Probably Crazy

I used to commute an hour each way to work. Then I got pregnant and really started thinking about how life was going to work, what daycare we could use, how we'd manage our time. So we really worked on getting my husband a job closer to mine and we moved farther south to be near to my office and his new work place. We also got a bigger apartment. We wanted a second bedroom for the baby and a washer/dryer so we could give up on the laundry mat. We started really saving for a house.

Now here we are with this apartment that costs $500 more in rent than our last place (but at least it's much closer to work and is cute) with a second bedroom. That bedroom door always stays shut. All of the baby things are in there pretty much undisturbed. The day I got home from the hospital my mom got there first and gathered all the baby things that were casually laying about from around the apartment so we didn't have to face it all around us. I appreciated that. It must have been so hard for her. My sister said she stayed outside while my mom did it and heard mom wailing with grief.

Aside from some borrowed things that I packed up and gave back, it all still sits in his room unused. Expensive breast pump, stroller, clothes, crib, all of it things I wonder if I'll ever be able to use even if I can get up the courage to try again. I think about donating it all, getting rid of it all in one fell swoop, but the practical side of me doesn't want to have to buy it all again. I'll certainly never have another shower again.

Okay so here's the crazy part: I still feel a strong urge to fix up his room. It wasn't finished. I never found the right curtain for his window, never got the wall hanging that I wanted hung up. I've learned to sew since then and I keep thinking about making a curtain since I couldn't find one I really liked. So now I am the nut who keeps thinking about decorating her dead baby's room who may one day just freak out and give away all of his stuff instead. Probably crazy may not be a strong enough phrase.

Too much for one post

I did the March for Babies walk this past Sunday. We got a ton of support--over 30 walkers and about $16,000 raised. People seem to think I should feel good about this, but I don't. Raising money for healthy babies isn't a good thing, it's a duty. I just want Colden back alive. And since I can't have that, I feel compelled to contribute to the reduction of babyloss to the fullest extent that I can.

I don't feel bad that I took advantage of the fact that people want to be able to write a check to make us feel better, but it does bug me that I have to find a response for all of their exhuberant exclamations about how great our efforts are.

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Lately I have been feeling so down on the possibility of having another baby. It feels inevitable to face another tragedy. Will that feeling subside at some point?

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My dear friend (we met in 8th grade spanish class) has been trying to be supportive and I feel like an ass. I criticize my friends who don't try but now I can't seem to open up to her either, even though she's trying hard. She wants to know how I'm really feeling? I don't know that I can get the words out. I don't even know where to begin. She asked how I was doing at the walk and I had to wave her off.

Masks

I wear the "I'm okay" mask to work every day and sometimes I even fool myself. But work is a country filled with landmines. In this corner is the poster of the bulging pregnant woman, hand on her belly and smile on her face. Down that hallway sits the proud mom whose cubicle is overflowing with baby pictures. I walk by trying not glance in and answer three variations on "hey, how are you?" by well-meaning co-workers as I make my way towards the bathroom. Have I mentioned that I hate that question? Everyone asks it, but no one expects a real answer. I think maybe they believe my acting.

My boss adopted a newborn baby about a month after Colden died. He complains about being kept up at night by his son and casually says his kid doesn't have many skills. He breaths so shut the hell up, I think to myself while nodding and smiling.

The mask gets me through most days, but it's hard to get it off once I get home, hard to feel authentic feelings and not keep pretending. It's especially hard for me to talk (outloud) about how I really feel. What is there really to say? I am sad. I hurt. I long for what could and should have been. I am afraid. But most of that I keep to myself except for within this space. I don't say those things because I don't want to hear my friends inane comments that seem so lacking in understanding or feeling. I especially don't want to see their blank stares when they have nothing to say.

I honestly don't know if pretending to be okay and not opening up about Colden, about the hole in my life and the weight of grief in my body will ultimately be a good or bad thing. Am I protecting myself from insensitivity or failing to process my grief? Doing what needs to get done or failing to let people know the true me? I wonder if I will ever feel understood by the non-babylost ever again.

Grief Aches

I don't cry a whole lot anymore. Once every day or two I'll get teary eyed for some reason or another. Yesterday it was walking around Lambertville seeing so many happy families and wondering about what could have been. Finally a tiny infant passed by me in the arms of a smiling dad and I actually gasped outloud. Longing. Or sometimes at work when I'm on a conference call with my boss and I can hear his young son cooing in the background, I get teary eyed. There are some good things about being alone in my office for these calls. Beyond damp eyes, though, I haven't lost it much lately, haven't wailed.


Instead of tears I mostly feel grief as a second resident of my body. Grief has chosen to come and live with me, and apparently the guest room wasn't good enough. It got so carried away with the desire for closeness that it's come inside my body, and I have no choice but to carry it around with me. It's lodged in the middle of my chest. It aches. I feel it underneath my breasts and down to my stomach. It aches. It feels like it's settled in for the long haul. It aches. I wonder if I'll wake up some morning and find that I have my body to myself again. Maybe grief will go away on vacation for a while and return only for visits. Until then it just aches.

It's much like having a cold. I'm sick, but not so sick that I can't get up and go about my day. People who ask how I'm doing seem surprised if I don't immediately express pure health and contentedness. Perhaps to them it doesn't seem like I feel all that bad. Or they just don't want to talk about it since it might be contagious. Maybe they think I'm a whiner if I mention that grief is crowding me out of my own body. But I'm sick enough that the joy of life is missing, and I'm just trying to make it through every day. There are some good times but mostly it just aches.

Colden

I have just one actual picture of Colden, of his body. We didn't think to take any ourselves so I'll never have one of me holding him or of Brendan cradling him in his arms. Instead, I have a single image that the hospital took after he'd been taken from our room. He looks really dead in it and while I am so grateful to have it, I haven't wanted to share it with anyone. If I had an electronic copy, I would post it here because I know you guys understand, but among the non babylost, I'm much too afraid that someone would say the wrong thing. I doubt that I would ever forgive them and I might literally rip their heads off. Because he was beautiful. And he's mine. So all I can do is protect him in this tiny but ferocious way. So I'm really glad to have this beautiful picture of the beach all the way around the world as a way to remember him connected with something so beautiful and peaceful. I think I'm going to frame a copy for our apartment. Thank you, Carly, for giving me something beautiful related to Colden.

Hope

Today I feel a little hope. Perhaps it's the sun shining in the window or the romantic weekend at the beach that we just got back from. I don't know. But I feel a tiny flickering light of it, and I want to find a way to feed it. I want to ignore the possibility that it might instead be self-delusion, and hang on to it anyway. So if you hear a crazy neighbor outside calling for her hope rather than her kitty, don't mind me.

I never wanted a phd in sadness and loss studies.

My talents have generally been academic in nature. No one wants to be around me if I'm in the mood to sing--tone deaf doesn't even begin to describe it, but school came really easily to me. So easily that I slacked off a lot. 100s on the tests, 0s on homework generally averaged to Bs and Cs through most of HS. It wasn't until college that I got it together and "lived up to my potential" as my parents were constantly pestering me to do. There I still didn't really study much. I could easily look at the syllabus, skim the book, cram some for the test, and just quickly get what it takes to get the A.

I guess I never realized how much that drive to find the quick way has influenced my life philosophy even beyond my school days until last night, when Brendan and I went to our second SHARE support group meeting. It was a much smaller group this time. They're all sweet, comforting, and real, but I felt a little uncomfortable. Brendan was the only guy and all of the women were much farther out from their losses, from two to eighteen years ago. It scares me to see how actively and deeply they are still grieving. I love Colden beyond words, but I can't have him back so I don't want to spend the rest of my life sad. It's too damn exhausting.

When I'm around these women I feel like I'm staring at my future and it looks grim. I guess I'm looking for the shortcut, the quick A. Why can't I ace grief and be done with it? Maybe that's why I've so quickly read multiple books, gone to so many blogs, looked ahead to see what I might have to deal with at 6 months, 1 year, 5 years out. But this is one class where being ahead with the material doesn't to seem help at all. All of the issues that we talked about at the group last night, I've already read about and considered, but it doesn't seem to help. I still have to feel it. This is one class where being ahead with the material doesn't seem to help at all.