Exhausted

Gosh it's been a long day. Actually, a long couple of days...

Who the hell am I kidding?! It has been a long...everything it seems. Long five months.
My beautiful son is five months gone.

A guy just joined my division. Fresh to the Navy, the guy has been in less than a year! How wild is that? His wife is from Seattle. They have a baby. Six months old. He was born one day after Rhys.

I love knowing people in my division, knowing their families, being a part of their lives... but I genuinely hope I never have to see that beautiful baby boy. There is nothing more I can say, no way to soften those words, or be more or less honest. That makes me feel guilty and sad.

I am so pooped. I am bummed because on Thursday there is an awesome spin class at work, but that is the day that Todd has evening class. So today I picked up the kids and took them to the grocery store. They asked for pancakes for dinner, so that's what we'll have. They also wanted sausage. I got bacon for Todd, and fun-fetti pancake mix for the kids. We will make them together, a family thing... an attempt at least. Sometimes my patience is unreasonably short. I hope tonight is not that way. I hope that it can be a nice mom and kids night, and that my mind doesn't dwell on how it would be different with Rhys around.

It's not like his presence would have made things better in so many ways. My kids wouldn't magically behave, my house wouldn't be effortlessly cleaner... dinner wouldn't be less of an inconvenience. In fact, doesn't having a baby exacerbate all these problems?

But if he was here... I'd be damn thrilled to have those problems.

Always there.

My life, in a nutshell,

 is dashing from one task to another. 

Up, dressed, kids up, dressed, 

  off to work/school/daycare, 

work work work 

  workworkwork 

  WORKWORKWORK, 

spin class,

kidstoddhome,  

fix dinner, eat, 

  pay bills, make appointments,

  bathe kids, kids to bed, 

yoga, 

  collapse on the sofa and sleep. 

All time for feeling is gone. 

I don't have time for grief, joy, amusement...

I feel like I am moving from one objective to the next. 

Somehow I find time for stress:

  Too many bills, not enough money, 

  too little time, too many tasks. 

  Too many people, not enough talking,

  too much talking, not enough thinking. 

Bickering, 

  trying to listen intently, 

  trying to be interested, involved, amused.

I'm on autopilot. 

I'm spinning my wheels. 

I'm...

Alone in the car for a moment. 

I'm in the house for just a minute,

  after Todd and the kids have left, before I head to work. 

I am in the bathroom washing my hands 

  on the way from my office to someone else's. 

I am walking to my car from spin class... 

These are the moments that it hits.

It hits without warning, without any tangible provocation. 

It hits so hard.

It startles me every time. 

I jump at a sound, painfully familiar... 

  a strangled cry, a sound of infinate pain... of release. 

It's me, 

  and I never know it right away. 

Then the tears come. 

Sometimes they just stream down my face, 

  a silent and scared sadness

  that doesn't want anyone to know. 

Other times it comes in sobs, 

  loud and uncontrolled; 

  sudden, violent, and terrifying. 

You are always there, my son, 

  please don't feel forgotten,

  please don't feel passed by. 

You are always there at the edge of everything I do.

You are always right there...

  but not there enough.

And so my grief finds me, 

even if I don't have time for it, 

it finds the time for me. 

But, my baby, you are always there. 

Still breaking...

I feel like my heart is in a constant state of breaking. On the 26th of September my heart shattered, and I thought it would just be the most broken it could possibly be forever, but somehow... somehow my heart is still breaking. Those tiny pieces of shattered heart feel like they are continuing to break, until I am sure that all that will be left is a pile of shattered heart dust, bits of broken heart so tiny that a slight breeze will be off with them. 

And then what will I have? 

I will still have my two beautiful children, full of life and joy, new experiences, humor and love. I will still have my husband who is my rock, my light, my voice of reason. I will still have the love of family and friends who have shown that through it all they will still be here. 

I have to keep reminding myself of these things, because its so easy... so easy to just look in at my ever-shattering heart and be swallowed in my grief. 

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Sam and Ro started daycare. They are in a home with a nice woman who teaches them things, plays with them all day, and takes them to the gym and the park. I think that is nice. Todd is in school, learning new things and meeting new people. He has so much homework, he keeps so busy. I am wrapped up in my duties at work, trying to eat healthy and get to the gym. Life is so busy. I guess this is "moving on." I still feel stuck in my sadness. Every day I take my 75mg of Zoloft, dedicate myself to what needs to be done in the moment, and live. I breath and I feel and I respond. I try to be thoughtful of my feelings, and especially of those of others. I hurt. God, how I hurt.

I just want my little baby back. I want to hold him in my arms, and nuzzle is fuzzy little head with my nose and mouth. I want to see his big, beautiful eyes looking up at me. 

Sometimes I think I am beyond all the whys, all the hows... but they always pull me back.

Grief is cyclical  they say. It will come in waves. I must be on a high wave. 

I guess I should just wait for it to abate.