Even if it’s a crooked rainbow with colors missing. It still counts, damnit.

This past Sunday was an anniversary.

But not the kind you celebrate with an extravagant weekend getaway.

If you’re like me, it’s the kind you await with anxious trepidation, wondering what sick emotional games your head and heart will play with you.

A year ago last Sunday I suffered a miscarriage.  It was the first (but not the last) time I would experience the realized loss of a living being within.

The bottle of Prometrium prescribed by the kind, helpful, and compassionate doctor on the other end of the phone with a sobbing, fretful, worried mother that night, one year ago last Sunday, still sits in my kitchen cabinet.

I still don’t have the heart to throw it away.  Yet, I have no use for it.  Seeing it reminds me of the baby.  That’s not a great thing, but it’s not altogether a bad thing, either.  It’s just… a thing thing.

Even though that first miscarriage ripped my heart out, and then I got an injection of Unexpected Hope only to suffer another Cosmic Sucker Punch, I have experienced a bit of healing in a whole year’s time.

But I don’t want to forget.  And I don’t mean forget the babies (which I most certainly will not).  I mean the pain.

There is something about the pain that is left after something that tears at your heart so fiercely.  There is something about it that I don’t want to lose.

That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Perhaps it’s just the idea that this pain is the only thing I have left of this baby (of both of these babies), and the thought of letting go of it and moving on is just… well, shitty.  Unpoetic as it may be, that is the best word for it.  Letting go of that pain feels shitty.

If I can smile all day long every day (even when I’m looking at the damned bottle in the kitchen cabinet), then it feels as though I have nothing left of them.  As if it does not matter that they were here one moment and then gone the next.

Fault me for it if you will, but nutty as it sounds – this pain is a tragically beautiful thing, and I don’t plan on letting go of it until I am holding my babies somewhere.  Whether that is in some eternal dream or Heaven, or wherever else… that’s when I’ll release this gnawing grief.

Until then, that very pain helps me appreciate every hug, flower, and ray of light in this world.  Because I’m a foolish girl, and when the light of the sun shines too prettily for too long, I have a tendency to take everything that’s good in my life for granted.

This pain?  The way it lingers and sometimes flares up?  It taps me on the shoulder and says, “Be grateful, woman.” It’s my reminder.

I refuse to even want to let go of that.

This past Sunday, I planted flowers for our lost babies, who we call Taylor and Davin.
They were purple alyssum, a choice made in order to simultaneously bow my head to another soul that was spirited away too soon.

I could want to be numbed (and some nights, I kind of am) or I could wish for complete healing, to leave these feelings behind and forget them.

Instead I’m going to hold onto what’s left of this pain, and when it feels the most raw, I’m going to try as hard as I can to turn that prism of pain toward the light, so that it creates the most beautiful rainbow I can make that effer shoot out.

It’s a damn good thing I don’t wear mascara.

I have no grand idea for what to post today.  This is going to be one of those posts where I just sat down and said, “You know what?  I’m in a #@%* mood, and I’m going to write about what I’m feeling right now.”

So, um.  Sorry, in advance.

Because it’s been one of those days.

Not one of those days when things go wrong for you over and over and over again, or anything.  Just one of those days when the biggest thing that’s gone wrong for you in a long time just won’t leave you alone.

(*ding* Yes. She is going to talk about that again.  The trolley has halted momentarily.  If you would like, you may get off. *ding,ding*)

Every period is a reminder.  And this Monday I started the second one since, well, you know.

Before I got pregnant, I was actually right about to buy one of these thingies.  You know, part of my “Going Greener” thing and all, plus I just like to do weird things with my vagina.  Well, not really, but that was kind of fun to type.

Then I was pregnant, and I was all, “HAHAHA!  Good thing I didn’t order that Diva Cup yet, since I won’t need it for a long, long time! *SNORT!*”

“HAHAHA.”

Yeah.

Today, when I looked into the box that held only 3 more tampons my heart felt heavy.  Because I knew I’d have to buy more of them.

It’s the stupid things like this that make it so it won’t leave you alone.  Things like how your hand runs into the $140 bottle of prescription prometrium (often used to sustain at-risk pregnancies during first several weeks) at the back of your vitamin cabinet sometimes.  The one you only took 2 of before you found out it was pointless and stopped.  But you can’t throw it away, because… well, you just can’t. 

And how you only finally realized that you were really hoping it would be a girl when you found out that’s what one of your friends was having and it caused you to cry uncontrollably at a point when you really thought you were okay.  Which was a shock to you in so many ways, considering you never even realized you cared what the gender was.  Or that you’d care now.  Or that you’ll always care. 

It’s that stuff.

Ah, there it goes again.  At least it wasn’t a children’s show this time.