Never the Same Again

Since last I wrote two things have become perfectly clear to Ben and I.

First, it's hard to recognize and acknowledge what your mind or body even needs when you're grieving... and second, things will never be the same again.

When I stand or sit for too long since the birth, things start to hurt.  I'm never sure what I need to do.  I've never been the kind of person who naps in the middle of the day.  Napping always makes me feel groggy... it will ruin a perfectly good day for me if I fall asleep before I'm ready to really sleep for 8 hours or so.  But the other day, I allowed myself to be horizontal on the couch for a little while and it was what my body needed.  It wasn't standing or sitting.  Darnit, body... why couldn't you tell me that a few days ago when I was getting frustrated with the uncomfortableness of it all!

All the pains and stuff that I feel physically just remind me of what's not there, of what we've been through.  A nice little bodily reminder to help me keep those emotional hurts right on the surface of my mind.  I'm not allowed to bury it.  I'm not allowed to swallow my emotional pain because my physical aches and new body all point giant neon arrows at it.  This isn't such a bad thing, though.  I'm glad I can't do that.  Being "present" for the whole process (a process which I suppose actually never ends) keeps me in a healthy frame of mind.  However, I think the human emotion-scape was meant to mentally "check out" every now and then.  It's funny to say this, and perhaps some of you who've walked through extreme grief may relate, but in the last few days we've had to force ourselves to "check out" at times... via watching actual TV (catching up on some episodes of The Office) or playing an arcade game on the Xbox.  A quick trip to Publix for a change of scenery and a bag of grapes.  We have to really listen hard to try to detect what our minds and bodies need right now.  Me personally, being full of drama and definitely full of swirling hormones and all kinds of emotion right now, I have the tendency to want to lay or sit quietly somewhere and just think... just think...think until I cry.  Which is perfectly fine and I wouldn't feel guilty for doing it or anything but if I literally did that all day I'd be pretty miserable... and I don't think Wolfie wants me and Ben to be miserable.  And I don't think Ben wants me to be miserable, and I certainly don't want him to be. 

Food tastes different because we treasure it.  Music sounds different because the vibrations and the lyrics have become more poignant.  Friends become more precious than gold.  A sunny day is a reason to thank the Lord. 

Today I did a load of laundry.  It was my first since everything happened.  Mom came to our house while I was still in the hospital and washed everything for us then but even a week later we needed to wash some things.  As I was bending over transferring things from the washer to the dryer, I got the urge to cry.  I had done so much laundry in anticipation of Wolfgang's arrival.  I washed all his cloth diapers, washed all his clothes... washed all my clothes, everything.  I had prepared my mind to be doing one or two loads of laundry per day by now what with the cloth diapering that I desperately wanted to make happen.  Our sad, wet clumps of clothing going into the dryer.  Mostly dark colors like black, gray and brown.   I wanted those clumps to be mostly baby blue and light green. I wanted to see some prefolds stuck to the inside wall of my washing machine from the spin cycle.  I wanted to have to reach really far in to the bottom of the washer drum to fetch one teeny tiny grey sock that was halfway wedged under the agitator.  I hadn't expected this.  I hadn't expected that my laundry would make me sad.

So, you see, even doing laundry is forever changed.  The sadness will wax and wain, surely.  But, I'll never forget.  How much more so are all the important things in my life changed now.  I haven't even begun to get back to my work, my sewing.  I can't imagine the wave of things that will change there. 


We thought we were on this road.  We saw it straight ahead.  We saw a little baby Wolfie, breastfeeding, late night wakings, daddy cuddle time, frustrations with carseats, giggles and smiles... all the myriads of things you expect to come with your first child.

But the road split off.  An eternal exit ramp.  We are getting farther and farther away from that other road we were on.  There are no brakes, no reverse... we're not even driving this thing anyway.  We're on a new road now.  Nothing will ever be the same.