I am reading the book Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, and in it she talks about how, when her mother died, her life split in two. There was the person she was before her mom died, and the person she was after. She could not reconcile the two. I absolutely relate to that idea; I am not the same person I was before Nina-Lou died. When I was in labor, and it was time to push, I remember grabbing Turner's hand and telling him I was scared, that I didn't want to let her go, and he told me that I had to, so that we could move forward. However, I think my fear of letting Nina go was all mixed up with my fear of letting my old life go. I didn't want to move forward. I didn't want to become the new person I knew I would have to become once her body was out of me. We left that hospital so empty. As we left, a security guard said goodnight to us. I could not believe we had come through those doors just hours before, thinking we would be meeting our baby soon. The world outside looked the same as it did before. But I knew that it was painfully different. It was wrong.
This timeline shouldn't exist. It's a mistake.
Sometimes I tell people that I hate my life the way it is now, because it's just the same as it was before I got pregnant: we still cook meals in our kitchen and eat them on the couch, watching our same TV. I go to the same roller derby practices I register for classes at school. I go jogging. I fold laundry. And, while it's true that it's the same, that all of this is painfully familiar and tired, I also hate my life the way it is now because I feel like I'm looking through a window into someone else's. None of it feels the same because I am not the same. It is so hard to go through the motions of daily life because it feels like someone else's. This isn't the way things were supposed to be. Yet the only reminders of the way things were is the burning in my lungs when I try to skate, the 30 pounds of pregnancy weight I have to lose, and a few stretchmarks. All of the shit and none of the reward. I remember reading about stretchmarks when I was pregnant; everyone said that if you got them, you wouldn't care, because they were worth it. Were they? Was any of this it worth it? I wrestle with this question.
Toward the latter third of my pregnancy, Turner and I realized that I would give birth before the football season was over, which was crazy to us. It made it really REAL. We would see ads for the Super Bowl and squeeze each other's hands: "by the Super Bowl, we'll have a baby! How crazy is that?!" But we don't have a baby. We're just... us, living in this weird place in which nothing is the way it should be. Yesterday, the Seattle Seahawks won the Lombardi Trophy. I love the Seahawks. I was born and raised in Seattle, and although I didn't learn to appreciate pro football until adulthood, I feel a deep loyalty to my team, and I was over the moon to see them have such an amazing season. They defied everyone's expectations. When you live in Seattle and you follow team sports, you get somewhat accustomed to disappointment. But this year was different. The team this year gelled in a way that is rare and beautiful. And we didn't just win the Super Bowl. We fucking DOMINATED it. It was a sight to behold. And while it was happening, I felt so... uncomfortable. What is this place? Where the fuck AM I? A world in which the SEATTLE SEAHAWKS win the fucking SUPER BOWL? I cried on the way home from watching the game, because I felt so empty. I wanted to feel joy, but instead, my daughter's absence was painfully highlighted. I don't understand it here on the other side. Everything is the same and everything is different. I don't understand what I'm doing here. I'm in a parallel, alternate universe; the other life, the good one with a live baby, is over there somewhere, and I'm clawing at the walls, trying to figure out how to get the fuck OUT of here. But the more time I put between the now and 12/29/13, the more I resign myself to staying. I hate it here, but I don't see a way out.
While I was out to dinner with my friend, we talked about a lot of different things... Nina-Louise, sex, food, birthday plans, pregnancy, our moms, our husbands... I cried a few times, but I also laughed. I mean, I really laughed. I still felt that pit inside me, but despite that, I was able to feel joy; not the pretend kind that I've been showing to people for the past month, but the real kind. It was fleeting, but it was there. It's happened on a few other occasions as well, but this was the first time that I've been able to recognize it for what it was: a glimpse of what it might be like to live in my new life. And it looked ok. I didn't feel numb to the pain, but I didn't feel quite as weighed down by it. At this point, I'm really only able to be in that state of mind a very, very small percentage of the time. I spend most of my time either reeling in deep sadness, or distracting myself from it; it is very rare that I can both feel it and function, simultaneously. And I don't know that I'm ready to function yet. I fucking miss her. I LOVE her. I want to keep her close to me, and close to the surface. I want me and everyone else in the world to say her name often and cry over her memory. This version of my life I live in now feels empty and dark, but I can't help but live in it. I don't have anywhere else to go yet. But, knowing that there might be a version of me in the future, who can hold her memory dear and still experience joy, gives me hope.
I know that I have days and weeks and months and probably years ahead of me in which I will still, at times, leave the dinner table to cry in the bathroom, or wrestle with my own inner darkness as I witness the innocent joy of others, or feel tears well up behind my eyes when I hold a baby, feeling that subtle burning in my stomach, that love that I never got to express to Nina-Lou. I know that it will continue to be difficult, and it should be. It should fucking suck. But I hope that there is room for all the pain, plus all of the love, and all of the joy. This new, complex existence has so many nuances.
Pregnancy makes you big. Your body expands to accommodate another person. Your blood vessels contain more blood, your belly stretches, your ribs expand, your pelvic bone separates. Maybe, in being pregnant with her, ALL of me expanded, and now there is room for more. If that's the case, then I'm grateful to Nina-Louise. She pushed my body and my heart outward in all directions and showed me that I have a far greater capacity for love than I ever thought possible. I have also seen the unexpected love that exists in others; never in our wildest dreams did Turner and I imagine that we would be the recipients of so much compassion. Don't get me wrong, I'm still fucking pissed; I would much, much rather have my other life, the one that was supposed to happen. THAT life got ripped away from me, and I will never understand why or how. My daughter's death was a meaningless tragedy, and it makes me so angry that I wish I could rip apart the fabric of the universe and stomp it all into a bloody mess. But I can't. Like I've said before, life, in all of its cruel banality, continues. But, if this is my life now, if this is the hand I've been dealt and there's no getting out of it, at least my daughter gave me the gift of this largeness. This capacity for more.
At least now, I have room for what comes next.
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