On Grief, Metamorphosis, and Self-Excavation

What with my own personal grief; seeing friends in pain with various losses and grief of their own; feeling like things in the world are getting worse rather than better; not to mention the whole snow/winter/cold yuckiness that is January in Michigan, I am overwhelmed with sadness and despair.  I am done.  Empty.  Spent.  Broken.  I have nothing left.  It's not that I don't care.  Rather, I care so much that I have no energy left to care at all.  I am tired of being a responsible adult.  I want permission to be weak, but then rage against any perceived weakness as a failure of the strength label I pridefully own.  I want to run away for a while.  Explore the world.  Excavate me.  But I can't.  Not yet, anyway.  I have made too many commitments.  Obligations.  Maybe later.

I am tired of worrying all the time.  Tired of being afraid.  What is this weird new bump on my finger?  Is my extra weight killing me?  Are Mira's pressures getting worse?  Am I a failure for having a messy home?  Have I failed my family?  My spouse?  My children?  Do I worry too much?  Is it depression, or grief, or both, or neither?  All this worry sucks was what little energy I manage to acquire.  Ain't nobody got time for this.  Where is my joy?  What happened to the woman who could do anything she set her mind to?  Who achieved so much educationally, professionally, personally?  I miss her.  I need more smiles.  More hugs.  More laughter.  More beauty.  More stillness.  More free time.

As an introvert, I need time away.  But I am already so isolated; so alone.  Being out in busy places with people I don't know just makes it worse.  I need one-on-one time in quiet, familiar places with just a few people who can help fill my energetic bucket.  Who won't judge me.  Who don't care how I look.  Who don't have a vision of me that will shatter if I name my truth.  Who can take me away for a while.  Who can bring me back to to myself.

I need help.  I don't know what kind.  I just know I don't want to hurt.  I don't want to cry when I see babies.  I don't want to envy someone else's life.  I don't want to be alone.  I don't want to feel overwhelmed.  I don't want to feel different, or unworthy.  I want to feel connected.  Loved.  Valued.  Valuable.  Worth the space I take up.  But not because other people tell me so--that can be taken away.  No.  I want to know it to be true, deep in my bones.  Know it with every breath.  Feel it.  Remember it.  I want to be so caught up in the joy and love of my life that I am not threatened by what others have; what I don't have.  I want what I am and what I already have to be enough.

How do I get there?  What must I do?  Excavate me?  By making time?  By making me a priority?  By making me an obligation?  Oh.  I guess that makes sense.  How can I feel worthy and valuable if I refuse to value myself enough to make time for what I need?

This is where I am going.  Do you want to come with me?  It's okay if you don't.  I just can't stay stuck in this hole anymore, trying to find happiness in food, stuff, and other people's validation.  I can't stay the same, even though I don't know what I will be when I come out the other side.  Change is scary and difficult.  It hurts.  But, quite honestly, it hurts to stay where I am, too.

I can't promise that you'll still like me.  In fact, ultimately, that's up to you.  I can promise that I intend to like myself--to enjoy my own company--and that I will work to embody kindness, joy, patience, acceptance, strength, and love.  I have no idea where I'll end up, but I will share my journey with you.  You can find me here.

#Truth2015

Coming Full Circle--How My Hysterectomy and Complete Infertility Made Me Pregnant Again

Almost five years ago, on October 28, 2009, I wrote a note on my Facebook page that ultimately began this blog.  This date sears my heart as I read it.  All I have been through in less than five years:  the struggles to get pregnant, miscarriage, failed IVF, two children, CHD diagnoses, open-heart surgeries, and the death of my baby boy.  We are 11 days away from what would have been his first birthday--the same day that will begin year six of our journey: October 29, 2014.

These past five years have altered my life, and me, in ways I had never imagined.  Back when we started, I honestly believed that just fighting to become pregnant would be the hardest thing I would ever have to face.  Instead, it's moving forward as a family of three after having been a family of four.  I am physically and emotionally exhausted.  I was not prepared for this journey.  I have been lucky for the support of friends, family, and my spouse.  I know that each one of these challenges has tested and destroyed other marriages.  That mine has survived all of them is something of a miracle, for which I am eternally grateful.

Speaking of miracles, we have been asked whether we believe in miracles and why we think Patrick didn't get one.  Here's the thing.  God did not look down and say, "Oh, it's the Hobsons, this can't happen to them, we'll fix it right away."  That's not how it works.  God does miracles in His own time for His own purpose, not on demand.  And the truth is, we had tons of miracles already.  Two successful rounds of IVF--miracle!  Our daughter's health in spite of her serious CHD diagnosis and open-heart surgery--miracle!  Patrick's birth--miracle!  The surgeon's ability to unifocalize Patrick's pulmonary arteries without a patch during the first surgery--miracle!  Ten months with the most adorable, cuddly, smiling boy--miracle!  That Patrick died is not evidence of a lack of God's presence or the lack of miracles.  It is not evidence that we did not believe hard enough, or that we sinned somehow.  It is not evidence of failure or inadequacy.  Patrick's death is proof of life.  To paraphrase Braveheart: Everyone dies; the task before us is to truly live.

I am still figuring out how to do that.  I am coping with survivor's guilt.  There are so many things we are going to be able to do now that we couldn't do if Patrick had lived--like my return to work.  But it's important that I find a way to move forward; to make my life meaningful.  Because maybe, just maybe, Patrick did me a great honor.  Maybe he sacrificed his time here so that I would not have to give up my career to become a full-time caretaker for him, so that we wouldn't have to split up the family, or potentially destroy the family we worked so hard to create.  Figuring out whether this is true is not important.  What is important is to figure out how to live authentically and honor Patrick's life as best I can with mine.

Which brings me back to my hysterectomy.  I am now wholly and completely infertile.  There will be no more children.  That part of my life is irrevocably over.  But I am not sad.  I am completely at peace.  Not only am I finally free of the physical pain and suffering my conditions caused me, I am free of worry, free of monthly reminders, free to take all of the energy that has been tied up in these other things and channel it into--or birth--something new.  Maybe a new me.  Maybe finally start to turn all of this into a book.  I am using this recovery time to try and figure it out.  What I do know is that I am excited to find myself pregnant again--not with child, but with possibilities.  And, as sad as I am, and will continue to be, about the loss of my baby boy, I can be excited about what is ahead; excited to move forward in this new phase of life; excited to figure out how best to honor Patrick's memory.