I can't sleep. It's almost 4am and I've been tossing and turning since 3. Insomnia's not usually an issue for me. Chloe stirs around 3am almost every night lately and I just change her diaper and pass out again. I once learned that, if you can't sleep, you should jot down what's on your mind and then you can get on with it. I found myself blogging in my mind so...here I am.
After I wrote my entry about Leila's day I was displeased with it. I felt like I should have written something more poetic - like I didn't do her justice. To be honest though, while I spoke to her a lot in my mind, my heart just wasn't into blogging. I hate to be a downer but I feel like I've been walking around with a bit of a raincloud over my head this summer. Fortunately, it's a small raincloud so the sunshine still makes its way in most of the time. Every once in a while, though, I'll step on the magic rain button and whoosh. Down it comes and I'm suddenly walking around like a Charlie Brown character. The week that Leticia was here and then the 4 days my parents were here were great. I'm seriously grateful for them. They sort of kicked the magic button aside in order to stand next to me. Since their departure I've had some time to live inside my own head, though, so here I am...
I've decided that I'm having flashes of the 'anger' part of grief. The thing that clued me in was that Target commercial. You may have seen it - the one with the identical triplets. It's a back-to-school commercial featuring three very cute girls. At the end it shows them leaving down the front steps of the school and at that point their mom walks up to join them and presumably escourt them home. I decided I don't like that lady. She has a smug look on her face like, "Look at me. I have identicals. I'm so cool. Aren't you jealous?" My answer is, "Yes lady. I'm jealous, ok? I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be exhausted from my 8 month-olds. Not constantly worried about how much my survivor micro-preemie is or is not eating and desperate for her to get one step closer to sitting." Whew. There was some ugliness, huh?
A friend of mine just posted about a party where she met some people with identicals. She lost one of her twins around six months before me so she's a little bit ahead of me in everything. It was noteworthy so she obviously still felt something and I wonder - how long will it be noteworthy? I can tell you every single pair of identicals I've seen in the past three months. My stomach lurches every time. I know I'm supposed to be "gentle" on myself and grief takes a long time.... But seriously, I want to just be ok and at peace with my loss. I want it to just be in the past - not so fresh all the time. It's been a year. People lose babies every day and some people aren't even lucky enough to have babies at all.
I'm blessed to have Chloe and need to remind myself of that. I was blessed with a perfectly healthy pregnancy and full-term baby (and now ridiculously fantastically coping 5 year-old) in Solana. I'm blessed to have a great husband who takes care of us and who lets me lean on him constantly. I'm blessed to have both my parents and need to remember that.
Ok. I just re-read the above. Please know that I don't always feel this way. I'm almost certain it's the time of the year. I'm glad summer's so busy so I don't feel this way all the time. I'm supposed to wake up in an hour to feed Chloe before going on a jog. I've been doing a good job of getting out twice a week for a jog and my shrinking waistline is rewarding me for my efforts. I think I'm going to try to get a quick hour of sleep before starting the day. Weird. I suddenly feel better. Thank you blogging world.
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I don't know if it will make you feel better or worse, but two and a half years out I still have a ball of sadness that wells up inside of me anytime I hear someone is pregnant with twins or if I see a mother out with twins. I think twins are just rare enough that you don't get used to seeing them all the time, and then when you do, wham.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it ever stops being noteworthy. It gets a little less raw, but at least for me, it's still noteworthy. Let me tell you a secret: at that party, it was the first time I EVER had the peace of mind to tell the mom of the identicals about our story. It was liberating in a weird way, like acknowledging Leah's existence was the right thing to do. This after a whole summer of avoiding the mom of the identical girls in Lucy's Ballet class. It hurts. Leah should be here. Leila should be here. Anger is totally understandable. Oh, and I also noticed the Target commercial. Enough to realize that those triplets were in an Oreo commercial when they were younger. Hang in there.
ReplyDeleteI have seen those commercials and I gawk.
ReplyDeleteYou sound a lot like I felt as we neared our first anniversary. I never did "anger" at the normal stage. It took almost a year and then I was hit with the unexpected onslaught. It was then that I realized that I couldn't avoid it. I could suppress it, I could ignore it, I could pretend it wasn't lurking, but sooner or later I was going to have to feel it and acknowledge it. That was in November of 2009, just days before their first birthday. It was shocking and confusing and I felt guilty about it because I am so blessed, so crazily blessed that I feel shame for any kind of bitterness or resentment. It seemed so delayed and unnecessary. But necessary it is. Stupid grief. So sorry. My prayers are with you this weekend, as they always are. I love you and I wish you peace as you celebrate your three beautiful daughters and the unique contributions they make to your family and this world that loves them and needs their influence.