Tag: infant death

Processing… Please hold.

JenLeave a comment

I got into a conversation with someone this morning, they were telling me of a conversation they had with my daughter.  Apparently there were things she didn’t want to talk to me about, simply because she worries that when I am stressed, I may not be able to handle it.  It surprised me to hear.  There is something strange and unsettling to hear that your child thinks you’re weak.  Or at the very least, sees a weakness that perhaps you don’t.  I don’t quite know how to fully process that.  But I know that I will.

It led to me thinking through all that I’ve been through.  My brain immediately went back to Ben.  The night we knew something was wrong and raced him, in the dead of the night, to the hospital. That drive will forever be etched into my brain.  The songs that played quietly on the radio, The ex’s steady calm.  Funny, the man would occasionally drive me crazy with his immaturities and lack of self control, but when everything fell apart… when the hour was dire… and we stood on the edge of a very scary storm… he was someone else.  Someone I respected.  I don’t think I ever told him that.  I don’t think I ever told him how, even now, after all this time… I trust him more than I trust myself.  That deep in my heart, he was my very best friend.  I wish I could help him understand how much I loved him.  I don’t think he ever really knew.  And telling him now would be taken weirdly.  I guess I can’t take back the words I never said.  We both had to take on and face the scariest thing we could have possibly imagined.  A situation where we had no control, we were completely helpless – our heart’s were in the doctor’s hands.  Doctors we trusted, because of an ideal in our heads – that somehow – doctor’s were infallible.  Oh how I regret feeling that way. I’ve never felt so ill-prepared when we learned of their mistakes.  And we were both hurt in the most unimaginable ways by it all. Scarred from the pain in many ways.

I thought back to the many days and nights where I would work and work and work… not because I’m a strange person who doesn’t want to have a life or free time… but because I knew it would put food on the table or give me the ability to get the kids gifts for christmas.  Those were the years when the ex and I would eat ramen or spaghetti o’s so the kids could have balanced meals. These were times when we had so much debt over our heads that we would have to ignore a ringing phone. There was always a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that the world would crash down around us because we couldn’t pay a bill.

I thought back to days when depression and stress rang so loudly inside my head that I couldn’t even see myself within the cloud I was in.  When I would lay in bed and hide from the world, because it seemed smarter than going out and being hurt by it. When a person loses sight of who they are, and it takes them as long as I have to re-find yourself… there tends to be some disconnects.   I’ve changed in big ways since I last saw myself.  So it’s sometimes hard to trust my own intuition. Thankfully, In many ways, those changes were good.  I love myself now, and I know I didn’t before. I’m more laid back about so many things.  Life is going to happen… you can stress about it, or you can try and find a way to enjoy it.  And now, more than ever before, I’m aware of how strong I really am.  I’m sure most people have no idea the amount of fortitude and strength they actually possess.

It’s interesting, the stages you go through in life.  For every stage of stress or hell, there seems to be an opposing, equally joyous time to remember.  I suppose my knowing that is what keeps me going, keeps me strong.  Because, you see… I can’t give up.  I won’t give up.  It won’t happen on my watch!  I want to see what happens at the end of the story – and we’re not there yet.  Not even half way.

I suppose it’s also why I’m upset to hear that my child thinks I cannot handle hearing whatever detail she’s working through.  Please child… I’ve walked through hell – I think I can handle a little teenage highschool drama.

Have a great day Neverland!

lipstick kiss

Friendships and a leap of faith

Jen1 Comment

Image

Today was a rough one for me and for a multitude of reasons.

Work.  Family.  Loved Ones.  All three have weighed pretty heavy on the mind today.

I took a leap of faith at work today.  I took a stand on something.  I ignored the chain of command and spoke from the heart.  It’s something I feel passionately about, and have hit many brick walls when beating the drum lower down the chain.  I don’t know yet, what’s going to happen.  I can sit and play the what if game – and yea, I did that plenty today; breaking down the options in all directions, both positive and negative.  Got very upset over it actually.  Got very stressed over it too.  My career is something I’m very proud of.  The longer I do this, the more I come to realize just how little I still know.  How junior I still am – even though I’m not.  If this goes the way I think it will, I will find myself in a position to lead in a new way.  I don’t know how I feel about that.  I hate politics.  I don’t want to play.

I was stressed to the max about it all and ended up going and having coffee with a new friend.  I’ve gone out with her only a couple of times but I already like her.  She’s a very cool person.  I almost cancelled on her, not wanting to show her the grumpy side of Jen.  But when I walked into the coffee shop – she confessed that she was in a grump mood herself, so I laughed and thought – how perfect is that?!  We pulled each other out of the angry grumpy mood with laughter and girl chat and mooning a gym (story for another day).  I needed it, and was so grateful to have had that time with her.

Tomorrow I get to go see my real brother graduate from high school.  I’m proud of him and so happy that he asked that I attend.  How could I possibly say no?  BUT.. going also means I see my father.  And that always has a price.  Usually an emotional one on me.  I need to find a way to put it away.  To forgive and move forward on this one.  I know part of it is that it will just take some time…but I also know that I have to be willing to call a spade a spade and move forward.  I just hope that when faced with it, I can do just that because quite frankly, I’m sick of feeling hurt over it all.  I’m a different woman now, someone he doesn’t even really know.

I grieved a little bit tonight.  I didn’t mean to.  Ha, that sounds funny.  I was hanging with one of my closest girlfriend’s, we’ll call her R, we’d had dinner and dessert and were drinking a bit of amazing port wine she’d picked up.  We’d been talking and laughing over all sorts of things, I’d shared my stress about work, we talked about boys (hey, sometimes girl talk is so much fun!) and because she recently lost a family member, we also were talking about grief.   I ended up confessing to her why I think I’ve been in a bit of a funk.  I reminisced a bit, cried a bunch…

This is the 5 year mark.  Ben’s birthday in October will mark 5 years.  Just writing that makes me gulp for air a bit.  Odd.  Why is this anniversary bothering me so much?  I’ve been stewing over it for a few days and I have a few ideas around it.

When my son passed away, he was in my arms.  I remember watching as he took his last breath.  So calm.  And so still afterwards.  I whispered to him before he went, that I loved him with all my heart, and that I swore to him that I’d get healthy and find happiness.  I must have sat there and watched for 20 minutes just praying I’d see his chest move or hear him breathe on his own.  He was so warm still, he looked like he was just sleeping.  When I finally put him down, I couldn’t leave the room.  I remember watching as my mom packed up some of his stuffed animals, and thinking “What are you doing?!  He needs those!”  I felt like my feet were full of lead, or like I was literally grounded to the floor.  The nurse saw me and told me to breathe.  I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t remember how.  Shock.  And then I looked around the room and saw my husband crumbling.  I saw his mom and my mom, my grandparents, my family and friends in grief and just breaking.  I put it away.  Somehow.  I don’t know how.  I knew that one of us had to stay strong.  I put on my smile and hugged my daughter and step son.

I put in a CD on the way home, just grabbed one, I doubt I even had the desire to read the cover.  It was the Fray.  Everyone cried the whole way home, but I just listened to the music.  Numb but calm.  That CD would become a very important one to me… I listened to it over and over and over.  It helped me sort through what was going on in my head.  I buried myself in work.  Bringing money in was the one thing I could do to ensure that even though everyone was breaking, at least we’d have a home and food and electricity.  I put up the xmas tree in the place where his crib was.  This is why every year on Ben’s birthday – we put up the xmas tree.  It’s weird I know…. to have a xmas tree up before Halloween… but it brought light and sparkle to a place in the house that suddenly felt very dark.  I continued that numb calm state for 3 years.  Always the strong one.  Never happy.  And getting unhealthier by the day.  When I finally decided to divorce, that first anniversary – was interesting.  I wrote about it on this blog.  This year will be my second anniversary alone.   I’m a LOT healthier than I was.  Still working on that one a bit I’ll admit, but progress is progress.  And happiness.  I embrace it, every day.  I spread it around as often as I possibly can.  It was my promise to Ben.

All of that said – I haven’t grieved.  I know this.  I’ve known it for a long time.  I want to honor him this year.  In some way.  Plant a tree or float flowers down a river, donate to Children’s Hospital or something.  I feel like this October could be tough on me.  But maybe if I plan something to honor, the grief won’t overtake.  He wouldn’t want me to grieve.  He’d want me to find a way to bring about happiness.  I refuse to become another workaholic – as I know that is also not the answer.

I’d texted “T” that I was having a rough moment.  I was going to leave it at that.  But in a rare moment, and after some confirmation from R that I wasn’t being dumb… I also added that I needed to be honest, and that I really kind of needed my support system.  You see, I don’t’ often ask for help.  I HATE doing that actually.  I admitted that I was being stupid and needy and clingy.  And that quite frankly, no one should have to put up with THAT.  LOL.  I hate hearing about clingy, annoying, attention-seeking dumb females.  I don’t want to be ANY of those adjectives…especially to him.  But, I’m also trying to work on speaking up and communicating.  In allowing myself to be vulnerable to the people closest to me, and trusting that I’ll be safe with them.  And to be honest, T is becoming one of my best friends.  He’s someone I care about in a way I haven’t cared about someone for a very long time.  He’s someone I find myself hoping will be in my life for a very long time.  We’ve spent tons of time together and always have a blast.  But, becoming best friends takes time…. and I have no expectations for anything from any of my friends.  I certainly didn’t think he’d drop what he was doing and come over, but he did, such a sweet, caring man.  I was already feeling a lot better about my day, but that really helped bring me back to feeling whole again.  I feel truly blessed to have the people in my life that I do.

Well – I need sleep.  Goodnight Neverland.

XXO!

Nervous today…

Jen7 Comments

So much for not future tripping.  That bastard put his foot right out in front of me on purpose, I swear!  Hell – so much for a lot of things I told myself I wouldn’t do.  I’ve had a lot of epiphanies lately.  Lots of soul searching happening in my corner of the world.  Some have really been eye opening.  Others, just frustrating and even bordering on depressing. I’ve had some conversations with friends and family recently that put me in this reflective state.  “Don’t focus on men right now, just focus on you.”  “Learn to be alone”.  My pendulum has swung in both directions as far as responses to this.  Part of me wants to argue, after all, what human being on this planet actually WANTS to be alone?  Isn’t that in fact what makes us human?  That we are social creatures who instinctively are searching for a mate and partner?  Now I’m not actively searching for that… Hell, I’d likely have some pretty serious commitment issues right now anyway. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hope to find love again.

What motivations have you had in life to do what you do?  Love?  Money?  Family?  Friends?  The next epiphany I had was that in my life, most of the things I’ve done have been either for love or my career.  In fact, the trend seems to be that I default to Love first, and when that fails miserably, I almost stubbornly stick my head in the sand and focus on my career.  Perhaps it’s because I feel I have more control in that area of my life?  What really hurt tho, was realizing as I looked back at my past motivations, that one of the choices I made to love someone hurt many others.  It’s one thing to give your heart away to a guy or go on a bunch of dates.  But this particular realization came when I realized that my need to give my love caused more pain and heartache in the people I care about the most.  3 years ago, I had a son.  The pregnancy itself had been terrible.  He was sick, the doctors said he wouldn’t make it.  They pushed and pushed for us to terminate.  I couldn’t do it.  I needed him to know he was loved and wanted – even if it meant I’d have to let him go.  So I continued the pregnancy.  There were no celebrations for him.  No parties, people didn’t ask me how it was going – they all knew.  I’ve never felt more alone than I did those nine months.  The feelings of isolation only helped me bond even more with the little man growing in my belly.  And then he arrived.  He was beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful.  And like me, a stubborn fighter who refused to give in to the doctor’s prognosis.  He went through a brain surgery and a surgery to install a permanent feeding tube.  Kept amazing the doctors and nurses.  He came home.  I danced with him to my favorite songs and loved and enjoyed every second that I had.  Even to the detriment of my own health.  A doctor’s mistake, actually a multitude of mistakes, led to his death.  He died in my arms.  And when he died, so did so many others emotionally around me.  To say that I’m traumatized over it is most definitely an understatement.  But that’s not the point of this post… what hit me was that it was my need to give and show love, that was the catalyst that led to so many in my family being destroyed by grief.

Why is love motivation for what I do in life?  I’ve been told by many in my life that I’m hard to be around.  Not because I’m difficult, or frustrating.  I’ve been told that it’s like being in the sun.  When you have my attention, you feel warm and safe and loved and all is right.  But when my attention goes elsewhere you’re left cold, dark and alone.  Don’t know about you, but to me, that doesn’t sound like a great quality to have.  And the fact that i’ve heard it many times over the years frustrates me to no end.

My family and friends, they’re telling me to stop.  To slow down.  To quit giving people my love and affection.  Well – I only know one way to love, and that’s with all my heart.  If I get hurt, so be it.  But I’d rather be honest and upfront about how I feel, and maybe just maybe have the same feelings returned, than to miss out and never experience it at all.
For the first time in my life, I’m scared to love.  I’m feeling suddenly a little jaded.  I almost expect that when I find a guy, he’ll do the “fade out” on me and I’ll be left wondering what I did wrong.  What a trap to get myself into.  I realize that this insecurity could be what actually leads this person to run away and flee.  Such a double edged sword to be teetering on.  I hope I’m wrong.  I hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be safe, and won’t get hurt.  Or that maybe I can shield myself, do what the friends say and not give my heart to anyone.

Who knew that matters of the heart would be so damn complicated. 🙂

Happy Tuesday to all.