Thoughts on why my family sucks at support...

So, while I was making Mia dinner I had a brief thought on trying to understand why my family has been so bad at support.  I want to briefly wander through it to see if it makes sense once I've had a chance to really think about it.

I asked (multiple times in multiple ways) for people to talk to me about Charlotte...to let me talk about her.  They didn't.  They still don't.  One of the most awkward, frustrating, and infuriating experiences of my life was spending a week at the beach with my family three weeks after Charlotte's birth...and no one said anything.  No one spoke her name.  No one asked me how I was.  Everyone just pretended like everything was fine.  It wasn't.

I think that part of this is that they don't understand what I want to say, or why.  I think (based on some of the response I did get...limited as it was) that people think I want to talk about how sad I am.  Well, yeah, I'm sad.  My daughter died.  I'm allowed to be sad.  That's only half of it, though.  I want to talk about my daughter.  My DAUGHTER.  She lived, if only in me.  She was loved.  She had a name.  She had a face.  She died. 

When a real person dies...and I don't mean that the way it sounded...I mean someone who was real to everyone, if that makes any sense...when a real person dies, people talk about them.  They remember them.  They cry for them.  They reminisce about them. They don't forget them. 

To me, when my family (and everyone, for that matter) doesn't acknowledge that my daughter lived and died this year, it's as though...I can't put it into words.  It's not that something bad happened to me.  It's that my daughter lived...and then died.  It's not an event...it's a PERSON.  It's a LOSS...my loss.  It's like they can't differentiate the difference between the event and the person, and to ignore her existence doesn't feel like just a lack of support...it feels like a slap in the face. 

It feels like they think she didn't matter...as if she only mattered to me (and by me, I of course mean me and Mike...but it would confuse the matter to use a plural word form here when talking about how everyone else acts).  They care that I'm sad or upset, but they don't honestly CARE that my child, my CHILD, MY child is gone.  I don't want pity; I want someone else to give a damn that my little girl, who looked so much like her big sister, who liked to kick me when Mia was taking a bath, who was so deeply loved and wanted, is gone. 

Yes, I want to tell people about how sad I am.  I want people to care that I am grieving.  This is step one.  But, more importantly, I want people to care that there is a hole in my family that a child should be filling.  The world is a little darker because her laughter will never fill it.  Someone should care about that.

Days 11 & 12 of Thanks

For my 11th day of thanks, I'm thankful for living, literally, less than a mile from a state park.

Less than a mile down the road from our house is Leesylvania State Park, which is a wonderful park right on the Potomac with walking trails, a nice, big playground, beaches, and a little wetland area with turtles. It also has a boat launch, if one had a boat to launch...which we do not.

Mia loves it, and it's close enough that I can decide, spur of the moment, "Hey, let's go to the park." It's so close that I just grab a couple of bottles of water for me and Mia.  I don't even bring my diaper bag half the time.  If we need something that would be in it...we could just come home!

We spent an hour between lunch time and naptime here yesterday, so I'd like to be thankful for it for the 11th.  Here are some pictures of Mia enjoying the park yesterday...

 

 

 

For my 12th day of thanks, on the 12th day of November, I am thankful that I am blessed with a daughter who is everything an 18 month old is supposed to be.  It's an absolute miracle that people manage to come into this world, and it seems an improbable, astronomical miracle if they aren't struck with some sort of issue.  I know so many families whose children have problems, big and small.  Children who can't hear, or speak, or whose brains don't process things correctly.  Children with heart problems or diabetes or needing surgeries.  My family was supposed to have that with Charlotte's gastroschesis, but she left us to give us a chance for a healthy child.  I don't take this for granted.  I am grateful each and every day that my daughter is healthy, that she is smart, that she is strong, that she is loved.

Days 9 and 10 of thanks

Yesterday, November 9th, my 9th day of thanks, I was thankful for my new stereo in my old car.  I drive a 2000 Accord.  It had a tape deck stereo with 6 programmed radio stations.  No CD player, no auxiliary hookup, nothing fancy.  For my birthday, Mike gave me both a new MP3 player with Bluetooth and a new car stereo that connects with Bluetooth.  It's pretty amazing.  It shines with pretty changing colors, it plays music I actually like, and I was able to install it myself.  Now that my drive to work has increased from 5 minutes (my old school) to 30-45 minutes (my new school), I really needed an upgrade.  One can only listen to news radio so much!

Today, November 10th, my 10th day of thanks, I am thankful for having the ability to spoil my daughter.  Today I went out to get her a small Abby Cadabby plush doll...the pink fairy from Sesame Street.  She loves her.  A lot.  So that's what I went out for.  I also got her three books, a pair of jeans and a shirt, a coloring book and markers, and an animatronic Elmo (that's for Christmas, though...does that count?).  I am very thankful that I am able to do this.  I know that I go over the top, but I love to see her little face light up when she reads a new book...

As a side note, I do plan to pay this one forward.  For Christmas, I am going to go Christmas shopping for Charlotte as I would have if...I'm going to buy her clothes and toys and books.  I'm going to give it to Toys for Tots.  It hurts my heart that I can't spoil Charlotte as I do Mia, but I feel like her little spirit would like to be remembered by me in this way.  If I believe that she was selfless enough to choose to give us a healthy child in the future, I also have to believe that she would want a little baby without parents as lucky as we are to have the material things that are rightly hers.  I wish I could wrap them and put them under our tree...but some baby out there just like Charlotte should have them.

I'll be thankful tomorrow...

I don't think I have it in me to write a thankful post today.  I could do it, really, but I don't have the energy to really reflect on the things that I am truly thankful for..so I think I'll wait.

I'm feeling really down today.  It's another lonely day. A very self-pitying, self-depreciating, low self-esteem, depressed, lonely day.  Someone asked me a while ago (maybe a month or two, now?) what caused the "bad days".  That's the funny (or rather, completely un-funny) thing about bad days.  Absolutely nothing causes them.  Everything causes them. 

For today...

I've gained a lot of weight since Charlotte died...or maybe before she died, too.  To be honest, I didn't lose a lot of the weight I gained with Mia.  But now...good God, I'm enormous.  I can say with relative certainty that, according to all those height and weight charts, I am obese.  Awesome. 

...I will own (here, at least) that I am totally a comfort eater.  I know I should do other things.  Find other ways to seek comfort.  Be productive with my negative energies.  I know this all on a cognative level.  On an emotional level, it's easier to eat a bagel with honey butter.  Again, when Mike is gone to work, and Mia is gone to bed, I am left to myself, with my thoughts, with my emotional swamp.  Pass the trail mix...hold the raisins.  No one likes the raisins.

The thing is, I am so completely uncomfortable in my own skin right now.  I feel puffy.  I feel bloated.  My wardrobe has been reduced to the fattest of my fat clothes. They look bad, and I am constantly readjusting my shirt so it doesn't cling to my flabby stomach. I don't want Mike to touch me half the time because when he does all I think about is how muffin-top-like I must feel to him.  I am the anti-sexy.

I can't make myself care enough to actually do anything about it.  I'm so disgusted with myself that I...have a piece of pumpkin toast.  I have such low self esteem that I...drink another cup of coffee.  I think I may actually be trying to goad my body into self destructing.  When I was pregnant with Charlotte, I was so careful to take my vitamins, not drink caffeine (even the one cup we're allowed to have), not eat foods that could be harmful, not take hot baths...now, on the other side of loss, I just want to say, "screw it" and let my body fall off the metaphorical cliff.

...I'm wondering where the bottom is.  At some point, I imagine I'll get myself caught with a whipped cream can in my mouth, an empty ice cream carton, and cookie crumbs on my shirt...maybe the shame of that display of pure gluttony will jolt me back to reality.  I am not that person yet...I am still a handful of trailmix as a snack too often kind of comfort eater.  I clearly don't aspire to the disgusting depths of the pure glutton...but I worry that maybe my inner conscience's tendency to say, "screw it" will get me there.

I hope not.  For today, it's just a bad day, emotionally speaking.

Days 7 & 8 of Thanks

It's the 8th of November, and I have two days of thanks

For the 7th, I am thankful for my abilities.  It seems strange to almost be thanking myself for something..but it's true.  I am thankful that I can do a lot of the stuff that I can do.

For example, I can McGuyver stuff.  Half of the things in my house are held together by rubber bands and chewing gum, but it all works.  I'm not afraid to try to do things that I don't know how to do for fear of messing it up.  I'll just mess it up.  If it's broken or undone to start with, what does it hurt if I mess it up a little more, first?  As a result, if you ask me how to do something, I'll help you.  It doesn't matter if I know how to do it.  I'll figure it out as I go.  I just learned how to mail merge in this fashion last week.  I installed my own car stereo with directions not written in English and a YouTube video.  Cool stuff!

I also am very good at being vaguely advanced at things.  I don't excel at anything.  I have nothing for which I can say "THAT is what I'm good at."  I can, however, say to most anything, "I'm not half bad at that."  I'm not half bad at many things: teaching, photography, writing, sports, speaking intelligently, being a wife and mother...I do not excel at anything, really, but I am very, very good at being slightly above average.  I'll take that.

For the 8th, today, my 8th day of thanks, I am thankful for my home.  I was tempted to write my house, but that's not the point.  I love my home.  I love my smart cat, my dumb cat, and my attention-sucking dog.  I love that the comforter on my bed doesn't match anything else in my bedroom in the winter but keeps us so warm.  I love the feeling I get when I finish cleaning the kitchen and the whole house somehow feels relatively clean by association.  I love how lucky I am to have a house and family and love that make my home.  I do recognize it...and I love it.

Sixth day of thanks

On the sixth day of November, the sixth day of thanks, I am thankful that I don't feel compelled to move to Canada at the moment, as election night winds down.

Fifth day of thanks

On the fifth day of November, my fifth day of thanks, I am thankful for my parents.  Much as they annoy me sometimes, much as they say silly things, much as they occasionally make me want to scream, I love my parents very much, and I know that they love me.

They are currently out of town (and have been since October 22) and will continue to be out of town for the next two weeks.  It's strange how much I sort of take for granted that I can usually call them up any given night of the week and ask if they want to go out to dinner...I miss that very much right now, particularly on nights Mike is working and I feel alone.

They're always willing to try to help me out, even when those efforts don't go so well.  I mentioned once in passing that the hinge broke on my bedroom door.  Three trips to the hardware store, four trips to my house, a seemingly infinite parade of power tools and different sized screws later, and my dad had installed a new door...and it almost works, too! 

I worry that my parents won't get to see Mia grow up.  They were 40 when I was born, a rarity in those days, which means that they are now both 71 years old.  I don't think of them as "old", but...really, objectively, they are old.  They live in a retirement community, split a seniors' omelet at IHOP (I'm not kidding) and have been getting AARP in the mail since I was in high school.  I know their time is finite, and it frankly scares the hell out of me...

So, today, I am thankful to have my parents in my life.