Can't.

I had incredible, happy dreams last night.  My dreams are always vivid, and I nearly always wake up feeling that same emotion from my dreams.  But for some reason, when I awoke this morning, the reality of life came crashing down on me.  And it was heavy.  Ordinarily, I'm a take-charge person; I get things done.  If I want something out of life, I chase it down.  Maybe this is why God gave me such strong legs? 

But the past year has me feeling helpless and as if my life is out of my control.  This is such a foreign place for me that to say that I feel lost would be treating it with kid gloves.  There are frustrations with life that I just cannot fix on my own; I cannot put in enough elbow grease to shine up the situation.

I woke up this morning with the word "Can't" reverberating through my mind.  That word and I are not friends, and we never have been.  I do not identify with it, I do not empathize with it, I do not comiserate with it.  But this morning, I feel as if there are a million of billboards screaming at me from within my own bedroom:  Can't clear up your skin!  Can't get married!  Can't afford things!  Can't fit into your jeans!  Can't have babies!

That last one makes me pause.  It makes me gasp if I dwell on it for more than a few seconds.  It's not referring to a physical inability to have children, but my inability to have them now.  And with each passing day, my body ages toward a point where physical inability becomes a very real enemy, lurking from within. 

There aren't many things in this life that I can say without an ounce of doubt that I am good at.  But, I have always known - from the depths of my being - that I will be a good mother.  When I feel insecure with my career or filled with doubts in other areas, I ache to devote my energies toward something where I know I will thrive.  And it always goes back to one, unshaking thought:  Motherhood.

I am aware enough to know that things can be done to help fix my world of "Can't."  Enough creativity and enough trying will resolve most anything.  I need to return to that place of creativity and effort.  Because I know me - feeling lost and helpless isn't something I tolerate for long.  Like a gypsy, I feel the pulls of change in the wind, and there's no keeping me still once I feel those whispers across my skin.