First Christmas

This was our first Christmas. I'd be lying if I were to say that I didn't have a very nice one and enjoyed this holiday. I didn't cry. I didn't obsess. But I thought about Logan a lot. I thought about what he'd be wearing, how he would've responded to sitting on Santa's lap last night. I thought about how big he'd be, and that he'd still be a baby and that everyone would be oohing and ahhing over him. I thought about the fact that life would be so different than it currently is. The good and the bad. It's interesting that I can think about it logically enough to recognize that babies aren't all fun and games all the time. All in all I had a nice few days and allowed myself to enjoy the holiday. I missed Logan today and I thought about him a lot. But I smiled and still enjoyed myself.
On a different note, I did go ahead and buy that ornament I mentioned in an earlier post. I hope everyone was able to find some peace and happiness these last few days. Happy holidays everyone.
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Counting Down, God and the Holidays

I feel like I'm counting down.

38 days...

Thirty-eight more days and it will be a whole blasted year. 365 days. Gone. Things aren't that different, not really. Christmas is still coming. Its still winter. I still get up every morning and go about my day. Except now I think about the box of ashes still sitting on the top of my armoire where I put them so many months ago, trying to forget about them. That didn't work. I think about how different life would've been. I think about what I'm missing. I think about the life that he should have been living. I'm not much different to look at I suppose. I'm ten pounds heavier, my eyes are perhaps a little clouded, distant, sad. You wouldn't know it, unless I told you. You wouldn't know that there is love for two children in my heart. You wouldn't know there are two realities to my life. The one everyone sees, and the one that has Logan in it.

I got my hair done today. I've just really been needing a change, some improvement, something different. For the love of my husband (and the unrealistic fear of him not wanting me anymore) I didn't hack my hair off. But I changed it. I've always done that. Something bad happens in my life that I can't control and I hack off all of my hair. Like its the one thing I can control, so I do. Seems insignificant and pathetic, but pain and confusion and helplessness manifests itself in weird ways. The stylist ask me about my daughter. I've stopped telling most strangers about Logan. I never thought I would, but I have. Early on I took pleasure in seeing the shock and horror. Like maybe they felt a fraction of what I did. And early on I was so scared of loosing his memory, his proof of existence that I wanted to voice him constantly. I wanted to scream "Hey!! There was a child here!! He was real!" But mostly now days I feel like its a cheap way of whoring him around. Like he is too special to me to put out on display. He is mine. My private memory. No one deserves to see my love for him. No one deserves to know him. He was mine, mine alone. And no one could love him like I do. Obviously my husband does, but random people do not get that privilege these days.

I keep thinking about that ornament. I want to go buy it, but I keep putting it off. Part of me thinks I need to let go. Ornaments and trees and knick nacks are not going to keep him here. Part of me is afraid that I'll forget about the ornament and next year I'll be sitting around decorating my tree, feeling jolly about the holiday...and BAM! I'll find that one. And I'll remember it all over again. Humph. Like I'll ever forget this. Like I'll ever forget him. And then part of me wonders, will it just make me sad every year to look at it? Like I won't be sad enough, and this will just be more salt. But part of me thinks Logan deserves a spot on my tree just as much as Aubrey. And that ornament just fits. It says "Rest in Heavenly Peace" and not "Baby's first Christmas" because, after all, it is not and I'm hoping he is. Its astounding the amount of emotions that a dumb little piece of plastic can bring forth.

Tonight I am sad, and I am not sleepy. A bad bedtime combo around here. My dh starts his 16 day vacation tomorrow. And we're making room in the basement for a pool table. And we're turning what was supposed to have been Logan's room into a shipping center for my eBay crap. And I desperately wanted change, and yet it makes me sick to my stomach to go through with it. Like if I left it a half torn up guest room, and never changed it into anything. Not a little boys nursery with little blue and green fishies, not a shipping center...than maybe it'll be like nothing happened. "There never was a baby, see!! Its just a guest room." Damn that room that sucks the wind out of me every time I walk through its wretched door. Tonight I just want to lock the door and pretend that room was never even there. That stupid room that I stood in so many times and considered how I would set it up. That I would put the crib in the far corner like I did in Aubrey's room. That the built in shelves would have nice little baskets stuffed full of all of the baby needs. Green walls, blue curtains...little comical fishies floating across the far wall. I hate that room. I should paint the walls black.

I've never seen the time 10:07 on a clock since that day. Maybe its the single ounce of kindness God is tossing down at me, maybe its my subconscious being fearful around that time every day, so I just don't look. Who knows? My mom would say its God. He loves me. He doesn't want me to be sad. Someone posted on a friends wall on Facebook today (on an unrelated topic) "Its like praying for God to take away someone’s hurt when maybe its the hurt that will bring them closer to him." Why do people even begin to think they understand God? Why do people feel like they have the right to interpret God. Why do people assume they know what God wants, feels, thinks? I don't get it. And I hate it. I hate that people preach to me, at me, about how God feels about me, what he has in store for me. To be honest, when people around me even mention the name God, it makes me recoil. It makes me shut my ears. It makes me want to punch them in the face. Maybe its not about God at all. Maybe nothing is. Maybe its just the way it goes sometimes and it sucks and it hurts and its ugly and it is what it is. Maybe its not part of God's plan. Maybe God didn't have a thing to do with it. As a protestant I grew up believing that God's hand is in everything. My husband, as a Catholic, grew up believing that God's hand is in the big stuff, but not the day to day menial stuff. That used to blow my mind. Why would he plant a garden and then not tend it? Now I just think that people try too hard to find God in everything and that maybe he created us, and created life, and let us have our way with it. I mean, that's free will and all. If my having created a baby was anything, it was a result of sex. A consequence. There's an egg, the sperm finds it, bam! There's a baby. Mine didn't work. Throw it out, try again later. Sigh. But the thing is, I don't even buy it. Only God can breathe life into existence. How many women try and try and try for a pregnancy only to get nothing? God chooses when life happens and when it does not. An he CHOSE to create life using an egg that he KNEW wasn't suitable. And he did it anyway. That's what I can't get my head around. I know why Logan died. I accept it. Not compatible with life. Fine. Got it. He wasn't compatible because the egg didn't split right. Fine. Got it. But why life that month? Why not the month before? Why then? A year later and I still can't get my head around it. And I hate that people say that God uses all things for good. All things?? How is this good? Because I wrote a blog that might have helped someone else cope? No offense but I could give a crap. I mean, I'm sorry for your pain, but I wouldn't have volunteered for this or anything. Given a choice, you'd have lost. How can you take a rape, or child molestation and make it into something good? How can you take these horrible sick cases of these grown men raping and torturing and mutilating a young child and make it good?? HOW?? Where is the good in any of that?? And why? What's the point? Why give me something that brings me an unbearable sadness so that he can make something good out of it? Why couldn't me make something good out of nothing? He's God after all. My questions go unanswered. And you know why? Because NO ONE has these answers. I get responses like "well we can't understand God" or whatever. But that's the lame answer you get when people don't want to look the horrible stuff in the face and call it what it is. It sucks. Its ugly and there is no answer. The human interpretation of God is not the answer, not to this. Sure, he might help me to learn to cope, learn to heal, learn to move on...but it will always still be there. The big black gaping hole that contains the minuscule memories of my sons very short life. He can't take that away. Or at least he won't. It makes me miss my Gramma. She always seemed to have the right kind of answers when it came to God, or anything. She is in a nursing home, 200 miles away, and incoherent. Alzheimer's. Explain that one to me too while you're at it. On second thought, no, don't. I'm tired of explanations. I'm tired of ignorant people yammering at me about their insignificant knowledge about God.

I don't realize how angry with God I am until I start typing these posts. And I'm not trying to start some theological debate, and I don't want anyone witnessing to me, I get enough of that already. I grew up Christian. I already know. Doesn't change what I feel. Doesn't change the facts.

I miss the desire to celebrate. Birthdays and holidays come and go and I find that for the most part I just drift through them and try to get past them. I yearn for that old care free innocence of celebration. Not that I don't think I deserve to celebrate. Not that I don't think I deserve happiness, smiles and good times. I just don't care about them anymore. It doesn't feel right. Like there's something just a little bit off. Like when there's a dinner after a funeral and everyone's hanging out and chatting like nothing happened. Like its just some big reunion, and that they’re not all there because someone died. That always felt weird to me. Someone died. "HEY! I know, let's go eat!" Weird. Christmas Eve marks 11 months. Its like a mile marker in a marathon. One mile to go. Seems so dramatic doesn't it? And I know it will be like every other milestone I've encountered thus far. The hype and build up to the day is far worse than the day itself. I've had several weeks of numbness and being able to hide and this week I feel like its coming front and center again.

I just get so bummed out. Life isn't supposed to have been like this! I should have the house decorated to the nines. I should have pictures of my two kids with Santa. I should be shopping for a little boy. We should be taking great home movies and laughing and building nice memories. But we're not. I don't want to decorate. I don't want to celebrate. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to remember. I don't want to think about what isn't happening, what's missing, what went wrong, what life has become or hasn't. And for some reason the holidays are really kicking my butt about it all. I hate it. I want it to go away. I want to feel the sun on my face again.

I Resolve

I stole this from Mary.


"I RESOLVE"

THAT I WILL GRIEVE AS MUCH AND FOR AS LONG AS I FEEL LIKE GRIEVING, AND THAT I WILL NOT LET OTHERS PUT A TIMETABLE ON MY GRIEF.

THAT I WILL GRIEVE IN WHATEVER WAY I FEEL LIKE GRIEVING, AND I WILL IGNORE THOSE WHO TRY TO TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT BE FEELING AND HOW I SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT BE BEHAVING.

THAT I WILL CRY WHENEVER AND WHEREVER I FEEL LIKE CRYING, AND THAT I WILL NOT HOLD BACK MY TEARS JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE FEELS I SHOULD BE "BRAVE" OR "GETTING BETTER" OR "HEALING BY NOW".

THAT I WILL TALK ABOUT MY CHILD AS OFTEN AS I WANT TO, AND THAT I WILL NOT LET OTHERS TURN ME OFF JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN'T DEAL WITH THEIR OWN FEELINGS.

THAT I WILL NOT EXPECT FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO KNOW HOW I FEEL, UNDERSTANDING THAT ONE WHO HAS NOT LOST A CHILD CANNOT POSSIBLY KNOW HOW I FEEL.

THAT I WILL NOT BLAME MYSELF FOR MY CHILD'S DEATH, AND I WILL CONSTATLY REMIND MYSELF THAT I DID THE BEST JOB OF PARENTING I COULD POSSIBLY HAVE DONE. BUT, WHEN FEELINGS OF GUILT ARE OVERWHELMING, I WILL REMIND MYSELF THAT THIS IS NORMAL PART OF THE GRIEF PROCESS AND IT WILL PASS.

THAT I WILL NOT BE AFRAID OR ASHAMED TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP IF I FEEL IT IS NECESSARY.

THAT I WILL COMMUNE WITH MY CHILD AT LEAST ONCE A DAY IN WHATEVER WAY FEELS COMFORTABLE AND NATURAL TO ME, AND THAT I WON'T FEEL COMPELLED TO EXPLAIN THIS COMMUNION TO OTHERS OR TO JUSTIFY OR EVEN DISCUSS IT WITH THEM.

THAT I WILL TRY TO EAT, SLEEP, AND EXERCISE EVERY DAY IN ORDER TO GIVE MY BODY STRENGTH IT WILL NEED TO HELP ME COPE WITH MY GRIEF.

TO KNOW THAT I WILL HEAL, EVEN THOUGH IT WILL TAKE A LONG TIME.

TO LET MYSELF HEAL AND NOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT FEELING BETTER.

TO REMIND MYSELF THAT THE GRIEF PROCESS IS CIRCUITOUS~THAT IS, I WILL NOT MAKE STEADY UPWARD PROGRESS. AND WHEN I FIND MYSELF SLIPPING BACK INTO THE OLD MOODS OF DESPAIR AND DEPRESSION, I WILL TELL MYSELF THAT "SLIPPING BACKWARD" IS ALSO A NORMAL PART OF THE GRIEF PROCESS AND THESE MOODS, TOO, WILL PASS.

TO TRY TO BE HAPPY ABOUT SOMETHING FOR SOME PART OF EVERY DAY, KNOWING THAT AT FIRST, I MAY HAVE TO FORCE MYSELF TO THINK CHEEFUL THOUGHTS SO EVENTUALLY THEY CAN BECOME A HABIT.

THAT I WILL REACH OUT AT TIMES AND TRY TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE, KNOWING THAT HELPING OTHERS WILL HELP ME TO GET OVER MY DEPRESSION.

THAT EVEN THOUGH MY CHILD IS DEAD, I WILL OPT FOR LIFE, KNOWING THAT IS WHAT MY CHILD WOULD WANT ME TO DO.

I've spent a lot of my life looking behind me. Wishing all the old things were new. Panicking at how fast time flies by. Childhood, highschool, college, my twenties...poof! Gone. So fast. So fast they just whipped by, pulling years from my life that at times I stop and stare and wonder how it happened. This has always made me sad. These days though I'm rushing through it all. Like maybe if I press forward this will all be over sooner. The logical part of me knows better, but I find that I am very emotionally driven as of late. And I hate that. I hate that I can't stand still long enough to listen to reason, and if I do I usually just shove it aside. And I hate that I'm rushing through life. Rushing through the cute growing years of my toddler, just so that I can get beyond a pain that I keep hearing you can never really get beyond. I know that in a few years I will look back on this past year and know that I should have slowed down and taken the time to smell the roses with my living child. Enjoyed every moment with her that I could. I owe that to Logan don't I? To enjoy my daughter? To make every waking moment with her count, to make it pleasurable, to make it worth while. I wish I didn't feel like my patience died that day too. Not that I've ever had an overabundance or anything. But I feel so raw all of the time. So spent. So done. So tired. So drained. I've started feeling like enough is enough. Knock it off already. He died. You're sad. I get it. Stand up and dust your self off and keep walking. But then the other part of me want to throw a tantrum. Wants to pount. Wants to feel sorry for herself and pretend that she's the only one in the world to have to go through this...like other's haven't been through so much worse. I have one dead baby. He wasn't my first. At least I have a child who is alive and healthy. At least I'm not like some woman who have had dead baby after dead baby after dead baby, or never able to conceive, or struggle for years with infertility only to have the child die as its being born. At least I don't have that. I wish that mattered to me.


I didn't decorate for the holidays. I'm not in the mood. I don't have the energy. And I use my 22 month old as an excuse "Oh, she'd pull the tree down" or whatever. But truthfully, I just don't feel like the hassle. Its like that with so many things these days. I need to just buck up and do it. Clean, laundry, bathe...


I don't cry much at all anymore. Logan is becoming such an enigma for me. I have a hard time picturing life with him in it anymore. I feel more and more like it happened to someone else. I miss my baby belly. I never thought I'd ever say that, but I do. I miss the thought of new beginnings and the excitement of a new baby. I spent the last two Christmas's pregnant and exhausted. Waiting. Impatient. Excited. This year I feel empty. Its odd how not finishing a pregnancy will leave you feeling like life is unfinished. I feel stalled. Like I'm still waiting for him to be born. Waiting for something. I spend most of my time trying not to think about what happened. Which in turn leads to less blog posts. I find myself eager for major change. I want to move. I want to remodel. I want to overhaul myself, my home, my life. Unfortunately (or fortunately) my husband doesn't have those same needs, or if he does he's at least rational enough to know what's best for us.


I can't leave life this way. I can't go out on a bad note. I feel like I have to try to have another child. I want to prove to myself that it doesn't always end badly. I want a happy ending. I don't want to always walk around feeling like life is unfinished. We started a family and then stalled during round two and never got back up on the horse again. I KNOW this sounds terrible. And no I don't think another baby would replace Logan. And no I don't think that it would make all of the hurt go away, but I have to believe it would help to heal some of the hurt. Not now. I'm not ready for a baby now. But someday... I have to feel like I still have that option. And dang it if I don't feel like that option has been torn from my hands. And I hate that I wanted this big family and now I have an only child and a dead child and so since I had one die then that's it, no more babies. And I hate that I should be content. Hey, at least I have the first one. Right? We're all thinking it. I SHOULD BE CONTENT. Aubrey should be enough. She's the light of my world. But I guess it makes me feel like I was hungry, so I got Aubrey, and then I was thirsty, so I got logan. Well hey, at least I'm not dying of starvation!! They're like apples and oranges to me. Having Aubrey doesn't minimize or erase the fact that I don't have Logan. Sigh. I so wish it did.


I added a new quote to the top of my blog. Its from a song by the Counting Crows called Its Raining in Baltimore. The quote is: "You get what you pay for, but I just had no intention of living this way." I've heard that song a million times over the last decade. But that line hit me so hard the other day. Maybe because it resonates that sentiment that maybe I didn't deserve Logan, or maybe I did something to deserve this pain. You get what you pay for, right? Maybe I didn't pay enough. But, regardless of if I paid enough or not, I never would have chosen this path. Who would? But I feel that so hard these days...I had no intention of living this way.


I can't believe its almost been a year. 39 days to go.

This

This morning is not starting off good.  I have zero patience and feel wound tight and ready to explode.  I've been feeling this way a lot lately.  I have a cold, so I know that isn't helping.  And my 22 month old has one too AND is teething.  So we're both whinny and irritated.

I thought I was doing good.  For some time now I haven't really been feeling anything.  But last night my husband and I were snipping at each other and he said "There's the girl I've been seeing for the last three months!".  And the anger came boiling to the surface.  You know that anger.  The one that pokes its head out everytime you realize that this has changed you, that this has changed everything around you, how you view life, your partner, yourself, your future, your past, every one around you.  And I got pissed that I let it change me, that I couldn't stop it from changing me.  That every innocent thought, is no longer innocent.  That I can't think warm fuzzies about making babies with out remembering that one died.  That I can't think about my annual Christmas picture without realizing that last years picture had a very pregnant looking woman in it, with her husband and daughter...and this year there isn't a second child to add.  No transition.  He was there last year, he's not this year.  No sign or caption explaining why.  Future generations will look at those pictures and be confused, wonder what happened.  It made me so angry to realize, and have it voiced by my husband, that I'm different in a bad way.  I'm not happy.  I don't look forward to anything.  I don't want to celebrate.  I am angry that this has turned me into someone I don't recognize.  That it has taken away what little bit of self worth, will power, motivation and what not that I used to have and that now days I just feel like a giant worthless blob who doesn't hold up her end of the bargain.  I'm no wife to my husband.  I don't care anymore.  And it makes me angry that I don't care (so I must care a little or something), and that most of the time the new me beats down the old me until all I do is sit and stare.  Depression.  Yeah, I know.  No pills they say.  Gotta deal with it.  Its expected, its normal...blah, blah, blah!  WHATEVER!  I'm angry that this has given me depression.  I'm angry that my life is slipping away, my marraige, my daughters days.  All slipping by while I'm just too spent to do anything about it.  I feel torn.  Torn between who I feel like being, and who I know I am supposed to be.  Torn between cleaning this house, cleaning up myself, loosing this ugly weight that drags me down, being a good wife, a good mother and just loosing myself into the blob on the couch who doesn't understand why this happened to her.  What did I do?  What did my dh do?  What did that poor baby do that warranted this.  What did my dd do to deserve being born into a family that so soon after her birth would try to fall apart?  Why us?  Yeah, yeah.  I know.  Its not our fault, we didn't do anything to deserve this.  God has a plan.  Yeah, whatever.  It makes me so angry that I want to throw this computer through my window.  I don't want to be this person.  I don't want to have this ugliness hanging over me and every thought I have and every thing I do.  I want it to go away.  And I know I sound like a 5 year old stomping her foot.  I know it sounds ridiculous.  But it is what it is.  Its not fair, and I don't want it.  I want my old life back.  I want that innocence back.  One freakin' month ruined everything.  And I'm tired of living with it.  I hate this new me.  I hate what I do, how I think and what I know.  I am pissed that I couldn't stop this from ruining me.

I can't believe its December.  Christmas is just 3 weeks away!!  I'm a month and three weeks away from Logan's anniversary.  Almost an entire year yanked from my hands.  A year spent being someone that I'm not.  A year.  Gone.  And I'm glad its going.  The year mark is the magic number right?  The day when POOF everything is better and back to normal, right?  Yeah.  Right.  Its sad to say that I'm looking forward to February.  I have never in my life looked forward to February.  February is frigid cold and boring.  That's why they invented Valentine's Day.  Threw in a little excitement.  But this time around, February feels like a little light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm probably setting myself up for a huge dissapointment, but I'm clinging to in anyway.  I need to find hope in something.  I need to think there will be an end to this.