Feeling and Letting Go

When you are visited by grief it takes a while to feel it. I mean really feel it.

You know when you do though.

It's thick. Sticky. Hard to shake.

It's like smoke. It seeps into your soul. Gets under your skin, fills your lungs with black and clutches at your heart.

It may seem odd but it's difficult to let that go.

I know the intense feelings of love and amazement when I gave birth to Yuna, then in a flash it was overcome with other feelings. The slap in the face kind of intensity of new but just as powerful feelings. Pain, loss and grief.

So it begins. You nurture it. Cradle it. Hold those new feelings closer than you'd really like to. You begin to need that feeling over and over again. It after all seems to be the only way you can feel. It keeps you floating along in this foreign sea of loss. It seems to be the only connection to the original feelings. The feelings that were.

That connection to you, Yuna.

Because if you're feeling pain then it must mean I'm not forgetting you. It means I'm loving you.

But surely there's a way to love you and be connected to you without the grief, sucking the life out of my very heart and soul.

Perhaps just the fact that you existed should be enough?

It's scary to let go because almost like every ache, every pain is like a way to show my heart, the world how much I wish you were here in my arms.

It's memories now. Distant yet vibrant memories. It feels sometimes that I'm making them up. I have to wonder if they were indeed a reality. Your birth, your short life, even your death.

If I close my eyes could I reach you?

Somehow, somewhere.

I never wanted to let my grief take me away from who I am. Sometimes you just have to be that grief as a whole. I didn't want it to define me, but I see it's now a part of who I am. There are many parts to me. This is just another for the collection in this life.

I hope, I was going to say I hope there are less tears and more smiles but I know there will be. I also know there are plenty more tears for you, Yuna. That's okay too.

Your beautiful face and those wise soulful eyes. Magical.

I'll always remember them.

It's just hard to be happy and feel joy when I ache to hold you again.

The struggle to understand the grand plan. The lesson. Perhaps that is the plan, letting those ideals go too?

Silent thougths

As inspired by a fellow blogger A Garden for Butterflies I thought I'd let go of the many random thoughts that never pass my lips. They forever swirl around my mind until they are suppressed into the depths of my soul for a later date or transformed into some other negative feeling. This exercise is to be a regular occurrence. If only we could be socially acceptable despite screaming motherfucker at the world itself. I know I'd feel better by doing it. Wouldn't you?

Some random thoughts for today. Some sad, some crazy, some just me.

*Oh goddess she was beautiful* (looking at her not so tiny feet sculptures)
*What will I do with that placenta in my freezer? I should be planning something special*
*What happened to me? Said as I examined myself in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes*
*I shouldn't be fearing the days to come. I should be planning Yuna's very first birthday party*
*I never got to make my chocolate labour cake. Was that an omen of things to come? She would never have a birthday?*

What were your random thoughts you kept to yourself today?

Quite Random

I've been floating along in my own little bubble. I much prefer the air in here to that of the big bad world. The air is thick and makes it hard to breathe. Detrimental perhaps to my social self but it's safe. Much safer than crying to a stranger at random. Or wanting to make them see sense. Or scream at the mother who was physically smacking her 6 month old baby because she was crying. Yes, you read that right. The world does my head in. I can't relate. I do not belong here. I belong somewhere else. I belong in a world where my daughter lives. Impossible dreams and hopes will forever linger in my mind. They'll never be any lighter to carry upon my heart. They just wont. The longing for her will still forever break my heart and crush my ribcage like a wild animal hunting it's prey. Dramatic? I think it perfectly describes that feeling when you realise your not in fact dreaming. That this world is your reality. That you do not have a baby in your arms. That baby is no longer.

I swing violently between knowing that all things happen for a reason and my daughter had a purpose yada yada to this is all bullshit and unfair. I guess that's a normal response too. We can't always be level headed, all of the time. I am rational. I'm not a screaming lunatic, well publicly at least. Maybe I'd feel better if I did do it in the middle of a crowded street?

I was told that most of the first year after losing someone you spend struggling to make it reality. To accept that it's real, that they're dead. I feel like I'll forever be waking up wondering how the fuck my life ended up this way. How the fuck did I go from blissfully pregnant to giving birth, to almost dead, to watching and waiting for my perfect looking daughter to take her very last breath? I don't know. I just don't know. I'm waiting for some kind of awakening. Doubt it.

Writing that makes me realise that I never got that "time" to grieve. Sure it's been almost a year. A whole year since my daughter was born and died but I just can't help feeling like I missed something. I could go on for eons about what I didn't get but there is something I can't put my finger on. It's just all out of order. Like I missed some process after she died. I know everyone does it differently. I just feel like I should have been at home, in private. In the place she was born, surrounded by her things. The birth smells. Her home. My home. Our home.

Instead I was a patient in a disgusting hospital and alone, completely alone.
There it is. The salty tears. Perhaps that's it.
I was separated from those I needed most. My daughter was gone and I was busy being poked and prodded and x-rayed and filled with tubes and pumps. Being examined and judged and watched.

I remember vividly only on one occasion during my hospital stay did I completely collapse in a mess of tears. Well in view of others anyway. A whole team (I'm talking 10 or more people) of medical students and the senior staff barged in and there I was in a chair wailing. They quickly apologised and left me alone in the room. They demanded the social worker see me because I was upset.

What part of that isn't normal? A woman whose had everything taken from her, including her uterus, her baby is dead and you're concerned she's acting like a crazy woman?

Okay this post was supposed to be about something completely different. In fact it was to contain the use of the word "motherfucker". Although I'm sure I could use that word on more than one occasion when describing most of my interaction with hospitals. I'm thinking that would have been more fun to blog about but it seems my heart has poured itself all over the keyboard and taken over.

I guess that's pure release of some kind. Don't know how it helps but it's worth a shot, right?

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Where?

Where do you go when I sleep?

When I close my eyes and dream of you?

Whispers of love sent

Passages of hope dreamt

Time fading

Memories wet with tears

Where do you go when my heart aches for you?

She

She dreams

She creates

She loves

Dust, Earth, Salt

Tears

She is free

Hope, Peace, Love

She dreams

Open heart

She loves

Open hands

She creates

Open soul

She dreams

Alone into the night

Being alone appeals to me

I guess it's running from pain even though I know it's still going to be there

Yet this self imprisonment allows some kind of inner torture

Punishment

For what I'm not sure

A broken mother

Crashing

Being swallowed

Looming darkness

Outstretched claws

Ready

Waiting

Whispering

Weakness

Pulling me down just a little deeper

Into the night

Inside

How does one survive when there was no inner core, no strength, no stability to begin with?

You crumble, you drown, you fight for air.

It's hard to love when you don't love yourself.

I feel like I'm forever picking up the pieces. Rebuilding over and over. From the ground up.

Turmoil, pain and a whole lot of self hate.

I'm detached and disconnected because I'm afraid to hurt. Of the hurt.

You've been broken it's hard to get that back.

Self confidence.

Love and passion.

I need to work out how to love me first.

I don't want to. I don't deserve love.

I am learning. Slowly but learning it's okay to live.

The dual nature of the human spirit.

We can be happy yet be sad too.

Joy and pain.

There is no one or the other. Everything just is.

Accept it with grace? Learn to be.

Not one or the other, just be.

Everything.

Easier said than done.