Missing Colden

I haven't been writing, haven't known what to say or how to say it. Time just passes by so quickly. I heard a quote on the radio the other day that was attributed to Woody Allen, "Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon. "

A few weeks after Colden died my mom said something to me that I didn't really understand and yet hurt my feelings. She said something that indicated that she thought I would process this grief faster than other people do. I think she was clumsily trying to say that she thinks I'm a strong person, but it still stung. Does she think I'm not a feeling, loving person? That I will just get over Colden? How can this being saying something even remotely positive about me?

So now here I am 6 impossible months later, 6 months that I am still stunned I have survived, and I am better and yet not. Not better in the sense that other people might assume, that they in fact seem to crave. That better would mean moving on. It would mean living, loving, laughing the way I had before. That better would mean that my smile was fully real or that I didn't cringe still every time someone asks casually how I'm doing. But I am better in the sense of coping, going to work and even being successful in that crazy, meaningless corporate environment, being a friend, a sister, a partner. I am social, mostly. I am still the same bossy, decisive, driven person that I have been. I am down to crying once a week or so rather than every day or hour.

Sometimes I wonder what it says about me that I am as functional as I am. I mean, I fake it a lot, and faking being okay seems to directly help me be more functional. But I don't know if that's a good thing. Was my mom right? Even if she was, I don't know why or what it says about me as a person. Do people believe that I have just moved on? I still miss him with all that I am, still long for the family life we could have had together and the chance to see him grow up. But life just keeps going on. I am aparently not inclined to just hole up at home so I keep on going with it. Also, I feel more distant for him. The life I imagined for us seems hazy, like a dream I was silly enough to conjure up.

But today the events of Wednesday, December 17th weigh heavily on me. It is even the same day of the week. I think about how exhausted I was that morning and yet still happy, blissfully ignorant that he was already dead inside me. I know that if he had not died, I would likely have not gone into labor, so tomorrow would not be his 6 month birthday. And yet I cannot help play an endless loop of what ifs and should have beens in my mind. What would he look like? What would he be doing? What would like be like if I were actually okay rather than just pretending, even to myself.