Private

The title to the following, when it was saved on my computer was "Private". It was actually typing in that name that made me realize the problem with it. I knew enough to know I needed to write. Writing has always been an outlet for me. But I've always kept the REAL stuff I write private. My blog sometimes brushed the edges of my true feelings but it was mostly a mask, and when it wasn't a mask it was simply a manifestation of my problem in a different way. I would stand up on my soapbox and take a stance and be proactive and loud about issues because it was easy to do that. Not that I didn't believe in those issues, I still do, but really I was ranting and raving because I was unable to say hey, I'm mad, I'm hurting, and right now I need to yell.

Anyway, the following is something I wrote and because I never intended to share it with anyone I realize how honest it is. This post is the one I always plan to look back on with this blog when I feel like I am covering, when I feel like I am censoring. Because I NEED to be real here. This blog won't be all sadness and pain, because my life most definitely isn't all sadness and pain. But it does need to be real, and this post is going to keep me real. I hope.

~~I need an outlet. I don’t really feel like there’s anyone in my life I can be 100% honest with. I have to keep it together for one reason or another in front of every person I know. I have friends that judge me even when they don’t think they do, Craig hurts as badly as I do and I fear if I started to tumble I’d just take him right along with me. So I have to wake up every morning and pretend nothing is wrong day after day and carry the weight of my burden. Cry tears in private and put ice on my face trying to hide the evidence. The truth is, if anyone had any idea on a daily basis just how close I am to a mental break they would shit. There are days I have to fight with everything I have not to let my head go there because I’m afraid that one time when I actually let it happen, let the pain and the fear and the sadness come out uninhibited……. It won’t stop.

I feel like I’ve had so much taken from me and I don’t know why. Then I look at it from the other light like I know I’m suppose to and know that I am blessed. But does being blessed and grateful for what I have mean that I can’t mourn what I don’t? Is that why I feel like I’m failing if I acknowledge the pain? Because if I am honest with my losses and my pain and my fears I think somehow that means I don’t appreciate the wonderful things I do have? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I fear that someone else will be taken away from me and I will regret allowing myself a minute away from being grateful for them.

I feel so trapped by my pain and my fears and my feelings of failure. Even as I type this and the tears I’m trying desperately to quash stream down my face I’m afraid Craig will wake up and see me crying. I hate it when he sees me cry. I know he wants to help but I can’t open up to him.

It’s just not fair! I wanted this baby, and the one before, and Alex. And I know we don’t always get what we want but my god for most people they want to win the lottery and don’t. me? My children die. WTF? I don’t think I ask for too much. I’m content living paycheck to paycheck. I’m happy with my older cars and my old house that needs constant TLC. I’m not asking for a million dollars or a house on a mountain or wishing impossible things. All I want is for the people I love to be alive and healthy and to be given the wisdom to be able to figure out how to do what’s right for them. Is that too much to ask?

I’m afraid to admit this, really, openly because people assume everytime someone is depressed they are suicidal. I’m not suicidal, the last thing I want is to be away from my family, they are the only thing that brings happiness to my life. I’m the opposite of suicidal. But sometimes it does seem like a nice reprieve to just be able to sleep through the sadness. Sometimes I wish I could somehow be so far under the pain that it couldn’t touch me. When I passed out the day I started bleeding, for a split second I had that feeling as I went down seemingly in slow motion. The feeling that I was unable to care for those few seconds. I was unable to feel fear or pain or anything. And I liked it.

I wanted that baby god damnit. And I don’t care if it was my 8th or my 1st or my 15th it was just as wanted as any of my other children. Knowing he or she was in there made me happy. Made me feel hopeful and joy and excitement. To me having kids isn’t about some status quo, it’s not that it’s what a couple does when they are married. It’s not some 2.2 standard that society imposes. Everyone of my children brings me more joy than I have ever been able to get anywhere else in my life and doubt I ever would be able to. But at the same time every one of them have the ability to destroy me. I give a piece of myself to each baby unconditionally, and sometimes they leave and take it with them. Some might think that it would be wise to stop giving those pieces away, because it’s destroying me little by little. But for me, that immense joy of a new person in my life , a perfect little person created by me and my husband, the moments with your children that literally suck your breath from your chest and you wonder how you would have ever been able to survive without this person in your world, those moments are so important to me that I am willing to put that piece of myself on the ledge that is the question of life and see if it will stay with me or teeter off the edge, gone. And maybe that’s how I’m slowly destroying myself.

Maybe someday I will succeed. Maybe someday I will give all of my pieces away and all of them will be gone and I will find the numbness I felt in the moments before losing consciousness. Maybe then loving them so won’t hurt anymore.