So many days spent in darkness before I finally realized: the light never went anywhere. It's only that I had my eyes clenched shut so tight. There is no shame in it, I was only protecting myself -- brilliantly, I might add. I hope one day you will see it too, if you haven't already. That the light never leaves you. That you can be warm again if you want to.
I will probably lose friends over this pregnancy. I know what it's like, a betrayal almost, to go to a place that housed your pain and find it filled instead with tentative hope that you are not ready to take part in, not yet. I'll understand if you don't want to come here anymore, though I'm still myself, still willing to hold your hand, and your pain will never be strange to me.
I am grateful for the space I had to know myself, before this baby came along. We can enter our relationship on sturdy, even ground. I am not desperate for this baby. I do not need him/her more than he/she needs me. We are bound by our mutual relationship, no more and no less, rather than a pre-existing need to possess or replace, and already I am giving my baby a better start than I ever had a chance at.
Love and light to you on this remembering day, wheverever you are, whoever you are.
Hurting and healed, desperate and calm, eyes open or shut -- you are worthy.
Visit Project Heal for information about the Day of Hope. Or read more of my thoughts on babyloss here.
Showing posts with label my heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my heart. Show all posts
August 19, 2013
August 2, 2013
February 6, 2012
In my dream, he has a red coat.
In my dream, he has a red coat. A red coat, and a striped scarf, and tiny black mittens and tall green boots.
I lift him out of his car seat, and he cheers and wraps his arms around my neck. He is big enough to walk, but I love the smell of him, love the way he rests his cheek ever so briefly on my shoulder, love how his hand wanders into my hair, despite the mittens. And so I carry him. Because I can.
It is cold here. Our breath leaves us as wispy white ghosts, making us giggle. We whisper together excitedly as we walk up to the apartment, and knock, and wait to be let in. My brother whips open the door and we are welcomed with that enveloping enthusiasm that never ceases to startle and amaze and comfort me. My brother is all enthusiasm, all quick movement and noise and taking up space and I absolutely adore him for it. Noah hides his face, feigning shyness--but we all know better. Soon enough he is laughing and playing and running around with R, and they are ridiculously cute together, and it is good, it is so, so good, and we are happy.
We are so ridiculously happy.
----------
Sometimes I wonder if this is happening, right now, in some alternate universe. I hope it is happening. I hope it happens again and again and again. I hope there is a place where my baby is alive. Live, baby! Live, my darling. Live and be happy. Play with your cousin and grow and live and be happy.
And you too, other me. I hope you can live, and be happy. Just like in my dreams.
I lift him out of his car seat, and he cheers and wraps his arms around my neck. He is big enough to walk, but I love the smell of him, love the way he rests his cheek ever so briefly on my shoulder, love how his hand wanders into my hair, despite the mittens. And so I carry him. Because I can.
It is cold here. Our breath leaves us as wispy white ghosts, making us giggle. We whisper together excitedly as we walk up to the apartment, and knock, and wait to be let in. My brother whips open the door and we are welcomed with that enveloping enthusiasm that never ceases to startle and amaze and comfort me. My brother is all enthusiasm, all quick movement and noise and taking up space and I absolutely adore him for it. Noah hides his face, feigning shyness--but we all know better. Soon enough he is laughing and playing and running around with R, and they are ridiculously cute together, and it is good, it is so, so good, and we are happy.
We are so ridiculously happy.
----------
Sometimes I wonder if this is happening, right now, in some alternate universe. I hope it is happening. I hope it happens again and again and again. I hope there is a place where my baby is alive. Live, baby! Live, my darling. Live and be happy. Play with your cousin and grow and live and be happy.
And you too, other me. I hope you can live, and be happy. Just like in my dreams.
December 30, 2011
friendly ghosts
Work is just that, isn't it, and taking more out of me than I ever knew it could. My words are scarce, even inside my own head, all echoes and whispers and fragments of things that almost are and then are not. What words I do have are saved for them, for my dearest, my friendly ghosts.
September 1, 2011
a center tightly wound
They always called it "poise" but
if they'd asked, I'd have told them:
No.
Paralysis.
Inability to move.
---
Even now, I do not make
unnecessary movements. After
a run I push my muscles
to stretch as best they can but
though I am
leaner day by day it is often all I can do to
brush the very
tips
of my
toes, always
just out of reach, because
I am so inflexible,
unbending, rigid inside
and out. Every day
I operate from
a center so tightly wound I
do not know
what
might
happen
if it were to loosen
and so I do not
yield. For if this
twisted
mass of knot on
knot on
knot were ever picked free, what then
would be left to fill
out this treacherous
skin that is
the shape of
who I am?
February 3, 2011
rainbows
It seems that many of the BLMs whose blogs I read are pregnant again; their little rainbow babies pushing out only newly slimmed tummies, showing up as glorious blobs of life in grainy black and white. And I am so, so happy for you, mamas; really I am.
Only... only I wish that it was my turn too, you know?
My turn looks awfully far away from here.
Only... only I wish that it was my turn too, you know?
My turn looks awfully far away from here.
January 15, 2011
this time with alacrity!
I am making a very deliberate effort to not give in to my tendency toward gloom. I started at least four different posts over the last week or so, and didn't let myself publish any of them, because they were too depressing. Today I deleted every single one.
It's not that I want to deny my sad feelings; it's just that I am so very tired of them. They make me tired. There are enough things to make me tired every day without adding to my own misery by plunging down a well of despair.
I am still grieving. I am still picking up the pieces of a very shattered life. I'm not happy -- but I want to be. For the first time, I really, really want to be. I want to try. My apathy has dissolved, and I want to be happy, and I'm scared to death. Possibility has always frightened me so much more than dead ends ever did.
I want to stop thinking about things that are unchangeably sad, and put it all as far behind me as I possibly can. Not to pretend it didn't happen, but more to hit a pause button of sorts, and focus on something else for awhile. Right now, that feels different from denial; and I fervently hope that it is.
It doesn't mean I won't have hard days. It's just kind of like an experiment, I guess. An experiment in raised expectations.
----------
Can I tell you a secret? I have such high hopes for this year. By the end of it, I want to look in the mirror and at photographs and see the version of my "grown up" self that I envisioned when I was 19 years old. I want to see a smile that is completely genuine, and an expression that is wide open to the world. I want to wake up in the morning and be excited; excited that I'm here, that it's another brand new day. I want to be the life of the party, the star instead of the sidekick. I want to "go confidently in the direction of my dreams." I want there to be room in me for other peoples' successes, and their failures as well. I want there to be room for boldness and spontaneity and rebellion and grace. I want to not be so fragile and afraid.
(All images via weheartit.com)
I want to learn to be who I am, and not who I think I'm expected to be. And I never want to go back.
It's not that I want to deny my sad feelings; it's just that I am so very tired of them. They make me tired. There are enough things to make me tired every day without adding to my own misery by plunging down a well of despair.
I am still grieving. I am still picking up the pieces of a very shattered life. I'm not happy -- but I want to be. For the first time, I really, really want to be. I want to try. My apathy has dissolved, and I want to be happy, and I'm scared to death. Possibility has always frightened me so much more than dead ends ever did.
I want to stop thinking about things that are unchangeably sad, and put it all as far behind me as I possibly can. Not to pretend it didn't happen, but more to hit a pause button of sorts, and focus on something else for awhile. Right now, that feels different from denial; and I fervently hope that it is.
It doesn't mean I won't have hard days. It's just kind of like an experiment, I guess. An experiment in raised expectations.
Can I tell you a secret? I have such high hopes for this year. By the end of it, I want to look in the mirror and at photographs and see the version of my "grown up" self that I envisioned when I was 19 years old. I want to see a smile that is completely genuine, and an expression that is wide open to the world. I want to wake up in the morning and be excited; excited that I'm here, that it's another brand new day. I want to be the life of the party, the star instead of the sidekick. I want to "go confidently in the direction of my dreams." I want there to be room in me for other peoples' successes, and their failures as well. I want there to be room for boldness and spontaneity and rebellion and grace. I want to not be so fragile and afraid.
I want to learn to be who I am, and not who I think I'm expected to be. And I never want to go back.
December 16, 2010
November 2, 2010
co-sleeping
Lying in bed, I imagined I could feel Ailis lying with me, the warm weight of her body stretched down the length of my back, one little arm flung carelessly over my shoulder, her sticky-sweet hand hanging in my face; and I curled myself around the place where No-No should have been sprawled, with a faint frown on his face, sleeping the sleep of the just...
And I thought about the miracle of breath, moving in and out of lungs, of blood running swift and sure through veins. I thought about the rise and fall of a seven-month-old's round little belly, and of glossy curls brushed back from a two-and-a-half year old's smiling face. I thought about the work that was begun in me, but never finished, like a length of knitting that came undone. All of the vast potential that was present and waiting inside of them, needlessly and wastefully lost, like an acorn planted, rooted, and then too quickly dug back up. The potential for greatness, for annoying habits, for creativity. The potential for courage, and rebelliousness, and love.
----------
As I thought these things about my children I held myself very still, so as not to disturb their imagined forms beside me. And for a long time I could not sleep. But it was a sacrifice, of sorts. It was discomfort for their sake. It was an opportunity to parent -- even if it was all in my head. And for this one night, it was enough.
And I thought about the miracle of breath, moving in and out of lungs, of blood running swift and sure through veins. I thought about the rise and fall of a seven-month-old's round little belly, and of glossy curls brushed back from a two-and-a-half year old's smiling face. I thought about the work that was begun in me, but never finished, like a length of knitting that came undone. All of the vast potential that was present and waiting inside of them, needlessly and wastefully lost, like an acorn planted, rooted, and then too quickly dug back up. The potential for greatness, for annoying habits, for creativity. The potential for courage, and rebelliousness, and love.
----------
As I thought these things about my children I held myself very still, so as not to disturb their imagined forms beside me. And for a long time I could not sleep. But it was a sacrifice, of sorts. It was discomfort for their sake. It was an opportunity to parent -- even if it was all in my head. And for this one night, it was enough.
October 15, 2010
inexpressible
I wanted to put a quote here. A poem, a song. Something. I've been searching and searching. But nothing is working. And I find I am trying to describe something that I'm not sure can even be described in someone else's words, or maybe in any words at all:
I am trying to tell you what you mean to me
What it means that you were here
What it means that I'm your mother -- your mother
Not someone else's
Not anyone else's but yours
----------
What I picture in my mind, as I'm thinking about this, is the ocean, the wild breakers of the South Pacific ocean, at night. And I see so many stars overhead, unfamiliar, and very bright, the moon a shining silver splinter, and the waves foaming right at my feet, washing beguilingly over my toes, and then sliding away again. The air is warm, and the water is cold, and I stand there for a long time, with my head back and my arms outstretched, as if I could embrace the whole world, or gather the essence of you back together between the palms of my two reaching hands, gather you back from where you have disappeared into the heart of the universe. I can feel the whole of the earth missing you with me. Wondering with me, where have you gone, where are you now? Every rock and tree and flower, all the sand beneath my feet, all the whales, and the lions, and the mice, and the bees. We notice, we remember, we pause.
We look up.
And this string of moments is like a string of perfect pearls, or like a string of notes in a perfect melody, our solemn, silent song of acknowledgement, and memory... for you are a part of this story, this poem, this Place. You are part of us, and it -- and me. And we remember you.
----------
So this is it, baby. This is it.
If I had a picture of what I'm trying to say, this would be it.
I am trying to tell you what you mean to me
What it means that you were here
What it means that I'm your mother -- your mother
Not someone else's
Not anyone else's but yours
----------
What I picture in my mind, as I'm thinking about this, is the ocean, the wild breakers of the South Pacific ocean, at night. And I see so many stars overhead, unfamiliar, and very bright, the moon a shining silver splinter, and the waves foaming right at my feet, washing beguilingly over my toes, and then sliding away again. The air is warm, and the water is cold, and I stand there for a long time, with my head back and my arms outstretched, as if I could embrace the whole world, or gather the essence of you back together between the palms of my two reaching hands, gather you back from where you have disappeared into the heart of the universe. I can feel the whole of the earth missing you with me. Wondering with me, where have you gone, where are you now? Every rock and tree and flower, all the sand beneath my feet, all the whales, and the lions, and the mice, and the bees. We notice, we remember, we pause.
We look up.
And this string of moments is like a string of perfect pearls, or like a string of notes in a perfect melody, our solemn, silent song of acknowledgement, and memory... for you are a part of this story, this poem, this Place. You are part of us, and it -- and me. And we remember you.
----------
So this is it, baby. This is it.
If I had a picture of what I'm trying to say, this would be it.
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