33. On the Fertility of Life

And lately I’ve been thinking about how many versions of ourselves exist at the same time.
Not metaphorically — practically.
Different versions depending on the day, the body, the hormones, the season, the amount of sleep, the amount of hope.

I don’t know which version of me you’ve met.
And, surprisingly, it no longer feels important to clarify.

Because there is one version that almost no one meets — the one I live with inside.
Not my friends.
Not the people who admire me.
Not even the person who loves me most.

Even the closest love does not mean being fully seen.
And being unseen does not mean being unloved.
This took me years to accept.

For a long time, I believed love would recognize me — mirror me back the way I see myself.
It didn’t.
What it did instead was stay.

Over the past years, I was never my “best version.”
At least not by the standards I once believed in.

I wanted growth that could be measured.
Career growth.
Progress with titles, milestones, external confirmation that I was becoming someone.

That version of growth didn’t happen.

While others were building careers, I was building uncertainty.
While others were collecting clarity, I was living inside questions.
And yes — it still hurts.

There is grief in not becoming the person you imagined you would be by a certain age.
A quiet grief, rarely spoken out loud, because it doesn’t fit neatly into success stories.

But while that version of growth stalled, another one was happening.

I grew as a woman.
Not upward — inward.

I became a wife.
I became pregnant.

Not according to a perfect plan.

Not at the “right time.”
Not after ticking all the boxes that were supposed to make me ready.

This was the thing I wrote about in my journals — almost shyly.
The thing I admitted only to myself:
This is what I actually want.

And still, I didn’t believe it would happen.
At least not like this


I had fears — real ones.
About health.
About money.
About stability.
About whether my body would even be able to do this.

And then it happened — almost accidentally.
Before we officially started trying.
Before I felt prepared.
Before life looked “ready.”

That’s when I started thinking about fertility.

Not fertility as biology — but fertility as a principle of life.

Because the body knows something the mind doesn’t:
fertility doesn’t respond to force.

Neither do ideas.
Neither does love.
Neither does meaning.

Projects are conceived the same way pregnancies are.
Sometimes when you stop trying to control every condition.
Sometimes despite fear.
Sometimes before you feel ready.

Some projects end before they’re born.
Some ideas don’t survive the process.
Some require more care than you thought you had in you.

There are miscarriages in creativity.
There are complicated births.
There are things you carry for months only to realize they will never exist outside you.

And when something does survive —
that’s not the end.

After birth comes responsibility.
Presence.
Patience.
The long work of upbringing.

Not productivity — continuity.

The last eight months have been the most creative work of my life.

Not visible work.
Not marketable work.
Work without applause or deadlines.

Creating a human inside my body.
Creating a family.
Learning to measure days not by output, but by attention.

This kind of creation doesn’t reward ambition.
It rewards listening.
Rest.
Trust.

It asks you to be well — physically, emotionally, spiritually — not because success demands it, but because life does.

And this has forced me to confront a difficult truth:

Some versions of success do not survive motherhood.
Some ambitions need to die so something else can live.

I am still afraid I didn’t become who I thought I would be.
But I’m beginning to suspect that not everything that matters responds to effort.

Maybe fertility — real fertility — begins where control ends.

⸻

I’m 33.

I don’t have a clean conclusion.
No lesson neatly wrapped in optimism.

Only this:
Life doesn’t always grow where we push it.
Sometimes it grows where we learn to stay.

And maybe becoming isn’t about reaching the best version of yourself —
but about remaining alive, open, and present long enough

for the right things to arrive.