Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Continuing

I find it funny that these thoughts are almost always on my mind. I've been obsessed with thoughts and ideas before, but never like this. Something Marcy said really resonated with me: we don't know what to say. We don't know how to feel. In fact, isn't that what's true for any situation? Who's to say how we should react or feel.

I think often about friends I know who have lost children - babies and children - and I think about how my own grief must seem. While I have no honest memories of that person, those people live every day knowing what they lost and what that life brought to their own lives. But I don't know what to say to them either. I'm beginning to think that maybe that's the biggest problem here - it's not that I'm grieving, but it is that there are so many of us and that there are so many people with so many problems that they can't talk about. When you see someone going through something terrible, you feel like your problem can't even come close to comparing or to measuring up - why would you bother someone who has a bigger problem than you do.

But they don't. I know that I need to stop measuring problems. My pain isn't any less real and my experience isn't less than someone else's. It's different. My experience isn't the same and my memories aren't the same. One of the things that always amazes me is how many people will sympathize or come clean about their own problems or a similar problem once one person does. Why do we feel the need to be alone in our thoughts and our grief? Any load that is shared is lighter on many shoulders; I guess that just means that I shouldn't be afraid to talk about it or to help someone else. But I am. What if they think I'm a downer or what if I make them uncomfortable?

Is that why I'm turning to a blog? So I can say the things that I need to say without fear of rejection or discomfort? So I don't have to look you in the face and see the confusion or sympathy or whatever other emotion might be there? I'll admit that I've never been very comfortable with people. Period. I've always felt a bit on the outside and that I didn't belong. Part of that was my own mind and part of that was just my own introverted tendencies. I think of one of the people I work with and how she always wants to talk face to face or over the phone and how uncomfortable that makes me. I think about how I send an email and then I sit and fret for hours about how it will be perceived or what will return. There's an instant gratification to a blog that seems to be similar to those personal conversations - except that it seems I am removing a great deal of the risk.

What hurts the most is that I have several friends who are due in the near future and several who have recently had babies. One of my friends was very close to me and I can't even bring myself to contact her now because she's due two weeks before I would have been. I can't see that and I can't handle it. It brings out a full panic attack when I think about it. But I'm a friend and I should be there for her. I shouldn't let my own thoughts and feelings stand between us so that I miss out on this time with her. It's something I'm really struggling with. I see so many women everywhere who are pregnant or with their baby and I really really just wish it were me.

My due date was December 24. That was the ectopic pregnancy. There's been one since then, but that's the one that's really sticking with me. I think that's why it's all building up right now - I see it coming and I'm thinking more and more about it. I should be in my last trimester. I should be getting ready. Every time Katie pats my belly and asks where the baby is, I cry. She doesn't mean anything. I don't think she even knows there was a baby - she just wants one.

I need to find a way to live and grieve and I haven't found it yet. Honestly, though, I think this may help. I feel a bit better now.

With love.

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