Begin Again, Again

I wrote this four years ago but apparently never posted it:

"I feel like God decided to teach me a lifetime of lessons all at once.  How to be a mother, how to grieve, how to live when such a huge part of me has died and another huge part of me has been born.  In a matter of months my identity and sense of self have changed in so many ways.  Not only am I new mom, I'm a stay-at-home mom.  Not only have I lost my Dad, I have lost one of my closest friends.  I have never known sadness like this."

Four years later, I once again feel like God is heaping my plate. Once again, I find myself surviving things I never thought I could survive, and it's only mildly empowering to discover I can. Yes, I'm surviving. Yes, I could be doing a lot worse. But that only goes so far in making me feel better.

Yes, I survived walking into my 12-week ultrasound appointment, alone, and finding that I really was actually totally alone. No tiny heartbeat to keep me company anymore. I survived the initial fear and uncertainty of what would have to happen next and what my body would do. I survived leaving the hospital, the same hospital where I gave birth and last saw my father alive, with a tear-stained face and walking to my car in the parking garage by myself and driving away without getting in an accident while sobbing guttural sobs. It's good to know I can survive those things, I suppose.

I can also survive a d&c procedure two days later and make it through Thanksgiving the very next day, and then hold myself up during my Godfather's funeral two days after that. I can do those things and still be a mom and graduate student somehow. The house is a mess and I am useless and barely can call myself a wife or partner, all of a sudden I'm back to drinking beer and eating sushi and consuming too much caffeine and sugar and oversleeping every morning, but yes, I'm surviving. I'm functional. Yay!

Just kidding. Not yay.

It's hard to know how to feel now. Mostly I feel a lot of nothing, except the desire to sleep. I feel angry sometimes. I say a lot of expletives in my head (and sometimes out loud). When I tell the story of November 2019 to myself, it is peppered with words I wouldn't have thought I'd choose, like, F**KING miscarriage, or F**KING funeral or F*** THIS SHIT.

So yeah, I guess I'm angry. Just a little. Just sometimes.

This morning, as Nina dragged her feet and took her sweet time putting on her boots and coat and hat and mittens, and it was already past the time I was "supposed" to be at my internship, and I 100% still planned to stop at Starbucks for caffeinated sugar, and hadn't packed a lunch for myself because I'm tired of having to feed myself, I realized... I've reached my limit. I think what I need is for someone to explain to me the parameters of the breakdown I'm allowed to have right now without inadvertently traumatizing Nina or dropping out of school. Any ideas, let me know.