Making room

The wind is blowing the 85 degree air over the balcony.  The pot of plants that are intended to attract butterfly flowers sits snug in the corner while its inhabitants wave in the wind.  There are no butterflies there.  I guess I don’t need them to be.  They are around when I need them.  She is around when I need her.  She is always around, she comforts when necessary.  It’s been a year, a month and 12 days since she left.  I don’t cry everyday anymore, though sometimes her absence pulls so roughly on my heart that the tears have no choice but to spill to make room for the love that I cannot give her. 

We got the notice that our one year anniversary of living in this place that would not have fit her has arrived.  We really have no choice but to move or pay more.  The price to stay is awfully high.  If we stay, we can’t have another baby.  There is no place here to make room for a baby.  If we leave, we may very well be living at the in-laws again until we find another place that will fit us in the school district that Sky attends so we don’t disrupt her even more.  I feel bad to have them make room for us. 

 I think about this idea of having another baby.  We haven’t been trying, but we haven’t been preventing either.  “They” say it will happen when it’s time, when I’m ready.  Ready?  What exactly does that look like or resemble?  It’s a foreign idea to me now.  I sat around on the Fourth of July at a friend’s house and watched all the babies.  I listened to a good friend talk about how she got pregnant by accident.  I am happy for her.  I took it all in stride, I think.  I held a tiny baby.  She sat quietly on me.  It made me wonder.  I can’t really put into words exactly what I wondered.  I did not cry.  This baby didn’t remind me of Gabbie.  The one that wandered around though, she is only a month older than what Gabbie would be.  She is the daughter of the newly pregnant friend.  The toddler is so sweet, and hard to look at, and not look at.  I love her to bits.  Somehow my heart has made room for her.  But why wouldn't it?  She is too close to Gabbie to not. 

 I get terrible anxiety when I hear about others being pregnant.  God help them have healthy breathing babies.  

The time has come around again.  I am not pregnant.  We don’t really want to be just yet, or maybe “I” don’t want to be just yet.  I don’t know.  The timing is wrong for work.  Perhaps that's an excuse.  Partly.  Partly not.  Life is difficult and busy already, especially pertaining to work.  I do know that I do NOT want a baby to be due when Gabbie was due.  That would be conception during this month.  D said he’s ready when I am.  I am ready and not ready at the same exact time.  Around much of my life hangs a sort of confusion, a hesitance and again, a waiting.  I want to move to make room for another baby, but the not knowing gives me anxiety.  You'd think I'd have gotten better at relinquishing control to the universe.  I want a baby, but then I don’t know how to lose another one.  I have to prepare myself that it could happen again.  Do you know what it is like to prepare to have a baby that you have to tell yourself you may never see breathe?  My cheeks are wet from writing those words.  And there it is: the weight of the mass in my stomach.  How do I prepare myself for something I may never get?  It isn’t even in taking the risk that is the problem.  It is the actual, real fear that I may have to hold another dead baby.  It is the real fear that I may actually want, more than anything to hold another dead baby, if that is all I’m allowed to get.  That idea is so messed up in its reality. But this is where I’m at. I somehow have to make room for the idea of holding a live baby, my live baby, and a dead baby, if that is what the universe wishes.  I have to make room to let go of all control again, still. I do know that I want to try again.  Oh lord... those words are filled with so many consequences, possible rewards, and changes.  But I want to try again, for us, for him; for God's sake, let me be making room for a live baby.