Waste away, young lads and lasses. Enjoy your time.

I miss my youth.

Now, before you go brow-beating me about how I’m still young, how I have so much longer to go before I lose my youth, or how much older than me you are and yadda yadda yadda (oh, yeah, I totally just ‘yadda yadda’d’ you), hear me out.

I mean not only youth in body, but youth in spirit, feeling, knowledge.

I miss the bliss of ignorance, the forever stretched out before me. The feeling that anything is possible.

With the passage of time comes experience; with experience comes knowledge, understanding (of sorts).

They say youth is wasted on the young. However, you realize, that is what makes it worth it. If the young knew the value of youth – the desire they would feel to have it back when it was gone… they would never really be able to enjoy it, would they?

With knowledge comes the shift.

The more you learn about the true nature of humans and the things of the world, the more you have to let go of the naive idealism that kept your young cheeks rosy and new.

No, there is no need to let go of hope, determination, and wonder. I am wide-eyed at the world still, believe me.

You could not freely wander the earth with your eyes, heart and mind open and not find a new and amazing thing every day if you tried. This is why I take photographs. Because over and over… again and again, even within my tiny sphere of movement, this happens to me.

So lecture me not on being able to capture the wonder of youth even with age.

But sit beside me for a spell and mourn with me this thing that must happen to us all. Some of us more than others, or maybe just a little bit sooner. But to all of us, it happens, to some degree or another.

The truth is that we must open our hands and let the fancy daydreams of childhood slide from our palms sometimes. Some things which happen steal them from us like wicked trolls, whisk them away to dark places; hiding them from the light. Only a child can pluck them out anew and let them grow for a time again.

My hands are too old to hold onto things which must escape them, already. The effort of trying has worn my fingers tired and weary.

We move through life, rolling along, and suddenly things assault us from this direction or that. The human tendency to ignore these possibilities on a conscious level from day to day allows us to function; it allows us to keep those wheels rolling, greasy and smooth. But no amount of greasing stops a rock from throwing you off your axel. You’ll have to reconsider concepts like need, desire, and love when your cart overturns.

It can take a long time to grease that wheel again. I’m workin’ on it.

I’m workin’ on it.

I speak in riddles because the words are too painful and tiresome to lay out in detail and push around into the proper order. It has been yet another day of remembering so many things that I would sometimes like to forget.

Sometimes.

So many things, some of which I’ve shared before, others which I may never tell you. Time will tell.

For now I close my eyes, take a deep breath in, push a long, tired breath out, and put one hand inside of the other. And hold on.

Tomorrow, I’ll open my eyes, and move those wheels along again.

On a somewhat related note: man, I farckin’ hate PMS.

I close my eyes.

I close my eyes at night and the blackness that stares back at me from inside my eyelids is deep and dark. I know my eyelids are right there. But if I didn’t… well, I wouldn’t. And then it would just seem like… Endless Dark.

It’s what I imagine it must be like inside a uterus.

Disconnected from the day, and staring into the black nothingness, I can’t help but start to feel like I’m floating. You know, as if I’m in some kind of fluid.

My thoughts drift.   I realize that I have no real knowledge of what is sustaining me, only beliefs… feelings.

I just am.

I sense there is someone out there – very close, but in another sense, so far still. Someone who loves me, whom I do not yet really know.  Someone who wanted me; someone who is waiting patiently to meet me.

My heart is beating but, after some time, I start to feel very tired and weak. I have the sense I am fading.

I still feel, but it’s so dark, and getting darker.

Suddenly there is nothing.

In the morning, I wake again, and I get to open my eyes. I see the world around me and time marches on.

I get to keep going.  I continue to be.

I hope that they are somewhere where their eyes have opened unto the most beautiful sights they could ever dream of, and that when I get there to join them, they are bursting with stories of all the things I’ve missed while they were waiting patiently to meet me.

Goodbye, Cruel Year

December 31, 2008

Dear 2008,

You were my first full year of blogging on my very own, self-hosted website from beginning to end. That was a happy thing about you. As I have written and published posts on my website this year, I’ve learned, grown, healed, changed, triumphed, laughed and cried.

I had a few trolls, it’s true. And unfortunately, I often take the trolls too seriously. I’m an emotional, sensitive chick with a high need for love and a fair amount of insecurity – it’s easy to slice me to the core. But, yes, trolls are just silly, angry people with too much time on their hands. I think Backpacking Dad said it in my favorite way recently, on Redneck Mommy‘s site:

“I love trolls. They’re so cute when they take their little poos everywhere.”

What’s more important about blogging for this whole year is that I’ve made wonderful friends and received love and kindness, as well as laughter and good cheer, from people I never would have met if I hadn’t stuck with this blogging business.

2008, that was so good about you.

My baby turned into a little boy this year, too, 2008. He had his first haircut and finished getting all his teeth (finally!). He asked to sit in a big chair (!!!), and the high-chair is gone.

My little boy, just this past week, left his crib. He is sleeping in a bed now. *heart beating hard*

He sings songs with words, and dances. He counts to 20 and knows all his letters. He can drink from a juice box and he’s learning how to brush his own teeth. He can take off his socks, pull down his pants, and he’s playing with the idea of actually using the potty again.

He snuggles his cheek up against mine, puts his hand on my other cheek and says, “Hufff-yooo.”

He quotes Spongebob Squarepants and asks me for milk when he’s thirsty.

He looks at me and says, “Aww, duuuude.”

No longer a baby, he is a boy.

This is bittersweet, 2008. My heart gets this panicky, tight feeling as I watch Braden grow so fast, 2008. So very fast.

But then it swells with pride. He is MY boy. I am so grateful for him.

So that has been good, as well, 2008.

I even finally lost the last 15lbs of my “baby weight” and got back to pre-pregnancy sveltness while you were around! That was phenomenally good, 2008. I was so incredibly happy to be moving more swiftly, and feeling lighter. (And fitting back into those hot jeans was certainly not a bad thing – bow chicka.)

Also, 2008, you gave me not just one, but two more babies. What a joy it is to find out there is a life growing inside of you. What an amazing, phenomenal thing that so many take for granted – a thing many of us just brush off as easy, or incidental.

It’s not, 2008. It’s incredible. It’s a delicate, vulnerable thing.  A beautiful thing. When a live baby is born, it is a miracle of sorts.

Every time.

You taught me that, 2008.

You took them both back before I got to kiss their foreheads. I miss them so much.

That was very much not a good thing. I don’t like you right now, 2008. It’s going to take me a very long time before I can look at you again without tears in my eyes. I want to grab you and shake you until you feel as bad as I do.

I keep trying to be mature about it, 2008, and see all the good things we had together.  I keep trying to count my blessings, 2008, because I know they are many!

But you know what?

Right now, I just can’t. And that’s okay. For awhile, I think I am going to let myself hate you with all of my heart.

For awhile, I am going to be a child.

It’s not fair, 2008. It’s not fair.
I’m not your friend anymore, and I don’t want to play with you ever again.

It’s not fair.

2009′s Anxious Mistress,
Lotus

Thoughts From The Abyss

Late at night on Sunday, December 7th, I wrote this article, for Deep South Moms Blog, about what it feels like to face the holiday season with the first instance of the due date of my miscarried baby looming. When I miscarried back in April, I knew Christmas Eve would never be the same. That is when that first lost baby was due.

As I wrote the piece, I was reflecting on how far I’ve come since those first few days after losing the baby back in April. The utter hopelessness. The anger. The confusion and pain. I realized that the pain is so deep, it’s as if it will never go away completely… but over time, it somehow becomes easier to live with, and serves to remind me to be more thankful of the loved ones I still have in my life.

It has been almost 8 months since that first miscarriage, and I was just feeling like I had come out on the other side of the deepest of the immediate grief. And I knew that it was in part due to the passage of time, and the love and kindness of family and friends. In part it has been due to my being lucky enough to be able to write about my feelings and emotions here, and receive support from all of you. (Have I said thank you? Really. Thank you so much.)

I was feeling something I haven’t felt for awhile.

Hope.

But what’s really bitter now is that a large part of my renewed hope came from the fact that I had a new life within me. A life that was crossing into the second trimester of a pregnancy that I had not even expected, but that I was starting to believe was meant to help me heal.

I spent weeks upon weeks feeling tense. I spent almost 3 months checking my underwear multiple times a day, and staring at the toilet paper every single time I wiped.

Slowly, so so slowly, the tension had just started to recede.

I had seen and heard his tiny heart beating, quickly, with vigor. He was healthy, and moving. He was ALIVE. He was going to make it, damnit. He really was.

Surely, so so surely, the tension has just started to recede.

I found myself leaving the restroom and realizing, after the fact, that I hadn’t looked at my underwear. I hadn’t checked my toilet paper.

I believed. I wasn’t just saying I believed. I really did.

It felt so good.

And then on Tuesday morning, December 9th, everything fell apart around me (us).

It was as if I’d been walking carefully on a thin sheet of glass suspended over a black abyss for months, but somehow, I’d just started to believe it was cement, and I started tap-dancing. The bottom fell out – the floor exploded, and all I had to grab for as I fell were shards of glass that cut my hands as I dropped into the abyss.

No heartbeat on the fetal doppler for us to hear.

No little, pulsing muscle in his tiny chest for me to see on mini-ultrasound.

My lovely doctor trying so hard over and over to find it. My lovely doctor getting visibly frustrated, upset, but still trying and trying. My lovely doctor giving up and telling me she was so so sorry.

Ohhh, my inability to believe this was happening… and ohhhh, my immense guilt over believing for so long that it would end this way, anyway.

And Oh, my Anger that it actually did.

My hope? Gone.

No heartbeat on a full blown ultrasound.

I stared at the screen, at his tiny body inside of me.

People, he looked beautiful and perfect on that high-tech ultrasound screen. I saw his little body facing me, as if he was looking at me to say goodbye. His tiny little arms and legs were there, framing the perfect little body in the middle.

Framing the perfect, little, middle part, where everything was silent and still.

Not really so perfect at all.

Every night since then, I’ve stayed up late, so late, doing ridiculous things like working on my website redesign. Things that I can blur my mind with. I’ve stayed up until my eyes just couldn’t see straight anymore, until I just couldn’t hold them open anymore, so that when I did lay down in bed, I’d fall right asleep.

I’m not ready for the thoughts that will come in the quiet darkness.

Every morning when I’ve awoken, I’ve had that horrible moment when I realize that, Yes, this reality is my reality. There is still a dead baby in my womb.

And when they take him from me on this Tuesday morning, I don’t know what I’ll have left to do but start to move on.

And that is the saddest thing of all.

Same old, same old.

It’s inevitable.

All spring and summer long (but for bouts of the bitchiness I’m cursed with, both by Nature and Nurture) I spend my time climbing the ladder.

I kick my feet back into the air after each step up, with a little grinning head toss and a shimmying booty shake, as I climb up, and up and up. Is that a spicy little theme song playing?

I hum a song as I let the sun shine on my face, feeling that warmth.

I look up and see myself getting closer to the top as time passes, but mostly, the peak holds no meaning for me. Sometimes a memory tickles buttons in my mind, but the sun has permeated even there, and its rays push those memories into corners unreachable for now.

The smile on my face keeps spreading.

I still shake my booty and kick out my feet as I step up, up, up the ladder.

By the time it’s bleak and cold outside, I reach the top. There’s nowhere left to go.

But down.

I look down at the sleek, cold, metal of the slide and I shiver.

My smile starts to fade. I’m cold. The corners of my mind come alive with recognition of what’s happening.

As the wind blows through me, rattling my bones, I look around and can no longer find the light of the sun.

My teeth chatter.

Before long, a sudden gust of wind slaps a strong, icy hand into the small of my back and gives a malicious PUSH, and with a gasp, I tumble into the metal.

There are no sides to hold. There is no amount of scrambling that can stop my descent.

As if it matters… for as soon as my flesh makes contact with that metal, the cold seems to leach out of my very soul all desire to fight the obvious.

As my face falls slack, I quickly begin the long slide down for The Winter.

You can tell I’m on my period when I talk about “the indicent.”

Or when I tell you in detail about how I have PMS or, you know, just flat out announce that I’m on my period.  That’s also a good way to tell.

But you can rely on me to talk about the miscarriage around this time of the month, too, I’ve come to realize.  Because, really, it’s actually more painful to me than the date on which the miscarriage happened, this bleeding that says there is no life within these fleshy walls we call “my uterus.” 

The bleeding that says, “AH-HAHAHA, YOU ARE ALONE IN THIS SHELL OF MEAT.”

I don’t think my depression about the matter is excessive.  It’s not worse than it was in the beginning, but it’s not really getting better either.  How about that, y’all?  I guess it takes more time.  Or magic dust.  Or what-the-hell-ever.

Most “normal” days I am “fine.”  Whatever that is.  Sometimes stupid things make me cry.  Sometimes un-stupid things make me cry.  Sometimes people say asshole things, and that makes me cry.  But mostly, on “normal” days, I am fine.  And I think, “Oh, I am getting better, and next time I have my period, it will probably not bother me so much like last time.”

But I am wrong.

I have not gotten past the part where I want that very baby back.  Somehow I feel like I should have been able to let that go by now and want a different one, but it’s just not happening for me.  I have times when I can clearly acknowledge the fact that I still want to have another child someday and that I cannot have THAT child someday, and so I would have to have a DIFFERENT child someday.

But I don’t want to.

And then I think about it some more and I wonder if I really DO want to have another child someday.  Maybe I just still think I kind of sorta like the idea of having another one someday, but that it’s not really true that I actually want to have one.

And I really don’t need to hear any more about how often it happens, or why it probably happened.  I especially don’t want to hear about how it was probably ”for the best” because of why it probably happened.  Thanks, but telling me that my “embryo” [my baby, asshole] was probably some kind of fackin’ chromosomally mutated freak isn’t going to make me want it back less.  If Braden had some type of disease, I would also still want him, I’d just WANT HIM TO BE HEALTHY.

Also, Braden has been extra challenging for me lately.  He is pretty much always up my ass so far I’m choking.  Quite often, he is screaming/whining/throwing a tantrum/crying.  I don’t quite know what to do when, for example, I’ve been playing with him all day and then I’m just trying to have a conversation on the phone with my husband who is NOT HERE and whom I MISS and Braden comes over and shoves a toy in my face.  I tell him to wait, but then he cries, screams, or just gets another toy and hits me in the face with it instead.  I get frustrated and raise my voice at him telling him to, “Just let me talk to Daddy for a few minutes!” but that just makes John mad at me. 

It’s all just triggering a level of insanity in me that I am not mentally coping with very well.  Icanhasdrugz?  Maybe that’s what I need.

I’m reaching the end of my rope and finding it’s just a frayed knob and when I look down, there’s a pit of glass shards waiting below.

What with my inability to let go of the desire to have my dead baby back, and Braden having been really, extra difficult lately, I kind of really am starting to sort of think I maybe don’t want to have another one, not even someday, not even one day.  Not ever.

And it’s making it really hard to make love to my husband.  Because THAT’S HOW YOU MAKE A BABY AND I’M SCARED.

(Ooops, I just said that to The Internet, didn’t I?  Oh well.)

 

That ends this installment of Pity Theatre.  Also known as, “Oh, Poor Me!” 

Not likely to be seen on Broadway anytime soon.