Made Of

My first day alone.  Between sick children, visitors, and Ger working from home, I have not been by myself in the past week and a half.  I thought that the downtime would be good for me, but instead I find that I have been on edge all day.  Unable to focus on anything, and particularly unable to come up with a good distraction.  No amount of internet browsing, Netflix surfing, or attempts to sleep can calm me down.  This morning I felt groggy.  I am likely to the point where the double-dose of Benadryl at night is hurting more than helping and will need to cut back in order to feel human the next day.  Nightmares continue to disturb my sleep; nightmares about babies being born too small or babies being taken away from me.  And on top of dealing with these days alone, my therapist is having oral surgery so a week will pass before I see her again.  I’ll have to rely on writing to release my thoughts.

I recently read this quote from Toni Morrison:

For years I have been writing in my blog, but felt like I did not really have a story to tell.  I was simply recounting the days of parenting small children, as a way to record their lives so that I could someday look back and reflect.  Now I feel like I do have a story to tell, but I would have been fine going through life with no story.  We are now Those People With a Story about two back-to-back second-trimester pregnancy losses.  My therapist said to me at the end of a session last week “You know what you are made of, honey.”  It was meant to be comforting.  Yes, I do, but I wish that I didn’t.  I would give anything to be completely unaware of what I am “made of.”