Tuesday 6 November 2012

Transition

I saw this show a while ago, in the spring, when I just found out I was pregnant, when I was blissfully happy and complete.
One of the quotes I remember went something like "When my brother and I were younger, my dad used to take us out sailing. Sometimes we weren't moving, but we were always sailing."
I loved that quote, even then, full of happiness and wide eyed wonder, naivety and hope.

And then the baby I was carrying got sick, and then she died, and then I was left to wander through this life on my own.
For the past 2 months, and sometimes even now, I can't eat. I can't sleep, or think, or breathe. How is it possible to miss someone you never knew?

I was stuck. I remember waking up a few weeks ago (Weeks? Days?) and thinking, "Wow, it's November," not remembering the last half of September or any of October.
I was stuck. My wheels were spinning and mud was flying up and covering my hair and my clothes, covering my skin until I looked like brown sludge. I wasn't making any progress, just a mess.

I doubted my experience, as a mother, as her mother, as a woman. I doubted that what I had experienced was enough. After all, I never knew her, how could I be her mother? After all, i created her, she was created in a time of desperation and need, does that still make her real? Does that still make me her mother? I wondered about the mother's who watch as their children cling to life in the NICU, wondering if somehow seeing their children  makes them more of a mother.

Over the last week or so, I've began to feel my vehicle moving out from under the mud, the roar of the tires as they groan and ache, trying to release me from this pit of mud.

Sometimes I wonder if I want to move on. Sometimes I wonder if I really am. I haven't gone back to the places where my friends gather, and talk and laugh about things other then hospitals and dead babies.
But my friend told me today about her new boyfriend, and I listened and for once I didn't want to scream at her.
I feel like I'm moving on, and to be honest, that scares me to death.
I don't want to move on. What if moving on means forgetting? What if, in moving on, I take away some of the value of Amelia's life?
What if, in trusting my experiences, accepting that what happened happened, what if it means loosening my hold on her just a little? What if I lose her again? I already lost her once, I can't lost her memory. It's all I have left. Sometimes I'm not so sure i even have that.

I feel like I'm putting more trust in myself, in what happened. This is my truth, therefore it is enough. I'm worried that doing this will mean I'm letting go of her.

I'm slowly getting unstuck, or at least I feel that way. I feel change happening, on the inside, though it hasn't managed to peak it's shining face through to the outside yet.

I still miss her with everything I am. I still write about her everywhere, because I can't stop. I can't stop thinking about her.
But I'm picking myself up off the floor. I'm no longer weeping at every little thing, no longer screaming at people who don't understand, or who try to talk about something other then her.
My grief is in transition, I am in transition, and it's scary because I feel like, sometimes, transition means loosening my grip on her.

I'm getting unstuck. While I was still sailing, even when I was stuck, I am now starting to inch forward. I feel like gripping the rails of this boat, like even the slightest movement will make everything I've built up regarding her and her memory come crashing down.

I am in transition. I don't know how to be in transition, just like I didn't know how to be in grief.

How do you be in transition?

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