The Voice

If you're a regular reader, you know I have shared a little bit about my past struggles with self confidence and depression.  I battled a serious darkness in my teenage years that spread to my early twenties.  From around the age of 10 or 12, I can remember thinking I wasn't as good as everyone else.  I wasn't as pretty or as smart.  My clothes didn't fit right.  My hair didn't lay right.   I always kind of felt like I was on the outskirts.   I had friends who liked me, but I still felt like an outsider even among them.   As I got into my teen years, the twilight that loomed over my self-esteem settled into complete darkness.  One I couldn't really see any way out of.   

Through the darkness, I would hear a voice.  One that would whisper and hiss.  One that would spit words at me that cut like a knife.   "You're not good enough", she would say.  "You'll never be good enough."   "You're horrible.  You're disgusting.  You don't deserve happiness."   Any time I started to even think about trying to be a normal person, there she was.  Screaming at me.  Telling me how terrible I was.  Telling me how nothing would ever work out for me.  How I was destined to live a life of misery  - because I deserved it.   

And I believed her.  For years. When friends would shake it on the dance floor, I would hang in the corner because she told me I'd just look stupid if I tried to fit in.   When boys tried to smile at me in the hallway, I'd turn and look around for the prettier girl who must be behind me.  Surely, it's not me they're looking at.  The Voice was very clear about the value I should place on myself - which was none.   And for a long time, I didn't.   She had convinced me that I was sub-par, and so that's how I treated myself.

But then, the years of darkness began to take their toll.  I began to crave the light.   "You don't deserve the light," she'd tell me.  "The light is not for you." Only then did I begin to question her.   Of course I deserve the light!   I am a person.   I have worth.  I have value.   I began to rebel against her.  Little by little, step by step.   When she would hiss into my ear how fat I was, I refused to listen.   "I'm not fat!  I'm curvy!"   When she would tell me how I would never find happiness, I told her to shove it.   She didn't give up, but then neither did I.   It took me years - from about 18 years old till about 26 - of fighting tooth and nail, but I defeated her.   She didn't disappear, but she retreated back into the shadows, her tail between her legs.   Every now and then, she'd try to pipe up with more of her nonsense, but I shut her down immediately.   I've lived Voice free for a while now.  And it has been wonderful.   Finally, living the life I knew I always deserved.  The life I fought for.  My life run on my decisions - not the orders from a twisted sense of self.

But, she's come back.  When Kenley died, the Voice slithered back into my ear, hissing "It's all your fault."   "Everyone will forget about her".  "You deserved this!".   Even though I was weak from grief, I readied for battle against her.   I was not going to let her take over again.   I did a pretty good job keeping her at bay - until I got pregnant again.   And now, she's louder than ever.   She tells me over and over that this baby won't make it.  She tells me I don't deserve a child - that I'll never have one.  With every body twinge,  every moment I'm not nauseous, every second of every day, she's there.  In the back of my head.  Her sinister smile revealing a mouth of dripping fangs.  She will not rest until I am broken.   

Now, I know my enemy.   I know how to fight her - and fight her I will.  But, there is one big difference from what she has said in the past and some of what she is saying now.   Some of it actually has validity.   The first time she crept into my head, I was not the disgusting person she made me believe I was.   I was a great girl who had not yet discovered how to be great.   I triumphed over her lies because I realized they were just that - lies.   This time, though, it's different.   Not all of what she says are lies.   Not all can be waved off or dismissed as rubbish.   For the last eight months, I have lived in a world where babies die.  I have seen too much to turn a blind eye to this reality.   When she wraps her claws around my heart and tells me my baby isn't going to make it to birth, it sends an unimaginable chill of terror straight through me.  A fear I can't shake.  A fear that refuses to be soothed.   I can rise up against her telling me I am undeserving or unworthy because I know that's not true.   I can steady myself against the blows of guilt and fault because I have been able to work through those lies and accept them as such.  But, I can't do a damn thing with the fear.  It washes over me in waves, knocking me to my knees.   

I am afraid - pure and simple.  I am afraid of losing my baby tomorrow.   Of losing my baby next week, or next month, or the day before my scheduled delivery.   You can reassure me all you want.   You can tell me you have a good feeling about things.  That you are praying for me.   That you know everything will work out.   But, that isn't going to help.  I've lived in a harsh and terrible reality since February - one that won't let me be unafraid no matter what people tell me.   A world where 25% of babies don't make it to birth.  A world where by first baby was one of them.  Why not this one too?   

I'm not telling you this to be negative.   I'm not telling you this so you will boost my confidence with kind words of support.   I'm telling you this because I want you to know that this pregnancy is not the joyous romp in the meadow many pregnancies are.  I want you to know that I am scared out of my mind.  Every day.   And that it takes every bit I have to keep myself from spinning out of control - including the bits that are already ripped to shreds with grief.  All of my energy goes towards silencing The Voice - to reaching towards the sunlight when she tries to plunge me into darkness - to trying (yet failing) to not be afraid.    

All I can really do is take it one day at a time.   Today, my baby is alive.  Today, I am pregnant.   Today, I am one day closer to holding my live child in my arms.   Who knows what tomorrow will bring.  And although The Voice wants to tell me what she thinks about tomorrow - I am doing my very best not to listen.   And it is never easy.  

My Stretched Out Heart

This year has been the worst year of my life.   I know I don't really need to explain why.   When you lose your child, especially so close to birth, you lose your future as well.   You lose every moment you should have had.  Every step they should have taken.  Every milestone they should have reached.  You lose a lifetime of memories you should have been able to make.  All that potential seems so pointlessly wasted.   You think to yourself, "why bother living now?" When everything seems like it's nothing more than a shadow, it's easy to get lost in the darkness.

My future with Kenley was stolen.   That is a fact - an unchangeable fact.  I will always wonder what could have been.   I will always watch her grow in my mind, comparing her to other children (and eventually teenagers and adults) I see.   I will always wonder if her hair would have stayed black or have lightened over time like mine did.   I will always wonder if she would have inherited her father's ability to dance - or my ability to fall down with grace.   Would she have a developed goofy sense of humor?  Would she have loved to climb trees, watch movies, and play house?   Who would she have been?

That not knowing is an ache that never goes away.  Nothing will ever change it.  Nothing will ever make it better.   It will always be a rock in my heart, rolling around in the vast cavern of what will never be.   

But, Kenley left me with more than uncertainty and fear.   She left me with more than sorrow and desperation and pain.   She left me with love.   When something breaks and then is pieced back together, it's never quite the same again.  It's looser.  Wider.  Gaping. Stretched out.   As I have spent these last few months sewing my heart back into its shape, I have noticed it's much bigger than before.   There's more room inside.  Like an old patchwork satchel, saggy and worn.   And while that means more room for fear and anxiety to creep in, there's also more room for joy.  More room for hope.   More room for love.   I have broken but I am not broken.

I have nestled my baby girl inside my heart with tender care.  She will always live within me.  My heart beats with her name.  Kenley.  Kenley.  Kenley.  Kenley.  But it also beats with another name.  A name to yet be made.  The name of a baby yet to be born.   It's still a hard concept to wrap my brain around, but there IS room inside my heart for more than just my little ninja.  There is room enough for a brother or sister still to come.   The brother or sister who WILL come.   In April.  

Balance Day

Today is my Balance Day. That phrase is one I made up to describe the day where the amount of time since loss is equal to the amount of time with life. For one, brief moment, that time balances precariously on the scale. A shaky evenness before starting to tip the other way.

Today marks eight months. She's been gone the same amount of time she was alive. It's hard to believe that after today, I will forever be without her longer than I was with her. And it's so unfair. I should have an 8 month old. I should be watching her crawl around on the floor and shove things in her mouth. I should be feeding her soft foods. She should be at my mother's new condo (which they never bought), covered in smooshed up banana, squealing in delight - giving my mom a wonderful story to tell me when I come to pick her up after work. But she's not. When I leave work this afternoon, I will go home to my husband, my dog, and an empty nursery.

After today, time will continue to creep and crawl away from her. As it always has. But for some reason, today makes it seem even more final than it already is. I only had her for 8 months. I only felt her move for 5. It's not enough time! The lifetime ahead of and behind me is vast and open. Sprawling over decades. It seems obscene that she only took up a tiny sliver of it. A fraction of moments in a ocean of time. How is it possible that the most important and wonderful thing I have ever done in my life has such an inconsequential space on my timeline? I hate that.

I know I will always feel cheated. I will always wonder and wish. I will always want more. There is no closure with this. No neatly wrapped packages. No loose ends tied in sweet, little bows. This will always be a jumbled, messy knot that spirals around me. The only thing I can do is learn to walk in a tangle - as gracefully as possible.

The last 8 months have taught me more than I ever wanted to know about grief and death and the human spirit. They have taught me that life is never what you expect it to be, and is often instead what you'd give anything to change. They have taught me that although death is a force to be reckoned with, so is love - and love is the only thing that holds any of us together at any given time. They have taught me that strength is something that is within everyone, and it is only when we are called to use it do we realize just how much of it we truly have. I have learned how to recognize the difference between valid fear and triggered fear, and how to show both of them who's really in charge here. I have learned that my heart is an infinite cavern, capable of storing an endless amount of not only sorrow and despair, but hope and joy and love. I have learned that being a mother is not limited to wiping noses and changing diapers. Being a mother is placing a piece of yourself inside the soul of another human being. Being a mother is being vulnerable in order to be strong. It is holding your head up high in a world that doesn't always understand the path you are walking. Being a mother is loving your child with every fiber of your being, even when your child isn't here with you.

On this, my Balance Day, I am once again "Saying it out loud." My beautiful Kenley is gone. And as I live my life, I will continue to get farther and farther away from the moments I had with her. But nothing makes those moments any less special, any less wonderful, or any less miraculous. Not guilt. Not fear. Not pain. Not death. I am a mother. She IS my daughter. And I am forever changed.

Side note: I have no idea who drew this picture. I found it on an internet adventure. But, I felt it captured Balance Day pretty well.

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