Tuesday, February 20, 2007

A cautionary note...

I just got word through the grapevine that someone who reads my blog thinks I need help. Of the professional variety.

While this person obviously cares and has my best interests at heart, I need to caution her and anyone else who is using this blog as a gauge of my mental health that I am much more than the words I write down here each day.

This is a dumping ground for my sorrow and confusion over losing Thomas, as well as my frustration at being unable to conceive again since. It is, in a sense, my therapy. I don't wander around talking about my grief 24 hours a day, but I do need to put it somewhere. And I choose to put it here.

I also put it in the ears of My Beloved (in addition to some very patient, caring and loving friends and family members).

Trust me, simply following this blog for a few months isn't a good way to determine if I'm okay or not. It just isn't. I'm more than these angry, sorrowful, frustrated posts.

I am okay. I get up every morning. I function. I love. I laugh. I talk. I go out. I see people. I make plans for the future. I revel in the present. And yes, at the same time I miss my boy like crazy and I anguish over the fact that I can't get pregnant again and have the family we've been dreaming of and trying to have for nearly four years.

I'm sure it would be easier for everyone if I wasn't in mourning. I'm sure it would be easier if I was the old me. But I'm not. I've changed. When I buried my son I was reborn as a woman struggling to make sense of a life without her child. And I'm doing the best I can - and to be brutally honest, I think I'm doing more than okay under the circumstances.

I held my dying child in my arms and I'm here to tell the tale. My God, I'm here to tell the tale.

This isn't something that's going to be fixed. It's a lifelong process of learning to live a life that is always going to be influenced by the immense sorrow I carry with me. And sometimes that process isn't pretty. Sometimes it's angry and messy and horrible. But I'm not going to stop writing about it and I'm not going to apologize for the way I feel, even if sometimes it sounds crazy.

If you haven't been through what I have, you have absolutely no idea what the healing process is like, how long it takes - or even what it looks like. There's no way you can fathom what it's like to be me, or how healthy I should or shouldn't be. Especially right now, my baby boy's second birthday just weeks away.

This is what my life is, and it might seem frightening to you - but what you're reading here is only part of it. Just please, please remember that.

11 comments:

Woman who knits said...

I'm so sorry that someone is judging you based on a small snapshot of your life! I think you are EXTREMELY with it and recovering from your lost with a grace and dignity that I could never muster.

I hope that you know you are wonderful (even though you crochet, hey, had to throw that in).

delphi said...

Amen to that!!!! We are all much more complicated than the few words that we choose to share here.

I feel and understand what you have written here to the very depths of my soul.

Much love to you.

Anam Cara said...

Perfectly expressed Kristin. What you have written is so true. And how can this person not realize that what you are doing with your blog IS a form of help or therapy. Sorry you had to hear that through the grapevine. (((hugs)))

Catherine said...

I hear ya.
{{{hugs}}}

BigP's Heather said...

Beautifully written.

I always wonder how people think of me when reading my blog. I bet they think I am just a whiny, bitchy, sad woman...the thing is, I am so not like that in real life because I get that out on my blog. That is my place to do that - to vent.

Like you said, there is so much more to us...I bet you are such a dynamic woman. People are blessed to have you in their lives.

kate said...

Stupid grapevine. Ugh.

You have expressed the purpose of *my* blog very well too.

stat763 said...

I think you are amazing person. You've expressed in eloquent words what I can never seem to get out of my head. I read your blog for therapy. You are absolutely correct - people who have not experienced the loss of a child will never understand, period.

Ruby said...

I agree, you are amazing! You express yourself beautifully and how dare anyone criticize.
Again--people who have not experienced the loss of a child will never understand, period.

wannabe mom said...

i am in tears reading your post. for the most part i am fine too but my writing doesn't show that. i feel lucky that i found your blog.

BasilBean said...

I just wanted to say that I read your blog because, as someone else has pretty much already said, you put into words so many of the things that I am thinking/feeling myself but do not have the ability to express as you do. If anyone out there is judging me based on what I write in my blog then I know for SURE they don't have even the slightest idea of who I am as a *real* person.

RollerCoaster said...

Don't you just love it when people make assumptions about you based on what they read on a blog?

While I don't post often, I check and read almost daily.

Don't let the grapevine get to you too much. I have been a victim of it myself and probably will be again.

You just keep doing what you are doing!