Still

I've gotten several emails lately. Some asking if I was OK. If you ask, I'm sorry, but I'm going to be honest. So don't ask unless you're fully prepared for the weeping and whining that are sure to follow. Fair warning. If you ask me how I am, the answer will most likely be "exhausted and broken." (Thank you Terri for putting it so perfectly)

I've also gotten a couple from people who seem wounded that I haven't emailed them, or even replied to their emails to me. I'm sorry for not writing, for not responding, for hurting your feelings. It isn't my intention, and I wish you weren't hurt. But I have to worry about my own feelings right now. Call it selfish if you want, but I have to worry about me more than you. I'm responsible for maintaining some shred of my sanity, no one else can do that for me. And I'm pretty busy doing that. No energy left to worry about much else. I hope that doesn't sound as ungrateful and insensitive to you as it does to me right now. But at the very least, I owe you all the honesty in that statement. I am too exhausted and broken to try to hold any of you up right now. I just hope that you can be ok with that, understand it and not ask it of me. My good friends, those dearest to me, I know they (you) understand, and won't ask me for more than I can give.

I'm doing a lot of posting at unioncountymommies.com. The women there are so so sweet, they're all local and we have events to attend. I need to do that - get out, go places, interact in real life. Oddly, it is partially their lack of direct knowledge of the details that helps, the fact that they weren't there when it was all happening. I go and talk and laugh and joke - without the constant weight of telling the story. I can pretend, for a little while, that it didn't happen. Avoidance.

Don't get me wrong, I've told them, they've read the newspaper stories, and if I fell apart in the middle of the monthly meet -n- greet, with my platter of strawberry crepes in hand, they'd be there to pick me up. But there is a certain allure to the fact that this Erin is the one they know - not the Erin from before. It simplifies things. They aren't sitting around wondering when I'm going to "be my old self again" like so many who've known me long term seem to.

I know my tendency (which is all too evident here in the blog world) is to withdraw and insulate myself. Playdates are doubling as sanity savers, park days are aversion therapy. Strange though, how I'm finding it so helpful to do something I'd have never thought to do before. Not really so strange I guess. Since Nova died, I've been doing all sorts of things I'd have never considered before.

December 2nd would be his 1st birthday. I want to do something to commemorate that, but a party just feels wrong. What I think I'm going to do is go buy toys to donate to the CVRU - crib toys and children's DVDs, for the kids to use in CVRU. I considered doing a toy drive, but I don't think I have the energy. Maybe next year.

It's been nearly one year since I gave birth to him, and most of that year has been without him. There is something inherently wrong with the universe, and lately, I think there is something inherently wrong with me. I feel detached somehow. From reality, from people, from my emotions. I am just empty. Too empty even to cry most days. I worry that I don't cry enough. And then I have a night like last night, when the whole world caves in after everyone goes to bed, and I sob uncontrollably for hours. And then I remember why I don't cry. It's so futile. It's all so damn useless. There is nothing I can do to change things.

It's been 6 months, 2 weeks and 3 days since he died, and I still sit in the dark with his teddy bear wishing I had him back. 6 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days, and he's still gone.