creation, a fantasy that never was and never will be. 

So thank you, San.dra Bull.ock and Con.nie Cul.p. Your words made me realize where, perhaps, my entire problem lies. I need to stop wasting time wishing for something I don't have. I need to wake up and realize today is a new day and I can choose to be happy (well, when psycho hormones don't derail me). And I need to live in reality, rather than spending my days mourning the loss of an alternate universe where I am fertile (although, I can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, there is an alternate time and I do have lots of babies there. I think I've been watching too much Lost!). 

Now I'm going to make a dress, i.e. waste some nice fabric. Wish me luck.