Just So Hard

Lately, things have just been so hard for me on all fronts.  I think I try to hide my emotions where George is concerned and wham...it comes out in some other way.  Life since George is so much harder than life before him.  Our live have always been hard and faced criticism from others but it got so much worse after he died.  Just like before...we had good and bad moments and we have those now but even the good moments have something bad lurking in the shadows and it is that he is dead and not here.  So many people don't understand that and try to tell us to look only at the good things but it just isn't possible.

Today I have just not felt myself after a long day at Sesame Place yesterday.  I've been feeling kind of off and now I am really off.  I was getting ready to take a shower when I heard someone yelling and my hear just sunk to my stomach.  A panic attack started the moment I heard a yell I could not understand.  A second or so later Joshua yelled again, he was looking for my dad.  With that, I fell apart and just started to cry and continued to through my whole shower.  I mustered up whatever strength I had left and got myself together enough to go downstairs in case someone was outside the bathroom and I had to walk past them. 

Finally, I got to my room and just stood there so sad that this was now my life.  Never would I have ever freaked out and had a panic attack the way I did before George died.  I hate living this way.  It's easy to say that I am capable of changing that but the only person/people who would believe that would be someone who had never been through something like that.  You can't watch your child die before your eyes and not be changed but especially not loose it when you hear someone yell when that was what called you to those horrible moments in your life.  How do you ever go back?  You can't!  NO amount of counseling or group sessions fixes something like that.  The funny part is that all my fellow angel mothers completely agree no matter how many years they are out if they were not the ones who found their child. 

I want so much of my life back but besides George, the one thing I want back the most is the ability to not have insane panic attacks.  This whole thing has made have a new respect for those who live with this sort of thing their entire lives all day every day.  I have always had anxiety about people talking about me or talking behind my back but that is a joke in comparison to this.  All the anxieties are warranted but what comes with George's death, it just is so  much greater than anything and I cannot talk myself out of it.  Anxiety from those who talk about me, I can often talk myself out of and even if they are talking about me I can take a step back and say that it is their loss they are not in my life or that they have to answer for it someday.  The anxiety that comes from George's death takes over, holds grip, and doesn't let go until I am sure everyone is ok.  Directly following it, I break down in tears and sob uncontrollably as I relive that horrible morning in my head or just cry because he is dead and I know where the panic attack came from and the horrible anxiety I now harbor because of his death.  Living like this is so hard...watching him die was hard but living without him and all the stuff that comes after is even harder.  Having your child die is just so hard.

Babies

This week has been full of babies for me.  Yesterday I held my cousins son, the first boy baby I have held since George died.  As I held him part of me wanted to die and just not even look at him and yet part of my heart sang as I remembered holding George and I didn't want to give him back.  This has stirred up so many emotions in me.  For so long I have kind of tucked George away deep in my heart to stop feeling the pain of his loss for a while so that I could keep it together the way everyone wants me to.  When I say that I mean that no one really wants to see me sad or watch me in pain so to get away from the horrible feelings that come not only with his death but also the way others react to me I have gotten good at just pretending I have it all together.  Instead, I die inside while I put my son deep in my heart because I cannot hold him in my arms like I could that little boy the other day.

We also held a baby shower for my sister who is going to have my niece on the first of August.  These things are so damn hard for me and no one really understands that.  I need to be part of these things for the sake of my family but it is so hard.  I don't want to steal their happiness because of my pain.  For me though I have to do this stuff in increments but that was not really how it all happened.  I am a planner by nature and hate waiting until the last minute but when this stuff happens I NEED time.  For some people waiting to the last minute is because they are trying to avoid it but I am opposite and I want to face them but I need time.  It all went well but God I cannot tell you how hard it was for me but I was able to at least not burst into tears like I did at my sisters first shower so I guess that is one step in the right direction. 

I also look at others who don't face the life challenges we have had to and I can admit that I am jealous.  In my heart I just cry out in pain for the life I yearn to have that was taken away from me so many years ago and just got further away year after year.  Looking at my life now it is so far from where I wanted to be and not because of my choices but rather life happening to us.  I've also always been the one to seek approval from everyone and yet have always been the one person that people talk about behind my back and criticize or judge unfairly without really knowing me or walking my shoes.  When people talk behind your back and you know it is not good most of the time it gives you an insane paranoia and pain just from the thought of it all.  It just hurts and adds to my already difficult life.

Being homeless has been like a smack in the face and made me feel like I have gone back to being a little kid.  I'm constantly looking for approval and feeling as if I am being talked about even if I am not and not doing the things I feel called to do because I am afraid to have to live with the judgement and anger directed toward me over these things.  A lot of it has been related to my kids and how people don't understand my calling to having children at the times I have been called to this.  These are deep rooted feelings that I know come from God and I try to put them off as long as possible until I feel like I am going to go out of my mind.  All of this baby stuff has been exacerbating the calling for our last child and yet I know this would only bring ridicule and pain when it should just be joy but for me that is not the case.  I know these are not ideal circumstances and I wish I didn't have this calling in my heart because I don't want to live that all over again but I also know there is only so long that I can run.  God I can't imagine being Mary!

Our family has just changed so much in the last few years and is just becoming more unrecognizable to me.  We have always struggled and had challenges but none like this.  My kids know a pain they should never have to know and if I could carry that for them, I would.  Hugh struggles on his own in ways I cannot help him and faces so much criticism from others.  I constantly feel like I am being torn in a million directions and don't have any energy left at the end of the day for myself.  When we had our house it was just different.  We had our own space to call home and although this is my home, I also feel homeless.  Mixed emotions are so hard to deal with.  I LOVE that my children get to be so close to my parents but also feel so out of place at times.  Maybe that is more it, I feel out of place in this life and as if I have never really fit ever. 

My entire life I just didn't really fit in and have always been the underdog.  Every part of me has given 100% and I always have to work so hard for the simplest things.  After a while it becomes exhausting and for me I become emotional because I don't know what else to do.  I will either get nasty or I will just cry and often times it is a combination of the two.  Never do I mean to be like this but when I don't know what else to do that is all I feel I can do.  There are even times I don't even know why I feel this way and I have been this way my entire life.  For now I have to deal with what God has handed me even though I don't get it.  I know I can't live in sorrow and sadness but I surely have my moments and right now that is what it is for me.  God has a plan for all of this and I get that.  So often the only reason I do a lot of things is because I don't want to rob someone else from the good things in their lives because mine is so damn hard...I want the best for them, not what I have and I won't be the reason for their pain if I can help it.  If I ever have hurt anyone, it has been done accidentally.  All that being said, that doesn't stop my heart from feeling broken all the time as I yearn for my son and the life I wanted but have never had.  I miss that baby that I held in my arms that was suppose to grow up but now forever remains a baby in my heart.