And I sat there numb. Wanting out. Wanting to be anywhere but where I was. And I realized in that moment that I am in this place frequently. Like I showed up for work, an appointment, or with a friend, and I am there but I am not. Like all the emotion is sucked out of me, and it's not that I don't care, but I don't care. If I had to pick anywhere else I would be, I wouldn't have an answer. There isn't this secret obsessive dream I am having where I am on a beach or in a coffee shop. I just don't want to be here. There is no reason to feel this weak, I just feel like the life blood has been sucked out of me, and I some how still show up, but I came in an empty shell of a body.
I feel like a shell of who I used to be, and people say they notice. "You're so calm" or "you seem to isolated". And those wouldn't have been words I would ever used to describe myself, alas, it's how I feel today. Maybe it's that I am taking hormones the last few days. Maybe it's because I am at a loss of words to describe the pain it feels to want to get pregnant but I can't. Maybe it's the mundane of this life that I am finally getting used to. My life is no longer a series of unpredictable home visits or McDonald's trips with inner city youth. But some how I highly doubt that even if I were in the thick of adventure that I would feel like myself.
I dread the lime light, the effort anymore. I have been content to maintain my life at this point, but yet, I yearn for something more. And I don't think that it's because I don't have a good relationship with the Lord. I don't think I am clinically depressed. I don't think I am falling apart or in need of something, but I am just different. I am just empty. I can put on a face and run the show, but I have struggled to find my joy lately. I have struggled to be content. I look at those cute little baby pictures of Kaylie and I am remembering those moments in the hospital where alone I fed her and listened to Adele while Daddy slept on the make shift bed. Those moments where I kissed her super soft little head and smelled that new baby smell. Those snorts and short breaths that only come from babies were the only conversation we had. Becoming a mother was like making a dream come true. But as all mothers say, the time goes by so fast. I look at my dancing, running, talking little person and while that love is still there, there is a longing to fall in love all over again.
Last summer, I heard that fast paced baby heart beat on the ultrasound and my heart jumped with joy. I was scared and nervous to have two babies, but it felt like my dream life was continuing to unfold. Marry a wonderful man, buy a house, adopt a dog, have a child, and start my practice. It was like everything wonderful continued to unfold into my lap and I sucked it all up knowing each and every day was a blessing. It just felt like pure abundance and it was so much happiness.
To lose that, well, it was like the wind stopped blowing and the life of the room was sucked away. And even when I think of it still, I have to catch my breath. Because after so many moments of joy, I had forgotten what sorrow felt like. And now, here I am, day 2 of some hormone pills and it all slams into my head like a distant memory coming alive again. Yesterday was my baby's second birthday and she is a a beautiful edition of that tiny little babe I fell in love with two years ago. I miss her snorts and that high pitched newborn cry. And while I was so very intentional about enjoying every moment of her infancy, I still can't help but grieve that my plan of having another has not come to pass yet.
I know I am not hopeless. I know that months from now, this blog could be just a blip in time, but today, filled with progesterone, I am some what of a sappy, quiet, broken mess. Quiet and still because I feel like how can I grieve when I have so much to rejoice over? None the less, I grieve. None the less, I feel like something is missing from my heart, all while knowing my heart is full.
So I guess I just acknowledge my hurt and my joy. I guess I just remember and hold tight to what I know to be true. I guess I stop ignoring the hurt and just hold on to it. Not because by holding it that it helps, but because by denying it, it's also not helping. At least then, I stop feeling guilty for not having it all together. At least then I know that I am just sad because I lost something I thought I had. While it doesn't mean I won't love again, and it doesn't mean that I don't love now, it means that I acknowledge that love that was starting to form just from hearing those little heart beats. And whether that heart be a person, a soul, or just a group of cells that lived momentarily, I still experience those moments of emotion where they were something. It's a moment I hope I get to experience again, that joy and fear all at the same time. Because being a mother is the greatest gift, the greatest joy, and yet also the greatest sadness I have ever had.
I know some of my momma friends who are right there with me. Maybe their grieve is expressed differently, but it's powerful. It's draining. It's a longing. It's a lament to God for a chance. It's the longing my single friends passing the 30 year mark press on through. It's the moments where you realize your parent is still dead, or that you failed a life long project. It's a failed marriage or the reality that you messed up big. It's raw loss. It's powerlessness. It's meager hope. It's empty. It's a vessel that you feel you become in those moments where the thing you're missing grow in significance. It's the moment where you can't breathe. It's wishing you were any where but no where at the same time. And it's realizing that you have to keep moving, or you'll stop. So you wrap up. You put it back into a box, on the tallest shelf of your heart. I had a moment of grief, but now I go back to life. This is the depth of myself that no one sees, but it's always there. Too painful to visit for very long, so I am going to tuck it back away again. Until that next breathe returns, I grieve, I listen, I wait for God to come back in and fill that empty me with his Spirit. Help me Lord to be filled...
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