You say that I am brave living with a chronic illness, but I must be even braver than you know.

I do not feel the need to believe in life after death or that some force is watching over me. I do not need to believe that everything happens for a reason. I know that everything that happens is random and unplanned and not a punishment or a reward.

I do not feel the need to believe in the fantasy world of chakras, astrology, or the fevered imaginings of Deepak Chopra. I do not believe in heaven or hell, I believe that we choose to make our own lives heaven or hell right here on Earth.

I am also brave for the following reason. I am unable to have children of my own. When others tell me about their children, how wonderful they are, how annoying they are, how proud they are of them and how they have never felt this much love before, I have to live with the knowledge that I will never experience that myself. I will never have that. And this pain is constantly with me, every single day. I have to face this in my everyday life, at community celebrations, at work, on Facebook, from friends, strangers and colleagues. I am so happy for them, but because I’ll never have that, it tears away at me and, to be honest, it fucking HURTS.

But I’m facing it. I don’t have a need to blame any supernatural force for punishing me and not giving me children. I definitely don’t have a need to go to a psychic or a medium for help. I’m not following any superstitions, or going to a homeopath out of desperation. I’m not holding out any false hope.

I’m facing the situation and being honest with myself and trying to move on. After all, I have an amazing husband, family and friends, a wonderful place to live, enough food to eat and enough money to travel. Most vitally, if it were not for advances in science and conventional medicine, I would not even be alive right now. I would have died when I was a teenager. The fact that I am in my 30s right now is nothing short of a miracle (the scientific kind, of course). And that is a hell of a lot more than most people have.