The Struggle
Everyday there is a choice to be made.
Am I going to get up and get done what I need to do or is today going to be the day that I let myself feel the loss?
It sounds crazy, I know. I feel the loss every single day of my life. But the vast majority of days I am running from it. I'm so afraid that if I let myself go there again, there's no coming back. That I'm jumping into the ocean off a huge cliff with no life vest. But I do have a life vest. My husband and my family. But somehow it feels like it's not enough. That if I jump, even with their support, I will just bring us all down.
I'm told to embrace the grief. That if I run from it and don't face it that it will only make things worse. But it still seems too unreal. How in the world is our perfect girl gone? How do all those months of doing the absolute best parenting we could not mean anything anymore? How was she here one day and not the next? How did we live in a hospital for 3 weeks? How did we watch our baby girl die in front of our eyes while we continued to breathe? How in the world do I embrace this grief when it feels like I can't possibly breathe? It feels as though the weight of the world is on my shoulders and my knees are buckling. I'm trying to get in these last reps, but I'm not strong enough. I can't lift myself back up. No one can lift us up.
My heart is racing. My head is so dizzy. I try to breathe but I can't.
How is embracing this grief helping me? Helping us?
The grief makes us irrational. We grasp on to whatever other feelings that we do have that have nothing to do with Arianna. The smallest things that we wouldn't have thought twice about we get angry about now. I guess that's how we know we are still capable of feeling something besides this desperation for this to be a horrible nightmare. And quite frankly, we don't have energy to think about anything but ourselves. We've become selfish. But selfish for one another. We try to avoid the other getting hurt at all costs because we see the pain in each other's eyes every morning. That far away thought. The smile at the pictures. The tears in the eyes that we try so hard to not let the other see in fear that they're at an ok place on that day.
I can breathe again for now. A bad horrific 5 minutes does not mean a bad day--not always at least.
It's a little step towards embracing the nightmare that we call life now. We are so grateful for all the wonderful people in our lives, but no one can take away this pain. We hold on desperately to one another because we're the only thing we have left of her.
My mom always told me growing up that life isn't fair--but I don't think she ever imagined it could be like this.
Am I going to get up and get done what I need to do or is today going to be the day that I let myself feel the loss?
It sounds crazy, I know. I feel the loss every single day of my life. But the vast majority of days I am running from it. I'm so afraid that if I let myself go there again, there's no coming back. That I'm jumping into the ocean off a huge cliff with no life vest. But I do have a life vest. My husband and my family. But somehow it feels like it's not enough. That if I jump, even with their support, I will just bring us all down.
I'm told to embrace the grief. That if I run from it and don't face it that it will only make things worse. But it still seems too unreal. How in the world is our perfect girl gone? How do all those months of doing the absolute best parenting we could not mean anything anymore? How was she here one day and not the next? How did we live in a hospital for 3 weeks? How did we watch our baby girl die in front of our eyes while we continued to breathe? How in the world do I embrace this grief when it feels like I can't possibly breathe? It feels as though the weight of the world is on my shoulders and my knees are buckling. I'm trying to get in these last reps, but I'm not strong enough. I can't lift myself back up. No one can lift us up.
My heart is racing. My head is so dizzy. I try to breathe but I can't.
How is embracing this grief helping me? Helping us?
The grief makes us irrational. We grasp on to whatever other feelings that we do have that have nothing to do with Arianna. The smallest things that we wouldn't have thought twice about we get angry about now. I guess that's how we know we are still capable of feeling something besides this desperation for this to be a horrible nightmare. And quite frankly, we don't have energy to think about anything but ourselves. We've become selfish. But selfish for one another. We try to avoid the other getting hurt at all costs because we see the pain in each other's eyes every morning. That far away thought. The smile at the pictures. The tears in the eyes that we try so hard to not let the other see in fear that they're at an ok place on that day.
I can breathe again for now. A bad horrific 5 minutes does not mean a bad day--not always at least.
It's a little step towards embracing the nightmare that we call life now. We are so grateful for all the wonderful people in our lives, but no one can take away this pain. We hold on desperately to one another because we're the only thing we have left of her.
My mom always told me growing up that life isn't fair--but I don't think she ever imagined it could be like this.
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