Just Jo

Those who know me even a little know that “silent” is not a word often used to describe me. I am passionate, outspoken, and even a bit argumentative. I have opinions and I’m not often afraid to share them, sometimes to my own detriment. If you’ve followed my journey the last ten years, you know that I’ve channeled this personality trait into becoming an advocate of breaking the silence that surrounds infertility, miscarriage, and repeated pregnancy loss. I’ve been very open with my own struggles to conceive, the heartbreak I faced losing multiple pregnancies, and the roller-coaster of emotions that accompanies IVF and ART. I am passionate about speaking up against social injustice and inequality. I will proudly stand up for others, to proclaim that something isn’t right, that we must be the change we wish to see in the world. What I’ve never said, out loud, to anyone is that I am also a victim of domestic abuse. For over fifteen years, my husband used fear, guilt, manipulation and i

I am a writer. It's taken me 36 years to say that. Before, I've always equivocated. "I like to write," I've said. "I blog sometimes." "I enjoy writing." But to actually call myself a writer? Isn't that for people who do it so much better than I do? For people whose imaginary stories spill out of their fingertips and onto the page, creating magic in their wake? For those lucky souls who possess the ability to create alternate realities, to transport others to places unseen and yet just as real in the imagination as the page on which its written? Surely it's not for a person like me, a person who struggles to find the right words and put them in the right order, who deletes and rewrites and still isn't satisfied. It cannot refer to someone who writes about the mundane in spurts and starts and wouldn't know author's craft if it bit her in the face. A writer is someone polished, someone smart and creative, someone who knows

I've been struggling lately with what to say to you. There's so much left unspoken, given the way that things ended. There's so many explanations I want you to hear, so many wrongs I'd like you to acknowledge. But then I stop myself. And one word comes to mind. A word you have never been good at understanding: no. No. No, I am not going to let you dominate this space. No. No, I am not going to use this forum to list the many (MANY!) reasons I'm still angry. No. No, I am not going to give you any more control - over me, over my life, over the choices I make. No. (It's a complete sentence, or so I've heard). I'm not exactly sure what I have to say - my voice has been silenced for so long that I wonder which musings are worthy of sharing, and which are best kept to myself. But I do not wonder about what I envision for this space - a place that I can use to re-discover who *I* am, a place in which I once again can find my voice. Dear