A strange Monday

Today is a strange Monday after a strange weekend. It wasn’t a bad weekend, per se, but strange and difficult nonetheless. And not exactly my idea of a fun time as an introvert.

On Saturday, we took the kids to the fair, and they mostly loved it. My 3 year old rode some rides, so did my 5 year old, but the highlight for my 5 year old was when he won a prize. It was all he wanted to do, so he was really proud of himself and satisfied when he actually won something.

Then on Sunday, we had some family from out of town visiting for the day, so we spent mostly the entire day with family. Now, of all my my family, I do happen to actually like this person and enjoy his company, so it wasn’t actually a terrible day, despite the fact that I’m the biggest introvert you’ll ever meet.

He hung out with the kids, then we all hung out after they went to bed and it wasn’t an awful day. Any day that involves me sitting on a couch and not having to move too much is a day that I won’t complain about.

Then last night, I learned that one of the kids that we see in therapy all the time died. And that just…ugh. It hurt. We go to therapy every single day, and we see a lot of the same kids multiple times a week, sometimes for years. And sometimes things happen, and these kids, they just…they die.

It was surreal. When you live in the special needs world, these things do happen sometimes. And it’s always a reminder of just how fragile these kids are, or just how impermanent all of this really is. Our reality is, this really could happen to any of us at any time. We all have medically fragile kids. And they could get sick, have a complication…anything completely unexpected can happen at any time and just completely blindside you. And it’s devastating.

I also have therapy tonight, which is strange. Usually, my therapy night is Tuesday, so having it on a Monday feels…odd. There’s a lot on my mind, and a lot I’d like to talk about…but that doesn’t mean I actually will.

Usually, when I go to therapy with something on my mind, or something I feel like I need to talk about, I end up with so much anxiety that I’m basically just shut down and don’t get anything accomplished. It’s frustrating, and it makes me hate myself a little bit.

I also have this feeling that since I’m about to have a baby, she might use that as a time for me to stop coming to therapy. I’m worried that she’s going to leave me, or tell me not to come back, or stop scheduling me. It’s been giving me anxiety and making me feel extremely uncertain about everything, which really sucks.

I don’t think she’d do that, but I do think she wants me to take at least a few weeks off, when I really just don’t want to. In my mind, I’d like to just take off a week maybe, and then show back up like nothing ever happened, when really, something huge has happened.

I think I’m just expecting to feel very…broken and vulnerable after I have this baby, and I’m trying to prepare myself to not feel so alone and bad. I want things to be okay, and it’s like trying to prepare for something that is so completely unknown and unpredictable. I don’t know how I’m going to handle this postpartum period this time, but based off how I’m feeling now, I’m not expecting it to be great.

I guess there’s nothing I can really do at this point except for just to go with it. I’ll keep showing up, keep doing my best, and keeping hoping that at the end of the day…it all just somehow works out.

Maybe one day it will. Maybe it will all end up okay.