If We Were Having Coffee – Spring 2022 Update

I first saw Jamie at Perpetual Page Turner do an If We Were Having Coffee post in 2019, which is an idea she got from a life coach. Since then, I’ve been doing them periodically. Lately, it looks like I’m settling into a spring/fall routine. So, here’s my If We Were Having Coffee Spring 2022 update!

If we were having coffee…

I would tell you that I just finished reading THIS REBEL HEART by Katherine Locke. It’s fantastic and also kind of brutal– not the story itself. It’s not particularly violent or anything. Maybe emotionally raw is a better descriptor? Either way, I loved it, but I read it kind of slowly, which is unusual for me. It felt like the right pace for me to read it, though. I posed my review yesterday, so it’s up if you want to find out more.

I’m also currently listening to NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION by Marshall B. Rosenberg, which was recommended to me by more than one friend. Right now, I’m only about 25% of the way through the book, and I feel like it’s one I’ll need to listen to more than once to really absorb the whole message. I’m really intrigued so far, and I want to give myself a trial period and see how practicing nonviolent communication effects relationships for me. I’m not sure that it’s something I’ll adopt as an overall communication strategy, but we’ll see after I’ve read the whole of the book.

If we were having coffee…

I’d want to talk about hard things. I was reading a thread on Twitter in which tons of women shared their experiences with miscarriages, and many commented on how we don’t talk about this experience enough. And that’s so true.

When I’ve talked about my own miscarriages, it seems like often people don’t know what to say, and I want to respect that, but it can be really painful because it feels like this unspoken cue to stop talking about it. It feels like they’re uncomfortable and I can fix that by stopping talking.

We’ve all been in conversations that have a weight to them that we don’t understand, where we feel like we need to say something but have zero idea what the right thing might be. I hate those, too. It can feel like waking up in a minefield and having no idea how to get to safe space again.

If we were having coffee…

If we talked about miscarriages, I’d want to tell you what it was like for me.

I was talking about my miscarriage experiences to a friend last week and this was the explanation that clicked with him. I told him it’s like being betrayed by your body in a deeply painful way. Pregnancy is this process your body is supposed to be able to do all on its own. It’s supposed to protect, nurture, and care for the budding person inside you the way you will care for and protect the baby once they’re born. And instead, it kills your baby. Without your permission or consent. You can literally do nothing to stop this thing from happening. And it’s happening inside your body, so there’s no place to retreat from it.

Also, our healthcare system? Really freaking terrible at handling miscarriages. I couldn’t get one of the medications my doctor wanted to prescribe me. Another wasn’t covered by my insurance at all. At one point I was in the ER, and let me simply say that is NOT a place anyone should experience a miscarriage. Someone in the thread I was reading used the term “undignified,” and yeah. I can honestly say that I’ve NEVER felt more like an object in a petri dish and less like a human being in my life than I did that night.

Everyone’s experience is different. I really, really wanted a baby. So, for me, the grief was very focused on the loss of that person who I was already imagining to be a part of my life and the failure of my body to protect that person.

If we were having coffee…

I’d want to tell you I’m grateful that you’re listening. Grateful that you’re here. The last few years have been really isolating for a lot of us. I’m proud of the ways we’ve found to stay connected. For me, some of this has been through online contact. I have a friend who lives far away, but checks in with me every day or so on my phone to talk about family stuff and bookish or writing stuff. She’s amazing. I’d be lost without her.

Some of it has been outdoor get-togethers, and some indoor get-togethers. I have a friend who meets me for coffee outside (and now sometimes inside!) almost every week since the early COVID days. She’s also a mom, so we talk a lot about the challenges of raising kids. We compare notes on the sometimes impossibility of remembering who you are outside of being that caretaker/chief cook/cruise director. I’d be lost without her, too. She’s awesome.

There are new friends, too. New jokes. New experiences. Lots to look forward to. I’m grateful for all those relationships and moments, too, in life and on here!

If we were having coffee, what would you want to tell me?

What’s on your mind today that you want to share with me? Have you recently read anything you love? Have you had experiences with grief that you wish other people better understood?

Thanks for catching up with me. I appreciate you. <3