The Great Purge

Now that I am a parent that actually gets to do "normal" parenting things, I read a lot of blogs dealing with raising kids and maintaining a household. I don't really seek them out, I just let Facebook's phishing software do it for me. You're welcome, Zuckerberg. A pattern I have noticed is that over the course of a week, I will see anywhere from 5 - 6 different blog posts that all build around a similar idea, such as "The Absolute Awesomeness of (insert random parenting idea here) and why you have to start doing it RIGHT NOW". Then, there's that one blog that says "We hate (exact same random parenting idea as before) and you should too". Every blog has an equal amount of conflicting comments such as "Oh yes! Finally, someone who GETS it!" and "This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Stop reproducing." This all leads me to one conclusion. None of us have any idea what we are doing and we are all just doing what we find works for our family.
Here's what works for my family....
....uh......well....I haven't actually figured that out yet. Laundry and dishes pile up at lightning speed and never actually really seem to be clean for more than three seconds, in addition to the piles of questionable cleanliness that just keep getting rewashed because I never put them away and can't remember. Grocery shopping is often a leap of faith, as I really don't have the time or energy to actually meal plan and kind of just make educated guesses in the middle of Publix, which often results in a cartful of raw chicken, crackers, bananas, and the occasional frozen pizza. At least once a week, my dinner is handed to me from a window. (Ok...twice a week....and let's not talk about it.) Part of this is because my husband works nights and pulls in 20-30 hours of mandatory overtime a week, leaving my disorganized self in charge of everything. Part of it is because I have never been very good at following through with housework. And part of it is because I would just rather take Piper to the zoo instead of tackling the whites and darks.
However, for my own sanity, I have made a plan for the summer to get myself on track. A good part of the issue is that we have way too much stuff. I think most people have way too much stuff, honestly. I mean, do I really need a giant plastic ring that can microwave potato slices into chips? Do I need six sets of pot holders? 10 mixing bowls? Four winter coats? (in central Florida?) Clothes that won't fit me unless I lose 50 pounds? (In that case, wouldn't I just then want to buy all new clothes?) I am buried in stuff, and this summer I am digging out. I shall call this summer The Great Purge of 2015, and nothing is safe. I am going to follow the KonMari method which involves gathering all of like objects together as opposed to sorting room by room. You only keep the things that "spark joy". I'm an emotional person....I can easily go through a pile of clothes and determine the ones that spark joy. I can tell which mixing bowl is my favorite. Which set of silverware is the most pleasing. I can do this!
I have recently re-organized my classroom. Often, when you move into a new classroom, there are a lot of things that have been left behind by the previous occupants. This, in addition to two years of being absent at the end of the school year and dealing with subsitutes who shoved everything into a cabinet and called it a day, my classroom was a wreck. I have spent the last month going through everything. If I hadn't used it in the last year or so, or it didn't make me happy, I chucked it. Often times, I gave it away to students, which made me feel a little like Oprah. "You get an old workbook...and YOU get an old workbook. EVERYONE gets an old workbook!" With three days left in the school year, my cabinets are clean and streamlined, and it is glorious. Glorious!
Our society hoards stuff. Maybe not always to the extreme of the Hoarder TV shows, but we surround ourselves with things. Electronics. Clothes. Toys. Linens. Kitchenware. Gadgets. We buy, buy, buy. And then we buy containers to organize it all. When I would run out of hangers in my closet, I went to the store to buy more hangers. When my tupperware containers spilled out of their drawer, I purchased a drawer organizer to keep them tidy. But then, when I saw how much more room I had, I bought more tupperware. When my mixing bowls and measuring cups couldn't fit in one cabinet, I rearranged a second one to squeeze more in. I can't do it anymore. I can't keep living under the weight of all this stuff. I am D O N E.
The Great Purge of 2015 has already begun. Every single item of clothing in our house is being cycled through the laundry room and is finding its way into the guest bedroom. Once my unnecessary and joyless items have been sent to the thrift shop, I will move into the kitchen and tackle the plastic chip ring and his redundant friends. From bowls to DVDs to shoes, everything will be judged and tossed or kept accordingly. I will show no mercy. I have none left to show
I cannot explain just how extremely excited I am. How so unbelievably lighter I feel just having my classroom clean and organized with literally 1/3 of the stuff it had before...and how completely free I will feel when the house is the same. I'm telling you people, simplification is the way to go.

Less is more.

It's not just a saying - it's the secret of life. Tell your friends.

Firework

So, I'm driving along this morning, minding my own business while thinking of all of the end of the year wrap ups I have to get done this week, when Katy Perry's song Firework comes on the radio. As a result, the rest of my ride to work is spent trying to see the road through my tears. That's what life is like for me - randomly crying because of some strange and unexpected trigger. I can go days, weeks even, without crying over her. I'm to that place now where I've found a semi-comfortable place to nestle her that doesn't poke or pinch too badly. The sharp ends are tucked under and wrapped in padding...still there but not constantly hurting. But, sometimes, completely out of the blue, something knocks her out of her safe little nook, and all of the shards go clanging around, swinging every which way, slicing me to ribbons again.

Why Firework? When I went back to work the following school year after Kenley died, we had a training on something I really can't remember, but for some reason, we went through the words for this song in small groups and then were supposed to discuss any connections we made to them. We listened to the song whole group first. And as I listened, my eyes welled, my heart raced, and I felt the familiar rise of sorrow as it bubbled from the pit of my stomach and spread across my chest and into my throat. "Keep it together", I thought. "Don't lose it in front of everyone. Be stronger than this." I don't know if anyone was watching me. Probably not. But if they had been, they would have seen the struggle. The deep breaths. The blinking eyes. The clenching and unclenching of hands. It's a weird little dance we do. It's like being inside a tent about to be blown away by a hurricane, and all you can do is pull in all of the ropes at once to hold it all together. I made it through the whole group listening, but when we broke into smaller groups and people started to discuss, I lost it.

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?
Do you ever feel already buried deep six feet under?
Screams but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you
'Cause there's a spark in you?

I mean, come on? How could I not identify with those lyrics after losing my daughter? I felt useless and without purpose. I felt like a failure. I was a mother in heart but not in life and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself anymore. Six months out from her death, I was still so raw and open and hurting. My wound was still oozing. My bones were still healing. I was young in grief and I was still figuring out how to walk through life with this pain that I realized would never really go away.

You don't have to feel like a wasted space
You're original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow.

I felt like nothing. I felt exactly like wasted space. Like nothing I did would matter because I had failed at keeping my child alive, so what good was I? And I wanted a rainbow with every fibre of my being. I couldn't even fathom what life would be like for me if I couldn't have more children. I ached to hold a baby. I ached for the child I lost and for the child I didn't know would be coming soon. It was hard for me to believe that a Rainbow would be in my future. I honestly couldn't imagine being happy again.

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July
'Cause, baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colours burst
Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It's always been inside of you, you, you
And now it's time to let it through-ough-ough
'Cause, baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colours burst
Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon

So, yeah. Basically, I needed to show the world that I was more than sorrow. I had light and brightness still inside me, it was just buried in sadness. I needed to push through the darkness to find my light again. It seemed like a daunting task, but something that I knew needed to be done, and I didn't really know where to start.

Since then, I cannot listen to Firework without thinking about how I felt that day. I cannot hear those words without remembering how deep in grief I was, how much I hurt, and how lost in life I felt. You'd think I would hate this song, but I don't. I actually love it. I love it because it validated how I was feeling and made me realize that how I felt was normal and okay. It gave me hope that life might not always be so hard and painful. It gave me a reason to love my past while being hopeful for my future. A Katy Perry song did that. Who knew?

This song is a trigger for me for sure, and I know it. I will always tear up when I hear it, and I certainly wasn't expecting to hear it on the way to work, starting my morning with a good, solid cry. But, honestly, that's just the way life is now. The New Normal includes crying at unexpected times, sometimes in public.

I have worked very hard to get to the point where I don't hurt all the time. I think of her often. I miss her daily. But, my pain is not as sharp and not as loud as it once was.

Grief takes maintenance.

We all have wounds we care for. Wounds never fully heal and that repoen at unexpected times. Wounds that we have to learn how to redress when the bandage is suddenly ripped away. Some are more severe than others, but we all hurt. We are all triggered, whether it's a song, a smell, a place, or just a tone of voice. When we are taken by surprise, we just have to remember that we hurt because we love. So, we keep loving, we keep hurting, and we keep healing the best we can. It's all we can do.

Mother's Day

 Last year, I celebrated Mother's Day with a three week old Piper.  WIth her snuggled up against me, I felt braver to venture onto the internet than I had the year before when I avoided it like the plague.  My Facebook wall was peppered with joyful wishes for me, which was very bittersweet.  As much as no one wants to hear it, it's hard to be entirely happy on days like that - days where your motherhood is celebrated and you are a mother without all of your children.   There's an even greater sense of incompleteness on a day devoted to mothers.  I can imagine children who have lost their mother feel a similar disconnect.   

The child who made me a mother will never be with me on Mother's Day - or any day.   Which is why those "Happy First Mother's Day!" wishes last year cut me to the bone.  I got several.   Dozens.  Happy FIRST Mother's Day.   First?   No....2013 was my first Mother's Day.   2013 when I sat in my house, foggy headed and glassy eyed, two and a half months after the worst day of my life.   2013 when I was terrified to visit social media at all because I knew the Mother overload would have sent me over the edge.  2013 when I can't even remember if anyone wished me a Happy Mother's Day because I was in so much pain, but I know it was few and far between.  But, 2014 rolled around wrapped in a Rainbow, and suddenly I am a mother.  Suddenly, well wishes poured from the sky.  Suddenly, my motherhood was okay to talk about and okay to celebrate because I had a living child.  

Granted, not everyone knows what to do with another person's grief, and mine was very fresh.   Most likely, people just didn't know what to say.  They just didn't have the words - or even know if I wanted the attention.   I can't fault people for being silent in 2013 because everything was so new for all of us.  But, I can say, had I been recognized that day, had my wall been filled with Happy Mother's Day wishes, I would have felt a little less alone and a little less broken.  I would have felt like my Motherhood was something to be celebrated just like everyone else's - because it is.   I would have been so very grateful that people saw Kenley as who she was - my child - as opposed to what happened to her.   

Two years have passed since that true, First Mother's Day.  This year will be my third.   I have two children.  One, you can see plain as day.  Laughing, crawling, and covered in applesauce.   The other, you have to look more carefully to find, but she is always there.  She is in the owl satchel I carry to and from work evey day.   She is in the owl lanyard that holds my classroom keys.  She is in the Kenley's Playlist on my iPhone that I listen to when I need to feel connected.   She hangs around my neck every day in a necklace with her name and birthstone - and has since my first week home.   She is not absent; she is just not as easily seen. But she is still there.  My baby.  My first reason for celebrating Mother's Day.

                              

Yesterday, the loss community celebrated Bereaved Mother's Day - a day set aside to celebrate the mothers who don't have all of their children with them.  Mothers who walk the line between two worlds, balancing between what they feel in their heart and what the rest of the world sees.  Mothers who might feel uncomfortable or afraid to celebrate Mother's Day a few weeks later because they aren't sure they feel like a mother - because so many others tell them they are not.   Maybe not so blatantly with their words - but more subtlely with their silence.   While I love the compassion and care surrounding this holiday, the attempt to include bereaved mothers in the celebration of their motherhood, it still pains me it has to exist.  Baby death is still so taboo that women who experience it feel like they aren't real enough mothers to participate in Mother's Day.  People outside of the loss community aren't sure how to recognize women without all of their children, and so they don't.  Hurt and forgotten, we have created our own holiday to heal our hearts from a pain so many just don't understand. 

I am bereaved and I am a mother, but I didn't do anything special yesterday.  Mostly because this weekend was a crazy weekend - but also partly because I don't want a special holiday.  I don't want to celebrate my motherhood in muted tones away from the masses.  I want to celebrate my motherhood with everyone else. All of the Bereaved Mother's Day events I saw posted on Facebook were beautiful.   Names were written in the sand.  Trees were planted.  Pictures of moms were posted holding name or a framed photo.  It's a very healing day, and I am not knocking it at all.  It just frustrates me that those things can't be incorporated with Mother's Day - that Bereaved Mothers feel the need to pull away because their own version of motherhood isn't as accepted or honored by the mainstream.   

I am no more a mother today with Piper in my arms than I was before she was born.  I am no more a mother today than the day I took my very first pregnancy test that set me upon this road.   Kenley made me a mother.   The ways I get to be her mother vary greatly from the ways I get to be Piper's, but I am still a mother to both of them.  I became a mother in July 2012, and although my circumstances changed that following February, my status as a mother did not.   This year will be my third Mother's Day, not my second. I say this not necessarily for myself, but for the women out there celebrating their true First Mother's Day this year with empty arms, for the women receiving First wishes when it's really their Second, and for the women who had children before their loss and are wondering if the Mother's Day wishes include thoughts of their missing babies.   

We are all mothers.   Those of us who have lost babies and those of us who have not - none of us are more or less of a mother.  Death does not take away our motherhood.  It cannot tell us who we are.   It may shape our roles as mothers, but is does not change the fact we are one.   For those of you who have all of your children in your arms - Happy Mother's Day.   For those of you who do not - Happy Mother's Day.   

Celebrate who you are as a mother.   Celebrate your children.  Celebrate the path that has lead you to where you are - because our children do indeed make us better people, regardless of whether or not we can hold them.