How does one encapsulate the feelings when they’re already
overflowing the cup you have for them to begin with? They’re overwhelming me
like a home in a flood and there’s no simple way to contain the damage. It’s
like I have to lay out sandbags 4 feet deep around the threshold and cross my
fingers. The probability that it
will flood over my walls is good. I’m holding on though and pushing through the
rain in some semblance of organization.
My sandbags include regular therapy, meetings, talking to
people, friends visiting from in and out of town and eating bread pudding from
Whole Foods. All of these things hold the onslaught at bay but it doesn’t
change the fact that I feel trapped inside and the storm is still storming and
the sand bags won’t last forever. Eventually something will have to give—the
storm or me. I’d prefer it to be the storm but time will tell.
I’ve been through rougher storms than this and ones where
the flood nearly destroyed the house and what was left looked like tatters. And
knowing this helps with perspective but does nothing to ease the stable level
of anxiety I have on a consistent basis these days. It does nothing to quell
the thunderous fears I have about the future or how I at unease I feel in my
own skin. But it does offer perspective—I’ve weathered worse and came out ok on
the other side. There’s an ounce
of hope for ya.
Long metaphors and analogies for life aside, I can honestly
say I’m just scared. My body has been through hell over the last month
and now sick with a cold I just want to throw my hands up in the air. Can I
just feel better already? I mean seriously. It’s the worst. Beyond all that
between the miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy there comes a host of emotions
and add onto that an emergency surgery and meds that don’t let you feel and I’m
left feeling stuff and processing emotions from weeks ago. I’m behind on my own
emotional processing for heaven’s sake!
One of the women who messaged me a few weeks ago said that
miscarriage is “a unique and confusing pain” and I would have to agree. Not
only that, it’s a pain that happens to a lot of women and none of them talk
about it publicly. Like if we keep it hushed in the public mind then perhaps
then it won’t exist. But it does exist and it sucks and it’s painful and it can
have complications and frustrations and fears. I mean, really, what does one do
with that type of grief? You’re grieving a thing that didn’t even quite happen
and thing that isn’t even a person but should feel like a person but its not
because it died. It’s fucking strange and no one talks about it.
And I suppose that is where the flood really comes from—a strange
pain that I don’t fully understand. And now as I wrap up this little diddy I realize the rains
seem a little lighter and storm doesn’t seem so overwhelming. It’ll pass and it
will get better. Everything changes. So for now I wake up and put my clothes on and go to work and come home and eat and go to meeting and feed my dog and love my fiance and do all the things I'm meant to do and wait for the rain to slow to a drizzle.
