Right Where I Am: Three Years, Three Months

This post is in response to Angie's project, Right Where I Am. I apologise for the rambled stream of consciousness that follows...the truth is I dont really know how I feel 3 years out from the best and worst period of my life.


Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago. Most of the time it feels like it happened to someone else. All of the time I feel like I am a different person to before.

My life now is divided into two parts. Before and After. The truth is, I can barely remember what life was like before. What was it like to live life in ignorant bliss? What was it like to not know how it felt to bury your child?

And recently all I have been thinking is: if Star had never died, Manny would never have lived. My baby's death is so closely linked with my other baby's life, the two can never be separated. This thought has been going around in my head for over a week now. The greatest joy in my life, could not have existed without the greatest sadness in my life. It hurts my brain just to think about it.

I do remember the early days. I have written about them before. About how liberating it was, the freedom to grieve openly. The freedom to hole myself up in my home and ignore the world. The freedom to lie on the floor and scream and sob at the top of my lungs regardless of who might hear me. I miss being able to be so raw - so openly bereaved.

As time marched on, and particularly after Manny's birth, the expectation was that everything was "better" now. I remember 8 months out, on the 27th of the month, my mother asked me what was wrong. I told her the 27th is a hard day for me. Her response was "what, every month!?!" I was dumbfounded. My own mother expected I should be "over it" after only 8 months.

Now, over three years out, I cry less. I think of him frequently, but I do not cry. I talk about him all the time, but I do not cry. I pull out his photos and stare at him, but I do not cry.

Some nights, late at night when everyone else is in bed, I think of him and cry. But the tears are no longer racking my body with sobs. They are silent tears that simply fall from my eyes of their own accord and soak my pillow.

Three years out, my eldest has weaved his baby brother into the fabric of his life. Every now and then he mentions his name in passing...and it reminds me. He was here. He left his footprint on this earth. He wasn't just a part of me, he is a part of our family.

We do not cry for him anymore. But we love him with every beat of our hearts.

Seriously??

Today can go die in a hole.

Aside from the absolute shittiness already reported (see below), we got home to find a little kitty that I've seen in our backyard a few times, crying in the bushes. I grabbed a towel and picked him up in case he bit me - it was dark and I couldn't see what was wrong with him to start. I took him into the light, and saw his tail was stripped down to the skin and bone, and got scared and stopped looking. We rushed him to the vet (who luckily is open until 7pm) and there I saw the extent of the damage, one of his legs was just exposed bone and he was not in good shape. As he was a stray without a microchip, and he was in so much pain, the most humane thing was to have him put to sleep. I watched them take him down the back and walked out on the verge of sobbing, simply holding myself together for the boys.

Only to get into the car for MIL to tell us that her cancer is back, and it has spread.

Seriously, today can fuck off.

(and I can't even go cry in bed because MIL is still here being all perky and rah!rah!fightthecancer! so I have to pretend to be an optimist when we know I am NOT, instead of curling up and pretend today never happened)

public service announcement

Interrupting your regular schedule of emo moaning here for an important public service announcement: You can now join me on Facebook here and you will enjoy 80% MORE mindless drivel as it occurs to me. Oh joy! Oh happy day! Come on you know you want to :)

Those of you lucky, lucky peeps who are already fortunate enough to be FB friends with me may experience some repeated posts but I will try to think of brand new tales to regale you with (such previous gems include "it's a 3 Snickers bars kind of day" and "convinced my 2 year old is an evil genius. And is possibly plotting my demise")

Dreamers vs Do-ers

Are you a dreamer or a do-er?

I am 100% positively a dreamer. I enjoy sitting back and thinking about all the wonderful things I want to do. I spend hours, hundreds of hours, mentally rearranging my house. If I got off my ass and actually rearranged my house, it would be done a lot sooner.

I think a lot of it comes down to my insane perfectionism. I rarely get things just the way I want them to be. I am rarely truly pleased with the outcome of something I do, or create. It's something I NEED to get over, and fast, because nothing is getting done.

Creating my day zero list has helped. A lot. I have always enjoyed ticking things off lists (hence why I have a filofax simply stuffed with lists) But this is more than a "buy toilet paper/call builder" kind of list (rest assured there are hundreds of those unfinished lists floating around). This is my life list.

These are the things I have in my mind that I want to do, want to achieve, and havng them there to remind me all the time to do something about them has helped...a lot.

Are you a dreamer like me? Or are you a get-in-there-and-do-it kind of gal?

If you are the latter...please...any tips you can offer are greatly appreciated

Easter Therapy

Yesterday I went shopping, and ended up having an impromptu therapy session.

I was going to a department store to look for long sleeves for Manny as the weather is starting to get colder. I wandered into the Easter section to grab a couple of chocolates for Rocket. I figured that like usual I would just grab a chocolate egg and a small toy. Easter hasn't been fun for me for awhile now. As I am the one in the house who arranges all the parties, holidays, gifts etc, if I'm not into it, it doesn't happen.

Last year I tried. I did the Easter hunt thing, which took no effort really, but I really used to enjoy all the Easter palaver.

But then yesterday I stood there in the Easter section and looked around. And found something cute. A ceramic egg decorating kit for small kids. "My Rocket loves craft" I thought, so I picked it up. Then I spotted the coloured rabbit ears. Since he was wee, we've always called Manny 'Bunny' (yes he is the baby of a thousand names). "How cute would Bunny look in these ears?" I thought, so I picked them up.

Before I knew it I had filled a basket. Lovely baskets ready for the boys to decorate, and some pretty chocolate lollipops, little wooden baby chicks to paint, easter paper chains to make, soft bendable bunny ears to wear, little fluffy chicks in nests.

And then I was off to another craft store.

To look for Easter decorations.

I think this year might be different.

I think tomorrow I might even bake some hot cross buns.

Easter makes me cry

Easter was always one of my favourite holidays. Are you kidding me? 4 days holiday plus all the chocolate you can stomach (and then some) - my kind of holiday.

But for the last few years it's been a different story.

The year my Star was born, Easter fell on 23 March - just a little over three weeks after his birth. In the weeks following his dearth, we barely left the house. I didnt eat for a week, and when I did start, it took weeks before I could eat more than a bite at a time. What I do remember is FUIC and hot cross buns. It was what we survived on. It was our comfort food.

The Easter weekend I was convinced to leave the house, to go on our usual vacation. I cried almost the whole weekend. I could barely force myself to interact with Rocket, or set out his gifts. It was probably also the time I had the last good conversation with my ESIL. It was hard. The whole holiday sucked.

Ever since, Easter has been hard. Harder than any other holiday. The closer it falls to his birthday, the harder it hits me. Even without getting into the rebirth/resurrection/"this is a time for new life" theme of the season, it's hard.

This year, with Easter being right at the end of April, it's strange. The timeline has shifted a full month. But when I smell hot cross buns, I am still taken back to that time. I am still in our old house curled up on a mattress on the lounge room floor, numb half the time, howling in pain the other 50% of the time.

I wonder whether I will ever truly enjoy Easter again?

motivation...or rather, lack thereof

Do you ever have trouble motivating yourself to get off the couch, put the laptop down and turn off the tv? I sure do. There are lots of things I would like to be doing...that I want to do, but I find myself stuck back in the same damn rut I was in before I left. Time to get my ass UP and GOING.



To help keep myself on track and make myself accountable, I've signed up on Day Zero and made me a LIST. Is there anything you can think of that I should add? I'm totally open to suggestions of ways to brighten things up and get creative with my life, I am ready to get my life going again after being so stuck in the babymaking circus and putting off so many things for so many years.