Muscle Memory

I did not expect the pain yesterday. It did seem to easy to just read a book on Anci's birthday and call it a day. It seemed too easy to fool around online on the first, watch the Superbowl, write a little. But then the second of February happened. I thought I was not going to have any reaction. That I was out of the woods.

Then my heart was crushed, and my whole body pulled me down.

I wanted to just crawl under a rock and be cold and squashed and wet and miserable. Or to break all that I had made beautiful in the house, and bang my head on the wall. Or go out and dance till my legs were jelly and say yes to what ever came my way.

All of this I told to T. He lovingly offered to squash me instead my rock idea. But I couldn't move.

We eventually ended up at Whole Foods. I just wanted to be someplace good. A good place in the world. I bought nothing significant, but had an amazingly calming time and blew cash on nothing. All of the nothing makes me feel nurtured, and I guess that's the point. Himalayan salt, hemp seeds, lactofermented KimChee, black kale, dry chipotle chilies, flax crackers, temple balls, seven stars yogurt and organic blackberries from Florida. Rescue remedy spray.

I don't know why it worked. It was my last hope. Maybe the feeling would have timed out anyway. But I know it was the day the out-of-it feeling from anaesthesia wore off, two days after she was taken from me. Maybe my milk came in, that day or the next. It was the day I emerged less concerned about my physical well-being and suddenly, brutally aware I had lost her. It was the day I swayed and moaned and cried for the birth we wouldn't have. For the baby lost.

There is little to make me feel strong enough at this point to look over last year's entries from this time. I wrote so little last year, and what little I wrote largely referred to mourning. Only eighty some-odd posts. Fewer posts than days taken off in previous years.

There is still a searing ache from yesterday, but only intermittent. Yesterday would not let up.

It's funny how it's actually my heart that hurts. My chest burns, my breath catches, then all goes achy. My throat closes. My limbs go limp. And nothing matters.

I do have upbeat things to think. Her legacy of community continues. I am so very committed to it. I feel so deeply about it I am always looking for new ways to make it real. I'm not always good at it. And it's perhaps ironic in trying to create myself anew and be consistently "in community" I have stumbled over her and dropped the ball the last few days. Kids with fevers on top, one at a time for going on two weeks.

Now I know. Just take a vacation on her birthday at least through Groundhog Day. It will be my Candlemas ritual. Maybe next year I'll even do a mass email/cross-post saying I'm out of the office, unavailable, all on hold.

Every little bit teaches me. It is not easy. And I'm so grateful for every second of it.