An epiphany

I had an epiphany today. 

Wandering around our place cleaning and organizing my anxiety mounted.  Why, I wondered.  Why would I have anxiety with no place to be and no place to go?  My kids are here, arguing of course, but here nonetheless and no worse for wear, so no worries with them.  My husband is out in the woods hunting, but only with a bow, so there’s no real danger in that.  So, why the crazy rise in anxiety? 

With each bill, mail or item of note I’ve found in my cleanings, my anxiety rises.  What if I missed some date?  What if this bill wasn’t paid and needed to be paid by me?  What if I’ve messed up somehow?  What if I’ve missed some important deadline?  I know, I know, so what right?  But so what IS what.  What if somehow I’m even more at fault even by accident?  Tears roll.  Stupid stupid tears.  It’s not my fault. 

I don’t want it to be my fault.  I don’t want to be the one who makes more mistakes, who no matter how I try or what I do I can’t be right.  I try to be ON and then I make a mistake (like all people do) and I feel like I have even less control.   So I was thinking… and this is where the epiphany comes.  I keep having anxiety about being wrong, making an error, a mistake and no matter how small that error may be, it is as though it’s even more evidence that I am not good at life.  Not life, but… things.  I don’t want to be wrong in a way that affects others.  I don’t want to be wrong in a way that is more than just an error of facts.  And why should that matter when everyone is wrong sometimes?  Because somewhere inside me I feel as though, it is my body’s fault that Gabbie did not live.  And if I cannot even trust this vessel that I reside in to do what it was made to do correctly, then how can I trust myself to be effective, correct, on, good at stuff?  I know it seems like they should be unrelated.  How does one prove the other?  It doesn’t, but that’s where the anxiety comes from.  I am afraid that this life will prove to me that all the things I thought I was decent at, made for, was once capable of doing well, could be proud of myself for being able to do, are actually the things that I’m awful at.  I am afraid that my errors will cause hardships for others and will prove that I am no good at being reliable.  I always tried to be reliable, someone everyone could count on.  Yet Gabbie’s death somehow, in my head somewhere, provided some sort of hard evidence, or proof, that I can’t count on myself, and that neither can others. I thought that makes me sad.

I know what you are going to say.  “It is not your fault.” “You couldn’t have known.”  I know. I know these things… and yet, it was my body that failed me.  Failed her.  My body produces too much fluid.  Because of the fluid, there was too much room for her to move.  It was my body that failed us no matter how I tried. 

Please don’t concern yourself with this.  It is just a realization of the reasoning behind my anxiety.  I have found its root.  Now I have to come to terms with it.  Somehow. 

“Don’t be silly,” says a voice in my head, “it’s not something you did.”

“I know it’s not something I did,” another responds, “It’s something I couldn’t do.” 

Infinite beauty in sorrow

I have decided that a blog is a build-up of emotions.  When it just gets too much to keep in anymore and the dam breaks, out it pours.  Every emotion, thought, perception, and stress comes ripping out of me, streaks down my face, slowly gouging fine creases, and pours itself in sunken draining woes through the sopping words and intense grammar on the page.  Damn, if I dealt with heartache and stress through comedic relief I’d be a millionaire in standup comedy by now.  But instead, I write down the complex stressors that have become my life in a finite script on some mythical, technological web for the world to know the sorrows that consume me. 

On the surface, the stressors would mirror anyone else’s.  And they do mirror everyone else’s.  The weight, the daily stress of life and work and family, these are the same as others’. But beneath the surface lurks a deep, heavy sadness with infinite beauty.  I may have high cholesterol now, as my doctor apparently tells me.  I may indeed have high triglycerides because I have extra body fat that I didn’t have before.  But I have these ailments because I made a beautiful baby, a baby that I carried within me for 9 months, and now, through the rest of life I will carry still.  There in is the burden.  It is not the extra fat around my hips, or on my waist line.  It is not the jeans that will not fit, nor the fats inside me that are not healthy, although, yes these are obstacles.  But no, these are not the burdens that weigh on me.  It is the weight of that child, that sweet baby who has left her soul inside me.  It is the weight of that soul that I must carry forever.  Her memory lives within me, for I am all she had ever known.  The memory of her movements still resides within me, in the soft straining of the muscles that are no longer taught.  She may have passed up to heaven, but the weight of the remnants of memories and hopes and dreams are heavy; they are a weight that will be carried through time only determinable by fate.  As with all weights, the more you carry it the more accustomed to it you become.  It is not that the weight gets lighter; it just becomes easier to bear out of practice.  Similar to a first-time mother becoming accustomed to carrying a baby around on her hip while she goes about her daily routine of cleaning and chore, the weight will become manageable for practice, but it is a weight that I cannot put down and don’t know if I’d want to if I could. 

                The beauty in the sadness stems from the amount of love I had for this tiny little girl I never really got to meet, though I knew her to my core.  If a sadness can be this deep, this intense, it can only be born from a love equally intense.  Each tear I cry is shed to lighten the load of carrying such a heavily burdened sorrow born from love.  It takes so many tears to equal the balance of sorrow so heavy that millions of woefully laden tears, a lifetime of them, will be shed like ballast.  They need to be shed to make room for the weight of a burden as heavy as love, hopes, and dreams unfulfilled by a stillborn baby.   It is only love so beautiful and infinite that can cause this sadness that burdens a heart with the weight of another soul for a lifetime.

A nightmare, a psychic and a baby shower... no joke

I had a nightmare last night.  This one was about Gracie.  We had moved to a new place.  The place looked sort of like an old church but not the congregational pulpit area but more of like the communal area.  We didn’t have much furniture.  It was like we had just moved in.  For a few nights in a row, Gracie seemed to disappear to somewhere and return late in the night.  This Gracie in my dream was still only 2 and a half.  When I asked her where she went she said “with them.”  I wanted to know who “them” referred to.  She didn’t have an answer.  All Gracie could tell me is that whoever it was, they wanted her to follow them and so she did.  But she would come back and not be able to explain where she’d been.  At one point, when I was frantic with worry, because no matter how closely I watched her she still would leave, I rushed outside with a flashlight just as she returned and I screamed into the night, “Who are you? What do you want from her?”  But there was no answer and I woke up with my heart racing. 

It was the kind of dream that sticks with you throughout the day, the kind of dream that you remember in vivid detail.  I have to wonder if others have dreams like I dream, and what these dreams could mean if anything.  What darkness must be in my subconscious for me to dream such rattling dreams, that they shape my day into darkness. 

Speaking of darkness, I don’t cry as much as I used to, which I guess is a victory.  However, I feel a darkness inside, a deep sadness that stays with me no matter how I go about my day, no matter what I do. 

I went to a psychic.  She had some interesting things to say.  When she brought up my astrological chart, the first words from her mouth were, “Whoa sweetie, you have a lot going on here.”  She went on about the kind of person I am first.  Then she pointed out that I felt a deep loss in June, that the loss was something that shook me to my soul and rocked the people around me.  She said that the loss likely occurred before June but that it really hit home in June, and then again in September.  She said that I will never forget this year but that I will never have another like it.  It was a once in 84 years kind of years. She claimed that though I was suffering still from this loss, it was also a year of rebirth and that things would slowly get easier because we would start over. She had me shuffle her tarot cards and each card she pulled was a death card.  She said that this loss must be the kind of loss that is not ordinary; it was not someone old who passed, or someone you would expect to lose.  She knew we moved and said that it was a good thing for us.  She said other things, but, perhaps one of the most important things is that she claimed that if D and I would try again in late August of next year that we would most likely have a better outcome.  I am hopeful and terrified. 

I also went to my first post-Gabbie baby shower.  There was more anxiety leading up to it than at the actual event, although I could not stay to watch the opening of presents.  I did actually buy her a gift of baby clothes that I picked out, and did not settle on a gift card.  However, I could not stand and read baby shower cards in the store so instead picked a blank one.  The baby shower was for my best friend; she was the only other person besides my mom and the pastor who stayed with us to meet Gabbie and hold her.  I would go to the ends of the earth for this woman.  Perhaps I should have gone shopping for her on a previous day, but in all it was not bad.  The anxiety came from not wanting to draw attention to me at an event that was for her and I was so afraid I’d not be able to hold it together.  But I did, mostly, except when I first saw her.  Her family has been an extension of my family since we were kids.  I am thankful she is my friend and lucky to have her. This is one more hurdle, another “first” that I overcame.  How many more firsts are there?  Sometimes the hurdles seem so high I wonder if I can fly.  I will be there in the hospital to meet the sweet baby boy when he finally, with all of God's grace, sees the other side.  I am terrified for her.  Absolutely and utterly terrified.  I can only pray with all my heart that it turns out okay.

 I wonder if the stress of the day didn’t bring on the nightmare. I wonder if the nightmares are the way for my body to release some of the sad darkness in me.  The are definitely not a joke.  They cause me to wake with racing heart, sometimes whimpering, sometimes crying out, and often with tears rolling down my face.  The nightmares, like the sorrow, stay with me for so long, like a very heavy package I cannot set down.  I am tired from carrying them with me.

Holidays, exhaustion and Self-depreciation

I decorated for fall.  The holidays are coming (I say that with a grimace in my heart and a slight frown.)  I preferred being stuck in the spring.  At least then there were no holidays coming to notice. But a year is passing with or without me, and the holidays are on the way. I know I have to make them pleasant and fun for the girls.  It feels like work this year.  I put up some fall garland, lights and candles.  I put pumpkins in the girls’ bathroom: three jack-o-lantern votive candle holders.  According the girls, they are the two of them, and Gabbie.  They know that she is here.  She is a part of everything they do.  Today, D went to lunch with Gracie.  When they heard a baby cry, she asked if it was Gabbie.  Gabbie never cried.  We, however do for her, almost daily.  The comment made D notice her absence.  It’s hard for both of us.  He doesn’t comment often, but I know it’s true. 

I think I’ll buy a special candle, and light it just for her.  I won’t make a big deal about, but when the thought of her is really with me, I’ll light it just for her.  As for the Christmas tree (I’d like to scrap it altogether, but the not-so-jolly fat man needs to put the Christmas presents for two girlies who had a rough year somewhere), I think I’ll buy an ornament for Gabbie.  Something so she is with us.  I don’t know.  How does a mother honor her dead baby for that baby’s living sisters and daddy when Christmas should be a joyous time?  Christmas: a day to celebrate the birth of a quite notorious baby. My baby might not be notorious but she deserves to be with us during the holidays as much as He does.  I’m sorry if I’m not very faith driven tonight. 

I know what I do feel like though; I feel like a blubbery blimp.  The worst part about the weight is I KNOW it wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t had Gabbie.  And though I don’t HAVE Gabbie, I do have fat.  Fatty fat fat.  I’m self-depreciating right now and I don’t care what you think.  Every time I exercise a little sneaky nagging voice reminds me why I’m working so hard.  “Gotta work off the baby fat.”  “Gotta feel good about yourself again.”  “The fat isn’t going to go away on its own.” “You don’t want people to ask you if you’re pregnant do you?”  That stupid voice is pretty harsh inside my head.  But the sad part of me just wants to sleep.  Sleeping doesn’t promote skinniness and I feel huge and fat and sorry for myself.  Whatever even Superman had Kryptonite and I am not a superhero.  It’s Friday after an incredibly long week, and the day after the six month angel-versary of losing my baby and I feel fat and hideous and *sigh… I need sleep.  Maybe that will make life seem less haggard, and me less jaded at myself.  It doesn’t help that I’ve been sick the last few days.  I’ve been so exhausted I even needed to nap on my lunch today and then again when I got home.  Maybe it’s the medicine, the vertigo virus or maybe I’m just tired of… of living sad… forever sad and missing her and, like I said grief takes stamina that I currently lack today.  It’s hard to imagine that for the rest of my life a piece of the pie of my life will be missing.  Even if I added a new baby and that baby lived, my pie would get bigger but a “Gabbie” piece will forever be missing.  I will always have a broken heart.  No matter how many children I have or how much mending, gluing, and taping that could be done to my heart, it will always be broken. 

                Now that I’m even sick of my pathetic nature…. I have to find a dress that I can squeeze my fat self into for a wedding tomorrow.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a skinny day.  There’s always tomorrow. For most people, except for stillborn babies.   (And for once I typed a blog without a tear.  Maybe I’m even too tired to cry. But I did cry earlier... just because.)