I was paging through Vision Magazine this morning, half-watching Ada play on the computer, reading article after article on gratitude, when a story told by Marla Brucker made me pause. (pertinent bits below)

I had a grandmother who lived past the age of 100….One morning while I was in my room getting dressed, I heard my grandmother from the adjoining bedroom sending kisses and talking to herself. I thought, okay, she’s old. So I peered inside her room and noticed that she was still lying in bed, gently rubbing her ring finger, kissing it while saying, “I love you, don’t hurt.”…She proceeded to tell me that…she has arthritis in her finger and it really hurt. She could either be angry that it hurt or kiss it and love it in the hopes that it would go away; and within three weeks, her arthritic pain left her.

There was an almost audible click in my brain. While I feel immense gratitude for my body’s recovery and the physical strength I do have, I certainly don’t send it love regularly – never mind out loud, accompanied by kisses. Recently I’ve been gifted with messages of love and reminders that my body is grieving too. I know this but I still expect much of myself, so much that I constantly fail to live up to. I keep working to simplify my life. I still can’t keep up.

So – deep breath – until the move is complete, I am giving myself permission to not post every day. I’m giving myself permission to write whatever comes up without needing to edit for public consumption. My meditations are non-negotiable now due to my 1000 day practice so something has to give if I’m going to pack my house up and not crumple into a sobbing, broken heap on an hourly basis.

I know the expectations to write here daily are mine. When I began writing about life after Benjamin, I wanted to capture the dailiness of grief, all the little moments we are quick to forget alongside those big overwhelming ones. My intention still holds, and I have to give myself room to breathe. As much as I want the necklace, I am, unfortunately, not a superhero.

To all of you who have sent me words of encouragement and support lately, thank you. They help me breathe.

I am a mess of feelings today.

Tears in  yoga for the second week in a row. My body betrays me again and again.

Awkward conversations with pregnant women and new parents. Tears on the street talking with friends.

After all the bleeding while carrying Ben, I can’t quite figure out how to have my period.

There were beautiful, joyful moments today. Most of the time though, I was simply, achingly, sad.

The fear is back. It’s manifesting differently but after six splinters, two scraped knees, complaints of tummy pain and a huge fall all in the last five days, I’m terrified that a) my fear caused all of this and b) something horrible will happen to Ada and it will be all my fault. My fear will have called it into being.

Two steps forward. One step back.

That internal space I was raving about earlier in the week? Gone. Replaced by complete overwhelm and massive amounts of tears.

We are moving in 8 or 9 days and I can’t get anything packed because Ada won’t leave my side and doesn’t want me to leave hers – even if it’s to sit 3 feet away and sort books. She needs to be on top of me, in my lap, clinging to my clothes. I understand her life feels unsteady and I am her medicine, her anchor, her life raft. Then fear freaks me out again with whispers of something else being wrong, something I don’t know yet, something she can’t tell me any other way.

It’s crazy. I feel crazy. Fear can make you crazy.

Then there was the woman in the doctor’s office yesterday with her infant son. He couldn’t have been more than 3 months old and her belly was flatter than mine before I got pregnant. I had to numb myself to his eager nursing sounds until later, when I collapsed, sobbing on to the bathroom sink and couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.

When will I stop looking pregnant?

When will this stop hurting so much?

When will life feel normal for more than a moment?

When do I get that damned guarantee?

The other day as I meandered home along the ocean’s edge, I was so overcome with gratitude for the ability to walk that I began to cry.

Today I ran next to my daughter for the first time in 9 months. I didn’t run fast and I was aware of every potential hole in the ground but the joy on her face was unmistakable. The joy in my heart was divine.

*****

I opened my mailbox today to find a magazine with my first published writing in it. As I reread what I wrote, I wondered at myself. What was I thinking? People who know me might actually read it and oh my – what have I done? I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so naked. Maybe that’s the way every writer feels. I thought about ignoring it, about sweeping its existence to a back corner of my mind so that it would only be by chance that a friend or acquaintance might stumble on it and wonder if it was me.

The piece is called The Shape of the Last 20 Years and it’s in Hip Mama Zine’s Body Issue.**  I hadn’t read it since I submitted it and it was a shock to realize that was before I knew I was pregnant with Ben. This pregnancy drew a line down the center of my life. It ended a chapter and started what has become a whole new book. I reread my piece and wondered who that girl was. Though I know her intimately, I am no longer her. I am  – vulnerable, exhausted, exhilarated, naked – me.

** You can see my name in print at this link but it’s $5 for the issue, either paper or digital.