- Struggling not to lose my identity, which is difficult when you are with a baby 24/7 and they are the main person you have to talk to, especially because it is recommended that you refer to yourself in the 3rd person, so it's "Mommy" this and "Mommy" that all day long.
- I enjoy being a mom, and the encouragement I get around it is great and really appreciated, but I wish I could get the same kind of acknowledgement for doing well in other areas of my life too. Like, thanks, did you know I'm also a really kick ass girlfriend, and a pretty decent friend as well? Also I'm nice to other people's kids, which not everyone is. And I recycle and I try to conserve water, and I donate our extra diapers to the women's shelter.
- Pregnancy and childbirth are really, really hard. I have not forgotten. Seeing his gorgeous face did not wipe my memory of the suffering.
- I turned the corner out of the kitchen too sharply yesterday and bonked Hunter's head on the doorframe. He screamed at me for two minutes and was sporting a little bump for awhile. I felt disproprotionately guilty.
- The only really useful piece of advice I got was from the pediatrician who discharged us from the hospital, who said, "You will get all kinds of advice. Listen, smile, nod, say thanks... and then just do whatever you were going to do anyway. People mean well, but they don't know anything about your baby."
- The other day I got Hunter up from his nap by sitting next to his bed and talking sweetly to him and calling his name softly and finally he woke up with the biggest smile on his face and was so happy and it was the cutest thing that ever happened in the history of the world.
- I wish I could get photos of Hunter's face while he's nursing without my giant boob being in the way. He makes the best expressions. I have seen photos of other people that are nice and where the boob is not distracting but I have not been able to take one myself, I think you probably need assistance for those.
- I have tried on seven different styles of jeans and they all looked awful on my current body and I am almost ready to give up and resign myself to stretchy pants for the rest of the year but I just ordered three more pairs so we'll see how that goes first. (Additional suggestions welcomed.)
- There is a lot of pressure here to be skinny. I feel like I did a good job during my pregnancy with weight gain all things considered, and honestly I think I look pretty damn good now for having just given birth 3 months ago. The remaining extra weight doesn't bother me so much as just having no tone anymore, and the loose skin on my belly sometimes grosses me out. Phil does not seem to be bothered by any of it, or at least he has the good sense not to say so, which is close enough to being the same thing.
- The longest stretch of sleep I've had in over six months is 5 hrs. But it's usually less. Much less.
- I can't remember what I even used to talk about on here.
- Becoming parents has been really hard on our relationship. I'm told it gets better after the first year. I hope so.
Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts
May 9, 2014
June 15, 2013
for keeps
I think I would like
to sleep by your side
for most of the
nights of
the rest
of
our
lives.
to sleep by your side
for most of the
nights of
the rest
of
our
lives.
May 31, 2013
Right Where I Am: 2013
Ailis - almost 6 years / Noah - almost 4 years
I don't track days anymore. I have to stop and count on my fingers, now, to be sure of the years that have passed. Ah, they would be so big! Kindergarten, for Lissie, can you imagine...?!
Alas, I cannot.
They have made me a mother but I am deprived of the experiences that make up the stories that make you friends on the outside. Prison terminology seems appropriate to me; babyloss is too much like a life-long sentence for the wrongfully accused, or maybe involuntary committal to a psych ward. Except there is no release for good behavior, no cure, and even if you escape, finally, on a rainbow, there's still a part of your life that almost no one will ever be truly comfortable hearing about unless they've been there too.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.*
My heart is changed. It contains more than I ever thought possible. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and through its transformation I became half time-lord, half human, all whole. I have gained a perspective that is dizzying and grounding at once. The universe fits inside of me. Profound and simple and holy and profane. There is room for you too, and in you too.
Mama, mama, be calm. We know how to wait. We are not afraid.
Be calm, mama. We'll wait.
My children are extraordinarily zen. They cannot teach, but I can learn. I suppose that's rather zen in itself.
Into the air, into the earth, into the fire. I am with you.**
Peace. Love. Light.
I am not broken, and neither are you.
*You do not have to be good, Mary Oliver
**Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
-----
You can read my previous years' posts here: Right Where I Am 2011 (Part I)(Part II) & Right Where I Am 2012, and link up with us on still life with circles.
I don't track days anymore. I have to stop and count on my fingers, now, to be sure of the years that have passed. Ah, they would be so big! Kindergarten, for Lissie, can you imagine...?!
Alas, I cannot.
They have made me a mother but I am deprived of the experiences that make up the stories that make you friends on the outside. Prison terminology seems appropriate to me; babyloss is too much like a life-long sentence for the wrongfully accused, or maybe involuntary committal to a psych ward. Except there is no release for good behavior, no cure, and even if you escape, finally, on a rainbow, there's still a part of your life that almost no one will ever be truly comfortable hearing about unless they've been there too.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.*
My heart is changed. It contains more than I ever thought possible. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and through its transformation I became half time-lord, half human, all whole. I have gained a perspective that is dizzying and grounding at once. The universe fits inside of me. Profound and simple and holy and profane. There is room for you too, and in you too.
Mama, mama, be calm. We know how to wait. We are not afraid.
Be calm, mama. We'll wait.
My children are extraordinarily zen. They cannot teach, but I can learn. I suppose that's rather zen in itself.
Into the air, into the earth, into the fire. I am with you.**
Peace. Love. Light.
I am not broken, and neither are you.
*You do not have to be good, Mary Oliver
**Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
-----
You can read my previous years' posts here: Right Where I Am 2011 (Part I)(Part II) & Right Where I Am 2012, and link up with us on still life with circles.
May 21, 2013
the root of it
I finally got some of my thoughts down on paper yesterday. I couldn't do it on the computer; the cursor flashes too impatiently, distracting and insulting at the same time. Not exactly conducive to vulnerability. I needed actual paper -- something that I could hold, and that I could drop tears on if necessary, and that I could crumple up and throw away if it did not please me. A pen is quiet, and polite. It will let you rest in between ideas, and never admit whether it thinks any less of you for it.
I had to do some digging, to get to the root of the problems I'm facing at the moment. Why the things that are throwing me off are throwing me in such varied and unexpected directions. The roots go wide, but not deep, so I have hope. I've been talking all week to anyone who will listen, but I am tactile and visual above all, and it helps me to better navigate when I can see my thoughts and fears written down, mapping my ephemeral geography, untidy but defined.
I had to do some digging, to get to the root of the problems I'm facing at the moment. Why the things that are throwing me off are throwing me in such varied and unexpected directions. The roots go wide, but not deep, so I have hope. I've been talking all week to anyone who will listen, but I am tactile and visual above all, and it helps me to better navigate when I can see my thoughts and fears written down, mapping my ephemeral geography, untidy but defined.
December 14, 2012
lust for life
I want a new tattoo, a big one, and I want to go places and have adventures and live an interesting life. I want to be with someone who will pick up with me on a whim and get on an airplane to anywhere without doing the laundry first or making sure the weather will be fine on the other side or that the hotels aren't all booked up already because of a cycling race. I want someone who wants me around all the time, even if there's nothing much to say, just so they can look at me and know that I'm real and as much theirs as anything is anyone's. I want someone who knows what they want and will make sacrifices and take steps to get it, or at least to try to get it. You must always try. Life does not fall into your lap, all neatly wrapped in ribbon and bows. If I've learned anything, I've learned that you have to work and work and it never really gets any easier and no one can really help you all that much and you have to want it and never stop wanting it and -- often most difficult of all -- keep on wanting it after it's yours. I learned a long time ago, too long ago, that you don't wake up one morning and suddenly enjoy doing all the chores, big and small, that make up the hard work of living, you just get up and you do it anyway and that is what is called being a grown up.
I want to make my own traditions and rules and feel however I feel about them and stop doing what doesn't work. I want to climb things and then jump off of them and I want to live beside the ocean finally and I want to dance and swim and breathe. I want to look into the faces of my babies knowing they are the first thing that has ever truly been mine and that they will never be mine at all and that's okay; that's as it should be. I want to move through my life in this world as a force to be reckoned with, as the star, as the heroine, as the main event.
I don't want to sit in the back. I would like to sit in the front, alongside someone else -- sometimes driving, and other times holding the map.
I want to make my own traditions and rules and feel however I feel about them and stop doing what doesn't work. I want to climb things and then jump off of them and I want to live beside the ocean finally and I want to dance and swim and breathe. I want to look into the faces of my babies knowing they are the first thing that has ever truly been mine and that they will never be mine at all and that's okay; that's as it should be. I want to move through my life in this world as a force to be reckoned with, as the star, as the heroine, as the main event.
I don't want to sit in the back. I would like to sit in the front, alongside someone else -- sometimes driving, and other times holding the map.
December 10, 2012
September 26, 2012
John Lennon
When I'm dreaming it feels like the most real thing. Until I wake up, and awake feels like the most real thing instead. And if there is another state, after or outside of awake, maybe it's the realest thing yet. Like the first time I ever fainted, and I seemed to see events playing out from a long way off, speeding up and speeding up until I rushed into the present again, into my body and what was happening to it, into pain in my arms where my friends were gripping them to keep me from slipping further away, to keep my body from slipping as far as my mind had gone. I laughed, because they were gripping my arms so tight, as if that could keep me here. As if I were tangible.
I'd only gone for a minute. But I'd gone to where no one could reach me, and it was huge and narrow and pitch black and bright and full of colors and unutterably, ineffably real.
It was more real than my fingertips on a clacking keyboard and skinny dark letters appearing on a flat white screen in an attempt to make you see. It was more real than tick tick tick and imaginary measurements of time, more real than faith or science, more real than pain. And it made me laugh, that they wanted me back. I didn't particularly want to come back, although there was something, something important to do, and I was forgetting. I was already forgetting.
Afternoon ramblings sparked by this John Lennon quote.
I'd only gone for a minute. But I'd gone to where no one could reach me, and it was huge and narrow and pitch black and bright and full of colors and unutterably, ineffably real.
It was more real than my fingertips on a clacking keyboard and skinny dark letters appearing on a flat white screen in an attempt to make you see. It was more real than tick tick tick and imaginary measurements of time, more real than faith or science, more real than pain. And it made me laugh, that they wanted me back. I didn't particularly want to come back, although there was something, something important to do, and I was forgetting. I was already forgetting.
Afternoon ramblings sparked by this John Lennon quote.
August 28, 2012
remembering forgetting
They are not very important, and they are the most important. Nothing has ever been so important. But why should anyone remember, except for me? Why should anyone be remembered, who is not here anymore, who is not right in front of your face right now?
I remember, but not because I should. I remember because it is a thing that happened, and remembering is a thing that humans do. There is no moral attached. There is no redeeming, no higher connotation to remembering. We do it because we do it.
You can't remember something unless you forgot it for a moment. We forget the things that are not right in front of our faces. And sometimes we even forget those things too.
I remember, but not because I should. I remember because it is a thing that happened, and remembering is a thing that humans do. There is no moral attached. There is no redeeming, no higher connotation to remembering. We do it because we do it.
You can't remember something unless you forgot it for a moment. We forget the things that are not right in front of our faces. And sometimes we even forget those things too.
August 2, 2012
short sentences
I'm thinking in
short sentences, in
fragments and half-thoughts again and
it's difficult to concentrate but I think
I'll go home and
run, and walk the dog
and take a shower and
clean up the kitchen a little
I guess I'll
throw away the empty bottles
and wash the plates and wonder again
whether or not I'm
broken, although
I suppose even thinking
of doing all these
things might prove I'm not as broken
as I once was, if I can
run, if I can remember about
a dog, if
I can clean things up and think
at the same time then
I am doing better than I was
two years ago, for sure
and maybe I'll be even better
two years from
now,
who knows.
short sentences, in
fragments and half-thoughts again and
it's difficult to concentrate but I think
I'll go home and
run, and walk the dog
and take a shower and
clean up the kitchen a little
I guess I'll
throw away the empty bottles
and wash the plates and wonder again
whether or not I'm
broken, although
I suppose even thinking
of doing all these
things might prove I'm not as broken
as I once was, if I can
run, if I can remember about
a dog, if
I can clean things up and think
at the same time then
I am doing better than I was
two years ago, for sure
and maybe I'll be even better
two years from
now,
who knows.
August 1, 2012
July 2, 2012
indomitable
I cried a lot, the last couple of weeks. Even more than I thought I would. I listened to Of Monsters And Men on repeat and cried and cried and cried. It was exhausting, but I do feel better now. My previous breakups have never been this intense. It either hadn't gotten very serious yet, or I hadn't put my whole heart and self into it in the first place.
God it hurts, when you're all in. Chalk it up to experience, though. One more aspect of the human condition with which I am now familiar. My happiness was so wonderful and precious to me -- but so was my deep and surprising sadness.
Yes, it was worth it. And yes, I will go right back out there, and try again. For the sake of the experience of both of those emotions, and everything in between.
God it hurts, when you're all in. Chalk it up to experience, though. One more aspect of the human condition with which I am now familiar. My happiness was so wonderful and precious to me -- but so was my deep and surprising sadness.
Yes, it was worth it. And yes, I will go right back out there, and try again. For the sake of the experience of both of those emotions, and everything in between.
July 1, 2012
June 18, 2012
pointy, sharp
I think everyone has their pointy bits, but I think every so often we come across people soft bits first, and that's why we like them, and that's how they become our friends or lovers. Their pointy bits don't touch us except for maybe once in a great while, and then never on purpose, so we forgive them easily. And other people come at you pointy bits first, or they are just all over pointy, and you don't ever want to interact with those people again, and they are definitely NOT your friends... Unless you're really messed up and you only know how to be stabbed and jabbed, or think you deserve to be stabbed and jabbed, in which case you have an entirely different set of problems.
June 15, 2012
safe
Safety is only ever a feeling really, if we're being honest. I mean, I'm sure you might very well be perfectly safe for moments and hours and days at a time... but there's no way of knowing for sure. Which moments you were out of the way of any danger whatsoever and which, had they gone the slightest bit differently, could have cost you your life. Until they do.
Anything could happen, literally any thing, at any given moment. You could be alone in a padded room with the cleanest air and water and the healthiest food and the perfect amount of natural light and some freak of genetics could stop your heart or send a blood clot to your brain and you're done for. Or your cells could stop multiplying, for no particular reason, before you're even born. Or the earth could simply crack open one day and swallow you whole. Who knows.
When I was little, no one was looking out for me. The world was dangerous because not only did Bad Things happen but no one else cared when they did. So I learned that it was entirely up to me to watch out for myself. If I was tired, or scared, or distracted by any other thing, I wasn't going to do a very good job, but it was no one's concern but mine, and I might as well be resigned to the fact.
So personally, whenever another person shows any kind of interest in my well-being, no matter how briefly, it comes as a huge relief. Perhaps I can do this after all. With a little bit of help.
Perhaps, for now, I might be safe.
Anything could happen, literally any thing, at any given moment. You could be alone in a padded room with the cleanest air and water and the healthiest food and the perfect amount of natural light and some freak of genetics could stop your heart or send a blood clot to your brain and you're done for. Or your cells could stop multiplying, for no particular reason, before you're even born. Or the earth could simply crack open one day and swallow you whole. Who knows.
When I was little, no one was looking out for me. The world was dangerous because not only did Bad Things happen but no one else cared when they did. So I learned that it was entirely up to me to watch out for myself. If I was tired, or scared, or distracted by any other thing, I wasn't going to do a very good job, but it was no one's concern but mine, and I might as well be resigned to the fact.
So personally, whenever another person shows any kind of interest in my well-being, no matter how briefly, it comes as a huge relief. Perhaps I can do this after all. With a little bit of help.
Perhaps, for now, I might be safe.
June 8, 2012
the weaker sex
I woke up at 5:00am from a horrible nightmare. Blinking in the half-light of early morning, I wished fervently that S was lying next to me, so I could simply grab onto him and feel grounded again. But I was at home, and alone, and had to find my own way back to reality. I rolled onto my stomach and opened the shutters above my bed, trying to remember to take deep breaths, and watched sunrise slide across the front yard, the sidewalk, the roses.
Don't be afraid of shadows. It only means a light is shining somewhere. Don't be afraid of shadows. It only means a light is shining somewhere. Don't be afraid of shadows. It only means a light is shining somewhere. Don't be afraid of shadows...
This was not as comforting as I hoped.
A whole murder of crows descended upon the neighbor's evergreen, their grating voices drowning out the cheerful robins that perch in the cherry tree outside my window, and I found I was deeply irritated by their brazenness. But they don't know or care what I think -- which only brings me back to the root of all my horrors. That innocent and lovely can be so quickly overpowered by selfish and loud.
----------
I am getting ready to move into my own place, with no roommates. And I'm scared. I wasn't before, but after the dream I had, I am now. The world is still not safe for women, not anywhere, no matter how liberated or equal anyone tries to say we are. It breaks my heart.
Sometimes I think I don't need to be scared, and other times I wonder if I am not scared enough. In my dream, I came home to find my apartment ransacked, and was then beaten and assaulted by the intruder. My brain was unfortunately able to supply many grisly details from memory.
I should not be so foolish as to think that there is a cap on Bad Things. There isn't one. There's no scorekeeper, no limit. I just don't know if I can survive another Bad Thing. I think one more attack would break me. And while there's no reason to think it will happen again, there's no reason to think it won't, either. I don't want fear to rule my life, but after all that's happened to me I have no excuse for naiveté.
I feel safe with S, every minute we're together. When I stay at his house, not only is he there to protect me, I also have the dubious reassurance of knowing that the gun he taught me to use is lying heavy and formidable in the nightstand drawer. I always hated the thought of shooting someone, even non-fatally, regardless of the circumstances. But today, for the first time, it crossed my mind that maybe I could do it. Because if it came down to it, and it could only be them or me -- I'd choose me.
I can't afford to be broken. Not after I've come so far.
Don't be afraid of shadows. It only means a light is shining somewhere. Don't be afraid of shadows. It only means a light is shining somewhere. Don't be afraid of shadows. It only means a light is shining somewhere. Don't be afraid of shadows...
This was not as comforting as I hoped.
A whole murder of crows descended upon the neighbor's evergreen, their grating voices drowning out the cheerful robins that perch in the cherry tree outside my window, and I found I was deeply irritated by their brazenness. But they don't know or care what I think -- which only brings me back to the root of all my horrors. That innocent and lovely can be so quickly overpowered by selfish and loud.
----------
I am getting ready to move into my own place, with no roommates. And I'm scared. I wasn't before, but after the dream I had, I am now. The world is still not safe for women, not anywhere, no matter how liberated or equal anyone tries to say we are. It breaks my heart.
Sometimes I think I don't need to be scared, and other times I wonder if I am not scared enough. In my dream, I came home to find my apartment ransacked, and was then beaten and assaulted by the intruder. My brain was unfortunately able to supply many grisly details from memory.
I should not be so foolish as to think that there is a cap on Bad Things. There isn't one. There's no scorekeeper, no limit. I just don't know if I can survive another Bad Thing. I think one more attack would break me. And while there's no reason to think it will happen again, there's no reason to think it won't, either. I don't want fear to rule my life, but after all that's happened to me I have no excuse for naiveté.
I feel safe with S, every minute we're together. When I stay at his house, not only is he there to protect me, I also have the dubious reassurance of knowing that the gun he taught me to use is lying heavy and formidable in the nightstand drawer. I always hated the thought of shooting someone, even non-fatally, regardless of the circumstances. But today, for the first time, it crossed my mind that maybe I could do it. Because if it came down to it, and it could only be them or me -- I'd choose me.
I can't afford to be broken. Not after I've come so far.
May 29, 2012
Right Where I Am: 2012
I saw the invitation from Angie on Thursday morning, and I've been attempting to write this post ever since. Opening, rewriting, saving, staring, deleting, closing. Where the hell am I, anyway?
Ironic, that this call to write comes hot on the heels of my decision to stop tracking the days since they died. It was making me feel sad, and stagnant, so I traded the tickers in my sidebar for simple memorial buttons. And I had no twinges about it.
Will you judge me very harshly if I say I don't miss them like I used to? Not that I don't miss them--of course I do. But it's not the same as it used to be.
I don't look around and see where they're not. I don't resent my space or my nice clothes or my paychecks spent only on me. I don't obsess about how big they would be or what milestones they would have achieved by now. I don't worry that total strangers can't have the faintest idea whether I'm a mother or not. That they might look at me and see just another fairly pretty twenty-something who seems to mostly have her shit together. I think the reason I don't worry about that anymore is because I've realized that it actually is who I am now. I've realized I'm not fooling anyone, including myself... because it's no longer a lie.
I've got necklaces and initials. I've got two boxes of baby clothes in the back of my closet. I've got their pages on my blog, and indelible ink on my left thigh: two little doves I designed myself. My wrists are bare, but if I didn't know better, I'd swear their names were written there too. An invisible list. Indelible in its own way.
S has seen my tattoo, and the pictures that hang by my bed. He hasn't asked who they are, and I haven't told. I will, eventually. But not yet. We've been seeing each other for two months; long enough that I realized yesterday it will hurt if we break up. The thought made my stomach drop. It means I'm invested now, you see.
My babies often cross my mind, but for the most part tend to move on quickly. A smile and a nod--they get it. Mama's busy. And anyway, they've got time. They understand forever. They know we've got all the time in the world.
I feel like they each took a piece of my heart with them, when they left. That it is with them, that piece, wherever they are. Always. Except they didn't leave behind a hole, as I first thought. Clever thieves! They filled that small but gaping space with eternity instead. I simply didn't recognize it right away, couldn't sense the shape of it, was confused by its unfamiliar weight. I did not know, at first, that what I thought was lonely emptiness was really the vast wholeness of all things.
----------
Last year's posts: Lissie. No-No.
Ironic, that this call to write comes hot on the heels of my decision to stop tracking the days since they died. It was making me feel sad, and stagnant, so I traded the tickers in my sidebar for simple memorial buttons. And I had no twinges about it.
Will you judge me very harshly if I say I don't miss them like I used to? Not that I don't miss them--of course I do. But it's not the same as it used to be.
I don't look around and see where they're not. I don't resent my space or my nice clothes or my paychecks spent only on me. I don't obsess about how big they would be or what milestones they would have achieved by now. I don't worry that total strangers can't have the faintest idea whether I'm a mother or not. That they might look at me and see just another fairly pretty twenty-something who seems to mostly have her shit together. I think the reason I don't worry about that anymore is because I've realized that it actually is who I am now. I've realized I'm not fooling anyone, including myself... because it's no longer a lie.
I've got necklaces and initials. I've got two boxes of baby clothes in the back of my closet. I've got their pages on my blog, and indelible ink on my left thigh: two little doves I designed myself. My wrists are bare, but if I didn't know better, I'd swear their names were written there too. An invisible list. Indelible in its own way.
S has seen my tattoo, and the pictures that hang by my bed. He hasn't asked who they are, and I haven't told. I will, eventually. But not yet. We've been seeing each other for two months; long enough that I realized yesterday it will hurt if we break up. The thought made my stomach drop. It means I'm invested now, you see.
My babies often cross my mind, but for the most part tend to move on quickly. A smile and a nod--they get it. Mama's busy. And anyway, they've got time. They understand forever. They know we've got all the time in the world.
I feel like they each took a piece of my heart with them, when they left. That it is with them, that piece, wherever they are. Always. Except they didn't leave behind a hole, as I first thought. Clever thieves! They filled that small but gaping space with eternity instead. I simply didn't recognize it right away, couldn't sense the shape of it, was confused by its unfamiliar weight. I did not know, at first, that what I thought was lonely emptiness was really the vast wholeness of all things.
----------
Last year's posts: Lissie. No-No.
May 21, 2012
loose-leaf
The human race! A story
about an animal, soft
and vulnerable.
All the things we can't stop thinking about, the basics
of being alive: sex and death and love and babies...
not necessarily in any kind of order, or
according to any kind of reason. You
can't even say
sex before babies; not
if you believe
in Jesus. This
world is
unpredictable. Some things
are true. Too many things are not.
Best of luck to all of us, telling the difference.
----------
I have learned: Life is stories, but life is not like a book. It is loose-leaf, a rough draft, a sketch. Coverless.
Life is crumpled pages covered with broken sentences and half-thoughts scribbled in the dark, in the moments between waking and sleeping. It is out of order. It is random, and fleeting. It is flashbacks and memories and now, now, now, now, now. It is tearstained, and faded, and sharp as a papercut. It is uncategorizable.
A plethora of characters march in and right back out again, suddenly, without our knowing why. Maybe it will be relevant later or maybe it won't; maybe it's a whole other story, totally different but equally as important, and they touched here, overlapped for just a second. The hard truth of it is that we'll never see the end of the one if we want to see the other. Choices. We make our choices all the time, and nothing is ever the same again.
May 16, 2012
a good life
Sometimes I think it's enough. Enough already. So much sadness. Death and sadness and sad pictures and sad faces and sad words and my baby died and maybe if I am sad enough no will forget that.
I don't want anyone to forget that. I love you, all of you. I'm not telling you not to be sad. Be whatever you are. Be sad forever if you want, if it seems right. But I am so tired. I don't want to be sad forever. And I think maybe it is enough.
The tickers crouch on my sidebar, calculating silently, and I don't look at them directly for ages. Or I look at them and the numbers jab at me like spindly fingers, sharp and accusing. Eyeball, heart, stomach, lung: poke, poke, poke. And it hurts. It hurts and it's sad and it's not helping. Maybe it is okay to lose count of the days. (What are hours and months and days, to an eternal creature? And aren't they all eternal, now? And if part of us is with them, isn't part of us eternal too?) I think I'll take the tickers down, once I've come up with something to replace them with.
My thoughts run where they will and I suppose it might look a little gloomy around here at times. I may seem to dwell overmuch on the macabre, I don't know. But I am happy. I am really fucking happy, actually. I have a good life, a better one than I've ever had before or ever would have thought I could have. Every day is better than the last--even when it doesn't feel like it is. The people in my life love me, I don't have to hide or be afraid. I am doing meaningful work that I am good at. I have friends. I am meeting new people. I am more and more myself. And I am not sorry for or ashamed of a single thing I have ever done.
If that is not a good life, I don't know what is.
I don't want anyone to forget that. I love you, all of you. I'm not telling you not to be sad. Be whatever you are. Be sad forever if you want, if it seems right. But I am so tired. I don't want to be sad forever. And I think maybe it is enough.
The tickers crouch on my sidebar, calculating silently, and I don't look at them directly for ages. Or I look at them and the numbers jab at me like spindly fingers, sharp and accusing. Eyeball, heart, stomach, lung: poke, poke, poke. And it hurts. It hurts and it's sad and it's not helping. Maybe it is okay to lose count of the days. (What are hours and months and days, to an eternal creature? And aren't they all eternal, now? And if part of us is with them, isn't part of us eternal too?) I think I'll take the tickers down, once I've come up with something to replace them with.
My thoughts run where they will and I suppose it might look a little gloomy around here at times. I may seem to dwell overmuch on the macabre, I don't know. But I am happy. I am really fucking happy, actually. I have a good life, a better one than I've ever had before or ever would have thought I could have. Every day is better than the last--even when it doesn't feel like it is. The people in my life love me, I don't have to hide or be afraid. I am doing meaningful work that I am good at. I have friends. I am meeting new people. I am more and more myself. And I am not sorry for or ashamed of a single thing I have ever done.
If that is not a good life, I don't know what is.
March 28, 2012
dust
I think
about burning
when it's all over
burning to ashes
dust and tiniest
bits of bone.
I think
of my body, a grey-white cloud
wafting away on a wind or
sifting into an ocean wave or
settling over a mountainside
or maybe just sitting
in a jar
on a shelf
somewhere.
I wonder:
Is this what I want?
I wonder: is the funereal fire
more holy than
the waters of the sea?
If I'd had their
fragile, broken bodies burned
to softest ash
would I
feel closer to them, or farther
if I'd seen them
wafting away on a wind or
settling over a mountainside
or maybe just sitting
in a jar
on a shelf
somewhere or if
I'd ever put my hand
into that jar, felt them
slipping through my fingers
again--oh, not again!
and wondered again if this
was a lock of hair, this
a delicate lung or this
a perfect toe.
I think
the bodies of my babies
are in the ocean (or they were)
mingled with the waters, washed away
along with my blood and my tears
but perhaps they are now
in Alaska's snow or
Chicago's rain or
riding the Ganges river, or perhaps
they are now
high, high up in the atmosphere
or maybe they are here, in my breath
gone cold and crystallized and dancing
before my eyes.
Look, mama.
Watch me twirl.
----------
I learned that it is actually illegal to spread someone's ashes. Around here, anyway. You must put them in a container and bury the container in the ground, and really what is the point of that? You may as well be buried in a big box as fit in a small jar and buried all the same. I don't know. I thought I'd like to be put into the sea. But when I think of being ashes in the sea (my first and last intentionally illegal act), I think it is not quite the same as the way my babies are part of the sea, and it unnerves me somehow. Like we won't be together the way that I'd like. *sigh* I suppose it doesn't matter much. Or not yet. Presumably by the time I die there will be others who have an opinion on what should be done with my body anyway. Maybe a husband who'd like us to be buried side by side. Maybe children who'd like to make a memorial to me, rather than the other way around. There's a first.
Just something that came up at work the other day, and has been on my mind since. Any thoughts, dear readers? What are they going to do with you, when you've gone? Who do you want to be near, for forever?
about burning
when it's all over
burning to ashes
dust and tiniest
bits of bone.
I think
of my body, a grey-white cloud
wafting away on a wind or
sifting into an ocean wave or
settling over a mountainside
or maybe just sitting
in a jar
on a shelf
somewhere.
I wonder:
Is this what I want?
I wonder: is the funereal fire
more holy than
the waters of the sea?
If I'd had their
fragile, broken bodies burned
to softest ash
would I
feel closer to them, or farther
if I'd seen them
wafting away on a wind or
settling over a mountainside
or maybe just sitting
in a jar
on a shelf
somewhere or if
I'd ever put my hand
into that jar, felt them
slipping through my fingers
again--oh, not again!
and wondered again if this
was a lock of hair, this
a delicate lung or this
a perfect toe.
I think
the bodies of my babies
are in the ocean (or they were)
mingled with the waters, washed away
along with my blood and my tears
but perhaps they are now
in Alaska's snow or
Chicago's rain or
riding the Ganges river, or perhaps
they are now
high, high up in the atmosphere
or maybe they are here, in my breath
gone cold and crystallized and dancing
before my eyes.
Look, mama.
Watch me twirl.
----------
I learned that it is actually illegal to spread someone's ashes. Around here, anyway. You must put them in a container and bury the container in the ground, and really what is the point of that? You may as well be buried in a big box as fit in a small jar and buried all the same. I don't know. I thought I'd like to be put into the sea. But when I think of being ashes in the sea (my first and last intentionally illegal act), I think it is not quite the same as the way my babies are part of the sea, and it unnerves me somehow. Like we won't be together the way that I'd like. *sigh* I suppose it doesn't matter much. Or not yet. Presumably by the time I die there will be others who have an opinion on what should be done with my body anyway. Maybe a husband who'd like us to be buried side by side. Maybe children who'd like to make a memorial to me, rather than the other way around. There's a first.
Just something that came up at work the other day, and has been on my mind since. Any thoughts, dear readers? What are they going to do with you, when you've gone? Who do you want to be near, for forever?
March 19, 2012
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