The Double Life

I haven't had much time to write recently.
Life seems to be spinning so fast, and I can barely stop to catch my breath.
The world keeps turning and while my heart is still broken over the loss of my little girl, its a different kind of pain.
I mentioned her the other day, in a conversation with a woman I barely knew. She asked if I had any children and I said that I did, a daughter. She asked me her name and I said it was Mia and I didn't mention that she had died and I walked away from that conversation feeling both like a liar, for refusing to admit that my daughter was dead, and feeling comforted because for the first time I got to mention her name and talk about her the way any other proud mama would gush about their baby, and it wasn't surrounded by pain and sorrow like the conversations usually are when I bring up my daughter.
Life continues and I am learning what it means to live again and it's hard to believe that it was just over a year ago that I had her with me, that Cam and I were sitting around the table barely understanding how to love each other again.
I never thought I would be here, and when I heard those other baby loss mama's talk about how the pain never really went away but it changed forms I would laugh.
I had just buried the love of my life and my child and how dare anyone tell me that I would ever feel anything besides stabbing pain.
But I did. I do. My conversations are centered around things other than the loss of my family. I get to talk about things like love and I get to stress out about things that need to get done and try to do a load of laundry before breakfast because I forgot to do it again and I'm out of underwear. And I get to do those things and be normal and then I get to come home and see Mia's memorial shelf and see the pink notebook I keep filled with letters to them and I get to fall into bed and say "I'm doing it, my loves. I made it through this whole day without feeling so sad and I'm living life again and while I don't think of you all the time you are always with me and I will always love you."
And sometimes it feels like I'm living a double life, the one where I miss my family and grieve over them and the one I live with everyone else where I keep my personal life personal and go out for drinks with new friends I met at work who don't know my story yet and don't know about Cam and Mia.
And sometimes I feel guilty about that but mostly I just feel like I'm moving forward in my grief.
And it's hard, to feel like I'm moving on and being happy without them, but I know that they will always be with me, and I am forever changed because of having loved them.