Overshare

Yesterday’s post yielded a few concerned phone calls. I’m going to be ok, but in the meantime at least I can be honest. This reality can get ugly and I know it can be difficult to read. I know that my loved ones are sometimes left feeling impotent and helpless. Maybe it’s a little disingenuous to act more normal than I feel, but it’s the only way I’ve figured out how to get through the days. I can even access my old self and old joys sometimes.

The pain ebbs and flows. It allows me to creep out sometimes and slip back into a normal life- sad but functional. But now that it’s less focused it’s less predictable. The death of a child emphasizes our lack of control in so many aspects of life. I couldn’t control my child’s suffering or health, I can’t control the reactions of those around me, I can’t control the time it takes to heal or how many little babies I see being pushed around my neighborhood in strollers. If I’m not vigilant, I forget that I can control my emotions- to a certain extent.

I’m trying to remember how to let things go. At some time in my life- after I met Tom- I figured out how to breath through my emotions. I guess that’s what “living in the present” means. I couldn’t do it with complete reliability, but compared to my teenaged self I was pretty good. Then a little bean sprouted in my belly. Right away I felt my son’s presence in me. He made me tired at first and made strong smells gross me out. He made me yell at some teenagers who were fooling around with a revolving door. He made want fresh fruit all the time.

Just when we were really working well together, the plan changed. Neither of us had any say in the matter, or we would have kept it the way it was for a while longer. But the new plan was that the little bean was going to come out and be a baby for a few days. He smelled like heaven and he wrinkled his forehead at us. I concentrated on my baby so hard that I forgot almost everything else, including the things I thought I cared about.

When Tommy Jr (former Bean in my Belly) left me, I had to spend all my mental energy on staying upright. With Tom Sr’s patient encouragement, I got out of bed and showered and walked the dog. I went back to work. I saw my friends and worked out at the gym. I told myself I was a mother. But I stopped being present. I snoozed in the past, I pressed my hands over my belly and imagined it hard and full of life. I shrank from the future- letting waking nightmares torment me. The present was so slow and cumbersome. It was lonely in the present, and sad.

Once you have some one else with you, in your body, it’s hard to know how to live alone in there. Especially when your body focuses entirely on nurturing that little person. I think I realized today that I should come back to the present. I’ll sneak back into the past from time to time, but now it’s time to be in the present and find a place here for Tommy too. I haven’t figured out yet how to do it, but I know I want to. It’s not exactly hope, but it’s something.