I am what I eat

I have a love/hate relationship with blogs.  I can never keep up with one myself, and I don't often read others.  I enjoy a blog if it is original, funny, touching, inspiring but not preachy.  I feel like blogs have become so trendy and commercialized that I've shied away from the idea of having one.  I also feel like social media has made people forget that some experiences can or maybe even should be kept private or shared only with those we are close to.  It's hard to draw a line between intimacy and openness.

I love to write, but I don't do it often enough.  But I have been thinking a lot since I lost my baby Robbie.  I have been searching for ways to use the talents that God has blessed me with to help others.  I would like to learn new talents, such as crocheting so that I can make blankets for babies who are born still like mine.  But for now, I have to work with what I have.  I've also been looking for ways to make my life more meaningful.  To really consider what I love to do and cut out time to do those things.  I've printed out piano music with the intention of learning new songs to play at church, but haven't got around to practicing yet.  I do feel that writing is a talent of mine and something I enjoy doing.  I think it's pretentious to assume that I can advise anyone else on how to live their lives since I can barely figure out my own.  However, a few weeks after I lost Robbie, a dear cousin sent me a blog post by someone who is now one of my favorite artists and writers.  It put words to the feelings I had inside of me that I didn't know how to express.  So I've been thinking, if my words could have even a fraction of impact to someone else that those words had on me, they are worth sharing.  And if nobody ever even reads this blog, it's still cathartic for me to write and is getting me back in the habit of doing something that I love.

I had a discussion recently with my kids about donuts, or more specifically donut holes.  Donuts are a favorite in our house, especially Miles'.  When Josh takes him to the donut store, they usually come back with an assortment including a few donut holes.  (These are especially useful when Miles has already had two or three full size donuts but just needs ONE MORE.)  The kids were confused about why they are called donut holes if they're not really the inside of the donut.  And I mean really, whose idea was that anyway?  Why would someone think to make a delicious dessert that's missing its inside, and someone else think to recreate that missing part and sell it separately?

For almost four months now, I have been living with part of myself missing.  A big hole right in my heart.  Today I've been thinking about how I alternate living as myself, with a missing piece, and being totally consumed by that missing part.  When I'm myself, I'm okay.  I function, I get up in the mornings, I take care of my kids, I cook dinner, I do the things that I've always done.  But I always have this feeling of absence.  It's like when you leave for vacation and you check your bags an extra time because you have that feeling that you've left behind something important.  The first few weeks after Robbie died, I was in such a foggy, confused state.  I would drift off in the middle of a sentence and it would not come back to me.  I tried to write down as many things as I could so that I wouldn't forget them later.  I told Josh one night, "I just feel like I'm missing something."  And of course, I was missing a huge thing.  I was missing SOMEONE.  The fog has dissipated somewhat, and I can complete my sentences now, even though I am and always will be absent minded at times.  But I still have that feeling of being incomplete.

Other times, I live inside of that dark, empty space.  I am the hole and the hole is me.  These times don't usually last very long, because I have to be a functioning human.  But when I let the emptiness suck me in, I feel like I could just stay there forever.  I cry and I sob and I pray to God to get me through it, but at the same time I LOVE it because I'm feeling something.  The intensity of the pain is as intense as my love for my baby that I will never hold again in this life.  It feels wrong to be able to go about my life without him but the pain feels right.  It feels like active mourning.  People have told me, "It will get better" and that thought scares the hell out of me.  I don't want being without my baby to ever come easy to me.

So the big question is, how do I ever reconcile these two parts of myself?  How do I rejoice fully in the children I am blessed to have with me, while at the same time remembering and missing the one who I held for such a short time?  I know that I will never be "put back together" the same way again.  I can only hope that the part of me that is still here will become stronger.  That I will be able to honor my baby's memory while going forward in my life.

I heard a comedian say "I hate it when people say 'yeah I'm just taking it a day at a time'... uhhh yeah so is everybody else because THAT'S HOW TIME WORKS.  That is the only way to TAKE TIME".  Honestly I can't even say that I'm doing that because my perspective can change 500 times throughout one day.  Fine one second and falling apart the next.  For now I guess I will just accept myself and all the feelings I'm going through.  "Self compassion", as my counselor says. 

Obviously I don't have the answers, therefore I don't have a clear conclusion to this post.  I will just end with a quote from the blog I referenced before.

"Wishing a grieving mother's heart will be healed doesn't mean wishing she will pick up all her broken pieces, put a smile on and try to be exactly who she once was.  Eternity is about becoming the woman she most desires to be.  Heaven has touched her, and heaven has claimed her heart when it received an angel from her.  Her life, her being, will never go back to what it was before.  She will forever be a mom loving her angel."