Letters to Ryan: I Never Told You (Babies)

Hello again Sweetheart,

One of my biggest regrets is keeping secrets.
It's not being completely and utterly raw with you about how I felt.
It's waiting until it was too late to share things.

I had a small box of baby things I'd already started. I thought I would share them with you when I was ready for a baby. When I was really ready to try. Balls-to-the-Wall, Sink-or-Swim, Let's-Make-a-Baby TRY. I'd collected a few things already that I thought were adorable.

You never knew. 

I know you were ready for kids but I was still scared. Scared of not being a good mom. Scared of not being able to be a mom. I'd practiced for 10 years telling myself it was ok if I couldn't. And then I met you. For the first time in my life I'd met a man I wanted to have kids with. I wanted you to deliver our children. You were so good at your job and I knew it. You had it as a bucket list item and I wanted to give that gift to you. I found the right OB/GYN to make it happen.

I was scared I couldn't provide for them - I had too much in student loans and I wanted to give them the best: the organic food, the gymnastics classes and soccer lessons and whatever they wanted to try I wanted to be in a position financially to offer it. If we had kids you'd have a wife whose debt made those options more difficult. I wanted a better life for our kids than you or I had.

I should have told you I was saving that tiny box of onesies and Little Golden Books. I should have told you that I didn't want to just have kids. I should have told you that I only wanted kids if they were with you.

I love you. I miss you. I haven't forgotten you.

All my Heart,
Stephanie

Tragedy + Time

The Middle Finger

Some days I wake up and it feels like Life is shitting all over me. I crawl into my closet, don my T-shirt and crawl back into bed. I mean this both literally and figuratively. This past weekend was an example. I was not having it...

Fortunately, there are other days, though much fewer and farther between right now, where I wake up at the ass crack of dawn to bust out a run. Where Life is throwing lemons at me and I'm just grabbing them, stomping all over them, drinking vodka straight out the bottle, throwing up my middle finger to everything around me and screaming "EFF all of this!"

These are the days I try to prove something to myself. I try to prove that I can run farther than I thought, I can get out of bed when I don't want to, I can go to work and get done what needs to be done, and I can be good at it again. They are the days when I forget all the bad decisions, all the negative energy over the last many months and I just choose for that morning, or that day, or that week - however long it lasts - I choose to do the absolute best I can to go kick ass.

They are the days when I hold the necklaces around my neck and whisper "Watch me Sweetie. I wish you were here but I'm doing this for you." and I'm proud of what I accomplished instead of exhausted and disappointed by the wrecked individual that I've spent so much time trapped inside. This usually comes when I've had enough. When I've fought flashbacks and day terrors and nightmares all weekend. When I haven't slept well. When another piece of information deals a new blow. I get fed up with it all but instead of retreating, I somehow manage to grasp ahold of hope and struggle forward, even if it's not what I want and even if it's painful.

I am not stronger one day or another. I am not "grieving" or "not grieving"....I will be left with a sore heart, with an ache of what I couldn't ever have with Ryan, for the rest of my life. It's just that for whatever reason, on one day versus another, I find enough energy and resolve to make that day different. Instead of being worn out by another "no" or by another person's silence; instead of being disappointed by another brick wall, instead of hating myself and judging myself and wondering what I did wrong to be discarded by friends and family and strangers --- on these days I remind myself that they don't matter.

And I make my day count.

Letters to Ryan: September 27th

Hey Sweetheart,

We miss you. I miss your hugs. I miss your confidence. I miss your support. I miss your smile. I miss your touch and your compliments. Liberty and Buddy miss Daddy. (The cranky cat does not miss getting roughed up)

Liberty went to her first group class yesterday: Confidence Building. I think it's more for me than her. She did great, of course. You picked the smartest (and most stubborn) of the litter. She's walking better on the harness and we're working on anxiety.

On Friday I was coming home and saw a dog get hit by a van. Back legs broken and possibly a pelvic fracture plus multiple abrasions and contusions obviously. Even in pain he was still more loyal than a most people. I sat in the rain with him trying to calm him and keep him from running into traffic. A few others stopped and got out to help me. We got him to a vet and when I finally got home I was cold and wet and I just wanted you there to tell you about it and get a hug. You were my calm and reassuring right hand in any scenario.

I've worked in the yard more and it's looking great. I've incorporated more blues in the yard because it reminds me of you. The rose bush you planted for me is beautiful. Thank you so much for doing that, darling.

Chargers lost to the Vikings today. Rivers. Oh Rivers. You would have yelled so many times. But the O-line is really where the problems lie right now. I know you're gone, obviously, but it's hard to believe some days. I just don't understand.

I miss your eyes. You know our babies would have had the prettiest eyes. I love you, Sweetie. You are not forgotten.

Wordless Wednesday: Protecting my Sanity

Planning for What You Can't Know

This morning I woke up and dragged myself out of bed, put on shorts and running shoes, and was downtown on the trail by 5:45am. Tonight I came home and ran hills for 40 minutes. I fucking hate hills. But the burn in my lungs and the vomit reflex in my gut dulled the pain in my heart and finally blurred a mind currently running low on glucose. It’s been a rough week. Yesterday I planned to run – I didn’t. Sunday I acted pretty normal up until I crashed out at 4pm and did nothing the rest of the day. Saturday I finished a 6 mile run before sunrise. That run is the only thing I remember about last week. The rest of what went on was just some chick taking up space on this planet and using oxygen…

Depression is one thing – there’s a uniquely abnormal normalcy to it. Nothing prepares you for cycles within grief. 

It’s fair to say that the last 8 months and 9 days have all been rough; but it’s impossible to plan on the week where you can’t get out of bed or where you crawl back into bed every day as soon as you’re home. When the week before you’d managed 30 miles but today opening your eyes is too much to handle. It’s impossible to plan for a morning which goes so well and something – who knows what – flips a switch in your mind and you zombie it through the rest of the day. When I spend hours fighting thoughts which attempt to intrude. It’s at those times I think: Who is this person? Don’t you want to try? Don’t you want to live?

Yes and No.

The strategy I’ve attempted is to simply back myself into a corner – pay for the sand volleyball league and you’ll be sure to go, buy the chair for reading so you can set it up in the corner and be productive in some way. Treat yourself to a new dress (one that actually fits) to push you to go out for dinner…

The techniques that used to work don’t anymore because the person they worked on is gone. And I have no idea who this new female is that stands in her place. Because the thing is, you can’t plan for literally nothing mattering. 

It’s so hard to decide a course of action when 5 minutes or 2 hours or 1 day or 2 weeks later your feeling will flip and overwhelm you. You can’t expect that even something as standard as feeding the dogs, feeding the cat, or feeding yourself will actually happen. Sometimes it’s because you literally cannot remember. Sometimes it’s because you don’t really care. I feel like I should care, but right now I don’t even feel.

The Questions

How was Ryan any different than the 400 others that he worked with?
Why do those that whine and complain, that are never satisfied, even those that are mean and cruel - why do they still financial stability, happiness, friends and parties, families that love and support them? Why do they get a husband or wife to spoon at the end of the night? Why has everyone forgotten about him? Why do I not matter anymore - why did you lie and tell me I did?

Where did everyone go? 

What did he do to not deserve peace? What did I do to not deserve happily ever after?